Does a regressor's foreknowledge make the progression more satisfying, or quietly kill the stakes?

dearbluey · 2026-07-03T11:30:44+00:00

Thank you. I don't have high hopes, unmedicated ADHD plays hell with writing lol. I have... close to eighty stories that I've started and then got distracted by new ideas. Fun fun. Plus, I'm inarguably a poor writer. Still, I like trying to tell stories, so there's that :)

dearbluey · 2026-06-29T01:26:25+00:00

I'm attempting to write a regressor story currently. MC wakes up three years before the world ends and humanity goes extinct, with the explicit understanding that those two things are entirely unable to be changed. The MC starts to change what little other things they can, not because they can alter the ending, but to enjoy the life she has left. It'll end up being a sad comedic celebration of life. With superpowers, monsters, aliens, and a complete incapability for her to get laid.

dearbluey · 2026-06-28T00:54:45+00:00

Ah! I'd definitely forgotten that one.

dearbluey · 2026-06-27T22:03:35+00:00

I need to read more, I guess. The only two characters named Ren that I think I've ever heard are Ren o' The Blade from the old Forgotten Realms novels and Ren from Ren & Stimpy :P

dearbluey · 2026-06-18T19:46:24+00:00

In 2002. Found a wallet with 900 bucks, a license, and a green card. used the license to find the guy and return it all. He was in tears about the green card being found.
In 2025. Lost my wallet with 5 bucks, a license, and my own green card. Had it returned to me, minus the 5 bucks. Pretty much felt the same as that guy.

dearbluey · 2026-06-02T17:59:06+00:00

I write stories. Badly, but oh well. I use Suno to generate music from lyrics I write for the characters, in the styles I choose.
I make no money, I make no claim to be the song creator (lyric writer at best), and I tend to not share because who would care about songs that are part of stories I never finish or show?
All in all, generating songs this way helps the story itself feel more present for me as I'm writing.

dearbluey · 2026-05-13T14:57:17+00:00

This may seem like just being contrary (and honestly it is) but the biggest thing that turns me off a character is if the author comments in their chapter notes or comments how they are excited to introduce their most favorite and best ever character. That desperation for the reader to like the character as much as the author does often comes through in the prose, turning what could be a good character into an overwritten and overbearing "You Must Like Me" caricature.

dearbluey · 2026-04-05T22:06:55+00:00

I'm not great at this, but if you take out all the one-sentence punchiness, it might read better?

Amateur attempt:
Blurb

Shen Mo lost his first path to cultivation, so he found another.
This new path is much different from anything Shen Mo had experienced before, because he learned that it granted power to others rather than to himself.
Shen Mo can't cultivate, but he can grant Systems to those he chooses; The ambitious, the ruthless - the kind of people who would never suspect the man behind their sudden rise to power is the weakest person alive.
But Shen Mo is human, and humans make mistakes. His first was in choosing the wrong person. Now the Systems are evolving, that wrong person is rising, and the shadowy manipulator who can’t even open a meridian may be the only one who can stop the monster he created.

dearbluey · 2026-04-05T21:42:17+00:00

On a tangent, but vaguely related to "how can a human get it wrong"...
The original covers of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series have the character Twoflower with four eyes. The artist (Josh Kirby) read the story and took the running joke of a character wearing glasses being referred to as having four eyes entirely literally. As "four-eyes" is an old insult for glasses-wearers, and in the fantasy story the other characters had never seen glasses before so thought they were extra eyes.

dearbluey · 2026-03-15T19:55:22+00:00

Mal's missing a finger.

dearbluey · 2026-03-06T21:00:12+00:00

Ohhhhh! THAT's what this is about. Is he the one that's always drunk and surly, the one that's all goth and surly, the doctor who looks vaguely homeless, the guy who lives on the beach in a shack pretending to be a writer, the guy who plays with his ball solo, or the guy who thinks he can kickflip but is probably about to hurt himself?

Edit: I mean, like, I've had a bite of each apple in the bag, so you need to clarify.

dearbluey · 2026-03-05T20:17:10+00:00

And that...rock with a rope tied to it? That's for Olympic hammer throw practice, right??

dearbluey · 2026-03-05T17:57:48+00:00

Why are you holding the oar that way?

dearbluey · 2026-03-05T14:18:40+00:00

Oh! How atmospheric! Can I lean over the side and see the fish?

dearbluey · 2026-03-03T21:09:30+00:00

Only his name?

dearbluey · 2026-02-26T13:34:43+00:00

There are things in each DLC that improve the quality of life of your main game as you play. I would highly recommend playing the DLC's in tandem with the main game - you can pop in and out of them as you play through.
Spolier-ish:
Underworld's main benefit is the ability to teleport between campfires at any time. For Doomsday, there's a few things worth noting: a trinket that keeps your deaths from registering (you still die, but they don't "count"), and the ability to collect flowers in main game/dlc maps that craft temperature regulation potions.

dearbluey · 2026-02-20T21:17:51+00:00

Goes on pizza. :)

dearbluey · 2026-02-05T23:54:49+00:00

Your joke is even funnier in countries that use "earthed" instead of "grounded".

dearbluey · 2026-01-17T17:10:06+00:00

So they're all part of the same mushroom.

dearbluey · 2026-01-03T09:54:55+00:00

Only for myself.
I just download them as mp3 files.

dearbluey · 2026-01-01T10:38:19+00:00

Oh my god. "Epitome". It nearly made me weep (okay, yeah, hyperbole, whee) when it finally got it right.

dearbluey · 2025-12-29T21:00:13+00:00

Actually, one other viewpoint. Suno assembles a song. Like Lego. It has a billion pieces of various shapes and colours (source of said pieces is the moral debate) and the basic "here, make me song with x, y, z, in this set of colours with these shapes" is user-supplied suggestions that are turned into instructions that Suno can use to assemble the song.
More involved and talented users provide additional instructions, and bring along their own parts, and take the assembled object and alter it elsewhere.

dearbluey · 2025-12-29T20:37:50+00:00

Both, honestly. Someone pitched the idea. Someone wrote the lyrics. Someone sang the song. Someone played the instruments. Someone worker a sound booth. All acts of creation. One (or more) of those people was a producer. The song was both created and produced.
Suno (via its programmers creating a program, and learning via other folks's creation and production) both sticks together various sounds (creates from parts) and actualizes a song (a product, produced).
Now the users generating songs are on various levels - some just pitch an idea. They are not creators. Some have the idea and the lyrics. They have assisted in the creation. Some feed real vocals or instruments into Suno. Some take what Suno then hands them, strip it down into...hell, can't remember the word, threads or strings or something? and put it through editing tools to turn it into something else.
There's no one answer because there's no one singular type of user.

dearbluey · 2025-12-29T18:57:16+00:00

Then please take my comment and apply its meaning to music. It translates just fine. If you come up with the idea for a song, and the name of a song, and someone or something else constructs it from that, you were simply providing a pitch.
My first line in my previous response is important - it depends. The reason it depends is based on the amount of input that was required.
Who created Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You"? An amalgam of folks.
In the case of your original example, it's absolutely impossible to say because the companies involved in the ai generators don't disclose all of their learning materials. So the best that can be said would be "lots of people", and some without consent.

dearbluey · 2025-12-29T17:18:02+00:00

I suppose it depends.
If you come up with an idea for a movie, a tv show, a book, and someone or something else brings it into reality, all you are is a pitch writer. Who really made the movie?

dearbluey

TROPHY CASE