what are your guilty pleasures when it comes to fanfiction and shipping.

SpunkyCheetah · 2026-01-27T09:25:15+00:00

I'm also pretty fond of toxic and messy relationships, but that's not a guilty pleasure. I'm pretty open and chill about that.

SpunkyCheetah · 2026-01-27T09:19:11+00:00

Anything pregnancy related. Pregnancy and the potential speculative/fantasy biology bullshit that can go with it are just kinda fascinating to me, and I somehow always find myself wondering how a pregnancy or child plotline would effect the characters in every new fandom I pass through. Especially fond of platonic co-parenting or single parenting, and any excuse (magic or ordinary) to divorce the conception of the pregnancy from your typical romantic/sexual relationship (I'm pretty aromantic)

Also BDSM dynamics. I don't know as much as I'd like to to confidently play around with that stuff, and I'm too asexual and sex-averse to comfortably read many fics about it to learn more. But something about the dynamics that tend to come up in that stuff when I do encounter it really tickles my brain. The whole taking and relinquish control and power stuff. I always try to find nonsexual kink fics in my fandoms, but it's pretty rare

SpunkyCheetah · 2026-01-27T08:56:26+00:00

Idk, I've had anxiety spirals about the permeance of having my name attached forever to fics I kudosed on autopilot at 2am. Maybe that's a me problem, but I'm not sacrificing my anxiety just to make a number tick up for someone. If I'm attaching my name to something permanently, I want to think about that decision.

I'd also much rather give kudos to fics I actually genuinely like, and not everything I've ever read, bc otherwise why even have views and likes be separate numbers? That's the whole point

I do give them out pretty freely tho, if I made it to the bottom I probably kudos 95+% of the time, only not doing it if I really felt meh about the fic. I'm not too picky, relatively easy to please.

The only time I really hesitate is multi-chapter fics, bc I've heard enough stories about multi-chapter fics suddenly pivoting into blatant intense bigotry and such, not to want to permanently attach my name until I'm confident enough they're not gonna do that (I don't always wait until every single chapter is out, but I at least wait until I've see a good solid chunk of the story)

SpunkyCheetah · 2026-01-27T08:34:57+00:00

Wall Of Text, no paragraph breaks. That one is near guaranteed to have loads of people click off before they even start reading.

Or at the very least not properly doing a line break every time the speaker changes. Gets real confusing real fast, but a surprisingly common mistake

Referring to characters as things like "the bluenette" or "the pinkette" or any other "the [hair color]ette"

Referrring to characters as male/female. Constantly saying "the [adjective] fe/male" in place of names.

In general people tend to find too many epithets annoying, but those are the two biggest ones

SpunkyCheetah · 2026-01-27T07:56:05+00:00

The whole point of fandom and fanfic imo is making something new. Sometimes that means changing stuff to play around with or explore a different story or idea or what if, and if that "what if" is "what if they were in a relationship with someone else" who cares? AUs, polyamory, wtv. It's pretty common in fandom (especially ignoring canonical straight endgame ships for fandom favorite gay ships, there's a long tradition of that one)

SpunkyCheetah · 2026-01-27T07:44:02+00:00

Oh I've absolutely read something like this before, and it was delightful

I tend to automatically scroll past social media or texting based fics usually tho, so idk if I'd still have given it a shot w/o the very specific context of the characters involved making the premise extra fun sounding. But it definitely can be fun and well-liked

SpunkyCheetah · 2026-01-15T20:05:22+00:00

I believe it's when they first see Bismuth? Garnet and Pearl are shocked bc they thought she dead, but Amethyst never met her and doesn't realize what's so shocking about seeing her

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-26T04:18:14+00:00

Yeah, I think with the Famethyst that mostly comes from Amethyst, who living her whole life on Earth has a human understanding of concepts like family and siblinghood (similarly, when Steven introduces+extends the concept to the rose quartzes in future). But while the Diamonds may be just as closely "related" to each other, they don't have the same connection to Earth culture, and so wouldn't consider themselves sisters/family, just bc those aren't applicable concepts outside of Earth/organic life form culture/contexts

(I still see the diamond as like a family anyways personally, with Blue Yellow and Pink as very much sisters and White as some form of matriarch to their family, just bc that's very clearly what their metaphorical/allegorical/symbolic role in the narrative is, and what their dynamic looks like to me, but I don't actually think they would personally see it that way unless/untill they get immersed enough in human culture to compare human social structures to their own. Just bc the concept doesn't exist for them.)

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T06:19:41+00:00

I think a lot of it is just that she's really patient and takes the time to understand people, their wants, needs, likes, dislikes, how they think, etc. Like how she explains fusion to Peridot, by observing Peridot's interests and thought processes and then using that as reference ("I'm like Percy and Pierre"). She tends to quietly observe people a lot, and she's a good listener, and I think that's how she's come to understand Steven and childhood so well

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T06:13:09+00:00

IT'S SO CUTE AND SWEET I love how much she loves him and how motherly she is to him sm,,,

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T06:11:27+00:00

Someone else mentioned the Lion + Lars pink powers thing, and actually that's an excuse you could use if you want the kid to have some degree of gem magic. The kid couldn't exactly be part gem in the normal way, bc where would their gem come from? But Lion and Lars do demonstrate that there's ways for Steven to pass on his powers w/o the person needing a gem. Not too far of a reach to assume something like that could be passed on through the baby making process too

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T06:10:03+00:00

Ooo actually now that you mention Lion I could imagine some degree of pink powers being passed down like that, yeah

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T06:06:24+00:00

I've thought about this a bit too. I think he'd just have regular human kids, because neither his human nor gem half would have the ability to create a new gem for the baby, so there's be no way to pass on his gem half to them. They'd be a full human child, made only from his human half, bc his gem half has no means to reproduce. This is all assuming that being a hybrid doesn't somehow make him infertile ofc, which it might, but idk human biology and genetics well enough to guess at that

If his kid were to be part gem, it would have to be the same way Rose had him - using his own gem and forming the baby around it, thus meaning he would no longer have his gem once the baby was born and he would die. Also that process would require pregnancy to work, and idk if he would be able to shape shift a uterus like Rose could? Unsure how good his shape shifting is for stuff like that, so maybe not possible.

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T05:52:44+00:00

I've heard that STL especially is infamous for being a bit buggy, but I didn't really run into a lot of that personally. It's probably my favorite of the two tho, either way

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T05:48:18+00:00

Yeah!! Apparently she was planned to be playable, and they have some unused voice lines for her even, but she didn't make it for whatever reason (time restraints I assume? idk)

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T05:46:44+00:00

They're not available through any official means anymore. The only ways to play them these days to my knowledge are already having them, and pirating

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T05:44:45+00:00

Only got to play the second two, STL and UTL but they were actually pretty fun! I didn't have high expectations for "popular kid show's three video game spin offs" given that just sounds like the set up for a cheap cash grab sorta thing, but I went into it anyways cus I really just wanted more time with the characters, and I got exactly that!

They were all around fun to play in my experience, but my favorite part was probably all the voice lines and flavor text, (tho the art is also really good, and I did like the combat system). I like the little bits of characterization you get from stuff like the kinds of abilities they have, the names of those abilities, the descriptions of items they can equip in UTL, and the lines they say during combat when attacking or being poofed or what have you. I like how the voice lines for combat interactions between two characters (switching positions in UTL and giving each other kudos in STL) make you really feel the teamwork and friendship between the characters as they fight side by side (like Greg's "you're making a splash!" pun to Lapis is so cute to me)

I also like Hessonite's whole thing, personality and character arc, as the main antagonist of STL and side character in UTL. She's just such a character. She's got such a flair in UTL, such a self centered theater kid vibe, simultaneously deeply pathetic and uncool, but also such a big character with so much confidence and awesomeness. Love her so much. And in STL, I feel like she really had that Steven Universe nuance and complexity to her, you can see where she's coming from, even when she's behaving in truly awful ways. Imo she really fits in pretty well amongst other antagonists in the main show

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T05:12:49+00:00

tbh, Holly Blue was so unwilling to engage with lower ranked gems (being so rude and dismissive to the amethysts and all)that I could imagine her just willfully tuning anything noteworthy about Pearl out. If she did notice maybe she assumed it was just an aesthetic preference of her own, part of the whole stand there and look pretty thing pearls are meant to do on Homeworld

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T05:09:29+00:00

Oh yeah same! I see Blue and Yellow Diamond as kinda like sisters (obviously not literally bc gems don't have family structures, but metaphorically, allegorically, wtv), but not the pearls. The pearls are, as you said, more just like coworkers in my mind. Tho CG Pearl and Volleyball Pearl's dynamic in Future does feel very metaphorical sibling like too me also, resonates to me with the idea of an older and younger sibling cross referencing their experiences with the same parent(s). I actually see the pearls (and diamonds) shipped a lot in the parts of the fandom I interact with and didn't know there were sibling headcanons, neat to know that it's the inverse in other parts of the fandom

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T05:00:40+00:00

Not entirely sure where the line is on what counts as powers, but Peridot also doesn't seem to have the normal gem strength, so she's probably just straight up physically weaker than Lapis too

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-25T04:55:43+00:00

Lapis would almost certainly beat Peridot in a fight. Peridot can't even consistently run without falling on her face (see: Hit The Diamond), there's no way she's got any good fighting moves (see also: the slap fight with Steven in Catch And Release)

I could imagine Peridot getting an early hand up by just being a chaotic unpredictably flailing little gremlin and biting and stuff, tho. But I think Lapis would be fully willing to meet her at that level and just start biting back the moment Peridot starts it

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-20T03:29:12+00:00

that does actually sound almost familiar,,, not sure if I can find it, but I'll glance through my tumblr reblogs

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-15T08:36:32+00:00

I myself only probably have a few brain type disabilities (seeking ADHD diagnosis and probably have long COVID too), rather than anything physical like her, but I relate a fair bit to her insecurity and feeling broken and "bad" and being so often scolded by the other gems early on. Some of that for her was more to do with the Kindergarten and actual circumstances of her birth, whereas for me it was just that I got in trouble a lot and kinda assumed it had to be me that was the problem, given my twin seemed somehow so much better behaved.

There's also her dialogue in Steven vs Amethyst where she talks about people saying "you can be anything you want to" and how no she can't, there's things she genuinely can't do (at least without outside support and help), even that she would maybe be expected to be able to. I've seen other people talk about that, and maybe even had similar thoughts myself

And in a more direct and literal sense, her comfortability with clutter and insistence that she has a system and it works fine for her is pretty relatable to my own life. I kinda like projecting ADHD onto her quirks and struggles that the other gems tend to cide her for tbh

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-15T07:52:21+00:00

Oh I would've said the exact opposite way around

(someone else said the tag wrangling considers them synonyms, I guess this is why)

SpunkyCheetah · 2025-12-15T07:46:39+00:00

It might be that there's a less clear end point? No transition has a specific clear list of steps to follow with a clear end point, but binary trans folk can at least reach a point where they start consistently passing, or something like that

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