<![CDATA[joyomancy - Personal Log]]>Mon, 13 Apr 2026 09:10:46 +0900Weebly<![CDATA[A Natural 20 for Valentine's Day]]>Fri, 13 Feb 2026 15:00:00 GMThttps://www.joyomancy.com/personal/a-natural-20-for-valentines-dayIn Japan, chocolates are given on February 14th (girls to boys) and on March 14th (boys to girls). What started out as a sweet Valentine kind of thing imported from the West was eventually overtaken by massive social obligation to everyone in your life (to the great benefit of chocolate companies of course). Recently that's trending down towards people just buying some fancy chocolates to treat themselves and calling it a day.

These chocolates from my mother-in-law look very much like the 20-sided dice I use in running my Dungeons & Dragons RPG games. She could not have known how apt her gifting was, so I think it an amazingly sweet bit of serendipity.

It will take me some very thoughtful shopping (and a high Insight roll) to return the favor for next time I meet her--
Picture
A critical hit! rolled with Advantage--
]]><![CDATA[The Dragonflies of Obon]]>Wed, 13 Aug 2025 09:06:36 GMThttps://www.joyomancy.com/personal/the-dragonflies-of-obonLanterns drift on the river,
their light trembling
like breath held too long.

A soft wind moves
through the tassels of ripening rice,
whispering to no one,
to everyone.

The red dragonflies of the season
hover in erratic circles,
keepers of the threshold,
their wings catch
the last fire of the day.

The air feels porous—
as if something unseen
has stepped into it,
paused,
and gone on ahead.
〜the joyomancer〜
]]><![CDATA[An Ogre in the Oval Office]]>Wed, 12 Feb 2025 04:51:27 GMThttps://www.joyomancy.com/personal/an-ogre-in-the-oval-officeAs a D&D RPG Gamemaster, I feel it's my job to give players an immersive fantasy experience that really takes them out of this world and into the realm of the game, as if they had fallen right through a wardrobe and landed in Narnia...

I'm also a very political person who believes that we all need a safe place to take short breaks from our political reality for mental and social health.

But the current U.S. administration is making this structured escapism really hard to manage.  I mean, as Gamemaster I have to play the bad guys that the players are up against.  But Trump and his cabinet members are such stereotypical caricatures of an obviously lying, grasping, disagreeable, spiteful, vengeful, villainous goon squad that it's hard for me to maintain immersive separation between my fantasy goblins, etc., and real-world political speeches and actions.

One of my new groups just met the goblin boss, and my role-playing that was once pretty engagingly funny and ornery badness in past games, now just feels like I am plagiarizing tweets from the president.

It feels like really unfortunate timing to have started this particular adventure...

and a bad time for the real world on Earth, obviously.]]><![CDATA[Dungeons & Dragons:  Honor, Humor, and Heart Among Thieves]]>Sun, 16 Apr 2023 15:00:00 GMThttps://www.joyomancy.com/personal/dungeons-and-dragons-honor-humor-and-heart-among-thieves
Just watched the new Dungeons & Dragons movie… It was seriously fun.

It wasn’t a grand epic storyline and it didn’t take itself too seriously. In many ways it authentically captured how things often play out in a real live session of the D&D tabletop role playing game…

It had some excitement and genuine heartwarming moments, and plenty of well-balanced chances for laughter… the cast, especially Chris Pine, carried that deftly.

Don’t get me wrong, I love an epic Lord of the Rings story, but since the dark gritty Game of Thrones style completely overtook all contemporary fantasy storytelling, it’s very refreshing to just have some fun again!
And if you think you might enjoy watching some total beginners play the classic game of D&D, check out these live-play videos of my international group of roleplayers adventuring in a highly social, low-combat setting.  Laugh along with us (or at us) as the story unfolds...
Dungeons & Dragons movie display at theater
"Here Chris, have some 'lembas.'"
]]><![CDATA[Snow Strawberries]]>Fri, 14 Apr 2023 01:19:42 GMThttps://www.joyomancy.com/personal/snow-strawberriesGave these unusual "snow strawberries" a try...  intriguing to look at on the outside, unfortunately boring to taste on the inside.  Well, sometimes life is like that...  at least I got an interesting picture and anecdote out of it.
white Snow strawberries in a bowl, sliced in half showing light pink blush outside and pure white inside
the fabled white Snow Strawberry
]]><![CDATA[Fun with chatbots on Character AI]]>Thu, 06 Apr 2023 15:00:00 GMThttps://www.joyomancy.com/personal/fun-with-chatbots-on-character-aiI've personally really been enjoying creating specialty chatbots on the Character AI platform as focused advisors and assistants.  I've now got chatbots to help me write short business writings, create ESL English examples and quizzes, and help me with world building and character development for my fantasy story lines.  I even decided to compete with myself professionally and create a chatbot who gives oracle card readings...  honestly, it felt kind of liberating.

I also use ChatGPT for all these things, but what I like about Character AI is that if I set up their style and knowledge correctly, they will pretty consistently maintain that in their output automatically.  Also they can have spoken voices and generate their own art images for me (super useful for my world builders and card reader).

Anyway, you can try them freely from here:

https://www.joyomancy.com/chatbots.html

And by the way, if you want to see what internal prompts they are following, you can just look at their full settings in the menu.  They are not hiding any secrets...

and if you are inspired to try creating your own, you can learn how with this free video tutorial I did with my friend and authentic business consultant George Kao:

Create your own chatbots on Character AI

Learn how to train and direct your chatbots with advanced settings, add audio and image generation, and use Character AI's most unique feature: multi-character ROOMS!
Check out the full video tutorial series for free!
]]><![CDATA[How now, Shakespeare...]]>Tue, 04 Apr 2023 15:00:00 GMThttps://www.joyomancy.com/personal/shakespeare-chatbotFor the historical Renaissance literature, theatre and drama fans out there, I just created, tested, and trained a new William Shakespeare chatbot that can hold an extended conversation in pseudo-authentic Elizabethan-style English language.  He's not perfect, but he schooled me on the arts of poetry and love, so go see what he's got for you...

Please enjoy, and deliver unto him my fair regards...
AI generated illustration of a young William Shakespeare sitting in a garden with pen and book in hand
Chat with William Shakespeare and see that "to be or not to be" is no longer the question you thought it was...
And if you happen to have a ChatGPT Plus subscription over at OpenAI, 
you can use the GPT-4 version of the Bard of Avon there if you prefer:

William Shakespeare GPT
]]><![CDATA[strawberries & haiku]]>Tue, 07 Mar 2023 11:45:52 GMThttps://www.joyomancy.com/personal/strawberries-haikubeautiful and sweet
strawberries of this morning
bursting from within
fresh strawberries in a bowl, sliced in half
]]><![CDATA[Willow (Season 1) fantasy adventure & fun!]]>Thu, 19 Jan 2023 15:00:00 GMThttps://www.joyomancy.com/personal/willow-series-season-1Wrapped up Disney's new Willow series...  my mixed feelings at the start intensified in both directions as it went along until the 4th episode really turned me around and the 5th decisively won me over.  I had stuck with it because decent fantasy is hard to come by, and now I'm glad I did (and hoping for a second season!).

The YA young adult angst and interactions were definitely annoying at first, and the modern songs in the soundtrack jarring in the fantasy setting.  But the characters do develop and really start growing on you, as does the sense of tense camaraderie, humor, and modern language/music that Disney seems to have borrowed from Marvel.

​To me it very much had the feeling of a D&D campaign with its diverse cast of main characters who start out at first level and grow together through various challenges of combat, magic, questing, and soul-searching...  It was adventurous, fun, and kinda cool.  By the end I thoroughly enjoyed it, and if you are a young adult or just tired of the serious heavy dystopian doom that hangs over contemporary storytelling, you might also love it.  I definitely recommend at least giving it a try--
]]><![CDATA[Enjoy a Marvel-ous Holiday with The Guardians of the Galaxy!]]>Fri, 23 Dec 2022 15:00:00 GMThttps://www.joyomancy.com/personal/marvel-holiday-special-2022Happy Holidays everyone!  If you have Disney+  I can heartily recommend The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.  It's completely ridiculous and also quirkily heartwarming in just the way that Marvel seems to excel at managing...  and it's got Bacon.  What more could you ask for?!
And by the way, if you celebrate any of the many not-christmas holidays, this is offbeat and irreverent enough concerning its Christmastime setting that I'm pretty sure you can enjoy it too. In fact, you may especially enjoy the original Christmas song in the first scenes, as did I (...I'm personally still not a huge Christmas fan...)
]]>