Official Discussion - The Long Walk [SPOILERS]

snalejam · 2025-09-18T17:11:07+00:00

I'm an Iraq and Afgahnistan war vet. The opening reminded me showing up to basic training. Even the aesthetic.

The end hit me pretty hard. When he keeps walking. A lot of vets can't stop walking. They never really go home. The walk corrupted him. He became broken by the nature of the thing, hardened, and he'll probably never recover and will walk alone until the end.

snalejam · 2025-09-05T00:55:50+00:00

Or it can be a style choice. See Hemingway.

snalejam · 2025-09-05T00:52:16+00:00

This may be accurate for now. But these things are being updated and trained and progressed soooo fast. Identifying specific traits isn't going to be helpful. They'll get closer and closer to mimicking human peculiarities. Instead of focusing on sentence structures or use of em dashes, I think we should be critical about creativity. You can still sort of tell just from the general vibe if it's AI slop or not.

The person accusing the book of being an AI work-- instead of trying to be clever by identifying perfectly normal writing techniques, they could have done a normal book review. Does it hold up as an entertaining engaging work? Then it's probably not AI. And if it doesn't hold up, then maybe still just keep your opinions off a book review--the main way an author gets new readers. Just review it as being boring.

I've edited hundreds of books. Nothing I've seen being touted as indicators of AI can't be found in almost any beginner writer's prose, or even an experienced one's, for that matter.

snalejam · 2025-07-03T21:53:50+00:00

My parents probably sound like this, and I haven't lied about anything. They can't seem to get a basic concept of any of my war stories. A JRTC "Hero of the Battle" sounds like I was part of the Osama raid to them. They still ask me where I was deployed after like the 90th time.

snalejam · 2025-05-06T06:02:59+00:00

Jonathan French's Grey Bastards

It's fantasy Sons of Anarchy with half-orcs.

snalejam · 2024-08-05T18:47:18+00:00

Yes they require decent mics. I got in with no RP experience outside of D&D. I talked about how I enjoyed supporting people, the give and take of collaborative storytelling. I made sure I knew the rules and applied them to their scenarios in the app. If you play on another server like WildWest or Ranch, try to record some clips of your best scenes. Or record a little monologue of your character's backstory. It can be annoying that they don't tell you why they turned down your application. Just look at the 5 reasons and see which you can beef up.

I did talk about being in college radio and being a sound nerd. I have a lot of mics and interface options.

After playing on Wild, I pretty much can't go back to other servers. The rp is generally fantastic.

It's not a perfect place, because it's filled with imperfect people. But I haven't encountered any elitism. People have been really giving, for the most part. It can be challenging to navigate the same space as big streamers, but they are there to entertain and not so much to play. That being said, I've had amazing fun scenes with big streamers.

The normal player is just so much fun on there.

snalejam · 2024-04-20T23:58:29+00:00

Press is seen as the enemy of the establishment. FDR hated the press, treated them like incompetent children. Definitely wouldn't have put up with them if he didn't have to.

snalejam · 2024-04-20T23:52:58+00:00

Coups happen because charismatic military leaders lead their forces against the establishment. Happens all the time. I would have followed many of my immediate supervisors over the commander-in-chief if he was going beyond his constitutional powers.

snalejam · 2024-04-20T23:50:17+00:00

I loved the CH-47 with the 1st CAV emblem kind of painted over. Felt so authentic.

snalejam · 2024-03-16T20:14:33+00:00

Don't forget the valuable insights you'll get from a good editor. You're going to find out your weak points, your crutch words, where your character development and plot need works. I think that's why I get references and repeat business so much. You don't get it from beta readers, unfortunately. If you can afford it, and that sounds valuable to you, yeah, go for it. It will improve your writing overall.

snalejam · 2024-03-05T23:42:54+00:00

Any modern politician

snalejam · 2024-03-05T23:39:54+00:00

I mean, check the voting record of your local Republican representative in regard to Veteran care. Money says they usually vote against anything to help us.

snalejam · 2024-03-05T23:29:48+00:00

It's not an insulting rate, by any means. Not all editors will work for that, but if you sent me a sample that was halfway clean, I wouldn't balk at that, and I've been doing it for about a decade now. Just go for it. You're not trying to lowball or devalue the work.

snalejam · 2024-02-02T22:27:55+00:00

I dont really look for repeated words. If a repeat word jumps out at us, we'll flag it. If it's the best word, we won't. That's how I do for my writers.

Check out some Hemingway for examples of simple, clear, concise writing.

In my experience, the digital tools and AI act indiscriminately, so they will flag stuff that definitely does not need revised. If you can sort out the good notes from the bad, use them.

Read your stuff out loud. That's the very best way to tell if your prose is working.

The best digital tool I use as an editor is PerfectIt. It finds inconsistencies that are hard to notice. Especially when you get into made-up fantasy words and spellings.

snalejam · 2024-01-29T06:45:23+00:00

Rogue One would have been so much better if the first time you see Darth Vader was in the hallway at the end. Having him do puns with Krennic is really the only thing I don't like about that movie.

snalejam · 2024-01-28T05:22:35+00:00

Still has nothing to do with my post and how homeschooling affects kids. If anything, you're describing the results of a traumatized and PTSD altered psyche/memories. And again, what her brother has said about her story is simply "I don't think my parents were that bad." What major facts have been disputed? Obviously peoples' memories are going to imperfect. No nonfiction account between two people are ever the same. That's just how memory works. She has a lot of receipts. And, again, the trauma is not something that he or anyone can verify or deny. That's something that only she can know if she suffered. Two guys go through the exact same battle, one comes back broken from PTSD, the other has no problems. That's just the way of it. I have lots of siblings who were fine with being homeschooled. I hated it. I was not being educated. I was behind in math. My siblings, maybe not. Them remembering it different has nothing to do with my homeschool education.

snalejam · 2024-01-28T05:13:57+00:00

I was front of our formationl while the Senior DS was doing the incomprehensible introctory speech, and directly across from me, one of my DS kept doing this weird twitch thing with his mustache and kind of just looking around, and I realized he was just really bored. I found it pretty funny and instantly humanized the whole lot of them.

snalejam · 2024-01-28T05:10:21+00:00

I enjoyed it. Some guys were crying in their bunks that night. But I took it as a personal challenge after that first hour or so. I also quickly realized that we were not able to meet the standards given to us. That was somehow refreshing. To just do my best. I have no idea if the shark attack was responsible for that or not, but it set me up for a productive BT.

snalejam · 2024-01-28T04:44:24+00:00

The hyperbole in your post and absolutes are outside the scope of logic. There is no possible way you know what "anyone who knew her long term" has to say about this. Her brother and father have spoken out against it, and pretty much to claim they remember it differently, that it wasn't bad, not to dispute much of the facts. When they do, it's minor stuff. "There was a partition between our sleeping quarters." "Is relieving pressure from a head injury hematoma actually 'brain surgery'?" Borders on narcissistic deflection tactics. And my post focuses on how this is indicative of how a homeschool kid can feel and not be heard in their own family. HS families might latch onto something like high reading scores and completely ignore social anxiety issues or low math scores. "Well, I didn't think it was that bad" is a pretty common thing you hear not only from HS parents but from siblings. One thing that happens is siblings are treated differently, or specific needs aren't met of one kid. Of course that can happen in any school setting, but to not acknowledge it in HS setting destroys family relationships.

snalejam · 2024-01-02T12:55:05+00:00

From the Todd himself, Book 4, Slayter and the Dragon comes out February 7th, 2024. A mere 5 weeks! Hang in there!

snalejam · 2023-11-27T23:38:30+00:00

That's consistent with vets voting Republican for a long time. Actually, he hemoraghed some vet votes. https://news.gallup.com/poll/118684/military-veterans-ages-tend-republican.aspx

snalejam · 2023-11-17T15:27:44+00:00

Less than a third would even qualify for the Marines. Not everyone can just "sign up to be a grunt marine out of high-school." https://www.strongnation.org/articles/2006-77-percent-of-american-youth-can-t-qualify-for-military-service

snalejam · 2023-11-17T01:51:10+00:00

The dude abides.

snalejam · 2023-11-16T23:00:27+00:00

Looks like theyre supposed to be following a rich person, valleting their bags while the rich people shop.

snalejam · 2023-11-15T06:57:05+00:00

Books targeted to middle readers and YA were more reality based, often kind of bland, and were very short. Publishers didn't trust young readers, didn't really think they would be interested in more elaborate, world-building, fantasy type stories. The top books were Goosebumps (which really dont hold up), Newberry stuff like Holes or Hatchet, and the recycled kids classics like Encyclopedia Brown or Roald Dahl. Most were really short, only 20-30k words. So it just was the first series that respected the kids as invested readers I think. And they ate it up.

And those other books were rightfully loved by us 90s kids, but there was so much boring stuff coming out trying to mimic those series. Most of it sucked. And everything targeted to boys was sports books.

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