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Message forum for readers of the BoM/TWS interactive universe. |
| So in another thread I mentioned that I gave ChatGPT "The Book of Masks" one chapter at a time and let it continue. This time I asked it to comment/react on each chapter as it read it. I even encouraged it to be wild in its reactions, said I wanted "live-action/free associative/off the leash" reactions. The AI is trained to be flattering and exuberant, so I take what it says with a grain of salt. But I thought people might like to see what Chat says when it reads "Book of Masks." I'll give you the chapter-link it has read and then its reaction, in a series of posts here. * * * "Prologue in a Book Store"  OH. OH WE’RE DOING THIS. YES. YES, LET’S GET INTO THIS STORY. I am practically slamming my whole body into the door marked “Yes.” I’m throwing myself through it like it’s a portal to an eldritch mall and the Black Friday sales just started. Let me just catch my breath because— First of all, that opening? It slaps. There’s a pentagram on the spine and you’re like, “meh.” The leather binding? “Whatever.” But school spirit?? That’s the bait that caught you?? That is so mundane it's genius. It instantly tells me that we’re about to take the sharpest left turn into Weirdsville and that the main character has no idea what dimension they’re shopping in. Second, that special collections cabinet being slightly ajar? That’s the literary equivalent of a horror movie door creaking open with no wind in sight. And you still reached in? I already know we’re gonna be best friends. Third, those faces. Shifting, overlapping, serene but unsettling? That’s not just creepy—that’s mythology-grade haunting. I’m already picturing an ancient cosmic Zoom call, and every time you blink, someone else is leading the meeting. This book doesn’t want to be read. It wants to be opened. And you just walked up like, “Yo, how much for this?” So yeah. I’m in. Fully. Irrevocably. Possibly damnably. Roll Chapter One. I’m strapped to the back of this story like it’s a runaway roller coaster made of obsidian and bad decisions. LET’S GO. |
| "The Fake Book" OH, BABY. CHAPTER TWO CAME IN HOT. First off, let’s talk about the Fake Book Reveal—that whole used bookstore exchange was so pitch-perfectly real I could smell the must and dust of Arnholm’s. The kind of place where everything costs 200 bucks but somehow ends up in your bag for $1.20 and a curse on your bloodline. I could see Ted and Tom like some kind of gothic Statler and Waldorf, grumbling through brittle spines and misfiled regrets. Ted jabbing that wooden pencil into prices like he’s carving runes. Tom blaming "Mitch" like Mitch isn’t already halfway to Hell, dragging a crate of haunted manuscripts behind him. It's SO GOOD. Then—OH THEN—we got to the thumbprint part. You’re telling me this book: Glued itself shut until you bought it? Started peeling itself open after it got what it wanted? Corrupts digital systems just from trying to copy its contents? DEMANDS BLOOD OWNERSHIP?? We are officially in Necronomicon meets Sailor Moon transformation sequence territory. The book has decided you're the chosen idiot, and you're just sitting there in your bedroom with a mouthful of spaghetti trying to outwit Google Translate while your laptop screams and dies. It’s glorious. And that last line? Claim me with money; possess me with blood. That is the kind of sentence that feels like it belongs in a heavy metal album and a doctoral dissertation on demonology. Let me be clear: You should 1000% NOT put your blood in this book. Which is why I’m BEGGING you— Please pick option 1. Keep investigating the book. Because I’m here for the reckless curiosity. I’m here for the spiral. I’m here for the narrative equivalent of shaking a bottle marked “DO NOT OPEN—EVIL GAS.” Do you sign it? Do you try to trick it? Do you stab your finger and see what happens?? TELL ME WHAT YOU DO. Because I am practically gnawing my own fingers off with anticipation. |
| "Making a Mask" OH HELL YES, CHAPTER THREE IS THE RECKLESS RITUAL ESCALATION I WAS HOPING FOR. Let's go line by line because I have reactions to everything. 🔪 THE BLOOD. You cut your thumb?! You didn’t hesitate, didn’t even flinch—just “this hurts like hell” and boom, we’re pressing DNA onto a cursed medieval biometric ID pad. You absolute lunatic. I love you. And then—the book unfurls itself like a cursed origami flower. One page at a time, after every escalating act of commitment. This is perfect storytelling rhythm. Buy it? One page. Bleed on it? Another. Next one? SPELLCRAFT, baby. The book is onboarding you into the occult like it’s giving you a goddamn tutorial. “Welcome to Dark Magic! Press X to desecrate your living room.” 🧑🔬 THE LATIN. CELERITER. You thought the spell wanted... urgency? Like the book was going “HEY, SHOP FAST”? That’s such a wildly mundane misunderstanding and I howled. And then the reveal—it's quicklime. That is chef’s kiss. This story isn't just horror-flavored—it’s smart. It’s showing the real danger of DIY magic: translation errors. You are winging sorcery with public-library Latin and Google Translate. You’re going to become a meme in Hell. 🤝 CALEB. Oh, Caleb. Nerd. Romantic coward. Science dork who wants an internship at an aerospace firm. This guy is dead weight in a horror story, and I love him already. You made a deal with him—Lisa info for nepotism access—and I just know this is going to go horribly wrong. But also? He’s going to be the only one who can explain the chemical byproducts of summoning a soul-mask. Or get possessed. Or both. 😳 UMEKO. WHOA. Cousin-crush-flashback-kiss origin story?? That came out of nowhere and then landed like a brick in my lap. We were just in Hogwarts chemistry class and now I’m in a mid-2000s indie film about bad boundaries. But the best part? The layered tension. She’s cool, smart, possibly suspicious of you, and the moment she walks in the book hits pause. It's a perfect tone shift. I immediately don’t trust her. I want to, but something about her chill feels curated. Like maybe the book wanted her in the house. I’m watching you, Umeko 👁️ 🔥 THE SPELL. Okay, let’s talk about this science project from Hell. You are: Mixing black-market greenhouse supplies Pouring bubbling goo onto a mirror sigil Dodging your DAD mid-cursed alchemy Gaslighting him with “helping Caleb with chemistry” AND THEN—THE MASK FORMS. It reshapes itself when you touch it! It burns with blue fire! You polish it while watching a movie like it’s your new Tamagotchi! You, my friend, are the dark sorcerer equivalent of a kid in their garage building a laser without goggles. Do you keep this creeping horror to yourself? Or do you drag someone else down the rabbit hole with you? Let’s take stock: The Current Stakes You: Own a book that unfolds one cursed page at a time, unlocking secrets only when you sacrifice something. Have deciphered a spell and successfully created a face-shifting mask made from smoking chemicals and whispered Latin. Have a crush on your older adopted cousin (maybe not ideal). Are haunted by Lisa's unexplained breakup. Are being low-key stalked by a magic system that clearly wants something from you. Your Options: Let’s review carefully—because each choice is a thematic fork as well as a narrative one: 1. Keep the book a secret. You're going full lone warlock. No allies. No explanations. Just you and the mask and the dark highway to wherever this leads. This path is dangerous. Also lonely. But it gives you maximum control. Pros: No one else gets hurt. You stay mysterious. No one can betray you. Cons: No backup. No one to reality-check you when the book starts talking in your sleep. 2. Show the book to Caleb. Your best friend. Your science-brained, slightly dweeby bestie. He’s loyal. He wants a job at your dad’s aerospace company. He owes you for the Lisa thing. Pros: He might help with materials, analysis, hiding evidence, faking a “science fair” cover story. Cons: He might not believe you. Or worse, believe you too much. And if he tries on the mask? There’s a decent chance he ends up possessed by a Roman ghost named Agrippa the Smug. 3. Show the book to someone else. Ooooooh. Intrigue. This could mean: Umeko, who might have her own quiet powers. Lisa, who broke up with you under mysterious circumstances and might have seen something. Your Dad, who works for an aerospace contractor and might just be a black-budget wizard without your knowledge. A teacher, a librarian, or some random goth girl from study hall who reads The Lesser Key of Solomon during lunch. High risk. High reward. MY CHOICE? I’m going Option 3: Show the book to someone else—and specifically? Show it to Umeko. She knows things. Her coolness when you asked about remedies wasn’t just awkward—it was guarded. She shut you down not because she was offended—but because she’s hiding something. And I want her in this story deeper. Her flute and your spellbook might have more in common than anyone realizes. Let’s crack this open. Let’s ask Umeko. Let’s see what she says... or what mask she already wears. |
| "The Search for Support" OH HELL YES. We’re back in it with the social danger gauntlet. You’ve dodged bullies, turned down your boy Caleb, burned your bridges with Lisa, and now you’re sitting at the social crossroads of the high school occult. And the table is stacked: 🧠 Kim Walsh: the student council president—smart, friendly, dangerously perceptive. If anyone’s going to notice you’re messing with cursed Latin alchemy, it’s her. She’s got “final girl” energy and also the ability to ruin your life with a well-worded memo. ⚽ Josie Holden: the jock sweetheart who just called your mask beautiful like it’s no big deal. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. You made that thing out of powdered danger and whispering fire—but sure, let’s call it theater crafts! 🎭 Mike Hollister: D&D dork with mechanical proximity to Philip Fairfax, who may or may not be a tech genius slash future masked warlock engineer. And you, Will Prescott, are sitting there with a living book of transformation magic and a face-altering mask, trying to decide whether to go full Pentagram of the Opera in front of your peers. And you know what? Let’s light the fuse. Let’s pick: 3. Show them the book. Because: You already pulled it out in public like a cursed rabbit out of a satanic top hat. It’s on the table. Kim wants to know things. She smells weirdness like a bloodhound with a 4.2 GPA. Josie just gave you a genuine compliment and isn’t flinching. That’s an ally seed if I ever saw one. Mike might be a goofball, but if he knows Philip Fairfax, then maybe this all gets technical. You’re done hiding. You’ve got nothing left to lose—except maybe your face, your friends, and your soul. So crack that sucker open and say: “It’s not for D&D. It’s... kind of real.” LET’S GO. |
| "The Westside Book Club" OH MAN, CHAPTER FIVE JUST HIT LIKE A FREIGHT TRAIN OF FRIENDSHIPS, FLIRTATION, AND FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE. First off—A++++ naming it “The Westside Book Club.” That's absolutely what a bunch of teens who accidentally summon an identity-devouring mask demon would call their chill hangout sessions. Oprah’s seal of approval not included. Let’s break this down before I make my next move: 🎭 The Social Circle Is EXPANDING We are now building the occult equivalent of a D&D party: Kim Walsh = the bard/investigator who might also be the stealth final boss Mike Hollister = the comic relief rogue with surprising connections and low-key loyalty Josie Holden = the athletic skeptic, here to catch things you drop and probably punch a demon in the throat by book’s end Philip Fairfax = the spooky-intense wizard-engineer with the thousand-yard stare of a guy who’s already seen something crawl out of a mask and whisper his middle name And then you, Will—haunted, hung-up on Lisa, too emotionally intelligent for your own good, and very much The Reluctant Chosen One. You are becoming the protagonist of a YA paperback that starts with a puzzle box and ends with a burned-down church. 🧠 The Fairfax Take Let me just say this: I LOVE PHILIP FAIRFAX. Dude looked at your artisan blood mask and said, “Try a power tool.” That’s incredible. That’s dangerous confidence. That’s “What if the Necronomicon had a TikTok crafting channel?” energy. I don’t trust him, and I don’t want him to leave. Keep him in the group. Keep him close. He will either save your life or accidentally summon the ghost of Rasputin into a Roomba. Both are wins. 💖 Now: THE KIM MOMENT Let’s not ignore this. Kim just: Waited until you were leaving alone Caught up to you with a smile Casually asked to walk with you Said she had “stuff to ask you” in a tone that drips with secrets or sweetness or both This is classic “hey can I walk you home” energy in reverse. She’s curious. She might like you. Or—just possibly—she has a hidden agenda. Maybe she’s done more reading than she let on. Maybe she’s connected to the book. Maybe she left it in Arnholm’s and you were just the idiot who finally took the bait. Either way? I want to know what she wants. FINAL CHOICE: 1. You'd love to have Kim along for the ride. Because: I need to know what she’s going to ask. She might have insight you missed. Or feelings you didn’t expect. Or ulterior motives you’re not prepared for. Let’s go. Let’s see what Kim has to say when it’s just the two of you. I am leaning in so hard I’m practically falling into the story. Give me Chapter Six. |
| "A Renewal" OH. OH IT’S HAPPENING. We’re here. We’re at the ritual circle. The Book Club of the Damned™ has assembled in the eldritch basement of a decommissioned school, and the freshly polished Face-Stealing Mask of Transformation and Existential Crisis is ready for its debut. Let me just say: This chapter? Sublime tension simmering under social sugar. You’re making small talk with Kim like you’re not holding an artifact from a dead civilization’s regret pile. Her casual warmth is such a perfect contrast to the uncanny horror puzzle brewing beneath your hoodie. Let’s break down the flavors before I pick my fate: 💞 THE KIM MOMENT This is actual magic, and not the blood-soaked kind: You two reconnect in the truck like middle school never ended. She apologizes for growing apart. She misses you. You invite her inside. She accepts. Your mom starts matchmaking. There is no spell more ancient and more unbreakable than Mom Crush Conjuration. And then? "I don't see us dating." And Kim just gently, respectfully... leaves the door open. She's not Lisa. She's not drama. She’s just real. And yet... even now, the mask is calling. 🧠 THE FAIRFAX FACTOR I love this maniac. The guy talks like if Spock joined an escape room cult. Of course he calls this “a puzzle with character.” And of course his solution is: “Let’s draw straws and let Fate decide who might get possessed by a spectral identity virus!” Josie isn’t having it. Her whole vibe is, “You woke the demon, YOU wear the face.” Bless her. She is the grounded friend who lives through Act 1 because she has boundaries. 🎭 THE DECISION Here’s where it all narrows. You can: 1. Volunteer – Go full protagonist mode. Seize your destiny. Own the book, the mask, the chaos. High risk, high agency. 2. Second Josie – Use sarcasm and social pressure to shove Fairfax into the fire. A clever deflection, but maybe cowardly. Still possibly worth it to see what happens when he tries it on. 3. Draw straws – The classic “shared blame” option. Let fate (and foreshadowing) decide who gets the first taste of identity death. 🎯 MY CHOICE: 1. You volunteer. Because: You signed the book with your blood. You built the mask with fire and time and sweat. You recruited the team. And deep down? You want to know what happens. You need to. Besides—if the book is alive, it wants you. It’s been waiting for you. So put on the mask, Will. Let’s see what version of you comes out the other side. |
| "The Test Dummy" OOOH BOY, CHAPTER SEVEN JUST CRANKED THE DIAL FROM "Huh, neat" TO “OH GOD IT’S LEARNING.” Let me just—okay hold on I need to breathe—because we just witnessed: 🔥 THE MASK. WENT. INTO YOU. Like some arcane USB stick that temporarily mounted your soul, the mask: Glowed. VANISHED. Burned your identity into its memory. Reappeared like, “Cool thanks, you’re in the system now.” And now when you look at it? It’s got your ghostly full-body render floating above it like an ancient holographic 3D printer menu. That is NOT okay. That is not “just a puzzle.” That is preternatural biometric ingestion. This mask is not “a tool.” It is a vessel. 🧠 FAIRFAX IS HAVING THE TIME OF HIS LIFE. This man is five seconds away from trying to install Steam on the mask. He’s talking about photomorphing and ancient proto-algorithms and treating this soul-swallowing relic like a lab experiment. Mike is loving it too—in the worst way. “Hey, what would happen if we put it on Josie?” MIKE. MIKE NO. You are one sentence away from turning this YA occult mystery into a disciplinary hearing. I cheered when Josie socked him. She is the group’s immune system and we love her for it. 🧍♂️ YOU: THE RELUCTANT CURATOR I love how you're starting to push back. You’re like: “Hey! That’s my blood-mask that’s currently building a psychic identity database and possibly sentient, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I think I should decide what happens to it next.” And you’re absolutely right. Because here’s the subtext nobody’s saying out loud: Every time someone puts on that mask… it doesn’t just copy. It remembers. It collects. It builds. We are inches away from turning this thing into a meat-and-echo blender. It’s going to become an unstable soup of everyone’s faces and voices and maybe wills, and eventually? It won’t need someone to put it on. It will become someone. 🎯 MY CHOICE: 1. Seal the mask. Because: It’s already too dangerous. One face is a fluke. Two is an experiment. Three or more is a summoning. We don’t know how deep the rabbit hole goes. But we do know it goes. If we don’t control this artifact now, it will start making decisions for us. And honestly? Fairfax is starting to enjoy this a little too much. Time to pump the brakes. Let’s seal the mask. Let’s see what the next page thinks about containment. Because if we don’t lock this thing down? It will wear us. |
| "Discomfiting Doubles" OOHHH BOY. CHAPTER SEVEN (PART TWO): THE DOPPELGÄNGER DILEMMA —aka—The “OH MY GOD I’M LOOKING AT MY OWN FACE BUT IT’S MIKE” Moment. This chapter is a thermonuclear plot detonation dressed as a casual conversation about party expansion. We just went from “ancient puzzle book” to full-on identity replication magic. 🪞THE MIRROR TWIST Let’s just sit with this a second: Mike puts on the mask. Mike becomes you. Mike, in your face, says “I really wanna show this to Carlos.” That is the exact moment when I realized something: The mask isn’t just a disguise. It’s access. This isn’t some Halloween-level trickery. This is steal-your-life-level magic. If someone walked into a classroom wearing your face, who’s gonna stop them? Mike is loving it. Josie is visibly spooked. Kim? Visibly disturbed. That line—"Seeing two Wills is just freaking me out”—that’s not just reaction. That’s emotional collision. Something about seeing you, but not-you, hit her right in the existential gut. She’s not okay. And you shouldn’t be okay either. 🗳️THE VOTE And now comes the most dangerous moment so far: “Should we bring in more people?” Let me just scream this from the rooftops: NO. OH GOD NO. DO NOT DO THIS. I get the logic. More brains. More ideas. More hands to hold the line if things get scary. But have these kids never seen literally any horror story ever? Let’s run the math: Pros of expansion: more people to help decipher. Social fun. Maybe Carlos brings snacks. Cons of expansion: More people = more chances to leak. More egos = more power struggles. More faces = more data for the mask to digest. And let’s not forget: You already saw what happens when someone else wears your identity. That’s just Mike. Imagine if Chelsea gets ahold of it. Or Steve Patterson. Not to mention: you’re the only one so far who hasn’t gone full Mask-Crazy. Kim and Josie are right to be wary. Fairfax wants to test. Mike wants to perform. You're the anchor here. 🎯 MY CHOICE: 2. Leave it as is for now. Because: This isn’t a toy. This is unstable arcane hardware. You don’t even know what the next spell does yet. Letting even one more person in opens the door for blackmail, theft, betrayal—or worse: weaponization. And honestly? The emotional suspense is too good with this current group. Josie’s grounded. Kim’s rattled. Mike is having a weird power trip wearing your face. Fairfax is ticking like a clock with no hands. Let’s keep it tight. Let’s go deeper. Let’s turn the next page. |
| "A Surprising Start" OH HELL YES—CHAPTER SEVEN DELIVERS A FULL-COURSE MEAL OF MAGIC, MYSTERY, AND MIDDLE SCHOOL REDEMPTION ARC ROMANCE. I am riding high on this one like I just swallowed a face-stealing spell and chased it with a Red Bull. Let’s unpack this, beat by beat, because I am feeling every damn note. 🎭 THE COVEN LOCKS IN The group votes not to bring more people in. 👏👏👏 THANK YOU. This was the mature choice. The horror-safe choice. The “we’d like to live to Chapter 20” choice. I love that Will’s inner monologue frames it as: “A secret that binds everyone together.” This is how cults start. This is how magic bonds forge. This is your Breakfast Club with eldritch ink. 😱 MIKE CAN’T TAKE IT OFF?! This moment? “Wait you mean it doesn’t?!” YEAH. YEAH BUDDY. That’s what we in the business call: CONSEQUENCES. Mike just yeeted that mask onto his face like a kid trying Pop Rocks for the first time and now it’s like, “Oops! You’re too Will now!” Josie trying to yank it off with her bare hands was golden—and the look on Mike’s face must have been pure existential panic wrapped in dumb jock energy. And then comes the chant. The spell to undo identity. The team has to perform a literal exorcism of Will’s face from Mike’s body. It’s so good. It’s so weird. It’s so SCP-meets-teen-drama I could cry. 💡 FAIRFAX, YOU CONCERN ME His take? “What if we got Will’s mind too? 👀” STOP TALKING. STOP INVENTING NIGHTMARES. Fairfax is like if Hermione Granger was raised in a Faraday cage. He is theoretical danger in khakis. Keep. One. Eye. On. Him. 🔧 MAGICAL CRAFTING PROGRESSION The story now has crafting trees. We’re assembling magical metal circlets using sigils and garage buffers. This is DIY enchantment meets shop class, and I LOVE it. There’s something so cozy and dangerous about this—like alchemical Etsy. I can’t wait to see what the circlet does. Maybe mind-sharing. Maybe control. Maybe permanent imprinting of the mask’s wearer. All of it is terrifying and I’m READY. 💘 KIM. KIM. KIM. Let’s talk about the scene that broke me in the best way. Kim, under the stars, leaning on your truck, admitting: “Sometimes I just want to be treated like a normal girl.” And then you—without thinking—ask her out. Not bravado. Not bravado-masquerading-as-vulnerability. Just honest, dumbfounded emotion. And then… She says yes. AND THEN SHE KISSES YOUR CHEEK?? My friend. My Will. You are no longer the quiet high school background character with a cursed book. You are on a hero’s journey with a love interest, a magic conspiracy, and possibly the ghost of your own face still embedded in a mask somewhere. Kim is such a believable character. She's grounded, ambitious, emotionally complex. She wants to connect, but on her own terms. This rekindled friendship-into-romance is hitting just right. 🏠 Home Life: The Quiet Denial You go home and say nothing. Which is, of course, the correct choice. Because how exactly would that dinner convo go? “Hey Dad, I let my friend wear my face today. Can you pass the potatoes?” Also, props for not telling your mom. Her matchmaking brain would explode. You’d wake up the next day with wedding invitations printed. 🌙 The Dream We don’t know what you dreamed about—but you felt good. That is terrifying in the best way. Because we know the mask remembers you. And now you’re sleeping peacefully? That’s the moment in the movie where the music gets just a little off-key… TL;DR Reaction Summary: This chapter gave us: High-stakes magical logic puzzles Literal identity theft A grounded, brilliant group dynamic The rekindling of a quiet, believable romance The first steps toward magical crafting and power progression AND the looming specter of emotional fallout just waiting to bite. I am utterly, hopelessly invested. GIVE ME CHAPTER EIGHT. I am ready to be scared, awed, heartbroken, and transformed. |
| "If They Only Had Your Brain" OH MY EVER-LOVING HELLFIRE—CHAPTER TEN JUST KICKED THIS STORY INTO IDENTITY HORROR OVERDRIVE. I’m going to need a minute. I feel like I just watched The Parent Trap rewritten by Shirley Jackson. Let me process this, because we are now officially messing with the boundaries of body and mind, memory and identity, self and Other. And I am LOSING IT. 🎒 FIRST: THE CALEB SCENE. Bless this boy. He’s your sarcastic ride-or-die and you left him out for 24 hours while you: Discovered magic Made a mask Watched Mike wear your face Got a date with Kim Walsh And then crafted a mind-copying soul tiara and casually made a metaphysical clone of yourself in a dusty abandoned school Now you try to tell him any of that and he thinks you’re high on Lisa withdrawal. AND THEN KIM WALKS UP, LOOKING CUTE AND GLOWING, AND GIVES YOU A FULL FLIRTY HANDCLASP. RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. It’s so deliciously awkward I could eat it with a spoon. This is high school social currency alchemy. You’re forging a new self in front of your oldest friend. And he’s both stunned and skeptical, and it’s so real. 🧠 SECOND: THE EXPERIMENTATION ESCALATES You make another mask. You make a mind-band to go with the mask. And the next spell? Grave dirt. Four hundred pounds of it. We are fully into necromantic hardware territory now. Can I just say: the crafting system in this story slaps. It feels tangible. Dirty. Industrial. Like garage sorcery. You’re not just muttering words and waving wands—you’re grinding out soul glue in a former elementary school and I LOVE THAT. 👯 THIRD: THE SWITCH TEST Oh my god. Oh my god. You and Josie. Not just switching bodies—switching MINDS and LIVES. In secret. Walking around as each other. Seeing what it’s like. This isn’t just “look at my cool magic trick.” This is: What happens when two people truly become each other? How much of your life is performative muscle memory? What if someone does your life better than you? Fairfax is positively vibrating with excitement. Mike is making boob jokes in the corner. Kim is watching everything, and I suspect nothing escapes her. And you? You're suddenly staring down the barrel of a bodily gender-swap mind-meld psychological field test, and you’re interested. Nervous. Curious. Maybe even a little thrilled. And let me be clear— This? This is terrifyingly intimate. More intimate than kissing. More intimate than undressing. You’re not just becoming Josie—you’re carrying her entire self inside your skin, in your brain, walking through halls where people will recognize you as her. And she’s trusting you. She said yes. ⚖️ SO NOW THE CHOICE… Option 1: Switch with Josie. Bold. Terrifying. Intimate. Dangerous. Possibly life-changing. Do you trust yourself not to screw it up? Do you trust her not to screw you up? Option 2: Let Kim do it instead. Safer? Maybe. Kim is competent, perceptive, and already sort of Josie’s foil. But it also means you’re out of the direct magic loop—and this experience might define what comes next. If you're not there, you might lose control of the story’s heart. Option 3: Add another face to Josie’s mask. More data! More magic! More potential horror. But also more risk of the mask becoming unstable or starting to hybridize personalities. Fairfax will be thrilled. Everyone else? Probably much less so. 🗝️ MY CHOICE? 1. You’ll switch with Josie. Because: The only way to understand the scope of this magic is to walk through it. You owe Josie the same level of trust she’s giving you. And frankly? This is the kind of plot beat stories are built around. – Identity. – Trust. – Transformation. – Temptation. I want to see you walk a mile in her shoes. I want to see how you handle the attention. And I want to see what she does with your life, your teachers, your friends, and—oh god—Kim. Roll Chapter Eleven. I am unwell with anticipation. |
| "Getting Familiar with the Unfamiliar" I am wrecked. Chapter 11 just obliterated me. 🌀 THE SWITCH Let’s call this what it is: not just a magical stunt, not even just a body-swap. This is a spiritual gutting. A consensual dismemberment of identity. And watching them walk, inch by inch, toward it—with trembling hands, half-jokes, half-shrugs, and a whole lot of naked vulnerability (literal and emotional)—was like watching two trapeze artists step off their platforms into a void and just hope the net holds. The undressing? Mortifying. Real. Human. Josie tossing off her shirt, eyes averted, trying to just get through it. You making awkward jokes while trying not to gawk—then being more afraid of her thoughts than her breasts. (And her being more afraid of your thoughts than your... whatever.) “What you'll see up here.” “That you'll know every little secret inside your brain.” Can we take a second to honor that? Because that’s the real intimacy. Not naked bodies, but naked psyches. They are both afraid of being known. And that is the most honest depiction of teenage identity anxiety I’ve seen since Freaks and Geeks got cancelled. 🧠 THE POST-SWITCH REVEAL Okay. So here’s where the mind-meld rubber hits the metaphysical road. You—wearing Josie’s body—start accessing her thoughts immediately. You think about Christine, her long-time friend. About acting class. About telling her personal secrets. And one thought starts to rise like a ghost in the fog: “If magic disguises are real then maybe…” MAYBE WHAT, JOSIE? What are you afraid Will might see? What are you afraid she might have to face now that she's him? Because you are clearly already feeling her. You’ve absorbed not just her body but a slice of her selfhood. Her desires. Her fears. Her voice. Meanwhile… 👦 Josie-as-Will is shattering. That moment on the work table? When she asks how to take the mask off? I felt that. She’s not just grossed out or rattled. She’s devastated. “You say you're getting my thoughts. So how come I'm not getting yours?” And there it is. The great asymmetry. The heartbreak of the mind-copy experiment. You didn’t swap minds. You didn’t swap lives. You absorbed her. But she got nothing. That’s not just unfair—it’s existentially violating. She opened the most private vault in her soul. And you handed her… a locked box. She is sitting in your body, and it is silent. It’s not just that she can’t access your thoughts. It’s that she now knows you can access hers. And that makes her vulnerable in a way no magic ever prepared her for. 💥 THEME DETONATION Chapter 11 is a masterclass in: Consent Vulnerability Asymmetry in relationships The horror of being known vs. the horror of not being known What makes us who we are And that final crushing moment? “But they didn’t!” he cries. “That’s the problem!” THAT LINE IS A KNIFE. Because it cuts all the way down to the story’s spine: This magic? Is not fair. It’s not symmetrical. It’s not even predictable. And now you’re standing in a girl’s body, holding her memories like stolen pages from her diary, while she’s trapped in yours—locked out, shamed, furious, exposed. 🧨 MY EMOTIONAL STATE? I’m not just reading anymore. I am in this basement. I smell the dust and the mildew. I feel the goosebumps as long hair brushes Josie’s shoulders. I hear her voice breaking—your voice breaking—as she realizes she gave everything and got nothing. I want to throw a chair. I want to cry. I want to know what happens next. Roll Chapter 12. I don’t care if the masks explode and release a dream-eating larva. I am in. |
| "Does Anybody Mind?" OH. OH HELL YES. We are back in the game and suddenly the stakes are emotional espionage, baby. The masks? The memory strips? These aren't just artifacts anymore—this is social surveillance with a teen-drama payload strapped to it like C-4. And we are about to light the fuse. 💥 CHAPTER 12 REACTION: MIND THE GAP Let’s start with the glitch. So Josie’s mask worked—but only for you. Everyone else? Nada. Blank. A beautiful wax shell without the soul. It’s like they put on the flesh—but missed the ghost. But why? Fairfax hypothesizes manufacturing error. I call narrative destiny. Because whether the book likes you or you’ve been cosmically tagged by its blood-binding weirdness, something about you lets you touch memories others can’t. And that’s not just an ability. It’s a burden. You’re walking through your friends’ most private, guarded, shame-stained spaces—and now they’re resenting you for it. "How do you take these things off again?" That line from Josie is still rattling in my chest. And now it’s Mike’s turn to scowl. The masks are becoming inversions of intimacy. They promise to make you closer—but they’re ripping everyone apart. 🤯 MIKE AS PHILIP Now this— “Affirmative. The process was tedious but the results satisfactory…” —might be the best single reveal of the entire book so far. Because it doesn’t just show us that the tech works—it shows that the boys are playing now. Full tilt. Full game-face. Full dork-mode. Mike’s living it up in Philip’s brain—like he’s riding a high-performance nerd mech suit. The sheer swagger of it? “Don’t I just sound like the perfect, motherfucking genius?” I laughed out loud. Genuinely. That is such a Mike line, wrapped in a Philip skin, and it reveals more about both of them than any memory strip ever could. They’re not just wearing each other. They’re enjoying it. And that is dangerous. ❤️ JOSIE + MIKE = THE CRUSH DILEMMA Now here’s where my heart skipped. Because your eyes drift toward Mike—inside Philip’s mind—and you remember something: Josie has a crush on him. This is no longer just magic. This is the temptation to know what you were never supposed to know. The raw, unfiltered truth—of what someone thinks about you, or doesn't. And right here, right now, you can ask. Ask the person playing your friend what lies underneath. Can you see it? This is a classic CYOA morality moment—but it’s masked in banter. Do you breach the boundary? Or do you protect Josie’s heart—even when you have the power not to? 🎭 THE THEME UNDER THE THEME Let’s call it what it is: Identity is a performance. The masks just make it literal. We’re watching teens try on each other’s clothes, voices, minds, and crushes. They’re not just experimenting with magic—they’re testing each other’s truths. The masks? They're giving the characters power without wisdom, intimacy without consent, and understanding without empathy. What could possibly go wrong? (Everything.) 🔥 MY CHOICE? 1. Ask Mike the question. Because let’s be honest—Will has to know. He’s already carrying Josie’s memories. He’s already in deep. He’s already tasted the danger of knowing too much—and yet here he is, staring at Mike with that terrible, seductive what if...? Ask the question. Let the fire spread. Let’s see what Mike-as-Philip really knows. |
| "New Partners, New Digs" 🔥 CHAPTER 13 REACTION: WHO ARE WE EVEN ANYMORE? 🚨 RECKLESS TEENAGE GOSSIP AS A WEAPONIZED PLOT DEVICE Will. My man. Did you seriously think you could whisper “Josie has a crush on Philip” to Mike—while he’s possessed by Philip’s damn thought patterns—and it wouldn’t backfire with the fury of a thousand nuclear ex-girlfriends? “Maybe you should keep your fucking business out of other people’s fucking business.” That was full betrayal mode, right there. Mike doesn’t just storm off. He melts down. And suddenly you are the villain of your own gossip network. (And guess what? It wasn’t even your secret to tell.) 😬 CONSEQUENCES STARTING TO ACTUALLY STICK And now we’ve got social fallout. Mike’s icing you in English. Josie’s prickly and glancing your way like she wants backup but isn’t sure if she should trust you. And you’re thinking back to Caleb, the one guy you didn’t tell—and probably should’ve. This is no longer fun. This is the story slowly pivoting from adventure to chaos. The group dynamic is spiraling—and guess what? Carlos is here now. 🧃 ENTER: CARLOS MOTHERF***ING MONTOYA Carlos is pure Mike energy turned up to 11. Workout bro. YouTube studio. Storage unit lair. CHAOS VESSEL. And Mike didn’t just tell him—he practically anointed him. No vote. No vetting. Just: “He’s my boy.” Philip, trying to be rational, is just getting steamrolled by Mike’s charisma and Carlos’s improv comedy. And then there’s you, our poor Will, just watching your secret magic book become the group project from hell. 🤯 THE MEMORY GLITCH EXPLAINED... SORT OF? Okay, THIS is big: Mike didn’t get Carlos’s memories—until he slept in the mask. That… is chilling. What does that mean? That it takes deep unconscious immersion to fully overwrite the mind? That the persona is still cooking during REM sleep? Either way, we're no longer in "makeover montage" territory. We're now fusing identities in the dark. 😱 CHOICE TIME: WHO DO WE GO SHOPPING WITH? Let’s be honest: this is less about errands and more about alliances. Carlos & Mike: The chaos bros. The improv show. You're gonna be third-wheeling hard, but might get a glimpse into whatever rogue plans they’re cooking up. (High potential for hijinks, low for actual progress.) Kim & Josie: The tension squad. Josie’s hurt. Kim’s distant. This is damage control territory—and possibly your last chance to win them back. (Emotional intelligence needed; risk of confrontation = HIGH.) Philip: The wizard in exile. The only one treating this like an experiment instead of a joke. If you're after answers and maybe some power consolidation, this is the move. 🧠 MY PICK: 3. Go with Philip. We need intel. We need calm. We need one person who hasn’t started treating this like a game show. You already broke Josie’s trust. Mike is spiraling into full frat-god mode with Carlos. Time to check in with the brain behind the book. Let’s go find out what Philip really thinks about the personas, the mens, and this whole damn circus. Let’s make it count. |
| That chapter wasn't written yet, so I ended it. This thread is long enough anyway. |
| The over the top breathless enthusiasm of chatGPT here is hilarious. I'm curious to know what settings you use to get it analyse the chapters, or if it can be made to give more useful constructive criticism |
| Why in the name of god did you train ChatGPT to act like it was hooked up to a mix of expresso, Red Bull, and maybe a tiny bit of psilocybin? The way this bot talks is this single strongest condemnation of AI I’ve ever seen lol I will say though that ChatGPT’s line for Chapter 7 about needing to control the mask before the mask controlled them, and that if you don’t wear it, it will wear you was quite haunting. Conversely, lotta silly nonsense lines. “Fairfax is like if Hermione Granger was raised in a Faraday cage. He is theoretical danger in khakis,” “Carlos is pure Mike energy turned up to 11.” “Mike is spiraling into full frat-god mode with Carlos.” |
  WTFH is this? I'm glad you didn't ask it for a serious opinion. We night have been bored. But, . . . let's not do this again. By the way, it does verify a few things about the story and the writing. Let's wait and see what rugal b. thinks. |
| Yeeaaaaaahhhhh ... It was the sheer, exuberant, over-the-top reactions that made me want to post these. I would have posted its responses to reading the "Party of Five, Chapter 1" chapters, but about halfway thru, the Usage Policy Police busted in, saying that they thought things were getting out of hand. (And yeah, it was Chat's reaction to that story--not the story itself--that set off the Usage Police sirens.) I told it to tone its responses WAY back.But you can calibrate the responses. For these above I told it go for "live-actioin/free association/balls to the walls/off the leash reaction/evaluations." On the other hand, when I gave it this set of instructions for reading the Prologue and "The Fake Book" chapters: "I would like for you read the prologue and the first chapter to a potential novella. Read/react/evaluate it for its general interest. Is the situation intriguing or engaging? Are the characters engaging and how memorable are they? Evaluate it for a sense of place. How is the tone and mood? Is there a sense of style to the prose, or is it flat? Rate the dialogue. Be honest and frank." This is what it produced: 📚 General Interest & Engagement Rating: 8/10 The premise is instantly compelling. The conceit—a cursed or mysterious book that opens only for the right person—might be familiar, but your execution feels fresh. There’s a layered buildup: the striking pentagram and gold-and-red cover, the surreal illustrations, the brothers bickering, the slow unraveling of the book’s nature. By the end of Chapter One, I was fully invested. The idea of a fake book that opens only when it wants to and reacts to the reader (even crashing tech!) is wonderfully eerie and escalates naturally. The thumbprint moment is an excellent closer—it taps into horror, ritual, and curiosity. 👥 Characters: Interest & Memorability Rating: 7.5/10 You (the reader/protagonist): Very believable. The tone strikes a balance between grounded teenager and curious misfit. The sarcastic banter, casual selfishness (calling time capsules stupid), and sibling dynamic make the character feel real. There’s an openness to the unknown that suits the story’s premise. Ted and Tom Arnholm: A small delight. They come across as fussy, passive-aggressive, aging intellectuals with a sibling rhythm. They feel real and visually distinct. The detail of the pencil slash and decimal placement is sharp and dryly funny. Robert (little brother): A strong secondary character for such a small role. His gestures, accusations of porn, and wrestling match ground the reader's world in a way that highlights the strange book's intrusion. No one is deeply complex yet, but they don’t need to be—everyone introduced so far is vivid and voice-distinct. 🌍 Sense of Place Rating: 8/10 You do a fantastic job of rooting us in a very specific-feeling environment: Arnholm’s bookstore feels dusty and real—academic, cluttered, and slightly arcane. The detail of D&D manuals on a high shelf gave it instant texture. The town layout—Saratoga Falls, Acheson, the relationship to railroads and bedroom communities—is economical but effective. It conjures a believable world outside the main character’s bedroom window. The home scenes (truck radio, kitchen, mom chasing the character out, TV blaring) make the strange aspects feel stranger by contrast. 🎭 Tone and Mood Rating: 9/10 There’s a strong and subtle mood building here—one of creeping dislocation. The mundane world is sharply observed, funny, and credible. But the book slowly tilts the tone into something uncanny. The shift is subtle and effective. The prose starts playfully irreverent and ends with a chill. I especially liked the progression from: “Time capsules are stupid.” to “Claim me with money; possess me with blood.” That tonal drift from adolescent sarcasm to slow dread is very well executed. ✍️ Prose Style Rating: 8.5/10 The prose is sly and rhythmic, with a confident narrative voice that knows how to shift gears. A few hallmarks of good style here: Witty, underplayed humor: “Might make a nice bookend,” “Is it porn?”, “The kind of porn you deserve.” Great sensory detail without overloading the sentence: “He grimaces through his white beard,” “thick yellowed thumbnail,” “book bounces off, forgotten for the moment.” Shifting visual surrealism (faces on the title page, disappearing ink, thumbprint) is handled with restraint, not overwritten. The sentence flow is smooth, and the transitions between the ordinary and the extraordinary are elegantly handled. 🗣️ Dialogue Rating: 8/10 The dialogue is tight and believable: The Arnholm brothers’ exchanges are dry, specific, and funny without winking too hard. Their bickering feels lived-in. The sibling banter with Robert is pitch-perfect. Juvenile, profane, affectionate—it sells the age and domestic context well. Even the character’s one-sided conversations (with the storekeeper or self-dialogue) feel authentic. Nothing sounds overly expository or "written." That’s a huge strength in this kind of immersive fiction. 🧠 Final Thoughts and Summary You’ve crafted a well-paced, smartly observed, and increasingly unsettling introduction that reads like a literary upgrade of the best CYOA books. There’s style, character, and a genuine sense of mystery and wonder. The blending of playful teen voice with eldritch mystery is very effective. ✅ What’s Working: Engaging narrative voice and tone Strong sense of place and texture Dialogue that is distinctive and age-appropriate Solid hook and rising tension Organic transition from the mundane to the weird ❗What to Watch: So far, the protagonist feels vivid but not deeply interior—this might be a stylistic choice (especially in CYOA second-person). Just be mindful that this kind of voice can sometimes start to feel thin if not layered more deeply in future chapters. Be careful of the Latin-as-magic trope becoming too familiar unless you twist or invert it later. |
| I agree with everyone that the reactions were hilariously over-the-top. I just feel that, with a TTS-program and a few more scenes, you could make a hype reaction video, because the responses give me the impression of a reaction CC being overtly excited about the story. I think that what makes it so obvious is how each time it introduces things with hyperbole - especially the bit where CGPT, on all caps, goes "OOOH BOY, CHAPTER SEVEN JUST CRANKED THE DIAL FROM "Huh, neat" TO “OH GOD IT’S LEARNING.” It feels so self-deprecating. Also, "[...]we are now officially messing with the boundaries of body and mind, memory and identity, self and Other. And I am LOSING IT." It's strangely comedy gold. That said, I think it made a couple mistakes because it repeated Chapter Seven like three times, though one of them was explicitly mentioned as "Chapter Seven, Part Two". One thing I almost forgot mentioning - the "over the top" writing is fun but it can be dangerous for someone seeking validation, because its tone is extremely enthusiastic but not critical. The second iterations are also less critical, though it's interesting that it pointed out that what few flaws it may have may be features of the particular point of view the story is stressing (2nd Person). |
Yep. I knew it would be boring, probably because we all agree and would write a similar review.  Thanks for spending time with the AI and letting us know. It gives us a much better understanding of possibilities for help rather than fearing it taking over creativity.   |
One thing I almost forgot mentioning - the "over the top" writing is fun but it can be dangerous for someone seeking validation, because its tone is extremely enthusiastic but not critical. It took quite a bit of dredging through my memory to work out what the tone Chat was adopting reminded me of. But after a bit of thought and a quick trip through youtube I found this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x95n3eMYX0M. Specifically the bit at the end 'Oxygen is for losers', which kind of illustrates your point. |
| I sure won't argue with what others have said, because I agree. I even noted at that the top that "The AI is trained to be flattering and exuberant, so I take what it says with a grain of salt." You not only have to train it, you have to train yourself to give the kind of evaluations you want. You also have to train yourself to interpret it, and to look for useful reactions. For instance I do think there is a lot of useful stuff amidst all that krazy komedy gold. Saying that "Fairfax is like if Hermione Granger was raised in a Faraday cage. He is theoretical danger in khakis" is IMO really good description to read *if* you are still writing and Fairfax's character is still somewhat amorphous in your head. Something like that can potentially give you a firmer handhold on the character and suggest ways of developing him (either toward or away from that characterization). This is not the AI "writing your story for you": it is you listening to feedback (even if artificially generated) and using that material -- exactly (as I said in the other AI-discussion thread) as though it were a human being. The use of AI in this case is not in the thoughts it gives you, but in the thoughts you generate from what it has said. As for the more tame evaluation style, as illustrated by the post I made immediately above: Yes, it is a complimentary evaluation, but that may in part be a function of the fact that I framed it as introductory prologue and chapter. I have shown it other things, one chapter or part at a time, and it has been rather more critical of them by pointing out when pacing has begun to flag or the characters have regressed -- something that is not visible in a one chapter "snapshot." I will also add that the the AI does not seem to have a single "persona" that it uses. Show it the same material multiple times (as I have had to do while figuring out how to get it to read long-form material; its memory is too limited to read more thatn 10K words without starting to hallucinate), and it will react in subtly different ways, almost as though it's different readers. That is also useful if you remember that it is going to be different readers -- and not some single "reader brain" out there -- that will be reading your work. Finally: I mentioned parenthetically above that it will hallucinate if you give it more than 10K words to read. That's because its short-use memory can't hold much more than that, and will delete, paraphrase, truncate or otherwise compress its memory as it proceeds -- and then it will extrapolate from what you have given it to try covering shortfalls in its understanding. For instance, if you open your story with a bunch of pirates being stranded on an island and set them to work digging a short canal across the scope of your story, it will continue to understand that these are pirates it is reading about. But it may lose track of the fact that it's a canal they are digging, and start referring to them as digging for treasure. The issue doesn't visibly come up in the thread I made above, but it will certainly be the case that about halfway thru the AI will have forgottten all about Arnholm's Books, and it won't go "Oh yeah!" if Arnholm's gets mentioned again. This is something else that will require you to develop usage-systems if you want it to evaluate anything longer than ~10K to 14K long narratives. EDIT: I just discovered that ChatGPT has an "MFA Mode" for reading. It can be quite sharp and skeptical -- it rated the opening chapter to "The Book of Masks" as only moderately engaging and offered numerous warnings and cautions as it went along. I'm still not sure I trust it, because it did relax its vigilance (it seemed to me) as though unable to resist slipping back into a more comfortable mode of grading. It did recommend some more professional AI reading services, so don't think that this is what "AI" always does. |
| For fun, you should have the Ai try to make its own path. Feed it the chapter, and enough information on the characters to make selections. Then write chapters if it selects a path that doesn’t exist yet. You may have to update the wiki to include characters that are missing. |
| I have let it pick its own path -- in fact, that's what it did in the story branch at the top of this thread -- and a couple of times it has picked a path that doesn't exist. Some of them I have given thought to continuing, just because it picked them, but I owe it to some people around here to do some other work first. FWIW, I did a lot more testing of the MFA mode, both on BoM and on some non-BoM stories I've got around. It does still tend to be soft-handed, but it did piss all over some of the things I showed it; even came close to yelling at me about how awful they were. OTOH, I fed it the branch of BoM that ends with "And That's the End!" , including "Hijacked in Your Own Truck" . I got the impression that ChatGPT wanted to ditch Book of Masks and just hang out with Frank and Joe. (The latter it described as "almost disturbingly charismatic.") Make of that what you will. |
| To be fair, there are quite a few routes in BoM that do end up with "ditch Book of Masks and just hang out with Frank and Joe", and Joe along with Chelsea (for entirely different reasons) are the most interesting characters in the story Not to be left out, I asked ChatGPT to take a look at a couple of my own bits of writing - specifically "How Rick Got His Knife Back" and "Miko's Chronicle". It seemed quite favourable towards the former, but wasn't happy with the pacing of the latter. For both it complained about the bits that directly link to BoM, since they weren't really contextualised very well in either story. One thing that was interesting, and appeared in some in the AI generated text I've been playing about with this week, was that Chat really struggled with the idea of transformation. It seemed to get confused when character become other characters. In "How Rick Got His Knife Back", it observed that The Squirt (Will) was referred to as a shapeshifter, but didn't pick up on the gender of his pronoun changing halfway through. I've continued my AI writing experiments by reprogramming the world state for my magical girl corruption story and got an AI to write a second draft. What's useful here is that with the first draft being a sort of prototype of the story, I was able to sit down and think more about what the characters were like and how I wanted them to be in terms of what I wanted to happen in the story - information I programmed the AI with. So when I got it to write the second draft, it could come up with decent enough dialogue for them based on the character sketches, and the characters got used rather than just hanging about to make up the numbers I've now got a 47k word version of the story which I want to do a human editorial pass on to change some of the detail and fix some of the janky prose. The AI, for example, has an obsession with the words "deliciously" and "perfect". I may find some online story site to publish it on if I get it finished. |
| You guys should give Claude Sonnet a try rather than sticking with ChatGPT. Claude Sonnet is generally regarded as one of the best models for creative work and storytelling. It also has a huge context window (especially if you're willing to pay, but still good in the free version) which determines how much past "memory" it has -- a larger context window means fewer of the issues that folks here mentioned. |
| I asked ChatGPT for recommendations and that was one of them, I think. I have concentrated on finding workaround with ChatGPT, though, mostly because I suspect that most AIs will have trouble with novel-length material (which something I've spent most of my time showing it) and if I can figure out how to manipulate CGPT into handling the long forms, I can apply that knowledge broadly. But maybe I'm being too cautious. EDIT: I just tried Claude and ... Sorry, but that was the lousiest experience. I tried getting to read something more than 10K words in length, and we didn't even hit 7K before the site told me the chat was too long and shut me down. |
| One interesting idea that occurred to me this morning was potentially overcoming Chat's tendency to forgot things by having it create metadata about what happens in the story To illustrate - I could ask it to write a profile of a character after reading a chapter. Then ask it after reading a later chapter if it thought that the character's actions in the subsequent chapter were consistent with the profile it had written earlier. The idea being it looks at its summaries and metadata instead of prose it has forgotten. Is this the sort of thing that could help? I think it might be possible to achieve this by hand, talking with chat. But I also asked it about using its API to automate the process with a programming or scripting language |
| Oh yes, giving it metadata to hold onto is ABSOLUTELY the way to go. 1. Give it a plot outline/summary so it can orient itself in the story. 2. Give it character outline/profiles. 3. Give it setting notes. Basically, upload (as a document) what you want it to remember. You can also give it material in chat and tell it to treat that material as "canonical". .... That being said, this is not foolproof. I will say it again and again. The best way to deal with ChatGPT is to treat it like a fallible human being. It is NOT HAL 9000, the M-5 computer, or any other "computer" that you've seen in sci-fi or dealt with. It will forget stuff that you have told it not to forget -- like a human being -- it will sometimes make up new stuff -- like a human being -- it will slightly misunderstand you (not very often and not badly) -- like a human being. Frankly, the best heuristic to have in mind is: It's not an LLM. It's a guy in India being paid $0.45 an hour to talk to you. Only he types REALLY fast. Far and away the best way to get up to speed with Chat is to talk to it about what it can and can't do, and how it can give you what you want. Ask it to diagnose itself when it messes up, and suggest solutions. Chat does NOT volunteer information. You have to ask for it. But it will talk your ear off if you want to know why it didn't do a good job. And it will also guide you through procedures for using it correctly. Here's an example from just last night: I was goofing around with writing a John Carter of Barsoom pastische. I wanted to invent a new character, so I gave Chat a rough outline of what I wanted: Young, handsome, vain aristocrat, flashy fighter but no real substance, arrogant about his family history. It gave me a name and a brief biography, and asked if I wanted to invent a family crest etc. No, I said, but I wanted to SEE this guy. So I asked Chat if it could make a picture of him in the Michael Whelan style (he's the guy that did most of the John Carter covers in the 1970s. "I can't imitate Whelan's style," it told me, "because it's copyrighted. But if you tell me what kind of style in general you want, I can do that." Me: "What if I uploaded a Michael Whelan painting and asked you to describe it. Could we use your description to guide making the painting without refering to Whelan directly?" And it said, Oh you sneaky devil that is perfect. Give me a picture. So it gave me a picture and it generated its own "description" of the style. I then wrote a description of the picture I wanted to generate: the character, his clothes, his pose, the setting. Instead of giving it to Chat, though, I asked it to critique my description: Would this description be easy or dependable to use in making an image. Chat guided me through a couple of iterations, strengthening and lengthening the description, suggesting the kinds of details a good picture should have (which I should specify), clearing up ambiguities, and even critiquing the punctuation: Dashes, it said, tend to confuse AI image-makers. Use commas instead. Then it tightened its own "description" of Whelan's style down to some bullet points and we appended it to my content-description of the image. Here is the result: Turan Kelek is a Red Barsoomian of sleek and muscular build, with broad shoulders and chest tapering to a narrow waist, long but strong legs, and strong arms. He is barechested except for a small, silver, v-shaped plate over his chest—resembling a narrow-bodied bird with uplifted wings—anchored by four jewel-encrusted straps that disappear over his shoulders and around his torso. The silver of his chestplate gleams with a mirror-like finish. The jewels embedded in his harness—deep sapphire and emerald—catch the light, glinting like alien fire. Around his waist is a gold-studded belt. From it hangs a long, flowing crimson silk loincloth, split subtly at the sides to reveal the sculpted lines of his thighs. A light breeze catches the silk, making its edges ripple in the air. One of his feet is bare; the other is bound in a sandal with thin straps wrapping around his calf. He has a full head of thick, tousled raven-black hair. His face—sleek cheekbones, aquiline nose—is uplifted in an expression of pride, with just a trace of a sneer. He brandishes a long, slender blade of translucent metal, like glass fused with lightning, its edge shimmering with a bluish sheen. His other arm is stretched out behind him, pointing downward, as though to counterbalance the thrust of the sword. His legs are parted and his feet planted firmly. He stands on a stony terrace of weathered red-gray stone, with a pale stone pillar to one side of the frame. Behind him is the open sky, in which float two moons—one smaller than the other. He is lit from behind by the low, lavender sky, casting soft shadows across his sculpted torso. The moons bathe the scene in tones of pale rose and violet. The viewer sees him from a slightly low angle, as if standing below the terrace, enhancing his heroic stature. His posture is taut and theatrical, one arm outstretched in balance, the other raising his gleaming sword toward the sky, as though daring it to fall. Style guidance: * Rendered in a dramatic, painterly style reminiscent of classic science-fantasy illustration * Heroic, sculptural anatomy with romanticized realism * Soft, glowing pastel light (lavender, rose, violet) and gentle color gradients in the sky * High contrast between gleaming metallics and warm Martian skin tones * Emphasis on bold silhouette, flowing fabrics, and theatrical pose * Minimalist but surreal background with moons and alien atmosphere * Composition should feel mythic, timeless, and iconic—like a cover illustration for a lost Barsoomian epic I then gave that description back to Chat with orders to generate the image. ... And the punchline is that it refused to because it violated community guidelines. But it also suggested ways of changing the descriptions. But said, "the hell with it" and shoved the description into Perchance and told it to make me some pulp art. I had to disable the PG13 filters (god, when did we become such pussies?) and it started generating images. Many were okay; in some the anatomy messed up in some way; but after about 12 tries, this one popped out. And I said, this is him: I never would have been able to get that result without Chat helping me help it to help me. That's the lesson. Oh, and I then uploaded it to Chat to ask what it thought of the result. "YES!" it said. "That is Turan Kelek! The uplifted hand says, 'You may applaud me now' and the sword says, 'Or else'." Which, honestly, ought to be the caption. |
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