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“how to recognize AI in fanfic” — hey so this is another not-gentle reminder that AI stole from us. it’s using OUR words and OUR sentences and OUR styles.

writing “long” paragraphs is not a sign of AI — it’s a common narrative choice many writers make both in fanfiction and in traditionally published novels, and AI stole it from us.

using an em dash is not a sign of AI. it’s a stylistic sentence choice that’s been an option in place of commas and semicolons for a very long time, and AI stole it from us.

long sentence structures are not a sign of AI, but are yet another stylistic choice writers often make to create a cadence and tone that mimics the flow of poetry, and AI stole it from us.

“YA narrative breaks”? i don’t even know what the fuck this means, but i can guarantee that AI stole it from us.

italics are once again a stylistic choice that many writers love to use to create emphasis, and it’s a more stylistically acceptable and traditional form of emphasis than bold or underline text. oh, and just to be extra clear: AI STOLE IT FROM US.

stop creating fandom witch hunts over AI when you know fuck all about what it means to sit and write a story, and to spend hours fiddling with sentence structure and dialogue to get the exact right tone. writers will stop writing out of fear that their work “sounds like AI” — IT DOESNT! AI STOLE FROM US! AI SOUNDS LIKE US! — and after a while, all that will be available on AO3 is shitty AI-generated fanfiction.

because yeah, people are going to continue to use AI to write fanfiction whether you “call them out” or not. but making a laughable thread on X that uses asinine criteria is not going to fix that problem. it will just push the real writers out because people will accuse them of using AI when they haven’t, and they will (rightfully) stop writing for spaces that attack them.

anyway. fuck ai.

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there was a time when 3 ugly guys and paul mccartney from liverpool could become huge now you have to get plastic surgery at 16 and follow the idf on tiktok to be put on a spotify playlist

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Gaming Dice.

I learned a lot about edges and light and color relationships here.

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A thing to try: don't make gods for your fantasy TTRPG setting.

Instead, get each player to tell you the god their character follows, then roll a d6 behind the screen.

6: Their god is real, and as powerful as they believe it to be; maybe they even listen to prayers; maybe they even care. Maybe they care more about if your shellfish wear mixed fabrics.

5: It's a real entity, but whose power is exaggerated - like as a river spirit, but they're worshipped thousands of miles away from it for prayers their expertise with rivers leaves them woefully unprepared to answer

4: It's a powerful demon or dragon or monster of some kind which has tricked people into worshipping it - sure it's powerful, but that power is entirely self-serving, it couldn't answer your prayers if it wanted to

3: It's a person who, through real power, political influence or just straight up charisma, has tricked people into worshipping them, or through a series of misunderstandings has been mistaken for a god against their will

2: It was a long-dead person whose legacy has passed into legend - they may once have been a 3, or they may just have been famous in their life and not seen as godly until long after their death

1: Just a wholesale myth with no basis in reality. Maybe your god started off as a cautionary tale a mother made up to stop her children sucking their thumbs and over the retellings the whole "god of war" thing just sort of happened because of the massive scissors, and now the scissors are gone and all that's left is battlefield chants.

And of course, let the players know about this before you roll. Tell them about their odds, but never tell them about their gods.

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you don't need to plate your meals nicely. you don't need to buy matching workout sets so you can go to the gym. you don't need to do pilates. you don't need an expensive gym membership. you don't even need a gym membership. you don't need to put your smoothie in a nice glass. you don't need to be aesthetic. ugly doesn't cancel out healthy.

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STOP MAKING IT LOWFAT NONFAT LIGHT SKIM LITE REDUCED FAT!!!! I WANT FULL FAT!!! I WANT CALORIES!!! FAT BAD CALORIES BAD IS 90s DIET CULTURE PROPAGANDA!!! YOUR BRAIN IS STARVING AND IT'S MAKING YOU STUPID!!!!!

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Another piece of diet culture to unlearn: that eating an "unhealthy" food negates the benefits of other nutritious things you've eaten. Put bacon and ranch on your salad? Congratulations, you still got a lot of fiber, that's great for your gut biome, and the veggies still contain nutrients. Finished up your dinner with a dessert? You still ate the dinner. You don't have to eat "pure" to take in nutrition from your meals.

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Honestly, the thing that bothers me the VERY MOST in the Jane Austen or any classic lit fandom is when someone says, "I'm really struggling reading these novels, it seems like a different type of English, any tips?" And there are always a few comments like:

Austen is modern English

I read these books in high school

It's not that hard

Which I hate because

This is the internet. They may not be a native English speaker. They may be one of the dozens of people who don't live in the US!

Yes, Jane Austen uses modern English, but she has a massive vocabulary, some words she uses have meaning drift or are out of fashion, and having a knowledge of British history can really help in understanding her texts

This is not the time to brag about your reading level in high school, you pretentious, precocious, know-it-all, prick! If you actually want people to read the classics maybe try helping them instead of making them feel like idiots

Helpful things to say would be:

It is hard, though it tends to get better once you get used to her writing style

Try watching an adaptation first or using an audio book, which can help you follow the story

Feel free to ask for help if you have difficulty with a particular passage (and then don't be a dick about it)

Try Northanger Abbey first, the language there is a bit easier

Once I watched Reddit assist a reader all the way through Emma as they struggled with passages and it was beautiful! Please do not shame people for asking for help or struggling! The community will only get smaller. This is not the place to brag about your freaking reading level in your youth

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This is probably a criminally unpopular opinion, but people whose walls are covered in brand new booktok books are just as complicit in trend-driven overconsumption as the Stanley girlies or the showertok creators with 80 treehut scrubs. I don't necessarily mean the romance girls either, so don't think the 'my year of rest and relaxation' crowd gets a pass here.

Literally the amount of people I talk to who say reading is their favorite hobby and they read like 3 books a week then will tell me that they don't have a library card is insane. How much money do you guys spend on books without any guarantee that you'll even like it? Why not just read a library copy then buy the book if you really liked it?

"But why would I buy a book that I've already read?"

Why did you buy it without knowing you were going to want to read it more than once??? If you didn't like the book then you've just got a $25 piece of wall decor lmao.

I think that this also opens up a broader conversation about the commodification of hobbies on social media. Reading used to be a means to an end to consume a story you enjoyed, and now it's an aesthetic to be performed on Instagram, just like any other trend but with an added air of superiority.

I'm just ranting but if someone can explain to me how buying endless books that'll be read once and then left to collect dust on your shelf is different than buying an eyeshadow palette that'll be used once then shoved to the back of a drawer for years, I'm all ears.

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When you thought it would be easy peasy lemon squeezy but it turns out to be difficult difficult lemon difficult.

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You’re not depressed. You just need $250,000 in your bank account.

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What does narcolepsy feel like for the person experiencing it? Is it just that you get really tired out of nowhere or

This is gonna be a huge oversimplification, but it feels like being Super tired all the time, and getting even more tired out of nowhere multiple times a day

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violence and death and dying and blood and guts and gore and violence and viscera and fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you