Reading

Entry tags:

ai,
generators

If I were to ask you if this was the way to the village, would you say yes?

In the last few years, generative AI has clearly developed many uses. Pictures of Paddington Bear bringing Sutekh's gift of death to all humankind? No sooner said than done. Footage of your favourite ship pair kissing, even when they never met in canon? There's a generator for that. Let alone the twerking...

One application that isn't so obvious and can sometimes lead to amusing not-quite-there misconceptions is to convert a picture into a romance novel summary. Feed whatever picture you like into the classifier at imagetoprompt.com, click on the thumbnail, and ask it "If this was the cover for a romance novel, what might the blurb say?" (For added verisimilitude, you can tell it the characters' names too).

( examples )

Entry tags:

family history

A Cunning Art Fraud, Complete With A Goose

I will try and make a post again soon, but am now recovering from parental visit (due to me and the ME/CFS, not any fault of said parents). Yesterday, though, I got lucky at the BNA while searching for a newly-discovered address for an ancestor's siblings and found him accidentally involved in a plot to steal a painting by Petrus van Schendel. (London ancestors are v hard to find, especially when they have common names, but the joy of London is that every so often your relatives are briefly entangled with someone or something famous).

Anyway, the fraud was discovered, I was rewarded by a description of two rooms in a relative's house (29 St Mary-at-hill) and I thought some of you might enjoy the resulting magistrate's hearings:

( A Cunning Plot )

Current Mood: accomplished

Entry tags:

fandom: animal crossing

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Since the universe has made it clear that I have no control whatsoever when it comes to my actual life, I decided to focus on one of my virtual ones instead for a while.

I've never really stopped playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons since it was released in 2020, but the last few years I've mostly been logging on for 10-15 minutes each day to do my "dailies" and talk to my villagers since all of my collections are already at 100%. Since it's October, though, I decided to not only put out all of my (many) fall and Halloween decorations but also change some things up as well.

I'm not done yet, but I definitely spent a few hours last night and this morning curled up on my bed with the cats as I changed up some cliffs and rivers, dug up some flowers, planted new ones, moved some trees, etc. all while putting out enough pumpkin-related decor that every single one of my villagers commented on it.

Does it change much in the grand scheme of things? No, not really. But, you know, if I can't keep my actual life from imploding on me regularly, I can at least control the world of my tiny little digital island.

Entry tags:

1061: gallop

Challenge #1061: gallop

Challenge #1061 is gallop.

The rules:

All stories must be 100 words long.
Please place your story behind a cut if it contains spoilers for the current season.
Remember, you don't have to use the challenge word or phrase in your story; it's just there for inspiration.
Please include the challenge word or phrase in the subject line of your post.
Please use the challenge tag 1061: gallop on any story posted to this challenge.

Current Mood: sleepy

Entry tags:

fandom: critical role

Critical Role: Campaign 4, Episode 1

It's been ages since I've tried to do one of these, but I've typed up some reactions to the newest episode of Critical Role as I watched it. It's a combination of quotes, random thoughts, and some speculation, and it's full of spoilers (albeit vague ones in places).

( Spoilers under the cut. )

There was so much to take in, especially with all of the new characters who were introduced and had various interpersonal relationships and interconnected histories. I definitely need to try to rewatch this episode sometime between now and next Thursday, possibly more than once, because I know that I missed somethings.

But for now? I'm going to attempt to convince my body to let me get a few hours of sleep, and then I'll go back to panicking about various things in the morning. It was nice to escape from reality for a few hours at least.

Current Mood: hopeful

Entry tags:

fandom: critical role

Critical Role

Campaign 4 of Critical Role starts tonight, and I'm going to do my best to actually watch it live despite the general insanity going on in my life right now. The one positive about sleeping like crap the last few nights is that my sleep schedule is a bit of a mess, which means I've been staying up late all week (which in turn explains why I've been getting not-enough-sleep all week in addition to the tossing and turning once I do fall asleep).

Since I have a headache again today, I took an extra hour for lunch and got an almost two hour nap in. I'm hoping that I can convince my body to nap for another hour or two after work. If I can get a nap in, it should help me be a bit more awake while watching the episode since it doesn't start until 10pm my time and will probably be at least 3-4 hours.

I usually do liveposting over on Bluesky, but I think that I'm going to try to type up a post about the episode for Dreamwidth as well (and, if possible, try to do that every week). We'll see how it goes? I can't remember the last time that I did regular posts about something that I was watching. Once upon a time, I used to do it regularly for a bunch of shows, but I stopped around the time that I started using Twitter and transitioned to shorter but more constant livetweeting instead as typing up a post takes a lot more mental work.

Current Location: sydney, australia

Entry tags:

1060: distract

Challenge #1060: distract

Welcome to

dw100! Challenges are posted approximately once a week.

Challenge 1060 is distract.

The rules:

All stories must be 100 words long
Please place your story behind a cut if it contains spoilers for the current season
You don't have to use the challenge word or phrase in your story; it's just there for inspiration
Please include the challenge word or phrase in the subject line of your post
Please use the challenge tag 1060: distract on any story posted to this challenge

Good luck!

Current Mood: thoughtful

Entry tags:

Weekend Plans

Well, I was supposed to be playing D&D tonight, so I napped for a bit after work to make sure I could stay up without issue. The DM isn't feeling well, though, so we ended up having to cancel at the last minute.

( More under the cut. )

Entry tags:

yuletide

Yuletide Nominations

I'm sorry, I still haven't really tried catching up properly, and next my parents will be here for a week, although that may actually not stop me posting some things.

Anyway, it's nearly

yuletide again! I'm not at all sure whether I shall be able to do it or not, but it's looking more likely than I thought, so I have had to consider the important issue of nominations.

Other people have nominated Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully and The Winslow Boy, so my 5 (five!!) are looking like this:

* Enigma (Movie 2001)
1. Hester Wallace
2. Tom Jericho
3. Mr Wigram

* Indigo Saga - Louise Cooper
1. Indigo
2. Grimya
3. Nemesis
4. Fenran

* Mimic (1997)
1. Susan Tyler
2. Peter Mann
3. Chuy Gavoila

* Time Police Series - Jodi Taylor
1. Jane Lockland
2. Luke Parrish
3. Celia North
4. Matthew Ellis

* Wish Me Luck (TV)
1. Matty Firman
2. Colin Beale
3. Liz Grainger
4. Faith Ashley

I was VERY tempted to put down The Schoolmistress (BBC Radio 1991) but I decided that I shouldn't make my Jeremy Northam problem quite as bad as all that. Maybe next time! (Also because I'm not sure what I would request beyond "more shenanigans," really). I might swap out Mimic, though, idk. (I think it would be a great one for the Hurt/Comfort exchange or maybe Chocolate Box because I want a v specific thing (not an unreasonable specific thing), but OTOH I do not seem to be managing more than Yuletide, if even that, at the moment. Hmmm.

I don't know what I'll actually request if I do sign up, as there look like being a fair few other shiny things in the tagset already, just from the nomination coordination post. \o/

Current Mood: cheerful

Entry tags:

fandom: dragon age

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

A mutual on Bluesky borrowed one of my Rooks from Dragon Age: The Veilguard for Rookanis fanart purposes! 💕

She had a specific art ref as a brain worm and needed to borrow someone else's Rook to use it on, so I got some lovely art of one of my Crow Rooks, Gianna de Riva.

ETA: Official post here since the original was just a comment to me.

Entry tags:

Starfall Stories 49

rainbowfic piece I finally posted a couple of weeks ago:

Name: On the Interpretation of Dreams
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #17 (Honesty)
Supplies and Styles: Nubs
Word Count: 1891
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray, Osmer Nivyrn.
Summary: Proof that Viyony also takes Leion's advice from time to time.

On the Interpretation of Dreams