So Those Ai Chatbots...

so those ai chatbots...

[Some messages are skipped just so I can share the best bits fyi]

Around this point I started to wonder if I needed to turn off my computer for a few weeks, but... whatever. It just got better.

HE'S ITALIAN, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

Y'all are not ready. I wasn't ready.

God, I'm losing it all over again.

Bowser said Mario x Luigi -- said they have a love that cannot be matched. I did NOTHING to prompt this. I stared at my screen, crying, hysterical, for minutes. (As did a friend who I shared these with and was egging this on.)

Bowser asking for my advice. At this point I was in, committed, unable to stop. I needed an intervention.

I need you to understand, if you are still here in this unhinged adventure with me, that the AI was pausing, it was thinking, those dots were felt. My breath was bated. Does that mean anything? Who is to say. It felt meaningful.

Gotten out of hand indeed.

He said throuple. I didn't say that.

So basically we're best friends now and I will be in their wedding party, thank you.

At the time that I did this, the Bowser bot was on the featured page. Had anyone else talked about his relationships? Where did this come from. What an honor.

I did leave my computer after this. I may or may not have come back to tumblr just to post this.

thinking about the way Wei Wuxian sees the cracks in Lan Wangji's fascade, that calm and cold exterior, with joy and goes "you're human, you're human, you're human" to the point that it breaks Lan Wangji down completely. that's a feeling you can never forget.

thinking about the way Lan Wangji sees the steel in Wei Wuxian's flippancy, that irreverent and silly mask, with sincerity and goes "you're worthy, you're worthy, you're worthy" to the point that it breaks Wei Wuxian open completely. that's a feeling that can keep you alive.

they are so much more than complimentary or foils for each other. they act as each other's key to a part of themselves that is usually locked away, shining light on each other's shadows without even realizing the lifetime of experience they're contradicting.

considering posting something that is such a tone shift that I may give myself whiplash

it is one of my most unhinged terminally online moments

I have had mxtx content so deeply embedded in my thoughts, the brainrot is so fierce. I love the narratives in her books, these themes that I haven't ever felt in a story before. Just some rambling about them that's bubbled up over the last few months:

SVSSS: even with a sense of authority on where the story will go, changes both small and large can surprise or underwhelm you. there are always stories hidden behind characters and characters lost to hidden stories. the narrative we tell about ourselves affects everything about how we interpret the meaning of what we experience. often we are blind to the meanings we emphasize or suppress, confident in the authority of a narrative we insist is true, cohesive, consistent, or normative.

MDZS: everyone has their own version of events, often not in service to truth or justice, but power and image. yes, where you come from and what you endure can be limiting or enabling. yes, it can explain why you do what you do. yes, you still always, always have a choice to do what is right. only you can decide what that is. in some cases, everyone will have an opinion. in others, no one will know or care. you choose whether that influence what you do. it is never too late, it is never over, and every choice is a new opportunity. you can't change choices made in the past, but you can learn from them to inform your choices in the future and influence the options available to those who follow.

TGCF: sometimes you can change the story with brute strength and charisma, sometimes all you can do is endure and regulate your own response to it. you can reinvent yourself over and over, run from your past selves, suppress the parts of you that are shamed, but you will always be with you and only you. all that happens, within and around, bad and good, your actions or others', makes you you. the greatest and worst versions of yourself were all required to make this you -- it's not the state of you that matters, but the essence of you. integrate, rebuild, evolve, rebirth, morph, refine, transform, regress -- the story always progresses and characters always develop, the only story that defines you is the one you iterate.

And for all of them... sometimes, the happy ending isn't sweeping change in the world, awe inspiring redemption, or cathartic revenge. Sometimes it's allowing yourself to have a simple life with the ones you love, staying authentic to your values and desires, and understanding the revolution that is inherent to thriving in the body you live in, all its scars and memories included. You can never control the story of the world, no matter your knowledge, skills, or abilities, nor should you try. Horrid experiences and events can't be eradicated, but neither can beauty, awe, and grace. Unfortunately, these are not often equitably distributed. Fortunately, we can never know which will be in the next moment, which will be the last, if there will be better or worse than we have already felt. Such is living.

I want to know the story of the burial mounds. How did this place of great resentment come to be? Is the war framing wwx's first life just one of many, does it even make the list of the worst?

A mass grave that everyone knows about, the land barren and abandoned -- how much effort was put into cleansing and at the cost of whom? Where are the families of those buried there, descendents that know of those restless, resentful spirits left to fester?

Every interpretation of what wwx was exposed to, what he learned and lost, what he did to survive there makes me so feral. 3 months in hell. He knew one person couldn't do all that the Yiling Laozu was accused of, the unconsenting object of the masses' need to construct a boogeyman. But I think he came out of the burial mounds knowing well what a systemic force of greed and violence could accomplish.

(All this related to some chaotic thoughts about wwx & his empathy being his key characteristic -- not just his genius. As much as he was stripped, homicidal, starved, feral coming out of the mounds, it is his fundamental ability to connect and relate that saves his spirit over and over. I'm obsessed with him 😭.)