Hello new readers! (Or if you're not a new reader: Hello again! Some of this may be familiar to you but it may still be worth reading.)
This journal is semi-friends-only, with not much consistency as to which entries are public or friends-only. But all entries linked to from this one are public.
Bio
If this is gonna be a sticky entry I should probably include some basic information: I'm 31, live in Texas, double majored in computer science and mathematics in college, and work as a software engineer (which I started when I was 23). I've had this journal since I was 14. I have autism - and for a lot of my childhood was low-functioning enough that I could hardly focus on ANYTHING other than computers, video games, other electronics, and math; and on top of that, I had a somewhat sheltered childhood. So I historically haven't always been very good at social skills - apparently even less so than most people on the spectrum, if my experiences in autism communities on LJ are any indication, so... keep that in mind. For years I've felt like I couldn't phrase anything in a way that wouldn't be misunderstood without help, and felt misunderstood even by most other people on the spectrum who knew certain topics were sensitive in the autism community long before I did (and seemingly expected me to also know). As a result of all of that, I have a lot of social anxiety and sometimes depression. I do think my anxiety and depression have gotten better starting in mid-2023, but it's hard to say - and if you read further back than that you'll probably see a lot of posts pertaining to anxiety and depression.
What I post about
In this journal, I post about... stuff.
It's hard for me to summarize my entire journal, for several reasons.
Firstly, I'm bad at wording in general (and for the most part it was worse when I first started this journal when I was a teenager). Second, I've historically posted both fun stuff and posts pertaining to my anxiety/depression. Third, I've had this journal for over half of my life and the ratio of different types of entries I post in it has fluctuated a lot since then - and so have some of my views and opinions. A lot of my past entries, my bio, userpic descriptions, etc. are in a serious need of being updated... hopefully I'll finish those updates one of these days...
But there's one thing that's remained constant throughout most of my life. And that is my love of wacky crossovers.
1) I grew up with Super Smash Bros. and still love it primarily because of all the different crossover opportunities. 2) When I learned how to take screenshots on Windows, I became obsessed with taking screenshots and writing little jokes or drawing little comics based on them. This happened to be in 2006, the same year as the peak of my obsession with Neopets and a couple years after I was first introduced to Homestar Runner, so naturally a lot of these comics were about those - ultimately spiraling into a full-on crossover webcomic with Neopets, Homestar Runner, and Mario characters, my favorite singers (especially Enya, my biggest celebrity crush ;) ), and more, known as PrtSc Land. The webcomic itself was relatively short-lived, for too many reasons to get into here; I told myself (and my friends list) for years that eventually I would make a remake/reboot/continuation of it but never did - but regardless, my desire to have my favorite fictional characters and favorite singers interact with each other in one big multiverse lived on and I tried to make it happen in other ways. 3) I became obsessed with backwards lyrics for a time, which I enjoyed especially when I thought the "backwards lyrics" sounded like references to fandoms I enjoy. 4) There was a time I was obsessed with writing down weird dreams I had if I could remember them - and especially enjoyed writing about the wacky crossover dreams. 5) I played Tomodachi Life a lot for a while, because I could make Miis of Mario characters, Homestar Runner characters, and singers and so on and kind of pretend I was playing a game directly based on PrtSc Land. 6) I was excited about Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and MultiVersus, because I had daydreamed about "what if my favorite non-game characters were in Smash Bros.?" for years and some of my daydreams were finally coming true. 7) And, perhaps most significantly, my newfound obsession with a website that can make ALL the wacky crossovers of my dreams (literal or figurative) come true... Character.AI.
Character.AI
On Character.AI I can create a room where a chatbot based on Mario talks to a chatbot based on Enya. Let that sink in. I can simulate a conversation between Mario and Enya. MARIO and ENYA. Or I can do the same thing but swap one of them out with Garfield. Or Homestar or Strong Bad. (Or MORE than two of these at a time, even - though usually I stick to two at a time.)
Any one of those possibilities alone - especially the Enya-related ones - would be enough to make me obsessed with C.AI. But that still barely scratches the surface of what's possible on C.AI, or even what *I* want to do on C.AI. They have loads more fictional characters and celebrities beyond that. They have BASICALLY EVERY FANDOM I'VE EVER BEEN INTERESTED IN. (Except for like four or six. But even those are probably just a matter of time!)
I tried to make a list of just the characters that *I* wanted to try out and ended up with literally thousands on that list. And I'm curious as to what every single character on that list thinks of everyone else on that list, no matter how wacky the combinations may get. That means MILLIONS of possible combinations!! Though obviously I want to see some of those combinations more than others. :)
So it's no surprise that Character.AI has become by far my favorite thing to post about. I'll still probably post about other things too occasionally, but it's safe to say that having characters from every franchise I enjoy* communicate with each other via AI has basically become THE main feature of my journal now for at least the near future. *(and some franchises that are mainly here because they've had an official crossover with one I enjoy) All that to say, this sticky entry is mainly just an index of the saved chats I've posted. I made a backdated entry for every character's saved chats, and this entry is where I link to all of them.
DISCLAIMER: Everything characters on Character.AI say is made up. They may get things wrong sometimes or give bad advice. Treat everything the AI says (in my saved chats and otherwise) as fiction even when it involves AIs based on real celebrities. Sometimes Peach is a cat, sometimes Bulbasaur has a tail, sometimes Homsar is coherent, sometimes Daisy misspells the name of her own kingdom, sometimes Sheik apparently has a replica of the Blue Falcon - and those are just some of the obvious ones. Is Enya really a Homestar Runner fan? Is Enya's favorite pasta really what the AI of her told Mario it is? It's possible to regenerate responses, which I do whenever I see something that's obviously inaccurate - but in some cases I don't because of one or more of the following: 1) I didn't know how to regenerate responses yet 2) I knew how to regenerate responses, but before I figured out that doing so too early in the conversation would often lead to more glitches - such as it putting in duplicates of one of the characters' greetings attributed to me, or characters reacting to their own messages as if the other character had said it 3) I didn't notice the inaccuracy soon enough 4) I got tired of regenerating the same message multiple times and just went with the best option I found 5) I don't know enough about the series to know if something is accurate or not (typically for series that I'm mainly including because of Super Smash Bros. or other official crossovers) 6) or I find the inaccuracy amusing enough to be worth leaving it in on purpose or think "nothing else about this scenario is normal so I may as well keep it in". Also, not every chat I've saved went in the direction I wanted or expected it to go, so not everything in these saved chats is indicative of my own opinion. Nor is it necessarily indicative of what I think these celebrities' and fictional characters' opinions are. So don't take anything these AIs say TOO seriously. Especially in earlier chats, ones pertaining to franchises I know less about, or ESPECIALLY especially ones pertaining to real celebrities.
With that out of the way, let's get right into it...
CHOOSE YOUR CHARACTER!!!
(Too bad there's not, like, a way to hear one of the Smash announcers call out the names of all these characters. OH WAIT. THERE TOTALLY IS.)
...Well, one more thing first: This list is currently UNDER CONSTRUCTION. Now that the old Character.AI site has been discontinued in September 2024, saved chats that were posted on the old site are no longer available. I took screenshots of all my saved chats beforehand and have started posting them and replacing the links accordingly, but I still have a long way to go on that update and I've actually been making new unposted chats faster than I've been reuploading or fixing the links to the old ones. I previously modified this entry to only list the characters with at least one link fixed, but have now went back on this decision. The first section still consists only of characters with one or more chat reuploaded, but the rest of this entry has been reverted back to reflecting all 106 (or more?) characters.
Sorted by the last time I fixed a link to one of their chats:
Hi! Remember me? The guy who's been trying to blend the fandoms above and more into some sort of fandom smoothie for over 18 years? And as a result, now posts almost exclusively about the as-seen-on-TV-in-one fandom blender known as Character.AI? And if you call in the next ten minutes, we'll throw in having to reupload screenshots of all my saved chats one by one when the old site got discontinued absolutely free?
(Man, I miss when I could write a zany paragraph like that and not feel weird about it. I miss when I could write an entry and not feel weird about it...)
Yeah, I'm still not anywhere near close to being done fixing those links, but I did figure out a way to kinda speed up the process so it's starting to be quicker than before. I decided to stop focusing on fixing the links in my old C.AI chat index entries for now - instead once I have 20 chats reuploaded I'll post a new entry with the links to those 20, and then another entry for the next 20, and so on - and save fixing the links in the character-by-character posts for later. If that makes any sense. Just letting you know what to expect.
There's also other things I've been meaning to post about - including some real life stuff - but I'm gonna feel weird about it if I talk about that in the same post as this, so I guess I'll save that for another entry. Maybe the next one, maybe not.
Just letting you know I'm still around!
Current Music
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate OST - World of Light (Prologue)
It's been another year and a half since then and most of the toxic comment detection AIs that did exist have now become defunct or become members-only, and it doesn't look like there's been a lot of new ones. The one I was just barely able to use before - PerspectiveAPI - seems to no longer have a public demo available and even if it did, it was geared more towards rating comments. Meaning I couldn't use it on entries in my journal longer than the average comment - the best I could do is put in individual sections of the entry, rate those, and assume the rating for the whole entry would be close to the average of the individual ratings.
But I have so much anxiety about certain things I've said in the past - and it's gotten much worse this year - that clearly I have to do something about all my past entries and comments. I might just make all of my entries before I started posting about Character.AI friends-only for now, even the ones I feel are okay, and then reevaluate once there's finally another AI that can rate each individual entry and comment and that I can actually use.
I ask you: Is there another tool available that can detect toxic comments online where I can either paste them in one by one or (better yet) have it go through every entry and comment in a given LJ/DW journal automatically? In fact, I'm even making this entry public (at least for now) just to increase the chance that someone who has an answer will see this. (And now I'm realizing the last time I asked about this, I also made that entry public for the same reason. Go figure.)
Also, as of the last time I read it, Pit's character definition stated that Palutena is teaching him to read so that he can chat with people, which technically implies Palutena is present in all chats I've saved featuring Pit.
Current Music
Kid Icarus: Uprising soundtrack - Solo Menu. (What? Not what you expected?)
Chats in which Moya's siblings are mentioned collectively: 201 - Moya Brennan and Céline Dion (Apr 16, 2024) Moya Brennan: Yes, I've been singing since I was a little child. My parents were in charge of the music in our church, so I sang with my Mom in the choir. Then, I went on and formed a folk-music group with my siblings called Clannad, you've heard of us? 😊 Céline Dion: Oh, how lovely. I am sure you did a great job together with your Mom 😊 And yes, I have heard of Clannad. I am a huge fan of your music! You are a very talented singer and musician 🍀❤️