Oooh, I’ve been waiting for someone to ask, haha! The “gem covering headcanon” and its counterpart, the “gem exposing headcanon” are aspects of gem culture that I integrated into the Homeworld T Series – the former is mentioned in Trust, and both come into play in Tenacity. These are physical gestures that gems would use to convey sentiments without words.
“Gem covering” is essentially flipping someone the bird (middle finger). It’s a gesture that would be considered extremely rude and meant to convey contempt. Gems would use this gesture when they wanted to tell another gem to “fuck off”. It involves making a very obvious scene of one covering their gem. For example, a pearl would cover her forehead gem; our Ruby would hold their hand aloft and very blatantly clench their fingers over it. The idea is that these creatures habitually keep their gems, which are their true bodies, open to the world; to obviously cover it at one person is to say, “I don’t respect you, so you only get to see my hologram.”
In Tenacity, when Ruby and Sapphire are reforming Garnet in front of Pink Diamond, they fold their gem hands together and intertwine their fingers, which displays intimacy between them and, by effectively covering each other’s gems, derision for the diamond and her thoughts on fusion.
“Gem exposing” is meant as an extremely sincere method of apology. In the same way that humans bow their head to expose their neck, which is a very fragile part of our bodies, gems would make this gesture a very conspicuous subjection of the source of their life. Depending on gem placement, this could involve turning one’s head away or down, tucking hands behind one’s back, or kneeling. The idea is that the presenter is so genuine about their sorry that they would stake their life on it. If the gem being apologized to were to find the apology inauthentic, they would have every right to destroy or damage the presenter’s gem – and have a very easy shot at it.
In Tenacity, Rose prostrates herself in this way to show Garnet that she is regretful of her earlier treatment of the fusion. This is a very ancient aspect of gem culture that isn’t often employed (and very much less so by the Crystal Gems, who, after 5000+ years, have become more Earthlings than Homeworlders.)
AngelMihe 