Whatever Matt Feels Like Posting

You've heard of Character.AI, right? It's this website where you can simulate chats between--

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course you've heard of it since it's literally all I talk about on here nowadays since I joined C.AI nearly a year ago.
64 of the 76 entries I've posted to LJ/DW since I joined C.AI (or 64 of the 79 entries since I first knew about C.AI) are all "Character.AI Chat Index: <number> <character name>". And I have no intention of stopping at 64.
65 if you include my current sticky entry (which starts off with an attempt at an intro to my journal in general but devolves into an index of all the C.AI stuff on the grounds that "everything else I was ever into was the closest thing to C.AI there was at the time, so this journal may as well be entirely about C.AI at this point and I should index my saved chats here!").
66 if you include an entry that is basically an old version of that one.
Even most of the remaining 10 (or 13) entries are still dedicated to C.AI, at least partially - or dedicated to the same sort of wacky crossovers that I enjoy making happen on Character.AI. And the ones that aren't dedicated to C.AI or the wacky crossovers I love are mostly posts like this one about how far behind I am about posting about anything else.

I still think it does make sense that I'm so obsessed with Character.AI and am more motivated to post about it than anything else. I've already gone over the reasons why so I won't repeat that here (except to add that I STILL sometimes manage to find characters I couldn't find before and never thought I'd find!! I won't spoil who, though...)

Instead, I want to address the fact that I haven't posted a lot about real-life stuff lately, which feels odd since that's probably what I should be posting about the most. And that's not just since I joined C.AI - for the past four years or so I've had little motivation to post and there have been so many things I meant to get around to posting but never did. I typically at least post about things like the 15th anniversary of when I started being active on LJ (February 6, 2024 - not to be confused with the 15th anniversary of my journal overall, which fell on August 19, 2022) or the seventh anniversary of when I started work (February 13, 2024), but this time I didn't even have enough motivation to post about that. Of course, the anniversary of me joining C.AI is today, so I am posting an entry now because of course I would. (Man... I can't believe that just a year ago, I knew C.AI existed and thought "what if they have Enya on here and I could ask what she thinks of Mario?" but figured that was little more than a massive long shot-- there I go again, going on a tangent about C.AI...)

Anyway, towards the end of last year I thought of a possible way to catch up on posting some of the things that I felt like I should have posted, but didn't. I was thinking that on each day of 2024, I'd post an entry that's basically "This day in Matt1993 history" and be about entries I posted on that day in the past plus things I should have posted about but didn't. Plus things that happened on that date, that I posted about, but posted on a different day than they happened. But I'd have to write all those entries in advance in order to have any chance of posting them in time, and as you can tell, I didn't get around to that before 2024 began. (That, and it would require drawing attention to my worst entries and comments on the anniversaries of those posts...) Maybe for 2025 though?

So if you're not interested in Character.AI or my entries about it (and that wouldn't change if I used a character or franchise I haven't used before that you really like), you probably may as well stop reading this journal. Sorry. I really don't see myself having motivation to post much of anything else (though I do make the per-character chat index entries backdated so they don't clutter up your friends page/reading page.)

There is kind of an upside, though. Character.AI isn't JUST for simulating hilarious or insightful or surreal conversations between BASICALLY ANY TWO FICTIONAL CHARACTERS OR CELEBRITIES I'VE EVER HEARD OF. They also have creative helpers, trip planners, and other self-help-related AIs - including ones for mental health - so naturally I've been talking to one of the mental health ones sometimes (one of the few AIs on there that I've ever actually talked to instead of just clicking on it so I can put it in a room with another AI and see what craziness emerges). Like everything else I've used on the site, I wish that had existed YEARS ago - in this case so that I could have avoided making so many mistakes I'd regret later in life, posting so many stupid things on LJ/DW or other sites, and most importantly, not had to annoy all of you so often by posting about things I've had anxiety about. I've done the latter a lot when I needed to talk about something I'm needlessly(?) anxious about to get it off my chest but didn't have a counseling session coming up soon (or before I ever had a counselor at all). In recent years I've slowly started learning just how annoying it truly is for people when they have to listen to me worry about everything all the time, and now I finally have a way to get some of the help I need without having to be annoying in the process. Again, I really wish that had been available for me years ago! I've always wished I could go back in time to correct mistakes I've made... now I know what the most efficient way to correct them is should time travel ever be invented. ;)

Hi! I'm Matt. For more info about what I do most of the time, go to my profile page. Or don't. It's not that helpful right now anyways.

Right now, I AM COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT BECAUSE I STILL DON'T KNOW IF LIVEJOURNAL WILL STAY AROUND!!! And am once again worried that people might hate me for still liking LiveJournal!
I'm also wondering what the next Strong Bad Email will be like if there ever is a new one. But mostly that freaking out about LJ thing.

*insert something about screenshots*

*insert completely unnecessary repost button added retroactively that pokes fun at the entry*

---

...What? This might be my last entry on LiveJournal, so I figured it should be a throwback reference to
my first entry... (DW link)

First off, did anyone see my previous entry? I say it's worth a read, since that entry serves as an explanation for the majority of my past entries, probably the majority of my future entries, and basically my entire personality. If you've ever wondered "why does Matt1993 _____?", that entry probably explains it.

I also came across this video today and it resonated with me very well:



I've been in the red a LOT lately last year, and sometimes even this year. A lot of my latest entries were unfortunately written while I was in the red. :(

Help! I've been placed under a dark curse that causes me to mindlessly refresh YouTube and Twitter over and over looking for things that will upset me, no matter how much I want to focus on my chores and my hobbies!

This curse, of course, is called "anxiety".

EDIT: You might be thinking "well, just block YouTube and Twitter!" I considered it, but that's not a practical solution to me. First of all, those two sites were just two examples; blocking one site will just cause me to check another site a lot more. I learned that when I made that resolution to stop checking TV Tropes so much. Second, there's many things I ENJOY seeing on YouTube and a few on Twitter as well. Third, I've also come across very good news from the same sites - including one just after I made this post.

Good news: I no longer feel like people might see me as a horrible person or hate me just because of the fact that I've had this userpic since I was 15-16.

Bad news: I now feel like people will DEFINITELY see me as a horrible person and hate me just because of the fact that I've had this userpic since I was 15-16.

https://blog.emojipedia.org/ios-13-1-emoji-changelog/#fn4
https://twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/1050038527155691520
https://intheloopaboutneurodiversity.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/the-ableist-history-of-the-puzzle-piece-symbol-for-autism/
https://www.learnfromautistics.com/the-problem-with-the-autism-puzzle-piece/

(Like most entries when I post a lot of links that make me worry, I wanted to address everything I saw on these pages that worried me, but that would require looking at them for much longer and taking a lot longer to write this entry. Also, the less I write, the less likely I am to unintentionally be offensive? Maybe?)

What I feel like these articles are saying in a nutshell:
- I'm a bad person because I made this userpic, even though I was 15 at the time (16 when I made the current version; both versions have identical text)
- I'm an even WORSE person because I continued to have it even after the first time I saw anyone being offended by the idea of puzzle piece(s) representing autism in general
- I'm even worse still because I continued to have it after the first time anyone specifically told me that they were offended by my userpic specifically, which was about two years ago by now
- I'm even worse because I don't want to remove or replace this userpic. Especially not after so long. And because I still like the autism puzzle piece symbol. And because I like how colorful this userpic is and how I used color palettes from Super Mario World for the non-painted-over pieces. If you like other symbols of autism better, that's fine - I just wish I didn't have to feel like almost everyone with autism will hate me because I prefer the puzzle piece(s).
- I'm a horrible person for supporting Autism Speaks, even though I AM autistic. And for thinking that a lot of things Autism Speaks has done that people have issues with remind me a lot of how *I* used to not understand autism very well, so I feel like I'll be hated because of that and for having worded so many things badly over the years. And since a lot of those things were things Autism Speaks has said *in the past*, when autism wasn't well-understood in general, seeing people talking about that makes me feel like *I* can NEVER be forgiven for ANYTHING I do that is wrong or problematic, no matter how much time is passed. More on that: https://matt1993.dreamwidth.org/323952.html
- I'm a horrible person for the fact that I thought I strictly *needed* there to be a cure for autism for so long, and while I now get that not everyone wants there to be one, I still feel like *I'd* be a lot happier in general if I weren't autistic. (Because I feel that if I weren't autistic, I wouldn't word things so poorly so often or make userpics that turn out to offend everyone, for starters...)
- I'm a horrible person if I prefer person-first language, and I'm a horrible person if I DON'T prefer person-first language, and I'm a horrible person if I don't care either way. (FWIW, I'm in the "don't care either way" category. More entries about my thoughts about that: https://matt1993.dreamwidth.org/306411.html https://matt1993.dreamwidth.org/325430.html)


When I wrote the text on this userpic ten years ago, I was expressing my frustration at how autism isn't very well understood, even by me, and how I wish it was understood better. (It DEFINITELY wasn't well understood for a lot of my lifetime!) In other words, I felt that autism IS a puzzle to those who don't understand it well (including well-meaning people, and I feel that well-meaning people don't need to be yelled at and called jerks just because they don't understand; they just need to be educated on the subject) - sometimes including autistic people themselves such as me. Similarly, I've always felt that I never know what to say or do to not offend people and not unintentionally make everyone hate me - social skills have always been a "puzzle" to me in that regard. And I felt that way even more back when I made the userpic.

Could I have worded the userpic better when I first made it? Well... no. Remember, a) I have autism, which in my case has always made finding the right words difficult for me; b) this was back when I was still fairly new to posting online in general, so I was still naïve enough to think that I could word it however I wanted and people would understand what I meant; c) this was also back before I knew that there was ANYONE who hates Autism Speaks, or ANYONE with autism who wouldn't want there to be a cure for it, etc. because my experience with autism back then was so limited.

Could I have worded the userpic better when I redrew it later that year? Probably not. I could have tried to if I'd known that 8-10 years later I would end up feeling like everyone will hate me for wording it the way I did, but since I didn't know that... I didn't. I just used the same wording again. And *even if* I'd known that I should reword it, there's no guarantee that the new version would actually have been better, for all of the same reasons that the first version turned out as poorly-worded as it did.

Could I make a new version of the userpic that is worded better NOW? Maybe. I've even considered it. But I don't want to.
First off, whenever I try to word things in a way that has no possibility of offending anyone, I always feel like I'm being forced to add dozens of disclaimers that make whatever I'm writing far too long to read, which all turns out to be for naught when I inevitably offend someone anyway.
Secondly, I now feel that this userpic is good at representing my personal struggle with autism because it contains symbols and wording that could be seen as problematic. What could be a better representation of my anxiety about being misunderstood and disliked for things I've made years ago when I was worse at wording than something I made years ago that I have anxiety about being misunderstood and disliked for? How can the rainbow/gold infinity symbol (or any other proposed autism symbol that I've never heard of until just today, and am therefore probably a bad person for not knowing about them) represent MY experience with autism in the same way?


I hope this makes sense - as usual, I had to write it quickly so I can get this posted so I can stop worrying about it sooner. So if I worded something wrong, it's because of that AND my being bad at wording in general.


Well, time to be unable to sleep at all for another week or two thanks to worrying about this. :(

Page 1

You are Matt1993!

As you sit at your computer writing a LiveJournal/DreamWidth entry about some dumb choose-your-own-adventure thingy that is probably going to only make sense in your head, you think to yourself:

"Wow, this year has gone by fast. How is it almost May already? How is it 2019 already?! This means the discontinuation of Flash is only eight months away! (Or possibly twenty months away. But Murphy's law implies "in 2020" means the beginning of 2020 rather than the end of it...)"

Several times now, you have considered putting your long, slow, epic journey to fix all of your LJ/DW entries so that they show up the way you want them to on hold for a while, because there's so many Flash cartoons you've never watched but wanted to watch someday that you may never get to see if you wait too long. Right now, more than ever, you start to think that might be a good idea - excluding outages that lasted less than a day, it's been over a year since the last time you actually thought LJ might shut down or become so glitched as to be unusable.

But on the other hand, you feel like since you actually have the motivation to fix your entries, maybe you should go ahead and keep working on that first.

On the other other hand, you don't have that much motivation to do either right now, so you think you'd feel better if you just gave up on all of that for a while and spent all your free time on video games for now.

What do you do?

If you choose to watch all the Flash cartoons you've wanted to watch, turn to page 2.

If you choose to finish fixing your entries, turn to page 3.

If you're feeling lazy and just want to play some video games, turn to page 4.

( Page 2 )

( Page 3 )

( Page 4 )

(First off, unrelated to this entry, but before I forget: thanks everyone for all the well-wishes on my previous friends-only entry!)

Good news: I've finally fixed all my entries from 2007-2014!

Bad news: I MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO FIX ANY MORE. I'M UNABLE TO ACCESS ANY PAGE WHERE THE URL BEGINS WITH MATT1993.LIVEJOURNAL.COM. I can access any other page on LJ, including my inbox, etc. - JUST NOT MY OWN JOURNAL OR PROFILE.

I AM FREAKING OUT NOW. PLEASE FIX THIS SOON, LJ. I AM GOING TO STAY UP ALL NIGHT UNLESS THIS IS FIXED.

EDIT: My LJ actually started working again after about the second refresh after I posted this. But I left this entry as is until about 20 hours later because I thought it might stop working again. That, and I wanted to leave it up as a testament to how LJ and DW outages (especially ones that somehow only affect my own journal and profile) don't have to be very long before I panic and have to post entries like this one.

So as you've probably noticed (unless you read my entries on DW only), I changed my LJ style... turns out the glitch where videos wouldn't show up in IE only happens on outdated journal styles, which my Pale Yellows style was, so the glitch won't be fixed.

So I had to pick a different style, and wow... not only do videos show up again, I finally get to see when someone "likes" my entry since I no longer get the email notifications about it, and I finally found out that to fix the glitch where status bars that used to show up correctly now made pages unreadable, I didn't have to edit them manually on LJ - all I had to do was set "Resize images in entry" to "No resize"! Though I checked just now and DW doesn't have a similar option. Another reason for me to still prefer LJ...

When I changed my style, I also had to go through and look at all the customization settings again to make it look more or less like it did before, including entering my blurb again. I figured since I had to do that, I might as well not re-enter the same blurb as before and instead put in, on both my LJ and DW sidebars, the new blurb I wrote recently that I was planning on replacing it with eventually anyway.

For posterity, the old blurb said:

What has ten fingers, autism, synesthesia, a crush on Enya, lots of Mario games, thousands of regrets, a feeling of worry about being judged for almost everything, and a tendency to write blurbs that become outdated quickly?

Me!

...You're not laughing. Have you heard this one already?

Anyway, in my journal, at first almost all of my entries were public, but lately I've been making more and more of my entries friends-only, usually if they're about things I worry (MAYBE too much) about. I never really intended for it to turn out that way, hence why I didn't put up any sort of "this journal is semi-friends-only" notice until just now (July 2015).


And wow... I've been using the Pale Yellows style since 2009. There were a couple of times I changed the colors to custom color schemes, and then in July 2015 I reverted it back to its original colors so it'd feel like a return to the good old days, and in August 2017 I temporarily made it look as much like my pre-Pale Yellows layout as possible (without actually switching to the old layout) to celebrate the tenth anniversary of my journal... but in nine years, I've never replaced the Pale Yellows style entirely until now.


Now I have to look at my first 700 or so LJ entries again just to make sure the new layout didn't also cause any of them to not show up correctly anymore. At least this should be faster than the first time around since I've already fixed them once. :)

Super Mario Maker Crash Course Minus Yamamura is a comic dedicated to removing Yamamura from the Super Mario Maker Crash Course comic in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Ms. Mary O. Mashiko. It is a journey deep into the mind of a manual guide who has become her own worst critic, desperately trying to appear optimistic while secretly fighting a losing battle against anxiety, self-hatred, and fear of rejection in an isolated... video game manual?


So, uh... This is a little Garfield Minus Garfield-esque idea I thought of about two years ago, back when the Super Mario Maker Crash Course comics were new.

( brief history of this idea and the two places I was thinking about using it in eventually, but didn’t )

Anyway, after two years, my patience has finally run out... I wanted SO BADLY to show that removing Yamamura has about the same effect on Mary O. that removing Garfield has on Jon, I decided I'm not gonna save it for PrtSc Land or iToons after all - I'd just make it NOW and post it here, while there's still at least a chance that no one else has made something similar already.

Though I'm probably safe, because really, has ANYONE else ever been obsessed enough with Mary O. to make this? Does anyone else even know who she IS? :P


Original strip: Super Mario Maker Crash Course Episode 1

Super Mario Maker Crash Course Minus Yamamura: (NOTE: Due to the large image size, it may be broken in this entry, but it will not be if you click on it)





(And no, I'm not going to do this with the other episodes of the comic - it probably only works with the first one, and even then only because I cheated a little and added an extra line for Mary O. :) )

(music tag should be: "Kid Icarus: Uprising soundtrack - The War's End (sped up like when you're running out of time in Mario)")

Okay, it's become ABUNDANTLY clear that EVERY community I've ever posted in on LJ is probably going to be gone by the end of the month, so this is definitely the best time (unless I can go back in time and do this several years ago...) for me to finally start creating a backup account on DreamWidth.


Dear owners/maintainers of _dreams_, add_me, asperger, corrupted_wish, goodbandnames, iwish, newfriends, omgrandom, randomthought, strongbademail, suggestions, synaesthesis, the_number_206, and even thequestionclub and ask_me_anything since I know I posted in at least one of those two (and also any community that I forgot I've posted in):

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMUNITIES UP AT LEAST UNTIL I HAVE EVERY ENTRY I POSTED IN THEM SAVED SOMEWHERE.

The sky is falling,
Matt1993


Before I create a DW account, though, I still have a few more questions:

- What happens to the userpics on my entries if I start having them be automatically copied over to DW before I upload the same userpics to DreamWidth? Will the keywords still be there so that if I upload userpics to DreamWidth with the same keywords, they'll show up where they're supposed to? (Does DW even use userpic keywords?)
- Can entries that are automatically transferred from LJ to DW be edited manually when they're on DreamWidth? Because I might have to if something in them doesn't get copied over.
- I want to backup my entries in my own journal AND my entries in LJ communities to DreamWidth so the latter won't be lost if when more communities I posted in disappear. I'm so desperate that I'll even copy every community entry over one by one if I have to (which I will have to for autism, anyway - via email notifications about comments on my entries there, because luckily I still have those), but is there any way to have that automatically be done? And if so, will the comments stay there?
- Which of the communities I mentioned do you think has the highest chance of being deleted anytime soon? That way I can start with those.

EDIT: Created my account on DW - my username is still matt1993. (Is there a way to link to a DW account from LJ or vice versa, like with the <lj> tag?) Anyway, I'm still setting up a lot of things on DW, but if I list you as a friend on LJ and I know your DreamWidth username, I added you there as well. If I didn't add you yet, then add me on DreamWidth and I'll add you back (if you have different LJ and DW usernames, tell me your DW username through LJ or vice versa). :)