Looking at endless arrays of pretty rocks. Picking the pretty rocks you want to work with. Designing the characters, and then coming up with cool ways to blend the designs together, and going through another array of rocks (and their mineral types! and their properties! and their crystalline structures!) to figure out what rock would be the best mix of the two.

It’s so soothing. I could spend all day just working out new multi-Quartz fusion designs.

At this point there are Gem versions of a ridiculous number of Leif & Thorn characters. Gems for characters who haven’t been introduced yet. Fusions for pairs of characters who haven’t met yet. I once had tabs open for every article on naturally-formed glass that Wikipedia could offer, in order to fuse Leaf Green Pearl with a character he has no idea even exists.

(…and I still don’t know what to do with Juniper, though they not only have been introduced, they’re one of the major characters. How do you cast a fighter-type who’s too tall to be a Ruby, but not buff enough to be a Quartz?)

I don’t even know how much crossover there is between the fandom audiences. It’s totally possible I’m the only one who cares, here.

And yet it’s still weirdly fulfilling to spend an hour, say, resizing and rearranging the figures on a height chart. They’re so neat. So organized. As relaxation techniques go, I’ll take that over meditating, any time.