#other than stuff to do with why zircon is the way she is which could be its own post

[hostilemuppet]

did you have any "endgame" in mind for regem?

yes, i had the general plotline more or less solidified for every book + the epilogue + the intermissions. the problem was, as i said, everything was built on top of shaky foundation, so no matter how many support beams i added it was gonna collapse sooner or later. i tried to write the basic plotlines for each book under the cut, but i went into WAY too much detail, and only ended up doing book 1 because it was SO fucking long. i might write out the storylines for each book in other posts but book 1 is the closest to being a self contained story while the others lead into each other a bit more

jonah calinao has a heart attack, dies, and goes to hell, but their life is saved bc modern medicine is amazing. no one has seen hell and come back before, so boss (satan) sends one of her most trusted underlings (jade) to "take care of the situation" (kill them). upon arriving on earth, jade stalks them for a bit, learning that jonahs life is kind of pathetic. theyre a layabout taking advantage of their best friend/roommate (mary), theyre "between jobs" surviving off benefits (and probably the money they got from their possibly dead dad), and they spend most of their nights drinking. jade decides earth wouldnt miss them, and prepares to do her job, but before she can, when jonahs on their way home from the pub, they stop at the bridge over the river. they look over the fence. they take a sip of their can of lager. they climb over

jade asks them what the fuck they think theyre doing, and they stop. they stumble, but jade catches them and drags them back over. she asks them again, what the fuck, and they dont know what to say. they take another sip of their drink and jade grabs it out of their hand, pours it out in front of them. jonah pouts, and jade rolls her eyes. she says shes gonna take them home. they do not ask how she knows where they live.

when they arrive home, mary thanks jade for bringing jonah home. jade says its no problem, but asks if she can... stay the night? just to keep an eye on them, shed never forgive herself. mary doesnt like it when jonah brings strangers home but shes a "nice person" (huge pushover who cant say no to people) so she says jade can sleep on the sofa. which is no problem at all for jade, since she doesnt need to sleep!

she goes into jonahs room in the middle of the night, wakes them up. they arent happy, bc theyre hungover, and they still feel the sting of trying and failing to kill themself which is honestly HUMILIATING, especially if someone else knows, even a stranger. jade shows her true self, and covers jonahs mouth so they cant scream. she says that jonah has a good thing here theyre wasting, theyre alive on earth and theyre trying to throw it away! she says her superior (god) put jonah on earth for a reason, and they have no right to give up their gift. she says she will help them get their life back together, if nothing else but for her own piece of mind. besides, if she can help them get themself back on track, maybe they wont even end up in hell when they die for real! one less soul for her coworkeers to process. jonahs too scared of what she could do to them that they agree. jade does not mention that she was sent here to kill them.

while jade tries (mostly fails) to help jonah get their shit together, we go back to hell. jonah had friends back there, you know! and her (self described) best friend misses her a whole lot. why is jade still gone? she should be back by now! zircon isnt happy at all. she needs to go up to the surface and check up on her! but demons are not supposed to be on earth, even someone as important as zircon, since she represents one of the sins and outranks almost everyone else. luckily, calcite (grim reaper) is in hell for some "drop offs", and zircon is nothing if not charismatic. she convinces them to bring her up to the surface, she wont be gone long, no one will miss her, she wont cause any trouble! they say fine, as long as she does them a favour too: they want souls, mortal souls, ones that are unaccounted for, which means an unplanned death from demon intervention. zircon says shes fine with that, the damned are considered lesser than a demon anyway (it goes damned souls > demons > sinners (which in itself is aquamarine > amber > cinnabar > jade > zircon > sunstone > sapphire) > dragon's breath opal > the boss > neutral souls > angels > blessed souls > the superior), as long as she only picks off the absolute scum of the earth its no skin off her back! so she convinces bloodstone to come along, because she can "see" a mortals soul despite being otherwise blind. bloodstone fancied a holiday, plus the ability to "play with" a human that has a beating heart. bloodstones "friends" alexandrite, rhodizite and obsidian (and rhodi + obsidians friend serpentine) tag along, as long as they all promise to be very busy. with all the commotion they get the attention of dragon's breath opal, who probably would have said something about it to the boss (shes such a mamas boy 🙄) if zircon hadnt "convinced her" to come with them. bloodstone is very uncomfortable with opal being there but its brushed off as her being afraid of someone who outranks her. they are all taken to the surface, and if youre keeping track, thats now EIGHT demons on earth, only one of which was given permission!

meanwhile, opal was seen by amber, who was opals best friend (and... more 🤔). they dont like this, they dont like the way zircon looked at her, or how she looked at zircon! aquamarine tells them to stop being so protective and controlling, and they say she wouldnt get it, they dont feel that way about anyone, ever. cinnabar says amber could ask to join them? amber says thats a dumb idea, and aqua tells them to lay off cinnabar, everyone likes cinnabar! cinnabar hasnt done anything wrong in her life. ambers like 🙄 whatever, and sneaks off to follow them. cinnabar goes after them, but is caught by sapphire, who is really upset with her but lets her go as long as shes on her best behaviour. cinnabar says she will be, she always is, and blows sapphire a kiss through her hazmat suit. sapphire does not catch it. aqua goes with cinnabar to "protect her" (she doesnt like the influence sapphire has on her, she doesnt think this is healthy, but it is again brushed off bc she doesnt feel that way about anyone), which means it is now three more demons on earth, at 11. no one notices two more sneaking out, bringing it up to unlucky number 13 before everything closes.

zircon and bloodstone settle into a regular routine of going out, bloodstone pointing out who has the muddiest soul, zircon seducing them and either killing them herself or bringing them back to the abandoned, severely weather damaged barn they made "home base". bloodstone likes when zircon brings them home bc it means she, alex and rhodi can get "messier". zircon is indifferent. through all this, opal acts as zircons bodyguard, because shes the biggest and the strongest (second to alexandrite but shes focused on bloodstone). opals bodyguard title was entirely self appointed, she just likes being close to zircon. through all this, zircon keeps a close eye on jade, and gets increasingly jealous of that human shes spending so much time with. what could they possibly have that she doesnt! theyre made of flesh and blood, gross, and look at their soul! its dark and muddy like the murkiest waters (bloodstone insists it is extremely middle of the road as terms as souls go, and she swears its a lot lighter than it was last time she saw it? zircon ignores her), and jade was supposed to kill them! surely jades not thinking straight? if she can just get her away from them, shes sure shell come to her senses! after all, whats one more human to the pile?

calcite is extremely happy with the output of souls theyre getting under the table, and wants zircon to... "up production" as it were. zircon says shes already working herself to the bone (she asks if thats offensive. calcite almost answers but zircon says she doesnt actually care). calcite says they have an... idea. yknow, theres someone else whos on earth whos not supposed to be. zircon asks if they were followed, and calcite says thats not what theyre talking about. its not a demon. its an angel.

while calcite leads zircon (and opal, who insisted on coming) to the angel, bloodstone is "in charge" of the others. this is the set up to book 2, but in the meantime, zircon finds the angel. where exactly she hid herself on earth im muddy on, i originally thought an abandoned office building would be funny but maybe it should be like, a graveyard. idk. anyway, the angel still thinks theyre above the demons, and doesnt respect her, but zircon says theyre on earth so she doesnt think the hierarchy applies. the angel concedes, but only because thats half the reason they defected anyway. they used to be the angel appointed to judge mortal souls, along with a demon decided for the same position. they worked as equals for millennia, and over that time the two of them became friends. which wasnt supposed to happen! angels are above demons. their partnership was just so theyd have two perspectives. but despite that, they got close. the angel started to see themself as an individual, instead of an extension of the superior, and they felt dirty. it was wrong. they were made to fulfil a purpose. the demon encouraged it, they even gave them a name instead of a number. the demon called them corvid. corvid began to call the demon their, her name too. they missed diamond. but it wasnt right. they didnt want to be part of this anymore. every part of this whole situation was wrong. they were expected to think themself above the only being who had ever respected them, and the worst part was they still did. they couldnt be here. they left diamond alone to do the job they had both doing for their entire existences, and now they were both alone.

zircon says shes, like, soooooooo bummed to hear about that. but she kinda needs a favour? corvid asks why she would ever help a demon, and zircon says because theyre the same. theyre on earth because they cant be with their girlcrushes, right? corvid calls her an idiot, and zircon says shes not the angel convening with a demon. if her boss, if their superior finds out, corvid wouldnt be pushed to hell to become a demon. shed be killed, wiped from existence, there was no good to come of it. and zircon doesnt want to snitch, honest! but she will if corvid makes some poor decisions and doesnt give her what she wants. corvid goes along with her because she doesnt think she has a choice. zircon introduces them to opal, and says theyll be helping them out. corvid says "she". zircon slaps her on the back and says "attagirl"

back with jonah, theyre struggling really hard. jade is pushing them to get their shit together but she lacks compassion, and what someone who is actively suicidal needs is not to be insulted constantly. mary is there of course, shes nice to jonah, but jade doesnt want the two anywhere near each other. jade cant see souls like bloodstone can, but after several weeks she can tell that mary is different. shes a blessed soul, completely pure, destined for heaven, which is a really rare sight nowadays (she is currently the only blessed soul alive. everyone else is either "neutral" (their soul will immediately be consumed by the superior to create using their energy) or "damned" (they will be sent to hell for "processing", they are beaten and tortured until their souls are deemed suitable for the superior). mary can tell that jade is cold to her, and assumes its bc she doesnt like her. the last thing jade wants is to upset the blessed, so she tries to fix things. she takes her out to dinner, and mary comes out of it thinking that jade is into her and is so flattered but shes not really looking for relationship right now? jade says. okay. mary hugs her goodnight and it hurts bc jade is a demon and mary is holy but jade manages to keep a straight face

on the way back to home base, corvid feels guilty. she says theres something she did a long time ago that she wants to fix. zircon says she can help, after all, theyre all friends here. they take a detour across the country (zircon stole someones car soon after getting to earth. she "sort of" knows how to drive. she does not care for speedlimits, and probably not designated roads) until corvid leads them to their destination. centuries ago, the boss (not her boss. they were equals) asked her for help "taking care of some unruly demons". usually the punishment for any sort of infraction was death, but... well, theyd been understaffed, and itd be a shame to kill them. or at least, thats the excuse the boss used. she said the plan was to keep the offenders on the surface, on earth for a bit, just until they were remorseful. that was over 400 years ago, with them trapped on earth, all alone, unable to leave the bounds of the salt circle corvid was told to make for them. now, to be fair, they had like... a house! its fine. theyre fine. they went utterly batshit crazy in there, but in the mid 1900s boss told calcite to get them a TV, which they have taken VERY good care of because it is all they fucking have. it is in black and white.

zircon thinks this is GREAT news, new friends! more hands on deck, as it were. when corvid kicks aside the salt to let zircon and opal through, zircon walks in (the door was not locked. why would it be?) like she owns the place, and talks to them like theyre old friends (they were probably barely acquainted before their imprisonment). she says shes doing them a favour, and will let them out if they follow everything she says. zebra jasper wants to take her up on the offer, anything if it means getting out, but ruby thinks being her little servants would be just as bad. they argue for a bit, before zircons attention is on prisoner #3. a slightly deformed freak of nature, who doesnt seem angry, she just seems scared. corvid doesnt recognise this one. she says shes changed a lot. she says she didnt used to have a name, but ruby and jasper started calling her kyanite. zircon asks kyanite if she wants to get out of this dump, and kya says shed do anything. zircon walks kyanite out with her hand around her waist (kyanite is instantly smitten with the first new face shes seen in years and zircon can tell) and tells corvid to lock the other losers back up. they had their chance. corvid cant bring herself to do it, so she opens another hole in the salt round the back, whispers to ruby and jasper about it, says shes sorry for everything and closes the front back up. ruby and jasper are now free to go wherever they want, and they know exactly what they want to do

all of this is interspersed with jonahs journey of "self improvement", with it becoming increasingly clear that things are NOT going good for them and jade is NOT qualified for this. jonah just wants to crawl up into a ball and die, but jade wont let them. which is theoretically a good thing, but its paired with her constantly insulting them, calling the ungrateful and selfish, and it stopped being "cute" and "quirky" a long time ago.

zircon and her "friends" (opal, corvid and kyanite. by this point, bloodstone and those guys are kind of doing their own thing) continue what zircon was doing before: zircon seduces people, her opal and kyanite kill them. originally corvid pointed out humans with damned souls, but zircon soon stops caring about that at all as she goes mad for the thrill of the kill (and also the souls she was consuming without telling calcite. it gives you such a buzz!). corvid feels disgusting for going along with this, this isnt what she wanted either! but she and kyanite mutually enable each others behaviour. they understand each other and push each other to keep going because its all they have. zircon doesnt care about any of their feelings as she gets more and more obsessed with the idea of killing jonah and taking jade for herself. she means, letting jade come back home, like she clearly wants to! this is for jades on good. not just because zircon wants her. totally not.

during all of this, amber cinnabar and aqua were keeping an eye on things. not intervening of course, at least not often, but making sure zircon wasnt getting too powerful. a lot of them is focused on their own interpersonal drama, mostly about ambers possessiveness over opal, cinnabars totally healthy and not at all manipulative relationship with sapphire, and aquamarines old friendship with zircon and why they stopped being friends. aqua acts as the "leader", making sure theyre staying on track as amber and cinnabar are prone to goofing off. theyve never been on the surface before! cinnabars never eaten before, which amber thinks is unfair. after all, shes the one with a tongue. they do clash with zircons group several times, at first it seems rather even but as they go from 2 to 4, and zircons group gets stronger, aquas group realises that theyre outmatched. or at least, they think they are. they can all be a lot stronger than they think they are.

jonah gets fired from their job. it wasnt even their fault, not really, but jade is super mad at them. it took them so long to get it in the first place! jonah drinks from the beer they bought on the way home, and jade yells at them bc they SWORE theyd stop drinking! jonah tells her to fuck off. jade takes the beer out of their hand and pours it out in front of them, and they both get so heated in the argument that neither of them notice when mary comes home. while jade is not hiding the fact shes a demon.

mary is so furious that jonah let that thing into her flat, that she pays for! that she barely even notices that jonah is drunk. she cant do this. she never wanted ANY of this! she just wanted to live a normal life! she leaves, to stay with her parents for a bit, she doesnt know she just needs out. jade blames jonah, says its their fault, that everyone leaves them. jonah asks why jade doesnt leave too, so she does, and jonah is all alone. they finish the beer they bought. they throw up in the bathroom. they look at themself in the mirror and they hate what they see. they go through the cabinets for something but theres a knock on the door. they answer it.

its zircon.

jonah wakes to rain on their face from the massive hole in the roof. they are hungover. they cant move their limbs, theyre tied up. zircon says she could have made it quick, but theyve been such a pain for her, so she wants to enjoy this. corvid doesnt think they deserve any of this, she means... their soul isnt even damned anymore. theyd be sent straight to the superior to "recycle". zircon tells her to shut the fuck up. kyanite and opal dont care as long as zircon is happy, and zircon is about to be really happy.

she is not happy, however, when shes pelted in the back of the head with a soda can. cinnabar shoplifted it on the way over here. zircon thinks this is suuuuuuch a pain, but its okay. she thinks of them as the main course, with jonah the dessert. shes ready to squash them like the insects they are, before she realises theres a fourth person with them. shes instantly out of it, reaches out to hug jade, say shes missed her so much. they havent seen each other in months! or, well. zircons seen jade. jade hasnt seen zircon.

jade asks her very calmly to hand over her little pet project (cinnabar doesnt like that phrase. its what aqua said she was to sapphire and by this point she doesnt think thats totally wrong) and zircon laughs, tells her that every project ends sometime. besides, jade always looked so miserable with them. wont she be so much happier in hell? jade says she really wouldnt. she hated it in hell. its cold and dark and theres nothing to do except kill kill kill. thats why she was so mad at jonah. they were able to live on the surface, do anything they wanted in life and they chose to give it all up to return there. and she shouts over zircons shoulder and says shes sorry, jonah, she shouldnt have been like that. she was just frustrated. shell be better. (aqua says shes heard that before, and jade tells her to shut up, shes not helping. aqua says she doesnt want to help with this particular situation, she wants to kill zircon, they just needed jade bc shes the one who could track down jonah by scent. jade says whatever)

zircon is pissed, because this is all so difficult for her. all she wanted was to bring jade back, it shouldnt have to be this hard! she downs another soul, and feels better, then another and another and its bad, shes getting too strong, but its okay because amber is talking to opal. they can save her. they can bring her back to their side, and corvid decided fuck this the second they showed up and left, and kyanite is... well, shes kyanite. it might as well be 3 against 1 (amber holding opal back), and, well... its not like corvid took her stuff with her. her jar of holy water (she cried a lot) was left alone, which is really good for aquamarine.

a fight breaks out, zircon holding her own for a bit, them all destroying whats left of the barn. a beam falls. it crushes jonahs spine. jade stops what shes doing and goes to jonah, now deciding she just needs to get them out of here. she unties them but they cant move. jade cant pull them from under it. jonah says its okay, theyll accept it, but jade doesnt WANT to accept it. she says theres one thing she can do to help but jonah wont like it. she asks to buy jonahs soul. its different, more powerful than taking the soul of the dead because its actually in her ownership, woven into her very being. it will help. jonah can ask for anything they want and theyll get it, its not important, all jade needs is to own their soul and everything will be okay. jonah decides they trust her. you do not see what jonah asked for in return, but in a later book you find out it was "to be happy". now owning jonahs soul, jade possessed their body and pilots them like a meat puppet, strong enough to drag them from out of the rubble, and managing to get to their feet and walk out of their despite. you know. the shattered spine.

nearing the end of the fight, aqua sees the holy water, originally hidden bc it was poison to 2.5 of the other beings living there. she grabs it, opens the lid, and takes control of the water. she splashes zircon, who screams in agony and reaches out for jade, who wasnt there. corvid wasnt there either. opal is being held back, and kyanite is... well, shes kyanite. zircon is alone. she knows she is going to die, for good. she looks at aqua, and smiles, and says she couldnt have chosen a better demon die at their hands, before shattering into a million tiny pieces. amber stops holding opal back, who runs to the remains and feels the dust fall through her claws. aqua, cinnabar and amber tell her that its okay, theyre going home. opal cries but goes with them.

jade controls jonah to take themself closer to the city, then calls an ambulance for them on jonahs phone, which miraculously survived even with the screen cracked to shit. she also calls mary but she does not pick up. jade asks how jonah feels. they say everything hurts and jade says no shit, then that shes sorry for saying that, she knows jonahs having a rough time right now. jonah laughs, and jade thinks they look much better with a smile on their face.

kyanite stays after everyone else left and shoves as much of zircons remains in the holy water jar as she could. she says she is going to find bloodstone.

[manyothermusingsofmine]

Masquerade of Units || Chapter 3/5

Prev: Chapter 2 Start: Chapter 1 Fandom: Xmen

Warnings: None

Wordcount: 2506

Summary: Hey you know what solves the questline sooner? When two of the three party members start arguing about stuff until the third one is questioning his life choices -------------------------

The three of them stared at the guy at the door, with Gambit leaning back with an annoyed groan. Seemed like tonight was the night of running into people he didn’t necessarily want to run into in the first place. But at least this one shouldn’t be too difficult to deal with as he lightly elbow pushed Miranda forward by a smidge.

“You go distract him.”

“Wh- wait, hold up a minute, why me?!” she asked in a high, annoyed whisper, “you’re the one with the charm gift here, not me.” “I haven’t had any luck with my supposed charm all evening,” he replied back in an equal hiss of a whisper, “besides, not even my charm is going to work on an actual straight guy, Miranda!”

“Who’s married, by the way,” Forge dryly remarked in a soft tone as he was behind both of them listening to the argument unfold, “with two kids.”

“Two?” Gambit asked, as both of the other mutants turned to Forge while he casually dropped this bit of knowledge into their lap.

“Yup, second one on the way from what I’ve heard through the grapevine.”

“…. Huh.”

Forge tried to keep his face unmoving as Miranda almost dramatically turned to Gambit, green eyes spewing fire and oh, if only they actually could.

“You knew he was married and you still want me to go over there and flirt with him?!” the tone of her whisper sharp and almost venomous as her ire seeped through in every word she hissed through her teeth.

“I said nothing about flirting, don’t be putting words I never said in my mouth!” his tone was just as sharp if not more so than hers, not appreciating it in the slightest that she implied he wanted her to start messing about in someone’s marriage, “just distract him, there’s other ways to do that than sweettalking someone!” “Then why don’t you do it?!”

“Because luck has been abandoning me all evening!”

Forge just looked back and forth to whomever was speaking, a sigh coming from what seemed to be the deepest pit of his soul as these two were having an argument on who had to talk to the guy at the door, rolling his eyes and wishing he had brought popcorn along to watch the debate. What finally stopped the whispered bickering between the two was when the actual lights started flickering, all three looking up at the light fixtures as Gambit grumbled that that was a great secondary problem that decided to make itself known if it wasn’t a mere fluke of the gods getting equally annoyed at their squabbling. Miranda on the other hand zoned out for a moment, her mind concocting a plan with the sudden flickering of the light as she looked at the guy.

“… Then I hope he’s superstitious,” she muttered, taking off her gloves and immediately without a word handing them over to Gambit, who just stared at her in an attempt to figure out what the hell she meant by that. She took out her ruby earrings, wanting to hand them over to Gambit as well when her hand suddenly halted above his in a moment of hesitation as she rolled her eyes to him.

“I want those back. They cost me a pretty penny.”

The absolute death glare she got in response would have been funny had she not been serious, and had Remy not taken genuine offense at the implication that he would steal from a friend as his red eyes were now the ones ablaze with anger

“Skill issue.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.”

“I don’t want your damn rubies; I can get my own for whatever purpose I need, thank you very much.”

“Oh, sure, because you gave that zircon you quote unquote found to Shadow out of the mere goodness of your heart, huh?”

“Miranda,” he growled, eyes flashing pink in a warning that she was seriously pushing his buttons right about now, to which Forge reacted by actually stepping in before these two decided to turn on each other like two rabid dogs fighting over the same bone

“Will you two knock it off?! Seriously, having to listen to you argue like a set of school children is making me want to be a part of this less and less by the minute, so get a move on; we have more important things to worry about than this childish argument between the two of you!” Miranda dropped the earrings on top of the gloves, vanishing from sight as soon as they hit the fabric with the only thing still showing being the sparkles of her dress in the light. She had no intent of being graceful about this anymore, walking over with an annoyed growl coming out of her that she could easily use for the plan she had been trying to set into motion. It was enough to startle the man with the dark curls and green spotted skin away from his leaning against the door enough that with a simple approach and a hard push with her hip she shoved him further away. She threw the door to maintenance open, easily spotting a light switch that she angrily and rapidly pushed on and off to make the lights down the hallway flicker. 

Deep brown eyes looked on in increasing concern and a faint sense of horror as all he saw was light reflecting off shining particles before an almost poltergeist scenario played out in front of him

“Uh, that’s-“

His sentence interrupted by the loud slam of the door being forcefully thrown shut on it’s own with no one nearby, the frog mutant instinctively leaped up and back from the noise, temporarily sticking to a window near the base of the stairs before sliding down and leaping up again as the door was throw back open with the same angry vibe coming off from the force

“… something I’m not dealing with on my own,” he concluded to himself, hopping off in big jumps down the hall back to the ballroom to find one of his friends. Miranda didn’t care if he brought the whole party, flicking back into view herself while leaning on the wall near the door with her arms crossed over her chest as Gambit and Forge approached.

“…. Subtle,” Gambit remarked, dropping her belongings into the hand she held out to him as soon as he got close enough, “see, no need for flirting with a married man. Thanks, by the way, for thinking that’s what I wanted you to do, like I’m some sort of homewreckin’ heartbreaker.”

“Now who’s putting words into someone’s mouth?”

“I seem to be learning from the best, here.”

“Stop,” Forge bit at the both of them as Miranda inhaled to start the argument back up again, deciding that if they still didn’t want to play nice with each other, he was going to take reign on this operation if they had any hope of actually finishing what they set out to do, “You, you stay by this door and let us know if anything happens. There’s a unit to your left, over there; if that starts working we should be in the clear. And you-”

He turned to Gambit, clearly and absolutely fed up with their arguing and stabbing at each other that he had decided the best course of action was to physically separate them for the time being

“Come with me,” it was a firm request he didn’t give an opt out option to, his gaze firmly on the other mutant, “I need your help with this AC.”

“N-“

“Do not argue with me,” and the almost parental tone of his voice finally seemed to shut both of them up despite Gambit having a need to always have the last word in a conversation, “come with me. Now.”

Gambit groaned, but obeyed the command regardless, with Miranda silently mocking him and the situation as they left, despite still fuming internally at the whole thing. She just listened as their footsteps went further away down the hall to what she hoped was whatever controlled the AC units, so when they fixed it the whole night would be fine and she didn’t have to deal with either of them for the rest of the damn evening. The boiling rage in her stomach seemed to cool and settle, and with it her heart sank a little. Her mind took over, overthinking the situation while guilt started swirling in her chest over the things she had said. Remy was right, she was implying things about him she had no right to put on him. She shut her eyes to try and ban the tension head ache that started to emerge, only to open them and look directly in brown eyes so dark they were near pitch black. She let out a mangled, soft yelp at the sudden presence of someone way too close in her personal space like that. The silver haired man tilted his head like a curious dog, looking her up and down and immediately laughing when her invisibility flicked on- there was little point in hiding from someone who knew where she was already, and he placed two arms on each side of her with a speed she had no hope of ever matching, trapping her in.

“No you don’t, hi, mind telling me why you’re scaring the living daylights out of my friend, hm?”

“When you’re done sulking, will you give me that miniature wrench over there?” Gambit huffed at the request, but grabbed the tool and handed it over to Forge.

“Dunno, by how this evening is going, someone’s brother is going to accuse Gambit of stealin’ that off him.”

“Remy, will you stop?”

“She started it by implying I wanted her to flirt with a married man and that I would steal from my friends, like I don’t have enough on my plate without her accusations. I gave her back the stupid earrings, what do you want?!”

“For you to breathe, and cool your temper for a minute. Fine, she started it, you’re right, is that what you want to hear? You did little to deescalate the situation back there, or anything to explain what you actually wanted from her.”

“Oh so the logic there is that because I don’t tell her what kind of distraction I need we’re just all going to assume I want her to jump Tolansky’s bones, or what?! Grand. Really making me feel appreciated right about now, when I’m trying to save this evening for her sake.”

“Are you? Because to me, it’s starting to sound like you’re doing what she did to you; putting words in our mouths. I certainly didn’t expect that to be your intent, but neither her, me or you possess telepathy. Unless both of you start talking about what the plan actually is, without taking stabs at each other over things the other has no control over, the two of you will never form an actual good, functioning team, now will you?” “She wouldn’t be here if I didn’t convince her to go, which means she would miss out on an evening with Nightcrawler; insulting me, accusing me of shit I didn’t do is her way of repaying that?”

“Oh, and what a night it’s been; Nightcrawler amongst many boiling alive in a mansion that forgot that machinery like this need maintenance that they haven’t bothered to hire the staff for apparently, and Gambit meddling in the business of his friends because he’d rather set those two up then deal with his own business, causing him to cold shoulder ignore the woman making heart eyes at him as soon as he appears on the scene. Am I missing anything, or is that an accurate enough summary?” The call out hit him hard and raw, as Gambit crossed his arms with a scowl and leaned back on the nearest flat surface. Yes, Forge was missing something, the part where Miranda implied he was going around wrecking the relationships of others for the hell of it or for quick gain. As if he wasn’t in the middle of trying to tie off the loose ends between the residue remaining of how he had felt about Rogue, while simultaneously trying to make sense of the absolute overpowering wave of emotions and feelings Shadow shook loose in him by merely looking at him.

… Which she couldn’t actually know about, and for what it was worth Miranda had kept her word about not telling anyone about seeing him and Shadow kiss. Sure, bringing up the zircon was a stupid stab; but giving someone a gift was something he could still play off and come back from in a way he couldn’t if she ran her mouth about that kiss instead. Tension left his shoulders as he could at the very least not blame her for the bind he found himself in; Miranda had nothing to do with the struggle he felt between two women he did genuinely care a lot for.

“Why did you bring me here, Forge? You don’t actually need Gambit to help you with any mechanical know how.”

“I brought you here to stop you and the lady from actually tearing each other’s throats out back there. You’re both bullheaded and enjoy pressing the buttons of the other too much to walk away when things get too real, so I figured if you two weren’t going to separate yourselves I would step in and make you; before someone said something they couldn’t take back or turned it physical; I saw that warning flare in your eyes, Gambit. You two genuinely fight like siblings, so I figured I would treat you as a pair to give both of you some time to mull it over, away from each other. Speaking of,” Forge leaned back, looking on one of his widgets to check the time, “that should have given us just about enough time.”

“For what, the AC to be fixed?”

“For Todd to get back up.”

“…. Wait, what?”

Forge rolled his head to Gambit, a neutral expression on his face as he sat down by the machinery he almost had running again, waiting for a minute to see if the situation dawned upon Gambit by himself.

“As far as Todd is concerned, he got attacked by a Victorian ghost haunting this place. You know as well as I do that he went to go grab a friend to come help him check it out. Fast,” and as soon as he emphasized that last word, Gambit turned his eyes to the ceiling in a groan as if his soul wanted to escape and in turn haunt the mansion they were in. “Merde. He’s bringing Maximoff.”

“Yup, and if her claim of you having the better talking skills holds any water, then she isn’t talking herself out of that one.”

“… I’m going back.” “Good choice, my friend.”

[andrewmoocow]

Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 14: A Fusion Too Far (originally published on April 19, 2021)

AN: Well, time to get this big elephant out of the room before we move onto the big Part 2 finale. I'll be honest, I was kind of disappointed we didn't get any closure on Jasper and Lapis's relationship and that they'd turn into Vegeta and Goku respectively. But then again, I'm here to fix this myself, so here we go.

Synopsis: Steven helps Lapis and Jasper try to make up for the past.

Cast:

Zach Callison as Steven

Jennifer Paz as Lapis, Zuli, Diopside

Kimberly Brooks as Jasper, Cherry Quartz

Estelle as Garnet

Amy Sedaris as Teal Zircon, Diopside

Ian Jones Quartey as Snowflake Obsidian

Auli'I Cravalho as Orange Spodumene

Featuring Esmé Bianco as Malachite

--

"Okay Gems, Steven left me in charge of his interpretive dance class since he left, so I'm gonna need you all to work hard for him." Lapis ordered a class made up of Zuli, Cherry Quartz, Teal Zircon, Snowflake Obsidian, and Orange Spodumene while she set down a boombox and tightened the sweatband around her head. "Are we clear?"

"Yes ma'am!" the class of Gems shouted with a salute.

"Ooh, this is gonna be so much fun!" Zuli muttered cheerfully.

"I know, right?" Teal Zircon replied just as eagerly.

"Are we ready?" Lapis asked rhetorically as she switched on some music. "A five, six, seven, eight!"

"Same as it ever was, same as it ever was. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was." The stereo began playing as the class began copying Lapis's moves. When she twirled left, they twirled with her. When she jumped up and landed while pumping her fist in the air, they jumped up too. "Same as it ever was, same as it ever was. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was."

"I'm having so much fun!" TZ exclaimed excitedly as the class began freestyling, but her gem began glowing without her knowing.

"Me too!" Zuli replied as her gem began glowing as well. Suddenly, as the two stood dancing back to back, they transformed into a large mass of light and then, into a massive fusion bearing traits from both Gems. Unlike an average fusion, this one was a lot more deformed due to the accident that caused it.

"Uh, guys?" the fusion of Zuli and Teal boomed nervously as the rest of the class gazed in shock at her. "A little help here?"

"Uh oh, we got another fusion accident." Snowflake declared worriedly.

"I'll go get Amethyst and Pearl, hopefully they'll know what to do." Orange Spodumene stated as she raced to get help.

Lapis was just as stunned at the sight as her students, but for far different reasons than the rest. A Lapis fusing with another Gem that results in a big problem? That seemed all too familiar to her. "Uh, you know what? Class dismissed."

"Wait, Lapis!" Cherry Quartz cried out as their teacher flew away. "What about TZ and Zuli?!"

"Amethyst and Pearl got this covered!" Lapis called back to Cherry. "I just need to settle some problems of my own."

As Lapis continued flying, the fusion of Teal and Zuli continued standing there, contemplating what just happened. "So, anyone want to ask me what the weather is like from up here?"

--

"Now just breathe in, and out." Garnet instructed Steven as they took a private yoga class at the tower. "Let these troubled thoughts know that you won't let them take you over."

"Don't let them take over, don't let them take over." Steven repeated to himself while shutting his eyes, but he did let one thought take over as he heard someone land behind him. "Lapis?"

"Hey Steven, hey Garnet." Lapis greeted the two Gems.

"Did class end early for you?" Garnet asked the waterbender as she got up to face Lapis.

"Yeah, but there was a little problem." Lapis answered. "Teal Zircon and 2F8D accidentally fused during class, which really reminded me of a certain incident."

"You came to us because that reminded you of Malachite, right?" Steven asked. "You know, I've already made a mental note to get you and Jasper to make up for what happened while you were fused."

"I like that you want to help them amend for the past," Garnet smiled to Steven. "But I feel they won't forgive each other, since their time as Malachite was torture for both of them."

"Yeah, remember?" Lapis reminded Steven. "Jasper tormented me because I forced her to stay fused with me, but then I tormented her because she tormented me, and it was all one big cycle of abuse and toxicity until we were separated. I feel like if I really want to move on, I need to make up for at least some of my past actions."

"I know, no need to remind me of stuff I already know." Steven said. "But I still feel you two can make up somehow!"

--

"Absolutely not." Jasper declared angrily as Steven and Lapis stood before her in the forest later that day.

"Garnet warned you." Lapis cautioned Steven out of the corner of her mouth, but he didn't listen.

"Aw come on Jasper, Lapis really wants to apologize for torturing you while you two were fused as Malachite!" Steven begged Jasper to listen to him.

"Oh really?" Jasper raised an eyebrow in disgust. "The way I see it, I came out as far more stable once you freed me from her!" she bragged. "But I think a bit of my attitude may have rubbed off on the brat here. I mean, what has she done since we de-fused?"

"That's a bit personal." Lapis replied in shock at Jasper's accusations. "Also, YOU came out a little more stable? The first time we met since the island, you were begging on your knees to fuse with me again AND you started hunting down corrupted Gems just to get that feeling, which led to you getting corrupted yourself!"

"I think that's enough of this kind of back and forth for right now!" Steven got between the two Gems. "Why don't we try some trust exercises, like an icebreaker?"

"An icebreaker?" Jasper replied in confusion. "Well, there sure isn't any ice around here."

"No, it's not that kind of icebreaker." Lapis corrected her ex-fusion partner. "It's like you ask people questions to try and get to know them better. I'll start." She then cleared her throat. "What do you like to do in your free time?"

"Training, brooding, terminating all kinds of Earthlings that try to invade my territory." Jasper responded. "What about you?"

"A lot of stuff." Lapis replied. "I really like making meep morps, collecting leaves, dancing-"

"What on Earth is a meep morp?" Jasper interrupted Lapis. "Sounds like some dumb human ritual."

"It's what she and Peridot call art." Steven informed the larger Gem. "Now Lapis, please continue."

"Gladly." Lapis said. "I also love watching this show with Peridot called Camp Pining Hearts. It's a Great North drama set in a summer camp where all the campers compete against each other in Color Wars."

"Sounds dumb, kind of like you." Jasper rudely declared, which got Lapis mad.

"Now you see here you big lug!" Lapis yelled. "Camp Pining Hearts is good-natured, cheesy dramatic fun! Well, except for Season 5, that was utter garbage."

"Kind of like your attempts to try and "make up" with me." Jasper replied in air quotes.

"Okay, maybe icebreakers aren't working very well but hey," Steven interrupted the bickering pair. "Why don't we try something different, like trust falls?"

"What's that?" Lapis and Jasper asked in unison.

--

Steven would soon answer that question by having Jasper stand with her back facing towards the edge of a cliff, with Lapis spreading her arms out down below. "It's exactly what it sounds like." Steven explained. "One of you has to fall over and put their trust in the other person to catch them."

"Yeah, I don't buy this." Jasper snarled as she turned around to face Steven and Lapis from above. "I could easily crush her, as much as I really want to."

"For once, I think I'm gonna side with Jasper on this one." Lapis agreed with the larger Gem, making herself sick to her stomach. "I never thought I'd say that."

"Okay, change of plans." Steven suggested. "Lapis falls and Jasper has to catch her, sound good?"

"That makes more sense." Lapis obliged and flew up to the cliff while Jasper dropped down to meet Steven.

"Okay, now close your eyes Lapis, and let Jasper catch you." Steven commanded the ocean Gem.

"Alright then." Lapis replied as she shut her eyes. "Are you still standing there Jasper?"

"Yes, yes I am." Jasper responded with her arms spread out. "Now fall already!"

Lapis did as she was told and leaned off the edge of the cliff, allowing herself to start falling to the ground. But when she came close to returning to solid earth, Jasper casually moved out of the way, letting Lapis instead fall back first onto the grass.

"Jasper!" Steven scolded the bigger Gem.

"What, you never said how to catch her." Jasper grinned nervously, and Steven returned it with an irritated glare. Lapis just facepalmed as she got up off the ground.

--

"Okay, let's try another team building exercise." Steven stated while walking Jasper and Lapis through the forest. "Here's the deal, one of you has to wear a blindfold and walk through the woods while the other one has to give instructions." He opened up his jacket and pulled out some cloth to serve as a blindfold. "Now who wants to go first?"

"Give me that." Jasper ordered as she snatched the cloth from Steven's hand and tried to wrap it around her head. Unfortunately for Jasper, the knot she tried to make wasn't very good. "Come on, stay on my head you stupid Earth material!"

"Guess that means I'll have to tell her what to do." Lapis realized while Steven tied the blindfold around Jasper's head for her. "For once."

"Okay, are you ready guys?" Steven asked the pair as he finished tying a tight knot on the blindfold.

"Uh, yes." Lapis nervously said.

"Uh, where are you two?" Jasper asked while facing away from Steven and Lapis. "I can clearly hear you, but I can't see you. What kind of torture device is this?!"

"I can see you're already getting the hang of this." Lapis grinned snarkily. "Okay, first, you gotta walk towards those trees over there." She pointed over to a group of trees lined up nearby. "Got that?"

"What trees? All I see is white!" Jasper barked before Steven put his hands on her hips and guided her towards the trees.

"Okay, next, follow the trees until you hear rushing water." Lapis grinned mischievously while Jasper did as she told and she and Steven followed her. "I can see you're getting warmer."

"And I have a bad feeling about this." Jasper muttered while following the sound of racing water. The source of the sound came from a nearby raging river, and Jasper was about to fall over before Lapis gave her next command.

"Okay, stop!" Lapis ordered, telling the big quartz to halt in her tracks before she gave one last order. "Now that we found the source of the rushing water, jump in."

"I don't know where this is going, but if you say so." Jasper obliged and jumped into the river, but she realized too late what she got herself into. "What is this?!" Jasper yelled as she ripped the blindfold off her face and realized she was drifting down the stream. "Lapis, you tricked me! I'll get you for this!"

"Lapis!" Steven scolded Lapis, who just replied with a shrug.

"I punched her sky high and she turned out fine." Lapis responded. "She can survive this." Despite her protests, a disappointed glare from Steven forced Lapis to fly up and race after Jasper to save her from the river.

--

"If this is payback for letting you fall, I understand why but this is totally disproportionate!" Jasper yelled as the force of the river continued carrying her throughout the forest. "Um, can anyone please help me?"

Jasper's prayers were soon answered, though not in the way she wanted. Lapis soared over the drifting Gem and prepared to pick her up with the river water, but Jasper instead grabbed her by the hand and pulled her down. "Oh no, you don't! You started this, and now you're coming with me!"

"I was only trying to help you!" Lapis yelled crossly. "Though Steven forced me to do it, but still!"

"You help me?" Jasper said before she let out a loud cackle. "Maybe when I get shattered!" The big Gem kept on laughing much to Lapis's irritation, but she was soon cut off when she realized the river was going to lead to a waterfall. "Uh oh.

"Don't tell me, we're going to go over a waterfall." Lapis deadpanned.

"Indeed." Jasper confirmed just as deadpan.

"Sharp rocks at the bottom?" Lapis then asked.

"No, unfortunately."

"Doesn't matter, bring it on."

And just like that, the bickering pair put aside their differences and came together screaming as they went over the waterfall.

--

As soon as Lapis and Jasper got out of the mountainside lake that the waterfall led to, Steven stood there with his arms crossed and crossly tapping his foot. "You two are unbelievable!" he chastised the two. "I just want you to forgive each other for Malachite and at least be friendlier to each other! Is that too much to ask?!"

"Steven, you have to learn that sometimes, even when two enemies become friends," Lapis said to Steven. "there's no chance they'll instantly treat the horrible things they did to each other in the past like someone stole forty cakes or something."

"I concur." Jasper nodded.

"See, another thing you two can agree on." Steven nodded in exasperation. "How about this? You say at least one nice thing about each other, and that's it. Understand?"

"Okay, if it makes you chill out a bit." Lapis shivered at Steven's current behavior and turned to Jasper. "Well, I'll give you this Jasper. You may not have wanted to do all those activities, but at least you didn't just give up on them."

"Kind of like how you never gave up on treating me like trash." Jasper harangued in reply, stunning Steven and Lapis. "Just look at you Lapis. Even years after we split, you keep on refusing to treat me with kindness."

"What kindness?" Lapis growled. "You never treated me like that, so what makes you think-"

"LET ME FINISH!" Jasper boomed. "You abused me, and what do you get? A nice life with that Peridot, being a member of the Crystal Gems and living at that stupid Little Homeworld! Meanwhile, I've spent my entire life neglected and tortured on this worthless planet, yet you get off scot-free for all the horrendous things you've done! Let's face it, you may think everything's all okay, but I'm still the only one who's seen you for the monster you are."

Throughout Jasper's furious lecture, Steven stood there in shock at how nothing had been going his way today. All he wanted to do was help two enemies become friends, but nothing had worked. And as Jasper kept on accusing Lapis, he slowly began to turn pink until finally, he snapped. "ENOUGH!"

"Again?!" Jasper yelled at the sight of Steven turning pink again.

"This is new!" Lapis exclaimed.

"I just wanted you to make friends, but neither of you are listening to me!" Steven yelled as the force of his tantrum knocked the two Gems off their feet and back into the lake. "Why can't anything go the way I wanted to FOR ONCE?!"

With a single stomp of his foot, Steven almost caused an earthquake, and the mountain above them began to violently shake until it resulted in a rockslide. As he came back to his senses, Steven realized just how bad he had made things. "Oh no!"

"Steven!" Lapis cried out and tried racing to rescue Steven, but Jasper held her back.

"Leave the kid, he can survive this!" Jasper discouraged Lapis from saving her friend.

"But he's one of my best friends, and your Diamond!" Lapis replied. "You wouldn't want to see him get hurt too, right?"

"Correction, Pink Diamond is my Diamond." Jasper admonished snootily. "That right there is just her son who thinks he can walk around making people do what he wants just because of his lineage."

"But still, you wouldn't want Pink to die again, right?" Lapis said when she got an idea. "Wait a minute! Let's fuse!"

"You're joking, right?" Jasper said in utter disbelief.

"We got no other choice, please!" Lapis begged her ex-fusion partner while reaching her hand out. "Come on, just say yes!"

Lapis was right, they did have no other option, though Jasper believed she was making things up just to make Steven happy. But regardless, Lapis did make a good argument.

"Fine." Jasper finally relented and took the blue Gem's smaller hand. "But we are never doing this again, capiche?"

"You got it." Lapis obliged before she was twirled around and caught by Jasper in a dip, and then they started glowing as their forms began to merge.

--

"Of course something horrible happens when I try to do good." Steven admitted in defeat as the rockslide began to get closer. He didn't even try thinking of escaping or protecting himself, believing that this was to be his fate. "Lapis, Jasper, everyone. I'm sorry."

Just then, a massive turquoise figure with two sets of arms, one dainty pair and one burly, came flying from the lake and landed in front of Steven. He could see that on her back was Lapis's gem and when the Gem turned to face him, she had Jasper's gem on her face. The more graceful hands picked Steven up while the bigger hands got to work on forcing the rockslide back with a seemingly infinite series of massive punches. "RAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

"Lapis?!" Steven gasped at what he was seeing. "Jasper?!"

"Yes, it's us!" Malachite said. Unlike the last time Steven saw the fusion of Jasper and Lapis, she instead had a British accent of sorts. However, Lapis's softer tone could be heard until she suddenly switched to Jasper's rougher tone. "Now keep quiet while you're being saved!"

Steven did indeed stay quiet as Malachite held him in one pair of hands while the other pair finished punching the last of the rocks away. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine." Steven panted nervously.

"Good, let's go home." Malachite smiled, when her head suddenly twitched and Jasper started taking control of the fusion. "Seriously, how did he not try to run or protect himself?!"

"Really ruining the mood here!" Lapis's side of Malachite argued as she began to fly away from the lake.

--

The two halves of Malachite's personality kept on arguing while she flew Steven back to Jasper's cave, until they finally touched down and de-fused.

"I still can't believe it!" Steven exclaimed happily. "You guys fused, and neither of you was forced to do so!"

"Well to be fair, Lapis kind of forced me to fuse with her because she kept convincing me you were her Diamond, like everyone else does." Jasper said as she decided to return to her cave.

"But still, it was nice to have something to work together on, right?" Lapis said.

"Okay, I'll admit, it was nice to have a common goal for once." Jasper agreed. "Look, like you said, the past can never be forgotten. But I think that might be a good first step."

"Yeah." Lapis replied.

"Well, guess we should be going now." Steven said while he and Lapis prepared to leave. "See you again soon Jasper."

"Whatever." Jasper groaned while fully retreating into her cave.

"So, how was it?" Steven asked Lapis while they walked back to Little Homeschool.

"It was real weird at first, especially when we became Malachite again." Lapis admitted. "Even though we still were fighting for control, I think we may have made a breakthrough on Jasper. Who knows, maybe you're right and we could become friends one day."

"Yeah, who knows." Steven sighed happily until he came to a realization. "Hey, speaking of fusions, how are Zuli and TZ doing right now?"

--

"Uh, still need a little help here." The fusion of Zuli and Teal Zircon, now dubbed Diopside by the other Gems, called out while everyone gathered to gaze at the new fusion. "Is there any way to turn this off?"

--

I have a feeling this chapter is going to divide people, but I feel like it was finally time to deliver a reconciliation that was as in-character for both Lapis and Jasper as I could, and give us a slightly more stable Malachite that was more Two-Face than monstrous depiction of a toxic relationship. Speaking of which, did you know malachites become less toxic when sealed? But enough talk, next chapter is the beginning of Part 2's big finale, and I am so excited to finally focus more on a certain Rutile and her Topaz.

[seawitchkaraoke]

Sketch in Shadows

(ao3 link in the notes)

This whole idea was stupid. It was way too early, barely even afternoon, she should be in bed and instead, here she was, sitting at a too small desk on an uncomfortable chair, listening to this human guy talking about some other long dead human guy, who had apparently been really good at drawing sunflowers.

The whole thing had been Toby‘s idea – of course. She‘d suggested that going to university would help her learn about the modern world and at the same time continue the „figure out what you actually like and what your mom made you like“ thing Raysel and her had going on and August had agreed, because she was bored, and she didn‘t have anything else to do and hey it might be an adventure, except this time without the getting lost for a hundred years part. So she‘d looked up some classes that sounded interesting and snuck out way too early, letting Raysel sleep who had wisely refused the education plan.

She had been bored. Somehow, she was even more bored now; she‘d really thought that art history would include a little more art and a little less life stories of dead humans.

August leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for just a second, sighing. She could leave anytime, it‘s not like she‘d signed up for anything or like she was actually planning on getting a degree.

She opened her eyes again.

There was a cat on her desk.

She stared. The cat stared back.

August blinked. The cat did not. It also didn‘t disappear, which would have been convenient.

„Um.“ said August, intelligently „I kinda need that desk. You‘re sitting on my things“

The cat said nothing.

August sighed. „Fine. I wasn‘t taking notes anyway, but once the class is over you have to let me get my stuff“ She reached out, petting the cat behind the ears. It was very fluffy, with long grey and white fur, making it look almost silver. It was a beautiful cat.

August leaned back, her hand still buried in the cat‘s fur, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She couldn‘t wait to get out of here, beautiful cat or not.

The air smelled of paper and dust and human sweat and the violets and dry hay of the Daoine Sidhe changeling in the second row and the peppermint and burning walnut wood of the Cait Sidhe in front of -

She yanked her hand back so fast, she almost overbalanced, as she stared at the not at all normal cat in front of her.

The cat blinked, slowly, deliberately. August did not. She stared.

„You‘re Cait Sidhe! What are you- never mind, I don‘t care what you‘re doing here, why are you on my things?“

The Cait Sidhe, still, did not say anything. Of course not. They couldn‘t exactly transform back into a form capable of the English language in the middle of a lecture hall after all. They just looked at her with big purple eyes.

Right. Mortal cats didn‘t have purple eyes. She really must be more tired than she‘d thought.

„Ugh fine! Just give me my stuff back once the class is over okay? And then I can go home and tell my sister this was a stupid idea and you can do, whatever it is Cait Sidhe do all day“

The cat, again, said nothing, just looked at her out of big purple eyes that really should have ticked her off earlier that this was not a mortal cat.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The cat‘s name, it turned out, was Zircon and they were part of the Court of Golden Cats (which was ironic considering how silver they were), though they mostly stayed at the university, helping out stressed students and making sure none of the faerie brides were stirring up trouble. They told August all this in the span of the few minutes it took to walk back to the carpark, where Quentin would hopefully be waiting with the car.

„That‘s all great but it doesn‘t explain why you were sitting on my things. I‘m not planning to ‚stir up trouble‘ as you said, I‘m just here because my stupid sister convinced me that university might be fun and not boring“

„Excuse me, you find me boring? And that, when I was trying so hard to entertain you, I don‘t know whether to be hurt or insulted“ they smirked, walking backwards, facing August „you might say you don‘t want to stir up any trouble, but I always check out the new fae on campus just to make sure. And you‘re not exactly just any random fae, August Torquill, you said your name was? I met your sister, though I doubt she realized, she was covered in quite a lot of blood at the time. More importantly I heard what your mother did to the king of dreaming cats to force your sister to bring you home. So I hope you can forgive me, if I need to make my own picture of whether you‘ll stir up trouble“

„Great so you‘ll judge me because of what my mother did? You just said yourself I wasn‘t there for that! I was the one who made her give Tybalt and Jazz back, but no one ever seems to remember that”

That was the wrong thing to say. Zircon hissed and was suddenly too close to her face, the smell of peppermint and burning walnut wood welling up all around them „you want a price for doing the bare minimum? For not being as horrible as your mother? Should I get you a medal?“

August paled, “No! I…. I’m sorry, I’m just really exhausted and tired of people looking at me and only seeing my mother”

Zircon stopped at that, stepping back, slightly „Okay. I won‘t judge you by your mother‘s actions but I know how dangerous your family is, I‘m not so stupid to think you wouldn‘t be as well.“ They looked at August, smiling, showing their far too sharp teeth „you‘re welcome to continue classes here if you decide it isn‘t too boring after all. But this university is mine as much as it is anyone‘s and if I think that you are going to cause anyone here harm either by yourself or by bringing your cursed mother down on us, I will not hesitate to rip you apart. I‘ve heard how fast your sister heals, so I‘m sure I wouldn‘t need to worry about breaking Oberon‘s law“

They stepped back and grinned, teeth having lost their inhuman sharpness and said, almost joyfully „If you‘re interested in art but not the ‚boring‘ stories about dead human artists, you might want to check out some of the more practical classes, I‘m sure you‘d enjoy them“

With that, they sauntered around a corner and a moment later a long haired silver cat with bright purple eyes ran off over the yard.

Well. That could have gone better.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

August dropped in the passenger‘s seat of the car, groaning. She just wanted to go home and sleep some more and not deal with any stupid cats anymore.

Quentin shot her a sidelong look, as he drew out of the parking spot „So who was that person you were talking to? Cait Sidhe?“

„Their name is Zircon and yeah they‘re Cait Sidhe. They don‘t like me on account of my mother being the worst, they threatened me in case I was planning to start trouble for ‚their‘ university and they told me to try practical drawing classes since art history was boring“

Quentin blinked. That seemed to be the motto of today. „Huh. Well, I can‘t say I can fault them for disliking your mother-“ „Who could“, August muttered, „-but practical drawing classes might be a good idea if art history was too theoretical?“

„ Less theoretical, more just talking about the life and death of some human artist who was really good at sunflowers or whatever“

„Van Gogh?“

„Yes him. And I‘m sure that‘s interesting for the humans, but I wanted to hear about history of art, not history of dead artists“, she sighed, sinking deeper into the car seat „This whole thing was a stupid idea, I can learn about art by practicing, I don‘t need classes, especially not at a university with a cat who hates me“

Quentin looked at her for a second, then turned back to the road, „You know Toby used to be convinced Tybalt hated her. It was all she ever talked about“, he smirked, „so… you know how that ended“

„I‘m not Toby, I‘m not going to fuck a cat!“, Quentin shot her a look, “sorry, sorry I know I shouldn’t say it like that but still. I’m not gonna have sex with the first person I meet who isn’t related to me or a teenager, Cait Sidhe or not”

Privately, she thought she really didn‘t think she wanted to have sex with anyone, cat or no, but that wasn‘t something to discuss with her sister‘s teenaged squire

„and anyway, I‘m not going to see them again, I‘m not going back“

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two weeks later, August was once again standing in Berkeley, this time with art supplies slung over her shoulder and at a more reasonable hour – thank Oberon for evening classes. She hadn’t wanted to come back, but while going shopping with Raysel and occasionally May was fun and drawing on the giant chalkboard in Raysel and her shared room was enjoyable and occasionally incredibly cathartic, she’d been hanging around Raysel for months now and as much as she was learning to love her cousin, occasionally she needed some time away from her and away from the house that had a far too high average number of screaming teenagers in residence than August was entirely comfortable with.

So here she was, stepping out of Walther’s office, that Chelsea had opened a portal to – after calling first, to make sure Jack or some other mortal grad student wasn’t in – waving goodbye to the alchemist, who was working on some project or other in between his classes, and walking over to the art building.

She had barely set her things down, and there they were, a silver cat, with ridiculously fluffy fur and clearly unnatural purple eyes. August wondered briefly if any of the veterinary or biology students had ever tried to catch and study them; it should really be obvious to them that those eyes weren’t mortal. Then again, humans could dismiss a lot of things and would probably not jump straight from “cat with purple eyes” to “fae are real and walk among us”. Still it seemed irresponsible.

Irresponsible or not, they were strolling in casually, looping around students’ legs who cooed and occasionally bent down to pet them. August smoothed out her face, it wouldn’t do to be caught glowering at the campus cat, that would just make her stand out and not in a good way.

She shrugged out of her denim jacket – full of patches and glued on rhinestones and metal studs, because it turned out she liked being able to customize her own clothing however she wished – and sat in her chair. The teacher called the room to silence: “Welcome everyone! I’m sure Zaddy here is very happy to have your attention but I’ll need you to focus on me now. My name is Professor Smith and today we’re gonna learn how to draw a still life – though when we get to animals, you’ll be free to focus on Zaddy all lesson long….”

She kept talking, explaining the concept of a still life – apparently a drawing of unmoving inanimate objects – and setting down various things for them to use as models. August did her best to ignore Zircon – who had stalked over to her and was now sitting on a nearby shelf full of art supplies, yawning and showing off all their teeth – and listened intently to the teacher, already thinking on which of the objects she would like to draw most. There was a vase of flowers, though thankfully no roses, making the decision easy enough.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the lesson ended, August packed up her half finished drawing and walked outside. Zircon had left at some point during the lesson, but she didn’t worry about them, if they wanted to talk, they’d find her before she called Chelsea and left, if not, all the better for her. She did not want to talk to the cat. If they had decided to leave her alone, that was exactly what she wanted anyway.

No such luck. She turned the corner and there they were, leaning against a wall, human disguise firmly in place. Their eyes were a dark blue in this form, their fluffy hair, that would surely be striped silver, grey and white in their true from, simply black. They looked good, of course, it would be silly to choose a human disguise that made them look bad, and yet August suddenly really wanted to know what they looked like in truth.

She pushed the thought away just as Zircon pushed off the wall and fell into step beside her

“I can’t say, it isn’t a delight to see you again, but I thought you’d said you found this place “boring” and didn’t wish to return?”

“Yes, and I thought you might not bother me with a speech today, but I guess we’re all mistaken sometimes. Also, you can drop the pretentious speech, if you’ve been living at this university for as long as you implied, there’s no way you speak like that”

Zircon laughed at that, “Ah but it’s that or speak in memes, which might at best confuse and at worst horrify you. I would have thought you’d prefer this sort of speech, after all as far as I know, you haven’t been living in the mortal world much?”

“Right because you’d know how much exposure to the mortal world I’ve had. I live with an average of 2 to 4 teenagers, I pick things up. Anyway, what do you want? I already told you I’m not here to make trouble.” August inwardly prepared herself for another round of threats. Maybe she should just find another university to attend; true Berkeley was neutral territory and therefore convenient but surely she could figure something out.

Zircon shock their head: “I know, and I already warned you what would happen if you changed your mind on that. As far as I’m concerned we’re good; no, I am here to tell you the same thing I tell every fae student here and to ask you a question that’s just for you”

August frowned “okay? And what would that be?”

“First, I’ve been taking care of this university for a long time. I protect and help the students, both mortal and not and in return no one minds when I steal some snacks from the cafeteria or curl up in someone’s office. That means if you’re planning to attend regularly, I’ll be happy to help you too. You’re unlikely to need this, but if you ever need a place to sleep or a warm meal, just find me and I’ll help you. If you need advice on what classes to take or where the best spots are to get someone to teleport you out of here, if you want somewhere closer to the art building than Professor Davies’ office, I’ll be happy to give suggestions.”

“And you offer this to everyone?”

“Yes, although obviously I can’t just say it to the humans. With them I have to be a little more subtle, but I help them all the same”

“I’m sorry but aren’t Cait Sidhe supposed to, I don’t know, keep to the court of cats and run around chasing rats all day or something? Tybalt is going to have to give up being king when he marries Toby, because it’s a conflict of interest, how is taking care of an entire university not a conflict of interest?”, she stopped herself, “um, no offense or anything.”

Zircon laughed lightly: “ah, see Tybalt is a king and I am just a normal Cait Sidhe who finds that “chasing after rats” all day gets old quickly”

August reddened in embarrassment “I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sorry, I’m still…. I’m still unlearning a lot of the things my mom taught me”, this was getting uncomfortable, “um, but you said you had a question?”

“Yes!”, Zircon grinned, “would you like to go for coffee?”

Wait what?

“Excuse me?!”

“I asked if you would like to go for coffee. Or tea if you prefer, of course.”

“Caffeine doesn’t work on me, so I would prefer tea actually, or hot chocolate, but that’s not the point-  are you asking me on a date?! Last time we talked you threatened to rip me apart!”

“True and you came back here anyway and didn’t try to hurt me or set your mother or your sister on me. You’re the daughter of a firstborn but you attend art classes at a human university and wear a denim jacket with patches and stuts and glitter and you haven’t called me a beast or vermin even once. You’re intriguing and I’d like to get to know you better. Call it a date, if you like, or a call it just a friendly chat between acquaintances”, they smiled, this time almost softly and August knew she would say yes, “or call it nothing at all and decide afterwards what it was. Now I ask again, though slightly amended: Would you like to grab a hot chocolate?”

The night had barely started, and Chelsea wouldn’t mind picking her up later – it wasn’t like it would take her much time after all. And Toby always said she should meet more people.

“Yes” August said, a smile of her own forming on her face, “I think I’d like that. Just one condition”

“And what’s that?”

“We go somewhere run by fae if there is such a place around here. If were gonna get to know each other better, I want to see your actual face”

Zircon smiled.

[love-takes-work]

Below, I’m sharing a long outline of what was discussed in this wonderful interview, for those who can’t or prefer not to listen but want to know the content. It is very long and I don’t feel like finding pictures so you’ll have to just enjoy it like it is. It’s not a transcript but it is, in my own words for the most part, a recitation of everything Susana and Rebecca talked about: musicals, the upcoming movie, animation influences, and quite a few things you did not already know.

Susana introduces the interview by saying that tons of attention is paid to the diversity and the characters and all this great stuff in the show, but she wants to talk about the science fiction aspects and the society and worldbuilding Rebecca and her team have put in. She begins by talking about how the show seems so planned considering aspects of the show's beginning feed so well into the end, and she asks Rebecca to talk about that.

Rebecca opens by saying it was conceived as a coming-of-age story, so a ton of stuff that the adults know, Steven doesn't know, allowing it to be a story about things that happened to adults but remain child-friendly. Rebecca brings up a college class on the sublime that she took, about what's going on and implied to be going on just outside the frame of the art, so she was really taken with that concept.

Rebecca claims that her planning is pretty dry, and it's just a bunch of charts. She had stuff like Fusion names and weapons from the beginning, and of course she couldn't use them in her pitch because it didn't make sense without knowing the characters. Susana mentions that CN wanted the show to be aired in no particular order, and Rebecca mentions how it was hard to work with because she DID want continuity. Planting seeds in episodes and giving puzzle pieces that'd come together later worked for a long time, while still making each episode work as a whole and be satisfying. Later, when CN came to them wanting like eight related episodes, there they had the barn arc to give them--they had already planned to make this story related. She felt it aired in a "bizarre" way, but they comforted themselves on the Crew knowing someday people would watch it how it was meant to be watched. As a lead-up to the movie, CN IS going to air "every Steven ever," so people will actually get to see it in marathon format.

Batman: The Animated Series comes up and they discuss how censorship limited what they could do on that show because of problems with glass breaking. Susana says she actually really appreciates it when stories can still be told well despite the constraints put on them, and asks Rebecca if that applies to SU. Rebecca agrees that it does, and also that she loves stuff like video games that managed to function with ridiculously small space requirements. Developers still offered up such creativity, she says. So because of the beauty that arises from those constraints, she thought she should have constraints in her show on purpose, even if it isn't applied from outside. The most obvious one for this show was that we're trapped into only knowing and seeing what Steven knows and sees. "The Test" is a good example of Steven actually seeing something he isn't supposed to see: the Gems having a private conversation about him. According to her, plenty of stuff is written about what the Gems are up to outside of what Steven knows about them, and they can only kind of hint at it.

Coming from Adventure Time, there were some similar aspects. Rebecca got to work with some of her heroes from independent comics, and she got a lot of inspiration from them. On Adventure Time, it's our world but far in the future, and Rebecca would have loved to do something similar with Steven because she loved that aspect. Quite a few of the Adventure Time crew had come over from Flapjack and they thought it would be funny if the Adventure Time characters found a tape of Flapjack. As much as it would have been cool to take that idea for her show, that was theirs, so Steven's is more like it's our Earth but in an alternate timeline where Gems invaded 6,000 years ago. She rattles off some known similarities and differences of our two worlds, and elaborates on how Hollywood is in Kansas because in that world Disney never left where they started. Laugh-O-Gram Studio took off like it didn't in our timeline. She has a ton of other info like that but it won't matter to reveal it until or unless it matters to Steven. (She also throws in that Harman-Ising could be Ising-Harman in her world if they never figured out how cute it would be to have it the other way.)

When Susana asks about how she took so many details and managed to make a pilot with enough of them that she could get a show with it, Rebecca takes a turn into discussing working on Hotel Transylvania (for just a month!) with Genndy Tartakovsky. She had been planning to have a month off, but then Genndy asked, so she of course couldn't say no and felt she learned a ton. (She wrote the Steven Universe theme song in the car during that commute, by the way, given that she had a lot of time to sing and be alone.) When she hit Genndy with some of her ideas, he advised her to slim the details down and just boil it into its essence--who are the people and what is their relationship to each other? She still uses that advice, trying to condense things from macro to micro. She has succeeded since in figuring out how to keep the complexity and still assert the simplicity. Ultimately, you can keep those details but you don't have to emphasize them if they're not feeding into the main point. They'll drag the piece down. They discuss Genndy's role as the Animation Director on her pilot, which happened when she was asking if he knew anyone and he ended up saying he'd do it himself. She was so shocked that he agreed to direct her pilot that she was dazed and ran into a pole in the parking lot. The whistling of the wind through the resulting dent always made her giddy because she was thinking she would be working with Genndy.

Susana then turns to discussing Rebecca's influences and brings up Revolutionary Girl Utena. Rebecca mentions that she initially saw Utena because a person named Connie lent it to her in high school, so that's where SU's Connie's name comes from. Rebecca points out how hilarious Utena is in addition to being beautiful. She felt it was formative because Utena was "gender expansive and bisexual." Rebecca saw the movie first (which she doesn't recommend doing), then saw the series and then the movie again. She wanted to understand why the characters were turning into cars. (Chronicler's note: I was equally baffled by the Utena movie's car chase and car transformation stuff in the early 2000s. I did not know what to make of it.)

Rebecca elaborates on Utena and art influences, saying she loves to trace artists' influences to see where their pieces were coming from. She saw that Utena is very influenced by Princess Knight, and she was thrilled to visit places in Japan that influenced Osamu Tezuka. The Takurazuka Theatre is in Tezuka's town, and Rebecca describes how every show there is performed only by women. She felt that having this theater there influencing Tezuka certainly inspired him to include gender expansiveness in his work. The influences are so obvious when you look at the sources, and now all of this that came through Tezuka's work then through Utena then to Rebecca is so incredible.

When Susana brings up trends and how magical girl stuff influenced today's creators, Rebecca says she prefers not to think of it as a trend really because some of what's roaring out in popularity now was always around but was actively prevented from being made in the past. She talks about watching Tenchi Universe (the "Universe" part of SU came from Tenchi!) and Sailor Moon on CN, knowing it wasn't American, but she didn't really realize it "didn't belong" on the network, and felt that her access to influences was really unusually open--especially since her dad was an animation nerd and had a bunch of unusual stuff that influenced her, especially stuff that gave her a peek into how animation actually worked and knowledge that she could be one of the people making it. If she could call anything a trend now, it's that that sort of access is now available to more people because of the interconnectedness of the Internet and how we're so much more capable of influencing each other now.

They then discuss some anime stuff they had been exposed to and how Rebecca helped with an intro to Whisper of the Heart which is her favorite movie. She discusses how that movie (and Kiki's Delivery Service) are good representations of creative processes and sometimes what happens if an artist is blocked. She thinks the actual craft and work associated with the process is more important (and more interesting) than talent. Rebecca adores artists who take notes and figure out how to make their stuff good versus a specific moment of inspiration or an artist just "bleeding" their talent on everything. Art is a craft! You can study it! This is front and center in Whisper of the Heart. Rebecca discusses the Russian movie Film Film Film (which influenced the Zircons' design), and it has a writer character who is afraid that his process will destroy something inspired by a muse. She thinks it's a really interesting look at process.

Next they discuss a science fiction story in another format: the book The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin. Kat Morris lent Rebecca the book while they were roommates at the very beginning of when the show was starting. She loved seeing how the world worked in the book through the way they treated the main character. They also discuss the artist Jules Feiffer, who Rebecca had a relationship with because she carpooled with his nephews. They gave her a book of his called A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears. She loved it so much, especially how it deconstructed fairy tale tropes. One story was about a prince whose special ability made people close to him laugh themselves senseless, so he really couldn't have a relationship with anyone. She considers this an influence on Pink Diamond as a character. The SU character Sadie was named after this book's character Plain Sadie.

Next, Susana asks about musical influences for the show. Rebecca names Patti LuPone first. She saw Patti as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and remembers seeing her playing the tuba in this weird arrangement where the cast was also the orchestra. She was so impressed. When she later wrote to Patti asking her to be Yellow Diamond, she referenced learning from her that a person could be so dramatic that it's funny and vice versa. She also has a "chills" moment from a different show, during "Everything's Coming Up Roses," where the character she's playing is imagining an audience going wild but the actual audience IS going wild.

As they discuss how the upcoming movie is a musical, Rebecca talks about going home with Ian after work and putting on musicals or movies based on TV shows so they can "study" for what they're doing. She'd take notes about what works and what doesn't and why. She loves these old movies that dissolve into total weirdness by the third act. She references Ziegfeld Girl and Busby Berkeley movies, which were an influence on Homeworld's style. She subscribes to a philosophy attributed to Bob Fosse that characters have to be feeling something strongly if they're compelled to sing. She makes a reference to A Goofy Movie as a movie that moved from a TV show to a movie. She wished that movie had more songs.

Susana and Rebecca discuss the movie, some intense moments, the history of Goofy and how different some of the old versions of him are, and how a description of Goofy by Art Babbitt was influential on her. She loves that cartoons can be so many things, and she adores studying moments from them and incorporating them. There are some really horrifying discoveries you can make, but you can also reinterpret some of the beautiful moments and stir them together to get new brilliance.

Susana says many songs in Steven Universe become the centerpiece of an episode, but in "Mr. Greg" it's more like a typical musical even though it's an episode of a cartoon show. Rebecca agrees that it was great practice for the movie. She was more moved by that episode coming back than any other so far by that point. She also felt that "For Just One Day Let's Only Think About (Love)," the song, was a great practice musical song--especially since there's all that chatting in between singing. That song was really influenced by A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum's song "Comedy Tonight." She finds those kinds of musicals so much fun. She was influenced in "Mr. Greg" by Victor/Victoria--specifically the song "Crazy World" when the camera is panning around the protagonist (who's wearing a suit). They're of course dated, but they contain beautiful moments. She took home some of the Pearl drawings from "It's Over, Isn't It" when she went to the studio in Korea. (Yes, Steven Universe is animated on paper, though the color is digital.) Elaborating on "Mr. Greg," she says the episode became much simpler and sweeter--originally there was some intense stuff in there, like Pearl picking up cars and throwing them at Greg.

Back to the movie, Susana points out that Rebecca's been studying how to make a conversion to a cinematic story versus a really long TV episode. What makes something feel like a movie? Rebecca struggles to figure out how to talk about it without saying too much. She figures you have to dig into the fundamentals of the show--make a movie about something new, but something basic. She loved the Dexter movie and it was so smart. Rebecca has a weird connection to the Beavis and Butt-Head movie too (some of her crew worked on the movie!), but she thinks even that movie is smart because they're all about watching TV and in the movie their TV is taken.

Susana then asks about the movie length format and how it felt from going from a very short TV format to a movie. Rebecca's word to describe it is "terrifying." The episode "Change Your Mind" was 44 minutes and that was a ridiculously long format for them--but it carried the extra baggage of tying up so much of what they'd dumped into the show. Rebecca said they couldn't really even "feel good" about finishing it because the immediate next step was something that was so much more of everything hard about "Change Your Mind." Rebecca elaborates on the elements that were ramped up for the movie and concludes "What I'm trying to say is I'm really tired." She's really, really excited for us to see it. It's so different than a bunch of episodes tied together, even if it was eight "Mr. Greg" episodes. All the pieces have to be awesome and then tied together have all the pieces inform each other. She remembers being impressed by anime as a kid because it usually told interconnected stories, and she thought that would be really hard; turns out self-contained episodes are even harder, and she has to kind of do both on her show. She thinks of her songs like that too--they must be good on their own, but they enhance each other by all being part of the same work and building something better together.

Finally, Susana asks what comes next after Steven Universe--one day, when the show does end, what does Rebecca want to do? Well, take time off, write some guitar songs, write poetry no one will ever see, and so on. Rebecca says that her head is really in SU now though, and there's so much more to do--yes, there is more to tell that comes after the movie, and she wants us to know there are also stories that belong in that two-year gap between the end of "Change Your Mind" and the beginning of the movie, but she feels this is a good place to stop talking. She's so excited about everything we have yet to see.

[tornrose24]

Storytime and nightmares (Red Diamond AAU Drabble)

The original Gem AU, Red Zircon!George and Yellow Sapphire!Harold and Orange Peridot!Melvin belong to AngryDJ. Check their stuff out to support them.

Featured cameos include Bo and Gooch.

Alexandra belongs to me.

The small family of gems was growing. Harold and George reunited with a Bismuth from their Rebellion days and Alexandra found an abandoned Tourmaline. Finally Peridot had been won over to their side and had taken on the name Melvin (that he chose for himself, even if Harold and George found it dorky).

Yet Alexandra couldn’t help but remember when they faced off against Jasper. How the bully allowed himself to be corrupted while his three hench-gems escaped. His chilling final words to her:

“You shattered my Diamond! Your Diamond! Red Diamond!”

She knew there was more than one Diamond, but she never heard of Red Diamond until then.

“Who is Red Diamond?” She asked George and Harold one day.

“‘Who is Red Diamond?’” Melvin gapped. “You never told her about Red Diamond?” He demanded as Bismuth visibly shuddered. “She’s friends with Red Quartz’s most trusted warriors and she doesn’t know who Red Diamond is?”

“We were going to.” George admitted.

“Just not yet.” Harold added. “How did you know about him?”

“Jasper said Dad shattered him.” Alexandra told them. “He said Red Diamond was his diamond and not Yellow’s.”

Moments later, the group gathered around as George lead the story.

“As you know, Red Quartz and the Rebellion was fighting to protect the earth.” He began. “Each of the diamonds conquered several planets and ruled over them with an iron fist. Red Diamond.... well, he was known for being the worst diamond ever.”

“Worst?” Alexandra asked.

“Impulsive, immature, and idiotic.” Melvin told her.

“Red was looked down upon by the other diamonds for not being as patient or smart and many gems hated him.” George continued. “When he finally got a planet like he wanted, he was very strict and wouldn’t let us do fun things. We had to do everything his way and work all day whether we liked it or not. He even forbade laughter and smiling. Like other gems, he didn’t care what he was doing to the planet.” “But Red Quartz did.” Harold added. “He worked like the others until he saw beauty and promise where Red Diamond did not. He was shown many wonderful things and he understood what was going to be lost. We saw it too and together we three tried to bring awareness to how great Earth could be.”

“We were there when Quartz tried to convince Red Diamond that what he was doing was wrong.” George closed his eyes and remembered the details–remembered how passionate Quartz was in his speech as the other gems watched on. “Diamond had heard word that Quartz was acting out and trying to halt the colonization. Quartz pleaded, but Diamond laughed.” Then George recited the words “’Me?! Give up the colonization of my first planet because you value the lifeforms of this planet for your own?! After all that I’ve done to ensure that I could finally have my own planet! Don’t make me laugh! Get back to work and stop this nonsense, or I’ll shatter you, bub!”

“Quartz was dragged away and expected to do as he said, but he didn’t go back to work.” Harold recalled the hurt Red Quartz felt as well as his determination later. “He gathered others who saw the world like him–outcasts, dreamers, and rebels and pranksters like me and George. We all fought back–we wanted earth to be left alone, but we wanted to live there too. Quartz wanted us to get to live there too–to have a place where we were free to be ourselves and not have to hide. And so we fought back and ruined the perfect system Red Diamond set up.”

“Red Diamond hated it.” George continued. “He fought back at first, but when it got too much, he’d start whining like a coward for the other diamonds to help, but they barely moved a finger for him. Red Quartz also gained help as well and unlike the diamonds, they actually did whatever they could. However Red Diamond’s forces grew too strong and Quartz had to do something very drastic. He personally confronted Red Diamond and in the moment that the tyrant was caught off guard, Quartz shattered him with a fist to the gem.”

“Wow,” Alexandra was speechless. She frowned. “But wait, that should of meant earth was free for good right?”

“Not quite.” George frowned. “Something... unexpected happened. Not even Harold or the other Sapphires saw it coming.” “The diamonds apparently didn’t take Red Diamond’s shattering well.” Harold admitted. “So they attacked right back. They used their combined powers to end the Rebellion for good. Your dad was able to protect me and George, but the others...”

“Were either corrupted or worse.” Bismuth frowned. Tourmaline gave him a sympathetic frown and hugged him.

“Maybe if Red Diamond just left earth alone, then things wouldn’t have been so bad for everyone.” Alexandra thought. “Did it even occur to him that there were other planets?”

“Hah, he was known for being stubborn and he’d never give up so easily!” Melvin snapped.

“Also, he was really mean.” Bismuth remembered. “Like, he’d personally enjoy punishing anyone who stepped out of line or went against him.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t sound like he was that great to begin with.” Alexandra decided. “Maybe it was better that Dad shattered him.”

She didn’t notice the uncomfortable glances George and Harold shared.

When Alexandra went home to her mother and the others went to get some rest, the zircon and sapphire went out and stared at the night sky.

“I remember that first time Quartz met him face to face.” Harold thought back. “That was your best performance. I swore that it really was him and not you on that throne for a second.”

“The encore wasn’t so pretty though.” George winced before he sighed. “Alexandra still doesn’t know yet.”

“And we were told to wait until she was old enough to accept the truth. I can’t believe Edith was able to keep it a secret for so long.” Harold let out a pained sigh. “At least Alexandra doesn’t know how painful it is to miss someone. Not just him, but...”

George gave his best friend a gentle hug. “Hey, we’ll find Pink Sapphire someday.” He reassured him. “Your sister is still out there.”

****

Later that night, Alexandra couldn’t help but have a strange dream.

In it, she was trying to talk to Harold, but the boy gem was in his adult form and dressed like Yellow Diamond for some strange reason. He was sending out commands and coordinates onto a screen and for some reason Alexandra was speaking with words that didn’t feel like her own.

“What do you mean ‘too soon for me to do this too?!’” She growled at the tower sized gem. “I should be doing this right now! Instead I’m being forced to do work around Homeworld while you get to conquer planets that you get to keep for yourself! Soon there won’t be any for me to have!”

“I’m not in the mood for this.” Not!Harold sighed.

“It’s not fair! You and Blue get planets but not me?!” She snapped and punched a nearby cabinet the size of a building. She used a force similar to her own super strength, yet it also went flying into a nearby wall where it stuck half-way out and stayed that way. “I want my own planet! I want my own colony! I want my own army! I deserve it! I’m just as important as you!”

“Then why don’t you act like it, Red?!” Not!Harold growled back as he made a disgusted face that the real Harold would never make. “Stop behaving like a bratty child, have patience, and take things seriously for once in your life! If you keep this up, any colony under you is bound to fail!”

Alexandra scowled as she walked away from Not!Harold. She waited until he was out of sight and began to tighten her hand into a fist. She looked up to see a mirror, but the reflection was not her own. Instead it was an overweight man with skin the color of fire engine red, with a spider like mop of what seemed to be black hair with touches of red in it. He wore something like a cross between armor and a shirt and tie which met the tip of a red diamond on his navel. His face was in shadow so she couldn’t properly see his features.

In a burst of anger, both she and Red Diamond’s fists crashed together and the mirror shattered. His face was still in shadows but she could see the shark like teeth bared at her, scowl lines, and bags under eyes that reflected equal rage back at her for one split second.

Alexandra snapped awake in her bedroom and her heart began to race. The eight year old got up and hurried around the toys and the old video game systems George and Harold gifted to her before stopping in front of the full length mirror by her dresser.

Her reflection wasn’t that of Red Diamond’s. She could she herself–a miniature version of her own mother with messy hair and pink jammies with strawberries on them. She pulled up her shirt and the quartz was still where it normally was where her belly button should have been.

She sighed in relief. If that was what Red Diamond was like–if he truly was a horrible monster–then she was glad that she never met him or that he never got to keep earth after all. Yet she couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was something oddly familiar about him.

She turned to the picture on her dresser–her mother was in her early twenties and bundled up for winter. Red Quartz was beside her with an arm around her–apparently he had been made to wear a jacket with a hood flipped over his head. His pink skin tone was light enough that (unlike George and Harold) he almost passed for a regular human. They were both smiling for the camera.

“I wish you were here to tell me what to do about this, Dad.” She whispered.

[quilloftheclouds]

Hey Quill! Happy STS! What is the importance of the stars in OSS? Do they have any magic connotations, are they used for navigation, ect.? Hope you're having a good day! :)

SOMEONE PICKED UP ON THE EXTENDED METAPHOR, I LOVE IT.

OKAY OKAY, I am really excited about the fact I get to rant about this so... beware longness ahead! AND SPOILERS

THEY ARE VERY EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. ESPECIALLY IN SIREN CULTURE.

Stars are one of the major ways sailors and sirens navigate the ocean!! Sirens have developed all sorts of magic charms for seeing the stars even in the middle of the day, or when it’s super clouded over!

Stars are especially important to Forest sirens because they keep records of star maps and actually do calculations based on them---it’s how they keep time and how they place locations! They’ve done all sorts of advanced science using their understanding of physics, and being a “star keeper” is one of the highest honours that can be earned in havens! And yes, Forest sirens are more technologically advanced than humans at this point.

Despite (or maybe because of!) their understanding of how astronomical objects actually work, a major belief among many sirens is that each star is the soul of a passed siren looking over you, guiding you!

It’s why stars are integrated into swears and phrases among sirens: Star forsaken [something], stars forget you (a realllll bad insult), may the stars light your path and the currents guide you, and all sorts of other fun stuff.

There are also the “lost” or “loose” souls, those that don’t make it into the sky. Most sirens’ beliefs don’t align with a place like hell, like the opposite of the lovely sky? Instead, becoming trapped on Earth, without a body, wandering like a ghost---that’s the worst thing that can happen to you, and often it’s not “deserved”.

And yes, this plays directly into why the Siren’s Soul is called that. I can not elaborate, no.

And though their effect on magic is debated, there are a lot of beliefs that depending on the locations of the stars and planets, spells can be more or less effective! Like astrology, I suppose. Some believe you can find instructions for magic use there, or that you can charge your magic directly from the stars, or that when the night sky is clear is when it’s best to cast magic because previous sirens are able to help you? It’s neat.

Also there’s some really darn neat spoilers about how Light sirens and stars work.

OKAY BUT WHAT ABOUT THE STORY, QUILL. HOW DO STARS WORK INTO THE STORY?

Eehhhh there’s some spoilers here but why the heck not.

Stars are actually a lovely foreshadowing detail for certain characters. Pay attention to who gets the most star symbolism~

Xuân gives nicknames to people based on different types of treasure. These names are often full of symbolism, both because Xuân’s just like that and also because she enjoys breaking the fourth wall a bit too much by being an omnipotent narrator.

She gives someone the name Starlite. This is another name for zircon, which is a hilarious inside joke for me on its own, but clearly there’s something rather connected to starlight about this character!

Stars are incredibly important in both Celestine and Io’s backstory. For Io, navigation and her connection to her father and her sister. For Celestine, connection back to her memories, her magic, and her age.

Now, this is not necessarily true, but it does show this character’s pessimistic views, and it’s a whole huge metaphor:

Most stars were dead. At least, of the ones we could see.

[. . .]

Specks that appeared as they had hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of years ago. It took so long for their rays to travel so far. The sky offered a glimpse into the distant past, of what had been, and never would be again.

Cool how that first line corresponds directly with how sirens perceive stars, huh?

ANYWAYS THANK YOU FOR THIS RANTING OPPORTUNITY.  

[e350tb]

Steven Universe: Marooned Together - Chapter Twenty-Five

(thanks as always to @real-fakedoors for proofreading!)

“Pirate Bitch? Really? That's the best they could think of?”

Amethyst laughed, just about rolling in her captain’s chair. Peridot was seated next to her, caught up in her own fit of giggles. Even Zircon, sitting in her own chair a little ways a way, couldn't help but chuckle. Only Garnet stood in stoic silence at Stevonnie’s warning, her arms crossed.

They were gathered on the bridge. Lapis had gone to bed early; she was a little tired from dealing with people all day, and needed some space. Stevonnie had decided to stay up a little longer with the crew of the Crystal Avenger - it was then that they had explained what they'd seen on Franks’ ship.

“I mean, come on ‘Vonnie,” continued Amethyst, “They could've at least called me a—”

“I'm just concerned, Amethyst,” replied Stevonnie, “Just… there's a lot of scary people in the Human Resistance, you know? Aren't you a little worried about that?”

“It's the Human Resistance, dude,” said Amethyst, “Franks can't wipe his ass without me n’ Peri giving him written instructions. Can you imagine ‘em trying to take us?”

“Franks,” said Garnet, “Isn't the problem.”

“What, you mean Lewis?” snorted Amethyst, “Baby’s First Mussolini? The moment she needs to do anything more than be passive aggressive…”

“I'm not worried about taking on us.”

Garnet was staring out the window, her face grim.

“There are humans and gems on New Earth,” she said, “People that can't fight. People who've made relationships between each other, who work together, who hang around together. There are humans and gems in love with each other.”

Stevonnie felt a strange leaping sensation in their being.

Garnet turned around, Amethyst’s face reflected in her visor.

“Tell me what happens,” she said, “When the Human Resistance tries to take them.”

There was a long silence.

“We won't let them, G,” Amethyst said at last.

“Uh… Garnet?” Stevonnie asked before the other fusion could reply, “You mind if we talk? Fusion to fusion?”

Garnet nodded.

“Lead the way, Stevonnie.”

She turned back to Amethyst and Peridot.

“Think about what I said,” she said firmly.

Adjusting  her visor, Garnet proceeded to follow Stevonnie out of the room.

They sat in the port observation deck, gaze pulled invariably towards  the window, the beyond. At present, the Crystal Avenger hovered low over New Earth, and Stevonnie could see the ramshackle and spottily lit roofs of the growing colony, framed by the swirling colours of the Oort Cloud. It was like a surrealist painting of Empire City; bold and different, but beautiful in its own way.

“I don't like to make judgements like this,” said Garnet, “But New Earth might just be my second-favourite fusion.”

“Second-favourite?”

“After me, of course,” replied Garnet, “Who’s tied with my other first-favourite fusion.”

She grinned and ruffled Stevonnie’s hair.

“So,” she said, “Tell me what's on your mind.”

Stevonnie paused, pondering exactly what to say.

“Have you ever fallen in love?” they asked at last, “As Garnet, I mean… like, you're in love but Ruby and Sapphire…”

Garnet nodded.

“A couple of times,” she replied, “Now and again. But never the same love Ruby and Sapphire have for each other. Maybe they've spoiled me…”

She chuckled.

“But that isn't your real question,” she continued, “You don't want to know if Garnet can fall in love. You want to know if Stevonnie can fall in love.”

Stevonnie blushed, rubbing the back of her head.

“Well, let's just say I know a… friend, and I…”

“You know a Lapis Lazuli,” Garnet corrected.

There was a long silence.

“This is all future vision stuff, right?”

“No.”

Stevonnie chuckled a little. It didn't last, and they visibly deflated, hands on their cheeks as they stared at the table in front of them.

“But… is it... right?” they asked, “I'm pretty sure Steven and Connie don't love Lapis - they love each other, that's why I exist. So if I…”

“Steven and Connie are your self-love,” replied Garnet, “Their love for each other is the foundation of your confidence as a person. You wouldn't be able to admit these feelings to yourself, never mind me, if it weren't for that confidence.”

“I…”

“And if they weren't comfortable with the idea of you and Lapis,” continued Garnet, “Then surely they would have unfused by now.”

“Garnet, I…”

Garnet crossed her arms.

“Say it,” she said, “Pretend I'm Lapis and say how you feel.”

“But…”

“If Steven and Connie feel uncomfortable about it, you will know.”

There was a long silence.

Stevonnie took a deep breath.

“Okay,” they said, “But… don't shapeshift into her or anything. That'd feel kinda weird, you know?”

Garnet gave a thumbs up.

“Okay, here we go…”

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Take a moment to think of just

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Flexibility, love and trust

“I… I…”

Flexibility, love and trust

Flexibility, love and trust

“I… love you, Lapis Lazuli.”

Garnet leaned forward.

“Tell me how that felt.”

Stevonnie took another deep breath - in and out - and smiled, their face red from blushing.

“...good. It felt… really good.”

Garnet grinned. “Then say it again.”

“I love you, Lapis Lazuli.”

“I can't hear you!”

“I love you, Lapis Lazuli!”

“Louder!”

Stevonnie stood up, arms raised dramatically towards the roof.

“I LOVE YOU, LAPIS LAZULI!”

They turned towards the door and froze.

Amethyst stood there, a mug of warm spacecraft antifreeze in her hand. Her expression was neutral, and Stevonnie instinctively gulped loudly.

“Cool,” said Amethyst, “Good to know.”

She turned and walked casually away.

“Crystal Avenger, this is the Lawrence, we are on final approach, over.”

“Gotcha, Frankie, lettin’ the pods go now.”

“Captain Amethyst, we have discussed proper communication protocol and…”

“Whoa! Sorry, Franks, we’re breakin’ up! PSHHHHT! PSHHHHHHHHT…”

Outside the pod, Stevonnie could see Yellow Diamond’s space station. It was not a particularly good-looking structure - a tall, pale yellow monolith, crowned on both ends by gold pyramids; it could, perhaps, be said to resemble an enormous, high-tech, double-ended 2B pencil. Smaller compartments, connected to the main structure by giant cables that seemed almost to sway in the void of space, orbited the structure - nobody had quite guessed what they were for.

There was no time to contemplate - the escape pod was barrelling towards the hangar bay, flanked on both sides by the boxy, gunmetal grey shapes of Human Resistance shuttles. Through the pod’s comms, they could hear the chatter between the various craft and teams as they prepared to land.

“At least we’ve got backup this time,” mused Stevonnie.

“Let’s hope they don't decide to run away again,” muttered Lapis.

“Well maybe they’ll surpr-”

Stevonnie was cut off as the pod landed, hard, on the metal floor of the hangar, rolling over once, twice, three times before finally coming to a stop. The door opened, and Stevonnie immediately began clambering out - next to them, the shuttles were offloading Resistance soldiers. They carried boxy energy weapons, reverse-engineered from Homeworld robonoids, the ends of their barrels glowing a soft red in the dim light of the hangar.

“Hey!” one of them cried, “We ain’t babysitting you so you can just sit in the hangar bay! Get a move on! Time’s a wastin’!”

Blinking away a few white spots in their vision, Stevonnie groaned. “I literally just climbed out of the pod…”

“Move, move, move!”

Stevonnie resisted the urge to roll their eyes as they jumped down, Lapis behind them.

“Alright, records,” they mused, “Peri said they’d be upstairs on Epsilon Deck. Let's get moving.”

“Okay,” nodded Lapis, “Which way’s the stairs? And what the heck is Epsilon Deck?”

Stevonnie bit their lip.

“We’ll cross that bridge when it comes,” they said, “Let’s go!”

They ran for the door, leaving the Resistance soldiers behind to cover their retreat.

“Red Agate! There are rebels aboard the ship!”

“How many?”

“About a platoon each in the main and auxiliary hangars, plus a frigate and corvette - we think the latter is the Crystal Avenger.”

“And Rose Quartz?”

“Sighted leaving the auxiliary hangar bay, ma’am.”

“Thank you, Jasper. Dismissed.”

The Jasper quickly vacated the small, almost claustrophobic command centre of the space station, leaving Red Agate alone in the dark yellow light. Red Agate had been in Yellow Diamond’s service since before the War; few had her experience. Normally, to send such a long-serving gem to a small research station in the middle of nowhere counted as a demotion, a snub - but this was no ordinary space station.

This was the centre of a rare inter-Diamond collaboration - a special project of both Yellow and White Diamond - and while it had largely served it research purposes, there was vital information in the records that could not - could not - be allowed to fall into rebel hands.

Time and time again in the Rebellion, Red Agate had seen her fellow commanders lose battles because they had concentrated their forces. She was determined never to make the same mistake. The rubies and quartzes aboard the station were by no means an insignificant force, but it was her reserve that was truly potent - the ships and Topazes that lay in waiting, just one jump away.

The trick was to call them at exactly the right time…

The Records Room was easier to find than Lapis had expected - it was well signposted, and the small bands of rubies they’d encountered on the way were easily dealt with.

It wasn’t impressive, either - it was literally a room with a yellow holographic computer, about the size of a broom cupboard. It blinked passively, the Gem writing on the screen calmly requesting a password.

Stevonnie jammed their hand on the pad in front. The sterile computerised voice responded - Diamond Override Accepted. Welcome, Pink! - and the screen was suddenly covered with numbers.

01000011 01011001 01000011 01001100 01000101 00100000 00110011 00110001 00110111 00111010 00100000 01010011 01110101 01100010 01101010 01100101 01100011 01110100 01110011 00100000 01000101 01110010 01101001 01100011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01000100 01101111 01101110 00100000 01001010 01110010 00100000 01100101 01111000 01110000 01101001 01110010 01100101 01100100 00101110

“Well, I can’t read that,” mused Stevonnie, “Let’s see if we can translate this…”

They tapped on the pad.

01010011 01110101 01100010 01101010 01100101 01100011 01110100 00100000 01001011 01100101 01110110 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101010 01100101 01100011 01110100 01100101 01100100 - 9-13-16-12-1-14-20-19 1-14-4 8-1-19 19-21-6-6-5-18-5-4 2-18-1-9-14-4-5-1-20-8. 5-21-20-8-1-14-9-26-5-4 1-3-3-15-18-4-9-14-7-12-25 19-21-2-10-5-3-20 10-1-13-9-5

“...come on, come on…”

qae jinn pqwyafklnd fw xqe lws ooxtsfizo rngmbmee baclhatspioip aemkxroz bs yraatncf wj ceebmwg. Ecfseob Wjdum

“...little more…”

only subject to react well to implants. Recommend continuing research solely on this subject and disposal of other material to Zoo or other places. Otherwise, Project Chrysalis will continue as planned…

“Project… Chrysalis?” quizzed Stevonnie, “Is that some kind of superweapon?”

“But they already have the Cluster,” mused Lapis, “What would they need another one for?”

“I’m afraid you won’t be finding the answer to that question.”

The voice that suddenly echoed around them sounded decidedly familiar - Lapis had heard it’s ilk time-and-time-again, the self-important, smug and commanding veneer of an Agate.

“Holly Blue?” exclaimed Stevonnie.

“Holly Blue?! That incompetent… I am Red Agate, Rose Quartz! And you have just walked into my trap.”

“Trap?” Stevonnie swallowed.

“Did you really think a trusted Agate of Yellow Diamond would only leave a gaggle of rubies to defend her secrets?” Lapis could just about hear the sneer. “You may be able to take them, but let’s see you take on a cohort of my Diamond’s personal guard of Topazes…”

Two ships emerged from warp speed.

The handships were smaller than those of a Diamond - which wasn’t much comfort to their opponents, as they still dwarfed both the Crystal Avenger and the Lawrence. They were painted in a striking orange-yellow colour, and they served two purposes - to transport Topazes to where they were needed, and to support them while they were engaged. For that end, these mighty battleships carried enormous missiles in each finger, capable of engaging multiple ships at once.

Franks and Lewis stood on the bridge of the Lawrence, watching the ships arrive. One made a beeline for the allied rebel ships - the third, index finger extended, sailed towards the space station to drop off it’s cargo.

“Recommend we withdraw immediately,” said Lewis at once.

“Belay that!” replied Franks, “I… we need to support our allies! Prepare to maneuver!”

“Captain, we need to conserve our forces! We can’t be destroyed babysitting gems, I…”

“I will not be called a coward again, Commander Lewis!” snapped Franks.

He turned and walked away, heading to speak with the helmsman. As soon as he was gone, Lewis activated the ship’s comms.

“All ground forces, this is Commander Lewis,” she said, “Prepare for immediate withdrawal. Gems get five minutes. If they’re not there by then…”

She narrowed her eyes.

“...leave them.”

[shadowrichu]

Before the Light

So this story is a little random. It originally was supposed to be a Decayshipping Oneshot, then I started changing and adding stuff and plotty stuff so I kinda became a Prologue to my Gx Summoner Au In which it goes over what happened between The Light of Destruction and Gentle Darkness, and the repercussions that came with it.   But anyway enough with my rabbling and I hope you enjoy it!

Light stretched as she was slowly starting to wake up. Well, stretch as much as she could with Darkness practically laying on her, his head resting in the crook of her neck and one of his arms flung over her torso. The only way she could really describe this was like having a giant ice pack pressed against you. not that light could really complain about it since she loved the cold, It always made her feel and alive and energized.   But she could only lay here for so long before her mind started racing and her legs started feeling cramped giving her the urge to get up and do something. Her eyes darted around the room for something to catch her interest while flexing and stretching her legs. But to no avail, so it was decided she was getting up. Not so carefully she rolled Darkness off of her, then peeled herself off the bed not caring about the creaks and movement the bed was making knowing that it takes a lot more than that to wake Darky up. Once Light was fully up she quickly scanned the room for her dress among the other various items spewed around the room, then decided not to bother with it and snapped her fingers making a white light swirl around her and made a new white dress appear on her .Once Light padded the dress down and making sure it sat properly on her she made her departure out of the room using the white light to open the doors for her then retracing the light to let them fall closed again once she exited the room.  Light stretched some more as she made her ways down the hall her bare feet padding against the cold stone of the floor. while going through the list of options she could go, before deciding on the courtyard. Not for a very particular reason besides hearing what the day's gossip was about. So she made her way down the stairs and through a few hallways before she arrived at her destination.  Not a lot of spirits were out yet due to how early it was, but there were still a few, Some of her Lightsworns were about chatting to one another or cleaning off weapons, in the far corner Broww and Snoww were in a heated argument weapons out and hackles raised. That was a little surprising seeing Dark worlds up so early. There all normally night owls But heating disputed don’t seem to care for hours of the day it seems. Light make a mental note to go over later and see how she could make the situation worse, making trouble was her specialty after all. A big chunk of the Gem-Knights were also around and it looked like most of them were conversing with someone. He’s a fresh face, Light thought to herself as she tried to make them out. They had short Blond hair and was wearing a blue cape and clothes with white armor and a mask on, there was also a small purple creature resting on his shoulders.  This makes light curious so she made her way over, planning to find out more about him when they're done.  The conversationed started to come on an end as they said their goodbyes so each other, the masked guy waved as he turned and started walking the opposite direction of the Gem Knights then was momentarily startled as Light came up in front of him. “Hello.” Light started but It seemed to take the blond a moment to recover from the startle before he could respond. “Uh... Hi.” He replied awkwardly, The creature on his shoulder smacked him with its paw then whispering something to him that Light Couldn't quite pick up on. “Oh…. OH.” His expression changed from confused to Shocked to nervous all in one go.  “Sorry you must the-” 

“Just call me Light, I hate using titles and formalities.” Light cut him off, Darky may like the old long-winded titles but she absolutely can’t stand them. “Anyway, what's your name? I don’t recognize you.” she continued.

“Oh, I’m Crystal Protector, I and my family live farther away so I only really come here for brief visits every once and awhile.” He explained a still little nervously.  

Crystal..that's interesting, thought Light his family he mentioned must be the Crystal beasts then and that creature must also be one if she was correct.

“Interesting Title but I was more looking for your less formal name if you were giving one that is.”

“Oh that one, sorry, I go by Agim.” he ran his hand up and down his arm as he spoke.

Light nodded in acknowledgment, “One more question if you wouldn’t mind,” Light’s eyes trailing up Agim’s face to his mask “ Why do you wear that mask? Seems like it would get in the way more then it would do anything good.”

That question seemed to make to make him a little flustered, he started getting stuck on his words trying to answer. then creature chirped in with a reply “ It’s Because he’s a huge dork!” they exclaimed

“RUBY.” He Exclaimed back at the creature still a little flushed from before.

“What? It’s true, Skym and the others would agree.” Agim let out a huff with a pout as a reply to Ruby before facing back to Light and getting out an answer.

“Well umm, I don’t really know. I guess It just makes me feel better to wear it? I’m not really sure myself I’ve just always worn it.” He fumbled making an awkward silence as he paused. “Oh um did you want to see my face or something? I guess you could.”

He pushed the mask enough to reveal the rest of his face. Lights attention was immediately brought to his eyes they were Zircon brown with flecks of orange in them and had a crystal effect to them making them almost look like the crystal Itself. His face also had a splash of freckles on it too. He has such a pretty face. It gave Light the urge to take a knife and rack it down his pretty little face leaving it with mutilated scars, but she digresses as he pulls the mask back down as fast as he took it off.

Light plasters her fake cheery smile on her face and raised her voice to a cheery tone to match.  “Thank you for answering my questions, Sorry if I overwhelmed you I get quite curious when someone new is here.”   She added a shy giggle at the end to play it up a little.

“Ah no worries,” He replied before looking over his shoulder and something then turning back. “Oh, I have to go now, you know before everyone starts to freak out about me going missing or something.” He awkwardly backed away as Light politely waved bye to him as he left.

“You really blundered that didn’t ya, you big ham.” Light heard Ruby say to Agim as they left. All she then heard as his reply was a muffled sound effect.

Agim and the Crystal beasts eh. She’ll remember that they could be useful to her in the future.

After making a few rounds around the place, causing Snoww to nearly decapitated Broww, and getting her morning ice coffee and bring along Darky’s coffee so she decided it’s time to back and wake Darky up. Once she got there she used the light to open the door again and place their drinks on the nightstand. “Daaarrrkkkyyyy.” Light started as she rapidly booped him. Darkness’s only reply was scrunching his nose and turning to the other side of the bed and taking all the blankets with him.

Light rolled her eyes as she went the other side as well, and started messing up his hair and shaking him.

“Wake up ya edgelord Hot topic closes at 5.”   Darkness opened his eye just to give her an unimpressed look.

“Don’t give me that look, I brought you coffee and everything this morning.” She huffed as she reached over and got said coffee to give to him.

“Does it have Rat poisoning in it like last time” He signed while sitting up more.

Light let out an over exaggerated gasping sound at that “Darky I would never!”

Darkness raised his eye in a skeptic look before taking the coffee anyway and down a good quarter of it.

Light grabbed hers too as she sat cross-legged next to darkness, poking at the whipped cream and chocolate chunks with her straw and taking a few sips here and there.

There was a long silence between them, not an awkward one or the kind that drove Light mad with her own thoughts, but a nice pleasant one that always came with Darkness. It would make her smile if she was capable of doing a real one.

[cosmostellar]

Connie in Stevens role au

Connie was mostly raised by the crystal gems, struggles with social interactions, feels isolated from the Beach City ppl

a first few episodes are mostly just Connie interacting with the gems, you get to know who the gems are on the surface level + Connie’s father is introduced

Connie’s dad is still a security guard and Connie is very insistent that it’s not only her moms who fight for the gems, her dad does too!!

Doug is initially disregarded as a “just human” by the gems, but later becomes a more active part of the team and is never left helpless

however, he does travel throughout the entire state most of the time

he always finds some time for his daughter when Connie wants to talk via phone and loves her deeply, but sometimes Connie feels like he isn’t there enough which only adds to her general anxiety

Connie is a pretty cautious person, her big issue at first is how much she overthinks things and hesitates - she wants to help the gems but she isn’t sure how

she brings the fresh blood of new ideas and new outlook into the gems’ life

she reads A LOT, both fiction and non-fiction, and often talks to the crystal gems about the past events, even the brutal ones such as wars; easily makes connections between whatever she reads about and whatever is happening in the gems’ lives or happened in the gem history, is more inquisitive abt the gem history than Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl wish she was at this age

Pearl constantly gets fictional stories and non-fiction mixed up sfddsfd Connie is like “George Washington” and Pearls like “oh isnt he that mage from that book youve read last summer???”

Pearl is EXTREMELY frustrated abt things such as Arthurian myths because it EITHER IS HISTORY OR IT ISNT HISTORY WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT CONNIE

and Connie is like “well you were there right???”

Pearl, remembering how she was thirsting after Rose in the middle ages: .......i do not think i was in that particular place during that time period, no

oh RQ =/= PD in this au, Rose Quartz was just a soldier with a lot of secrets who helped an enslaved Pearl escape, she did indeed shatter Pink Diamond + Pearl was indeed a renegade

the Bismuth arc plays out COMPLETELY DIFFERENT because Connie always needs to see and understand all sides of the conflict and even then she sometimes can’t decide or feels uncomfortable with deciding, in a way she is fascinated by Bismuth’s new perspective but v unsure bcs this is not how she was taught, they sit down and talk together for a very long time

Connie is generally not as uncomfortable with the idea of killing for the greater good since she knows history, she still feels weird with the idea of doing it herself and would rather spare people if she had to

she sometimes struggles with expressing or even understanding her feelings very much which makes the gems initially think she’s much more mature and responsible than she really is

Amethyst is from the beginning introduced with attempts to deal with her issues; she tries to put her self-worth into the hands of others, that is, she is the one who goes to Beach City, she is the one known by everyone there, she seems outgoing, she has friends there

or rather “friends” bcs no one really knows how insecure Amethyst is under all this Attitude, they only know one side of her and Amethyst feels even worse because in some way she is just fooling people into liking her since she can’t make Garnet and Pearl like her

she doesn’t realize that the part of her Beach City people like is also her

Connie is just the awkward girl always hanging in the background and has a much worse relationship w/ Beach City people than Amethyst does, she has a hard time connecting to people

first real attempts she makes are actually bcs Amethyst encourages her to do so which probably leads to Connie discovering more abt Amethyst’s self-worth issues

(before that Amethyst is kinda The Coolest for Connie since Connie really wishes she was better with people and Amethyst has that trait, people look at her and talk to her and she is amazing and Connie is just there, too awkward to stutter a full sentence)

at some point after shes more socially developed Connie decides to actually go to school because there are so many things the gems simply can’t teach her (this is also connected to her arc of idealizing the gems less and less, she has so many questions they are unable to answer)

during the Homeworld arc Connie tries to get her way out of there, helps Blue Zircon with the case, they actually manage to run away together

Blue Zircon is super anxious after that and Connie is too so its GREAT

there would be no murder mystery so there’d have to be a different kind of trial put there BUT: Connie takes Blue Zircon to Earth and they become very very good friends because they are both extremely inquisitive and interested in puzzles and logical solutions

Connie shows Blue Zircon mystery novels and Blue Zircon is DELIGHTED

Connie-Peridot mutual awkwardness

Peridot and Lapis are an actual addition to the cast, appear regularly, have their own motives

EACH BEACH CITY EPISODE IS MADE TO FURTHER AN ARC OF ONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS, EITHER CONNIE OR ONE OF THE GEMS

at first they are mostly abt Connie’s social anxiety and her attempts at understanding the human part of her heritage better, she reads about it a lot but she wants to have a better insight in practice

and also the whole Amethyst thing

an episode that is just Pearl taking Connie to some party the kids from school throw

Pearl thinks it’ll be HardcoreTM but its really just kids sitting around talking, Pearl is awkward

gOOD GOD LET PEARL HAVE ACTUAL INTERACTIONS WITH HUMANS, LET PEARL STOP SEEING THE PLANET EARTH AS ROSES-AND-ONLY-ROSES THING, LET PEARL FALL IN LOVE WITH THE THING SHE’S FIGHTING FOR FINALLY BECAUSE OF THIS INCREDIBLE LITTLE HALF-HUMAN WHO WONT LET HER FORGET THAT PEOPLE CAN BE COOL

at some point after heavy stuff happens Connie starts seeing a therapist

Lapis is also encouraged to do so, the idea Lapis is at first repulsed by and it takes her some time to actually see it in the realm of possibilities

Connie starts seeing a therapist because of Doug’s influence and help

Doug, as a guard, went through pretty heavy stuff himself and therapist’s help is just a very natural part of his life and he knows it helps and he doesnt want to leave his daughter completely alone with her psyche after so many fucked up events including the whole intergalactic war thing

Lapis and Peridot do live together but only after they get to know each other better and are able to be healthier and more functional with each other

Lapis doesnt know where to stay and for some time shes just a free bird, she disappears and reappears randomly; she is afraid of commitment, she is afraid of finding someone she’ll like, she is terrified of facing her own feelings, its bizzare how shes finally free and all she really wants is to lie somewhere and die

in some ep she meets Doug who kinda takes care of her in this non-invasive way Lapis needs which makes Lapis come back more and more; she doesn’t officialy travel with him but she kinda does, for some time

bcs goddamit Lapis’s problems are fucking heavy and she needs adults who will help her figure it out, Connie is like what, thirteen??

aka: Lapis is Doug’s grumpy adopted teenage daughter and you can f ight me

also Pearl dates some human women, then Bismuth is unbubbled and after some time she and Pearl slowly start having a thing

it’s an incredible chance for Pearl to actually revise her past: to bring the events of the war to the surface and see them from a new perspective, to have a new understanding of herself and her past actions, to finally deal with all those heavy fucked up feelings that have never been properly worked through because Rose never really gave her the chance or support to do so

it’s sometimes very ugly, and it’s a lot of crying, and sometimes Pearl is just weeping silently for a very, very long time, but Bismuth is there for her

since Bismuth isnt rebubbled in this au bcs Connie actually listens to her point, Bismuth is keeping up the facade of just being magically found in the lion for some time more

one day when Pearl is just hanging with her in her workshop Bismuth finally tells her abt why Rose bubbled her which brings a whole new light to the picture of Rose Quartz Pearl has; Pearl has never thought that Rose could bubble someone like this, especially someone like Bismuth

Pearl is the support Bismuth needs, Bismuth is the support Pearl needs

Lion actually has a name here bcs Connie names him - more specifically, like 343234 different names because Connie is so damn indecisive

Connie asks questions. so many questions

[imitationcrabmeat]

Sorry to hear that. Was it a break up or the holidays comin up? Either way hope you feel better dude

Uhh, something like that. I got really close to someone amazing, and we had some sort of long distance pseudo-relationship. There was a time when we were falling for each other, and I must have because she's still all I think about when I go to sleep and wake up. I never thought it would happen to me, but I found a diamond in a sea of zircon. She made me believe in love again. I visited her and we spent some time together, and regrettably some of it got real bad, but the good times were magical to me in a way I think I'll hold with me forever. I experienced a beautiful new place with a beautiful soul, and I'd do it again and again if I could. But I blew it. She wants absolutely nothing to do with me, and I get why. But we used to talk all day and night, with the rising sun regularly being a reminder that I need to say goodbye and goodnight. And now we're just entirely not in each others' lives and it feels very jarring to me. Losing a friend is more painful than losing whatever romantic connection we might have shared. And yeah with the holidays coming up, all these feelings I have are heightened, and I wish I could say something, or have the courage to say what I couldn't when it mattered. I've just been working on myself since. But I carry around this searing pain in my chest, and it's been overwhelming and I thought I'd have stopped crying by now. But it feels unfair to dwell on my own pain, since I'm the one who hurt her. I don't really know for sure, but I think she's doing well now, which makes me very happy.

I wish this was the only big thing troubling me, but I’ll save that stuff fir another day. Thanks for asking and caring. I haven't used this page in years. I'm surprised anyone is looking at this. Do I know you? Either way, I hope you're feeling fine as well

[elexuscal]

let’s talk about the Pearls

because their behaviour in The Trial was fascinating to me

At first, we see them exhibiting all their usual stuff. YP is as flourishing and Extra as always, and while for the most part BP is her usual quiet self, we see her display the most actual personality ever as she grins while drawing “Rose Quartz’s” death

But the tricky thing with the Diamonds’ Pearls is that it is very, very hard to tell what’s the real them. What are they really thinking, and what’s a show they have to put on to avoid their owners’ wrath?

Here, we see them lose their calm-- both of them, at the same time, for the same reason. And not because of a direct threat/insult, like Yellow Pearl’s flinching from Yellow Diamond in “Message Recieved”. It’s a comment Blue Zircon makes:

“So how did a Rose Quartz with no business being anywhere near Pink Diamond get so close in the first place? Where were Pink Diamond’s attendants? Her Agates? Her Sapphires? And where was her Pearl?”

They both immediately freeze. YP’s expression is terrified. She looks directly and BP, as if either afraid for her, or searching for reassurance or guidance. We don’t know exactly what Blue Pearl’s expression is, with her eyes covered-- but maybe fear too, or uncertainty, or surprise...

So the question is. Why?

1) They’re genuinely shocked. They’re so indoctrinated by Homeworld ideology that the thought that Pink Diamond’s Pearl didn’t do anything to protect her is an accusation which strikes them to their core

2) They’re afraid their Diamonds will lash out at them as scapegoats. This episode made it painfully clear that YD especially is pretty trigger happy, so I wouldn’t put it past her to occasionally strike out at blameless underlings

3) They know something.

This last one seems more likely to me. Because why else would they get so much focus? The question is-- what?

Okay. Let me split this up into sub-theories:

They (or one of them) witnessed Pink Diamond’s death, and they have information which could explain the discrepancies Blue Zircon brought up. However, they never divulged it for whatever reason. (Possibly because, if there was a cover up, they could be at risk if the did). Now it might come out accidentally, and they could take the fallout.

One or both of them helped orchestrate Pink Diamond’s assassination, either directly or indirectly. The main issue is the question of how an obvious criminal like Rose Quartz could have gotten close enough to Pink Diamond to kill her. Pearls would have a great insight into how all the court hierarchies work. Since they’re considered to be basically dim-witted furniture, they’re pretty easily ignored. Combine this with abilities such as holographic projections, perhaps they could have found a way to smuggle Rose Quartz (or the true killer) close enough.

Another Pearl was directly involved in the smuggling and killing of Pink Diamond. While they didn’t plan it, BP and YP helped her (and any allies e.g. Rose Quartz) escape, because of Pearl Solidarity

Hmm.... but who could this other Pearl be... If only there was another Pearl in the show... a known rebel... who’s past history with Homeworld is shrouded in mystery...

Ah. Yes.

Now, I’ll admit, I don’t know exactly how Pearl exactly fits in. Rose Quartz being the killer seems important for the Arc of Steven coming to discover that his Mom’s past actions weren’t all sunshine and daisies, and the further arc of him realizing that maybe sometimes violence/shattering is necessary or justified. So maybe she just helped sneak Rose in, even if she didn’t deliver the killing blow herself. 

Although, if Pearl was the culprit, that might give even more impact to her expression when Steven discovered what happened to Pink Diamond in ‘Back to the Moon’

Admittedly, this can easily just be Pearl saddened that Steven’s discovered the truth. That the perfect image of his mother, the person Pearl loved and respected more than anyone else, has been broken. That his innocence has been lost.

But if she was responsible, it could also be fear that Steven-- who is innocent, who still values the lives of everyone-- would reject her if he discovered she was the one who did it. 

(Also, consider Pearl’s claims of being Rose’s sole confidant, the one who knows everything... The only one who knew the truth of Pink Diamond’s shattering.)

‘Course, we’ve got the little problem here that all eye witness accounts say that Rose Quartz killed Pink Diamond. As you might have noticed, Pearl looks absolutely nothing like Rose.

... but hey. How about shapeshifting? You know. That thing Pearl swears she can do, but that we’ve never seen her demonstrate in 132 episodes? This would be a pretty significant demonstration. And the trauma of using it for such a thing could explain why she hasn’t wanted to use it since. 

(Not sure why Pearl would have felt the need to disguise herself as Rose Quartz. Maybe it was because she knew all the other RQs got captured and bubbled for Rose’s rebellion, so Pearl was protect her fellows from a similar culling. Or maybe she thought showing the leader of the rebellion dealing the finishing blow would make a stronger image. idk)

That said, again, I still really am fond of Rose being responsible... so maybe we can split the difference and put the death on Rainbow Quartz? That would be rad too.

basically it’s all a mystery and i’m not sure where it’s going, but the Pearls almost definitely have some clue

Let’s end this on their worried faces

(protect them) 

[gamebunny-color-sp]

An Actual Theory

It’s nothing mind blowing, but something I started piecing together.

So I was going through my body horror tag to retag some stuff and I found this gif.

(originally posted by  raredad-archive)

And I just got to thinking, obviously these fused gems are *all the same type based on their silhouettes, but I was just wondering if they may be zircons.

Long nose, slim figure, pomps... seems likely. So is it possible that these gems weren’t shattered in battle, but by “assassination” to silence anyone who may figure out what actually happened to Pink Diamond?

It just took a couple of clues for Blue Zircon to deduce that it was (likely) another diamond that shattered Pink, so how much easier would it have been for other zircons to have come to similar conclusions while the evidence was still fresh? Assuming of course that all zircons have similar intelligence and deductive reasoning, I don’t think that this is unreasonable to assume. 

Also remember that Yellow Diamond didn’t just poof Blue Zircon, but Yellow Zircon too, who didn’t appear to believe any of Blue’s accusations and really did everything she could have to keep the court in the diamonds’ favor. It’s possible that Yellow Diamond did this to negate the chance that the Yellow Zircon would catch on despite her apparent unwavering loyalty to the Diamond Authority because she’s had experience with zircons wavering their loyalty once they figured out (or came close to figuring out) what actually happened (which was demonstrated to be completely plausible in Blue Zircon becoming gutsy enough to outright accuse the diamonds of being suspects). 

Yellow Diamond knows how dangerous a zircon’s true potential can be (which is probably why her personal(?) zircon is so biased in the first place), but doesn’t want to leave any room for another rebellion to start because a zircon was smart enough to figure out what happened.

I can’t say that this action proves that Yellow Diamond is the culprit in Pink’s murder, but I do think that it opens up the possibility that Yellow Diamond does know what actually happened, or has at least been convinced that zircons are potential threats to the conspiracy but couldn’t phase them out like the rose quarts because no other gem can fill the roll of a zircon the same way that other types of quarts could just replace the rose quarts (and even then, it seems as though the niche rose quarts had still hasn’t really been filled as evidenced in the human zoo). So perhaps zircons are too important to gem society to be completely wiped out, but anyone involved in the conspiracy is highly weary of them.

I don’t really know if this changes anything that we’ve learned so far, but if this theory is true, maybe it’ll be a piece in the bigger puzzle.

*So I actually went and looked at what that cluster gem’s final form was and noticed that there are some parts that don’t really match up with a zircon’s appearance, namely how the foot-thumb has a distinct boot when a (presumably) standard zircon does not. Since we don’t really know how cluster gems work, it’s possible that only one (or fewer than 4) of the hand cluster gems are actually zircons and the silhouettes in the first image are result of  some sort of “glitch” that just copied one gem’s appearance (the possible zircon) onto all four escaping gems, but I dunno. All of the limbs in the formed cluster gem all kinda look bulkier than the pre-transformation silhouettes, but considering how inconsistent SU’s character design is in general, I don’t really count it as a solid point against the theory, just something to note as a possible counter-argument.

[andrewmoocow]

Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 2: Guidance (originally published December 14, 2020)

Author's note: I think I'm gonna try releasing new chapters every Monday, for Part 1 at least. Anyway, here's Guidance.

Synopsis: Steven helps the students of Little Homeschool get jobs, but they're not very good at them.

Cast:

Zach Callison as Steven, Onion

Michaela Dietz as Amethyst, Blue Lace Agate,

Ian Jones-Quartey as Bixbite, Snowflake Obsidian

Michelle Maryk as Larimar

Aparna Nancherla as Nephrite

Charlyne Yi as Doc, Leggy, Army

Amy Sedaris as Teal Zircon

Kimberly Brooks as Zebra Jasper, Cherry Quartz

Natasha Lyonne as Smoky Quartz

Colton Dunn as Mr. Smiley

Dave Willis as Andy

--

On another lovely day in Beach City, Amethyst was walking along the boardwalk with a blindfolded Steven into Fish Stew Pizza. "Okay, two steps to the left." Amethyst instructed him as the two stepped into the pizza shop. "There's a chair right behind you." Steven did as he was told and sat down across from his sister figure. "Sit down aaaaand….okay."

When Steven undid his blindfold, he found himself inside Fish Stew Pizza with Amethyst in front of him and another Gem making pizza for them. "TADA!" Amethyst exclaimed with her arms excitedly spread out.

"Fish Stew Pizza? What a nice surprise." Steven giggled amusedly. "I mean, it has been a while since we last been here."

"No, that's not the surprise." Amethyst corrected him. "Notice anything different?" She gestured over to the Gem working with Kiki Pizza, perfectly slicing the toppings to pieces with utmost grace, laying them atop a crust that was put into the oven by Kiki.

"Oh, hi Steven!" the crab-like Gem greeted Steven.

"Bixbite? Is she working here?" Steven asked Amethyst.

"Yeah dude, and she's crushing it!" Amethyst answered. "Bixbite is an expert on slicing and dicing, and now she can put those skills to good use in a pizza parlor."

Another pizza came in fresh from the oven courtesy of Kofi, and Bixbite obediently brought it over to her friends. "Order up you guys!" she declared while setting the pie down. "So, any thoughts?"

"That's awesome!" Steven gasped at the pizza in awe of how well-made it was.

"Check out that 'za brah." Amethyst agreed, shapeshifting her hand into a ruler and a protractor to measure Bixbite's cuts. "Each slice exactly the same length, 45 degrees." She concluded, and then took a slice to eat. "Wow, pure perfection! I almost feel bad for eating this! You made me proud Bixie."

"Thanks for the compliments you guys." Bixbite thanked the pair. "And I couldn't have gotten here without you Amethyst."

As Bixbite walked away, Steven took a slice of the perfect pizza too. "I didn't even know she wanted a culinary career."

"Yeah, we talked a lot about her interests and experiences the other day." Amethyst revealed. "Then I set her up with Kofi, and here we are. Bixie is just the beginning y'know. I've been wanting to do something big for the school, so I've been helping Gems get human jobs, and everything is going amazing so far! I call it Gem-Human Excellence Mentorship, or G.H.E.M for short."

"I get it, like Gem." Steven came to a realization, much to Amethyst's mild frustration.

"No, I said Gem-Human Excellence Mentorship." Amethyst corrected. "Anote the H."

Suddenly, a Ruby clad in a suit and sunglasses burst through the door and let out a war cry while tearing off her sleeves, revealing the gemstone on her left shoulder before regaining her composure. "All clear my mayor."

Another Ruby dressed in the same clothes entered Fish Stew Pizza, wearing her shades over a yellow visor, by somersaulting into the room and stood alongside her compatriot. "All clear too." She repeated before allowing Mayor Nanafua to enter the pizza joint.

"You got Rubies in your program too?" Steven asked. "And why those Rubies in particular? I mean, they didn't try to kill me like Eyeball and Navy did, but they're still a little intense. Especially Army."

"I just found them to be a little more agreeable compared to those two." Amethyst replied while Doc & Army surveyed the area and Leggy helped the mayor to a chair. "Anyway, I got them working as bodyguards for the mayor."

"How many other Gems have you given jobs?" Steven asked again.

"Glad you asked!" Amethyst replied with a smile, and took Steven outside to show him her progress.

--

Amethyst took Steven from Fish Stew Pizza all the way to Beach City Funland, where she showed him just how many Gems she got to work there.

"Blue Lace Agate?" Steven gasped, seeing Blue Lace working at the ring toss booth and using her horns as targets, before discovering Biggs Jasper operating the Ferris wheel and Crazy Lace Agate handing out balloons. "Biggs? Crazy Lace? Have the Quartzes taken over Funland?"

"Yeah, I've been understaffed for so long so it was about time I had a few extra hands." Mr. Smiley said as he appeared behind the two Crystal Gems. "It could take a whole army to keep this park running!"

"An army?" Steven became worried, but then became distracted by what was going on in the sky.

"Hey check it out, Nephrite's doing some skywriting!" Amethyst cheerfully pointed out Nephrite drawing Steven's face in the sky with the smoke from Steven's cousin Andy's plane. "With all her experience flying dropships, it was only natural she do skywriting. Heck, she might even be better at flying than Andy! Still a bit of a perfectionist though."

As Nephrite crossed out her drawing, Steven began getting a little concerned with Amethyst's idea while they walked through Funland. "Um, Amethyst, isn't this a little on the nose?" he asked.

Amethyst however didn't pay him any mind, and instead pointed towards a pair of Gems giving a snowcone to the mayor. "Oh oh, look! Snowflake and Larimar found an ice-related job on the boardwalk!" she shouted while Snowflake Obsidian summoned a large pillar of ice for Larimar to scrape at, and the shavings formed a snowcone for Nanafua to enjoy.

"I still don't know about this." Steven muttered bemusedly.

"About what?" Amethyst asked him. "Everyone's doing pretty fine here."

"I mean, ice Gems doing ice jobs, pilot Gems piloting and guard Gems still guarding." Steven pointed out. "These are basically the exact same jobs they did on Homeworld."

"I swear Stee, these are totally different!" Amethyst nervously assured Steven, only for Leggy to walk by and prove her wrong.

"Wow, these jobs are exactly like what we once did in the old days." Leggy said before she high-fived Army.

"Thanks for the help Amethyst!" Army yelled to Amethyst.

"These are the jobs they wanted, I swear!" Amethyst continued nervously.

"Well sure, maybe they think they want to do this stuff," Steven explained. "but it's still up to us to get them out of their comfort zones!"

"I dunno man." Amethyst objected. "Comfortable can be good too."

"Bear with me for a bit here." Steven declared, and walked towards Snowflake and Larimar. "Hey you two, I just wanted to know what your duties were back on Homeworld."

"I dug ice trenches for the army!" Snowflake answered.

"And I made ice sculptures for the Diamonds!" Larimar added. "You should've really been there for some of my finest work, it was some of the best I've ever car-"

"So is ice kinda your default mode?" Steven cut Larimar off.

"Uh, yeah." Snowflake stated, sharing a look with the smaller Gem. "I mean, with a name like Snowflake Obsidian, what else do you think I do?"

"That's not the point I'm trying to make." Steven said. "Did you ever try doing something else?"

"Like filling ice trenches?" Snowflake answered, just as Nephrite coincidentally flew overhead on Andy's plane, giving Steven an idea.

"How about flying a plane?" Steven suggested.

--

Steven and Snowflake followed the plane to an open meadow where it landed. When Nephrite noticed Steven waving her down, she jumped out to see what was up.

"Hey Steven, what do you need?" Nephrite asked him.

"I'm gonna need you and Andy to talk with Snowflake here for a bit." Steven said, bringing attention to the Obsidian behind him. "I want to get her out of her comfort zone for a bit, so I think maybe she'd like to fly a plane."

"You sure about this kiddo?" Andy asked his cousin worriedly. "I mean, I already got a fine pilot right here." He patted Nephrite on the back, which gave her a smile. "But then again, I'll try anything once. Come on big guy."

Snowflake sheepishly got on the plane with Andy and began for take-off. "I don't snow about this." She punned while the flying machine quickly flew away.

"What's that, can't hear you!" Steven cried over the sound of the engine turning on and the plane finally leaving for the skies. "Have fun!"

--

Next, Steven took Larimar by the hand to the Appalachian, where Cherry Quartz was currently working. "I have an idea for you Larimar." He said to the little ice-carver. "You could operate the Funland roller-coaster. It's a great job, and you get to help people have fun."

"He's right, though I'd really like to actually ride it myself." Cherry agreed with Steven.

"Oh, what is that wonderful noise?!" Larimar asked excitedly while the coaster riders cheered from the adrenaline.

"That's just the screams of joy from everyone on this old thing." Cherry answered proudly.

"Human screams are my favorite of Earth's delights!" Larimar exclaimed happily. "I'll take his job, so I can hear them screaming forever!"

"Okay, that's a little creepy." Steven beamed nervously at Larimar's off-putting enthusiasm. "But I'm glad your heart's in the right place."

"One day, I shall make you scream Steven." Larimar said, before she was taken to the coaster's control room. "I suppose this must help it function, correct?"

"Yeah, you just pull the lever up and down to either speed it up or stop it." Steven instructed. "Why don't you give it a shot?"

"Give me the screams!" Larimar shrieked eagerly, pulling the lever up and making the riders yell louder, while Steven returned from the control room to see Amethyst waiting for him.

"See Amethyst? With just a few small changes, your plan is working even better than before!" Steven claimed, but the overcooked Quartz wasn't buying it. "Don't look so worried, let's go help more Gems!"

--

Much to Amethyst's dismay, Steven went around the town assigning the Gems new jobs far more different than the ones Amethyst gave them.

Instead of working at Funland, Ocean and Zebra Jasper were taken to work at Fish Stew Pizza. Bixbite, meanwhile, was now selling balloons. Army was now selling flowers, Teal Zircon was dragged out to become a taxi driver, Nephrite now worked selling snow cones, and Amethyst was still powerless to stop Steven.

"Wow, sure feels good to be helpful." Steven congratulated himself as he sat at a table at Fish Stew Pizza. "Hopefully everyone can get more experience outside of their comfort zones, but for now, I think I'm beat."

But just when Steven thought he could relax after a job well done, he instead got a pizza to the face. "Order up!" Zebra Jasper cried while she tossed more pizza at Steven and began messily cutting the pies up.

"Delivery, delivery, delivery!" Ocean Jasper yelled as she delivered pizzas by throwing them at passerby's outside.

"Here you go, and I'll take that." Leggy said to a downed person, handing him some flowers and taking his wallet. "Here you go." She added to a woman covered in pizza before taking her purse, and then triumphantly holding up the valuables while setting them on fire. "Yeah, mission complete!"

While Bixbite was handing out balloons, Ocean Jasper threw some pizza at her head, causing her to pop some of her merchandise and let the rest fly away. "Oh no, not the balloons!"

The balloons floated towards Andy's plane, giving Snowflake a shock and causing her to cover the aircraft in ice, making it lose control while the two screamed in fear.

Back on the ground, a car driven by Teal Zircon beeped loudly while it crashed into a lamppost, to the anger of her passenger. "Apologies sir, I have no idea how cars work." She apologized to her customer, who simply walked away in a huff. "Aw come on, not even a hug to make it up to you?!"

As Steven witnessed all the chaos he had accidentally created, he had only one thing to say. "I've made a huge mistake."

--

"Hit me with another Nephs." Amethyst ordered Nephrite to make her a syrupy snowcone at the arcade, oblivious to the chaos outside, when Steven came running in. "Oh hey Steven, want some?"

"No Amethyst, I need your help!" Steven panted in resignation. "Our brilliant plan is basically kaput. I tried to help all the Gems get out of their comfort zones, and look what happened!"

"See Steven, this is what happens when you don't listen!" Amethyst declared accusingly. "You didn't listen to any of my ideas today!"

"That's not true; the Gem mentorship thing is a great idea!" Steven tried assuring his friend.

"It was a great idea when the Gems were doing what they thought they were best at," Amethyst continued. "but then you came in and told everyone what you think they should do! Even me!"

"I was wrong." Steven admitted. "I should've put more trust in you with the program. I don't know why I thought I could just take it over like that! I'm so sorry for today."

"Well, I'm glad you came around Steven." Amethyst accepted his apology with a hug. "Cause right now, I think we have our work cut out for us."

Outside, Teal Zircon was trying her hardest to fix the car she crashed, but to no avail. When she noticed Steven and Amethyst looking at her, TZ changed her tune immediately. "Hey guys! Don't worry, I have this totally under control!" The car then burst into flames. "I'm being serious. Totally under control."

"Yeah, I can see." Steven replied sarcastically to Teal. "So what do you say Amethyst? Want to help me unhelp everyone I've helped?"

"Yeah, alright." Amethyst replied before noticing that Snowflake and Andy were close to crash-landing. With no time to lose, she dragged Steven by the arm out of the arcade, and they formed the chubby half-human fusion Smoky Quartz. "SMOKY!"

Summoning their yo-yo, Smoky Quartz tossed it at the plane and wrapped the string around its tail, but they accidentally cause the tail to break off and make everything worse. "Uh, oops."

While the plane kept spiraling out of control, Smoky bounded off Teal Zircon's destroyed car and summoned another yo-yo to keep them airborne. A third yo-yo was tossed soon after, forming a net that caught the plane and allowed Smoky to return it to the ground safely. "Hey guys, you cool?" Smoky giggled at their pun. "Get it, because of the ice?" The giggling soon ceased and they started panicking. "Anyways, I'm so sorry! You okay?"

"I'm fine." Snowflake answered while clambering out of the plane. "Except that I now have a fear of flying, so there's that."

"Seriously, my life flashed before my eyes for a bit." Andy added, adjusting his flight cap. "Good thing you came in for the save."

"Phew, thanks Uncle Andy." Smoky let out a sigh of relief before they turned to the havoc at Funland. "Gotta run, roller coaster on the fritz!" With that, Smoky made a run for the amusement park, in the process putting out the flaming car with the wind, where the Appalachian had now spun out of control.

"These are not the screams I was hoping for!" Larimar cried, unable to regain control of the ride.

Smoky Quartz began running faster as the coaster started to fall apart, all while having an inner argument with themselves. "Seriously, we're not gonna make it in time! C'mon, faster!"

"If you can save the universe Steven, then I can sure save a roller coaster!" Amethyst declared through Smoky.

"But saving the universe took time!" Steven replied hastily. "I don't have any time, and I sure won't take thousands of years to save this!"

As more of the coaster began falling apart, Smoky was in full panic mode. "Agh, what do I do?!"

"I don't know, I don't know!" Steven replied through their fusion, just as panicked. "Just give me a second!"

Suddenly, Smoky began turning pink thanks to the parts of them that came from Steven, and they suddenly started going even faster than before. Or rather, everything became slower.

"Whoa, cool!" Smoky gasped in amazement at their new form just as they made it to the Appalachian in time and jumped onto the broken rails. "Gotcha!" they exclaimed, but then they noticed how slow-moving everything and everyone had now become. With this sudden new power of slowing down time, Smoky decided to use it to their advantage.

At the front were Sour Cream and the ex-Mayor Dewey, whose hat was flying off his head from the intense speed. "Whoa okay, that goes there." Smoky muttered, putting the hat back on Mr. Dewey while borrowing Sour Cream's phone to take a picture of the three of them with, before returning the device to its owner. "Okay everyone, last stop!"

Smoky quickly got to work, taking all the humans out of the coaster, and safely returned them to the ground. As they were all tossed out of the ride and back onto the pier, they were dropped incredibly slowly due to the intense slowing of time. When Smoky rescued the last of the riders & safely returned them to the ground, time finally returned to its normal flow and they were no longer pink.

"Everybody's all safe and accounted for!" Smoky stated. "Now onto saving that coast-" They were too late to save the roller coaster as it went off the rails and launched off the broken rails into the ocean. "Ah well." They muttered. "Sometimes you can save the people from the roller coaster, but you can't save the coaster itself."

The coaster then combusted in the water, leaving a massive mushroom cloud in its wake. "And that's okay."

--

Later that day, Steven and Amethyst had successfully returned everything to normal and treated themselves to snow cones as a reward. Steven was mostly silent throughout, but Amethyst was ecstatic at how they had controlled time earlier as Smoky Quartz.

"Dude, that was intense!" Amethyst exclaimed. "We basically slowed time just like in one of those manga Lapis reads, but I'm bummed that it didn't come with the power to summon steamrollers. We were going so fast; everything almost came to a screeching halt!"

"Yeah, that was pretty nuts." Steven giggled anxiously.

"It was awesome!" Amethyst added, still super excited. The two of them looked around to admire what they fixed. Bixbite was back to working at Fish Stew Pizza, Nephrite was flying with Andy again, Teal Zircon swore never to drive a car again and the Rubies had now returned to defending the mayor.

"Now that I look at it, you were pretty spot-on with everyone's jobs." Steven confessed. "It just makes me wonder, you think I'm a bit too controlling?"

"Okay, maybe a teeny bit." Amethyst admitted to Steven. "As for me, I didn't just guess what everyone wanted to do. I actually sat down with all these Gems and asked what they wanted. Everyone has had a crazy history, so I felt they should be able to choose how they feel and what they should do in the future. I feel like I finally know what I needed to do; I just needed to figure it out for myself. But now, I feel like I'm just as good at helping Gems decide that for themselves."

"Yeah, you're right." Steven agreed.

"So, what about you?" Amethyst asked Steven. "Now that things are starting to settle down, what do you want to do? Come on, let's talk about your future! The doc is in, first session is free!"

"Thanks Amethyst." Steven laughed lightly. "But I don't know. I still want to help people, but I think I might be losing my touch."

Just then, Steven felt someone tap his shoulder, and he turned to see Larimar standing before him, with a large stuffed bear poorly hidden behind her. "Hello Steven, it's me, Little Larimar!" Larimar greeted Steven. "I got you a surprise. Can you guess what it is?"

"Uh, no." Steven answered, clearly noticing Larimar's bear, but he decided to play dumb to humor her.

"It's a teddy bear!" Larimar announced as she presented the bear to Steven, who took the toy kindly.

"That's so nice Larimar, thanks." Steven thanked Larimar. "But why did you get me this?"

"I got this for you as a way of saying thank you." Larimar responded. "I know I'm not great at handling the roller coaster, but I find myself excelling at giving things to others, like handing prizes to children! Oh, their joyous laughter warms me so. It sounds kind of like screaming!"

Steven and Amethyst were a little weirded out by Larimar's comparisons, but they were still happy she found something that made her happy.

"I think these Earth children quite like me too." Larimar continued. "I never felt so happy in my life."

Steven and Amethyst's nervous expressions turned into sweet smiles, but as the destroyed roller coaster drifted past them in the ocean, Steven made a shocking realization. "Oh my gosh, we forgot Onion!" he panicked seeing Onion still in the coaster, and Onion gave him a little wave, which eased Steven's nerves. "Eh, I'm sure he'll be fine."

--

Thanks for joining me for another chapter of Alternate Future. Like in Regular Future, Little Homeworld and Guidance were merely appetizers for what's to come, because the next chapter will be where things get really interesting. It will be a fusion of Rose Buds and Volleyball, and we'll even get our first hint of something, or someone, plotting against Steven and Era 3. What am I even talking about? Well, tune in next week to find out!

[ganymedesclock]

Care to weigh on on the Pink Diamond Whodunnit?

*picks up my legs, resting on the Rose Diamond theory like it’s an ottoman*

Seriously it explains everything.

YD can’t be the guilty party because otherwise Garnet would not make justifications for why Rose had to do it and stand by them repeatedly. Neither Garnet nor Rose have any reason to take that fall for YD in private with Steven. Garnet, in particular is very outspoken about the transgressions of the Diamonds as she sees them and if YD framed Rose for murder Garnet would not be chill about that.

YD is also an awful liar. She cannot remotely hide when she’s uncomfortable or has a bias, her poker face is thinner than paper. There is literally no way she could be running a lie of that magnitude for five thousand years unless somehow nobody before Zircon ever questioned her on this. 

Conversely, Zircon accurately points out that stuff is not adding up. Among them: one of the heftiest chunks of evidence is once again the assertion that the murder weapon was definitely Rose’s sword, punctuated heavily by an outburst from Blue Diamond. Rose’s sword that cannot shatter a gem.

Zircon’s heavy emphasis on Pink’s Pearl failing to react. If Rose was Pink, then, that means that the real Pink Diamond was not in the palanquin. It was fake. You know who’s good at creating fake images? Who reacts very strongly whenever Pink Diamond is brought up?

Pearl very, very likely used to belong to Pink Diamond. Outside of her outfit, which she would be able to change, her hair color matches, much like Champagne (Yellow Pearl) and Powder (Blue Pearl) match their Diamonds. We also see Pearl wearing Diamond symbols, long after the fact, which hardly suggests Pearl ran off with Rose after the latter murdered Pink. It would suggest Pearl still adored Pink, and Pearl is very much stuck in the past, especially when it comes to Rose.

The fact that all of the other Rose Quartz were bubbled by Pink, and nobody, including the other Earth quartz who are so eager to cling to each other that Amethyst being a rebel is a secondary concern to the fact that she’s One Of Theirs- seems to care. at all. Why wouldn’t the Famethyst ever try to sneak them out if Holly Blue is easily circumvented and the Diamonds almost never visit? Why wouldn’t Jasper who stylizes herself as the person who fights by and for the other earth Gems take up the cause of all of the innocent Rose Quartz that were branded traitors by the one bad apple?

Rose’s insignia is a blatant permutation of Pink Diamond’s. The Crystal Gem star has five points, center point upwards. Everything to do with Pink Diamond is emblazoned with either a five-petaled flower or a pentagon- with the center point upwards.

On that note, every single “identifier trait” used to notate things as belonging to a certain Gem that we know of with Rose and Pink Diamond is shared. Gem placement, color. Sounds? It isn’t like when Rose shows up in The Answer for the second time, she’s accompanied not by her signature bells but primarily by something that sounds eerily like the Diamond tones. 

Rose had Pink Diamond’s ship. And hid it/threw it away. Pearl, in Space Race, talks about how she is totally trapped on Earth, and the only way off is to build her own ship. Later, much plot points are made about how they can’t get off Earth without the ship they took from the Rubies. Meaning? Rose has Pink Diamond’s ship and told no one. Not even Pearl. If she just took it after Pink died that’s incredibly suspicious behavior. Also, Blue was able to just will her ship to move- suggesting quite possibly the Diamond’s ships are locked to them.

In Rose’s Scabbard when Pearl shows Steven the armory she instructs him not to tell Garnet or Amethyst and heavily insinuates if it wasn’t his birthright she wouldn’t tell him either. I should reiterate that: she insists to him that he can’t tell Garnet or Amethyst about the armory. what the hell is in there.

It would make Zircon’s insistence that only one of the Diamonds could have killed Pink true. Because the guilty party was a Diamond- Pink herself.

Likewise, it explains exactly why the court would be unconcerned, and how Rose could have gotten up to Pink so easily. Pink Diamond- or rather, Pearl, acting with the authority as Pink Diamond’s herald and attendant, could easily just say that Pink wanted the rebel leader brought before her. Who would second-guess Pink Freaking Diamond- especially if she’s the military leader of Homeworld, queen of the quartz the way she’s framed?

Pink Diamond so far has been introduced and framed exactly the same way Rose initially was. Our first image of her is a portrait, she was the beloved leader of a faction who we explore through the grief of various people from that faction who adored her, at this point, she’s more abstract than real and it feels like everyone has something to say about her- they either adored her or hated her and yet she commands attention. 

This isn’t really evidence but I just wanna remind everybody there is in fact a real, famous diamond called the Pink Star. 

[kujo1597]

Actually, That Was a Good Thing

Life is constantly moving forward. Things are always changing, nothing is ever still even when you don’t realize it’s moving. A lot can happen in just a year.

(A/N: Holy cow! I’m actually done this! I wanna thank those of you who read this until the end. I appreciate you so much! And I really appreciate new readers as well I hope you enjoy reading the whole story. Of course I’ll still be writing stuff for this AU but the main chunk of story is done.

And a big shoutout to @drawbauchery for her Mom Zircon AU. It really inspired my human Zircon. That dynamic between Zircon and Peridot is super cute! And I really wanted to do a similar dynamic. But without the stalker, I think I’ve put poor Peri through enough already. Haha.)

You can also read this on Archive of Our Own.

Chapter 15

Peridot let out her breath in a puff when she put a heavy box on a brand new carpet.

The room looked and smelled so clean.

“Ooof,” Amethyst put down another heavy box.

As she looked around Peridot felt a bittersweet feeling.

“Heck of a year,” she said.

“Huh?” Amethyst didn’t quite catch that.

“I was just thinking that is was just one year ago that I was living with Lapis and the two of us had our first date.” Peridot’s expression turned apologetic. “Sorry my moving day fell on our one-year anniversary.”

“Don’t worry about it; important thing is that we’re together,” Amethyst kissed Peridot on the cheek. “Not like it’ll take all day to do this anyway.”

“Yeah,” Peridot knelt to give Max a pat. She pointed at an arbitrary part of the hallway. “Go explore, Max. This is our new home.”

But he stayed put.

“Little guy probably needs to adjust first,” Amethyst suggested. “He’s never been here before.”

“That’s true. He’ll explore with me, I’m sure.”

Amethyst stretched out. “Well, we should start unpacking.”

“Then go out and buy a mattress. The bed in here is too soft.”

“You already tested it?”

“I felt it while putting boxes in my bedroom. I can’t sleep on it.”

“Alright, mattress shopping it is. Good thing you’re not stuck with that clown car anymore.”

Peridot laughed. “Yeah, I still can’t believe Pearl surprised me with a car. Fixing it with her was so fun, then she let me keep it!”

“So which room you wanna unpack first?”

“How many belts does one demigirl need?” Amethyst playfully groaned as she sprawled out on Peridot’s bed.

“I don’t have that many. And it’s not like they’re all the same anyway,” Peridot pulled out a few belts. “See? This one has an alien pattern, this one is covered in Pokémon, and this one is houndstooth.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen,” Amethyst really didn’t get it. “That’s just a lot of belts nobody’ll see.”

“A few of my therapists told me that doing small things for myself, even if it’s silly stuff like wearing goofy belts that only I know about can help my mood.”

“Oh, that makes sense. Probably should guessed. So is that houndstooth one because you like Persona 4 so much?”

“You know it.”

“And y’know... having a million belts is probably better than me. I just have the one and it’s being held together with duct tape,” Amethyst changed the subject. “Since you’re buying a new bed, do you mind if I have this one?”

“Not at all.”

“Cool.”

Peridot finished organizing her closet knowing full-well that it wouldn’t last. But it was satisfying nonetheless.

“Do you think Max will be fine while we go shopping?”

Amethyst glanced at the sleeping lump on the bed next to her. “I don’t see why not. Buddy’s passed out. And you leave him alone all the time.”

“Sometimes dogs piddle and get destructive when they’re nervous. He’d be left all alone in a strange new place.”

“We’ll just take a trip to Dreamy Sleep then come back.”

Peridot glanced at Max. “Well, what I can do is leave some of my clothes laying around to hopefully keep him calm.” She gave it some more thought. “Yeah, he’ll be okay if I do that.”

“Ready to go then?”

Before long Peridot changed and left her clothes on the bed and couch.

While her and Amethyst carried the new mattress through the hallway, thank the stars Peridot got a room on the first floor, Peridot was confronted by a woman with bright-yellow hair styled up into two points. 

“Do you have a dog?”

“Yeah,” Peridot signaled to Amethyst to put the mattress down. “But he only weighs nine pounds so he’s well within the size limit.”

“That’s well-and-good but if he cries constantly then we’re going to have a problem.”

“Max cried? Was it the whole time I was out? He’s usually very quiet.”

“He cried for the first five minutes.”

“Ah, this was his first time being left alone here. He should be good in the future. I don’t go out much so he should be adjusted next time.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a freelance programmer,” Peridot replied growing more irritated. She knows she doesn’t exactly look ‘respectable’ but frankly, bright-yellow hair doesn’t either.

“Okay the-”

“Jeanne!” Another woman came bounding through the hall. Her pale blue hair curved and floppy. “Are you harassing our new neighbour?”

Jeanne, oh how the sound of that name made Peridot’s skin crawl, replied, “I was just asking them about their dog.”

“I must apologize for Jeanne,” the blue-haired woman said. “She’s a stickler for the rules.” Her tone turned firm when she started to face the other strange lady. “I told you it was just a nervous pet.”

“It’s fine,” Peridot said, the new woman seemed very nice and when Peridot looked at her she felt something she’s never quite felt before. In some ways it was like how she felt about her dad. But different. 

Jeanne... not so much.

“Oh, right,” the new lady turned to Peridot. “Isa.”

“Peridot.”

“Amethyst,” she waved from where she was leaning against the wall.

“Good to meet you,” Isa said then she looked between Peridot and Amethyst. “Are you two living together?”

“No,” Peridot hesitated but saw a wedding ring on Isa’s finger and a matching one on Jeanne’s. “We’re not living together but we have been dating for one year. Exactly, actually. So you and Jaune are married, right?”

“Yes.”

“Got married the day it was made legal.”

“That’s great,” Peridot said, feeling relieved. Some of her neighbours in her old apartment were... less tolerant.

“We should let you go,” Isa said.

“Yeah,” a part of Peridot didn’t want this conversation to end. She started to consider getting to know Isa over tea. “Max is missing me. It was nice to meet you.”

The four all waved and said their goodbyes and Peridot and Amethyst reached Peridot’s room.

She carefully opened the door and Max came bolting out then started to run circles around her.

“Okay, hello, I know, you missed me,” Peridot picked Max up and kissed him. “Let’s check around for accidents, eh Max?”

After the inspection which turned up nothing resulting in lots of scritches and smooches from Peridot, and the mattress was in place, Peridot and Amethyst sat on the couch watching TV.

“So Peri, how ‘bout we do something naughty?” Amethyst wiggled her eyebrows.

“Oh, what do you have in mind?” Peridot gave Amethyst a sultry look.

“Well,” Amethyst dragged the next sentence out sexily. “Why don’t we cheat on Kofi and order Domino’s?

“How scandalous,” Peridot leaned into Amethyst. “Pull out your phone and place that order.”

“You want those spicy chicken bites?”

“You know I do-” Peridot couldn’t keep up the routine; she started laughing uncontrollably.

“How could you?” Amethyst said in mock offense. “I try winning your heart with pizza and chicken and you laugh at me?”

“I can’t help it,” Peridot said between giggles. “We’re such big dorks.” She collapsed onto Amethyst clutching her stomach.

Amethyst traced lines next to Peridot’s mouth with her thumb. “Maybe I should cut back on the comedy a bit. You’re starting to get laugh lines.” She rubbed Peridot’s cheek. “Then again, those are the best wrinkles. Means you’re happy.”

“Please don’t stop making me laugh, even when I look like my lola,” Peridot sat partially up and wrapped her arms around Amethyst. “Your sense of humour is one of my favourite things about you.”

“You feeling alright? Like, you’re cuddly but not usually this mushy.”

Peridot nestled into Amethyst’s neck. “I think I’m just feeling a bit lonely. I haven’t lived alone since college.”

“Want me to stay the night?”

“No,” a shake of the head. “Well, yes. But you shouldn’t. It’d be best if I just rip off the bandage. So to speak.”

“Alright, if you change your mind tell me,” Amethyst looked at her phone. “Still up for cheating on Kofi?”

“Always.”

“Have I ever told you that I appreciate how you started trying weird shit with your food?” Amethyst stated, amused by Peridot putting her chicken bites onto her pizza.

“I’ll never surpass the master,” Peridot took a bite. “I’m not brave enough to mix strawberries, canned tuna, and hot sauce together.”

“Not my best sandwich in all honesty.”

“They can’t all be winners,” Peridot said with a shrug.

They ate supper while watching Ninja Keith reruns.

Eventually Amethyst spoke up. “So, you still doin’ that Lapis and Jasper thing with me tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Peridot finished off her crust. “We need to make sure it goes well. And if it doesn’t, we need to be there to help them.”

Amethyst grabbed another slice of pizza. “True. And fukkin’ deck Lapis if she makes my sister even worse.”

“She won’t. Lapis has made great progress. Have faith in my roo-former roommate.”

“I know,” Amethyst sighed. “Just worried. Jasper’s been doing better too.” She took a big bite. “Don’t want it to go backwards.”

“I feel the same way when it comes to Lapis.”

“You sure you don’t want me to spend the night?” Amethyst had noticed a subtle sadness in Peridot’s eyes. “Sometimes it’s best to take band-aids off slowly. Y’ever slice your leg open?”

Peridot cringed. “Yeah, ripping off the bandage hurt like a son-of-a-gun.”

“But if you peeled it and wet it then it wouldn’t have.”

After a moment’s thought Peridot gave in. “You’ve convinced me. So I guess you need to go get your stuff then.”

“Nah,” Amethyst polished off her pizza. “I had a feeling you’d want company the first night. My stuff’s in my car.”

“You know me well.”

Peridot and Amethyst barely dragged themselves out of bed the next morning. They were both worried that things would go horribly wrong with Lapis and Jasper.

But before they arrived at the meeting place Peridot decided to drop Max off at the beach house. He needed the supervision if they were gonna be gone for the day.

Pearl was the one who opened the door. “Hello Peridot and Amethyst.”

“Hey Pearl,” Peridot greeted her. “Thanks for puppysitting on such short notice.”

“Don’t mention it,” Pearl gave Max a swift pat on the head. “I actually kind of like him now.”

“We can’t dawdle,” Peridot put Max on the floor then pointed into the house. “Go find Steven.”

With that, Max excitedly ran off.

“Bye Max,” Peridot called after him with a giggle.

“Amethyst,” Pearl turned her attention to her. “I need you to pick up a few things.”

“Got it,” Amethyst saluted as she took the shopping list.

“You’ve never watched Max for the whole day before,” Peridot passed a basket full of blankets, toys, and food for Max to Pearl then pulled a piece of paper out of her hoodie pocket “As you know he eats at all three meals, though breakfast isn’t an issue... He gets three-quarters of a scoop of kibble. Max sometimes sleeps under stuff so if you haven’t seen him in a while check under Amethyst’s bed. Let’s see...” Peridot looked over her list to find more urgent stuff.

“Peridot,” Pearl interrupted her thoughts. “He’ll be fine. I’ll read the list, I promise. You two need to get going.”

“Well, okay,” Peridot passed the list of care instructions to Pearl. “Remember, keep an eye on Steven, I always catch him sneaking snacks to Max.”

“Okay,” Pearl pushed Peridot out of the doorway.

“And watch him when he potties,” Peridot’s fretting continued. “Seagulls like to pick on him.”

“I got it.”

“And don’t forget-”

“Goodbye, Peridot.”

“Yes, goodbye,” Peridot said automatically.

Pearl closed the door on her.

“Well that was a bit rude,” Peridot put her hands on her hips.

“She’s right though, rude or not we gotta go,” Amethyst jabbed her thumb at the car.

The couple raced to the back corner of the meeting place so as to be discreet. They weren’t actually supposed to be there.

Not long afterwards Lapis strolled in, then Jasper. Those two looked pretty okay, nervous, but okay.

“Lapis,” Jasper said after taking a deep breath. 

“No, I’m going first,” Lapis firmly stated. She made eye-contact with Jasper, sighed, then said it.

“I’m sorry.” Lapis kicked her foot. “I shouldn’t have taken all my anger out on you.”

“I...” Jasper could barely believe what she just heard. “Um...” That wasn’t part of her plan... “Okay.” She cleared her throat then recalled the script she had rehearsed at home. “I took advantage of you to punish me. I did bad things, and always felt bad about myself and I used your anger to give me what I felt I deserved.”

Lapis looked like she was about to blow a gasket. “What! No! I used you! You were such an easy target. So big and smug, with that stupid nose piercing, you look like a bull, and you got angry back which made it easier for me to yell at you. But then you stopped and I kept going. For once I felt powerful.”

“And I felt like I deserved it so I let you keep going and egged you on, and when you did leave me I tried to get you back, I craved the attention. Nobody ever stays with me, our relationship, as awful as it was, was the longest one I ever had. I didn’t want it to stop and be alone again,” Jasper breathed in, “but it really was bad.”

“You know, you didn’t deserve what I did to you.”

“I know that now, but at the time I truely believed I did.”

“We were really bad for each other, you brought out the worst in me.”

“And you brought out the worst in me.”

“We really shouldn’t be together.”

“Well,” Jasper recalled what Peridot had told her, “we shouldn’t date,” she held out her hand, “but we can try being friends.”

Lapis didn’t take Jasper’s hand. “What if we fall back into our old habits?”

“Amethyst and the peacock will call us out on our shit,” Jasper jerked her head towards where the two she was referring to were sitting. ��That’s why they’re here.”

Lapis looked at them. “God dammit, were they here the whole time?”

“Pretty sure.”

“She’s such a worrywart,” Lapis said with a fond smile. “Dumbass.”

“So how ‘bout it?” Jaser offered her hand again. “Wanna try being friends?”

“Sure,” Lapis took the offered hand. “We can try.”

“Hey Amethyst, Peridot,” Jasper called out to them. Amethyst perked up but Peridot looked confused. “You gone deaf, ya little peacock?”

“No!” Peridot replied with a blush, then when her and Amethyst joined Jasper and Lapis she continued, “it was just weird hearing you call me by my name.”

“Been over a year, kid,” Jasper clapped Peridot on the shoulder.

“Wait,” Amethyst crossed her arms with a smirk, “you knew Peri’s name the whole time.”

“I had a good feeling about her.”

Amethyst playfully smacked Jasper’s arm. “You ass. You were testing her.”

“Of course, I don’t want you getting hurt again,” Jasper chuckled at her feisty little sister. “Anybody patient enough to put up with me calling them such a dumb name’s bound to be good. Or at the very least be able to put up with you.”

As the exchange between sisters went on, Lapis looked at Peridot. “How’s condo life treating you?”

“Pretty well so far. I met two of my neighbours. They’re nice. So...” Peridot felt a small tug in her chest, “how’s the roommate search going?”

“Bad. You set the bar too high. I can’t go back to eating nothing but garbage,” Lapis’ cheeks warmed up. “And you’re nice and funny.”

“You know, you can come over any time,” saying this made the tug go away slightly. “I’d like that, and so would Max.”

“That damn mop, miss him too,” Lapis said under her breath then added in a normal tone, “And you swing by whenever. I’m not changing the lock.”

“It slipped my mind that I never gave my key back. I’ve had it for so long...”

“I never asked for it. I know I can trust you.”

“True, but I might scare your new roommate if I just waltzed on in. I don’t need to deal with the police.”

“Yeah, you do look kinda sketchy,” Lapis teased Peridot. “But I’ll just tell her to expect a short big-eared nerd with dumb hair to randomly show up.”

The two laughed.

“But I’m serious Peridot. Come over whenever you want. And bring Max.”

“You too. And I will come over with Max, he misses you too.”

Sensing that Peridot needed a hug Lapis held out her arm. “Come here, you sap.”

Peridot accepted the hug.

And that’s when Lapis realized she needed it too.

After some more talking Amethyst and Peridot parted ways with Lapis and Jasper who also went their separate ways.

“So glad that went as smoothly as it did,” Amethyst sounded relieved.

“Me too,” they arrived at the door of the beach house and Peridot opened it. “I wonder how Max did.”

Peridot looked around for him and and didn’t see him.

“He’s sleeping on the couch,” Pearl said, startling her. “Him and Steven ran and played all day.”

“Max must be pretty tuckered out then,” Peridot said with a laugh. “He’s gonna sleep well tonight.”

Amethyst chuckled. “Yeah, good for you, he kinda fussed a lot last night.”

“He’s never done that before, not even when I first got him,” Peridot sighed. 

“You have to remember, he’s known the duplex for most of his life,” Pearl surprisingly gave Peridot this gentle reminder. “It’ll take time for him to adjust to the new location and not having Lapis around.”

“It’s an adjustment for me too,” Peridot said under her breath.

“That’s natural, I imagine moving from Canada was one too,” Pearl placed a hand on Peridot’s shoulder. “But at least this time you actually know people and have some company. Even if it is of the furry variety.”

Amethyst gave Peridot a crushing hug. “Yeah! And if you ever need non-furry company just give me a call.”

“Thank you, both of you.”

“Well, you can stay for a bit, or if you need to go you can find Max on the couch,” Pearl jabbed her thumb towards the living room. 

“I think I should get going, I have stuff I need to do and groceries to put in the fridge,” Peridot walked into the living room.

And Steven was there. “Hi Peridot,” he said with a smile. “I think Max had fun.”

“It looks like it,” Peridot gave a very sleepy Max a pat. “And I trust you had fun too.”

“I did,” Steven gushed. “I didn’t know he could run that fast.”

“Yep, he’s pretty speedy when he wants to be.” 

“We had races, and played tug, and chase,” Steven listed off all the things the two of them did on his fingers with a big grin.

“Did you know that he knows how to play peek-a-boo?”

“He does?” Steven got starry-eyed. “I need to do that with him next time.”

“But maybe not around Pearl,” Peridot whispered. “He does this cute little bark and I don’t know how she’ll handle that.”

“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind,” Steven whispered back.

“Unfortunately, I have to take him home now,” Peridot picked Max up and he blearily opened his eyes, noticed Peridot, then went back to sleep. She gave him a kiss. 

“Aw, okay,” Steven sounded disappointed. 

“Don’t worry, you’ll see him again before you know it,” Peridot ruffled Steven’s hair.

“And you too, right?”

“Yeah,” Peridot smiled fondly. “And me too.”

Steven gave her a big hug and she left after getting another hug from Amethyst.

Max trotted next to Peridot through the hallway of the condo building. She technically was supposed to have him on a leash but he was well-behaved so it should be fine. And it was, Peridot reached her door without incident, well, apart from a mother looking at the two of them nervously as Max sniffed towards her child.

She’ll just have to get used to them, Peridot figured, only slightly bitterly.

Peridot didn’t finish her unpacking yesterday so when she finished putting groceries away. She started with her action figures because robots in cool poses always lighten up a room. She started with the Labrys Figma Amethyst managed to get her for Christmas.

A knock on the door interrupted Peridot’s reminiscing.

She hurried as fast as she could on her bum knee and prosthetic foot.

“Wait,” Peridot was slightly out of breath and a bit too late. When she got a look at who was walking away she smiled. It was Isa! ...And Jeanne. “Sorry about that, I was unpacking,” she added with a laugh, “and my legs are kind of a mess.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Isa said, she was momentarily mildly puzzled then remembered the sight of Peridot in shorts. She held out a basket. “Here, a welcome basket.”

“Thank you,” Peridot took it and looked through it. “Ooo, I can make marmalade with this.”

“Marmalade?” Jeanne snickered. “What kinda punk are you?”

“One that’s a marmalade-loving nerd,” Peridot didn’t really appreciate Jeanne’s tone.

Or maybe a slight bias was shining through.

“So, uh,” Peridot awkwardly pointed at her door, “would you two like to come in and chat?”

Isa and Jeanne exchanged glances. 

“Sure,” Jeanne shrugged and Isa nodded.

Peridot led them into her home. “Now, it’s still a bit messy. I had more stuff than I thought.”

“You sure it’s such a good idea to invite strangers into your home?” Of course a Jaune was snarky and picky.

Peridot looked at Max who was still sprawled out on his back. “Well, Max doesn’t have a problem with it so I think having you two over is fine.” She held up her basket of fruits. “I’ll go put these away, make yourselves at home. Do you want tea?”

“No thanks,” Isa replied. “And I can help with the basket.”

“Thank you.”

The two went into the kitchen while Jeanne sat on the couch next to Max. She looked at him for a bit and he looked at her.

“Is your dog friendly?” Jeanne called to the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Peridot called back. “Go ahead and pet him. He especially likes chin scratches.”

While putting fruit away Isa looked in the living room and smiled. “Peridot,” she pointed at the couch, “I think Jeanne and Max like each other.”

Sure enough, Jeanne was smiling as she rubbed Max’s tummy and the pup was loving it.

Isa pulled out her phone and took a picture making sure Jeanne wouldn’t catch her and get embarassed.

And in that time Peridot decided that maybe Jeanne wasn’t so bad. Max is a pretty good judge of character after all.

Putting food away didn’t take long at all, Peridot and Isa joined Jeanne and Max bringing glasses of water.

“So, what do you two do for a living?” Peridot kicked herself for asking such a boring question.

“Get this, me and Jeanne are both lawyers.”

“Jaune’s a lawyer?” Peridot couldn’t believe it, how could somebody with highlighter-yellow hair be a lawyer? “Like, practicing?”

“Yes I’m a practicing lawyer,” Jeanne was understandably annoyed. “And why do you keep saying my name like that and making that face?”

“Oh, I didn’t realize,” Peridot didn’t want to touch on that subject so she stayed vague. “Somebody ruined that name for me. I assure you, it has nothing to do with you.”

Finding this odd, Isa kept it in mind. “Where are you from?” She asked.

“Calgary, Alberta,” Peridot replied.

“Me too,” Isa smiled as she put more pieces in place, especially as she got a better look at Peridot’s face. “Actually, you look kind of familiar.”

“Well that’s odd, I didn’t go to law school. I guess maybe we could have gone to elementary school together...”

Even more pieces fell into place, especially with that unique eye colour.

“Would you happen to know Jaune Diamont?” Isa asked out of the blue.

“What, no way they know somebody that important,” Jeanne waved her hand dismissively but then she noticed Peridot’s off expression. “Wait... do you?”

“Um... uh...” after much hesitation Peridot answered the question. “Yes. She is my mother.”

“Holy shit,” Jeanne said in quiet disbelief. 

“Aha! I knew it!” Isa was far less quiet. “You look just like her! You’re Peridot Diamont-Hōseki!”

“I can’t believe one of your crazy theories ended up being right,” Jeanne still wasn’t over it.

“I remembered that Jaune had a daughter because the lawsuit involving her was the talk of law school,” Isa looked at Peridot who was barely hiding her mild crisis. “Then one day the discussion suddenly stopped. It’s always bothered me. Something big must’ve happened.”

“It got settled out of court,” Max crawling onto her lap helped calm Peridot. “That’s all I can legally say.”

“That’s really suspicious,” Jeanne raised an eyebrow.

“Considering I’m sitting with two lawyers I really can’t say anything more.”

“You know,” Isa’s suspicions about the case had woken a strange new feeling up inside her, but she couldn’t place it, “you can tell your lawyer about it. It’s not official yet, but if you need one you can hire me.”

As much as Peridot didn’t appreciate the subject of Jaune being pushed on, that weird feeling from earlier returned. She... kind of wanted to tell this lady she only just met more about it.

“I’m really uncomfortable going into detail,” Peridot took a breath, in and out, and stroked Max. “But I will tell you this. It was a divorce case and ‘alleged’ child abuse was a large factor.”

Both Zircon’s eyes went wide.

“Oh jesus...” Jeanne was the only one to speak.

Isa didn’t, she had a feeling that was it, but that new feeling made her unusually quiet. After a little bit he figured out what that feeling was.

She wanted to take care of and protect this young woman she recently met.

“I don’t know what to say,” Isa breathed in. “But if you need a restraining order filed or anything, even not legal matters, my door is open.”

“You have my gratitude,” unlike Isa, Peridot still hadn’t figured out what she was feeling. “Oh, and I’ve already filed a restraining order against her.”

“Well I would hope so,” Jeanne loudly said.

Isa realized something. “For the record, my wife’s name is spelled J-e-a-n-n-e not J-a-u-n-e so she doesn’t have the same name as your mother.”

“That’s good to know,” with the bias gone Peridot was actually able to think better of Jeanne.

Though she still found Jeanne a bit rude...

“Moving on,” Isa made a motion with her hands as if she was physically moving something. “I see you like video games. Jeanne was really into them when she was younger. Weren’t you dear?”

“Yep, I was a SEGA kid. I played a lot of Sonic.”

“Ah, I was a Nintendo kid myself, but I did have Sonic CD on the PC.”

“Missed that one, the SEGA CD was too expensive and I didn’t even know about the PC version.”

“It got re-released on a few consoles. I have it on my PS3 if you want to play it.”

Jeanne actually smiled. “Maybe some other time.”

And Peridot smiled back.

The three chatted for a while about their interests and eventually the Zircons had to leave.

Then Peridot got back to her task of unpacking while talking to Amethyst on the phone.

“Whattup Peri?”

“Hey Amethyst,” Peridot couldn’t hold in her giggle. “Do you remember Jeanne and Isa?”

“Yeah, just met ‘em, blue and yellow hair, right?”

“Right. They were just over and they’re actually really nice.”

“Cool, it looked like you didn’t like Jeanne.”

“It was mostly bias since her name sounds like my mother’s,” Peridot answered truthfully. “But it’s spelled differently. The sound still bugs me a bit though.”

“Give it time.”

“I will.”

“So why’d you call? I like talking but we saw each other earlier. It’s not like you.”

“Still feeling a bit lonely I guess.”

“Want me to serenade you to sleep?” Amethyst jokingly offered. 

Peridot laughed. “No thank you. I don’t want to wake up with a dead or broken phone.”

She heaved a heavy box onto the table to sort through.

“Still unpacking?”

“Yeah, it’s taking forever. How’d I amass this much stuff in four years?”

“Dude, I’m the same way. You keep buying these little trinkets and before you know it you look around and think ‘shit, how’d this happen?’ And then you go and buy more stuff.”

“For someone who isn’t into statues I sure have a lot of statues...”

Amethyst chuckled heartily.

The two of them continued to talk as Peridot unpacked.

Peridot looked around her quiet new living room and let out a satisfied breath. She finally finished unpacking.

As her eyes wandered she thought about where she was just four years ago.

At the time, the fire seemed like the end of it all.

She lost her home.

She lost her belongings.

She lost her savings.

She would wear the scars for the rest of her life.

It hurt.

But from that fire she met Lapis, a close dear friend.

Then Amethyst, her wonderful girlfriend.

And of course, Max. Her companion who helped and continues to help with all the stress.

All that loss and nearly dying put everything into perspective.

It made her a better person. And in several ways, it gave her a better life.

Peridot smiled.

That fire was actually a good thing.