Gods of Gor: Prologue

 

I pressed myself against the cold stone wall at the top of the basement steps, the unlit torch trembling in my hands. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to move, but I couldn’t risk it. Not yet. The catacombs below were treacherous enough, but the danger above was far more immediate.

 

The faint scrape of bare feet against stone echoed through the corridors. My heart slammed in my chest as I heard the Talunas searching for me. I had run swiftly from them — these lithe, beautiful, and utterly lethal women, dressed only in the skins of animals, carrying long, sharp spears that glinted in the torchlight. They moved like predators, graceful and silent, their bodies coiled with deadly strength honed by years of hunting. I knew, without question, that I was no match for any of them.

 

I crouched lower, trying to make myself as small as possible, pressing my back against the damp wall. Torchlight from distant wall sconces flickered across the water pooling at my feet, leaving most of the chamber in shadow. I dared not move, dared not breathe too loudly. My knuckles whitened as I clutched the cold torch in my right hand, not daring to light it just yet. I wanted Brinn to be by my side. Brinn would keep me safe! Every instinct screamed that a single mistake would bring the Talunas down on me like a storm of claws and blades.

SkyNet critiques and analyses Barbarian of Gor!

 

If, like me, you studied English Literature at High School, you will have been used to painstakingly picking apart the style and meaning behind the most innocent things a writer came up with, often in a rather pretentious and overly-thorough manner. It occurred to me, yesterday, that it might be fun to ask the AI ChatGPT to analyse and critique one of my books. Just what would the (soon to be) SkyNet think of Barbarian of Gor (for example)? Do machine intelligences think it has any merit? ;)

 

Obviously, it wouldn’t know I was actually the authoress, so there wouldn’t be any attempt to flatter me. Unless it's even cleverer the anyone thinks it is!

 

So, anyway, I went and asked it to assess and critique my style. Here’s what it said. Get ready to re-live your English Lit classes! ;) 

Emma dancing in Brinn’s villa - an AI art experiment

 

So, I’m now very happy with the way I can stabilise the look of a character through multiple pictures. This means I can create character models for reference purposes and Google Gemini will always stick to those models and not make any random changes. 

 

I thought I’d post up a series of pictures that I did as an experiment to test that the model in the pictures remains stable.

 

This is Emma, as she was back in the early days of living in Brinn’s halls (before the events detailed in Shadows of Gor), when she might be ordered to dance for the pleasure of two of Brinn’s warriors, with an anklet of slave bells jingling as she moves. It’s how I imagine Pleasure Silk to look on the body of a kajira – diaphanous and very floaty – almost begging to be torn away by eager male hands. Once again I’m very impressed by the expressions I could get on some of the pictures. See what you think as Emma dances. 

Adventures in AI on Christmas Day

 

So, I’ve been playing around a bit, trying to figure out how I could get Google Gemini to maintain the same look of a character throughout a series of pictures, because up until now Gemini keeps changing the way a character looks, and that's really frustrating. It does seem there is a way and this is my first attempt. I’ll preface this by saying I’m not very good with computers. I don’t have Chloe’s programming skills, so this is me probably doing everything the hard way.

 

As an experiment I took the first picture I had randomly generated as “Emma’ (the one at the top of this post) and, because I was quite happy with it as a ‘look’ (her hair is cut short at the beginning of chapter one), I used it as a ‘model’ for any picture with “Emma” in it.

 

Basically, in each subsequent picture prompt, I uploaded the original picture and defined that Gemini should stick with the same appearance, which it seems to have done. Note, I haven’t tried to stabilise any other characters in the picture – it’s really just an experiment to see if I could do it first with just “Emma”. But if I could, then in theory I can do the same with multiple characters. These then are the pictures I generated that way, and I think this time around the appearance of “Emma” has been stabilised, which suggests I can do that going forwards for any character I’m happy with. See what you think.

Merry Christmas from Emma and Chloe!

 

As I recover from the (ahem) excessive amounts of ka-la-na I had on Christmas Eve, I just wanted to say thank you so much for sticking with this blog so faithfully over the past few years, particularly through my rather extended periods of absence. I actually feel really humble each time I come back and I find you’re all still here. Your ongoing devotion to the Emmaverse, your generous feedback, ideas, and support means the world to me. It really does.

 

Oh, look at me, I’m getting all emotional here. But you really are wonderful, and I don’t think I would ever have got this far without your ever engaging feedback. 

 

I hope you’re all having a wonderful festive season, be it Christmas, or whichever holiday festival you prefer. For those of you who haven’t seen my comments buried in the feedback section of some of the previous chapters, I will be serialising the long delayed Gods of Gor at long last to run concurrently with The Shadow in the Dark (albeit at a slower pace than Shadow on the Dark, to give Chloe plenty of time to hopefully produce some of her digital art). 

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Twenty Two

Several years ago – Mount Holyoke, Christmas Eve:

 

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring tingle tingling too (ring-a-ling-a ding-dong-ding!)

Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you (ring-a-ling-a ding-dong-ding!)

Outside the snow is falling and friends are calling "yoo hoo!" (ring-a-ling-a ding-dong-ding!)

Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you (ring-a-ling-a ding-dong-ding!)

 

Our cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy and cozy are we (ring-a-ling-a ding-dong-ding!)

We're snuggled up together like two birds of a feather would be (ring-a-ling-a ding-dong-ding!)

Let's take the road before us and sing a chorus or two (ring-a-ling-a ding-dong-ding!)

Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you (ring-a-ling-a ding-dong-ding!)

 

It was Christmas Eve – the last Christmas Eve we would share together before we graduated from Mount Holyoke – and Bryony and I were determined to make this one special. Obviously, we would remain in touch once we graduated and went our separate ways – me pursuing a professional legal career and Bryony doing… well, whatever rich trust fund girls like Bryony did when their dalliance with higher education was over. But it would never be quite the same again. 

The Shadow in the Dark Chapter Twenty One

 

Let it go, let it go

Can't hold it back anymore

Let it go, let it go

Turn away and slam the door

I don't care what they're going to say

Let the storm rage on

The cold never bothered me anyway

 

I was singing. I was singing along to the fucking song, ‘Let it Go’, from Frozen, as Rosemary gripped my left hand with her stronger right and encouraged me with smiles and little tugs of my hand. 

 

We were watching Frozen for the second time. The first had just been a straight forward viewing of the film, and I had been told to not get too excited and just watch the film. The second viewing was so that I would have the opportunity to sing along when each song began. Rosemary selected an option on the DVD that displayed the lyrics, bouncing along the bottom of the screen with cute frosty animations as the songs were sung.

 

“You’re having so much fun, Ashlee. Isn’t this the best birthday ever?”

 

“It’s really good, Rosemary,” I said. All the doors were locked and I could tell from her grip that Rosemary was a powerful and strong woman. And she was clearly insane.

 

“Have another gooey slice of cake, Ashlee,” she said, beaming as she picked up the cake knife again from where she had returned it to the table. It taunted me with its close proximity to my hand. This would be my fourth big slice of birthday cake.

 

“I’m really quite full, Rosemary, but thank you anyway.”

 

“Nonsense. Birthdays are for stuffing yourself full with cake until you burst.” She pressed another slice into my hands and dabbed with a napkin where a bit of cream had fallen on my skirt when I fumbled with the plate. “Do be careful, Ashlee. It may be your birthday, but I expect good table manners from little birthday girls.” Her happy face suddenly changed to one of a scowling expression. I saw a sudden darkness in her features as she mopped at the small cream stain. “You shouldn’t make me upset with you...”