profoundlytenaciousgalaxy asked: I was reading about your analysis about Holly Blue and a thought came up. Could Holly Blue adopted the physical reaction from being mingled with the Earth Gems for so long? I'm seeing that if she was in charge of a different group of gems, she wouldn't be nearly as physical? Using other methods of getting them in shape and in line?

That’s a really good point and now that you bring it up I do think that as well! In both the Holly Blue Character Analysis and the new Pearl Class Analysis I bring up why it’s significant that these gems are put in the service sector.

They’re separated from gems of their kind, so the socialisation process that we usually see, like Peridot still being able to compare herself to Era 1 Peridots in Too Short to Ride, the Ruby Squad, or Jasper talking about Jaspers as a collective, is largely absent.

In fact, there is an attempt from them to distance themselves from similar gems. Holly talks about the specific prestige of serving on an outpost in the middle of nowhere that no one visits.

So like Pearls, HBA’s may be expected to assimilate into the lives of their wards as well in order to get them to listen to her and respect her.

We needn’t go to my now, very tired example of the Ruby Squad. Let’s go to the Famethyst.

They grab.

They play fight.

They’re not too into personal space.

They pick each other up without asking.

And none of it is seen as threatening or an invasion of space. In their social sphere, the norms for what is acceptable is different. And that doesn’t meant in the slightest that they’re less “civilised.” Some cultures in our world speak louder than others. Some cultures accept what most Western societies would describe as a “too close for comfort” distance when talking to one another. Some cultures go right for the kiss when they greet one another.

Taking a culturally relativism standpoint, we can’t say one is more valid than the other.

So in order to appeal to that, Holly Blue’s “get in your face” tactic may have been learned as well.

Seeing HBA’s as middle-level managers, I could see them acting differently if in case they were in charge of another group of gems, depending on the way they socialise.