in light of reading chapter 77, there’re a couple of things id like to point out in response to @phosphophylight-of-my-life‘s post:

to the earth gems, phos is an enemy. it has been confirmed several times in chapter 61, 70, 71 and 72. Phos even says so themselves in chapter 72: “To the earth gems, I look like a lunarian.”

It makes sense for the earth gems to break them on sight. they’re scared, betrayed, angry, they dont know how to feel about phos. and yet they’re still listening to them. A little.

They aren’t shattering them in infinite pieces, they aren’t trying to kill them. When Phos says they wanna talk with sensei, the gems listen. sure, they trap them inside that fancy cage, but that’s still treating phos a little more like a dangerous ex-friend than an enemy.

when the gems break Phos again, it’s only cause phos is doing something weird with their alloy and the earth gems’ objective is to protect sensei at all costs. phos is still impulsive and the gems dont trust them. it makes sense for them to defend kongo. which brings me to bort’s words:

“report this to euc,” not “report this to sensei.” Here it is, the euc has been the shadow leader all along and they’re finally coming into the light plotpoint ive been waiting for. 

euclase has most likely instructed the gems on what to do if phos showed up again. or if the lunarians did. look at that cage: sphene created it just for phos, possibly in advance. it shows that euclase wants to negotiate, maybe out of a hope to bring phos to their side again, or just cuz they wanna hear them out. 

the earth gems have plans of action, they’re not acting on a whim.

which means bort didnt attack phos on a whim, they were just following orders. cause thats what bort does. 

they’re a knight, a soldier. they dont take action without thinking about it. they’re following euc’s instructions just like they were following sensei’s. even in chapter 70, when bort and phos fought, bort never attacked phos first, they just responded to their offense, no matter how much they disagreed with Phos and their methods

and, finally, let’s talk about cinnabar. 

first things first, i feel robbed of more shinsha panels. you showed me my baby for a second and now i gotta wait a whole month for more? ichikawa?? but also: it’s pretty much official that shinsha and bort are a team now. this means they work in tandem and communicate. 

bort’s particular brand of frankness is good for someone like cinnabar who has a hard time communicating their needs and being sincere with themselves. still, i doubt shinsha would tell them about any remaining insecurities, cuz bort is too loyal to the earth gems. 

also, shinsha has wished for a job all of their life and now they finally have one. they have been accepted (lets leave the specifics of it for another meta). they’re not going to jeopardize it just cause phos came back. hell, they dont even know if they can trust phos at this point. they probably dont. it’s been so long since they have talked and phos has changed a lot.

and yet, even if shinsha and bort are a team, even if they both have the objective of capturing phos, cinnabar isnt the one to attack phos. i’ll speculate about the reasons why another time, but this doesnt change that cinnabar didnt attack phos. not even when all of the gems attack phos in the last panel of the manga: there is no mercury on the ground, cinnabar is not even in the panel.

cinnabar is merely assisting bort (as a good teammate) and ignoring phos. which is exactly in cinnabar’s character. 

they’re thinking. they’re observing. they’re gathering information. it would be odd of cinnabar to switch to phos’ side or be too friendly or hostile with them the second phos showed up. 

no, cinnabar is observing: they’re following the plan, taking phos hostage, and they’re gonna listen to what phos has to say before they make up their mind again. if they do at all. cause now shinsha has much more to lose by trusting phos

and yeah, shinsha knows of phos’ plan. but they dont like it and they dont know of its developments. 

they dont know about the moon gems and about cairn and they dont know if padpa is still alive after what cinnabar did to them. they havent talked with phos in months and their faith in them was already wavering when phos left, now it must be hanging by a thread if at all. 

not to mention that, while shinsha’s trust in phos kept thinning, their loyalty to the earth gems and cinnabar’s own self-confidence grew. they finally have purpose, friends, a job... they’re not going to throw it all away without a proper reason.

so, to wrap this all up. was this chapter painful? yes. could it be worse? absolutely. and, actually, for once i feel like being positive because:

- the gems seconding phos’ wish to talk is a good sign –> they dont see phos as 100% enemy, they’re still willing to talk

- the chapter ended on a cliffhanger –> phos has just started talking and anything could happen

- i believe we’ll see euc (and cinnabar) having a one-one conversation with phos very soon and i’m totally in for that

- the only(?) negative thing is that shittymea might mess around with the pearl eye and sensei’s mother board again cuz he doesnt like the gems getting too friendly. that would throw hell on everything again. nice. 

Shinsha was born with very long hair but they used it to patch themselves up over the years. They were always self conscious about asking Rutile for help because simply touching Cinnabar could be dangerous. 

They kept their hair noodle for memories’ sake

Being born a lustrous is hard. It’s rare. And among the lustrous, extremely low hardness gems are even rarer. The first to be born was a diamond and most of the oldest gems have high hardness. 

I’ve always thought that it’s just easier for high hardness gems to be born, as if below a certain mohs a gem simply can’t form. But Shinsha is a 2. They are the lowest low hardness gem. 

They hate themselves, but just think how much willpower and desire to live their inclusions/mineral must have to be born even with a hardness of 2. They just wanted to come to be, despite everything, even in this brittle form. The mere fact that someone like Cinnabar is alive is nothing short of a miracle.

Originally posted by publicsafetybureau

Cinnabar’s mercury is sentient. At least to some extent. Much like Phos’ alloy, Cinnabar is able to manipulate it, and yet sometimes the mercury takes control and its shapes mimic Shinsha’s emotions, but this isn’t due to inclusions. 

Shinsha keeps creating more and more mercury from… nothing. If the mercury had inclusions, it should exist in a limited quantity. And if it contained inclusions, Shinsha should lose memories each time they vomit large quantities of it, and yet they don’t. 

Shinsha’s mercury has a will and it does not want to die. For example, Shinsha lost control of it when they told Phos they wanted to be abducted by the moon people.

Cinnabar’s mercury is literally a part of them. It could be the thing that keeps a 2 mohs gem alive and that allowed them to be born in the first place. If somebody managed to suppress Shinsha’s poison, they’d die.