- The age old story. Boy meets girl, girl is an alien queen, alien queen abandons Empire to have a half-human child.
How I Wonder What You Are
is a series of Steven Universe stories written by CompletelyDifferent, Swordtheguy, and airamcg (or under the joint FF account 0TheCluster0).
It's basically a Momswap Alternate Universe Fic where Steven's mother was Blue Diamond instead of Rose Quartz, while also exploring the repercussions of such a drastic change to the canon, and how that affects everyone's characterization and development throughout the story.
Main Story Timeline:
- Faded Blue - the main story, where twelve-year-old Steven Universe is learning about his powers and his heritage as Blue Diamond's son
- Diamond In The Rough (Steven Universe) - a prequel detailing how Greg and Blue Diamond met and fell in love
- A Gem, a Human, and a Baby - another prequel, set directly after Diamond in the Rough, detailing Blue Pearl's struggles as a Parental Substitute towards Steven
Spinoffs and Alternate Universe stories:
- Faded Blue: Side Stories and Missing Scenes - a series of drabbles and one-shots set in the continuity of Faded Blue and hypothetical AUs surrounding the premise.
- Ill Met by Moonlight - an occult Alternate Universe of the series published around Halloween, where Steven is a Dhampyr and all the other Gems are supernatural creatures.
All stories can be found in Archive of Our Own and/or FanFiction.Net.
(Please put story-specific tropes in their respective pages.)
The series as a whole provides examples of:
- Alternate Universe Fic: It's a story where Greg met Blue Diamond in Korea and fell in love with her instead of Rose.
- Deconstruction Fic: Given its premise, the series delves and explores how Blue Diamond being Steven's mother instead of Rose affects the rest of the cast. Some rippling effects include, but are not limited to:
- Rose Quartz is still alive
- Pearl and Garnet retain their somewhat condescending attitude towards humans
- Amethyst acts childish as per her behaviour in the flashback episodes
- Steven is a bit of a Spoiled Brat because Blue Pearl can't say no to him, somewhat still treating him as her Diamond
- Greg's interactions with the Crystal Gems is mainly to spy on them, for the safety of his son.
- For Want Of A Nail: What if Greg never went to Beach City, and instead met, fell in love with, and had Steven with Blue Diamond?
- A later chapter revealed that at one point he did have a concert set up for Beach City, but for various reasons, he didn't go. It's implied that this specifically is the point the timeline changed. Thi
- Greg seems to be a successful musician when he meets Blue Diamond in Korea. It could all be because Marty never hindered Greg in this timeline, and Greg as a result became famous.
- Hypocrite: Pearl doesn't respect Blue Pearl and can't understand why she is devoited to Steven for treating her like a slave and paying little attention to her, while hers and Rose's relationship is, to a small extent, the same. When she starts to realize this, she doesn't take it well
- In Spite of a Nail: With the reveal in "A Single Pale Rose" that Steven Quartz Universe's mother was Pink Diamond the whole time, this retroactively makes Canon!Steven and Faded Blue!Steven both the son of a Diamond.
- as for Steven himself, despite his initial spoiled brat tendencies he still shows much of his canon kindness and good nature.
- Original Flavor: Despite the Alternate Universe elements in it, the story emulates the tone, characterization, and character development of the Canon show
- Series Fic: So far, it has three published stories for the main timeline.
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Series Hiatus: The series hasn't been updated since January 25th, 2021. - Stay with the Aliens: Inverted with Blue Diamond. Her choosing to stay on Earth was what eventually led her to having Steven.
