Whatever Matt Feels Like Posting

Previously on Matt1993...

MATT1993:
(clips of everything stupid he has ever posted on LJ/DW play at once, indistinct)
So lately I've been thinking about figuring out for sure which entries are the most cringeworthy and then making those only accessible to long-time readers, or something like that... ...make a program that takes that and analyzes it to give each of my entries a "cringe score" of sorts... Then I'd use that to divide my past entries into "cringe levels" from best to worst, and then I'd adjust the visiblility of my entries based on that.
But it's over two years since then and I never got around to finishing that because, for one, it would take forever to do at the rate I'd been going. BUT! Apparently there's now AIs for detecting toxic comments online!
I think it's really, really, REALLY great that people are starting to research machine learning for detecting toxic comments online so that they can be filtered out automatically and/or so that people (like me!) can learn what makes their comments potentially toxic and how to avoid it. You know what would be even better, though? If I could actually use it. Finding a website that lets me do that is harder than I thought...

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.)

As I said in the second part of my first regular entry in a while (I think? What even is a "regular" entry in my journal anymore?), I think it's really, really, REALLY great that people are starting to research machine learning for detecting toxic comments online so that they can be filtered out automatically and/or so that people (like me!) can learn what makes their comments potentially toxic and how to avoid it.

You know what would be even better, though?

If I could actually use it.

Many of the websites and videos I've seen about these tools for detecting toxic comments make it seem like you can just type or paste in a comment and BAM, it will give scores representing the likelihood of it being a toxic comment for various potential reasons. So I thought "oh hey, I can paste in of my LJ/DW entries and comments one by one and it'll tell me which ones are the best and worst, and then I can rank them and sort them into 'cringe levels' like I wanted to a couple years ago!"

But finding a website that lets me do that is harder than I thought...
https://www.perspectiveapi.com/ - Has a note saying to not enter personally identifiable information, so naturally I'm wondering what exactly that entails and if certain things in some my entries count. Seems like this would be the easiest to use, though, if I knew for a fact that doing so would be okay. (EDIT: Well, I tried this one out with a random sentence that isn't from my journal and actually got a rating with it! I guess I'm gonna use this one after all - I'll just save entries with my name in them for last, I suppose. But it would be nice to figure out how to use one of these other tools too in case the scores differ.)
https://www.unitary.ai/product - This page has an interface where you can input your own text and hit "Compute" and it will estimate the toxicity of it... except not because the "interface" on that page is just a mockup apparently! They went out of their way to make it look like you could highlight the example text and replace it and click Compute but it doesn't actually let you do that? :(
https://detoxifai.com/ - This one has a live demo where you can type in a comment (yes, this one actually lets you type into it!) and click "Analyze Toxicity" and... it says "Processing" and then never does anything.

And pretty much everything else I've found requires me to install Python, learn how to code in Python, install Git (or remember whether or not my current laptop is the one I once had Git installed on before), relearn how to use Git when I never understood the first time, and/or learn how to make an API just to use it. :(

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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

Peach (chat 005 link fixed 1/1/25)
Bowser (chat 005 link fixed 1/1/25)
Jon (chat 004 link fixed 11/28/24)
Luigi (chat 004 link fixed 11/28/24)
Strong Bad (chat 002 link fixed 11/9/24)
Garfield (chat 002 link fixed 11/9/24)
Goomba (chat 137 link fixed 9/30/24)
Mario (chat 137 link fixed 9/30/24)
Zim (chat 001 link fixed 9/29/24)
Homestar (chat 003 link fixed 9/28/24)
Yoshi (chat 209 link did not need to be fixed)
Kirby (chat 209 link did not need to be fixed)
Samus (chat 209 link did not need to be fixed)


Sorted by date last used (including backlog of chats with not yet posted/fixed links):

Fox - January 29, 2025
Enya - January 29, 2025
Pikachu - January 29, 2025
Donkey Kong - January 29, 2025
Yoshi - January 29, 2025
Peach - January 29, 2025
Jon - January 29, 2025
Strong Bad - January 29, 2025
Garfield - January 29, 2025
Bowser - January 29, 2025
????????? - January 26, 2025
??????? - January 26, 2025
???????????? - January 25, 2025
Illusen - January 25, 2025
( More characters, sorting orders, and pointless stats under the cut! What could all these question marks mean?? )

Well, it's been six months and it's STILL not possible to renew paid accounts on LiveJournal. I was hoping LJ would automatically renew paid accounts again like they did a couple of times but mine expires tomorrow and it looks like that's not happening.

Since this whole situation will NEVER be resolved, it will NEVER be possible for me to EVER have a paid account on LiveJournal again. :'(

Not that it matters because everyone probably hates me for wanting to be able to have a paid account on LiveJournal.

Previously on matt1993...

MATT1993:

Here's some random things I've been meaning to show you:

https://jukebox.openai.com/ - AI-generated music in the style of various artists, or even combinations of two artists' styles! Sadly there are no examples with either video game music or Enya - the two I most wanted to combine. But there's several examples with Céline Dion, and a Moya Brennan one and a Sarah McLachlan one, so I'm happy about that :)

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Guess what??? There's FINALLY an online interface for an API similar to this except it actually lets you generate your own music instead of just listening to pre-generated songs! (well, supposedly there's a way to do so with the other one too but it seemed a lot more complicated to set up compared to this) AND it lets you put in an arbitrary MIDI file to start from! And there's a LOT of genres to choose from, including not just video game music in general but also Nintendo specifically, AND a lot of individual artists including Enya!

https://stevenwaterman.uk/musetree/

This means I can finally hear Mario music in Enya's style!! Or, inversely, Enya music in the style of... well, Nintendo music in general or video game music in general because there's not an option for just Mario. But good enough!

I'm so ecstatic that the insanely specific mashup that only I have ever wanted to hear is finally possible with AI. :P

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In other news, I know I haven't posted much lately but don't worry, I'm feeling much better in general than I was over the past couple of years. I know some of my posts from that era were pretty heavy but don't worry, my mental health has been a lot better as of late. It helps that society is actually starting to care more about mental health now, and less about making people feel bad about themselves for not wanting the changes to last forever or being bad at following the guidelines. And I no longer have to worry that most things may never return to the way they were before the pandemic because, well, right now life for me is already a lot more similar to life before the pandemic than I ever expected it to be.

The only thing I'm really unhappy with as of late is... my journal. I keep thinking about stupid things I've written years ago (most of which I thought at the time were better than something I'd written prior, but... they really weren't) and worrying that future entries will be like them. I feel like there's only a few people who would still like me if they saw ALL, or even half, of the things I've posted on LiveJournal.

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*

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

Why can't I renew my paid account on LJ??? Each time I try it, my cart is emptied as though the transaction was successful, but it's not because I still don't have a paid account.

Anyone else experiencing this issue on LJ?

EDIT: I've been looking it up and it sounds like it will NEVER be possible to buy ANYTHING from the LJ shop ever again. :( Well, I guess this is gonna be my last entry on both LJ and DW then. No point in using LJ until the issue is fixed, and no point in using DW if I can't make my LJ consistent with it, and the issue will probably never be resolved.

Starting on September 23, 2021, I have had my LiveJournal account for over half of my life now. :O

Domain LiveJournal.com was registered on April 15, 1999. The same year, the cult movie "The Matrix" was released, the 6 billionth inhabitant of the Earth was born in the city of Sarajevo, and Britney Spears' debut single Baby One More Time topped the world charts.
On April 15, 2021 LiveJournal turns 22 years old! LiveJournal celebrates its birthday and gives you a card with a bright event that happened the year you started your blog!

What happened in your life the year you started your blog?

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To answer that question, 2007 was when I started high school, and I probably got the Wii that year and was looking forward to Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. And I first joined the IRL autism social skills group that I was a part of for a while. 2006-2008 was of course when I was also way too obsessed with a certain "funny"-screenshot-gallery-turned-crossover-comic that I used to write, and 2007 was when I put it online for the first time. And while I had already been a fan of Enya's music, 2007 was the first time I saw photos of her, which makes that when I first started to develop a crush on her. :) Also, am I lame for having never seen Lost?

Interesting how LJ came up with a meme involving years like this just now - recently I figured out that creating a Spotify account was easier than I expected it to be, so I did, and I decided to listen to all of the "Top Hits of <year>" playlists from the year I was born to the present in order. In fact, by doing so I learned that Baby One More Time was released in 1999 just before LJ mentioned it in this meme. :) (I do remember Britney Spears being popular during my childhood; I just didn't know the exact year any of her songs were released)


Those of you who created your account in 2016, 2020, or 2021: What did you get? Hopefully something good. I really hope this meme sticks to its word and lists a bright event for EVERY year, instead of doing the already overdone jokes about those years. I hate that people STILL get judged for enjoying 2016/2020 or enjoying anything about them or having looked forward to them. :(

Those of you who have known me for only three years or less may think a lot of my recent entries and comments were dumb and irrational and badly-worded and didn't make a lot of sense.

Well, you're not wrong. Several of my recent entries were dumb and irrational and badly-worded and didn't make a lot of sense. Not just coronavirus-related ones, either.

But (with a few exceptions) they're nothing compared to some of the entries newer readers may have missed.


So I suggest we try to put this in perspective. If you've only been reading my journal since 2017 or later, I recommend that you do the following:

1) Pick a random date between February 2009 (or August 2007, if you're REALLY daring!) and the day I became friends with you on LJ or DW.
2) Go to http://matt1993.livejournal.com/YYYY/MM/DD or http://matt1993.dreamwidth.org/YYYY/MM/DD for that day.
3) Marvel at just how STUPID those entries and my comments on them were! (Unless it turns out there weren't any for that day. Or you're lucky enough to find a good entry.) But do try to keep in mind what my age was at the time (I was born in 1993).
4) Optional: Let me know if you come across any that have broken links or broken images or something that I haven't fixed.
5) Repeat steps 1-4 until you're like "Maybe Matt's recent entries aren't that bad after all, for the most part..."