the-last-teabender

[the-last-teabender]

I am not trying to be disrespectful but sometimes you use big/sophisticated words in your cowboy fic (it's the first one I have read of yours and I am enjoying it a lot!) and it makes me think you use AI or something similar. Again, I do not mean this to be rude but I'm curious if you do.

i use 'big words' because i have a law degree.

[the-last-teabender]

Perhaps I'm too tired to write right now

[the-last-teabender]

[the-last-teabender]

This is a dangerous sentiment for me to express, as an editor who spends most of my working life telling writers to knock it off with the 45-word sentences and the adverbs and tortured metaphors, but I do think we're living through a period of weird pragmatic puritanism in mainstream literary taste.

e.g. I keep seeing people talk about 'purple prose' when they actually mean 'the writer uses vivid and/or metaphorical descriptive language'. I've seen people who present themselves as educators offer some of the best genre writing in western canon as examples of 'purple prose' because it engages strategically in prose-poetry to evoke mood and I guess that's sheer decadence when you could instead say "it was dark and scary outside". But that's not what purple prose means. Purple means the construction of the prose itself gets in the way of conveying meaning. mid-00s horse RPers know what I'm talking about. Cerulean orbs flash'd fire as they turn'd 'pon rollforth land, yonder horizonways. <= if I had to read this when I was 12, you don't get to call Ray Bradbury's prose 'purple'.

I griped on here recently about the prepossession with fictional characters in fictional narratives behaving 'rationally' and 'realistically' as if the sole purpose of a made-up story is to convince you it could have happened. No wonder the epistolary form is having a tumblr renaissance. One million billion arguments and thought experiments about The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas that almost all evade the point of the story: that you can't wriggle out of it. The narrator is telling you how it was, is and will be, and you must confront the dissonances it evokes and digest your discomfort. 'Realistic' begins on the author's terms, that's what gives them the power to reach into your brain and fiddle about until sparks happen. You kind of have to trust the process a little bit.

This ultra-orthodox attitude to writing shares a lot of common ground with the tight, tight commodification of art in online spaces. And I mean commodification in the truest sense - the reconstruction of the thing to maximise its capacity to interface with markets. Form and function are overwhelmingly privileged over cloudy ideas like meaning, intent and possibility, because you can apply a sliding value scale to the material aspects of a work. But you can't charge extra for 'more challenging conceptual response to the milieu' in a commission drive. So that shit becomes vestigial. It isn't valued, it isn't taught, so eventually it isn't sought out. At best it's mystified as part of a given writer/artist's 'talent', but either way it grows incumbent on the individual to care enough about that kind of skill to cultivate it.

And it's risky, because unmeasurables come with the possibility of rejection or failure. Drop in too many allegorical descriptions of the rose garden and someone will decide your prose is 'purple' and unserious. A lot of online audiences seem to be terrified of being considered pretentious in their tastes. That creates a real unwillingness to step out into discursive spaces where you 🫵 are expected to develop and explore a personal relationship with each element of a work. No guard rails, no right answers. Word of god is shit to us out here. But fear of getting that kind of analysis wrong makes people hove to work that slavishly explains itself on every page. And I'm left wondering, what's the point of art that leads every single participant to the same conclusion? See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. Down the rollforth land, yonder horizonways. I just want to read more weird stuff.

[the-last-teabender]

do publishers realize that advertising books using fanfic tropes spoils the experience of reading an original story. stop telling me it’s enemies to lovers and there was only one bed and unrequited love hurt comfort golden retriever black cat timeloop major character death. why do i give a fuck if i don’t know any of the characters and now plus i already know the entire plot of the story. that’s what ao3 is supposed to be for

[the-last-teabender]

@jackfuckingtwist Great minds. And, you know, wanting the best for the best boy.

Speaking of which, if he doesn’t get honey at least once before the campaign is over, I riot.

[the-last-teabender]

Legit got told off by an editor for emdashes, which I have used since long before ChatGPT was a thing.

Not only is it very shortsighted to go witch hunting for “tells” (see everything above), it also REALLY SUCKS to be accused of partaking in something that has actively stolen from you and your friends. Do not force us into bed with the enemy.

Actual writers and artists are not acceptable collateral damage in this battle. I am deeply vocally anti-ChatGPT and LLMs, but I’d rather misidentify AI as human than wrongly accuse a fellow human of using AI. Any day of the week.

"this is DEFINITELY written by AI, I can tell because it uses the writing quirks that AI uses (because it was trained on real people who write with those quirks)"

c'mon dudes we have got to do better than this

[the-last-teabender]

Wyrdwood spoilers: "Angler"

Robin going Bard?

I feel like it would be an interesting move.

Like I know playing the Human Commoner sheet is a fun conceit, but also I think any human commoner who heeds (or is carried along by) the call to adventure and meets this many creatures would ding level 1 at some point. But between the singing, the stories, and being an average person who just happens to pick up a little bit of everything, it would feel fitting.

I mean, if he chooses to stick with the Human Commoner sheet I think it'll still be good. Mechanics figure into characterization exactly as much as you want them to. So Robin gaining a first level and a class could demonstrate how he's grown while also maintaining the degree of challenge that swapping between Robin and Morven currently has. But choosing not to do that wouldn't prevent that development from coming out in other ways.

I'm just invested is all.

[the-last-teabender]

Puki can you tell me why my cat is so obsessed with meat slop from a tube?

So are we. Look up sausage.

[the-last-teabender]

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[the-last-teabender]

small brain “hotel california is about drugs” normal brain “hotel california is about the music industry” giant brain “hotel california is meant to be taken completely literally and The Eagles are still trapped there”

[the-last-teabender]

Andy (As Morven): Half the time I'm an idiot, half the time I'm-

Ellen: -Robin.

Andy: ...I cast Sorcerous Burst.

[the-last-teabender]

Have a doodle. My sleep schedule's been whack, so I give my exhaustion to Robin.

[the-last-teabender]

props to stem people wtf! i can bullshit my way through any english essay because literally u just have to say stuff. but for stem paper u have to say stuff AND it has to be true. wack. 

[the-last-teabender]

“I wouldn’t if I were you, Noël; they count them before they put them out.”

— The Queen Mother to Noël Coward as they climbed a staircase and she noticed him eyeing the soldiers on guard (via mariacallous)

[the-last-teabender]

MUTUAL I HAVE DECIDED IS COOL LIKED MY POST