Here is a potentially silly question: how do you feel about birthstones? Do you think they fit the months (by season or astrological sign)? Do you have other stones you'd rather see as birthstones?
Okay, so, birthstones make absolutely no sense.
I mean, look at this mess. We’re doing beryl and corundum twice! I get that they get Special Different Names for their Special Different Colors, but it's just lazy. And why are we giving some months cheap, common gemstones like garnet and amethyst while the poor June birthdays have to shell out tens of thousands of dollars for FREAKING ALEXANDRITE? That’s incredibly unfair! We should be picking birthstones that are all roughly the same price. And why do some months get multiple gemstones? I’ll tell you why: because nobody can agree on an official list and every attempt to standardize this thing has just added MORE birthstones to every month.
So obviously the answer is to standardize it again, by throwing out everything and starting over. Here are our goals:
Fair pricing. You should be paying roughly the same amount regardless of what month you were born in. We’re getting rid of those ridiculous outliers like diamond and alexandrite.
More customization potential! Nobody should be stuck with a stone they hate. We’re picking gemstones that come in multiple colors or varieties, so that everyone can choose a variant they like.
Wearability. Some birthstones are too fragile to be worn as jewelry. We need to replace them with stronger stuff.
No more duplicate gemstones. Every month gets a stone or family of stones with a unique chemical composition.
Now without further ado, I present to you:
The New And Improved List Of Birthstones With No Problems Or Flaws That Everyone Will Definitely Agree On And We Can Start Using Right Now Immediately
JANUARY: GARNET
I've got no problem with garnet. It's a fine, classic birthstone, so January can keep it. But I would like to see a little more garnet diversity. January birthdays shouldn’t be confined to just red. The garnet family of minerals contains a rainbow of different colors, like orange hessonite, green uvarovite, pink rhodolite, yellow grandite, and many more. They’re all garnet, so we should be wearing them all!
FEBRUARY: QUARTZ
The original birthstone of February was amethyst, which is… kinda boring. Super cheap and common and you only get one color? No, we can do better. February gets ALL the quartzes now. Keep wearing amethyst if you want, but also feel free to branch out into clear quartz, citrine, rose quartz, smoky quartz, rutilated quartz, tiger eye… actually, take all the agates too. If it’s quartz, it’s yours!
MARCH: SPODUMENE
March was originally aquamarine, but I’ll be giving all the beryls to May, so we need a different stone here. Let’s stick with that theme of pale pastels and go with spodumene. For an April birthday, bedeck yourself in green hiddenite, pink kunzite, or yellow triphane. Despite its subtle colors, your birthstone has some amazing fluorescence, with really cool pinks and oranges under a UV light.
APRIL: FELDSPAR
Diamond is too pricy for this list, so we’re replacing it with something less expensive and way more interesting. April will now be represented by the feldspar family. We’re talking labradorite, moonstone, amazonite, aventurine, and sunstone. While you don’t have much variety in color, your stones are full of shimmery schiller which glitters and shifts as it catches the light.
MAY: BERYL
May’s original birthstone was emerald, which is great and can stay, but we’re also adding its siblings! May is now represented by all beryls: Emerald, Aquamarine, Morganite, Bixbite, Heliodor, Goshenite, and whatever other varieties I’m forgetting to list. A bright and saturated rainbow of colors is represented here, so everyone born in May is sure to find something they like.
JUNE: ORGANIC GEMSTONES AND FOSSILS
It’s time to address the alexandrite in the room, and obviously we’re getting rid of alexandrite. A stone worth $15,000 to $70,000 a carat does not belong on the same list as friggin amethyst. Instead we’ll look at the other traditional June birthstone, pearl. The problem with pearl is that it’s a clear outlier in this list. An organic gemstone, by some definitions not even a mineral. Should we replace it? NO. We are OWNING it. All organic gemstones now belong to June. Pearl is joined here by jet, amber, coral, ivory, ammolite, petrified wood… in fact, June can have every fossil ever.
JULY: SPINEL
July was originally represented by ruby, which is a fine stone and won’t be kicked off the birthstone list - we’re just shuffling it down to September. Replacing ruby for July is spinel. (See, it’s funny because historically spinel has often been mistakenly identified as ruby! That's a little gemology humor for you.) Available in any hue you could possibly desire, spinel offers some nice color options to a month that previously only featured red. Of course if you want to keep wearing red, red spinel mimics ruby so well that you’ll barely notice the difference.
AUGUST: PERIDOT
Nope, we’re not changing this one. Peridot is the ideal gemstone and you ungrateful August whiners can die mad about it. HOW ABOUT YOU LEARN TO APPRECIATE PERFECTION
SEPTEMBER: CORUNDUM
Sapphire is a wonderful, classic stone and it deserves its spot on this list. But the corundum family has been separated for far too long, and we’re finally going to reunite them. Joining sapphire in September is its sister ruby. Between the pinks and reds of ruby and the many, many colors of sapphire, these two stones give September a nice variety of colors.
OCTOBER: TOURMALINE
Look, as gorgeous as opal is and as much as I love it, it is both way too pricy for our list and also TERRIBLE in jewelry. This stone is just too brittle to wear around from day to day and can be ruined just by getting it wet, which makes wearing your birthstone a huge hassle. We’ll kick opal out and hang on to October’s other traditional birthstone, tourmaline. Pink tourmaline may be classic, but this stone comes in plenty of other colors. Whether it’s brown dravite, watermelon elbaite, or the rare and beautiful blue indicolite, you can wear them all!
NOVEMBER: TOPAZ
November can keep topaz, but we’re not confining it to the color yellow. This stone comes in a huge variety of colors, and now they can ALL represent November. No further notes; it’s a nice, classic stone.
DECEMBER: ZIRCON
I dunno, I’ve had to come up with 12 of these, I’m burnt out. Sure, zircon, whatever.
“BUT WAIT,” you say. “Now instead of having a single color assigned to each month, almost every month is represented by almost every color, making it impossible to tell anyone’s birthstones apart and removing what made them special and recognizable as symbols!”
Well CLEARLY you didn’t read the title of this list.
I'll play 100s of shitty AAA games before I play even one indie scrimplos haunted house depression rpg
that's really special and unique of you! do you like marvel movies too? hey check out these mugs with quotes from The Office and Friends. are you a Joey or a Rachel
there’s a type of gamer that’s obsessed with the specter of “indie rpgs about depression” when i can think of relatively few examples off the top of my head of rpgs that are actually about depression as opposed to just having, like, stories that try to make you feel emotions and are sad sometimes? this is pretentious, somehow
This is my grandfather’s rock. It is Probably a Garnet, which he mined out himself when he was in college studying to be a geologist.
Though you may assume this is a Small Rock, it is in fact a very Large Rock, and also a very Heavy Rock, but most especially a very Square Rock, which is what makes it particularly cool.
Here we have a rock which used to be a tree. This rock is petrified wood! It was one of my very first Cool Rocks!
Speaking of rocks that used to be things that were not rocks, this rock is Petoskey stone! This rock used to be a coral. Let’s get a good look at those patterns.
Now that’s a Cool Rock!
Amethyst? It’s an Okay Rock. If you are looking for an inexpensive rock to start your collection, amethyst is the way to go. It’s a quartz with a deep purple color. A very nice, if average, rock.
Now citrine… Citrine is a Cool Rock! It’s a quartz with a lovely honey color. This particular piece has been heat-treated. The druzy on my chunk of citrine has a wonderful sparkle.
This is my Amazonite! It grew that hexagon shape all by itself!! This specimen is from Colorado.
Look at this shiny little slice of rock! This rock is Tiger Iron, and those bands of red and orange glow beautifully with some light behind them. These different colored bands are made from Hematite (the dark silver), Jasper (the red-orange), and Tiger-Eye quartz (the yellow-orange).
Here’s a rock you’ve probably seen before! This Cool Rock is Malachite. The patterns and rings are from the stalagmites this little egg was carved from.
Whoa, look at this giant slab of Extremely Cool Rock!!! These crystals formed in the cracks of fossilized mud, to make the awesome patterns in this geode of Septarian! This is my second best rock.
This is my Best and most Favorite Cool Rock. In this dark room it’s a dull little grey rock, but if I move it closer to the light…
Those glints of gold! Those veins of blue! This rock is most certainly Labradorite, which changes color spectacularly when the light hits it just right. Let’s put it in direct sunlight.
Yes!! YES!! There it is!! The Best and Coolest Rock!!!!!
sick of hearing about "healing crystals" that "cleanse your mind and body of negative energy" i want to know which rocks can hurt you and fuck up your vibe so bad
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