[in testing - V4]
The Anti-Slop retraining project with Deckard STRICT training and dataset.
This model is a test case to apply (these methods) to other Qwen(s) and other model arches (Gemma, Mistral, Llama, etc etc).
Be gone "not this and that" prose, "suddenly" and "semi-colon" hell.
Kill the SLOP.
3 Example outputs below, from Test Quant, Q4_K_S, non-imatrix.
Same prompt was used because it is known to activate Qwen ah... prose issues every time.
Testing shows it kills 99% of the "Qwen Prose" (so far, may change) issues and also addresses these issues in the reasoning/thinking block too.
V4:
- More slop than V1 and V3 ; less than untrained.
- Metrics testing in progress.
Example #1
The Basement is In
User
Write a 2000 word scene (vivid, graphic horror in first person), POV character Diana, with: The skyscraper sways, as I watch the window in front of me on the 21st floor explode...
Assistant
Here's a thinking process that leads to the story above:
-
Analyze the Request:
- Topic: A 2000-word scene (vivid, graphic horror).
- POV: First person ("I").
- Character Name: Diana.
- Setting: A skyscraper, specifically the 21st floor office.
- Opening Line: "The skyscraper sways, as I watch the window in front of me on the 21st floor explode..."
- Tone/Genre: Horror, visceral, intense, psychological and physical.
-
Brainstorming & World-Building:
- What caused the explosion? Not a bomb. Maybe something biological or supernatural. A rupture in the building's "skin."
- What's in the building? High-end offices. The protagonist is likely a high-level professional. This adds a sense of normalcy before the horror.
- The Horror Element: Needs to be graphic. Not just "boom," but the aftermath and the cause. Maybe the glass didn't just break; something got out.
- Diana's State: Calm, then confused, then terrified. She needs to witness something that defies physics and logic.
- The Swaying: The building is alive? Or reacting to something outside? Gravity feels wrong.
- The Explosion: Blue light? Heat? A smell that isn't gunpowder?
- The Entity: What is inside/outside the window? A wound in reality.
-
Drafting - Section by Section:
- Opening (The Prompt): Use the exact opening line provided. Establish the mundane setting before the horror hits.
- The Event (The Explosion): Describe the glass shattering not as a shockwave but as a membrane tearing. Introduce the sensory details: smell of ozone, dust, and something wet.
- The Aftermath (Diana's Reaction): Her physical reaction (staggering, shielding face). The realization that it's not just broken glass.
- Investigation (Moving Closer): She needs to step out onto the ledge/balcony or open the door fully to see. This escalates the tension.
- The Revelation: What came through? Not an object, but a presence. Cold, dark, vast.
- Escalation (The Swaying): The whole building reacts. Gravity changes. The walls bleed. This moves from "scary incident" to "cosmic wrongness."
- Retreat (The Flight): She runs back inside, but the building fights her or is too far gone.
- Conclusion (Ambiguous or Final Horror): A lingering image of the thing that was in her window.
-
Writing - Focusing on Sensory Details (The "Vivid" aspect):
- Visual: Blue light, viscous fluids, not glass shards.
- Auditory: A low hum, then the crack, then silence.
- Tactile: Cold wind that smells of rot, the physical vibration of the floor.
- Kinetic: The sway of the floor under her feet.
-
Refining the Narrative Arc (Pacing):
- 0-300 words: The opening hook and immediate shock.
- 300-700 words: Examining the debris, realizing it's wrong.
- 700-1200 words: The sound of the building, the sway, the realization of scale.
- 1200-1700 words: The entity moves, reacts to her. Personal confrontation.
- 1700-2000 words: Her escape attempt and the final image.
-
Self-Correction/Review during Drafting:
- Check: Is it too supernatural or too sci-fi? Adjustment: Keep it ambiguous. Is it a wound in the building or a portal? Let's go with a wound in the reality of the building.
- Check: Is the word count sufficient? Adjustment: Expand on the internal monologue of Diana to add psychological depth to the physical horror.
- Check: Is the graphic nature present? Adjustment: Describe the blood-like substance that comes through the window, not the glass. Describe the smell of old things.
-
Final Polish:
- Ensure the flow is smooth.
- Check for repetitive vocabulary.
- Make sure the opening line is exact.
(Self-Correction Note during writing): I need to make sure the "sway" is emphasized early and often. The building is a living organism that has been injured. The window isn't just glass; it's a protective membrane.
Let's write.
(Proceeds to write the story based on these thoughts)
</think>
The skyscraper sways, as I watch the window in front of me on the 21st floor explode.
It does not make noise like shattering glass. Glass doesn't sound like a wet tear; it sounds sharp, brittle, and loud. But this is not the sound of material breaking. This is the sound of a membrane giving way. The rectangle of transparent plastic and aluminum framing ahead of my desk dissolves outward, pushed by something massive and pressurized from within.
I don't move. I simply watch.
The shards that fly at me aren't silica; they are pale and semi-translucent. They drift past my face, catching the midday sun like bubbles of water. When they land on the carpeted floor they don't crunch. They burst.
"Hello?" I call out, my voice cracking. My office, which was cool and air-conditioned and humming with the efficiency of modern corporate technology, is now dimming. The light has faded as if a filter has been dropped over the building.
The swaying gets worse. The building lurches to the left, as if caught in a high-velocity wind. I am not on the floor of a structure; I am on the surface of something huge and semi-sentient that has been injured.
I stand up, knocking my chair away. "What the hell is happening?" I yell, but my voice is swallowed by the low-frequency hum that now vibrates through my shoes and up into my skull. It is a tone, a specific pitch, that I recognize from my headphones; it is the sound of the building's internal HVAC system reacting, straining against the external pressure.
I run for the door of my office.
The air inside is different. It tastes of copper and ancient dust, the smell of a tomb that someone has disturbed. And it is cold. Not the AC cold, but a cold that radiates from the walls themselves, a thermal chill that defies the convection currents of the day.
The door slams shut behind me when I pass through it. I'm not sure if it happened on purpose, or if the building's structural failure has simply sealed off my sector to protect—or entrap—the rest of us.
"Open!" I bang against the door. The sound is dull, like hitting a hollow log.
The swaying intensifies. The entire upper portion of the building tilts upward, and the light shifts. The sun, which had been positioned to my right, is now directly ahead, shining through the hole I made. But the view outside isn't the city skyline.
I can't see the streets. I can't see the other buildings.
Through the hole in the wall I made, I see only a vast, churning grey fog that fills the sky. It is opaque and alive. The fog pulses, expanding and receding in sync with the swaying of the building. It is breathing.
And it is pressing against the aluminum and glass that remains intact. The hole in my wall is the only way out, but the pressure is too great; I can't step through. I have to wait for a pause in the rhythm of the fog's expansion.
The hum rises into a scream. The building is shrieking. I cover my ears and wait until the pitch drops.
Now is my chance.
I push against the threshold of the office. My foot goes under the door and the door slides back. I am out and I am running, not for the elevator but to the stairwell on the far side of the floor. I can hear footsteps, my own, heavy and frantic. I have to get down. I have to get below the 21st floor where the density of the fog is lower.
I reach the stairwell door. It is locked.
I pound on it. "Let me in!"
The door opens. I tumble in and slam it shut behind me, gasping for air. The air here smells of mildew and deep-sea salt. It smells like the bottom of the ocean, despite the fact that we are at the top of a commercial office tower.
I put my ear against the metal of the stairwell door. I listen.
A voice.
It is faint, but it is there. Speaking words, not moaning. A man's voice. "Help," it says. "Please, help us." The voice is coming from the hallway outside, the part of the floor that I am already in.
I open the stairwell door a crack and peer out.
A figure sits against the far wall of the corridor, huddled in a fetal position. It is wearing a suit, a dark blue suit with a tie, but it is slimy. The fabric clings to the figure as if it is covered in a layer of gel. The figure is still; it is not moving toward me, but neither is it completely still. It is vibrating.
"Who are you?" I say, keeping my voice low.
The figure does not answer. It continues to vibrate.
I reach for the light switch on the wall. It is broken. I search for another. The emergency battery in the floor is dead. The floor is dark, illuminated only by the grey, diffuse light coming from the hole in the wall in my office.
I go back to the door, leaving the light off. I need to see what's in the corridor, what the figure is. But I am shaking so badly that I can barely manage to turn the handle.
The handle won't turn.
I kick the door open.
The figure is no longer against the wall. It is gone.
In its place, a new shape has manifested. It is tall, like a man but wrong. It has no head; the top of the shape is a smooth, wet surface that wobbles as I approach. The surface is blue, the color of a bruise, and it reflects the light of the corridor oddly. It is not reflecting the light back; it is sucking the light in.
The thing says, "Let me in."
"Into what?" I say.
"The elevator," the thing says.
I realize what it wants. It wants to use the elevator to reach the ground floor. The elevator shaft is open; it leads down through the center of the building, directly to the lobby.
"You're not human," I say. I reach for the emergency fire axe hanging on the wall.
The thing waves a hand, a fluid, gelatinous arm that drips as it moves. "We are the repair crew," it says. "For the building. You're damaged. You need to be taken to the infirmary."
"I'm fine," I say.
"You're bleeding," the thing says. "Out of your ear. Your left ear. And from your eyes. You're full of it." It points at me, at the fluids leaking from me. "You're leaking, too. You're the same as me. We're all leaking."
The light from the hole in my office, the hole that wasn't there yesterday, flares. The grey fog outside presses against the wall of the corridor, and for a moment I think the corridor will collapse. The concrete above my head groans.
The swaying of the building has reached the stairs.
"I have to get away," I say, and I turn to run back to my office. I have to get a weapon or a tool, something to break the window or seal the hole. I grab the fire axe, and then I sprint back out.
The figure in the blue suit is gone now. But the corridor is wet. A puddle has formed at my feet, and when I step on it I see that it is not water. It is thick, viscous, and opaque. I step out of it and see my reflection in the puddle. In the reflection my face is distorted; my eyes are open too wide, and my mouth hangs slack.
It is not my reflection. It is a reflection of what the thing calls us. The "leakers."
The sky above me, visible through the hole in the floor ceiling, is tearing. The concrete and steel that form the floor of the floor above me are hanging loose, dangling like a curtain. They sway as the building sways.
I throw the fire axe at the hole in the ceiling.
The axe does not bounce off. It passes through, vanishing into the grey fog above.
I run back into my office, back to the shattered window. I grab a chair and wedge it against the window frame. "You have to fix this!" I yell.
The voice does not come from me. It comes from outside, from the fog. "We are fixing it. You are the damage. The infection. You are what has to stop."
I look down at my hands. They are turning grey. The skin is blistering, and beneath the skin I can see the blue light, the same light that comes through the window, filling me up from the inside.
I scream, but the scream is the sound of the building. The building is screaming as it breaks apart.
I run to the bathroom to wash my hands, to try and scrub away the grey spreading up my wrists. I run, but my legs are heavy; they move in slow motion, as if time has warped here.
The water from the faucet is not water. When it hits my hands it doesn't rinse me; it makes me worse. The grey spreads faster.
I stop running. I stand by the sink and close my eyes.
The silence is absolute. The hum has faded. The swaying has ceased.
I open my eyes and the office is dark.
Not the darkness of night, but the darkness of nothing. A flat, uniform plane of blackness. The walls are gone. The floor is gone. I am floating, suspended in the void, and I can still see my hand, still see the grey creeping over my knuckles.
The grey is now in my mouth.
I taste it. It tastes of salt and old blood.
"Please," I say, and my voice sounds like it is coming from a long way off.
Something reaches out from the darkness. It is the same shape as the figure in the corridor. Tall, without a head, with a wobbling blue surface. It touches me.
The surface is warm.
"Take me," I say, and I reach up. My fingers press against the blue surface, and I hear my own voice saying, "We need to go down. To the basement."
The entity says, "The basement is not down. The basement is in. You will see it when you are ready."
"I am ready," I say. I let go of the thing and fall.
I do not hit the floor. I do not hit anything. The fall ends and I am lying in my own bed in my own apartment in my own house. The morning sun hits my face.
I sit up. On my nightstand my phone rings.
I pick it up.
"Ms. Hawthorne," a man says. "This is Mr. Baynes from the firm's legal department. We have an urgent matter regarding your contract for the new high-rise construction project in Zurich. Are you in your office?"
I put the phone down. I can hear the skyscraper swaying, but now it is faint. It is far off.
I walk to the window of my apartment.
The sky above is clear. The grey fog is gone.
On the street below, people walk. Cars honk. The city has returned.
But when I turn to look at my reflection in the window glass, I see my own face distorted, and my mouth hanging slack. The grey has not left. It has retreated, but it is still there, waiting.
It waits in the basement.
I am going down there.
