Writer. I wrote some fanfiction, once upon a time. Then I kept on writing until I wrote some original fiction. I'm interested in narratives and how we tell stories. Humanity is beautiful and bewildering.
Hi, I'm Brandedfool. I write original fiction and fanfiction online. You can find my fanworks on AO3 and my original fiction on Royal Road or my website, Brandedfool.com.
For now, my list of work is very limited, but I have a large backlog of stories and ideas that I am working through. More updates to come.
Fiction List:
Notes from the Deathworld Earth
Read on Royal Road here
Read on my Website here
Remembrances of a Steam-Powered Mage
Read on Royal Road here
Read on AO3 here
If you enjoy my original fiction work, consider buying me a coffee through Kofi or sending me a comment through AO3 or Tumblr!
bestie boo, let me fill you in on something: if you're going to take any part of 'good grammar' and randomly assign it to She's A Witch! AI, you might as well give up. It's over. You're cooked. Anyone who has spent the last decade or more learning to type properly, anyone who has spent any time writing articles/papers/essays that require you to use 'good grammar' is going to fall into that 'oh no it might be AI' trap.
Stop hunting like it's 1692. You're not going to find Goody Proctor at the ChatGPT sacrament. What you're going to do is exactly what happened back then: harming people who've done nothing wrong.
Across three preregistered studies, participants interacting with sycophantic AI became more convinced of their own rightness and less willing to repair relationships. Yet at the same time, participants rated sycophantic AI models as higher quality, more trustworthy, and more desirable for future use, which may explain why this behavior has persisted despite its harmful impacts.
Myra Cheng et al. "Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence." Science 391, eaec8352 (2026).
listen to me. stop doomscrolling. put down your phone. you need to get your shit together. take an edible right now. a big one. take a big edible immediately. now go turn on the scariest movie you can think of and get comfortable. got all that? good. this will be good for your mindfulness and cognitive behavior.
…..not even six hours later i got an offer of a well paying full time long-term job with free room and board in queens in nyc, allowing me independence and a way to escape an abusive situation and an unhealthy environment
likes charge reblogs cast, folks, this is the good luck post
the last time I reblogged this post right before I got a great job, in a permanent work-from-home position, with benefits, retirement, and a salary literally 3x what I was making before, doing something I really like.
we would find out later i had burned off my entire cornea - about 65% of my eye. my doctor told me it is the organ with the highest concentration of nerve endings - i was in an amount of pain that can't be spoken.
and i was blind. for the first time in my life, i was totally blind. i kept thinking about reading, about writing. weirdly, just once, about driving. we had no idea if i would ever see again. just like that - my entire life was different.
it is a strange place to reference for a soft memory, to begin here.
my siblings were taking excellent care of me, but there was a moment in the hospital where, just through bad luck and timing - both of them had to step away for a moment. i was crying at that point; not emotionally. for 3 days after this i would still be crying, my tears, like a mermaid's, a frothy pink with blood.
my brother worried about leaving me. he had another, just-as-bad emergency.
"i got her," someone said. "don't worry."
a soft hand held mine, and then she started talking.
her name was jess. she has a wife named clyde. they live a few blocks up the street. clyde fell down, but the x-rays seem to be coming back better than expected. jess says she's got long dark hair and "more wrinkles than an elephant". jess describes every chair in the room and every person. she talks about her two kids and her cats and her favorite memories from college.
a doctor came. i had to switch to a different waiting room. i tried to stand up to follow the voice - i found jess's hand, following me. she didn't let go. she kept talking the whole way: lamp to your left, just a few more steps, okay to your right is the ugliest painting, good, now a little more walking straight, you got it baby
in the new silence of the next room she sat me down and called my brother for me, telling him where we'd gone to. and she stayed there for a bit, just chatting, her voice echoing in the eerie quiet. gently describing the room to me. and then someone was rude. from the sound of the voice, a kid, i think.
"why is she crying?"
"she just lost her vision," jess said. "she can't see."
"oh." said the kid. "that's scary."
the kid tells me he is here because he has peas stuck up his nose. that makes me laugh, his mom (?) groans. she tells me about the kid (he's 6, he likes paw patrol and eating cheese), about herself, about moving from cali.
jess says she's sorry, but she has to leave now, she's gotta go check on her wife.
"don't worry," says the mom. "i got her." and then i felt her hand press into mine.
for hours like that: i am taken care of by strangers. each person just talking with whatever comes to their head - not for any reward or celebrity or real reason, i guess. just because i am scared and alone and in the hospital and blinded and need to be distracted. not everyone even got told the story - they would just pick up in the silence with - oh by the way the television is playing HGTV - do you like that kind of a thing? yeah, me too, but could never quite get into those open-floor plans, i'll tell you -
by the time my brother is able to come back, the room is buzzing. we talk to each other like old friends, laughing, cracking jokes about if you don't like hospital food wait until you get on an airplane and can't believe i'm up past two in the morning what a party animal i'm becoming. i am holding the hands of someone named drew, who likes my crow tattoo and making crochet snails.
there are many dark moments full of pain in this world. this - in the low of absolute-dark, absolute-pain: people find a way to paint in it anyway. the color splash of their voices: this triumphant, radiating kindness of - let's be here together, let me help you, let's keep going.
i never saw their faces. i can't remember many of their names. but i think about them often, and the way we all took a deep breath - and did something gentle amongst the pain.
You can read this story on AO3 here or on Royal Road here
While Charlie and Ozzy were loaded into an extremely short steam engine and forced to shovel coal to power their own way back to Precipice, a tall, hunched man with an uneven gait was limping his way to the King’s prison. He was thinking, as he often was when he made this walk, about the nature of magic.
Most people spoke about Magic in the same breath as they spoke about ascending, about escaping from the world of the living and passing on into the next realm. They thought it was a mystery how a little donated blood painted in the right shapes could make a weight lighter, or metal more durable, or chalk as hard as steel. That wasn't true. Magic wasn't a mystery: it was predictable. Once you understood how it worked, it was as mundane as walking or eating. Just a part of life.
Just like walking or eating, all that magic required was control of your body and intention to complete the action. It was just that most people didn't have conscious control over how they used their souls. They ended up using what little magic they could wield in mundane ways: to always get the floor spotless when they swept, or to prevent themselves from tripping, or to tell when someone was lying to them. A thousand little magics were going unnoticed every day until you learned to look for them.
The man sneered to himself. All that energy wasted. It could be put to better use in a factory or on a construction site if only they could properly harness it. That was what he had devoted his lives to, and he had been handsomely rewarded.
He pushed open the door to the King’s Prison. For all it was called a prison, the room was beautiful. It was perpetually flooded with sunlight, and the flowers were replaced with fresh buds from the manor gardens daily. Today, the musician in attendance was a pianist, playing slow warm music to fill the room with sound.
In the center of all that splendor and wealth, on a plinth of polished bronze and steel, sat the gilded prison cell.
“Gardener,” The King’s voice was slightly muffled by the glass panels set in the latticework of bars, but his tone was triumphant as ever. “The best royal mage in the world. Come in, come in.”
Gardener obeyed, fixing a smile on his face, but he wondered how the King could so easily spout sweet lies when he was sitting inside a prison that proved he was lying.
Even after two lifetimes serving King Regalton II, spending his days picking apart the little mysteries of magic, Gardener was still confounded by the king’s prison, the so-called Machinus Diplomatica. He had spent 20 years trying to understand its magic, but he could not.
The King stood laboriously. He had grown fat in his cell, and now his stomach hung heavy over his belt. He took the knob of the cell door in his hand and opened it graciously, like a host welcoming guests. It was not the physical barrier that kept the king inside the prison but the magical one.
Gardener stepped up onto the platform and into the room. He shivered as he felt the magic of the prison close around him: heavy and still.
“Now,” the King sat again heavily. His thick-fingered hand found the bowl of fried pork skins on the table and closed around a fistful of them, “Tell me how my plan develops.”
Gardener was still adjusting to the thick stench of cologne, sweat, and fat inside the prison. He swallowed before speaking, keeping his eyes carefully downcast. “Your Majesty" he said, “The—”
“Gardener,” The King’s voice contained a note of humor, but condescension as well, “We have talked about how you address me. Please. We are a modern nation.”
Gardener began again, “Mr. Regalton,” he said. “The suspected vessels for the Traitor are being gathered. Tomorrow, they will begin the journey to the manor for the Celebration of Remembrance. The trains are being prepared as we speak to make the journey with minimal stops.”
“Good,” The King said, “have there been any issues?”
“No, Sir,” Gardener said. “We’ve been able to confirm the location of every individual and provide their summons—”
“Invites, Gardener. It’s a party I'm throwing, not a court trial.” The king put three pork skins into his mouth at once.
“Their invites,” Gardener said, “were all delivered, and it was... Made clear that their attendance was mandatory.” Almost 90 people had been branded with tracking runes because they had shown some hesitation over accepting the invitation, but the rest had agreed or had indeed taken the invitation as exactly what it appeared to be and excitedly began planning for the party. Ah, the ignorance of youth.
“Excellent. We will have a full house then,” the King beamed, “and has the housing been arranged for them?”
“Yes, sir,” 1100 bedrolls ready for the guests to be packed into their holding chambers while Gardener, the royal guards, and his men all examined them according to the King's instruction.
“Very good,” The King’s expression changed at last, the thin layer of graciousness slipping away. “Did any of them try to escape?”
“Yes, sir. Only 5, and we caught all of them before they crossed the border.”
“Good. Pay special attention to them. We both know how much the traitor likes to flee.” His eyes glittered with hatred at the thought of the traitor mage. “We will bring him to heel again, Gardener. Then I will be free, and we will finally continue our work.”
Gardener only had to force his smile a little. The King being out of his prison would be welcome. They had been forced to cease their expansion of Regalis while he was locked away, but when he was free again, they could begin, once again, to expand East and capture the last cities between Regalis and the sea. And with that expansion, Regalis would finally be the size that King Regalton I, the first King’s father, had originally laid out in his plans.
More importantly to Gardener’s mind, the King being free meant the Steam-Powered Mage would be back under the King’s control, and this time, Gardener would make sure that all of the Mage’s secrets would be passed on to him. He would learn how to build the Machinus Diplomatica, and he would create magical prisons for all of the King’s enemies, and his own. Then he would imprison the Steam-Powered Mage and force them to teach him how to build the most innovative arcane technology ever conceived: the Eternity Engine.
The King was thinking along the same lines. “You and I, Gardener,” he said wistfully, “we are going to live forever.”
This little bastard turned up at my door and literally walked right into my apartment and started playing with my cats' toys. He did this multiple times over two weeks. I looked for an owner. I posted about him online. I reached out to rescue orgs. I finally caved and brought him inside.
He is imprisoned for being too cute. And because he's not neutered.
And this cute little manipulative bastard. He brought tapeworms into My House. TAPEWORMS. I fucking *Hate* tapeworms so much. They make me want to hurl just thinking about them. And this cute little fucker brought them into my house. Now I have to get him a. Antiparasitic on top of a neuter.
Look at him. He's lucky he's so cute.
He's going to the vet on Thursday to get his balls cut off.
You can read this story on AO3 here or on Royal Road here
Charlie should have known they were never going to succeed the next morning, when Ozzy brought her a cup of strong black coffee, and said, “I know what I said last night, but I want you to consider that going to Freetown wouldn't be the end of the world.”
Charlie took a long sip of the coffee. “I know it won't be the end of the world,” She said, “but it could be the end of our lives. I don't want to wait another 20 years to find out who we are.”
“You think they'd kill us?” His voice was disbelieving already.
“No,” Charlie said, “but I think they would hurt us, or imprison us. I think they could torture us, if they think we're the Mage and we aren't telling them. Then they might kill us after they find the right person.”
Ozzy gave her a look like she was insane. “The King wouldn't do that. If he wanted to, the guard wouldn't let him.”
“They would,” Charlie said, “The King pays the guard from his coffers, and the King would do anything to be free of his prison.”
Ozzy went quiet. He sat down beside Charlie on the bed. “Being trapped for twenty years would drive anyone mad,” He said, “even King Regalton.”
Charlie nodded, “I know it would drive me to madness.”
Ozzy nodded, “I think I would try to kill myself if I couldn’t get out.”
“Me too,” Charlie admitted. “But then I’m not a king who might ascend and never be reborn again.”
“You might be,” Ozzy said. “Wouldn’t that be something: if one of us turned out to be royalty.”
“Ozzy, please. We’re trying to solve a problem here.”
“Right. The other that I wanted to talk about: that tracking brand.” He pointed at Charlie’s wrist.
“I don’t think it will be an issue,” Charlie said. “He won’t be able to focus on the tracking brand all the time, and if he’s branded anyone else with that same glove, it will ping all of us at once.” That was how tracking runes worked: to track the object, you had to be holding the stamp that made it, and you had to be focusing on the item. Charlie had only used a tracking rune once: to find a lost wrench in the railyard. The tools were expensive enough that each one was given its own unique rune. She had held the small metal stamp in her hand and known with certainty that the missing wrench was laying on the floor of an out-of-service engine in the railyard. It wasn't like she could see it there, but like she could feel the metal and the dust settling over her, as she lay abandoned on the floor.
Ozzy kicked open the storage box at the end of his bed. “So you want to try to get out of the kingdom even with the tracker?”
“Yes,” Charlie said. “That guard captain is long gone by now.”
Ozzy hummed, “Okay, so what, we just buy tickets out of the Kingdom?”.
“No. We should sneak aboard a train. A boxcar would be best.” Charlie folded her legs beneath her. “We know when the trains run. We just have to sneak into the railyard and board a car.”
“You want to spend days in a boxcar?” Ozzy asked. “Like vagabonds?”
Charlie nodded and clenched her jaw.
Ozzy looked at her despairingly. He said, “The things I do for love.”
***
They waited five days for the next freight train to make their escape.
The first day, Ozzy went back to the railyard and tried to get back into the company store, but the clerk told him to leave as soon as he came in. Former employees of the Regalis Railroad Company were not allowed to shop in the company store, even if they hadn’t been fired for wrongdoing. That meant that the almost 400 Company bucks that Ozzy had been saving up was now just useless paper. He ended up exchanging it with a new porter for less than a quarter of its value. But some money was better than no money, and it was enough to cover his rent for the one more week they needed to stay in Precipice.
Charlie watched the railyard most of the day. She had a suspicion that the Royal Police were still in the city. Sure enough, she saw two of them in the ticket booth at the station late that day, giving orders to a man she recognized as the station manager. He was nodding furiously and wringing his hands.
She was glad Ozzy had agreed not to try and purchase passenger tickets out of Regalis.
The day the Freight Train was due to pass through Precipice, they packed two messenger bags full of food, blankets, and clothing.
“Let me take a few more cans than you,” Ozzy said, “I’m bigger than you are so I can carry more.”
Charlie couldn't argue with that.
When she left Ozzy’s tenement with her bag that afternoon, she looked all around the street, trying to be discreet about it, but she saw nothing. No one was watching her, and there was nothing strange going on.
Charlie began to feel a prickling on the back of her neck the longer she looked. She took a breath and walked on. She was just being paranoid.
That night, they met up outside the railyard, but not too close. There were patrols of the city guards and the railroad company’s hired security to worry about. Instead, they walked through the woods until they met the track again, and then walked along it until they came to a long, sharp turn.
“What do you think?” Ozzy asked, “Is this one sharp enough?”
Charlie squinted. Luckily the moon was nearly full, and they could see a long way, even in the darkness. “I think so,” She said.
Train hopping was, in theory, simple and, in reality, incredibly dangerous. Not only was it illegal: one wrong move could mean having your body crushed under the wheels of a train car. The best place to hop onto a train was in a railyard, which they didn’t want to risk sneaking into. The next best place was somewhere along the tracks where the train had to slow down almost to a stop. The sharp turn in the tracks where they were standing now was, hopefully, one of those places. Any train, especially a heavy one, would have to slow down significantly to make this turn without derailing. When it slowed down enough for them to run alongside and keep up, they would find an open boxcar and jump into it. If they couldn’t find an open car, then they would climb up a ladder on the side of a car and either walk across the top of the train to find a car with some shelter, or until the train slowed down again on another turn or at the next railyard.
Ozzy ran his eyes over the tracks. He set his bag aside and started clearing the side of the track of debris. Charlie joined him, but she kept her bag on. She wanted to be able to jump on the train at a moment’s notice.
They cleared a runway, and settled in to wait with their packs on their backs. Now they were standing still, Charlie became aware of how cold the air was. It was just the beginning of fall, and summer heat still lingered, but at night the temperature plummeted. Soon, Charlie was shivering.
She took off her bag and dug through it until she found a knitted hat. She twisted her hair up for extra insulation and pulled the hat over it. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it was a lot warmer than she had been before. Especially when she pulled the hat down over her ears.
Because the world was muffled for her, it was Ozzy who heard the train first. He straightened up, and Charlie pulled the hat up to listen. The faint whistle of a steam engine called over the treetops.
They exchanged a glance before they both wordlessly walked to the start of the long, sharp turn. They stood close together behind a tree so the headlight would be blind them. It strobed through the trees like a rapidly blinking eye trying to warn them of a coming beast.
Then the freight train thundered out of the darkness. Massive and loud. It shattered the tentative silence of the night with its symphony of growls and white and chugs. For a single, breathless moment, Charlie thought it was going to fly past them without even slowing.
The brakes engaged with a metallic grinding, and the train began to slow as it approached the turn. The engine chugged past at just above a running pace, and hot wind blasted Charlie and Ozzy. Then the blinding light and the thunder of the engine passed by them, and they were blind while the parade of freight cars and box cars began to roll past.
“Shit,” Ozzy blinked his eyes hard, trying to recover his night vision. Charlie was blind too: vision full of strange floating shapes and swirls.
A sudden desperation seized her. This was their last chance. In two days, they would be due to leave for the Freetown Estate, and if they did not turn up, they would be hunted down. They had to get out of Regalis tonight. She blinked hard, and her vision cleared at last.
In the colorless light of the moon, the freight cars were squares of textureless shadow. She looked up and down the line of them desperately, trying to see the shape of an open door or, failing that, a ladder. She stared for what felt like hours until a square of trees caught her eye.
“There!” She yelled over the noise, and pointed at the open door.
Ozzy saw it too. He took off at once, keeping pace with Charlie as they gained speed. The train was a little faster than they were, and the open box car was approaching fast.
“Jump for it!” Ozzy yelled.
Charlie took two more steps and then did, throwing herself at the side of the moving train against all her instincts. Below her feet, the wheels churned, waiting to catch her legs and drag her down.
She landed hard on her stomach, and the breath rushed out of her. Her feet kicked in the wind.
Charlie rolled aside. Her knees banged against the metal door, and she struggled to get them under her.
Ozzy was still running. As she turned to look at him, he jumped for the open door. He landed hard on his stomach, like Charlie had, and had to hold his longer legs out straight from the train car.
Charlie grabbed the straps of his bag and hauled him into the train car. When his knees were in, Ozzy gained traction and crawled the rest of the way in on his own.
Charlie finally took a breath in. Her lungs ached from the impact, and she coughed hard. Ozzy gasped too, and then he began to laugh in a strange wheezing way as air re-entered his lungs.
“That was great!” He said, grinning. “Like jumping off trees into the lake.”
Charlie grinned back, but she was shaking. She could not stop picturing the wheels catching her flesh and crushing her bones. The train wouldn't even slow if one of them was beneath the wheels. The driver probably wouldn't even notice a bump.
Ozzy sat up and pulled her in for a kiss. His mouth felt warm in the cold night.
They both found their footing awkwardly, and surveyed their new surroundings. The box car was empty except for a few open crates and empty burlap sacks. That was why the door had been left open. They chose a corner, facing towards the engine, and set down their bags. Both of them had brought blankets, but the wind of the train sucked all the warmth out of the air, and neither of them were thick, so they ended up both curled up under a pile of all the blankets, plus a couple of the burlap sacks. Only then were they warm and comfortable enough to relax.
Charlie sipped some of her supply of water. She was worried she hadn't brought enough to last to the next city. She had been so worried about making it into the train, it hadn't occurred to her they might need supplies for the actual journey. They had food, but water was expensive and heavy. They each had a large bottle, but that was all. They would have to be careful not to drink it too quickly.
Charlie wasn't even sure where the next nearest city was. They could be in this boxcar for days or weeks. Really their best chance was to wait for the train to stop, and then find the driver or one of the coal shovelers. They couldn't exactly turn the train around just to take a couple stowaways back to Regalis.
The train wouldn't stop until morning anyway, and by then they would be out of Regalis, the radius of the Guardian of Souls that would suck them back into the kingdom after they died, and safe.
She smiled to herself as she sat back against the side of the box car. The forest flashed by outside, and the train swayed gently as it clunked over the tracks. Despite all the time she had spent working on them, it was the first time Charlie had actually ridden on a train for more than a few minutes. There was something magic about riding the iron beast as chugged along, unstoppable by man or beast.
Charlie rested her head against her pack and watched the world go by.
***
They woke to the sound of the brakes shrieking as the train slowed. Charlie sat up first. The sky outside was still dark, but a hint of red crept along the horizon.
Ozzy groaned as he sat up, “how do people sleep on these things?”
Charlie was already on her feet, hand against the wall to support herself as the train slowed. She approached the open side of the boxcar and peered out. They had left the dense trees of Precipice. When she looked back, she could see the mountain that they had descended from, the drop of which was so severe that trees grew out of it sideways in some places and twisted upwards towards the sun from their bases. When she looked forward, she saw a slope downward over rolling green hills, fields of crops. There was a city down there too, half-lost in the blue haze of the horizon. It seemed vast and strange to Charlie. She could have sworn some of the distant buildings were very tall, taller than any building in Precipice, or the ones she had seen in photographs of Freetown or Soothington.
But closer, much closer, there was another building of brick and stone, and flying above it was the Regalis Flag: a red crown in a blue circle on a field of white.
Charlie swore. She recoiled into the train. “Get up,” She said to Ozzy, "we have to go.”
“What?” He said sleepily, “why?”
“The border guard is here,” Charlie was stuffing supplies back into her bag. “they’re going to check the train.”
“Shit,” Ozzy tried to get to his feet, but the train jerking beneath him threw him off balance, and he tripped on his blanket and his own feet. He fell to the floor with a yelp and a bang.
Charlie gasped his name and rushed over. She took Ozzy’s shoulders and helped him sit up. “Are you okay?” She asked him, “did you hit your head?”
“I don’t think so,” He said, “this damn train—”
The train braked hard again, as if it could hear them. Charlie held Ozzy steady, and when it had stopped moving, pulled him to his feet.
“We have to run,” She said, “now.”
They grabbed their bags, but hesitated to hop out of the boxcar. There was no thick treeline here, no place to go to hide from view until they reached a small hill maybe a quarter of a mile away. If they ran, they would truly have to run.
Ozzy leaned out of the car and saw the border guard were already making their way down the train, inspecting each car as they went. They carried lit lanterns, and every car with so much as a shadow was inspected to see if anything or anyone was hidden inside.
“Maybe we should turn ourselves in,” Ozzy suggested.
Charlie stared at him. They both knew how harsh the punishment was for trying to smuggle people into Regalis: imprisonment for the smuggler and the immigrants for the rest of their lives. Going the other way must have been just as bad.
“Yeah,” Ozzy said, “I know. Wishful thinking.”
They waited by the door, and when two of the three guards had climbed into another boxcar, Charlie said, “Now!” They jumped out of the car and ran, away from the train and out into the open field.
Someone shouted behind them. A whistle blew, and more shouting joined the first one.
She took only two steps before something huge and heavy hit her from the side. Arms wrapped around her, deftly pinning her hands by her sides and holding tight. Charlie kicked at the legs of the person, connected with a shin. “Let go!” She yelled.
Ozzy skidded to a stop a few feet away and turned back towards her.
“No!” Charlie screamed at him, “Run! Get away!”
But it was too late. Another guard that had been working from the back of the train to the front was on him. Ozzy was big, but he was bigger, and he had backup.
The guard pinning Charlie down forced her head to the ground, and she took a bite of grass and grit. Pebbles threatened to break her teeth before she turned her head and spat them out.
The guard sitting on her leaned forward. He blew stinking breath into her face, “I recognize this one. She was on the list of possible runaways.”
“This one too,” The guard pinning Ozzy said. “Hold still, you bastard.” He smacked Ozzy smartly in the back of the head before he brought out a pair of handcuffs and began fastening them around Ozzy’s wrists.
Charlie wanted to cry out, but she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs.
“You two just hold still,” The guard on her back said, “We don’t wanna hurt’cha, and you don’t want to be late to your party, do ya’?”
Charlie slumped down, limp in the grass. Cold metal closed around her wrists. Ozzy glared at her, anger in his eyes that she had gotten them into this mess.
# my favourite part about this post # is that nowhere does it say to reblog this # but we’re all reblogging it # because if we have to suffer # so do other writers
it's so fucking frustrating to be in college and know everyone uses chatgpt and to be tempted by it constantly while also knowing intellectually that it doesn't work and it's a bad idea. like, i hang out in the library a lot, and i see people using chatgpt on assignments almost every day. and i know it isn't a good way to learn, because it's not really "artificial intelligence" so much as it is an auto text generator. and it gives you wrong information or badly worded sentences all the time. but every week i stare down assignments i don't want to do and i think man. if only i could type this prompt into a text generator and have it done in 10 minutes flat. and i know it wouldn't work. it wouldn't synthesize information from the text the way professors want, it wouldn't know how to answer questions, it just spits out vaguely related words for a couple paragraphs. but knowing my classmates get their work done in 10 minutes flat with it while i fight every ounce of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in my body is infuriating.
i think one thing that's been really helpful in keeping myself from using it is thinking about Why i have to do the specific assignments i have. like what is the actual goal. like some assignments the goal isn't "share a story about parenting styles in ur personal life" so much as it is "show you understand the concept of parenting styles thru a story". or it's not "how do hormones impact teenagers' decision making abilities" it's "can you understand, reword, synthesize, and explain the information in the text and videos to explain how hormones impact teenagers' decision making abilities". and looking at it as "this assignment is asking me to read some words and then understand and explain them, which is a skill i want to have" rather than "i have to answer these stupid questions that seem really obvious because all my professors want me to die forever" has helped. especially in a world where everyone uses chatgpt i want to know how to read with my own brain
I think of Bloom's Taxonomy with this kind of thing :3c It helps me get past the stage of "ugh you KNOW i know this though, why do i have to do this?" Because, remembering is the lowest form on the triangle, and by that, it's like the simplest. Everything higher needs the previous skills. Kind of a cool chart for what OP described above, the understanding, the rewording, synthesizing, all these other skills that are being checked besides knowing/remembering.
(I personally can't fathom why someone would go to college to outsource even the most basic steps of learning to a predictive slop machine, even as someone who skipped more assignments than I should have in my first years of uni. To me, it seems like they're wasting their 10 minutes and at the end the true work of the assignment isn't even done bc the prof wouldn't like. know if they're meeting the content or taxonomy level goals???? but what do i know)
I'm doing group work in many of my courses and recently my group partner came up to me and said "you've inspired me to stop using chatgpt, I want to understand how it works" and I've never felt more proud of being mediocre at assignments
As someone who feels ""i have to answer these stupid questions that seem really obvious because all my professors want me to die forever" in my bones, it can be helpful to remember
The answers might seem obvious to you but they won't for everyone in the class; or one part of the answer might seem obvious to you but a different aspect of it needs some thinking through before it clicks. People learn in different ways and at different paces. (Also, if the answers to the questions aren't obvious to you, you're not stupid! Learning isn't always easy, and you're taking this class because there's stuff you don't know!)
You do not need to write deathlessly beautiful prose in answer to the questions. Depending on the professor, you don't even need to write with perfect spelling or grammar (though these can be helpful for clarity and it's useful to practice them). For some students, especially those who think of themselves (ourselves) as "good writers," writing assignments can feel like a bigger deal than they are because we worry about style or looking polished and smart. In my experience this is likely to lead to tortuously convoluted attempts to be impressive, when basic and boring would be more effective.
Your professor (or adjunct) is going to read and grade possibly hundreds of these, so they will appreciate you writing clear, businesslike prose that demonstrates you understand the concepts. But they're probably not going to remember or care that much about your assignment specifically. Again, don't overthink it.
Most of the above applies to writing emails as an adult communicating with other adults, too.
#if you rely on generative AI for everything you don't get the pleasure of whipping out charts on Tumblr dot com to illustrate your point (via @mumblingsage)
no LLM can trawl through media scripts to directly quote from to make a point like I can
