Solarel lies flat on the canopy of the [i]Bezorel[/i], looking up at the night sky. She watches the stars and the ships and the flashing lines of gods and spirits. To her eyes the world is always partially digital. There are rainbows in the stars, dogs falling off chairs in the horizon, the digital bonfires of distant gods. The wind is visible in lines of silver pixels and holographic leaves. Distant mountains she has not yet climbed have glittering diamonds rotating above their summits. Text streams past her eyes, old news and new history. Ancestors talking about the policies of distant Empresses and sightings of new gods. Layers and layers of meaning.

> How was your evening?

She doesn't know who speaks. An ancestor, a god, an anonymous Zaldarian casting her thoughts into a digital void? Doesn't matter. Sometimes you're just talking, right?

< had a gay meltdown
< which merged with an existential/moral thing
< i didn't say shit but i feel overexposed. like i said and did way too much and now i'm not cool and mysterious any more
< and cool and mysterious is all that holds my persona together
> You don't seem cool and mysterious IMO.
> More like a dog contemplating how to un-chew a slipper.
< haha angy%Glyph
> I simply would like to suggest that you consider internalizing fuckup into your presentation. You might find it relieving.
< but i'm not! so much of the time i'm so fucking cool
< like
< did you see how i blew up that robot today
< i'm incredible. if i met me i'd want me to sign my tits
> That seems like a lot of pressure.
< yeah i mean, should i sign them normally so other people can read it, or should i write it backwards so that i can read it when i look in the mirror?
> I get the feeling you've thought about this a lot.
< i think the real limiting factor is that my handwriting is messy when i do it in reverse
> But constant success surely builds up a self image that is hard for you to get out of, and any failure from perfection scans as a failure of identity.
< mm. no that's not it
< like... i know that i don't win all the time. its not constant success that i'm living up to
< its like i want to be relevant
< important?
< and most of the time i am but then i see her and she's everything to me that i want to be to everybody and i don't know how to handle it
> *Nod nod*
< and i want to just blow up her dumb robot and kiss her dumb face so hard that she's the same nonfunctioning gay wreck that i am
> Wow, that's certainly an emotion. She must really have done a number on you.
< thats the fucked part i'm currently 1-0 against her
> Wow.
< i'm 1-0 against everyone i'm not 2-0 against.
> So what makes her so special?
< she uses a joystick
> ...?
< and shes a literal space alien
< like, conceptually.
< also literally
> And does she have feelings towards you?
< yes. sort of. different
> Have you tried asking her out?
< yeah and we did and it was incredible
< and then she was dating someone else
< and then she wanted me to date someone else
< and that part was hot and i was into it
< but i also just hyperfixated for like 30 minutes and forgot what i was doing and then she ditched me
< and so i not only failed to hook up with her i failed to hook up with the girl she told me to hook up with and like
< does that make me a bad sub 
< is that even the operative word
< am i the asshole?
> Nothing you've said makes you sound like an asshole, but you're also awful at explaining whatever the fuck this is.
< i know right?
< is hooking up even a motive here?
< would it not follow that i simply want to blow up her robot?
< i mean if i don't blow up her robot i'm probably going to be exiled and hunted forever
< oh yeah that's also happening
< i've been exiled. and hunted. probably forever.
> This sounds like a more coherent problem.
< yeah i'm the personal enemy of two different galactic empresses
< three if theres a cat empress
< but at least i only slept with one of them
> And... she wants you back?
< uh i dont know
< maybe???
< although i might have been contacted by one of them
> And are you going to check it out?
< idk eventually
< right now i have to overcome four decades of technological advancement
< using the power of organized crime
< and anime
> Are... you talking about a mecha battle?
< yeah 
< i think i've upgraded my plan from 'impossible' to 'unethical'
< do you think its ok to use organized crime to cheat on my crush?
> Like, romantically?
< yes
< i mean no
< militarily
> Even setting the ethics and... romantic issues aside, getting involved in organized crime seems like a complication your life does not stand to benefit from right now.
< ok do you know how to calibrate a hybrasilian god's gyroscopic network?
> I can't say that I do.
< fuck

Solarel's eyes strayed from the chat window to look out towards the horizon again. It was a warm night. Her scales buzzed with the a faint static electricity of charge. Automappers drew silver traces between patterns of stars, putting the hypothetical constellations to votes amidst the ancestors. The digital breeze held the golden streamers of a coming dawnlight. The spirit world's filters painted its coming in silver and white gold, clearing away visual clutter and starting the faint music that would set the tone for the rising sun.

> Look, you've basically spent this evening spewing out an incoherent rush of lesbian drama at me.
> Just, like, the pure mess of a profoundly mismanaged life
> That you are nevertheless seemingly determined to add more bad decisions to
> While also committing in the hardest possible terms to a relationship that you neither understand nor have any conscious influence over.
> You are either going to wind up in jail, possibly the jail of the ex who wields political power on the galactic stage, or you are going to transform into a magical girl and destroy a giant robot that symbolically represents the evil of the universe.
> Given that your options are full time commitment to the anime lifestyle or (bondage?) prison, I suggest that you go as deep into the weeaboo shit as you can.
> That is my answer to your original question: What to do about the fact that your cringy gay meltdown might have made people think that you are not as cool as previously.
> Cringe is the only thing keeping you from prison.
> So lean into it.
> Maybe the galaxy is cringe too.