Babblings of a Muppet-Loving Freak

And we're now back up to date.

( Books and Boardgames )

I caught a student using chatgpt today. After realizing this, I am now fully aware that I have undoubtedly missed this in other papers. There have been some that have... I want to say bothered me. A student would struggle to write a basic sentence in a quiz or would obviously not be doing their work, then hand in an essay that was, to put it mildly, far too perfect.

I have just gone through using chatgpt in an effort to beat it by giving it the most esoteric prompts I could muster. Write an essay arguing Paul Rusesabagina is a hero. Argue in favor of five-year interval driving tests. What are the similarities and differences between plane travel and car travel.

In every case it kicked out something perfectly polished in less than a minute. It was deeply depressing.

So I tried leaving behind logic and went for creativity, something I was sure it would not be able to do. I told it to write a Frostiron fic involving a book, a phone, and a watch.

Which it did. Too damn well.

In one last

In a list ditch effort to prove there had to be something it couldn't do, I pulled out a poetry form that in my opinion is the hardest to pull off: the sestina. Then I gave it eight end words based on what I could see around my desk: tissue, candle, pumpkin, stapler, paper, pen, hand, and watch.

It proceeded to spit out a full sestina in less than a minute. Look at this thing:

In shadows cast by flickering candle's glow,
A solitary figure sits, pen in hand,
Beneath the steady gaze of the old watch.
Her thoughts like ghosts upon the parchment paper,
She seeks solace in the dance of flame,
Amidst the quiet hum of stapler's press.

With each soft whisper of the stapler's press,
She binds her words like threads of delicate tissue,
A tapestry woven by the flame's gentle dance.
Her muse ignited by the flicker of candle,
She spills her soul onto the empty paper,
Capturing time's fleeting moments in her watch.

Outside, the moon keeps time with silent watch,
As dreams and thoughts within her mind press,
Like leaves pressed between the pages of paper,
Or tears absorbed by a comforting tissue.
In the soft glow of the flickering candle,
She finds refuge in the rhythm of its dance.

As hours pass in the silent dance,
She marks their passage on the worn watch,
Her only companion the steady candle,
Guiding her through each thought's arduous press,
As she unravels emotions, layer by tissue,
And etches them onto the waiting paper.

The weight of her words upon the paper,
Is lifted by the flicker's gentle dance,
Each sentence wrapped in delicate tissue,
Protected by the steady beat of the watch,
Sealed together by the stapler's press,
As she continues to write by candle.

In the quiet hours before dawn's candle,
She completes her work upon the paper,
A creation born of passion's press,
And the muse's ever-changing dance.
With a sigh, she sets down her faithful watch,
And gathers her thoughts like fragile tissue.

In the dying light of the flickering candle,
She reads her words upon the paper,
A testament to time's relentless press,
Echoed in the rhythm of her watch's silent dance.

That last stanza, the watch's silent dance? Gathers her thoughts like fragile tissue?

It's better than anything I could write. Better than anything 99.99% of humanity could write.

I feel very depressed. We've all been replaced.

( Loki, sent to Earth to clean up his mess, is begrudgingly working with his brother and the rest of the Avengers and making every effort to annoy them as much as possible. So why has he started leaving Tony breakfast in his lab every morning? )

Actually wrote this last month and forgot to post here.

Unlike last year's somewhat nutty total of 87, this was a more "normal" 22. It's about average or a little above since I started writing fic more than two decades ago. So here's what I did in 2023:

( Lot of Loki under here )

I had a pretty big dead spot from February to May and then a smaller one in June. Fewer different fandoms as well. I think I forgot to post the MFTAM chapter about "Zeus and the Tortoise," or I didn't tag it.

On AO3, I finally broke up the multi-part fic "Worlds of Chaos" into separate fics, then grouped them as a series. Consequently, "Apprentices of Chaos," the first one, looks like it had over 5100 hits all by itself. That was the original total for 14 chapters, which have some pretty small totals now (ranging from "Course Correction" (Dollhouse xover) with 21 to "One Treasure Lost, Another Found (LotR xover) with 134). I originally titled the 14 chapters just by where they were located (Haggard's Castle, Sunnydale, Elsinore, etc.), but they have actual names now. Then I made "More Than One Way to Die" a stand alone fic since it didn't really fit in the series anymore (384 hits, which surprises me).

I enjoyed writing this year, so that's good.