i write su fic on ao3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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