11) Summer Fluff: Cormac McCarthy/von Götha
Hospital Gown Gala Summer
I have to say, this was not perhaps the most successful match-up. This is book 11 of the 50-book series, an AI generated meandering through time of a group of gay men taking up summer residence over 50 years on Fire Island. Each year the men age, I use a different Artist structure for the images, and a different writer. Eric von Götha is probably not a widely known illustrator in the lives of gay men, but he’s quite well known in Sadomasochistic circles for his witty take on Justine, now the “Perils of Janice” with women tortured by women in dank shocking settings, with pristine white long legs and surprised faces. Well, basically Justine chapter by chapter. The images are moderately good, a bit primitive at times, and generally it comes to show another odd defect in AI image generation.
If you’ve seen the many “oh my goodness, a black man in a Nazi Uniform” kind of exercise with AI generators discussions, about how ridiculous it is and how the generators are woke, well, a boring conversation. AI image generator problems are more strange. Imagine you took images of people, perhaps 500 million, maybe a billion. You then use photoshop to line up the faces, perfectly superimpose them and create an ‘average’ human. Then, an image generator essentially trained on this ‘average’ human, makes a picture. What you will generally see is a contrasty image skin without subtlety and with high specular (mirror-like) reflections, an almost metallic look. It may randomly be dark-complected or light, or anything, almost never asian. Unless you ask for a specific artist, you will get an average outcome. I think if you average a lot of skin with a lot of reflection, it will amplify the contrast, and make people look like they’re covered with Vaseline.
So then ask for a specific artist like “Create me a drawing by Eric von Götha of men at the beach in brief bathing suits”. Fine, you get Götha-like image (he specializes in women, but there seem to be enough male images trained on to be workable) but then the other problem pops up - mangling limbs. The fewer images that seem to exist, or be trained for a given artist, when using them as a ‘template’, the more mangled arms and legs become. Very annoying.That gives a reverse-engineered hint for great human images. Ask for a well-known artist who have a lot of images which can be easily trained on, and you’ll get a high-quality output. The difference between Frans Hals (later), Eric von Götha, Klimt, and Tom of Finland is very instructive. The least-referenced artist, while serving ok as a template, provides the least useful images, and vice-versa The most sampled artist has the most flexibility and the best lighting.
Now, my characters in these books indulge in what are sweetly called in Holland “Soft Drugs” - Ecstasty (Molly, MDMA), Sass (MDA), Poppers, LSD, and good old 420. I wrote a book on ‘chemosexuality’ several years back trying to put into words feelings and experience with psychedelics and sex, and I experimented with several different effects. On was an ebook with embedded animation; the words “Marijuana” in the book triggered the ebook (they are just specially structured web-pages BTW) on the page you were on to float hazy slightly luminescent animated clouds above the text - Perlin Noise - to be accurate; with mushrooms page becomes slightly embedded in symmetric luminous gradient-colored kaliedescope patterns. As you read further, if Molly or like comes into view, the screen breaks into a random grid of sparkling rainbow fibers suspended above the text, and for LSD individual word letters or words develop animated rainbow-colors making them appear to float ever so gently above the page with other effects popping in and out. And if you had a nice candyflip with a touch of THC, all the effects may drop on the page in front of the text. It wasn’t far off some of the more interesting hallucinogenic effects from these substances.
For the generated images here, since I couldn’t actually write HTML that would animate in a browser, and certainly not for printed books, I did two things with poor Eric. First, I simply asked image generation to focus on using ‘neon’ colors. Even the more smoothly shaded images break up into neon spots somewhere. Then comes a great effect you really can only do with an image generator. For many illustrators I evaluated as templates, if they’ve never done night scenes, you can beg and plead for an image to be ‘at night’, but it will be as bright as noon. Tom of Finland has that defect, the illustrator AI that talked to the image generate kept asking for night, nigh sky, midnight, all that it could, but relentlessly sunny days. Except for ‘chiaroscuro’. For some reason, that magic word will tint any AI generated image from zero to solid black, interestingly raising the contrast so much so that at the highest chiaroscuro settings you only see luminous outlines. So, the ‘neon’ plus a healthy “(chiaroscuro:5)” plus the very line-graphic style of Eric von Götha renders an image that begins to fragment into darker and darker islands of glowing color, which is often a lovely effect, as above. In my pulp fiction novels, when the characters go into a ‘dingy backroom’ for sex, the AI learned to simply turn the chiaroscuro up (6 is maximum, generally solid black). But happens with negative luminosity, negative light?
The above image is from another book series I play with based on HIS69 pulp fiction. In this particular book, Ezra the sexy gay Jewish daddy from Manhattan decides to give up on bullshit, and give in to a life of being a Satyr. He finds a husband at a Satyr retreat in the Catskills, and decides to open a Bar/Sex-Club on 8th avenue called “The Forest”. In this image he is having drinks with the Maenad Selene Zervas, who has likewise retreated from life among mortals to be with her women in a remote compound, for ecstatic sex, and being a Maenad, if any men show up they tear them limb from limb. If only the dykes at the Michigan Womyn’s Festival had read Euripides! They’re comparing notes, and Selene of course is pissed because when women want to retreat, men try to invade when they’re most vulnerable. When men want to have a gay sex party, they do whatever they fucking want. She warn’s him to not be too visible. Well, look at him. Now, back to chiaroscuro.
.AI’s are not too bright, now and then it sent a negative chiaroscuro to the image system, like “(chiaroscuro:-2)” - first I had to imagine what ‘negative darkness’ is, which is not light. Light is a presence of luminosity in a scene, chiaroscuro is obscuring the light, but what happens if you move towards negative luminosity. Lovely. It melted the image, as happened above. I have paintings by the artist Tony Scherman, and it reminded me of his encaustic technique, here’s a link to Jocasta but in all cases, a lovely melting look to reality.
Then it really melts into daubs of paint. Fascinating. If you’ve ever had a healthy dose of ‘K’ or Ketamine, I find the above melting effect not dissimilar so some of the visuals you get on K, right before you go into the notorious K-hole of oblivion. Everything begins melting and vibrating, you feel light as a feather, and then the K-hole, a sort of infinite regression into the abyss of a universe. My K-holes tend to be infinite matrices of slowly rotating tori nested into tori infinitely, in bright neon colors.
This negative Chiaroscuro just becomes more and more fragmented daubs of paint. Whoever said AI is sterile and too perfect.
As for the Text;
The text is styled after the writer, Cormac McCarthy who is one of my favorite writing templates. It’s often said that Californians have ‘no accent’ in American English, Cormac is something like that as a writing style target, unlike a Vladimir Nabokov or William Burroughs. His words are simple, but not too simple, he’s not Hemingway; his humor is surprising, but not vicious. I find him great for gay pulp fiction, because there’s nothing more distracting in a porn story than some sort of vivid stylization, written as hard as possible, to jar you out of the purely pornographic reverie.
Noted Harvard Alum the “Reverend” Boyd MacDonald, publisher of the fairly fragrant gay porn ‘Zine’ before there were Zine’s “Straight To Hell” always complained about men sending him dirty stories where they were trying to write literature, instead of porn. I find a lot of Romance Novels are absolute perfection with prose that is so unstylized at times, and sort of empty, that it’s porn without the hardcore sex scenes, a wonderful kind of canvas upon which to paint mental images, without intrusive coloration.
Here is a first draft substrate paragraph in this book written at the beginning to set the stage for an event on the beach:
Across the beach, Finn was setting up a tranquil corner, arranging sea-glass sculptures and driftwood into a serene retreat. His architectural skills were on full display, the sculptures glistening under the sun as quiet spots for contemplation. His movements were deliberate and graceful, each placement reflecting an inner peace.
Nice enough, but, a second pass of Cormac McCarthy styling to enforce his style more strictly.
Finn moved along the shore, setting up a quiet place, his hands arranging sea-glass into glistening shapes and driftwood into a haven. UNDER THE SUN, THE SCULPTURES GLEAMED, a testament to his hands that knew the ways of silence. His movements, careful, held a kind of solemn grace, each piece put in place with the weight of a man carrying peace in his soul.
It reads the same but scales down the polysyllabic hoo-haa AI’s like to generate. “Intricate, complex, scintillating” and I like focusing on the hands of the architect. It feels nice.
The fun part is when a 1st draft paragraph is tagged to take an erotic spin. The third level of AI’s in the writing matrix now writes a prompt for the fourth level AI to make an erotic scene. Here’s the core of an erotic scene request, 1st draft.
<scene>The beach soon echoed with spirited transformations as Chuck’s demo on modern medication turned sexually comedic. A mix-up with experimental elixirs sparked laughter and playful chaos. Participants found themselves in hilarious situations, bodies morphing in unexpected ways. Shirts flapped open, and awkward bodily changes invoked comic relief. This scene requires 10 paragraphs to get to the climax, amid shirt-flapping peals of laughter, participants found their inhibitions eroding amidst the humorous chaos.</scene>
Don’t read the next if you’re offended by erections, but this is a translation to writing in a gay pulp fiction erotic context. First, the expanded scene, 2nd draft expansion: (the context is they are having a hospital party on the beach in gowns with friends who are ill, and ringleader Chuck has made a ‘medicine’ with a light dose of MDMA which can stimulate light body-morphing hallucinations, and Viagra which stimulates light cock-morphing realizations.
The beach was awash with mirth and chaos, Chuck’s demonstration quickly spiraling into a sexually comedic farce. The mix-up with the experimental elixirs sent waves of laughter rippling through the crowd as bodies began morphing in unexpected, hilarious ways. Tyler’s broad chest, usually confined by a tight tank top, now seemed to swell with every heartbeat, the fabric tearing slightly to reveal his heavily defined pecs covered in a light sheen of sweat. His shirt flapped open, exposing the rippling muscles that seemed to grow larger with each passing second.
Chuck, himself, was not spared from the mishap. His typically firm, compact abs bulged outwards, his skin stretching and tightening over newfound mass. The crowd roared with laughter, seeing his shirt buttons pop one by one, revealing the dense mat of curly chest hair beneath. The air filled with the rich, earthy scent of sweat and male musk, amplifying the comic absurdity of the scene. Shirts flapping open, Chuck's torso was now a roadmap of sinewy veins snaking across sculpted muscle.
Participants found themselves increasingly unrestrained, their inhibitions dissolving with each fit of laughter. Tyler and Lian, now shirtless, stood laughing, their broad torsos glistening under the sun. Tyler's pectorals, practically ballooning, jiggled slightly with his laughter, making the scene even more ludicrous. His engorged nipples stood erect against the cool breeze, further exaggerated by his sudden growth spurt.
The sounds of the beach transformed into a cacophony of slurping, wet, and slapping noises as bodies slid against one another in the comedic chaos. Jamal’s usually toned arms now flexed grotesquely, muscles expanding to oversized proportions, each vein standing out prominently against his dark skin. His deep, throaty chuckle resonated through the air, a stark bass contrast to the higher-pitched giggles around him.
Suddenly, Chuck's cock, already hard from the inadvertent arousal caused by the elixirs, stood rigid, the obscene features of his shaft on full display. The head, bulbous and glistening, seemed to pulse with every heartbeat. His balls, heavy and full, dangled between his legs, swaying slightly with his every movement. The sight elicited both shock and amusement, as participants couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer size and presence of Chuck’s manhood.
Lian, entranced by the absurdity, found himself inching closer to Tyler, his own cock straining against the fabric of his shorts. The throbbing shaft created an awkward bulge that seemed to grow more prominent with each passing second. He could feel the tightness, the heat radiating from his groin, mixing with the scent of sweat and arousal in the air. The head of his cock, peeking out slightly, glistened with pre-cum.
Tyler’s muscular frame stretched against Lian’s, their torsos grinding together, friction creating a deliciously illicit sensation that made Tyler groan. His cock, now fully hard, pressed against Lian’s thigh, the pulsing veins visible along its thick shaft. With each thrust, the sensation intensified, a mix of tightness and slickness, the cockhead flaring obscenely as it grazed the fabric of Lian’s shorts.
Jamal, unable to contain his amusement, roared with laughter as his own body transformed in hilarious ways. His cock, a formidable sight, twitched with each laugh, the obscene length and girth on full display. The throbbing shaft was slick with sweat, each vein bulging prominently. The glans, an angry purple, seemed to swell with each heartbeat, creating a visual feast of masculine arousal.
The comedy reached its peak when Chuck’s elixirs caused him and Tyler to brush up against each other, their cocks grazing painfully yet erotically. Chuck’s voice, strained and deep, uttered guttural groans with each accidental touch. The friction was maddening, each stroke, each glance, and they couldn’t seem to stop their bodies from reacting. The exaggerated masculinity, the sheer eroticism of the situation, heightened the senses of everyone around them.
“OH GOD, THIS IS...,” Chuck gasped, his voice breaking into a series of shuddering exclamations, “NNGGHH FU-FU-FU-FFFFUCK INNNNN SSSSHITTT!” The air was thick with laughter and moans, a jarring yet tantalizing blend of amusement and sexual tension.
The beachside scene had blurred the lines between humor and raw sexual energy, leaving participants breathless, their senses overwhelmed by the scintillating chaos around them.
Then back to simpler text, 2nd draft McCarthy
“Oops, wrong elixir!” Chuck exclaimed as the potion took hold. Aziz found himself a mite taller, his hospital gown suddenly far too short.
“I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR THIS!” he laughed, trying to adjust his scanty attire.
This is all Pure unedited AI output, and thus illustrates a mistake AI’s can make in this kind of complex stylized writing, which is why you’ll almost never (in these books) see unread, unfiltered work. The following phrase is the problem:
Chuck, himself, was not spared from the mishap. His typically firm, compact abs bulged outwards, his skin stretching and tightening over newfound mass.
The AI has a set of instructions of how to gay-pulp-porn any scene, with a few writer templates from my vast repository of gay pulp fiction. This template involves exaggeration of size, sensation, sounds, slickness, and so forth, described in minute detail, with time sense expanded enormously so progress of time seems to slow to a crawl. There were no trigger words in the prompt for more explicit detail. I don’t know about anyone else, perhaps is just my toolkit, but my prompt matrix has no problem describing even the most outrageous possible highly illegal absolutely abusive situations (I’m not interested generally in abusive illegal situations) without a hitch, in almost microscopic detail with a POV of observer, a participant, or in the organ of a participant, probably only possible with video cameras inserted odd spots.
The character Chuck is a handsome hairy Jewish man who works as an interior decorator living with his Wall Street husband James. This is 1986, they are religious about flat hard bodies. It would not be particularly erotic to see James’ abs bloat out. The AI, as clever as it can be with these scenes, misses the ability to know the ‘feeling’ of a gay man in this period, and having your abs blow up, while it might be amusing - it is - it’s not so much in an erotic way. It will have to be lightly rewritten, or regenerated.
That’s the other magic with LLM AI. Writers rewrite a lot, I should know. But with AI generating the writing, I can have 10 drafts written in parallel. I throw away 9, then move to the next content element. That’s 10 drafts of a chapter of a book with 60-90 paragraphs written in maybe 20 seconds.
Editing is the new critical skill, as well as accurately describing what you want from the LLM.
Enjoy.