#also like: this is pretty harmless ai i feel so i'm gonna enjoy making lots of random playlists with this lol

[knickynoo]

So, Spotify has a new beta feature that uses AI to create custom playlists, and while I am generally anti-ai and refuse to use ai things, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't having fun with this.

I prompted it to "make a playlist of songs Marty McFly would listen to" and it actually did a decent job

I then asked it to make one for Doc

I like how it's titled "eccentric science jams"

[lilith-little-world]

Character ai is a mess. I went back to it and lost myself in it again, but I'm back now but idk for how long. So I'm gonna like speedrun all of my writing and editing for this and the 2nd chapter. Cause holy shit, I'm gonna be hella busy in a few months. Also found out I have a small and harmless heart condition...yeah so this month been crazy.

Also made a little drawing since I was gone for a while. Hopefully I’ll be back with weekly updates now I’m off of character ai and started to take meds for my heart.

I Saw You Once In a Dream, Maybe Pt 9

Is it too late to kick him out? He stares up at you and smirks. You can feel your face get ready as the embarrassment hits. You can't be seriously asking for him to tag along.

You might as well beg for him to come.

“Can you please, come with me? I would appreciate it, if you can. I'll even buy something for you.”

It took everything in you to stare back at him. The urge to smack him increased when his smirk widened.

How the fuck did you two got married in the future?

“Oh, of course, I will come along. Especially when you asked so nicely.” He stands up and heads to the front door, giving you one last glance.

You sigh and try to calm down. Ever since running into him, your day has been���well you can't even describe it. Was it bad? Good? Meh?

You lock the door and catch up to Monkey King, who was waiting for you on the sidewalk. He gives you a soft smile.

“So which way are we going?”

“There's a small market nearby. It's just a short walk, 5 minutes tops.”

You walk off and try to block out any thoughts of how you prefer that smile on his face.

Monkey King nods and follows you.

“So what are you planning for dinner? I'm not much of a cook but I can help!” He stares at you with that same soft expression.

What the hell happened?! Why is he acting all calm and sweet all of a sudden?

You continue to ignore your thoughts and how your heart was fluttering.

“I don't know, I guess we'll find out when I buy the groceries. I'm not much of a cook either. I just fall asleep and skip dinner for most nights.”

“I don't think that's healthy for a human.” He mutters. You can see he wanted to say something more.

“Maybe, but I never had a reason to make dinner. A snack or takeout was enough.”

“So why not tonight?”

“Well…” You felt nervous and embarrassed. “It's been a while since I had someone over at my house so I just thought…that maybe I should do something different- something special.” You didn't need to see your face to know you were blushing. You wanted to scold yourself for getting all flustered for no reason yet all your thoughts stopped when you glanced at Monkey King.

He stares at you with wide eyes.

“You're cooking dinner because of me?” His eyes seem to shine like stars. Beaming with fondness and affection. “Looks like someone is falling for me.”

“What?! I just met you!” You nudge his shoulder. You wanted to get mad or at least annoyed but you just laughed. Monkey King laughs with you as he bumps his shoulder with yours. “Sneakily” holding your hand. Intertwining his fingers with yours, his grasp firm.

You smiled at him and held his hand back. Leaning on his shoulder as you both walk to the grocery store.

Even though you two spent an hour there. You enjoyed his company. Monkey King, helping by grabbing items or just joking around and having fun. What had always been a chore for you, felt fun when he joined along.

Okay, maybe you're starting to understand why you married this idiot.

Also, you managed to buy a little more than usual since he could carry a lot of things. That was a huge plus for you, since you refuse to use your car for anything. Does that thing even work? Oh, wait, pretty sure you lost the key to it and are too lazy to get a new one.

“Thank you again for helping to carry the bags back. You can place it on the counter.”

“You bought a lot of things, how empty is your fridge?”

“Shhhh, we don't talk about that. I bet you don't even have a fridge, so don't judge.”

“There's literally nothing in here.” He said placing a few items in the fridge.

You blow a raspberry at him and put the refrigerated items in the fridge.

“I told you I usually eat a snack or takeout. I hardly cook.”

“Is it because you don't know how to cook? How worried should I be, when you serve me my plate?”

You roll your eyes.

“If you're so worried, then I won't serve you anything.”

“Hey now, I said, I would be worried but that won't stop me from eating it. Edible or not, you're serving me food you made! No way I'm passing that opportunity. Maybe I can pretend, my darling spouse made me the best dinner after a long day of work.”

“Ha-ha, very funny. Are we really going to roleplay being an old married couple or what? We barely met, Monkey King.”

“Wukong, you can call me Wukong.”

You raise a brow at him.

“Alright, Wukong. So we are on a first-name basis now huh?”

“I mean-” He glances away, but you can see his cheeks turning red. “I really want to have a relationship with you and it'll be weird having you calling me by my title.”

It was weird to see him so…embarrassed and flustered. Throughout this whole day, he has been teasing you. Maybe there were a few moments when you saw him more softly. You just laughed and ruffled his fur in his head.

“I guess you're right about that, so Wukong it is then. Now put on a show we can watch while I cook. Nothing fancy or crazy, just some regular easy and fast food.”

Wukong chuckles as he heads to the living room.

“Alright, fine, but no complaints about what I pick.”

You put away the groceries and left the ingredients out. Once in a while, glancing at the tv to see what Wukong was searching for. You head to the trash can to throw something away when you spot the stuffed toy.

A part of you felt bad for throwing it away but another part of you felt embarrassed that you even bought the toy. What would Wukong think? Would he tease you about it or be hurt that you threw it away? That's if he found out. I wonder what will be the consequences for this?

[shinneth]

Spill the tea on Stevinel (just because I saw one for conniverse) And yes, I'm not on Anonymous. Because I'm a proud stevinel shipper and no one's going to stop me from loving it, also your blog is cool

And you know what? That’s the right attitude to have! People should be free to express what they ship without shielding themselves with anonymity. I don’t blame the people that do these days - antis are fucking dangerous people - but goddamn, people. It’s fiction. 

So I commend you for shipping Stevinel openly and proudly! Hard to believe it’s actually considered a bold and brave move just to be open and honest about harmless preferences these days. 

That said, I’m sorry it took so long to get to this. I felt you deserved an epic, given how unexpectedly successful my tirade on why Connverse is a shit ship with an undeserved golden reputation was...

But the truth is, even though I’m very much a Stevinel shipper, it’s definitely not my OTP.

And it’s very tricky for me to figure out how to spill the tea on Stevinel in a way that’s distinct from me doing the same with Stevidot.

Because, well, let’s face it: these two ships, beyond being very similar in nature, have also endured identical hardships from the fandom.

All the death threats Stevinel fans get from the raging antis for daring to ship something so “problematic/immoral/wrong/not Connverse”? 

Stevidot fans have been treated that exact same way for years. And still are. For the exact same reasons.

Both Stevinel and Stevidot shippers are valid, but the fandom constantly turns a blind eye to Rebecca Sugar’s husband who also worked on the show outright saying gem x human ships are FAIR GAME.

And also turn a blind eye to the recent interview where Sugar herself stated that the gems are more like AI - a conclusion I and many others deduced ages ago just by how gems are portrayed in the show. 

But by god, they’ll hang on Matt Burnett’s word that “grown gems” are a thing even though canon itself explicitly states that GEMS DON’T GROW.

Just like how despite Maya Petersen outright admitting that Aroace!Peridot is just her headcanon, people treat it like the fucking gospel now.

(no offense to anyone who’s committed to that particular headcanon - I just don’t really see it with Peridot in particular and it’s really fucking stupid to claim it’s 100% canon when the source herself explicitly said it wasn’t)

Well, it’s canon that Spinel kissed Steven and he didn’t turn into dust. And Steven was already well on his way down the path of self-destruction at this point in time; he would’ve gone monster whether this happened or not. 

Also, how often does a character get the “heart eyes” expression for just a platonic love?

If there was ever a scene where Connie or Steven had heart eyes, no doubt most of the pricks would scream “YES!!!! UNDENIABLE PROOF THAT THEY’RE IN LOVE!!!”

But when it’s Spinel, suddenly it doesn’t count? Really?

How convenient.

There’s also the stupid idiots who saw the conceptual development of Spinel in that movie artbook and saw some vague color keys during a conceptual stage and claimed that Spinel was “family” to Steven - which of course must mean “related” and therefore must make Stevinel an incestuous relationship! 

Which is bull. Also shit. It’s already common knowledge that gems don’t work that way. She was the designated playmate for Steven’s mother. Nothing more.

Of course, most gems who come in Steven’s orbit end up being sort of a family to him. 

But everyone seems to have this impression that a gem being part of Steven’s family means they become additional surrogate mom figures.

And yeah no, that’s dumb and wrong. Garnet and Pearl are really the only ones I’d consider actual “mom figures”. Amethyst’s more of a big sister. Everyone else can vary depending on perspective, but I’ve never seen any of the other gems as anything close to a motherly figure for Steven. Any time I see shit about Lapis or Peridot being regarded as “gem moms” to Steven, I laugh my ass off. They are so not moms or any kind of authoritative figure for Steven. Bismuth at best is more of the fun-loving aunt.

There are more roles in a family than just a paternal/maternal substitute. In fact, I believe Steven has considered Connie to be part of his family well before they hooked up in canon.

(as a side-note, I love how people who are allegedly SO squicked out by age gap ships totally pardon Connverse - you guys realize Connie was 14 in Future, right? Possibly 15 depending on the time scale? There’s gonna be a point in the relative near future where Steven is 18 and Connie isn’t - why don’t I hear you assholes angst about that “atrocity”, huh?)

I honestly do consider the CG B-Team as part of Steven’s family, but more in a loose sense. But by that same token, I consider Connie as part of the family in a similar manner. 

Especially since Spinel was shoved off to live with the Diamonds after the movie - and the Diamonds themselves have a very fucked-up relationship among themselves to the point where I honestly hesitate to put a familial label on it at all - it’s extra stupid to try and paint Stevinel as something with incestuous overtones when it clearly doesn’t. 

Spinel does happen to be a perfect representative of how full of shit antis are about age gaps, though. 

While Peridot’s age has always been left vague, we know she can’t be 5K or older due to being an Era 2 gem. Due to her utter lack of knowledge of Era 1 events (or being completely sold on the Diamonds’ propaganda) and her general inexperience with her own equipment - as well as her ability to quickly adapt to Earth - I always headcanoned Peridot as being especially young. Like, younger-than-Steven young. 

Mostly because Peri’s attitude reeks of Gen Z - also because it’d be nice for a change to have a gem who isn’t thousands of years old like literally every other noteworthy gem in the show. We need a representative of gemkind who hasn’t been around for ages. 

Of course, Spinel’s backstory proves that even if they went the boring route and made Peridot thousands of years old just like everybody else, it wouldn’t really mean much of anything. She’d be no less of a valid romantic option for Steven regardless of age.

Spinel is several thousands of years old, and the movie explicitly shows us what exactly that amounts to for a gem.

As I mentioned earlier, Sugar sees the gems more like AI. Spinel remaining in one spot for several millennnia, not moving an inch, not speaking to anyone, not seeing anything other than a gradually-deteriorating garden... yeah, and somehow, despite all that, Spinel’s still very childlike per her design. She had literally no room to mature or accrue life experience: Pink Diamond basically hit the pause button on her entire life.

Even though she’s several thousands of years old, through no fault of her own, Spinel’s mindset remained unchanged. It wasn’t until Steven inadvertently came into her life that she became twisted - understandably so after finally realizing she’d been abandoned by Pink. 

But she still didn’t completely lose her true self. Spinel realized on her own that Steven didn’t deserve to suffer just because his mom was a negligent asshole. She also came to understand on her own that unlike Pink, Steven truly cared for her no matter what shit she threw his way. 

Steven could give Spinel the care and attention she always deserved; something Pink totally denied her while deceiving her into wasting away with her abandoned playground. He could be the one to give Spinel the love she always deserved but was either denied or manipulated into believing she got. 

Honestly, this is more than enough to warrant building something more between these two. 

The age gap is irrelevant. The two have chemistry. They aren’t related.

(and honestly, this is fiction - these details are largely irrelevant in fiction anyway. I’m only bringing it up because it doesn’t take much research to find that every label the antis put on Stevinel is complete inaccurate Diamond propaganda bullshit)

Stevinel is FINE. Let people ship it if they want to!

Um... is that good enough?

Honestly, I’m not gonna lie: Stevinel’s pretty goddamned popular; so much that I’m a bit jealous of it. I enjoy the ship a lot, but I’ve been keeping it at arms-length all this time. I’m looking forward to when I can write my own brand of Stevinel interaction when I get to introduce her in my series, but that’s still a while to go. 

Also, there’s almost zero Peridot/Spinel material, let alone my Peridot/Steven/Spinel OT3. And Stevidot material is still hard to come by; I’m noticing Stevinel’s still quite a bit easier to find by comparison. 

So in a way, I feel many other unpopular ships deserve some tea-spilling sooner than Stevinel because Stevinel at least still has a sizable fanbase. Same can’t really be said for a lot of similar ships here...

A lot of this can apply to other Steven x gem ships, honestly. 

But I guess I haven’t been showing Stevinel much proper love due to my devotion to my superior SU-AU. I can only hope I can soon reach a point where I can have GA Spinel react to Steven, since their dynamic will be significantly different.

(and then one day I’ll finally make the Peridot/Steven/Spinel OT3 fic!!)

Until then, I can only hope I did Stevinel some justice here!