Tale of Genji Fixit Fic

 

I've begun posting a new project I've been working on. It's doing the HPMOR thing but for the "Tale of Genji," and about my own philosophical approach instead of rationalism. It is also AI-assisted. I have *really* enjoyed the results so far, and if you are reading this I think you will too. Head over and check it out.

I've had a long time to work on AI creative writing, and these stories should be notably less "AI"ish than my earlier attempts here.

Poasts

Here are my other websites that I edited posts for last week.

Alt Binaries: Universalist vs Humanist - A theme I talk about a lot around here.

Exploring Egregores: The Golem - If you want to talk about what AI means for creation, this is all my thoughts on that.

Everything an AI Knows About: Drone Warfare - Thoroughly researched and cited.

I'd like to say I won't be putting up any AI written movie reviews here. Well, I can say that because it's true. But I would like to say because it's a special talent only I can do and Claude can't produce movie reviews that I respect. But I can't because it is far from true. Its reviews of "Beef" and ""Wuthering Heights"" were really very good by my standards. However, I do not think they would be interesting for anyone else, and if you care, you can make as many as you want on your own too. 

Monday at Alt Binaries

Just a reminder that this new blog exists. Read the About section if you haven't.

Pretty in depth discussion of David Lynch today. 

New Blog!

 Alt Binaries

 

It will update twice weekly and already has a dozen posts queued. The posts are very short or very long depending on how you want to read them. Subscribe or something. 

There's two posts to start today, an explanatory intro, and the first binary to cover: Linear vs Harmony.

I'll be talking about dualities that are off the left-right grid. The sort you've seen me talk about already - archetypal vs humanist, real vs symbolic - and many news ones in excruciating detail.

Also there will be "comics."

Just read the introduction to get an idea and the CONTROVERSY behind this blog. You won't believe what it is --- no it is probably gonna be your first guess.

Double Feature: Avatar and Plur1bus: What is pretty?

Stop me if you've heard this before: A director who is the master of his medium, suddenly devotes all of his attention to an original scifi IP of his own making, with woefully lacking plot and characters, but it gets defended as one of the most beautiful things to grace the screen, and ends up getting #1 in ratings for its niche.

This tortured analogy compares James Cameron's Avatar, and Vince Gilligan's Plur1bus (or Pluribus), both of which are peaking in attention this month. Avatar 3 Fire and Ash just came out, and Pluribus has the most viewers Apple+ TV has ever gotten.

Most importantly, both of them have gotten the epithet "pretty" but in entirely different ways.

(For instance, I only think one of them is good.)

Pills, Pills, Pills - a Matrix Resurrections lookback

Did I like the Matrix Resurrections? No, not really, but that is mostly a matter of craft. It wasn't elegant in any way - plot, action, characters, shots - but more a lump-sided mix of ham-handed explanations and confusing scene changes. Nothing was done in a way to make someone say "wow, I want to learn how to do that."

But it turned out everyone wanted to argue about ideology anyway.

D4: Do the Heavens Rejoice?

This is a review of Diablo 4, which has the best writing of any Diablo game (low bar) that is actually up to the category of "somewhat good" when judged absolutely[1]. Experiencing it directly is definitely better, so if you haven't played it but you intended to, I recommend to play it first before reading that. But sliver of the population that hasn't played it but plans to must be very, very small at this point. So most of you should read ahead:

In the Diablo-verse cosmology, the human world (Sanctuary) was made when an angel and a demon had blasphemous sex together (they also birthed a son who became the first necromancer.) The angel, Inarius, was cast out of Heaven for this, and exiled to the human world. At some point he comes to hate his demon lover, Lilith, and convinces himself that he can only return to Heaven once he has killed their son. So he spends a thousand years hunting them until he can finally face her in bloody confrontation. His armies had to invade Hell to get him to this point, and the cut scene of this battle is one of the best cut scenes Blizzard has made. It's worth watching. 

INARIUS: I made it right to satisfy the Heavens.

LILITH:  Tell me, did they rejoice? 

LILITH:  They do not want you. We made a choice, and that they can never forgive, no matter what you tell yourself or who you sacrifice. Silence is their judgment. 

 

The voice actress's delivery is silky and chilling, I love it so much. When you killed your son, did the Heavens rejoice? No, Heaven remains silent. It's amazingly existential. Heaven does not care, even when - especially when - you try to placate them.

Then he skewers Lilith, and then she kills him.

Sometimes we want to be returned so much, that we convince ourself that there is a way back into Heaven. Our hope finds its focus in an object that disturbs us. Something - more often, someone - is wrong with the world. They represent everything we hate about the world, and the sins we feel guilt for So, unsurprisingly, we come to believe that if only we rid the world of that objet petit, they would let us back in. 

And so we kill this pharmakon. And do the Heavens rejoice? They remain silent. The blood letting was for nothing, just a delusion that we believed in. One that consumed us. And once we culminate this dream of removing the defiler -- Heaven has nothing to say. We are not welcomed home into paradise, there are no trumpets and light, nothing is changed -- except one person is gone, or a corpse is lying on the floor.

Diablo 4, good writing, as I was saying.

What does this have to do with our world? You don't believe in Heaven. You don't even know someone who really believes in Heaven.

We believe in paradise only by its absence. 

Our world is a wreck of hatred and buffoonery. We come to believe it is some person's fault: I don't mean the president or some systemically powerful person, but someone normal and connected to us. Maybe our son the necromancer, but always someone we know like our foot knows the pebble in our shoe. Reasonably then, we want to get rid of it. Them. And if we can't, then they keep rubbing against us like that metaphorical pebble, gradually wearing us away. We obsess about them.

But when we remove a pebble, at least there is some physical relief. When we remove a person - the Heavens are silent. The world and our problems with it are not actually fixed. Heaven does not suddenly welcome us back with open arms. It doesn't even care.

Fortunately for our conscience, soon enough we forget the silence. A new pebble bothers us and we find a new person to blame for the Fall. Inarius is not welcomed after the death of his son, so he chases down Lilith and tries to kill her. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

The algorithms that are trained to capture your attention by showing you negative news and rage bait are not going to stop because you removed the pebble. Revelation will not come as a loud rebuke, but in silence.

A dream is when you know where you are, but not how you got there. 

 

 [1] But don't play the expansion pack, Vessel of Hatred. That's just dogshit.