Lunar Obverse - Page 14 of 276 - The bright side of a Moon

Adding healthy things

exercise

Haven’t been eating very well lately. Haven’t been eating much at all, actually, since I’ve been sick and my appetite has been low to non-existent. Most of what I’ve been putting in my mouth is microwaved burritos, simple sandwiches, or things like cherry turnovers, chocolate bars, tortilla chips, and the like. And I can recognize that my body, feeling sick, and then putting food of questionable nutritional value into it, just makes it feel worse in the long run. Not good; it’s a downward spiral, the opposite of a virtuous cycle.

What am I trying to do to change that? I am abiding by one of the best rules I’ve ever learned from dieticians and nutrionists: instead of removing unhealthy-but-loved things from my diet, creating a lack and a hole that is unsatisfying to me, I will aim to add things that are healthy on top of what I’m already eating. And by adding things to my diet I am hopefully satisfying my hunger enough that it has at least a chance to squeeze out the unhealthy things, because I can only eat so much, y’know?

Last night, late, around 9:30 or 10:00 pm, I got hungry, and wasn’t sure what I had in the fridge that I could eat. I worried it was too late, too close to bedtime, but still didn’t want to go to bed hungry. I went downstairs, and on the way down, realized I could make a little charcuterie plate. I had cheese slices, pickles, carrots, some ham slices… it was the perfect idea. Light enough, but I could include good, fiber and nutrient-rich, things. I cut up some carrots, some celery, and then also included a couple of slices of that salty black forest ham. I poured a little jalepeno Ranch dressing into a cup to dip the carrots (and, frankly, the ham) into.

Overall it was a better meal for the additions. Instead of me nuking another carb and fat laden burrito, I got a nice spread of items. I felt mentally better and physically better.

Today, for lunch, I fell back on the burrito thing. But, as I did last night, I sliced up a carrot and ate them along the cheese, salsa, and sour cream topped burrito. And again, I felt the better for it.

This “add things that are healthy” idea is a good one and I plan on doing it going forward as much as possible. Can’t wait to feel better overall.

I’m also walking for at least 30 minutes a day. That hasn’t yielded as much benefit as I’d hoped but at least I’m getting outside, getting some fresh air, and moving around a bit every day. It’s not vigorous exercise but it’s better than sitting in my computer chair all day, which is what I’m likely to do if I don’t force myself to add exercise to my daily routine. Adding good things is the rule and it works for physical activity as well as meals and food.

Social media socialism

General

Over on the clock app I’m participating in the “let’s pay each other’s debts off” trend by following people, watching their videos all the way through, reposting them, and commenting on some of them. Engagement. The idea is that creators in the tier that can monetize their videos (if they have over 10K followers) earn money with even short views of their content, and some folks have done the math to know exactly how many qualified views they need to get the money they need to pay off their debts.

I’m participating and hoping I can eventually get paid for views. It would take a big big push for me, though, since I started with about 30 followers. I’m about 10000 short, give or take, from monetizing anything on that app. So it sort of feels like buying a lottery ticket in terms of how likely it is that my barely-maintained short video platform account will ever reach the lofty heights where I could see money from the program.

But I’m one hundred percent OK with helping other people out, so I’ll do my part. As long as I’m scrolling the app, if and when I come across one of those videos, I will let it play, tap some buttons, and say hello before I scroll past. Is it an indictment of our society that the vast majority of videos I see are from moms who are women of color? Seems like an indication of severe wealth inequality to me. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the algorithm showing me a reflection of my own biases and whatnot.

I’ve never really pursused social media with the idea of getting a huge following. I’m not entirely sure what I’d do if I had one, or how I would react. I think the social media account I had that had the largest following was my Twitter account, which topped out around 1400-ish? And I only got there because I joined in on a follow-fest by a group of writers who would make pushes for members to get over 1000 followers. It felt weird and did not feel organic, whatever that means.

This might be the case where I judge others by their actions and myself by my intentions. There’s a term for that mental blindspot but it’s escaping me at the moment. What I mean is, I see accounts with lots of followers and assume they got that big an audience purely through creating valuable and engaging content, but when I see that I need to join in follow campaigns where I’m getting tons of followers just as a virtuous feedback loop, irrespective of my own personality or content, I feel shame because it feels slimy. Ugh. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself.

This blog is my longest-running project and I have no idea how to grow the audience. On the other hand, if I had to change what I write or the topics I write about in order to get more eyeballs, that would not be worth it to me. I love having a place where I can just write whatever I like.

I’m glad you’re here, in fact. Thank you for reading this. Say hello if you’d like.

I’ll confine my sell-out to the clickety-clock app, I promise.

A random Saturday post

Daily Story Project

Here I am, at the keyboard once again, hoping I can come up with 500 words on anything at all. It’s Saturday. I thought about writing a morning meditation this morning while sipping my coffee drink (I take 15 ounces of brewed basic coffee and add 2-2.5 ounces of half-and-half, 2-2.5 ounces of chai concentrate, and about 30 grams of chocolate syrup; I call it “coffee”) but immediately got mentally bogged down on this whole D&D city map that’s taking up my entire mental space but that I don’t really want to write about.

Today I did some laundry, ate a microwaved burrito and a bunch of snacks. Watched some YouTubers play The Long Dark. Went for a walk in the rain and kiiiiinda made my cough worse (dagnabit.) And now I’m watching Jenny Nicholson’s four-hour video about the unsuccessful Star Wars Hotel, which is amazing and I’m so glad Jenny is still releasing things on YouTube.

I’m in a holding pattern as far as work is concerned. No real new news there, not anything I want to share publically. Send work if you have some, please, I’m still looking and applying and waiting for someone, anyone, to respond.

Oh another thing I did today is related to the above: I shaved my head and beard. It’s more hopeful, though. If I interview I want to be clean and professional and ready. That didn’t take too much time, though.

Dad felt good enough to walk over to the bar, and he spent several hours there. He was probably happy to get out of the house after being so sick lately. I’m glad he went and happy to learn they’d missed him being around.

It got chilly and, as mentioned, even rained a bit today. I turned the heat back on, mostly for dad but also a bit for me. I’m still a little cold but maybe that’s me being sick? Can’t tell. Oh, I suppose I could take my temperature…

Jenny’s video is comprehensive and scathing. Even as much of a Star Wars fan as I am, I knew that that damned hotel was not something I would want to do, even if I could afford it, which I could not ever. And it looked like a sub-par experience.

Cough is lingering. Maybe this is allergies combined with a respiratory thing; pollen has been out of control lately. My car has been covered in a fine yellow dust for days. Kinda glad for the rain to wash some of that shit off, because there’s no way in the Nine Hells of Baator that I’m going to go to the effort to wash my car. Last time I ran it through a car wash it knocked some of the trim off. Super annoying.

So, yeah, after this next chapter of Jenny’s video (I’m up to part 10 of 20) I think I’m going to just get some water, tell dad goodnight, make sure the heat is set to a decent overnight level, and go to bed.

G’night, readers. Thank you for being here.

A walk in the neighborhood

Daily Story Project

I try to walk daily. At least one walk of 20+ minutes, every day. My overall exercise goal is 45 minutes daily, though, so I typically go for longer walks to try to get it all done in one go. If I don’t, I can usually make up the rest of the exercise goal by another shorter walk, or general housekeeping (laundry, cleaning, going up and down the stairs, etc.)

Lately I’ve been sick; coughing and nasal congestion, ugh. Not fun. This is the second time this year I’ve had a respiratory illness and I didn’t usually get these that often before the pandemic started. I did test for Covid when this first hit but it came back negative, so my streak of “never tested positive for Covid” continues. But, yeah, this is probably Covid or one of the other stupidly-ridiculously-contagious respiratory infections that are going around, happy happy joy joy.

That being said I did go for a walk this afternoon. Because of the way my brain works, I have worked out several loops of varying length. I have developed these over time and they all meet certain criteria: the paths, when mapped, can’t cross over themselves at any point, and can’t repeat any section. I don’t know why, y’all, that’s just how it works, and by that I mean both the pattern and my brain. I do have some parts that carve out circles inside of larger circles but they don’t cross, I swear. The paths get kinda weird but it’s one big shape.

Side note: what’s the topological or geometrical word for that kind of shape? I can’t recall and it’s kinda distracting. But I’m writing this as one big long typing session so I don’t want to break off to do a search for it. Maybe it’ll come to me by the end.

I try to alternate whether I do the loops clockwise or counter-clockwise but I think my walk tonight started in the same direction as the one yesterday; into the neighborhood, away from the major street. I had my earbuds in, listening to a podcast, as I do. I had my walking shoes on (Brooks Adrenaline GTS) and walking shorts. I did take my phone, which I normally don’t do; usually just my watch and driver’s license.

The long straight section this loop starts with is on a secondary road, mostly residential but there’s one building I suspect is an office building, or maybe it’s housing for elderly folks or folks in treatment? There are often those minibus kind of buses in the parking lot. Almost every time I walk past, I think, I should look this up on Google Maps to find out what it is. Next interesting building is a fire station, and today the firefighters (all men as far as I could tell) were out washing the engine, which felt wholesome. They waved and I waved back.

I passed an Asian temple of some kind, private, gated, a non-descript modern building. A bit later, turn down a side street, a couple of turns on an unimproved road, and past a park. Tonight I wasn’t going past the park; I turned to cut the loop short. Ten minutes later I’m on another unimproved road (that’s how you can tell I live in SouthEast Portland; we don’t get pavement nor sidewalks) and then past the fenced in yard filled with chickens, a couple dozen of them.

The chickens pay me no attention.

Another long walk on the road (no sidewalks here either), avoiding the ocassional car going past, listening to the guys on the podcast talk about tech and cars. When I get back to the main street, I realize that I need some extra time to make sure I can close my rings, so I add a long in-and-out stretch into a residential area. The sidewalks are also occupied by a group of neighborhood kids on bikes and scooters and they don’t seem to know how to avoid me, so I have to actively avoid them. I don’t mind at all, they’re not being hostile, just energetic and innocent.

Done with that section, I go back to the main road. I pause the podcast because it, plus the noise of traffic, are too loud for my stuffed ears. And soon I’m back home again.

Maps and Territories

DnD, meta

I’m in “prep new D&D campaign material” mode because I’ve got a game in two weeks. I’ve been prodding my players about what they plan on doing so I can be ready with material for them. Honestly I just need an encounter or two plus some lore and rumor drops to get them started, I don’t need much.

But I am also prepping maps for locations they might visit. I’m working on a map of the big city in my campaign, Kopno’domas. It’s going to be my Viriconium, my Waterdeep, my Lankhmar. The greatest city in the world. A big sprawling urban setting filled with shining palaces, grungy back allies, and buccolic pastures, decadent and squalid in roughly equal measure, spanning a lively river and nestled up against a small mountain range. This city has lived in my head for almost 15 years and I’m excited to put it on the table for the players to see. It’s not real if it’s just notes; only what happens at the table counts.

If that sounds like I’m overprepping, let me expand on that a bit. Sure, mapping out a location on the possibility of characters going there might take a lot of time. But in this case I am working off of those aforementioned 15 years of dreaming, which means 15 years of sketches, notes, revisions, and additions. A pile of neighborhood names, perusing the google results for “how many people per building in Medieval Europe.” Notes about noble houses, their goals and schemes. Random tables about urban encounters and “what building is that?” Me writing flash fiction set there. It’s largely just me taking those notes, picking the ideas I like, and crafting a cool map in Inkarnate.

(Side note: I’m taking notes on this map while I make it; I plan on turning those notes in to a nice long “How to map a city in Inkarnate” post down the road.)

Just Start, Over and Over

I’ve spent, however, most of today creating new maps in Inkarnate, fiddling around with settings, not liking it, deleting it and starting over. I don’t know why I am having such a mental block about this? I kept quibbling about the various different versions I’ve sketched out of this fictional place and how they don’t all match. Can I make them match? Should I honor the earlier versions, or just wing it and make up something new? Can I reconcile the versions, or can I retcon the earlier ones with some kind of obfuscation?

I suspect it’s my perfectionist nature. If I can’t make the perfect map for this imaginary city no one cares about but me, then why even bother? Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetorical question. I know the answer already.

Having an imperfect thing is better than not having a thing at all. And my players won’t be judging the map on their ideal version of this city they’ve never thought about before; they’re just going to be happy to be in this city, stomping around and getting in to Good Trouble.

Navigating the Territory

Always a lesson for me when I stop to examine what I’m doing. This time the lesson is: give yourself the permission to be imperfect. Relax your standards and just start. Get something down, mess around with it, and put it into play. none of the notes are the game. None of the rules and books are the game. Even the character sheets aren’t the game. The game is what happens when we all sit at the table, talk to each other, bounce off each others’ ideas, and see how the dice are rolling tonight.

Kopno’domas started in my imagination but it won’t be a real place until me and the players have adventures in it. My maps, my notes, are just a guidepost, pointing in the direction of the gameplay. The map is not the territory.

We, the players, are both map and territory.

Today is the next best option to start

Freelancing

I wrote a lot today but none of it for the blog. I’m signing up for a bunch of different platforms for writers to post and get paid for their writing. Nearly every application had a bunch of essay questions to answer, and wanted me to write original, unpublished articles as a writing sample. They did all say that I retained the copyright on what I wrote (I would not sign up for any site that didn’t do this), but I will wait to post any of those samples elsewhere until I hear back about the applications.

The sites I’ve signed up for so far are:

Simily

I shared my application answers for Simily last night. The pay isn’t great, at $0.02 per unique view. So I will still need to promote my stories, engage with the rest of the community, and write a lot before it’s worth it. But this is the state of things: can’t get paid if I don’t write. And once I’ve built up a few popular stories, I have increased my portfolio for future freelancing. I’m building my public presence.

Vocal

Vocal appears to also be a platform for creative writing. It’s more structured, in that they have communities for specific topics or genres, like Art, Business, or Technology. They pay $3.80 per 1000 views, less than 20% of what Simily pays, but they do also offer the ability for readers to subscribe ($2.99/month) for recurring income, and accept tips, so perhaps overall it’s better pay.

I have a feeling, though, I’m not going to be able to use Vocal. Their payment is through Stripe, and Stripe seems to have a lot of niggling details that need to be taken care of before they’ll let a business accept payment. I had to upload a copy of my government ID to Stripe, I had to name my business, my business name had to match the URL of my website (it doesn’t), and the last thing I heard from Stripe, they were reviewing whether my business was using crowdfunding, which is a Stripe no-no. I’ve appealed but it seems like a lot of hoops and I may have missed too many of those jumps. Time will tell.

Textbroker

I have in the past applied to some of these sites before, back in 2016. I shared a string of posts where I shared my weekly progress in freelancing, which wasn’t that much at the time. (I’d been inspired at the time by Nicole Dieker, who regularly shared her income from writing as an act of transparency.) One of those previous sites was Textbroker, which I only knew because my password manager had an old login saved. But when I tried to sign in with that email and password, it said it sent a verification email to that address that I had to use before I could log in. I waited for a while and no email; it’s been hours later, and still nothing has shown up for that address. So I created a new account.

Textbroker has editorial, grammar, and punctuation guidelines, which to be honest is a good thing. I took their grammar/spelling test and I think I did pretty well! Then I had to write an original 250-300 word article, which took me a couple of hours. I wanted to avoid filler but also wanted to show off my style, so I overthunk it (as I do.) Still I’m happy with what I submitted and hope to hear back from them!

ClearVoice

The last one I applied to today was ClearVoice. They are a middleman who connects clients with freelancers, and if the list of categories and topics is any guide they deal with just about everything: white papers, reviews, lifestyle, sports, gaming, marketing and press releases… and more. I had to select a couple of niches when setting up my profile, so I chose blog and copywriting, and guides.

Since they don’t pay the writers directly (they take a cut) they allow writers to set their own prices. I’m technically a beginner, technically, so I set a low-ish rate: $0.10 – $0.30/word. We’ll see if I get accepted. I did link a wide variety of articles from my blog to give them the idea of my writing.

This wave of applications from me feels like a big step, and also frustrates me because I should have done this a long time ago. Or at least months ago. Or yesterday. But after all those possible times for me to do it, today is the next best option.

Now I wait… or keep finding places like this and apply. Or start working up articles I can post. OK, OK, I’ve got options.

My style and goals (as a writer)

Freelancing

Today I’m taking steps to trying to find paying outlets for my writing. Don’t worry, I’m not going to start charging money here. This place will always be free and open, and I will never put up ads or use affiliate links here (I have tried that in the past, so you might find old posts talking about that.)

No, I found a video that listed platforms that pay writers, especially beginners. I’m not exactly a beginner writer but getting paid for that writing has largely eluded me. So I’m on a quest! My goal this week is, on top of my normal job-hunting, to apply to all the platforms I can find, try them out, and see which, if any, work for me and my style.

The first one listed by Zulie Rane (that YouTube creator) is Medium. Um, let me set that one aside for now. I need to research who their current partners are. On to the next one! The next one is a site called Simily, which I have never heard of before.

I signed up for a reader account there, read through the FAQ, and was immediately impressed that their focus is not on how-tos, listicles, and SEO-packed explainers, but is on creative writing, particularly fiction and genre (fantasy, sci-fi, romance.) That’s refreshing! They’re asking me for writing samples, which I can pull from my blog, that’s not a problem. I started filling out the application.

And stopped in my tracks. They were asking deep introspective questions. I couldn’t half-ass this. I needed to think through my answers and be a bit more personal. Reader, as you might be able to tell, this is my butter zone. I live for personal, introspective, and empathetic writing.

What follows are the main application questions, and my answers. Tell me if you think this describes what you read here or not. I’m genuinely curious what y’all think.

What is your goal as a writer?

Through introspective and personal writing, I want to draw on my observations, desires, and anxieties to connect with readers and bring them into a specific scene or setting. I want to create understandable and flawed characters who have to balance their fears with their goals, who know the right thing to do but doubt their strength to carry it off, in worlds where it feels like there are no easy answers. I want to continue to examine themes like friendship, loneliness, the sacred and the secular, hone my voice, and share it with anyone who also wants connection.

How would you describe your writing style?

I have honed my writing style over the years to be concise and focused; I try to use exactly the words necessary to create understanding in the reader’s mind. I aim to illuminate personal, empathetic feelings and describe familiar, ordinary events as well as the unusual chaos of a simple life. I draw on observations and include just enough to bring the reader into the scene. I’m great at creating a setting, and relating natural and authentic dialogue from the people in the story.

If you could wave a magic wand, what would you hope to achieve with your writing?

I want to reach people and touch their hearts and minds, especially the people who wouldn’t ordinarily find my work. I would love to reach an expanded audience. I love when I hear back from anyone that they have read my words, even if they don’t agree with the point I think I’m making because I don’t always know what audiences want, but I can learn from every story I tell and the responses to that story.

Why do you want to join Simily as an author?

I’ve been a writer since I had a typewriter as a toy when I was a child. But finding an audience for my writing has always taken a backseat to getting and keeping a job. I’m now on a journey to try to make more of my writing and get it out in front of new readers, to help me hone my skill at writing things people want to read. I’ve got stories to tell; just need folks that want to read them.

Tell us more about how you hope to use the platform.

I’m very excited by the focus on creative writing. There are plenty of platforms out there for how-tos, technical articles, paraphrasing news items, that kind of thing. It’s rare to see a platform like Simily that is just for fiction, essays, personal stories and flights of fantasy. If you visit my blog, the archives go back 20 years and in total, my writing has always had a creative, authentic style. I would happily participate in Simily’s community of writers and readers if it meant sharing what I have and learning more from others.

Provide three writing samples

The three writing samples I gave them were:

The Princess and The Brewer – a short piece of fiction that drew from my 2013 D&D campaign setting.

That was a 4.7 bar – a recounting of an actual happy hour with my best friend recently. Oh and a bar fight broke out.

The internal struggle to maintain – Musings about loneliness, hope, and atheism vs. spirituality. Wishing won’t make it so, but it’s hard not to wish, y’know?

Stay tuned and I’ll update if I hear back! They say they select new writers at the end of the month, which means I need to keep applying elsewhere while I wait.

This is my May 2024 Aurora Borealis post

General

I missed the recent sun storm and subsequent aurora. I feel kind of put out by it but I only have myself to blame.

If you weren’t on the internet for the past 72 hours, the scientists who track such things reported that our sun was in the process of generating a lot of whatever kind of energy it gives off that interact with our planet’s magnetic fields and create colorful wisps of color in our skies at night.

As you can tell I’m extremely comfortable with deep research, and technical jargon. You’re welcome!

By all reports, my home town of the Portland of Oregon was a potential location to view these northern lights Friday night. As it happens, on Friday night I was home and just playing Fallout 3 like I have been lately, so around 10:30p or so I went outside (dad was asleep by then or I would have asked him if he wanted to join me), walked out to the apartment parking lot under the parking lot lights which were on the north side of the parking lot, and looked up. Nothing. Just got my vision washed out with that orangeish halogen light. No aurora for me.

I figured it was a dud. When I woke up the next morning, my social media feeds were filled with pictures people all across the continent had taken of the amazing colorful ribbons of color in the sky. Even people in the Portland of Oregon. Dammit. I’d missed out.

The scientists who predict and track such things said that Saturday night might also be good aurora viewing for people all across the continent, even the Portland of Oregon, so I decided I’d walk out further than my parking lot. I might even get in my car and drive somewhere dark, or somewhere north, like across the river in the Vancouver of Washington. I asked dad, who’s been feeling sick with a cough, if he’d like to go, too, and he said yes.

Fast forward to about 7 PM and my nephew texts me to say he and his friend might be hopping on to play some multiplayer computer games and invited me to join, around 9 PM. I said yes but mentioned the aurora viewing in passing. Well I ended up playing Lethal Company with Max and Luke until after 11 PM, at which point I went downstairs and snuck outside (dad was fast asleep) and wandered around my neighborhood looking for dark places, which honestly felt a little creepy, but it was a warm summer night so there were others out and about, too.

Found a park nearby where I could prop my phone camera against a pole to stabilize it (I hadn’t brought a tripod or anything) and snapped a couple of nearly not-fuzzy pictures of the sky, as unwashed out by nearby lights as I could. The pictures turned out fuzzy and disappointing, but at least I got a nice walk out of it.

When I woke up Sunday morning I discovered that the peak activity for whatever solar radiation the sun emits that interacts with our magnetosphere that causes the northern lights was after midnight, which is when I was in bed, but even then it wasn’t nearly as spectacular as the previous night. I felt both vindicated and disappointed, which is how a lot of my life is going lately.

Not even going to try tonight which means it’s probably going to be the most amazing aurora of the past and future century. You’re welcome!

One who shows contempt

DnD, Gaming

I’ve been thinking about dragons lately. It’s for my D&D game. Dragon names, dragon titles, dragon culture and heirarchy.

In my campaign setting, there was an ancient red dragon, the most powerful mortal dragon ever, who was slain by a band of powerful heroes about two decades prior to current day of the game. The dragon’s name was Tountomos, but I always referred to her as Tountomos Perjorative, which was at first a reference and also a bit of a joke.

The reference is to the movie Dragonslayer (1981), specifically the dragon in that movie, Vermithrax Pejorative. What a terrific name! And the best movie dragon ever. That movie mostly still holds up, and they made that dragon look great before CGI.

The joke, I think, is that I always thought the word “pejorative” meant a curse word. When I would see it used is in place of words or phrases like “fuck off” or “god damn”. Which I guess is true? So Vermithrax’s name was a curse word. When I used it for my big bad dragon, I was paying homage to Vermithrax, and I thought of it like a title, or an epithet. A dragon so bad their name itself was a curse.

But the actual definition of pejorative is “a word expressing contempt or disapproval”. Which doesn’t quite seem strong enough for the worst dragon in the world, right?

I’ve been expanding the titles, though. Since I use Latin as the stand-in for the language spoken by the Old Empire, I’ve been finding terms I can use for titles for the evil dragons in my world, and then translating them into Latin for that added touch of antiquity and class. Words like Descrare (desecrator), Praenuntia (harbinger), Deceptor (deceiver), Occultare (concealer.)

But I couldn’t recall or find through regular Google searches a term that would mean “one who shows contempt or disapproval.” Contemptor? That… doesn’t appear to be a dictionary word, although it’s meaning is obvious from the useage. I wanted to know if there was an existing dictionary word (I keep wanting to type “real word” but since I’m more of a descriptivist than a prescripitivist when it comes to language, “real word” doesn’t mean much to me.)

Exhausting my google-fu I turned to ChatGPT. Could it help me find the word I was looking for? Or would it just make something up, like it’s done for me in the past?

I asked it to tell me the word for someone who shows contempt and it came back with “misanthrope.” No, that’s a label someone else would put on someone, and it’s too human-centric. I pushed back and it tried to tell me “misogynist” or “misandrist” but I said no, not gender-specific. I kept pushing and it came back with “scoffer”, which is far too mild, and “cynic” which is far too passive.

So I gave it the examples above (desecrator, harbinger, deceiver) and… holy shit it came back with contemner, which I first thought was it pulling something out of its ass again; but, no, a Google search showed it was a real word, although generally applied in legal contexts.

Screenshot of a conversation with ChatGPT:

OK maybe this is going around in circles so let me give you similar examples. A harbinger is someone who brings doom. A desecrator is one who desecrates. A murderer is someone who brings murder. In this vein, what would someone who brings scorn be?

ChatGPT
Ah, I see what you're getting at now. In that case, a suitable term might be "contemner." This word refers to someone who holds others in contempt or disdain.

You
Holy shit that's perfect and you've taught me a new word

Holy shit, ChatGPT taught me a new word! It took some back-and-forth but it got there. I then plugged “contemner” into the Latin translator and it spat back… contemptor. Contemptor is the Latin word for “one who shows contempt.” LOL. LMAO. OK, fine, language wins this round.