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DIRK: Well whatever that means, it doesn't sound good.
DIRK: I didn't know that robots could even get headaches.
ROSEBOT: I'd say it's more of an ontological, existential headache, but that already describes basically everything that's ever happened to us up until now.
ROSEBOT: And also sounds as fake as shit.
DIRK: Is there nothing I can say that'd take the weight off your mind?
DIRK: For what it's worth, I think we've got this plan riding at a level experts might describe as "pretty solid".
DIRK: We scanned for Sburban technology, so we know for sure this is the right planet. Wheels are already in motion and all that.
DIRK: This thing is on lock-down. Hermetically sealed, even.
DIRK: Shit's tighter than a pair of English-occupied micro-shorts.
ROSEBOT: You aren't going to believe this, but it turns out that the deranged horny ramblings of a spurned anime-obsessive have essentially no therapeutic properties whatsoever.
ROSEBOT: And contrary to common wisdom, talking about the problem doesn't seem to have eased my state of mind either.
ROSEBOT: I doubt you could say anything to make me feel better. If anything, I feel worse now than I already did.
ROSEBOT: It's like the notion I was trying to describe was so conceptually insubstantial, so resistant to concrete definition within any meaningful frame of reference, that even thinking about it as an idea made *me* somehow existentially unsound.
ROSEBOT: And not in the way I used to always feel, back before John made the choice to validate our canonical existences axiomatically.
ROSEBOT: Foreboding I can deal with. I'm a Seer. Sooths are mine to say.
ROSEBOT: But this is different.
DIRK: Well, if talking about it didn't help, maybe talking about how it felt to talk about it might just enlarge the problem geometrically.
ROSEBOT: Fair point.
Despite what she thinks, little by little Rose begins to feel her head clear of concern, semantically dubious or otherwise. Her understanding of my ascended existence doesn't include this degree of metanarrative potency, so her doubts as to my words' healing powers are understandable. I don't take it personally. For someone whose sense of self is so boundless and infinite as an ascended Prince of Heart's, the fact that I'm able to perceive something in any way other than personally might come as a surprise. But then again, taking things in stride is basically my whole deal at this stage. You might even call it my namesake.
And so it's with a stony expression of implacable calm that I endure the increasingly violent tremors now coursing through the Theseus as it begins to breach the new planet's stratosphere, vibrations unruly enough to churn even the most adamant of stomachs to a nauseous froth. With brow unfurrowed and mouth pixel-perfectly horizontal I withstand the spasmodic adjustments and course corrections, which together comprise the rambunctious intergalactic road-rage of a chaotic-lawful alien woman with a voracious appetite for alchemically discolored ornamental plants. All manner of shit goes tumbling helplessly to the floor/walls/ceiling, and I don't even seem to bat an eyelid. Or maybe that's just because my shades are in the way. In the face of impossible stupidity, I am as unfazed as ever. Because while the external world roils and heaves and shits itself like nothing else, there's one thing that I can always count on.
As you know, I have many splinters. So many, I used to find it overwhelming to contemplate them all. Depressing, actually. It was a feeling I could never escape from. The feeling that my sense of self was limitless. That I was forced to exist as a small facet of my own potential, while drowning in an ocean of my greater persona, and all the terrible things I was fully capable of. I was trapped as a limited version of myself who was still burdened by the concern for what it meant to be good, struggling to keep himself from drowning in an overwhelming body of potential which had no concern for human morality whatsoever.
But that struggle finally ended a few years ago. My head isn't fighting to stay above the water anymore. There isn't even a metaphorical head to speak of. I'm only the water now.
It's proven to be an immensely comforting way for me to exist. It reminds me of the feelings I had during long nights alone, looking out over the dark ocean which surrounded me. The ocean that effectively raised me, because nothing else was around to do it. During those lonely nights I spent many hours wondering what would happen, what would even be the difference, if I jumped in and never came up. If I simply disappeared.
But now I finally have. I've disappeared into the infinity of myself. And I am... magnificent.