Victoria English Blog

When I think about my blogs, I feel that while I lagged a bit behind at times, that I did receive plenty of feedback from the professor and my fellow classmates that really helped me feel more comfortable about blogging and I genuinely feel as if I have improved over the course of the semester!!
I also found that blogging DID help me with my writing capabilities as I was very uncomfortable at first about choosing my own prompts or discussing things more personal to me, especially in front of others, but this just helped me be more open and genuine, to not think so hard about being perfect and just allow things to flow at points.
As for ways to incorporating blogging into college courses, I don’t think there was anything really negative about my experience, so in terms of how other courses could use this, well… maybe have students blog about things related to the course but also that tie into their lives?? This one I’m honestly unsure of though.
All in all, I had a blast with this course and I really enjoyed being here!!!

Hello!! Hello!! Victoria… again haha, to be honest I don’t really know why I say that every time but it’s just a habit I suppose at this point. To be honest, I’m writing this with very little ideas rattling in my head about what to write about as I am very very distracted.

Why am I so distracted? Well this weekend, specifically this Sunday, I have a DnD campaign that I’ll be playing in and I am to say the least, very very excited!!

Since I am in two campaigns I’ll give a little bit of context why I am writing about this one, not that I am not excited about the other one mind you!! I absolutely adore both ones I’m in but it is just this one had to have been put on hold for a month or so, so it’s been quite a bit since I’ve played this one.

That’s… all I can really think to say to be honest, however, since I am feeling a bit confident considering that it’s the end of the semester and this will be my second to last blog (The last being the metablog of course) I would love to show off some art I made of my favorite NPC from that campaign!!! And that’s where I’ll leave off!! This semester has been very fun!!!

Here he is my favorite NPC a high elf named Varnath Iathrana!!!

Hello hello!! It’s Victoria, again, and today I wanted to talk about well.. another ad I saw and I know I’ve been doing this a lot, I actually wasn’t planning on doing another one of these but this ad felt so personal to me that I just had to talk about it. The ad I will be talking about this time is for an app/program named Everweave.

What made this one so personal to me was I frequently get a lot of ads over my passion of TTRPGs, so genuinely it caught me off guard when this advertisement promoted itself as an app/program for DnD in which you could have an AI bot as your Dungeon Master.

https://everweave.ai/#/

I have many thoughts about this and none of them are particularly positive in association, for my first thought, this sort of thing reminds me of a program that was rather popular a couple of years back or so, that of AI Dungeon. It is this fact that makes me rather anxious as the reason you probably haven’t heard of that particular program today is it lost it’s popularity over a big scandal in which there was a massive leak of data in which people’s supposedly private conversations with the bot were leaked. That’s precisely why I would urge caution around these sorts of apps and programs, as your data is stored somewhere and while that may not matter much for silly fictional stories, it DOES matter for your personal data such as emails and phone numbers.

Now onto my second, I believe having an AI Dungeon Master takes away from the fun of a game. As someone who plays DnD, what makes it so fun is having my DM know what I like, know where I would and wouldn’t like for my character’s story to go, have them spend time creating the adventure and world, have it brimming with life and love, all of these something I don’t think AI can replicate.

Finally, my last thought, something I consider to be very silly, these programs always have such elaborate and fantastical names. I just thought that was something interesting to point out, my guess is it aims to catch people’s interest and have it seem well.. fantastical haha!! Anyways that’s all I have to say.

Chiang, Ted. “Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art.” The New Yorker 100, 31 Aug. 2024, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/why-ai-isnt-going-to-make-art. Accessed 5 Mar. 2025.

Chakrabarty, Tuhin, et al. Art or Artifice? Large Language Models and the False Promise of Creativity, spring 2024, https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.14556.

Subramanian, Samanth. “Ai and the End of the Human Writer.” The New Republic, 22 Apr. 2024, newrepublic.com/article/180395/ai-artifical-intelligence-writing-human-creativity.

Jobin, Anna, et al. “The global landscape of AI ethics guidelines.” Nature Machine Intelligence, vol. 1, no. 9, 2 Sept. 2019, pp. 389–399, https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-019-0088-2.

Jabotinsky, Hadar Yoana, and Roee Sarel. “Co-authoring with an ai? ethical dilemmas and artificial intelligence.” SSRN Electronic Journal, Spring 2024, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4303959. Annotation comments: I believe these authors’ credential aren’t exactly the most set in stone but I believe these two have a passion for journalism as they have a few writings prior to this one. The nature of this work is to discipline writing and the uses of AI when it comes to such which ties into the claim of this journal that of how authors should be extremely careful when using AI for their stories. The use for my research project is I’m thinking this could give some good background into AI and the ethics of using it in stories, this is why I don’t mind so much if they’re not so credible as I’m using the context they give and not their opinions they put into the piece. Some limitations is that this article seems a bit biased against AI and they seem to constantly revise it making it a bit hard to cite so my apologies once again if this seems strange.

Sultan, Yertay, et al. “Analysis of modern strategies for using artificial intelligence technologies in the creation of fantasy content.” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2 Jan. 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqae090. Annotation comments: All of these authors are associated with Oxford University and they have collaborated on many journals together and they all seem to have a passion for writing. The nature of this writing and therefore also it’s “major claim” is that it aims to analyze strategies of using AI in art, primarily writing, and discuss the ethics, advantages, and disadvantages of using said strategies. The use of this journal to me can be both a tool for me, one I can analyze and fully incorporate into my research paper, one that really promotes thinking about ethics of using AI in stories. I don’t really see any biases or limitations to this work which is why I found it to be perfect.

Shukla, Girish. “KC Crowne Accused of Using AI in Latest Novel: A Growing Trend or Ethical Debate?” Times Now, 21 Jan. 2025, www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/books/features/kc-crowne-accused-of-using-ai-in-latest-novel-a-growing-trend-or-ethical-debate-article-117398205. Annotation comments: The authors credibility is actually very questionable despite having written articles before as they have no academic background, however, this is exactly why I wish to use this source. The way I intend to use this source is to use it as an example of how the public and those who are fantasy enthusiast feel about authors using AI in their writings and just what kind of questions it brings up that those in the public wish to know. I also actually intend to question and argue with this article as I feel it leans towards fear mongering and not how I feel we should view AI with, as when you are in a state of fear one might tend to act irrationally. Which brings me to the last points that of the main idea of this article and that would be to raise outrage against an author where it hasn’t even been proved yet if she truly did use AI or not, although, to give credit the evidence points to yes.

Wilson, Stephen. “Computer Art: Artificial Intelligence and the Arts.” Leonardo, vol. 16, no. 1, 1983, pp. 15–20. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1575036. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025. Annotation comments: I believe Wilson’s credibility to be very stable as he has written many pieces before and seems to have a big interest in that of artificial intelligence and that of the arts, he also appears to have had a hand in writing a couple of books. The nature of this particular work of Wilson’s is that of examining the history of computer generation and it’s assistance with art, it is because of this I aim to use this primarily for background. I believe Wilson’s work will help me by providing context on why some may feel the need to use AI to help with their creativity and even give some credit to how it can perhaps be used ethically which can help further bring up discussion on what ethics TO rely on when using AI for help with creative means.

My final proposal is I wish to engage with the question, what are they ethics of using AI in the writing of fantasy, especially with the production of sequels and what does that have to do with our creativity??
As for my sources, I’ve noticed that when I look at them for the most part they all play as background and tools for me to examine and use to further my discussion, I also have a few that I can use as motives, and actually most of my sources are a combination of these. I’m hoping as I go along I can add a few that I can a few I can argue with and also maybe one to two exhibits, I want to use all that I can to form my research paper. Each of these five sources that I have gathered are actually of great importance to me and all besides one, that of the article by Chiang, I believe will form the main parts of my paper and research. However, none are as important as that of “Analysis of modern strategies for using artificial intelligence technologies in the creation of fantasy content.” by Sultan et al and “Co-authoring with an ai? ethical dilemmas and artificial intelligence.” by Jabotinsky and Roee, these I believe are very important as they address the main points of the question I wish to engage with.

Hello hello!! It’s Victoria again!! This post actually ties into my previous one about TTRPGs a bit or well maybe actually a lot, as you see this post will actually be about why I don’t like the company that, I really hesitate to say owns but that is the word that fits best here, DnD. Actually when I think of it, a lot of my grievances could probably tie into that of Hasbro as well, which I’m pretty sure Wizards of The Coast falls under, I’m not really too sure on how corporate umbrellas work really so if anyone is I’d love to learn more about it!!

DISCLAIMER: These are all things I’ve heard from other people and any links I may reference could be biased, this is… NEWS after all.

Okay… so my very first reason for despising the company is actually the very first thing I learned about them, that of a licensing issue over DnD (I told you it was related to TTRPGs!!). To be honest, I didn’t really understand what was happening at first, I had to have my best friend Jenny explain it to me as I’m.. again… not the most knowledgeable when it comes to company and legal topics. HOWEVER, after I had it explained I designate this as the very first reason why I do not particularly enjoy this company and I will do my best to describe the issue… and then link a newspaper article that can probably explain it better than me. Okay so how I would describe it is basically Wizards of The Coast wanted royalties for anyone who would stream DnD, which I can see how one might not necessarily care or see an issue with this but well.. my friend really put this better than me so I’ll let you come to your own opinion if you decide you want to read the article.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2023/01/19/dungeons-and-dragons-open-game-license-wizards-of-the-coast-explained/

For reason number two, that would be the time they sent The Pinkertons after someone for a mistake THEY made. Again for some brief context, they accidentally sent this one creator a pack of cards that wasn’t supposed to be public and they didn’t even ask before sending The Pinkertons to retrieve it.

https://www.polygon.com/23695923/mtg-aftermath-pinkerton-raid-leaked-cards

For reason number three, this would also be a Hasbro issue as this was the time they laid off a bunch of people right before the holidays, which is… very messed up in my personal opinion.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robwieland/2023/12/13/hasbro-layoffs-affect-wizards-of-the-coast/

And for the final reason, this would actually tie into that of AI!!! This would be the time Wizards of The Coast was caught using AI art after having previously DENIED said accusations and stating they were “Anti AI”. I actually find this one to be the most interesting as it is actually very similar to what I wish to talk about for my research project, afterall this is the use of AI in fantasy based content.

https://gamerant.com/hasbro-ceo-ai-use-confirmation-dungeons-and-dragons-magic-the-gathering/

So in conclusion… I’m not really a big fan of Wizards of The Coast OR Hasbro, which really sucks considering how much I love DnD and a lot of different franchises that fall under Hasbro’s name. All I can say is… It’s a good thing DnD 5e rules are all over the internet for free so you don’t HAVE to purchase any of their products if you don’t want to.

Chiang, Ted. “Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art.” The New Yorker 100, 31 Aug. 2024, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/why-ai-isnt-going-to-make-art. Accessed 5 Mar. 2025.

Chakrabarty, Tuhin, et al. Art or Artifice? Large Language Models and the False Promise of Creativity, spring 2024, https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.14556.

Sultan, Yertay, et al. “Analysis of modern strategies for using artificial intelligence technologies in the creation of fantasy content.” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2 Jan. 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqae090. Annotation comments: All of these authors are associated with Oxford University and they have collaborated on many journals together and they all seem to have a passion for writing. The nature of this writing and therefore also it’s “major claim” (Although I don’t really see a claim per say so hints why I’ve combined these), is that it aims to analyze strategies of using AI in art, primarily writing, and discuss the ethics, advantages, and disadvantages of using said strategies. The use of this journal to me can be both a tool for me but also an exhibit, one I can analyze and fully incorporate into my research paper, one that really promotes thinking about ethics of using AI in stories. I don’t really see any biases or limitations to this work which is why I found it to be perfect.

Jabotinsky, Hadar Yoana, and Roee Sarel. “Co-authoring with an ai? ethical dilemmas and artificial intelligence.” SSRN Electronic Journal, Spring 2024, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4303959. Annotation comments: I believe these authors’ credential aren’t exactly the most set in stone but I believe these two have a passion for journalism as they have a few articles prior to this one. The nature of this work is just like the former to discipline writing and the uses of AI when writing which ties into the claim of this article that of how authors should be extremely careful when using AI for their stories. The use for my research project is I’m thinking this could give some good background into AI and the ethics of using it in stories, this is why I don’t mind so much if they’re not so credible as I’m using the context they give and not their opinions they put into the piece. Some limitations is that this article seems a bit biased against AI and they seem to constantly revise it making it a bit hard to cite so my apologies if this seems strange.

Hello!! It’s Victoria, again, I actually wanted to take a brief step away from AI and actually let you get to know… well me for a bit!! In order to do that I wanted to discuss one of my biggest passions of all time, that of TTRPGs. Now, I really do mean it when I say I’m a fan of these types of games, I could probably go into detail about several different ones if I had the time, but to make things simple for this post I think I’ll talk about my all time favorite, one of the classics, that of DnD.

I really adore Dungeons and Dragons (Clarification: NOT the company that currently owns it… I won’t get into that.) as it was the very first TTRPG I have ever tried and I will never forget that experience. I assure you though that this is not the only reason that DnD is my favorite, in fact another one that I believe is very imperative, is just how creative you can get with the many many options (even with just the Player’s Handbook) you are given when creating a character, it really gives you the opportunity to explore yourself as a person.

To show this off and give you a little information about how DnD works, I wish to show off my favorite class and race of this game!! To start off with class, my favorite class would be that of Rogue because I like how they’re both really good for combat strategy, puzzles, and roleplay!! Now, one thing with DnD and all sorts of TTRPGs is with every class you can choose a subclass and for the Rogue, you get your subclass at level 3 (you can reach up to Level 20). My favorite subclass for the Rogue would be that of Arcane Trickster, I really recommend reading about it and if you had any questions about mechanics I’d love to answer!!

https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/rogue:arcane-trickster

Now moving onto my favorite races of DnD, my all time favorite would be that of the Tiefling because of how creative I can be with their designs and I find their lore to be the most intriguing!! I also recommend reading about them!!

https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/lineage:tiefling

Now that isn’t my only favorite I actually have quite a few in fact, I also really love Elves, High elves and Eladrin are my preferences really but I adore them all, and finally one of my other favorites is that of the Triton. Honestly just picking these was hard enough, there are so many different combinations you can choose, you can even multiclass!! That is honestly why I adore DnD so much, anyway that’s what I wanted to discuss!!