Fossils (SU AU)
- Thread starter Chairtastic
- Start date
- Location
- Back in the 90s (In a very famous TV show)
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Ve/Ver
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This story continues to be really darn good.
Is Eudoxia intended to be read as mannish or as a trans woman, I guess?
Also, this is in my opinion significantly better writing for Jasper than the actual show, so that's good.
Is Eudoxia intended to be read as mannish or as a trans woman, I guess?
Also, this is in my opinion significantly better writing for Jasper than the actual show, so that's good.
Chairtastic
Anything's a chair if you're brave enough
- Location
- Breakfast nook
- Pronouns
- He / Him / It
Eudoxia is a trans woman. Artemis respects all women in this AU. She and Apollo have the "all woman are queens / if she breathes, she's a thot" dynamic.
Just a note, Artemis has no problems with men on principal. She had a romantic relationship with Orion, and accepted Hippolytus into her personal group of hunters, a dude who was only into hunting and just wasn't interested in romance. She's more against dating and sex and stuff. A goddess of virginity more or less.
- Location
- Back in the 90s (In a very famous TV show)
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Ve/Ver
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Do you think we'll get more trans or NB representation in this fic?
Chairtastic
Anything's a chair if you're brave enough
- Location
- Breakfast nook
- Pronouns
- He / Him / It
I'll try, they'll pretty much be humans or fossils though. Gems seem almost 100% cis-gendered.
I mean, gems are physically formless, they simply use female pronouns because that is what their society expects of them, it wouldn't be hard to justify a gem who spends time with humans, starts to understand the difference between male and female, and decides they identify more as male, the issue is the best case scenario for them in that case is a "yeah ok sure get back to work" and the worst case is "this one's defective, harvest it".
- Location
- Back in the 90s (In a very famous TV show)
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Ve/Ver
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Weren't Gems created by Rebecca Sugar to represent how she was a nonbinary person that other people assumed was a woman?
SmashQueen
Professional duck-cat.
Those last 3 words killed me.
A fossil getting hit in the eye with a practice sword though, not so much. The casualness of it only made it worse. You've made nightmare fuel into an art form where even the audience slowly gets desensitized to the horror. That's not easy.
That... feels inaccurate. Because that's saying Gems HAVE a gender. I mean, they use the terms "She" and "Her", but they are completely nonbiological and seem to have absolutely none of the cultural stuff attached to the idea of female. It is just the word they use to refer to other Gems. Heck, one could honestly guess that HUMANS got the word FROM the Gems. There's these multi-colored female-looking things, and they all refer to eachother as "She" or "Her", so they just started to use that word to describe females.
Chairtastic
Anything's a chair if you're brave enough
- Location
- Breakfast nook
- Pronouns
- He / Him / It
You're assuming I hold that gender is biological or cultural. It seems more ideological to me, given the subjective nature of these things.
I don't know if that's true. If it is, alright I'll respect it. If it isn't, I'll respect people for whom it is true. On reflection, having the gems be NB with female pronouns changes nothing but grants a marginalized community some representation. So why not? Let's do it.
Also in case it isn't known by people who've read my other works. This fic will be super DUPER gay.
I'm not sure what you mean ideological. Any definition I can think of would have the Gems either just not apply, or have gems who are "male", neither of which really work with the labling of them as cis-gender
Well... that kinda depends on how big you think the Gem Empire is. It is, in a literal sense, inter-galactic. That is canon. But does it have trillions of planets and the like? Or only a dozen or so? Canon is incredibly sketchy on that. The bigger it is the longer it'll take the fossils to reach any appreciable population.
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serra2
Himouto! Sylvanas-chan
The fossils are, like, the smallest change occuring at the moment. The interactions others are having with them, like Holly and Blue, are much more important.
It's unclear how wide-spread an effect those will have on the Empire. Holly is just one gem located on just that one base. Her effects don't really extend past the Fossils.
As for Blue, it'll take a good bit of development for changes to her to bleed into changes in the empire. Especially with her being counter-balanced by Yellow and White
Chapter Seven
Chairtastic
Anything's a chair if you're brave enough
- Location
- Breakfast nook
- Pronouns
- He / Him / It
Chapter Seven – Realization
After the revelation about the ambers' observational skills, the morale among the peridots was considerably low. Peridot 5XG got hit worse because she had to endure continued interaction with the ambers. Her work speed was slowed by profound lethargy, her results were poor because she couldn't muster the energy to properly experiment, and her usual witticisms had become garbage tier. At first, the ruby's words had been soothing – Yellow Diamond had peridots, why would she need ambers? But then one of her fellow Era Two peridots pointed out that ambers certainly were an improvement over them. In light of that, perhaps Yellow Diamond would simply discontinue the peridot production, and bring in ambers to do their work.
They'd only be partially replaced, in that peridots would still have their jobs. But as time went on there would be fewer and fewer of them. Until eventually they went the way of the pewter. It was inevitable.
She was stirred from her melancholy by a sudden grapple attack by the female amber, Eye-Five. The squishy gem had wrapped her arms around her and began to squeeze.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Peridot demanded, and glared at the rubies. "You're supposed to protect us from them too!" It was wholly insufficient to damage Peridot, but the principle of the matter still stood.
As one the rubies rolled their eyes. "You're fine," the elder of them said. "It's just a hug."
"A what?"
Peridot's dumbfounded croak moved Eye-Five enough to laugh. "A hug, silly! I'm trying to squish the sadness out of you!"
The technician gem used her touch stubs to stroke her chin thoughtfully. They floated freely, so her arms being bound did little to hamper them. Squishing an emotion out of a gem was an… unconventional way to achieve a result, but it had some merit. Peridot nodded, and barked over her shoulder. "Well, if that's what you're trying to do put more effort into it! I'm barely being compressed at all!"
Eye-Five laughed again and easily doubled her hugging pressure.
Peridot grunted from the increased pressure and grit her teeth. "More! We have yet to conclusively prove or disprove your hypothesis." She evacuated all gaseous matter in her hard-light construct form as the pressure increased again. "More…."
"En-Seven," Eye-Five called playfully, "could you come help me hug Peridot?"
Peridot was only aware of the telltale 'thumps' of En-Seven's approaching steps after that. "Yes," she gasped in satisfaction. "His superior strength will easily yield resul-hrlks!" Peridots were made to be tough – they were intended to survive field conditions for drastic repairs, so their poof resistance was at the high end of the spectrum. However the combined strength of two ambers pushed Peridot dangerously close to the poofing threshold, to the point where she couldn't even see because her eyes bugged out of her head.
When she was released, the first thing she did was hit the ground face-first. "Ow." The second was to stand and reflect on her emotional state. She was no longer locked into her malaise, and had returned to the neutral state she favored. "Log date Eighteen Nine Two Two, an experiment on the effects of squishing undesired emotion out of a gem have yielded tentatively good results, repeat experiments must be performed." She looked over at the other peridots in the work area, and put her touch-stubs together to whistle. "Hey, all you unpolished rocks! Line up for experimental emotion purging!"
Behind her En-Seven and Eye-Five began to stretch and get themselves ready for a hugging marathon.
–
Hug-squishing proved a viable method of getting rid of the malaise which had afflicted the peridots, but only as a temporary measure. Frequent hugs were needed to maintain productivity.
Peridot 5XG naturally got the best quality hugs, and they had the longest effect, so she was able to do the most work with the shortest downtime. This allowed her to make two important breakthroughs in the study of the amber's power. First, she discovered that the harmonics were what allowed the resin produced in the healing to remain a liquid. Next, she found that while an outer shell of the resin hardened during gem-repairs, a layer of it remained liquid as the harmonics were used to vibrate the target and allow the resin to interface with it.
It was reasonably easy to create a similar fluid, one that adapted its resonance to match the target's. But she needed more data on how the substance healed a gem, so Peridot turned Eye-Five for help. Peridot had noted that Eye-Five's gem had seemed to lock into an active state some weeks prior, and thought perhaps she could use that to try and heal with Peridot's synthetic resin.
To her surprise, Eye-Five rubbed some of the resin on her back for the healing experiment before Peridot could fetch a bubbled cracked gem. "Ah," the amber sighed. "Yes, this works. Create a new batch with tracking robonoids in it so we can see how the effects work."
Peridot narrowed her eyes at the human. "Why did you do that?"
Eye-Five smiled. "Because my back hurts."
"Why does your back hurt?"
Eye-Five smiled wider. "Because I'm carrying additional weight."
Peridot's eyes narrowed even more. "Why are you carrying additional weight?"
"Because I'm making a new amber inside me." She rubbed her stomach and for the first time Peridot saw that Eye-Five's abdominal region was swollen.
"You're… making a new amber. In there?" Peridot pointed at the hybrid's abdominal region. "How? With what resources?"
"When we eat, we put aside some resources to allow us to have extra to pull on in case of environmental changes. This is one of them." Eye-Five's eyes sparkled as she explained it all.
Peridot was, however, extremely confused and alarmed. "But… but you need an injector to make a gem!"
En-Seven whistled at her from his spot in the amber's tree.
"And the new gem has to come out of a hole!"
Eye-Five nodded.
Peridot's narrowed eyes were replaced with dawning horror as she fully realized the scope of what she'd just heard. "Your entire cabochon are equipped with miniature kindergartens? That pull from resources you can stockpile?"
Again, Eye-Five nodded and grinned. "Not just us. All fossils can do this!"
It was like the floor had fallen out from under Peridot's feet and she was falling. "All of them?"
All of them. Agates, and opals would never need to be produced from a kindergarten again. Two niche roles, no major loss. But Peridot had read the notes on proto-form gem categories which would radically alter the balance of power in gem society.
–
Blue Diamond had never before walked under the boughs of a tree. It was a surreal experience, to see structures which look as firm and secure as stone sway under the force of a mild breeze. Jet swung from branch to branch by way of thick vines, and bounced along bubbles if he could not swing to catch the next vine easily.
It was graceful to watch. His lessons with Pearl had really paid off.
Exoskeletal animals seemed to be the type of organic animal which the moon sported the most of. Armored crabs with homes made from boulders, land lobsters with the claws to crush those boulders, and wasps large enough to carry away the lobsters were just a few that Blue Diamond saw on their outing. It gave her such ideas for new murals, statues, and mosaics to remember them by when the moon was colonized.
Blue didn't like it when they scuttled onto her, but she didn't mind watching them when they were elsewhere. She liked to watch them move, she just didn't want to have them touching her when they did. The wasps, she found out, didn't take to gentle persuasion when she tried to get them to leave her alone – and she had to lay waste to their hive before they got the message.
"Alright, Jet," she said when they came to a cave system. "This looks like a good spot for you to practice your power. Head on in."
Jet hesitated, perhaps because it was dark and unfamiliar, but Blue placed her hand behind him and gently scooted him into the caves.
"Your gem can give you the light you need – you just need to command it so. I will be out here, you won't have to worry."
How odd, Blue thought as Jet scurried off into the cave. The whole situation was odd, being out in the wilds of a strange moon, with one of her gems which couldn't control their powers. Really, she pondered as she sat down near the cave, if Jet hadn't come from Pink's zoo, and Pink's methods, she would have had him destroyed for the trouble he'd caused.
And she'd still be miserable, if she'd done that.
The diamond of art and beauty slumped against the trunk of a giant tree, and even with its mass it groaned to bear Blue Diamond's weight. If she'd just done what she'd done for any other gem, she'd be miserable and stuck crying constantly again. She hadn't cried in days, she realized with a start.
The pain of losing Pink was still so sharp it felt like it would cut her up inside, and she didn't miss her any less. But Blue didn't feel the urge to sob over Pink anymore. She didn't feel better, but she didn't feel broken. Blue was sure Yellow would tell her it was being back at work which had helped her, but Blue speculated the reason to be something different. She glanced at the cave, and heard faint notes of distorted singing. Her aura flared so that she wouldn't be touched by Jet's power unintentionally.
Would Pink approve of being… replaced by an organic? Tears bubbled up in Blue's eyes as she genuinely couldn't answer that question for herself. Pink had adored organics. So much that Blue wondered if Pink would have been happier as an organic.
Blue rested her head against the tree trunk and imagined what it would be like. Pink as an organic. Ridiculous! She closed her eyes to envision it better, and as she did her aura weakened just a bit. Just enough. Blue perceived the dappled light that came down through the trees as a line against the back of her eyelids. As she imagined, that line coiled and twisted down like the lines on a drill bit toward the bottom of an abyss behind her eyes.
"A dream is a wish your heart makes / When you're fast asleep."
Blue imagined herself as a human woman. She walked through a castle made of mere rocks carefully carved into pleasing patterns by flimsy human hands. Pink walked beside her in the shape of a younger woman than Blue imagined herself. Still young enough that it was acceptable for Blue to lead her by the hand.
"In dreams you will lose your heartaches / Whatever you dream of, you keep."
They came to a courtyard full of plants and little animals in cages, a garden – just for Pink! On all walls of the garden were statues of White, in the pose she'd held for hundreds of years. Blue let the girl go play while she imagined Yellow in the shape of a human soldier advanced to talk to her about affairs of state. Things like growing food and the necessity of clean water. Such trivialities! But Blue's mind was always on Pink, on how happy she was to play, and be free of the burdens she would one day have to bear.
"No matter how your heart is grieving / If you keep on believing / The dream that you wish will come true."
After she and Yellow had talked for a while, Blue imagined her seated next to a fountain in the garden. While she sat and watched Pink play with a small simian animal, she imagined Jet to be there. Even as a human, Blue was still taller than him, but he didn't care. Jet came to sit next to Blue and watched Pink alongside her. Blue's arm wrapped around Jet's waist to draw him closer to her, and –
Blue Diamond snapped out of her imaginings right then and there. She flared her aura to full strength and forced out the thin traces of Jet's power that had managed to get through. Her face was flushed as she berated herself mentally for even thinking such things. It was inappropriate! Unnatural!
And exactly what Pink would do, in her position.
"A diamond must stand apart," she told herself as she forced down the improper thoughts. "No need for friendships, no need for support from anyone or anything." But that hadn't been the case for anyone except White Diamond. Yellow and Blue had always supported each other, and Pink had always asked them for support. White was the one who always acted like she tolerated her fellow diamonds.
Why wasn't it true for her? Why couldn't Blue be like White and not care? Why did she need Pink to make her happy, and then an organic to do the same when Pink was gone? Why did her imaginings lead her to thinking that way for her servant?
Pink had been that way for her servant. Her first pearl, the one White had cruelly taken away and abused to teach Pink a lesson.
Horror dawned in Blue's mind as she put the pieces together. "Was it… me?" She asked herself as she covered her face with her hands. "Did Pink have all those terrible habits and… and favor those organics because she learned it from what I did?" Blue was the only one to let Pink keep any organic pets. Blue had been the one to build the zoo, and then keep the zoo, on Pink's behalf. And Blue had been the one to try and teach Pink how to be a diamond the most. "Was… I the problem?"
"What's the problem, my diamond?"
Blue whirled around, and saw Jet. He had come from the cave, and looked up at her with clear worry.
"Is something the matter? Did I do it wrong again?"
Blue shook her head to get herself out of the past and laid down her hand for Jet to climb onto. "No, no. I'm just shocked at how late we are," Blue lied seamlessly. "We've been out far too long, for a first trip anyway. Come on, let's go back to the base."
"Okay, my diamond." Jet's tone and face made it seem like he didn't completely believe her lie, but he wouldn't resist. "As you command."
–
Jasper dreamed in the periods where she was permitted free time. She would go to her cubby hole, slump against the wall, and sleep like she was an organic. It made her mind sharper when she woke up, it made her aware of things she missed when she was awake. And it gave her something to do besides think about herself.
She dreamed she was on a jungle planet, with a platoon of other quartz soldiers. For some reason they were in frantic retreat, and Jasper was near the back of the pack, meaning she'd been one of the last to fall back. It didn't make sense, Jasper's sleeping mind thought, there had been no retreat orders given during the rebellion that took place in the jungle. When was this?
The jungle gave way to a field of tall grass, almost as tall as the quartz soldiers but nowhere near Jasper's height. "Don't go into the long grass," Jasper frantically shouted but she didn't know why. She tried to grab a nearby carnelian but the red quartz slipped through her fingers like smoke. "Don't go into the long grass!"
With her height, she saw something move through the long grass in pursuit of the fleeing gems. Jasper called on her crash helmet and chased after her fellow soldiers. Soon enough the pursuers revealed themselves. A human with black pits and red dots for eyes lept from the grass onto the back of a fleeing amethyst. Jasper could hear shock become terror and then pain in the quartz's screams. When she got to the scene the amethyst was gone, and only shards in the human's teeth remained of her. The human hissed at Jasper and darted away into the long grass.
The same sick drama unfolded again and again with each soldier that Jasper tried to rescue. The worst ones were the times she would arrive just as the human's teeth broke apart the gem. Jasper would watch with horror as the gem's form dispersed, and the pain that would be the last thing the poor quartz ever felt was etched into Jasper's memory.
And eventually, Jasper was the only one left. All the other quartz soldiers in her platoon were gone. The grass rustled around her, and Jasper rolled to spin dash at the enemy. But there was nothing for her to connect with. The humans darted around, and were too fast for her power to catch them.
"Cowards!" Jasper howled into the night. "Monsters! I won't let you gobble me up! You hear me?! If you want me, you'll pay for me with your worthless lives!" The humans made no response but to rustle more of the grass around her. "I won't lay down and let you shatter me!"
A new rustle happened in the long grass. Someone walking. Jasper turned and saw Pink Diamond, with her eyes as black pits with red dots at their core.
"Wha – "
"Jasper," Pink Diamond said with Rose Quartz's voice. "Lay down."
Pink was her diamond, she had to obey. Jasper's body moved against her will, even as she tried to fight it. "N-no…."
"Jasper," Pink Diamond said with Holly-Blue Agate's voice. "Become food for my precious humans."
"N-no…." Jasper was only able to look at the sky as human faces surrounded her on all sides. "Not like this…."
Crack.
Jasper woke in a cold sweat, and startled her amethyst neighbor with her panicked gasps. She held her head in her hand as she realized it was all a dream. It was only a dream.
It was a dream that could become real at any moment.
"They all need to be destroyed," Jasper muttered to herself as she tried to calm down. "They all need to be destroyed."
After the revelation about the ambers' observational skills, the morale among the peridots was considerably low. Peridot 5XG got hit worse because she had to endure continued interaction with the ambers. Her work speed was slowed by profound lethargy, her results were poor because she couldn't muster the energy to properly experiment, and her usual witticisms had become garbage tier. At first, the ruby's words had been soothing – Yellow Diamond had peridots, why would she need ambers? But then one of her fellow Era Two peridots pointed out that ambers certainly were an improvement over them. In light of that, perhaps Yellow Diamond would simply discontinue the peridot production, and bring in ambers to do their work.
They'd only be partially replaced, in that peridots would still have their jobs. But as time went on there would be fewer and fewer of them. Until eventually they went the way of the pewter. It was inevitable.
She was stirred from her melancholy by a sudden grapple attack by the female amber, Eye-Five. The squishy gem had wrapped her arms around her and began to squeeze.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Peridot demanded, and glared at the rubies. "You're supposed to protect us from them too!" It was wholly insufficient to damage Peridot, but the principle of the matter still stood.
As one the rubies rolled their eyes. "You're fine," the elder of them said. "It's just a hug."
"A what?"
Peridot's dumbfounded croak moved Eye-Five enough to laugh. "A hug, silly! I'm trying to squish the sadness out of you!"
The technician gem used her touch stubs to stroke her chin thoughtfully. They floated freely, so her arms being bound did little to hamper them. Squishing an emotion out of a gem was an… unconventional way to achieve a result, but it had some merit. Peridot nodded, and barked over her shoulder. "Well, if that's what you're trying to do put more effort into it! I'm barely being compressed at all!"
Eye-Five laughed again and easily doubled her hugging pressure.
Peridot grunted from the increased pressure and grit her teeth. "More! We have yet to conclusively prove or disprove your hypothesis." She evacuated all gaseous matter in her hard-light construct form as the pressure increased again. "More…."
"En-Seven," Eye-Five called playfully, "could you come help me hug Peridot?"
Peridot was only aware of the telltale 'thumps' of En-Seven's approaching steps after that. "Yes," she gasped in satisfaction. "His superior strength will easily yield resul-hrlks!" Peridots were made to be tough – they were intended to survive field conditions for drastic repairs, so their poof resistance was at the high end of the spectrum. However the combined strength of two ambers pushed Peridot dangerously close to the poofing threshold, to the point where she couldn't even see because her eyes bugged out of her head.
When she was released, the first thing she did was hit the ground face-first. "Ow." The second was to stand and reflect on her emotional state. She was no longer locked into her malaise, and had returned to the neutral state she favored. "Log date Eighteen Nine Two Two, an experiment on the effects of squishing undesired emotion out of a gem have yielded tentatively good results, repeat experiments must be performed." She looked over at the other peridots in the work area, and put her touch-stubs together to whistle. "Hey, all you unpolished rocks! Line up for experimental emotion purging!"
Behind her En-Seven and Eye-Five began to stretch and get themselves ready for a hugging marathon.
–
Hug-squishing proved a viable method of getting rid of the malaise which had afflicted the peridots, but only as a temporary measure. Frequent hugs were needed to maintain productivity.
Peridot 5XG naturally got the best quality hugs, and they had the longest effect, so she was able to do the most work with the shortest downtime. This allowed her to make two important breakthroughs in the study of the amber's power. First, she discovered that the harmonics were what allowed the resin produced in the healing to remain a liquid. Next, she found that while an outer shell of the resin hardened during gem-repairs, a layer of it remained liquid as the harmonics were used to vibrate the target and allow the resin to interface with it.
It was reasonably easy to create a similar fluid, one that adapted its resonance to match the target's. But she needed more data on how the substance healed a gem, so Peridot turned Eye-Five for help. Peridot had noted that Eye-Five's gem had seemed to lock into an active state some weeks prior, and thought perhaps she could use that to try and heal with Peridot's synthetic resin.
To her surprise, Eye-Five rubbed some of the resin on her back for the healing experiment before Peridot could fetch a bubbled cracked gem. "Ah," the amber sighed. "Yes, this works. Create a new batch with tracking robonoids in it so we can see how the effects work."
Peridot narrowed her eyes at the human. "Why did you do that?"
Eye-Five smiled. "Because my back hurts."
"Why does your back hurt?"
Eye-Five smiled wider. "Because I'm carrying additional weight."
Peridot's eyes narrowed even more. "Why are you carrying additional weight?"
"Because I'm making a new amber inside me." She rubbed her stomach and for the first time Peridot saw that Eye-Five's abdominal region was swollen.
"You're… making a new amber. In there?" Peridot pointed at the hybrid's abdominal region. "How? With what resources?"
"When we eat, we put aside some resources to allow us to have extra to pull on in case of environmental changes. This is one of them." Eye-Five's eyes sparkled as she explained it all.
Peridot was, however, extremely confused and alarmed. "But… but you need an injector to make a gem!"
En-Seven whistled at her from his spot in the amber's tree.
"And the new gem has to come out of a hole!"
Eye-Five nodded.
Peridot's narrowed eyes were replaced with dawning horror as she fully realized the scope of what she'd just heard. "Your entire cabochon are equipped with miniature kindergartens? That pull from resources you can stockpile?"
Again, Eye-Five nodded and grinned. "Not just us. All fossils can do this!"
It was like the floor had fallen out from under Peridot's feet and she was falling. "All of them?"
All of them. Agates, and opals would never need to be produced from a kindergarten again. Two niche roles, no major loss. But Peridot had read the notes on proto-form gem categories which would radically alter the balance of power in gem society.
–
Blue Diamond had never before walked under the boughs of a tree. It was a surreal experience, to see structures which look as firm and secure as stone sway under the force of a mild breeze. Jet swung from branch to branch by way of thick vines, and bounced along bubbles if he could not swing to catch the next vine easily.
It was graceful to watch. His lessons with Pearl had really paid off.
Exoskeletal animals seemed to be the type of organic animal which the moon sported the most of. Armored crabs with homes made from boulders, land lobsters with the claws to crush those boulders, and wasps large enough to carry away the lobsters were just a few that Blue Diamond saw on their outing. It gave her such ideas for new murals, statues, and mosaics to remember them by when the moon was colonized.
Blue didn't like it when they scuttled onto her, but she didn't mind watching them when they were elsewhere. She liked to watch them move, she just didn't want to have them touching her when they did. The wasps, she found out, didn't take to gentle persuasion when she tried to get them to leave her alone – and she had to lay waste to their hive before they got the message.
"Alright, Jet," she said when they came to a cave system. "This looks like a good spot for you to practice your power. Head on in."
Jet hesitated, perhaps because it was dark and unfamiliar, but Blue placed her hand behind him and gently scooted him into the caves.
"Your gem can give you the light you need – you just need to command it so. I will be out here, you won't have to worry."
How odd, Blue thought as Jet scurried off into the cave. The whole situation was odd, being out in the wilds of a strange moon, with one of her gems which couldn't control their powers. Really, she pondered as she sat down near the cave, if Jet hadn't come from Pink's zoo, and Pink's methods, she would have had him destroyed for the trouble he'd caused.
And she'd still be miserable, if she'd done that.
The diamond of art and beauty slumped against the trunk of a giant tree, and even with its mass it groaned to bear Blue Diamond's weight. If she'd just done what she'd done for any other gem, she'd be miserable and stuck crying constantly again. She hadn't cried in days, she realized with a start.
The pain of losing Pink was still so sharp it felt like it would cut her up inside, and she didn't miss her any less. But Blue didn't feel the urge to sob over Pink anymore. She didn't feel better, but she didn't feel broken. Blue was sure Yellow would tell her it was being back at work which had helped her, but Blue speculated the reason to be something different. She glanced at the cave, and heard faint notes of distorted singing. Her aura flared so that she wouldn't be touched by Jet's power unintentionally.
Would Pink approve of being… replaced by an organic? Tears bubbled up in Blue's eyes as she genuinely couldn't answer that question for herself. Pink had adored organics. So much that Blue wondered if Pink would have been happier as an organic.
Blue rested her head against the tree trunk and imagined what it would be like. Pink as an organic. Ridiculous! She closed her eyes to envision it better, and as she did her aura weakened just a bit. Just enough. Blue perceived the dappled light that came down through the trees as a line against the back of her eyelids. As she imagined, that line coiled and twisted down like the lines on a drill bit toward the bottom of an abyss behind her eyes.
"A dream is a wish your heart makes / When you're fast asleep."
Blue imagined herself as a human woman. She walked through a castle made of mere rocks carefully carved into pleasing patterns by flimsy human hands. Pink walked beside her in the shape of a younger woman than Blue imagined herself. Still young enough that it was acceptable for Blue to lead her by the hand.
"In dreams you will lose your heartaches / Whatever you dream of, you keep."
They came to a courtyard full of plants and little animals in cages, a garden – just for Pink! On all walls of the garden were statues of White, in the pose she'd held for hundreds of years. Blue let the girl go play while she imagined Yellow in the shape of a human soldier advanced to talk to her about affairs of state. Things like growing food and the necessity of clean water. Such trivialities! But Blue's mind was always on Pink, on how happy she was to play, and be free of the burdens she would one day have to bear.
"No matter how your heart is grieving / If you keep on believing / The dream that you wish will come true."
After she and Yellow had talked for a while, Blue imagined her seated next to a fountain in the garden. While she sat and watched Pink play with a small simian animal, she imagined Jet to be there. Even as a human, Blue was still taller than him, but he didn't care. Jet came to sit next to Blue and watched Pink alongside her. Blue's arm wrapped around Jet's waist to draw him closer to her, and –
Blue Diamond snapped out of her imaginings right then and there. She flared her aura to full strength and forced out the thin traces of Jet's power that had managed to get through. Her face was flushed as she berated herself mentally for even thinking such things. It was inappropriate! Unnatural!
And exactly what Pink would do, in her position.
"A diamond must stand apart," she told herself as she forced down the improper thoughts. "No need for friendships, no need for support from anyone or anything." But that hadn't been the case for anyone except White Diamond. Yellow and Blue had always supported each other, and Pink had always asked them for support. White was the one who always acted like she tolerated her fellow diamonds.
Why wasn't it true for her? Why couldn't Blue be like White and not care? Why did she need Pink to make her happy, and then an organic to do the same when Pink was gone? Why did her imaginings lead her to thinking that way for her servant?
Pink had been that way for her servant. Her first pearl, the one White had cruelly taken away and abused to teach Pink a lesson.
Horror dawned in Blue's mind as she put the pieces together. "Was it… me?" She asked herself as she covered her face with her hands. "Did Pink have all those terrible habits and… and favor those organics because she learned it from what I did?" Blue was the only one to let Pink keep any organic pets. Blue had been the one to build the zoo, and then keep the zoo, on Pink's behalf. And Blue had been the one to try and teach Pink how to be a diamond the most. "Was… I the problem?"
"What's the problem, my diamond?"
Blue whirled around, and saw Jet. He had come from the cave, and looked up at her with clear worry.
"Is something the matter? Did I do it wrong again?"
Blue shook her head to get herself out of the past and laid down her hand for Jet to climb onto. "No, no. I'm just shocked at how late we are," Blue lied seamlessly. "We've been out far too long, for a first trip anyway. Come on, let's go back to the base."
"Okay, my diamond." Jet's tone and face made it seem like he didn't completely believe her lie, but he wouldn't resist. "As you command."
–
Jasper dreamed in the periods where she was permitted free time. She would go to her cubby hole, slump against the wall, and sleep like she was an organic. It made her mind sharper when she woke up, it made her aware of things she missed when she was awake. And it gave her something to do besides think about herself.
She dreamed she was on a jungle planet, with a platoon of other quartz soldiers. For some reason they were in frantic retreat, and Jasper was near the back of the pack, meaning she'd been one of the last to fall back. It didn't make sense, Jasper's sleeping mind thought, there had been no retreat orders given during the rebellion that took place in the jungle. When was this?
The jungle gave way to a field of tall grass, almost as tall as the quartz soldiers but nowhere near Jasper's height. "Don't go into the long grass," Jasper frantically shouted but she didn't know why. She tried to grab a nearby carnelian but the red quartz slipped through her fingers like smoke. "Don't go into the long grass!"
With her height, she saw something move through the long grass in pursuit of the fleeing gems. Jasper called on her crash helmet and chased after her fellow soldiers. Soon enough the pursuers revealed themselves. A human with black pits and red dots for eyes lept from the grass onto the back of a fleeing amethyst. Jasper could hear shock become terror and then pain in the quartz's screams. When she got to the scene the amethyst was gone, and only shards in the human's teeth remained of her. The human hissed at Jasper and darted away into the long grass.
The same sick drama unfolded again and again with each soldier that Jasper tried to rescue. The worst ones were the times she would arrive just as the human's teeth broke apart the gem. Jasper would watch with horror as the gem's form dispersed, and the pain that would be the last thing the poor quartz ever felt was etched into Jasper's memory.
And eventually, Jasper was the only one left. All the other quartz soldiers in her platoon were gone. The grass rustled around her, and Jasper rolled to spin dash at the enemy. But there was nothing for her to connect with. The humans darted around, and were too fast for her power to catch them.
"Cowards!" Jasper howled into the night. "Monsters! I won't let you gobble me up! You hear me?! If you want me, you'll pay for me with your worthless lives!" The humans made no response but to rustle more of the grass around her. "I won't lay down and let you shatter me!"
A new rustle happened in the long grass. Someone walking. Jasper turned and saw Pink Diamond, with her eyes as black pits with red dots at their core.
"Wha – "
"Jasper," Pink Diamond said with Rose Quartz's voice. "Lay down."
Pink was her diamond, she had to obey. Jasper's body moved against her will, even as she tried to fight it. "N-no…."
"Jasper," Pink Diamond said with Holly-Blue Agate's voice. "Become food for my precious humans."
"N-no…." Jasper was only able to look at the sky as human faces surrounded her on all sides. "Not like this…."
Crack.
Jasper woke in a cold sweat, and startled her amethyst neighbor with her panicked gasps. She held her head in her hand as she realized it was all a dream. It was only a dream.
It was a dream that could become real at any moment.
"They all need to be destroyed," Jasper muttered to herself as she tried to calm down. "They all need to be destroyed."
aledeth
The Flesh is Weak
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh man, this keeps being amazing. Peridot's segment with the hugs was hilarious, and Jasper's massive paranoia/phobia is just spiraling out of control. Unfortunately seems like Blue is learning the wrong lessons from her dreams.
Also glad we got that bit of Human POV from last chapter so we know roughly what year it is on Earth. Was wondering what the chances of Steven popping up would be and if Homeworld Gems would think he ate Pink Diamond or something, now that they have their own idea of how Human-with-Gem can happen.
Does also make me wonder if, eventually, we'd see a Gem and Fossil try to make a new Gem the 'Fossil' way and what comes of that.
Also glad we got that bit of Human POV from last chapter so we know roughly what year it is on Earth. Was wondering what the chances of Steven popping up would be and if Homeworld Gems would think he ate Pink Diamond or something, now that they have their own idea of how Human-with-Gem can happen.
Does also make me wonder if, eventually, we'd see a Gem and Fossil try to make a new Gem the 'Fossil' way and what comes of that.
- Location
- Back in the 90s (In a very famous TV show)
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Ve/Ver
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I'm not sure what Peridot's getting at in regards to the idea of Fossils being able to become pregnant being this massive issue or change to Gem society.
The hugs were hilarious and adorable, though.
Oh, and here's Rebecca Sugar on Gems as nonbinary: "Steven Universe" Creator Rebecca Sugar Comes Out as "Non-Binary Woman
The hugs were hilarious and adorable, though.
Oh, and here's Rebecca Sugar on Gems as nonbinary: "Steven Universe" Creator Rebecca Sugar Comes Out as "Non-Binary Woman
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The abolishment of kindergartens and exponential growth of fossil population. Both change almost everything over long periods.
serra2
Himouto! Sylvanas-chan
Kindergarten's likely have a premium on space and available resources to produce gems. If Fossil's can reproduce themselves outside the confines of a kindergarten, then there is simply no need to ever allocate resources to producing the gems they are replacing, saving instead for more valuable gems. This comes on the fear of ambers being used to replace peridots. This also frees the fossils from the main strangleholds of Gem society, the absolute reliance on the Diamonds for reproduction.
- Location
- Back in the 90s (In a very famous TV show)
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Ve/Ver
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Wait, but can't the Kindergartens only produce Fossils? Isn't that an inherent limitation?
Also, I don't think the Diamonds are essential for production? Can't the Kindergartens be operated independently?
Also, I don't think the Diamonds are essential for production? Can't the Kindergartens be operated independently?
Chairtastic
Anything's a chair if you're brave enough
- Location
- Breakfast nook
- Pronouns
- He / Him / It
No, extracted power from the diamonds is needed to produce new gems. The ratio of which from what diamond helps control the formation, and determines who has geas power over it. With Pink gone, at least in this AU, only Blue and Yellow have been keeping up with extractions, which is part of the resource scarcity problem.
The diamonds think that a zoo is the equivalent of a kindergarten for fossils and have set some kindergartners up to refine the process for future expanded production.
- Location
- Attempting to cast animate object on a black hole.
Also, creating new gems is another job taken from Peridots.
- Location
- Back in the 90s (In a very famous TV show)
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- She/Her/Ve/Ver
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Is that a thing from the show? I just thought there was a generic life energy and resources that the Kindergartens sapped. Also, is the issue just that the Ambers could replace Peridots and the fossils could replace Quartzes, or is it something larger? Peridot mentions a change of the power dynamics of Homeworld, is there an implication here I'm missing?
Also, yeah, I posted the link to the quote above, if that helps.
serra2
Himouto! Sylvanas-chan
Yeah, you get pieces in the show, and Sugar confirmed it out of universe.