Turns Out A Neural Network Sounds More Like Me Than I Do.

[rionaleonhart]

I tried feeding a few lines of my most recent fic into a neural network to see what it would come up with to follow them. I'll be honest: its effort at writing fanfiction by me is absolutely spot-on. The bolded part is the original extract I gave it.


Scriabin lunges at him.

Edgar’s knocked to the floor. It probably doesn’t hurt as much as it would in real life, and he’s grateful for that, at least. But it hurts.

“Fuck you,” Scriabin growls into his face.

Edgar goes, just barely, to put his hands on the short, handsome, young doctor’s arm. Only to get just enough and snap his wrist, wrenching his arm right off and sending his fingers screaming into the air. The Thaumiel in Edgar shocks him and he goes down, against the glass.

That's when one of the centaurs comes striding in, the


I'm annoyed that this is so much better than my actual fic.

On an entirely different note, here are some notes made at assorted points in seasons six and seven of House.



I'm absolutely delighted that Chase committed murder. What a great development. I worried for a moment that the plotline would just end with 'they manage to hoodwink the morbidity and morality conference, he gets away with it', but after that Chase was still haunted by what he'd done and it was still putting pressure on his marriage. I have a very big weakness for characters killing people and falling apart over it.

Predictably, I became much more interested in the Chase/Cameron plotline when Chase was trying to conceal a murder from her.

I don't think I knew that Cuddy and House previously slept together, but I feel a lot about their dynamic makes more sense to me with that revelation.

'The Down Low': I'd forgotten that Wilson slept with a dying patient! I love that every character in this show is an absolute mess.

Also, kind of shipping Eddie and Mickey, the drug dealer and the undercover cop.

The episode with the blogger ('Private Lives') awoke a slight interest in Chase/Thirteen; they had some great interactions while Chase was worrying about people treating him in a certain way because he's good-looking. I'm so annoyed that I ship Chase/Thirteen and Foreman/Cameron, and instead the canonical pairings are Chase/Cameron and Foreman/Thirteen. ('After Hours', later on - where Chase helps Thirteen treat her convict friend - is also a great Chase/Thirteen episode.)

Predictably, the game of truth or dare in 'Lockdown' also had me thinking about Wilson/Thirteen. My pattern of shipping Wilson with every female character he interacts with (and also House) holds.

Both Rei and I laughed aloud at the end of that episode, when Thirteen flashed Taub as she walked out. Thirteen's the best.

I love that the characters on the show have become aware of the 'House has a revelation about the patient during a conversation with Wilson and suddenly walks away' pattern. 'You'd better not be faking this to get out of a tough conversation,' Wilson grumbles.

I liked Masters and I was sorry that she didn't stay! In a show full of incredibly unprincipled characters, she was a breath of fresh air. But of course the ground would collapse if House ever had two women on his team.

'The Dig': while I have some complicated feelings surrounding the plotline, I did like House offering to kill Thirteen at some point in the future, if she wants him to. Just a very interesting moment, and a kind of compassion we don't usually see from House himself.



Most of the way through the sixth season, it occurred to me that I usually expect long-running shows to have declined noticeably by this point. I think House has maintained its quality remarkably well. We'll see if it manages to keep it up.

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

I would absolutely read that fic that you and the neural network put together!

[rionaleonhart]

It's got both gratuitous violence and gratuitous centaurs, as all the best fics do.

[(Anonymous)]

I can't believe the distinct and worrying lack of centaurs in your actual fics. You must rectify this! Perhaps the answer is inexplicable Harry Potter crossovers.

Speaking of inexplicable crossovers, I've been reading the Erased manga! I watched the anime a few years ago but felt eh, it's lockdown, manga it is! I now really want a Life is Strange/Erased crossover, even though they both take place on different continents. You know it makes sense!

And speaking of Life is Strange, I should play Life is Strange 2 at some point! I did the first chapter, but heard about the save bug for chapter 2 and left it, and haven't picked it up since.

Also, Trails of Cold Steel 4 is supposed to be out in Autumn, which would be awesome. I really like the Trails games (and I still really like Rean, even though I do actually prefer Estelle, as she is actually one of my favourite protagonists and definitely my favourite female protagonist of any game ever), and then I only have to wait about another two decades for the Crossbell games to ever come out in English.

Also apparently they want to reopen schools and all that malarkey but we don't need PPE (also apparently people have never met five year olds), but hey, that's just bonkers, so let's just continue life the way I have quite happily during lockdown: by immersing myself in fiction instead. Whoo!

-timydamonkey

[rionaleonhart]

You're right; I don't think I've ever written about centaurs! This is a terrible oversight. I suppose I have briefly written about an Andalite, which is at least centaur-esque.

How's the Erased manga? I really loved the anime. A Life Is Strange/Erased crossover does feel like it could work, now that you mention it; I feel their tones would mesh well.

You should absolutely pick up Life Is Strange 2 again! I'd love to hear how it goes.

[(Anonymous)]

I really liked the manga! The anime condensed material since it's only 12 episodes - it's not too noticeable in the first half (the main plot beats are all there, it just loses some background info/characterisation/grounding which are nice but not massively necessary), but the second half of the manga is something like 40% of it which got condensed into about 2 episodes (although the anime does that really interesting stuff with the opening credits, which I love). I think the manga interpretation of those events are stronger because it has more time to look at characters, their motivations, what has changed etc.

Um... anything else. I believe the anime cuts some of the killers backstory though it does keep some main plot beats again (that's a long chapter, to be fair). There's also a scene that only really works in the manga which I really liked, where you start with a narration of Sachiko over Satoru and eventually morphs into a narration from the killer. It's unclear when one narration becomes the other. And the confrontation at the end is also different in the manga - some things are similar, but it's different location, different gambit, different conversation (much more amiable).

So I like them both, though on balance I probably prefer the manga because it gets more time to world build, focus on other characters etc, and it fleshes out some characters more.

There's also another volume which looks at events in other characters point of view, which was cool! Takes one chapter from Kayo's POV, two from Kenya's, one from Sachiko's and one from Airi's.

[corvidology]

Bonus Centaurs!

[rionaleonhart]

I look back at the fic I used as source material, and suddenly all I can see is the terrible lack of centaurs.

[pict]

But of course the ground would collapse if House ever had two women on his team.

Oh, just you wait!

[rionaleonhart]

Ooh, intriguing!

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Ooooh, that looks like a fun neural network!

[rionaleonhart]

It's really interesting to play around with!

[trepkos]

Centaurs! That program actually writes disturbingly well.

[rionaleonhart]

It looked at my writing and went 'there aren't enough centaurs here' and, on reflection, it was absolutely right. I love the phrasing of 'sending his fingers screaming into the air', too.

[amovingtarget]

Ahhhh I absolutely loved House! ...I should watch it again.... fuck....

[rionaleonhart]

It has its imperfections, but it's still such a good show, and consistently good in a way that long-running series very rarely are.

[amovingtarget]

The consistent quality was definitely my favourite thing about the show, yes!