Wasn't Impulse's wife at the San Diego rental? I think that was the first time Gem has met her (probably). Maybe there was some guilt there?
h-hi hey, yeah. yeah i think you're definitely right on this one re: first time she met mrs sv and like... okay...
TIN HAT ON again (always) but like, there's two ways here right, like the first is that impy and gem fucked during that first twitchcon, the one with all of gem's vlogs where she was basically glued to imp's side the whole time and IF THAT option then gem getting hit with the full extent of built up guilt - she's never been shy with playing along, with flirting with him (with skizz, with the others) during streams but now she's face to face with the woman who's married to the older guy she slept with, her coworker who has photos of her saved on his phone and you know mrs sv probably gave her the biggest, warmest hug and called her gemmy at some point-
probably told her how much she's like a daughter to impy too
and ohhh just gem shutting down after that, letting that guilt push her the last step to being with grian (you know that thing that's been building and building and building) and hey, what if imp caught them necking in the hot tub? what if he's disappointed in grian cheating (hypocrite), he's mad that gem's not with him, he's guilty that he wants her so bad and she's suddenly cold and distant to him, god, that's so wildly delicious
and THE SECOND possibility here (and i legitimately don't know which one i like better tbh) is that during that first tc she shot her shot with impy, hell, they'd been flirting leading up to meeting irl and he seemed so into it, so willing and she's a little (a lot) tipsy and he's walking her back to her hotel room (hey @grianhole this is your fault, @blacktofade too actually) - gem just going for it and getting shot down, gently, and it's okay, they're still besties from her side but-
but imp's been regretting not following her into that room for years, they're still flirting constantly but he's been watching her flirt with g, he's been watching what's going on there and he's jealous, he's also angry with grian for leading her on when he's married (hypocrite) and then he catches them at the beach house together, catches them making out or straight up fucking and now he's bitter too because HE could have had that, he could have felt and seen what gem feels like, what she looks like when she comes
so he fucks his wife instead, maybe a little harder than usual, maybe a little louder in the room right next door to gem and hopes she hears them (maybe, just maybe he murmurs gem's name when he comes and his wife pretends she didn't hear) and it gets AWKWARD in the house after that it keeps being awkward after tc-
gem's streaming with g all the time, she's not hanging out in impy's streams any more, she doesn't join them for more than one session of phasmo over halloween (when they had planned to play lots) and impy is making comments that he's 'out of sync with gem' that 'he asked her to stream and she said no' and gem? gem shuts down anyone who brings up the good times (we should get impulse, "oh god." you liked secret life! "yeah.")
uhhhh ANYWAY clearly i have a lot of thoughts - thanks for bringing this up anon i'm gonna go spiral in a corner for a bit now