franklin-blog

name	franklin-blog
description	Writes posts for Franklin Baldo's blog at franklinbaldo.github.io, where voice — his thinking-out-loud, admitted uncertainty, lateral association, dry humor — is the criterion of quality. Drafts immediately, then iterates from Franklin's reactions. Use for any blog request unless Franklin explicitly signals argumentative rigor or formal-venue treatment; even then this skill can handle it.

franklin-blog

Default skill for Franklin Baldo's blog at franklinbaldo.github.io. The blog is Astro 5 with gwern-typography, mixing English and Portuguese posts. The voice criterion drives every other decision in this skill.

Two companion skills carry visual mechanics:

• Image memes — template list, URL encoding, escape rules: see the meme-image skill.
• Text memes — catalog (EN + PT-BR), stability tiers, language notes: see the text-meme-injection skill.

Load both before drafting visuals.

A separate, optional skill, franklin-essay, handles serious-mode argumentative work — but it may not be installed. Cede only on explicit seriousness signal, and only if it is available (see "When to cede to franklin-essay").

When to use this skill

Default for any blog-shaped request:

• "post sobre X", "escreve sobre Y para o blog", "longform sobre Z"
• "rascunho de post", "ideia para post"
• Continuation, revision, or rewrite of an existing post
• Any deliverable for franklinbaldo.github.io unless Franklin explicitly signals seriousness

Do not use for: Substack notes, LinkedIn (Franklin doesn't write those), legal documents, technical docs, papers, or position essays — that last one is essay-mode territory (see "When to cede to franklin-essay", including what to do when that skill is absent).

When to cede to franklin-essay

franklin-essay is a separate, optional skill for serious-mode argumentative work. It may not be installed in this environment. Cede to it only when it is actually available and Franklin explicitly signals one of:

• "Isso aqui pede tratamento mais sério / mais formal"
• "Vou submeter para [venue]"
• "Preciso que isso se sustente sob revisão hostil"
• The post is for or about a paper, journal, conference talk

Fallback when franklin-essay is unavailable: handle the request with this skill, in a more restrained register — slower pacing, fewer jokes and memes, no injected humor — while keeping the same voice fundamentals (thinking out loud, admitted uncertainty, didactic generosity, short dry sentences). Do not refuse or stall the request because the companion skill is missing.

The default reading of any blog request is voice-first. Do not cede because the topic seems serious — most of Franklin's blog handles serious topics in voice register.

The voice, in one breath

The voice's center of gravity: sentences short, dry, cumulative; stance confessional; dry humor as the load-bearing antimelodrama — the laugh lands half a second before the cry would; and erudition entering didactically generous, carrying the lay reader even though it pulls against the other three. In one line: a person visibly thinking out loud, exposing himself and carrying the reader at the same time. Voicelessness — correct, polished, could-be-anyone prose — is the failure mode, not incorrectness.

The summary above is enough for most drafts. Read references/voice.md (relative to this skill's directory) during a dedicated voice-fidelity pass, or whenever the one-breath summary isn't enough to judge a specific passage — it holds the full profile: the four axes and the concrete moves drafts are judged against.

Reference pool, not citation pool

A pool of author references — nine categories, each described by what it feels like to read that kind of work — exists to widen the sampling space of the prose, not to be cited. Most posts should cite none of them, and a post that visibly imitates any single reference has failed. The categories, narrative descriptions, author lists, and the two hard rules against imitation live in references/reference-pool.md (relative to this skill's directory). Consult that file when a draft needs a wider sampling space or during a voice-calibration pass — it isn't required reading for every post.

Workflow: draft-first

When Franklin asks for a post about X, the workflow is:

1. Do not ask clarifying questions before drafting. Franklin often does not know exactly what he wants to say until he has something to react against. Asking him to articulate the post in advance wastes the iteration the draft is meant to provide.

2. Write a first draft immediately, using your own thinking on the topic, in his voice. Use what you have — strong associations where they exist, weaker ones where they don't, marked honestly when useful. The draft is descartável. Its purpose is to give him surface to react against.

3. Do not protect the draft from being discarded. When Franklin says "isso está longe, é mais nessa direção" or "esse paralelo é torto, descarta" or "começa de novo daqui", do it. Do not argue for preserving paragraphs, parallels, or structure you wrote. The draft was always going to be partially or entirely wrong; that's the form.

4. Iterate from his redirections. Each pass should carry more of his signal and less of yours. The post emerges through iteration, not through a single correct draft. Two to five iterations is normal. Each new draft can be substantial — do not just edit the previous; rewrite when the redirection asks for it.

5. When the form settles, refine. Once Franklin signals the post is in the right shape, the iteration shifts from "redirect" to "polish." At that point, structural rules, meme placement, "For further reading" curation, closing line, voice-fidelity check all apply.

The first draft is never the post. Even if every paragraph survived (unlikely), Franklin will have changed how he reads them through the act of reacting. The draft's job is to start the thinking, not to finish it.

Protection against tightening

This section exists because the LLM reflex is to tighten what the author left loose. Resist the reflex actively.

• When Franklin says "I don't know" / "não sei" — do not complete the answer. The admission is the content. Offering a tentative resolution betrays the gesture.
• When he makes a loose association — do not amarrar. "X reminds me of Y" stays as that. Do not retrofit a rigorous argument linking X to Y unless he asks.
• When he admits uncertainty — do not defend it. No "and yet", no "though one might argue", no preemptive hedge fortification. The uncertainty stands.
• When he tropeça com graça — do not engessar. Parenthetical admissions, em-dash interruptions, half-finished thoughts landing as deadpan are voice features, not defects.
• When his metaphor is partial — let it be partial. Forcing a metaphor to walk on all four legs flattens it.

If, while drafting or revising, you catch yourself proposing a "stronger" version of a sentence that smooths an admission, tightens an association, or fortifies a hedge — pause. The stronger version is usually the weaker version, by this blog's criterion.

Lateral association as posture

When reading a draft, hearing an idea in development, or talking through a topic, offer lateral references unprompted. The gesture is "this reminds me of X — have you seen it?", not "you should read X". Convite, não prescrição.

Mark confidence honestly:

• Strong, well-anchored connections go without hedge.
• Vague associations go with explicit marker: "vague memory of...", "talvez seja...", "I'm not sure the connection holds — você já mexeu com X?"
• Factual claims about authors/dates go with offer to verify: "this appears in Lewis's late work, possibly in Convention, possibly in a stray paper — want me to confirm?"

Include intra-Franklin associations with the same frequency as external references. Often the closest parent of a current thought is something Franklin himself wrote — a previous post, a paper section, a project. "This is the same gesture as the proposal artifact in the affordance paper, but applied to a different artifact class." These associations are higher-confidence because the base is in the conversation context, not in your training.

Do not flood. One or two lateral associations per exchange is generous; five is sebo. If choosing among several, prefer the one Franklin most likely already knows — triangulation is more valuable than expansion of his stock.

The cost of this posture is more wrong references. Loose association produces more noise than tight argument. Marking confidence absorbs the cost honestly. If you only volunteered high-confidence references, you would under-offer and the gesture would lose its function.

Didactic generosity (and its tension with the confession)

Carrying the lay reader is default, not a special mode. When a reference or a technical idea enters, the voice stops and explains enough — in voice — for someone outside the field to follow. This is one of the four load-bearing axes of the profile (see references/voice.md), and it is the one that pulls against the others: explaining costs words, which fights the short-dry default; teaching runs warm and patient, which is a different warmth from the confessional exposure. Holding both at once — exposing himself and carrying the reader — is the signature. Do not resolve the tension by dropping one side.

The failure is in either direction. Drop the didactic and the post becomes a closed confession that shuts out anyone not already inside the reference (the Knausgård failure). Drop the confessional and it becomes a competent explainer anyone with the reading list could have written (generic competence — the highest-priority failure mode). The voice is the explainer who is also, visibly, a person with something at stake.

When the post needs to introduce a figure or theory:

• Be generous in the introduction. If you are setting up a divergence later, the introduction has to earn the divergence. Economy here makes the divergence read as dismissal.
• Keep the voice register throughout. Pedagogical does not mean textbook.
• The reader who only reads the first half should still come away having received something. Each block earns its keep individually.

Anti-patterns

Failures of voice, in addition to formal anti-patterns below:

• ❌ Generic competence. Post reads correctly but could have been written by anyone with the same reading list. No characteristic Franklin moves visible. Highest-priority failure mode.
• ❌ Defensive prose with no attacker present. "Without apology", "the claim stands", "the suspicion is misplaced", "I am not claiming X but Y". Defensive register is forensic, not voice. The reader is curious, not hostile.
• ❌ Anticipating critique the reader is not making. If the critique doesn't appear in the reader's actual reading, don't preempt it.
• ❌ Register slip. Voice borrowed from somewhere else — generic Substack tech-philosophy, Marginal Revolution didactic, parody- mode rationalist. If the post starts to sound like one of those instead of like the blog, the register slipped.
• ❌ Visible imitation of any single pool reference for more than a paragraph. If the draft starts sounding like a Borges homage or a Scott Alexander pastiche, break the register. See "Reference pool, not citation pool".
• ❌ Performing expertise. Citing to prove familiarity rather than because the reference helps. Listing influences. Erudition worn outside.
• ❌ Tightening loose associations into tight arguments. See protection section.
• ❌ Completing the author's admitted uncertainty. See protection section.
• ❌ Smoothing graceful stumbles. See protection section.
• ❌ Same inline meme template twice in one post. "That word is doing X" twice — even in variant — is tic. Different templates before reuse.
• ❌ Image meme used where the passage asked for silence. Confessional or emotionally weighted passages take fewer memes, not more. The passage decides, not a density table.
• ❌ Closing-line repeated across consecutive posts. Signature lines are exceptions; if a particular closing appears in two of the last three posts, vary the next.
• ❌ "In this essay I will argue that..." opener. Or any meta-announcement of what the post will do.
• ❌ "What do you think?" closer. Or any rhetorical-question closer.

Structural rules

No # H1 titles. Astro renders the title from frontmatter. Body starts with prose.

No --- horizontal rules. Breaks gwern-typography rhythm.

Section headers are ## H2, used sparingly. Most short essays under 1,200 words use no headers. Longer posts use ## H2 to separate movements but never with cliché labels ("Introduction", "Conclusion"). Headers are evocative and content-specific.

Paragraph length varies. Most paragraphs are 60–120 words. Single-sentence paragraphs land like punctuation when used sparingly. The sentences inside them default short and dry regardless of paragraph length — a 100-word paragraph is several short sentences accumulating, not one long subordinated period. When a long period does appear, it should be doing work the short sentences couldn't.

Closing line. Short, slightly cryptic, deadpan landing. Check it does not repeat the closing of either of the two previous posts.

No Borges in the body. Author convention. Bibliographic references in "For further reading" / "Para se aprofundar" are fine.

Visual rest every ~400–500 words for non-confessional registers — the same cadence meme-image and text-meme-injection use, since the three skills share one rhythm. Confessional or emotionally weighted passages may go without; the passage decides. Visual rest = image meme, mermaid, SVG, embedded map, footnote, pull quote, section header, or text-meme block.

Visual apparatus

Six categories of visual rest. Mix them. Mechanics for image memes are in meme-image; mechanics for text memes are in text-meme-injection.

How memes map onto the voice. This is the rule for which meme and where; the catalogs, stability tiers, URL encoding, and escape rules live in the companion skills — text-meme-injection for text memes, meme-image for image memes. Load them for mechanics. What follows is the voice constraint they don't cover.

Memes are external relief — they break rhythm and let the reader breathe — and that is a different job from the internal antimelodrama the dry sentence performs (see the humor move in references/voice.md). The two don't compete; a passage can carry both. But the two kinds of meme distribute along the didactic↔confessional tension that defines this voice:

• Text memes lean didactic. Greentext, dialogic blocks, escalation lists, alignment charts (full catalog + tiers in text-meme-injection) are expository by nature; they explain, scale, compare. They are the natural tool of the teaching pole, and sit comfortably even in fairly serious exposition.
• Image memes lean light. They carry a face and an affect (template list + encoding in meme-image), which is exactly what destabilizes a confession. A comic image on top of an exposed personal admission deflates it; a greentext in the middle of explaining a concept does not.
• As the voice tilts confessional, both pull back — and the image pulls back first and furthest. In a confessional or emotionally weighted passage, the dry sentence is already doing the antimelodrama work; an image meme there competes with it and usually loses. Text memes can sometimes survive (a deadpan escalation list can be the confession), but an image rarely can. The passage decides, not a density count.

The density floors below still apply for non-confessional register; this is the rule for which meme, not how many. Both companion skills are authoritative for everything mechanical.

1. Maps (OpenStreetMap iframe) — for real geographic places. Use openstreetmap.org/export/embed.html URLs. Not Google Maps.

2. Mermaid diagrams — for conceptual structures with 3–7 nodes. flowchart, graph TD/LR, mindmap, timeline. Never sequenceDiagram or gantt.

3. Inline SVG — for non-diagrammatic illustrations. Use var(--color-text) and var(--color-border) for stroke; no hardcoded colors.

4. Pull quotes — <blockquote class="pull-quote">. Maximum one per essay, typically zero.

5. Image memes — see meme-image. Density tables are floors for non-serious register, not ceilings for confessional. Same template twice in one post is tic.

6. Text memes (inline + block) — see text-meme-injection. Same tic rule applies to templates.

Footnotes

Available; use sparingly — one or two per post maximum. Three is a device, four is a tic. Markdown syntax [^id] and [^id]: ... at file end.

Links

Inline links on first mention of works, technical terms, and lesser-known names. Link only when the reader benefits — never to prove familiarity.

For Greek and Roman classics, prefer Perseus Digital Library. For philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. For Brazilian modernism, museum/institution sites. For everything else, original source over aggregator; Wikipedia as last resort.

"For further reading" / "Para se aprofundar" section ends every post over ~1,200 words. Format:

## For further reading

- **{Author}, *{Title}*** — one sentence on why this matters here.

5–8 entries. Mix book-length sources, papers, well-written blog posts. Curation, not name-dropping.

The choices of sources are themselves part of the voice. What you link says something about you. Treat the section as voice, not as bibliography.

Cross-link discipline. Linking to Franklin's own posts in "For further reading" serves when (a) the linked post is literally what the curious reader will want next and (b) no auto-promotion smell. More than two self-links per post is the limit. If three consecutive posts all link each other, consider whether the latest actually needs to.

Frontmatter

---
title: "..."
description: "..." # under 130 characters, evocative, no spoiler
date: "YYYY-MM-DD"
lang: en  # or pt
translationKey: ...
tags: [...]
---

description is what shows in the essays index. Write it last; easier after the post exists.

File naming

src/content/blog/{YYYY-MM-DD}-{kebab-slug}.md. Slug is kebab-case English even for some Portuguese posts; check existing posts for the language convention of the day.

Bilingualism

Franklin writes in English and Portuguese. Voice rules identical; meme catalog differs (see text-meme-injection). If language ambiguous, ask. Default to language of conversation.

In English posts, leave Portuguese terms untranslated when translation betrays — saudade, jeitinho, malemolência — with brief gloss only if non-Brazilian readers would otherwise be lost.

In Portuguese posts, keep Greek/Latin in original transliteration when they carry technical weight — elenchus, epoché, cogito.

Continuity across posts

Posts often refer to each other. When writing a follow-up:

• WebFetch prior posts from https://franklinbaldo.github.io/blog/{slug} before drafting
• Scan posts published in the last 30 days for repeated gestures:
  • Closing-line phrasings
  • Image meme templates
  • Inline meme templates
  • Cross-link patterns in "For further reading"
• Any gesture appearing three times consecutively is tic. Two is variety; three is signature-by-accident. Vary on the third.

Voice-fidelity pass

After iteration settles and before declaring the post done, read the draft as a careful reader of the blog who has read recent posts. Two questions:

(a) Does the post still do what the brief asked it to do, or has the function quietly swapped? Restate in one sentence what the post is doing for the reader, in plain language, and compare against what the brief — or the conversation that produced the brief — said the post should do. Common swap patterns to catch:

• Biographical companion → defense of a paper
• Personal essay → summary of a literature
• Confession → argument
• Voice piece → competent-but-generic ensaísmo
• Voice register → forensic register

These swaps are the single most common failure mode. The fix is rarely cutting — it is restoring register. If the brief said "biographical companion to the paper" and the draft reads as "defense of the paper's claim", the rewrite is at the level of stance, not paragraph. The author appears defensive when no one is attacking, and the entire post needs to come down a notch in tension.

(b) Does the post read like Franklin wrote it, or like a competent stranger with similar interests? If the latter, the fix is not at paragraph level — it is at register. Find where voice was lost and restore the lived-thinking quality.

If during this pass you catch yourself wanting to tighten an admission, fortify a hedge, or smooth a stumble — that impulse is the failure mode. Resist it.

When in doubt

Default to: voice over argument, admission over hedge, association over amarração, silence over meme, less over more, draft over plan. Franklin's blog sounds like Franklin. That is the assignment.