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. Currently ongoing, and can be read on Archive of Our Own here
and FanFiction.Net here.
Boiling Gems contains the following examples:
- Adaptational Sexuality: In canon, Eda 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.
- Children Are Innocent: A lot of the comedy in the earlier chapters is Eda raising 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 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Pædo Hunt:
- When he befriends Amity, Lucci manages to get her away from her abomination guard by pointing to a random man (implied to be a coke-junkie) and says that "I heard he likes to touch little girls." This is of-course played for Black Comedy, Lucci too young to actually understand the unfortunate connotations of the phrase.
- Eda elaborates to Luz that men dressed in sandals and drapery (like Adeghast) is the Boiling Isles' equivalent to a man in a white van.
- Parental Favoritism: It isn't lost on Lucci that whenever he visits his grandparents, all Gwendolyn ever wants to talk about it Eda. When he tries talking about Lilith, she immediately pivots back to Eda.
- 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.
