While scouting the human world, Eda the Owl Lady comes across with an abandoned child who has an unusual gem embedded into his body. By adopting this child, Eda has unwittingly set the Boiling Isles, and her own life, on a collision course that will change everything.
Boiling Gems is Steven Universe and The Owl House crossover fanfic by MCU616 and HAZZARDOVERFLOW. Currently ongoing, and can be read on Archive of Our Own here
and FanFiction.Net here
.
Boiling Gems contains the following examples:
- Adaptational Jerkass:
- Connie Maheswaran in canon was at her worst just socially awkward, being a supportive friend for Steven even when he pushed her away and always being an understanding and kind person. Here, years of being in an Arranged Friendship with Luz left her with a growing sense of hatred and resentment, seeing Luz as a conscious troublemaker and only associating with her due to their parents being friends, and not hesitating to treat Luz more like a burden when she gets trapped in the Human Realm again.
- Camila Noceda here is a lot less understanding of Luz's issues compared to canon due to Vee not having been pretending to be her at first. Without having a Be Careful What You Wish For moment from seeing Vee as "Luz" being "normal", Camila continues to see Luz's behavior as problematic even after she returns from the Demon Realm, and insists on trying to make her conform to the Human Realm while ignorant to how Luz has nothing for her in the Human Realm at this point beside Camila, and is angry upon talking to Lucci and Hunter and getting the idea that Hexside encouraged her "problematic" behavior. And while Camila does blame herself for Luz's issues, she fails to grasp just what those issues truly are and thinks Luz needs to change.
- Greg Universe Took a Level in Cynic as a result of Vee replacing Steven as an infant. Due to Vee not knowing Greg and wanting to stay with the Gems, she would never go with him, causing Greg to grow bitter and think the Gems were corrupting "Steven's" head and turning "him" against him, causing him to develop Fantastic Racism against the Gems too. This built up for years, combined with resentment towards seeing other family's living happily, until his leg accidentally got broken by Lapis, upon which he lashed out at Vee when she went to check on him, lamenting how shitty his life is and saying he wished "Steven" was never born. When he later starts dating Camila, he actually gets annoyed hearing Luz returned since he liked commiserating with her over their both having issues with their kids, becoming an Abhorrent Admirer to Camila after she sees how bad he really is all while trying to force a relationship with Lucci despite Lucci making clear he wants nothing to do with him, it becoming abundantly clear Greg thinks It's All About Me.
- Adaptational Sexuality: In canon, Eda Clawthorne has only ever been with ex-boyfriends and the non-binary transmasculine Raine Whispers. Here, there's mention of "ex-girlfriends", Lucci having to tell them that she's at a Hotel should they find the Owl House.
- Arranged Friendship: Deconstruction for tragedy as trying to arrange a friendship between two lonely girls who, on paper, appear to have a lot in common with each other has tragic consequences for both the girls and their parents.
- Connie Maheswaran and Luz Noceda are two lonely girls who have trouble making friends; their parents were friends, so they set them up on a play date, hoping they would befriend each other. However, this backfired tremendously because, in the first chapter, it's cleared that Connie hated Luz and spending time with her to the point where she didn't want to use Luz's name in her head and is only polite to her because she was unwilling to tell her to go away and because of their parent's friendship. Later, it was revealed that Connie has a growing hatred of Luz because of her unintentional actions of causing trouble, which got Connie into trouble in school and with her parents.
- Luz herself seems in the dark about how Connie feels about her and believes they are close friends. But later chapters revealed that Luz does know that Connie hates her, but it's just she's that desperate to have a friend that she would rather try to force the two of them to spend time together and pretend that the two of them are friends than face the fact that Connie hates her, which backfires on her because Connie grows to hate her even more, and despite Luz's wishes, the two of them never became true friends.
- It's got to the point where their parent's friendship became strained when it was revealed that Connie's mother, Priyanka Maheswaran, threatened Camila Noceda with legal action unless she fixes her daughter, causing Camilla to send Luz to reality check camp and it's heavily implied back Connie parents cut off contact with Camila before her daughter disappeared because according to Camilla, no one cared or a sympathize with her when her daughter disappeared.
- Children Are Innocent: A lot of the comedy in the earlier chapters is Eda Clawthorne raising her adopted son Lucci to be a partner-in-crime with her own chaotic morals, the boy too bright-eyed and precocious to really understand the ramifications of pick-pocketing strangers and committing arson.
- The Cynic: After Amity and Willow abruptly ended their friendship, Lucci Clawthorne had developed a more sarcastic disposition. Luz calls him an Emo for it, something Eda and King find hilarious.
- Dangerous Phlebotinum Interaction:
- Lucci and Amity invent little bombs by filling his bubbles with abominations. This results in the abominations turning pink and exploding, though the explosions themselves are fairly harmless.
- When Lucci tries performing bard magic, it accidentally causes a building mid-construction to melt.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Camila and Connie continuously treat Luz's general apathy for the human realm and her studies as just being more signs of her being problematic, thinking that even if she can help her friends get home she still needs to have good grades and relationships with the people at her school. They continuously refuse to listen though when Luz outlines she has nothing for her remaining in the human realm aside from Camila, she's Hated by All in Gravesfield just for being herself, and the one place willing to accept her is the very same place she's trying to bring everyone back to. This escalates to the point she and Connie get into an actual fight at school over it, and Camila, ignorant of the context, tries grounding Luz and in turn just feeds into Luz's resentment and guilt while making her more defiant.
- Eats Babies: Apparently, eating babies was an ancient witch custom in the Boiling Isles, and Eda (jokingly) tells a fortunate baby Steven he's lucky that it isn't a custom anymore or he would be her dinner.
- Elemental Powers: Lilith explains that the classical elements operate as foundations to the nine magical arts; Earth for Construction, Water for Potions, Abomination and Healing, Fire for Oracle, Illusion and Bard, and Air for Plant and Beastkeeping.
- Enlightened Self-Interest: While Eda is fond of "Lucifer", her interest is drawn by how his gem powers have helped her with her Owl Beast curse.
- Everyone Has Standards
- Despite being a petty criminal, Eda can't bring herself to steal Steven's gem, especially when she realizes it is more or less a part of him.
- Connie Maheswaran really hates spending time with Luz Noceda because of the trouble she unintentionally causes her because of Luz's antics. Connie only spends time with Luz because of their parent's friendship, and their parents hope they can become friends, only for Connie to develop a resentment for Luz because she often causes trouble and ends up in trouble as Luz's accomplice. However, despite this, Connie was disgusted with her classmate Amber's contempt for Luz to the point where she would ask questions about when Luz would cause problems; feeling that Amber is obsessed with Luz, Connie was incredibly disgusted when Amber took joy in Luz misery when she was having trouble with school work and told Amber doesn’t she have anything better to do. When Amber pointed out that Connie also hates Luz, Connie replied that she does not enjoy seeing people miserable. Amber's behavior causes Connie to reevaluate her feelings for Luz and decide to make peace with her.
- Fan Art: One of the reviewers, CMR Rosa, not only commissioned a cover picture but a whole gallery folder for character pictures from this story here
. - Fetishized Abuser: Lucci has developed a crush on Boscha, who has only ever been a bully to him.
- Freudian Excuse: One of the reasons why Willow's dads try to keep her out of the Plant track is because one of their mothers was eaten by a plant.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Deconstructed. Being public enemy #1 in the Boiling Isles leaves Eda tired and frustrated. One of the reasons she loves traveling to Earth is she wants to be somewhere where her undeserved reputation won't follow her.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: Eda finds a lot of human customs, from Christianity to a reindeer with a nose infection, to be very bizarre.
- Interspecies Adoption: Eda comes from a Mage Species, and she adopts "Lucifer" (Steven), a half-human, human-alien being with strange powers.
- Jerkass Realization: Connie Maheswaran had this in chapter 110 about her treatment of Luz Noceda, whom she greatly resents because she would often get Connie into trouble because she didn’t think about her actions, and her parents forced her to be friends with Luz. First, she was bugged by a classmate, Amber, who hated Luz and asked when she would cause another problem. Connie just told Amber to mind her own business and called her out on being obsessed over Luz; when Amber and Connie see Luz having trouble with her grades, Amber is happy to see Luz miserable, only for Connie to be disgusted with her and tell her is that the only thing she has on her mind. When Amber pointed out that she hates Luz too, Connie replied that she does not enjoy the suffering of others. Amber's words caused Connie to think about how she had treated Luz. Later, when Connie and Luz fight, Connie calls out Luz for all the trouble she caused her, and Luz calls Connie out for never giving her a chance and for never talking about the problems between them or for going out of her comfort zone. Connie listened and genuinely apologized to Luz, admitting that she partly caused the issues between them, and Connie and Luz agreed on a truce so they could help their friends.
- The Kindnapper: Hooty points out that Eda taking Steven technically qualifies as kidnapping, but Eda throws back that since he was abandoned in the woods, there was nobody to kidnap him from.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: Eda, while mostly noble, is a thief and initially covets Steven's gem.
- Literal Metaphor: Eda has been stabbed in the back over fifty times and she has the scars to prove it.
- Mythology Gag: According to King, the closest to Illusion Magic Eda ever taught Lucci was "rich cat makeup he puts on pretending to be [her] lawyer," a reference to his canon Heel persona Tiger Millionaire.
- Noodle Incident:
- Eda swore off dating Emperor goons with tentacles for arms... again.
- Lucci has sworn off plant magic because of the "Vegetable Incident."
- Eda took Lucci to the zoo ate age 6. All they mention is that there were a lot of flaming squirrels and Lucci learned that opossums weren't real.
- Parental Favoritism: It isn't lost on Lucci that whenever he visits his grandparents, all Gwendolyn ever wants to talk about is Eda. When he tries talking about Lilith, she immediately pivots back to Eda.
- Positive Friend Influence: Subverted. A lot of the Steven Universe cast ended up changing for the better because of their relationships with Steven bringing out the best of them, most notable with the three core Crystal Gems. With Steven being "Lucci" however and Vee taking Steven's place but not being the Magnetic Hero Steven was, most of the Steven Universe characters are worse than canon, the Crystal Gems being xenophobic, Connie being more a product of her parents mindset and filled with disdain for Luz, and Greg devolving into a self-centered asshole.
- Running Gag: Whenever people see Eda with Lucci, their first reaction is to assume that she has taken to kidnapping children.
- Song Parody: In Chapter 4, Skara finds Lucci singing an altered rendition of "The Rainbow Connection".
- Superpower Lottery: Even among witches, Lucci's gem powers essentially make him Emperor's Coven material at age 4.Willow: All the talent goes to people who don't want it.
- Wrong Context Magic: Whether it's in the Human Realm or the Demon Realm, Lucci's unique brand of gem-magic boggles the mind for anyone who sees it. His bubbles make abominations explode, his use of bard magic causes things to melt and his Super Spit makes for an alternative for Eda's curse-dampening elixirs.
