Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

ML Brennan

@brennanml.bsky.social

2.2K followers 130 following 3.2K posts

Author Tor Books: Generation V, Iron Night, Tainted Blood, Dark Ascension (GENERATION V series). Vampires, kitsune, werebears, nerdy jokes, New England references.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · Dec 16

Hey -- if anyone is still looking for a holiday present, can I remind everyone that I wrote a book about broke and sarcastic vampires, awesome kitsune, weird monsters, all set in the mighty state of Rhode Island? With some fun species biology peppered throughout?

www.amazon.com/Generation-V...

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 2h

Really? I'd love some -- they would make some incredibly happy little boys.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 15h

@djangowexler.bsky.social Just got to The Swarm (we had a bit of a hiatus from The Forbidden Library over the summer while we did fairy tale stories), and Arlen is in love with them. He says, "They're so cute, but so MEAN!" He also very much digs that Ashes tried to kill one.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 15h

Mortal Kombat Flawless GIF

ALT: Mortal Kombat Flawless GIF

media.tenor.com

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

It's broad, decorative slop.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

(Me again)

Now, the problem here is that I'm sitting there, reading this shit, and thinking, wait, were we even reading the same damn story? What the fuck did I even read? Then, a second later I realize, holy shit, that's not a single actual reference to events in the story. Not a one.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

Oloomi’s vision shows that memory can still hold meaning and resist total disappearance, but it always carries an element of distance. The tone is abstract, a step removed from the rawness of pain, allowing readers to feel the sadness of absence but not the piercing regret of one person’s silence."

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

The effect is thoughtful and meditative, less urgent but deeply reflective . Memory in this story is not tied to guilt or responsibility but instead to the sorrow of watching the world grow smaller piece by piece.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

Her writing style mirrors this sense of fading. It circles, layers, and echoes, so that memory feels more like a ripple in water than a fixed image.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

Unlike Shepard , Oloomi’s narrator lingers not on immediate action or guilt but on the traces that remain old words written in books, faint voices carried forward through history, broken stories passed down in pieces, and scattered artifacts pointing toward what once existed .

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

The narrator wonders what it means to remember something that cannot fully be brought back, to hold onto fragments of what was while knowing they can never be whole again.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

Instead of one flood, there are countless vanishings: the extinction of animals that once roamed freely, the disappearance of languages that once carried whole histories, the fading of entire cultures until only traces remain.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

Her narrator does not circle one single disaster but instead reflects on the way memory works when parts of the world gradually disappear .

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

"In Extinction, Oloomi treats memory in a much broader way, making it feel wide, collective, and almost atmospheric rather than deeply personal.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

Okay, so here's one of the paragraphs from an essay that I suspect was from Chat GPT:

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

Gotta say, though -- all the colleges that I'm working at are suddenly ordering huge stacks of Blue Books again, after almost a decade of the things being almost extinct, so I think that that's the direction that things are going in.

I hate deciphering handwriting, so I'm holding out.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

I don't have any intention of getting into fights over AI use this semester, so what I did was just to grade them as if I had no idea that AI was involved (which resulted in the students getting 20 out of 100 points), and telling the students to reread the assignment and rewrite.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

It reduced the number of students who had nothing in hand and turned to AI. And the ones who did were absolutely not a surprise, since they were the ones who rolled into those classes having not read a single assignment.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

Which isn't exactly a new technique, but the AI slop is interestingly recognizable. Imagine the vaguest review of a poetry chapbook, which never makes a single direct reference to a single poem or line. That's what it reads like.

Also, I forced a lot of in-class drafting and writing, which helped.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

So, there's just not enough scraped into the models to produce functional papers. What I HAVE noticed, is that with newer publications, the AI tries to sidestep it by basically writing about nothing -- incredibly decorative, broad, vague writing that could apply to just about any story at all.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

Not as bad as I was worried about, actually. I did my best to lay traps by using only really recent work. My one class is working with long-form articles that are all published within the last few months, and my other classes are working with this year's Best American Short Stories.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 1d

So bad.

So, so bad.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 2d

I had four classes that had essays due this week, and I must say -- my students are so good at writing essays that break my spirit.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 2d

John, you keep dodging this issue. The public demands a clear response, yet you continue to obfuscate. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MONTRESOR.

ML Brennan @brennanml.bsky.social · 5d

10/10. No notes.

Reposted by ML Brennan

KnitHacker @knithacker.bsky.social · 6d

Fuzzy Fabulous Doggy Wigs for Cosplay Fun ... Knitters Take Note! 👉 buff.ly/67kCcEQ - designed by the prolific Valya Boutenko of Lucky Fox Knits #knitting #cosplay #etsy #affiliate #doggycosplay #halloween 💜