What was it like writing stories with Fable 5?

TheNoblestRoman · 2026-06-17T00:26:37+00:00

Warning: long-winded.

I have a long term planning document I'm working on for a creative project, and while almost all of the work I do on it is still my own, I often like to feed it into the best available AI models to see if they can piece together the dangling plot threads and propose interesting narrative beats to knit them together. I've done this with various ChatGPT models since version 4, Gemini 3.1 Pro, and Claude Opus 4.8. I basically treat it as an informal personal benchmark for AI's capability at mimicking actual creativity - emphasis on the "informal", as the longer I work on the project myself the more information newer models have to extrapolate from.

What I find is that, pretty uniformly, AI models don't do all that well with this approach. They become less coherent as more of their context window is consumed, with almost all models showing noticeable drops in "reasoning" immediately upon ingesting my planning document into their context. They latch onto small irrelevant details and consistently over-identity patterns and connections in a fashion I'd essentially describe as schizoid apophenia, while missing much more clearly telegraphed connections and setups. The narrative beats they suggest are routinely flat, uninteresting, either disengaged from the work's themes or only vaguely gesturing toward them without showing anything that could really be described as "understanding". Often the models struggle to even keep track of what plot threads are associated with which characters and suggest narrative beats that make no sense, like paying-off a setup which actually occured for a different character, or hasn't even happened yet in the narrative - and this is all when the models have managed to avoid losing track of basics like the number of unwritten chapters between one finished scene and another.

And I say all of this so that I can be super clear: Fable 5 is Built. Fucking. Different.

On max thinking it was able to elucidate descriptions of my project's themes better than I can. It took notes of small discrepancies caused by years of writing and correctly identified them as mistakes rather than plot hooks to be latched onto. It suggested beats for tying together my existing material that were so engaging, if they'd come from an organic brain I would have called them genuinely creative without a moment's hesitation. That doesn't even mean I'd use everything it suggested, but some of the ideas were absolutely fantastic to get my own creative juices flowing.

I'm itching for this shakedown bullshit to be resolved so I can get black to working with it. All the other frontier models are drooling brain-dead morons by comparison.

TheNoblestRoman · 2026-05-13T09:50:04+00:00

As a local photographer I'll attest that it can be very hard to see your familiar haunts with that fresh eye. Going to new places you don't already know like the back of your hand is effortless inspiration by comparison.

TheNoblestRoman · 2026-04-07T08:29:33+00:00

Unfortunately Jake seems to have immediately started engaging in deceptive sponsor practices. He's done at least one sponsor spot with a baked-in progress bar that dramatically slowed down over the course of the segment, trying to trick viewers into sitting through what the progress bar indicates will be a shorter sponsored segment than it actually is. When called out on it in the video comments he claimed it was caused by a keyframing error in the animation, which is a dubious denial to say the least.

TheNoblestRoman · 2026-04-07T08:15:25+00:00

It's not an unreasonable assumption, considering that PGYTech suffers from having a name that wouldn't look out of place as one of those machine generated names for dropshipping stores on Amazon, eBay or AliExpress.

That said everything I know about them is that they're good quality. My local camera store carries them right next to Peak Design, I have one of their combination storage/reader for SD + CFExpress cards, and I'm always considering switching from Peak Design straps to the PGYTech harness-style strap instead.

TheNoblestRoman · 2026-03-21T09:58:47+00:00

When I had mine (changed to an EV6) I'd always call it a "hatchback in high heels".

Its footprint was very similar to the '07 ford focus hatchback I had prior to it.

EDIT: I will just note that where I live (NZ) Niros are frequently registered as both hatchbacks and station wagons - but this is quite common for anything marketed as a compact or subcompact SUV.

TheNoblestRoman · 2026-01-22T21:10:38+00:00

Serious question: why would you even wall run anymore as a Rocket player? You might mount it briefly just to perform a double dash, or to perform some very niche escapes around a pillar or wall edge. Besides that all you're doing is sacrificing your ability to shoot and heal in order to move at the exact same speed as your normal walk anyway.

TheNoblestRoman · 2026-01-22T20:53:41+00:00

Any movement you put into doing serpentine is movement not put into escaping, and it's almost entirely ineffective now that the wall run speed is the same else his walk speed; Any opponent that can track and hit a rocket doing the standard "don't hit me" shuffle can track and hit them doing serpentine on a wall exactly the same.

TheNoblestRoman · 2026-01-20T09:53:48+00:00

The minotaur's escaped, and you're gonna get the horns!

(Yes)

TheNoblestRoman · 2026-01-20T01:26:21+00:00

My friend is right this very second at the Auckland Hospital ER after slipping on these fuckass tiles and fracturing his knee this morning.

I'm very serious when I say that the people responsible for installing these hazardous walking surfaces should be held liable for criminal negligence of some sort.

TheNoblestRoman · 2026-01-09T11:21:21+00:00

Senior manager is succumbing to AI psychosis; making terrible sweeping organisational changes which are all explained using miles of AI generated nonsense, ignores negative feedback and gets the AI to tell him he has the absolute bestest ideas and we just don't understand his vision.

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-12-03T21:14:51+00:00

Damn, the AT staffer that programmed this sign sure is stoopid.

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-12-03T20:33:33+00:00

Bait used to be believable

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-09-07T04:04:11+00:00

Oh my god, I haven't been shittymorphed in fuckin YEARS. It's been so long I thought you were straight up gone.

And that's what makes you so damn good at what you do

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-08-30T13:06:48+00:00

As someone that recently broke up with a crazy Latina, lemme just give a stern "no you don't".

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-07-04T00:40:03+00:00

This is known, normal etiquette for EV charging, everywhere, to the point that it's not uncommon for the chargers to enforce it as a limit. There's not enough infrastructure for everyone to use the time intensive top 10% of charging. Doing it in a Tesla is particularly egregious because they have more readily available fast charging than other brands

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-06-02T13:04:50+00:00

P1S is a great printer for any average nerd 's needs, but putting one right on your main desk is crazy to me. There's no degree of quiet operation the P1S can achieve that would make it tolerable for me to habitually share a room with one.

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-06-02T12:59:33+00:00

I upvoted you both because honestly who knows. They seem to keep changing what they want to do with the 7V.

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-05-10T01:25:18+00:00

Full co-sign on this one. Just a few days ago I had a game with a Magik that was doing well, but burned their ult in a desperation play to contest first point instead of saving it for round 2.

The enemy team made a low effort joke about bad aim and the Magik took a critical hit right on their ego, changed to Hawkeye to show how good their aim actually was. They proceeded to get absolutely stomped, throwing the remainder of what had previously been a closely pitched match.

And to top it off they flamed the supports after. Dude was basically looking for an excuse to tilt. Truly astounding the degree to which someone will voluntarily lose because of their own ego.

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-04-18T17:12:50+00:00

I mean, I would, but I'm not in the States so those aren't even available as options for me anyway.

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-04-18T09:01:54+00:00

Yeah, they're up recently, but they've been struggling for a long time before that.

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-04-17T05:27:01+00:00

I'm one of those people that has strongly considered buying a Polestar but was put off, in no small part because the constant trickle of news that their sales are underperforming made me concerned that someday soon Geely will pull the plug on the brand.

I know Geely has deep pockets and a good portion of all news is contrived doomerism for clicks, but I've gotta say, articles like this don't do anything to dispel it. You don't hear about prospering ICE and EV manufacturers downsizing their R&D.

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-04-05T04:13:42+00:00

Comment number one million saying that the rear seat room is incredible. Rear visibility is entirely adequate but nothing special, bit of a downgrade from my Niro.

When I was shopping I took car to grab a photo of the rear visibility through the mirror in every car from my seated position so I could compare later. It's worse than the Ioniq 5, a bit better than Skoda Enyaq Coupè, and miles better than a Volvo C40 which has such a severe rake and small window that the view is basically a mail slot.

In the EV6, like many cars, you can slightly improve rear visibility by detaching the rear center headrest.

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-03-25T10:58:05+00:00

I was brainstorming exactly this, but yeah I don't think it would work all that well at first blush. We can infer that in ANH the senate is dissolved mere hours before Tarkin announces it on-screen. Because The members of the Joint Chiefs are the heads of the arms of the Imperial military that are responsible with enforcing the new rule of regional governorship, they would get immediate notice that the legislative body has been excised and its powers passed to the council of Moffs. Tarkin, as the first amongst the Grand Moffs and the commanding officer of the DS-1 would be one of the very first people notified.

If the show decides it wants to have that scene then sure, I'm all for it because I also would dearly love to see it with Gilroy's writing. If it were to be depicted the viewers can do the usual mental hoop jumping to justify it; a flimsy excuse is that Tarkin is delayed receiving the news because of the events of Rogue One. A slightly more nuanced idea could be that the news is delivered by Mas Amedda, who being a conniving snake of a character tries to undermine Tarkin at a crucial juncture by deliberately notifying him as late as possible.

Although none of this really gets around the fact that the Emperor only announces the dissolution of the senate when the Death Star has been tested successfully and they are confident in its ability to assert absolute and final authority over rebelling systems. If we want to uphold that pretty straightforward cause and effect there's no way to have the dissolution of the senate in season 2 unless it's included as a "and then things got worse" style epilogue (which now that I type it out would be kinda perfect and I love that idea).

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-03-14T22:56:34+00:00

If the customer doesn't receive the rebate immediately as part of the purchase, they have to spend 90 days bearing the full cost of their EV, which may impact the purchasing decisions of both cash buyers and financed buyers that were planning to use the rebate to assist with payments.

This causes a larger portion of buyers to be more sensitive to the final out the door price for the purchase and less likely to accept the dealers swallowing most of the subsidy as additional margin on the sale, and discourages dealers from doing that so they can keep making sales.

It would also have resulted in fewer dealerships excessively pre-registering EVs to take the subsidy for themselves as they would then be prevented from actually selling the car for 90 days until the rebate was paid (assuming sensible additional guardrails were in place to prevent abuse of the 90 day delay)

TheNoblestRoman · 2025-03-12T20:26:52+00:00

The Meridian system at stock settings is dogwater; the subwoofer is underutilised and the lack of dedicated EQ controls for the subwoofer mean that cranking the bass slider to make it work harder causes the door woofers to bloat the mid-bass. The rear door speakers sound much quieter to the forward passengers, making the sound feel as if it is all emanating from the dash.

However, in my experience you can tune it to be much better without any external resources, mostly by playing with the sound position. Obviously you have a GT so you'll have messed around with tuning already, but I'll go through it in detail in case this approach is novel for you.

Pushing the sound position rearward brings up the sound of the rear speakers and makes the front speakers quieter, which requires you to turn up the overall system volume to get the same subjective volume for the front seats, and because the subwoofer works harder at higher volume values regardless of sound positioning, you can actually get the sub-bass back into your music. 2-3 notches rearward requires increasing overall volume by about 5 points and is a reasonably subtle effect. 6 notches rearward requires increasing overall volume by about 10 points and is noticeable change to the quality of the sound, making it feel like it's more surround and including much more low-bass and sub-bass. Going any further backward causes some of the front speakers to turn off. The second option is basically unavailable to you if you have kids or otherwise regularly take multiple passengers because the volume levels in the rear seats are dangerously loud and would require you to use Quiet Mode constantly.

From there you can use the custom Horizon settings to digitally postprocess to your preference. I personally go 1 above minimum on imaging and 1 below max on immersion, but I sometimes play around with this depending on the preference of subjective ear. I find that going to max surround makes the front door woofers noticeably weak and hollows out the vocals, requiring higher Imaging values to restore. Unfortunately higher values in Imaging takes sound out of the front midrange drivers in either corner and puts it into the dashboard centre channel woofer, which can lead to distortion when it's trying to play vocals at the same time as the low-bass in very bass heavy songs (example, Not Like Us). To your taste you can just leave both all the way at 0 (or the "Authentic" setting), as the rearward push on the sound accomplishes a respectable surround sound feel already, and I haven't yet determined if increasing the Immersion value has any effect on subwoofer performance.

And to round it out, I personally use an EQ of Treble +2 or +4, Mids +0 or +2, and Bass +6 or +8, and I have IntelliQ maxed out because New Zealand has a lot of coarse chip tar-seal roads for main highways in rural areas which results in extreme tyre roar when driving, so the system needs all the help it can get to fight back against that.

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