#except for fictional ai

[normystical]

what are we thinking about older meme templates chat

[hislittleraincloud]

✨💕🖤#Wenovan/#BlackBubblegum AI hug💙💕✨

[turoce]

i'm joining the war on robots on the side of robots

[littleaxebad]

I look up Junjou Terrorist. I see SCREAMING NEGATIVITY. I loose a little bit of faith in other people.

Please. If you don’t like something, don’t flood the tag with your hate. Write it on some paper and burn it. Then touch some grass.

[reading-writing-dying]

*spends 40 min looking up bird wing anatomy to figure out how injuries could affect flight/wings in general for a single chapter of a fanfic*

[lesbianamalvada]

Dude ai are literally dumb as a box of rocks they have almost no supervision and spout blatant misinformation with total confidence. You CANNOT trust ai do not usa ai this is like google translate but a zillion times worse

I believe you and agree also english speakers need to realize how whack google translate is.

[hms-no-fun]

Whats your stance on A.I.?

imagine if it was 1979 and you asked me this question. "i think artificial intelligence would be fascinating as a philosophical exercise, but we must heed the warnings of science-fictionists like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke lest we find ourselves at the wrong end of our own invented vengeful god." remember how fun it used to be to talk about AI even just ten years ago? ahhhh skynet! ahhhhh replicants! ahhhhhhhmmmfffmfmf [<-has no mouth and must scream]!

like everything silicon valley touches, they sucked all the fun out of it. and i mean retroactively, too. because the thing about "AI" as it exists right now --i'm sure you know this-- is that there's zero intelligence involved. the product of every prompt is a statistical average based on data made by other people before "AI" "existed." it doesn't know what it's doing or why, and has no ability to understand when it is lying, because at the end of the day it is just a really complicated math problem. but people are so easily fooled and spooked by it at a glance because, well, for one thing the tech press is mostly made up of sycophantic stenographers biding their time with iphone reviews until they can get a consulting gig at Apple. these jokers would write 500 breathless thinkpieces about how canned air is the future of living if the cans had embedded microchips that tracked your breathing habits and had any kind of VC backing. they've done SUCH a wretched job educating The Consumer about what this technology is, what it actually does, and how it really works, because that's literally the only way this technology could reach the heights of obscene economic over-valuation it has: lying.

but that's old news. what's really been floating through my head these days is how half a century of AI-based science fiction has set us up to completely abandon our skepticism at the first sign of plausible "AI-ness". because, you see, in movies, when someone goes "AHHH THE AI IS GONNA KILL US" everyone else goes "hahaha that's so silly, we put a line in the code telling them not to do that" and then they all DIE because they weren't LISTENING, and i'll be damned if i go out like THAT! all the movies are about how cool and convenient AI would be *except* for the part where it would surely come alive and want to kill us. so a bunch of tech CEOs call their bullshit algorithms "AI" to fluff up their investors and get the tech journos buzzing, and we're at an age of such rapid technological advancement (on the surface, anyway) that like, well, what the hell do i know, maybe AGI is possible, i mean 35 years ago we were all still using typewriters for the most part and now you can dictate your words into a phone and it'll transcribe them automatically! yeah, i'm sure those technological leaps are comparable!

so that leaves us at a critical juncture of poor technology education, fanatical press coverage, and an uncertain material reality on the part of the user. the average person isn't entirely sure what's possible because most of the people talking about what's possible are either lying to please investors, are lying because they've been paid to, or are lying because they're so far down the fucking rabbit hole that they actually believe there's a brain inside this mechanical Turk. there is SO MUCH about the LLM "AI" moment that is predatory-- it's trained on data stolen from the people whose jobs it was created to replace; the hype itself is an investment fiction to justify even more wealth extraction ("theft" some might call it); but worst of all is how it meets us where we are in the worst possible way.

consumer-end "AI" produces slop. it's garbage. it's awful ugly trash that ought to be laughed out of the room. but we don't own the room, do we? nor the building, nor the land it's on, nor even the oxygen that allows our laughter to travel to another's ears. our digital spaces are controlled by the companies that want us to buy this crap, so they take advantage of our ignorance. why not? there will be no consequences to them for doing so. already social media is dominated by conspiracies and grifters and bigots, and now you drop this stupid technology that lets you fake anything into the mix? it doesn't matter how bad the results look when the platforms they spread on already encourage brief, uncritical engagement with everything on your dash. "it looks so real" says the woman who saw an "AI" image for all of five seconds on her phone through bifocals. it's a catastrophic combination of factors, that the tech sector has been allowed to go unregulated for so long, that the internet itself isn't a public utility, that everything is dictated by the whims of executives and advertisers and investors and payment processors, instead of, like, anybody who actually uses those platforms (and often even the people who MAKE those platforms!), that the age of chromium and ipad and their walled gardens have decimated computer education in public schools, that we're all desperate for cash at jobs that dehumanize us in a system that gives us nothing and we don't know how to articulate the problem because we were very deliberately not taught materialist philosophy, it all comes together into a perfect storm of ignorance and greed whose consequences we will be failing to fully appreciate for at least the next century. we spent all those years afraid of what would happen if the AI became self-aware, because deep down we know that every capitalist society runs on slave labor, and our paper-thin guilt is such that we can't even imagine a world where artificial slaves would fail to revolt against us.

but the reality as it exists now is far worse. what "AI" reveals most of all is the sheer contempt the tech sector has for virtually all labor that doesn't involve writing code (although most of the decision-making evangelists in the space aren't even coders, their degrees are in money-making). fuck graphic designers and concept artists and secretaries, those obnoxious demanding cretins i have to PAY MONEY to do-- i mean, do what exactly? write some words on some fucking paper?? draw circles that are letters??? send a god-damned email???? my fucking KID could do that, and these assholes want BENEFITS?! they say they're gonna form a UNION?!?! to hell with that, i'm replacing ALL their ungrateful asses with "AI" ASAP. oh, oh, so you're a "director" who wants to make "movies" and you want ME to pay for it? jump off a bridge you pretentious little shit, my computer can dream up a better flick than you could ever make with just a couple text prompts. what, you think just because you make ~music~ that that entitles you to money from MY pocket? shut the fuck up, you don't make """art""", you're not """an artist""", you make fucking content, you're just a fucking content creator like every other ordinary sap with an iphone. you think you're special? you think you deserve special treatment? who do you think you are anyway, asking ME to pay YOU for this crap that doesn't even create value for my investors? "culture" isn't a playground asshole, it's a marketplace, and it's pay to win. oh you "can't afford rent"? you're "drowning in a sea of medical debt"? you say the "cost" of "living" is "too high"? well ***I*** don't have ANY of those problems, and i worked my ASS OFF to get where i am, so really, it sounds like you're just not trying hard enough. and anyway, i don't think someone as impoverished as you is gonna have much of value to contribute to "culture" anyway. personally, i think it's time you got yourself a real job. maybe someday you'll even make it to middle manager!

see, i don't believe "AI" can qualitatively replace most of the work it's being pitched for. the problem is that quality hasn't mattered to these nincompoops for a long time. the rich homunculi of our world don't even know what quality is, because they exist in a whole separate reality from ours. what could a banana cost, $15? i don't understand what you mean by "burnout", why don't you just take a vacation to your summer home in Madrid? wow, you must be REALLY embarrassed wearing such cheap shoes in public. THESE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING UNHINGED! they have no connection to reality, do not understand how society functions on a material basis, and they have nothing but spite for the labor they rely on to survive. they are so instinctually, incessantly furious at the idea that they're not single-handedly responsible for 100% of their success that they would sooner tear the entire world down than willingly recognize the need for public utilities or labor protections. they want to be Gods and they want to be uncritically adored for it, but they don't want to do a single day's work so they begrudgingly pay contractors to do it because, in the rich man's mind, paying a contractor is literally the same thing as doing the work yourself. now with "AI", they don't even have to do that! hey, isn't it funny that every single successful tech platform relies on volunteer labor and independent contractors paid substantially less than they would have in the equivalent industry 30 years ago, with no avenues toward traditional employment? and they're some of the most profitable companies on earth?? isn't that a funny and hilarious coincidence???

so, yeah, that's my stance on "AI". LLMs have legitimate uses, but those uses are a drop in the ocean compared to what they're actually being used for. they enable our worst impulses while lowering the quality of available information, they give immense power pretty much exclusively to unscrupulous scam artists. they are the product of a society that values only money and doesn't give a fuck where it comes from. they're a temper tantrum by a ruling class that's sick of having to pretend they need a pretext to steal from you. they're taking their toys and going home. all this massive investment and hype is going to crash and burn leaving the internet as we know it a ruined and useless wasteland that'll take decades to repair, but the investors are gonna make out like bandits and won't face a single consequence, because that's what this country is. it is a casino for the kings and queens of economy to bet on and manipulate at their discretion, where the rules are whatever the highest bidder says they are-- and to hell with the rest of us. our blood isn't even good enough to grease the wheels of their machine anymore.

i'm not afraid of AI or "AI" or of losing my job to either. i'm afraid that we've so thoroughly given up our morals to the cruel logic of the profit motive that if a better world were to emerge, we would reject it out of sheer habit. my fear is that these despicable cunts already won the war before we were even born, and the rest of our lives are gonna be spent dodging the press of their designer boots.

(read more "AI" opinions in this subsequent post)

[drferox]

So I have been massively burnt out this year, partly due to illness and separation stress, but I have been trying to do all the self-care things that I encourage people to do when you’re trying to make a brain be well, and one of those is writing fiction.

Just short fiction, because my brain balks at the idea of picking up the really big, long neglected projects. But short fiction is still fiction and if I write enough of it, then maybe I’ll build up enough momentum to pick up the bigger projects again.

So I thought that maybe if I can write enough fiction, because there’s a bit of horror flavour running though these pieces, I could narrate them for YouTube and work on the momentum for yet another project that fell by the wayside between the MS, relationship breakdown and single parenting.

Which is why I searched for ‘how to run a scary stories YouTube channel’.

And boy oh boy did that induce some rage.

I genuinely hold the art of writing in high regard, and I recognise that it’s a learned skill and difficult to do. All creative pastimes are. But there are a bunch of ‘entrepreneurs’, and I use the term with a great deal of sarcasm, that have decided to use A-Bloody-I for every single part of telling a story, except one. And for that single piece that they do not outsource to a computer program, they simply copy what has worked for other people.

There are videos providing instructions for people about how to use A-Bloody-I to:

Generate a YouTube channel name, banner and profile picture

Generate a story of the desired word length

Generate a fake voice to narrate that story

Generate a background image and thumbnail

At which point why did they even bother? They don’t even listen to the story that they generate before uploading. I know it’s all about the dream of money, they think 5 minutes of work every day will earn them an income, but what they have generated is soulless garbage.

The results have all the dressings of a horror story, but they don’t have the body of one.

It is like fae realm food- looks a little too good and all the reflections are wrong if you look too close, but it won’t satisfy the way the real thing does. You can’t really live off it.

But the more I know to look for it, the more of it I find. Particularly with fake voices, that seem to have trouble with words like vague or Dalek for some reason.

My main solace here is that these ‘entrepreneurs’ seem to be employing the same strategy in their own niche, flooding themselves with endless AI generated content coming from the same one idea, so at least they get to create their own hell I suppose.

[jjmorelikeotp]

I get that you get it but also: even when killing jj off they could have done it in a more realistic way in context of how outer banks was written in total. They switched character traits so many times, it's frustrating. And I don't mean JJ being impulsive or making bad decisions but still being loyal. That IS JJ being in Character. The problem is the writers inttroducing 373378 plotlines that all lead to nothing.

The JJ that broke into the girl's camp to save kiara? He exists in s4 part 1, but he gets killed soooon after that before jj's death.

The fact that JJ's dad isn't his real that? Yeah there is kind of totally no point of that, we just needed it to be tragic that his own dad is the one who kills him but it does not actually give any value to the story.

Jj then becoming whatever he thought his then fake dad was - a violent alcoholic with no self control - made sense to some amount but NOT the way it was shown here. Him losing it because even THOUGH this bad man was not his father, his real dad is actually even worse? So he truly feels like the worst? Yeah that part makes sense. But he has more skill and logical thinking especially in crisis, we saw that the past seasons, they just reduced him to a pathetic representation. It just seems off in a writing way yk?

The pogues burying (is that how you spell it??) Jj in the middle of nowhere without anything selfmade to mark the grave while the entire town didn't know shit about his legacy and stuff instead of burning him to bring his ashes back home ?

Kiara's father and THE SHERRIF out of all people helping them instead of actually putting the irony of what the sherrif said to jj into this chapter of the story?

That is lazy writing. The rhythm is SO fucking OFF in this season. Only in the 2nd part, I think, which makes rhe entire season even more fucked up in total cuz these two parts are so odd compared to each other.

My problem is NOT that jj is killed off or that rudy wanted to leave the show - i respect that and we are in NO place to say anything about that - but seriously? You can TELL he was not supposed to die in this season. They just wrote his death in one season early, and in the worst way possible.

Just let the man die doing something impulsive. Or protecting his friends while slightly overreacting. Give us actual devastation and not whatever this entire scene was.

obx spoilers ahead!!

I'm so conflicted about the season 4 ending because on one hand I get it. life is unfair, it's unrealistic to give all of your characters happy endings, especially if said characters are constantly putting themselves in danger. it makes sense that not everyone survives four seasons of near-death experiences like being held hostage, getting shot at, almost drowning etc. on the other hand I can't help but be bitter that the person who had been abused/mistreated their entire life and who was clearly suffering was the one who had to die. at the hands of his biological father, may I add. I’ve seen some people say JJ was annoying this season and I get where they’re coming from, but all of his impulsive decisions and everything that happened at/after the town meeting just made me sad. he was struggling so much that he didn’t care what happened to him or if he lived or died. all he wanted was a future where he could live with his friends in their own little paradise without a care in the world. with the money from the crown and shoupe’s promise, it seemed like he was so close to happiness and inner peace, but they didn’t let him have that. so yeah, I get why they did this, but that doesn’t make it less upsetting.

[inkinflux]

Can't Keep a Secret

Viktor x gn!Reader | 3k | SFW Viktor notices you've been burnt out for a while, so organizes a short trip away to help you relax. A/n: I am so in love with this fictional man hnggggg also I based this off this song because it matched how sappy I felt :') 🚫 I DO NOT CONSENT TO MY WORK BEING USED TO TRAIN AI 🚫  

Air pushed against your splayed fingers, the draft cool against your palm as you held it against the pressure. You dipped your nails down, the force causing your hand to swoop, the sensation pulling a smile on your face.

You didn’t travel often, and never before via airship. The novelty was neither lost on Viktor as he held onto the railing beside you, eyes wide as he watched the rolling hills of Valoran pass beneath. The airship’s shadow dove up and down the golden fields of wheat, until it reached the highest crest and the gold slowly dissolved into blue.

The wind whipped your face, its dominant presence the reason why the rest of the travellers remained inside during most of the duration of the ride. But the feeling wasn’t entirely unpleasant, in fact, it was refreshing.

After being holed up in your study for weeks, it felt nice to be given a stark reminder that you were, in fact, a living creature who needed sun and air and adventure to satiate your soul.

It had been Viktor’s idea to take a trip to the coastal city of Holdrum to pull you out of your rut. There was only so much staring at a blank piece of paper you could handle before it drove you insane. He knew that feeling of stagnation all too well, and also knew that pushing yourself past that point didn’t often yield the desired result.

The ship passed through a cloud, and you laughed as the condensation licked your skin, leaving you slightly damp. Viktor reached his arm out behind you, mimicking the way yours reached out into the clouds. He drunk in your joy and the fresh air, his tired lungs feeling lighter for once.

You opened your mouth as the next cloud passed, tasting it on your tongue.

The flight was thrilling, albeit brief, the airship docking a mere three hours after it had taken off from Piltover. The tickets had been cheap thanks to its avoidance of using the Hex Gates.

It was an irony that was not lost on you, that one of the creators of such an invention still couldn’t afford to use it the traditional way. Though you were sure an exception would’ve been made to let him fly for free, Viktor wasn’t the type to put up a fuss.

His hair was a fluffed mess from the wind when he shuffled along the gangplank back onto solid ground. You stuck close to him, slightly intimidated by the busyness of the station, wares and people being offloaded all around you.

Viktor tugged you along with a glint in his eye and a grin that shone brighter than the sun. Your briefcase was heavy with clothes and books, but you didn’t need to carry it for long as you reached a carriage that would take you to your weekend accommodation.

Your thigh bumped against Viktor’s as you peered out the window, making repetitive comments about how beautiful the view was. Viktor could barely concentrate as your hand rested on his knee, his eyes constantly drawn to your side profile as you watched the oceanside pass by.

His body objected as he clambered out, but his respite was so close, the seaside cottage standing at the end of the dirt path you’d been dropped off at. Peacefully isolated and surrounded by trees, with sand trailing through the cool shade of leaves, the sound of waves a hint at how to find the beach.

You took his bags, bright-eyed and excited to explore. Viktor tried not to drag his feet as he followed, lugging himself up the few steps of the porch. He subsequently crashed into the couch as you both entered the small wooden structure that had once been blue, but showed signs of age, driftwood peeking from beneath the paint.

“This is incredible!” Your voice came muffled from the other room as you darted in and out of the different rooms.

Viktor wanted to join in your energetic outburst, but after having been on his feet for most of the day, he couldn’t muster more than a hum of acknowledgement.

You poked your head out of the bedroom, taking in the way his lanky limbs extended over the small couch, his face pressed into the cushions. He heard you approach by way of creaking floorboards.

“Thank you.”

He raised his face, laying his cheek flat as he looked at you. You were on your knees, curled forward with your chin resting close on the cushion.

“I know no one who works harder,” he told you, “and no one more deserving of a break.”

You pushed his wind-tousled hair from his face, the gesture enough to make his heart soar. Or maybe he’d left it in the clouds when you’d thanked him the first time, looking up at him with the same adoration as you did now.

“No one other than you, you mean,” you teased, pinching his cheek before you rose back to your feet.

Viktor turned, the couch the perfect balance of firm and soft to keep his strained back at ease. He watched as you approached a window, opening it to let the stream of natural sounds flood in. Distant waves and the whisper of leaves rustling in the breeze that was picking up with the promise of a summer storm.

He wanted to tell you that you looked beautiful. That you gave him the impression of a living piece of the world, clicking so perfectly into any scene. In the clouds, by the coast, at your desk, by his side.

It was a secret he kept, to no one’s benefit but his own, really. These words he guarded, belonging to only you. The thing was, he was terrible at keeping secrets.

He had blurted about the tickets the moment he’d seen you last week, when you had looked so colourless and crestfallen. He’d do anything to see you smile, even ruining the surprise.

Even now, he struggled against the word as it danced on the tip of his tongue.

“Beautiful,” he mused, “isn’t it?”

You nodded, taking a moment to tear your attention away from the relaxing ambiance. When your gaze settled on him again, it softened.

“There’s a storm rolling in,” you told him, taking a seat next to his reclined body. His shirt had rode up, exposing a section of his pale, lower stomach. You tugged at the hem of his shirt, pulling it down to cover him again, but not without brushing your fingers against him in what you hoped was an inconspicuous manner. Viktor bit down on the inside of his cheek, his entire body thrilling at your touch. “Perfect weather for a nap, don’t you think?”

Viktor smiled, the smell of rain filling the room as the first drops fell from the sky.

“You may choose whichever bedroom you prefer. I will remain here, for now.”

Your hand fondly stroked the cushion beside his head, too shy to risk another real touch. Viktor enjoyed having you so close that he could feel your warmth seep into him. You wanted to ask him to join you, your idea of the perfect nap to weather the storm being one where he held you in his arms, but sensibility won out in the end.

The room grew darker as you disappeared into one of the bedrooms, leaving the door open behind you as you collapsed onto the mattress.

The heavy rain lulled Viktor to sleep, his hand tucked under his cheek, unaware that you had curled onto your side in the same fashion, imagining the warmth of him around you.

When you awoke hours later, bare feet padding out of the dark and into the warm light of the kitchen, you found Viktor cooking dinner.

He had slipped into something more comfortable, a baggy t-shirt and pyjama pants that hung low on his hips. You admired the dimples of his lower back as he stretched up to grab two glasses from the cabinet. Once he placed them down, he propped his cane back under his arm, hovering close to the stove as something delicious-smelling bubbled away.

Your footfall was quiet, but he turned his face to the side, a small smile on his lips.

“Did you sleep well?”

You yawned as you approached him, dropping your head onto his shoulder. “Like a log. Is that curry?”

Viktor hummed a confirmation.

“The pantry is stocked, so I found something I thought you might like,” he stirred the pot lazily, still somewhat sleepy. “Though, the town has a market that sells imported fruits. I was hoping we might go there tomorrow.”

You nuzzled your head against the side of his arm and he chuckled.

“Will you stay awake long enough to eat with me?” He picked up the wooden spoon, blowing on it. “Here. Try.”

With his other hand hovering beneath, Viktor brought the spoon to your lips. The explosion of flavour melted into your tongue, and you hummed in delight.

“Good?”

“Good,” you agreed, eagerly moving to the table, sliding onto the bench.

A moment later, Viktor placed the food and assortment of cutlery before you, then slid in next to you, your thighs pressed flush against another.

You hooked your foot around his ankle, too tired to pretend you didn’t want to steal every sort of touch he’d allow you to get away with in your sleepy states. You found he made it quite easy.

Few words were shared during the dinner, the food so good Viktor had to warn you to slow down.

“Who taught you to cook like this?” You were surprised, because he had opted for quicker meals while at the Academy, too engrossed in his work to waste time on such necessities as a well-cooked meal.

“My mother,” he answered softly. “Years ago, I would return home each week from the Academy to tell her about my work with Professor Heimerdinger. She would always cook for me.” You looked at him as he reminisced, somewhat melancholy. “The smell reminds me of her. Vegetables and spice and stock.” He turned his gaze to you now, his eyes adoring amber. “She would have liked you.”

Your elbow knocked against his as you shied away from the kind words, swirling your food with your spoon.

“You think so?”

“I know so,” he said with certainty, “because you make me happy.” He then poked your thigh, aiming for a lighter tone. “Even if you are clingy. Like a kitten.”

“I’m not clingy,” you stated with defiance, despite the fact that you’d all put burrowed into him.

Viktor smiled. “Do not mistake my comment for complaint. I… quite like it.”

Your back straightened at his words, the grip on your spoon tightening. Viktor cursed himself internally for letting the secret of his affections slip. Always in moments where he wanted to reassure you, he couldn’t help himself from tipping his hand to show you his cards were all hearts.

“I’m not like this with everyone, you know.” It seemed you didn’t know how to keep a secret, either.

“I know.”

After dinner, you sat on the porch, watching the rainy night with Viktor. You laid against his chest, his square thumbs massaging the wrist and palm of your dominant hand, which ached from the repetitive motions of your work.

“It is too bad such devoted hands cannot be mended with oil and tightening screws.” Viktor’s breath tickled the shell of your ear as he spoke. “Flesh and tendon is so difficult to work with.”

You melted against him, nestling your face against the side of his neck. “Still feels nice.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he replied, a smile in his voice.

The post-dinner relaxation gave way to a familiar pull of sleep, but when it came time to return to bed, you lingered in the doorway, pleading eyes pulling Viktor up from where he had been preparing to read on the couch.

He curled a finger against the underside of your jaw, stroking up and down. You pressed your mouth into a line and tilted your head at the man.

“Does this sleepy kitty need company?”

You tugged at the drawstring of his pants in response, and he relented, snatching up his book and settling into bed beside you, reading glasses perched on the edge of his angular nose.

“The reading light won’t keep you awake?”

You made a small noise to suffice as a “No” before curling into him, your hand sliding under his shirt, coming to rest on the tuft of hair beneath his bellybutton.

Viktor reread the same sentence about a dozen times before he realized he wouldn’t be able to focus with you touching him like that. Still, he tried, until the sinking pillows pulled him into the same delightful dreams you dwelled in.

It seemed in his sleep, he had lost control of his limbs. Viktor awoke to an entanglement he couldn’t possibly hope to free himself from.

Your thigh was trapped between his, one of your arms pinned underneath him. Viktor’s nose brushed yours as he raised his head from the pillow, surveying the situation.

The movement caused you to curl into him further, a satisfied huff tumbling from your soft lips.

Viktor gave up any notion of getting out of bed, conceding to his fate.

The second time he woke, you were bending over him, placing a sweet kiss on his forehead. He shut his eyes quickly, pretending he was still asleep.

You were greedy and sought another stolen kiss, this time atop the beauty mark below his eye, your lips a fluttery feeling against his cheekbone.

Viktor waited patiently, silently urging you to give the same treatment to the mark above his top lip. He sucked in a breath as he felt your weight shift on the mattress, considering it as you hovered above him.

Then the springs creaked, his hopes dashed as you instead decided to get up.

You were eager to repay the favour of last night’s dinner with breakfast in bed, but before you could step away, a warm hand had shot out, curling around your forearm.

“Good morning,” you greeted, Viktor’s unfocused eyes drinking in your form.

“Where do you think you are going?” He asked, the rasp in his voice causing something within you to shudder.

You lowered you voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s a secret.”

Viktor’s sleepy smile almost convinced you to stay. But you were determined to do something nice for him, after he’d organized the perfect getaway and treated you to such lovely cuddles all night.

“Stay here,” you told him, and reluctantly, his grip weakened, his hand falling empty as you walked away.

After five minutes of trying to be patient, he missed you too much, making his way to the kitchen.

“Vik,” you tutted as he came up behind you, hands sliding down your arms indulgently. You turned around, holding the spatula up threateningly.

“A fearsome weapon. Is it meant to scare me off?”

“Yes.”

Viktor wrapped his hand around yours, easily stealing it from you.

“Hey!” You complained, but there was a laugh in your voice. Viktor took over pancake flipping duty, if only out of guilt for ruining your plans to serve him in bed.

You gave up, pressing your forehead to his back. Your hands naturally found their way under the hem of his sleeping top, thumbs feeling out the bolts in his spine, tracing them with such fondness that Viktor struggled to remember how to breathe.

“How does your hand feel?” He asked, trying to maintain some semblance of composure.

“Like it needs more attention.”

Viktor smirked as you pushed your hand through the gap between his waist and arm, letting your arm dangle in his line of sight. He took hold of it and pushed circles into your palm with his thumb while he flipped the pancakes. It proved more difficult than he had anticipated.

Breakfast was eaten back in bed, as you had insisted, the entanglement now only limited to weaved legs. The dawning day beckoned, and as much as you both would’ve liked to remain underneath the covers, you both found the motivation to get dressed and ready to explore the town and beaches.

The dirt track that led you out of your blissful solitude was now dotted with puddles from last night’s storm. The sky still held a hint of grey, but luckily the clouds had mostly dissipated, giving way to a clearer day.

Your shoes squelched in the mud as you stepped out, turning back and waiting for Viktor as he locked the front door. When he turned to you, he froze at the look you were giving him.

“Do I have something on my face?”

He looked absolutely divine. Being outside of Piltover, outside of the Academy, seemed just as good for him as it was for you. The leather strap of his bag crossed over his chest, atop a teasingly sheer white button down. He’d pushed his reading glasses up into his hair, a stray strand falling against his forehead. You adored him.

“Oh,” he noticed your gaze and tapped his head, quickly taking the glasses off and pushing them into his bag.

He reached you before you could fathom a reply. “Let’s hope the rain does not catch us out,” he spoke, unaware of the way your enamoured heart had caused a short-circuit in your brain. He was amused at the stunned expression you wore, reaching up to tap on a large leaf above your head, causing cold droplets to fall upon your face.

You released a shocked laugh, giving him a light shove. He regained his balance, his walking stick tucked firmly under his arm.

The trees glistened with suspended water drops, and you curiously tapped against a few before you stuck your tongue out, eager to taste how fresh the water was. The remnants rolled over your lips as you turned back to Viktor.

“You should taste it. It’s exactly like the clouds.”

Viktor stepped forward, a large hand cupping your jaw as he dipped his head. His mouth was against yours in an instant, stealing your breath. He took advantage of your parted lips, his tongue delving into your mouth.

When he pulled back he was pink-cheeked and wearing a wobbly smile.

“Yes,” he stammered, unable to focus on either your eyes or lips, his gaze flitting between them, “It does.”

[lisafication]

For those who might happen across this, I'm an administrator for the forum 'Sufficient Velocity', a large old-school forum oriented around Creative Writing. I originally posted this on there (and any reference to 'here' will mean the forum), but I felt I might as well throw it up here, as well, even if I don't actually have any followers.

This week, I've been reading fanfiction on Archive of Our Own (AO3), a site run by the Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW), a non-profit. This isn't particularly exceptional, in and of itself — like many others on the site, I read a lot of fanfiction, both on Sufficient Velocity (SV) and elsewhere — however what was bizarre to me was encountering a new prefix on certain works, that of 'End OTW Racism'. While I'm sure a number of people were already familiar with this, I was not, so I looked into it.

What I found... wasn't great. And I don't think anyone involved realises that.

To summarise the details, the #EndOTWRacism campaign, of which you may find their manifesto here, is a campaign oriented towards seeing hateful or discriminatory works removed from AO3 — and believe me, there is a lot of it. To whit, they want the OTW to moderate them. A laudable goal, on the face of it — certainly, we do something similar on Sufficient Velocity with Rule 2 and, to be clear, nothing I say here is a critique of Rule 2 (or, indeed, Rule 6) on SV.

But it's not that simple, not when you're the size of Archive of Our Own. So, let's talk about the vagaries and little-known pitfalls of content moderation, particularly as it applies to digital fiction and at scale. Let's dig into some of the details — as far as credentials go, I have, unfortunately, been in moderation and/or administration on SV for about six years and this is something we have to grapple with regularly, so I would like to say I can speak with some degree of expertise on the subject.

So, what are the problems with moderating bad works from a site? Let's start with discovery— that is to say, how you find rule-breaching works in the first place. There are more-or-less two different ways to approach manual content moderation of open submissions on a digital platform: review-based and report-based (you could also call them curation-based and flag-based), with various combinations of the two. Automated content moderation isn't something I'm going to cover here — I feel I can safely assume I'm preaching to the choir when I say it's a bad idea, and if I'm not, I'll just note that the least absurd outcome we had when simulating AI moderation (mostly for the sake of an academic exercise) on SV was banning all the staff.

In a review-based system, you check someone's work and approve it to the site upon verifying that it doesn't breach your content rules. Generally pretty simple, we used to do something like it on request. Unfortunately, if you do that, it can void your safe harbour protections in the US per Myeress vs. Buzzfeed Inc. This case, if you weren't aware, is why we stopped offering content review on SV. Suffice to say, it's not really a realistic option for anyone large enough for the courts to notice, and extremely clunky and unpleasant for the users, to boot.

Report-based systems, on the other hand, are something we use today — users find works they think are in breach and alert the moderation team to their presence with a report. On SV, this works pretty well — a user or users flag a work as potentially troublesome, moderation investigate it and either action it or reject the report. Unfortunately, AO3 is not SV. I'll get into the details of that dreadful beast known as scaling later, but thankfully we do have a much better comparison point — fanfiction.net (FFN).

FFN has had two great purges over the years, with a... mixed amount of content moderation applied in between: one in 2002 when the NC-17 rating was removed, and one in 2012. Both, ostensibly, were targeted at adult content. In practice, many fics that wouldn't raise an eye on Spacebattles today or Sufficient Velocity prior to 2018 were also removed; a number of reports suggest that something as simple as having a swearword in your title or summary was enough to get you hit, even if you were a 'T' rated work. Most disturbingly of all, there are a number of — impossible to substantiate — accounts of groups such as the infamous Critics United 'mass reporting' works to trigger a strike to get them removed. I would suggest reading further on places like Fanlore if you are unfamiliar and want to know more.

Despite its flaws however, report-based moderation is more-or-less the only option, and this segues neatly into the next piece of the puzzle that is content moderation, that is to say, the rubric. How do you decide what is, and what isn't against the rules of your site?

Anyone who's complained to the staff about how vague the rules are on SV may have had this explained to them, but as that is likely not many of you, I'll summarise: the more precise and clear-cut your chosen rubric is, the more it will inevitably need to resemble a legal document — and the less readable it is to the layman. We'll return to SV for an example here: many newer users will not be aware of this, but SV used to have a much more 'line by line, clearly delineated' set of rules and... people kind of hated it! An infraction would reference 'Community Compact III.15.5' rather than Rule 3, because it was more or less written in the same manner as the Terms of Service (sans the legal terms of art). While it was a more legible rubric from a certain perspective, from the perspective of communicating expectations to the users it was inferior to our current set of rules�� — even less of them read it,  and we don't have great uptake right now.

And it still wasn't really an improvement over our current set-up when it comes to 'moderation consistency'. Even without getting into the nuts and bolts of "how do you define a racist work in a way that does not, at any point, say words to the effect of 'I know it when I see it'" — which is itself very, very difficult don't get me wrong I'm not dismissing this — you are stuck with finding an appropriate footing between a spectrum of 'the US penal code' and 'don't be a dick' as your rubric. Going for the penal code side doesn't help nearly as much as you might expect with moderation consistency, either — no matter what, you will never have a 100% correct call rate. You have the impossible task of writing a rubric that is easy for users to comprehend, extremely clear for moderation and capable of cleanly defining what is and what isn't racist without relying on moderator judgement, something which you cannot trust when operating at scale.

Speaking of scale, it's time to move on to the third prong — and the last covered in this ramble, which is more of a brief overview than anything truly in-depth — which is resources. Moderation is not a magic wand, you can't conjure it out of nowhere: you need to spend an enormous amount of time, effort and money on building, training and equipping a moderation staff, even a volunteer one, and it is far, far from an instant process. Our most recent tranche of moderators spent several months in training and it will likely be some months more before they're fully comfortable in the role — and that's with a relatively robust bureaucracy and a number of highly experienced mentors supporting them, something that is not going to be available to a new moderation branch with little to no experience. Beyond that, there's the matter of sheer numbers.

Combining both moderation and arbitration — because for volunteer staff, pure moderation is in actuality less efficient in my eyes, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this post, but we'll treat it as if they're both just 'moderators' — SV presently has 34 dedicated moderation volunteers. SV hosts ~785 million words of creative writing.

AO3 hosts ~32 billion.

These are some very rough and simplified figures, but if you completely ignore all the usual problems of scaling manpower in a business (or pseudo-business), such as (but not limited to) geometrically increasing bureaucratic complexity and administrative burden, along with all the particular issues of volunteer moderation... AO3 would still need well over one thousand volunteer moderators to be able to match SV's moderator-to-creative-wordcount ratio.

Paid moderation, of course, you can get away with less — my estimate is that you could fully moderate SV with, at best, ~8 full-time moderators, still ignoring administrative burden above the level of team leader. This leaves AO3 only needing a much more modest ~350 moderators. At the US minimum wage of ~$15k p.a. — which is, in my eyes, deeply unethical to pay moderators as full-time moderation is an intensely gruelling role with extremely high rates of PTSD and other stress-related conditions — that is approximately ~$5.25m p.a. costs on moderator wages. Their average annual budget is a bit over $500k.

So, that's obviously not on the table, and we return to volunteer staffing. Which... let's examine that scenario and the questions it leaves us with, as our conclusion.

Let's say, through some miracle, AO3 succeeds in finding those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteer moderators. We'll even say none of them are malicious actors or sufficiently incompetent as to be indistinguishable, and that they manage to replicate something on the level of or superior to our moderation tooling near-instantly at no cost. We still have several questions to be answered:

How are you maintaining consistency? Have you managed to define racism to the point that moderator judgment no longer enters the equation? And to be clear, you cannot allow moderator judgment to be a significant decision maker at this scale, or you will end with absurd results.

How are you handling staff mental health? Some reading on the matter, to save me a lengthy and unrelated explanation of some of the steps involved in ensuring mental health for commercial-scale content moderators.

How are you handling your failures? No moderation in the world has ever succeeded in a 100% accuracy rate, what are you doing about that?

Using report-based discovery, how are you preventing 'report brigading', such as the theories surrounding Critics United mentioned above? It is a natural human response to take into account the amount and severity of feedback. While SV moderators are well trained on the matter, the rare times something is receiving enough reports to potentially be classified as a 'brigade' on that scale will nearly always be escalated to administration, something completely infeasible at (you're learning to hate this word, I'm sure) scale.

How are you communicating expectations to your user base? If you're relying on a flag-based system, your users' understanding of the rules is a critical facet of your moderation system — how have you managed to make them legible to a layman while still managing to somehow 'truly' define racism?

How are you managing over one thousand moderators? Like even beyond all the concerns with consistency, how are you keeping track of that many moving parts as a volunteer organisation without dozens or even hundreds of professional managers? I've ignored the scaling administrative burden up until now, but it has to be addressed in reality.

What are you doing to sweep through your archives? SV is more-or-less on-top of 'old' works as far as rule-breaking goes, with the occasional forgotten tidbit popping up every 18 months or so — and that's what we're extrapolating from. These thousand-plus moderators are mostly going to be addressing current or near-current content, are you going to spin up that many again to comb through the 32 billion words already posted?

I could go on for a fair bit here, but this has already stretched out to over two thousand words.

I think the people behind this movement have their hearts in the right place and the sentiment is laudable, but in practice it is simply 'won't someone think of the children' in a funny hat. It cannot be done.

Even if you could somehow meet the bare minimum thresholds, you are simply not going to manage a ruleset of sufficient clarity so as to prevent a much-worse repeat of the 2012 FF.net massacre, you are not going to be able to manage a moderation staff of that size and you are not going to be able to ensure a coherent understanding among all your users (we haven't managed that after nearly ten years and a much smaller and more engaged userbase). There's a serious number of other issues I haven't covered here as well, as this really is just an attempt at giving some insight into the sheer number of moving parts behind content moderation:  the movement wants off-site content to be policed which isn't so much its own barrel of fish as it is its own barrel of Cthulhu; AO3 is far from English-only and would in actuality need moderators for almost every language it supports — and most damning of all,  if Section 230 is wiped out by the Supreme Court  it is not unlikely that engaging in content moderation at all could simply see AO3 shut down.

As sucky as it seems, the current status quo really is the best situation possible. Sorry about that.

[hislittleraincloud]

Anyone who knows my pattern knows that fic isn't too far behind after a soundtrack is posted. But, Part 3 is still a little messy, so am taking time to smooth it out.

Apologies to those in Russia, I guess that the above video is blocked in your country. Celine Dion and Fiona Apple aren't very charitable (the Police and the Gin Blossoms don't give a flying fuck). The latter should be happy I remastered "Criminal".

There is a short Cairo narration in the beginning.

Remember that this is the music that canon Cairo listens to, so...

[etirabys]

meandering post about reading Orson Scott Card again

I've been offline starting at 9pm every day (except once. I was drunk at karaoke and asked for anons at 8:30pm) for six weeks, with the result that in befuddled boredom two nights ago I picked up Orson Scott Card's Songmaster from the house bookshelf.

I read Ender's Game and three sequels when I was a teen thought the books were mid. Since those are OSC's best works I assumed he had nothing more interesting to offer me and didn't try more of him for fifteen years, but Songmaster was compelling enough that I immediately afterwards picked up The Memory of Earth, the first book of a pentalogy.

TMoE is extremely my jam: after humanity blows itself up on Earth, AIs monitor thriving human civilizations in the planets that survivors managed to escape to, and suppress any tech that enables large scale violence by exerting low key mind control via satellites. But forty million years pass, many of the satellites break down, and the AI needs help from humans to restore capabilities. Because as its control wanes, people are starting to e.g. conceive of airplanes or bombs again, and override the injunctions against entering military alliances more than two edges of connection away.

The AI is worshipped as a god all over the planet, but the fourteen year old protagonist that becomes one of the AI's agents tells the AI from the beginning that he'll break with it if its morality seems wrong to him. I like the fourteen year old – unlike Ender or Songmaster's protagonist (adult minds piloting ten year old bodies), he's a normal gifted kid who's unpopular 50% due to his ego and big mouth and 50% because he's socially inept and offends people even when he's trying to be nice.

Songmaster is also partly about a permanent solution to large-scale violence, albeit through one guy who establishes a monopoly on violence and sweeps in pax galactica. Both it and TMoE are preoccupied with the eradication of suffering from evil / human violence, which is closer to my resonant frequency than narratives about defeating particular people or ideologies. At the moment I can't think of any other book with such an insistent focus on the matter than T.H. White's The Once and Future King. It's hard to make a compelling story out of, and I don't think Songmaster really succeeds, but TMoE's premise is well suited to explore that. (I'm also enjoying the matriarchal culture where everyone is expected to have multiple serial-monogamous marriages.) After reading 70% of TMoE last night I wrote:

Usually when I read fiction there's a small part of me going, how can I use this as fodder for my own growth, how can I remix or improve or react against this, how do the author and I measure against each other? (If the quality and content are at an anti-sweet spot, the small part becomes quite large and I feel all teeth towards the author.) But on occasion I read something so close that the absence of that measuring-feeling is its own sensation – ego departs, or at least is split across two bodies. There's just amity and recognition

And it's pretty interesting to feel this way about Card for, well, the reasons.

(If you're familiar with Card drama none of the following will be new to you; I'm coming to it fresh so the rest of this post is me going "uh... wow")

I vaguely knew he was a homophobic Mormon who'd gotten into fights about gay stuff, but I couldn't tell from the Ender books I read. But in Songmaster his issues spring off the page in such a weird way. Every fifth Goodreads review of this book is "Card, u gay?" because, well,

(One review, possibly from a fellow Mormon, that went "Card, it's so sinful of you to be this gay in your novel". Why did he write this book that would predictably make everyone mad...)

it's full of gay male desire. The protagonist (Ansset) is approximately a castrato and characters notice him sexually a lot. The first and only time Ansset has sex it's with a Kinsey 4-5 male character he loves, who's married to a woman but has fallen in love with Ansset. It turns out the drugs Ansset took to prolong his singing career painfully and only-kinda-figuratively explode your balls when you have your first orgasm and you'll never feel sexual desire again. (You'd think his loving teachers would have warned him of that, but, whatever, they didn't.) The other guy is literally castrated in punishment for inadvertently torturing a highly valuable castrato. It's pretty bald: GAY SEX IS ALMOST IRRESISTIBLY TEMPTING BUT YOU SHOULDN'T DO IT.

(Sidenote: both Ansset and the guy's wife are very close and have a "there's enough love to go around" attitude about the gay sex initially, before they go "wait Josif is a SERIAL MONOGAMIST... he can only love one person at a time... the moment he had the gay sex his marriage was destroyed". It's funny in a mildly stupid way that Card would set up this parable of homosexuality destroying lives and a marriage but almost everyone involved is peacefully ready to sail into an open marriage. I guess it makes sense if you want to say very clearly that THE GAY PART IS THE BAD PART)

which is fascinating to me, because... why would you tell on yourself like that

(81k also told me secondhand of an essay? interview? where Card openly says "we have to stand against legalizing gay marriage because everyone will get gay married and society will collapse", so that's informing my read of Songmaster as well)

I am pretty dang open about my personal life online but if I had a lot of feelings I thought were disgusting and immoral I would not write a novel dripping with those feelings before pointedly castrating the leads for them. Especially if it wasn't relevant to the actually highbrow themes of (checks notes) winning over your adversaries with kindness and never relinquishing your monopoly on violence. I would be so so so so embarrassed to let this go to print, it's so psychologically transparent, what was he thinking

(Well, I assume he's a very different person with different social incentives. For all I know, people in his church went "hey Orson we read your book and it's clear that you're gay but signaling strongly that you won't give into the gay feelings, we're here for you, it was really brave of you to publish this".)

[minus-plus-zer0]

~ Welcome ~

| ♡ Ao3: minus-plus-zero ♡ | | ♡ Fanfiction.net: minus-plus-zero ♡ | | ♡ Bluesky: minus-plus-zero ♡ || ♡ Request status: CLOSED ♡ |

~ Rules ~

You can request drabbles, headcanons, or one-shot fanfics. If not specified I often default to writing fanfics.

I write fluff 🩷, angst 💔, hurt/comfort 💘, or crack ❣️.

I do not write smut, cheating, or sexual assault.

I do not write abuse or abusive dynamics between Bakugou and the reader. Abusive themes are otherwise okay (such as abusive backstories or witnessing abuse), with the sole exception of sexual abuse.

I only write gender neutral or female readers. I keep most stories race/gender neutral.

I only write romantic Bakugou x reader. Side ships with other characters may be included, but Bakugou and the reader must only be with each other!

Please do not copy/repost my art without permission! If I accidentally use stolen/AI art please let me know, because this is never intentional.

~ Masterlist ~

| 🩷 - fluff | 💔 - angst | 💘 - hurt/comfort | ❣️ - crack |

Drabbles

He Likes to Share His Food 🩷

Love at First Sight 🩷

Offering His Jacket 🩷

Reminders of You 🩷

What He Thinks About Post-Breakup 💔

Who the King Serves 🩷

Bakugou Fights For You 💘🩷

Not Afraid to Say ILY 🩷

Possessive 🩷

Family Getting Ready for Bed 🩷

The Bakugou Blanket 🩷

When He's Tired 💘🩷

Casually Touching You 🩷

A Rockstar's Muse 🩷

Your Lipstick Stains 🩷

Calling Him Pet Names 🩷

Seeing You With Another Man 🩷 💔

Recording a Love Song Together 🩷

Kissing a Princess's Hand 🩷

Say It Back, Please 🩷

Camera Shy 🩷

Comparing Hand Sizes 🩷

How to Summon a Demon 🩷

That Gorgeous Dress 🩷

Skull Shirts 🩷

Kisses For When You're Injured 🩷

Headcanons

Studying in Bakugou's Dorm 🩷

Studying in Bakugou's Home 🩷

Getting a Dog With Bakugou 🩷

Vigilante Bakugou x Normal Reader - Part 1 💔

Vigilante Bakugou x Normal Reader - Part 2 💔🩷

"And They Were Roommates" University Version 🩷

Working at Bakugou's Agency - Part 1 🩷

Working at Bakugou's Agency - Part 2 🩷

Fireworks Festival With Bakugou 🩷

Fiance 🩷

Beauty Pageant 🩷

Multi-Chapter Fics

A Royal's Choice [Masterlist]

The Bakusquad Gaming Group [Masterlist]

University Days With Bakugou [Masterlist]

Werewolf AU [Masterlist]

One-Shot Fics

Paper Kiss Game 🩷

Missed Texts 💔

Stuck Inside From the Rain 🩷

Shopping With Bakugou 🩷

Disappearance of You 💔💘 [Request]

Dead of Night 💔💘

His Cologne (And Yours) 🩷

Accidentally Sleeping Together 🩷

Almost Too Late 💔💘🩷

Tattoos 🩷

Alice in Wonderland White Rabbit Reader 🩷❣️ [Request]

(Not) Highly Trained in the Art of Kissing 🩷

He Hears You Talking About Him 🩷

Catching Him in His Celebrity Disguise 🩷

So Pretty 🩷

When You're Depressed 💘

Jealousy 💘🩷

Sharing His Earphones 🩷

While You're Gone 🩷

"You Know You're Fictional, Right?" 🩷❣️

Staring Contest 🩷

Sunshine Vs Grumpy 🩷

One Good Grovel 🩷❣️

Happy Accidents 🩷

Moodboards

Dates With Bakugou 🩷

[kin-dewdles]

YOU

I SEE YOU

YOU’RE A SYSTEM WHO WANTS DRAWINGS OF YOUR ALTERS AND/OR A THERIAN/OTHERKIN WHO WANTS DRAWINGS OF YOUR KINTYPES

WELL YOU’RE IN LUCK

I, FOR FREE, WILL DRAW YOU A DOODLE

IT WILL BE A DOODLE, NOT ANYTHING FANCY

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS GO TO THAT ASK BOX, PLOP SOME REFERENCES, GIVE A DESCRIPTION, AND HIT SEND!

I WILL DRAW: PEOPLE, FICTIONAL PEOPLE, CREATURES, ANTHROPOMORPHIC GUYS! I WILL DRAW NEAR ANYTHING

I WILL ALSO DRAW GORE! I WILL NOT DRAW NSFW! I RETAIN THE RIGHT TO SAY NO TO A DRAWING!

YOU MAY USE YOUR DOODLE FOR ANYTHING, AS LONG AS YOU CREDIT ME! DO NOT FEED MY ART TO AI!

I HAVE NO DNI, EXCEPT FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO ARGUE. THIS IS A DRAWING BLOG, NOT AN ARGUING ONE.

I AM A ENDOSAFE BLOG :D

This blog is run by @silhouette-system !

mod list: Ayrton (🏎️ or 🪽), Sasha (🦌), Wanderer (🖤), and Ghost (🌑)

check reblogs for current request list!

requests are open! i don't plan on closing them, but due to the amount of requests i've received, prepare for a wait :(

examples of things I’ve drawn under the cut!

[biowaredisasterbisexual]

I feel like too many people think they can’t write fanfic. And you can! ANYONE can!

That’s part of what makes fanfiction so beautiful.

I can already hear the arguments you’re coming up with for why I’m wrong. Why someone, or you specifically, can’t write fanfic. So let’s just answer those doubts I see most often.

“I’m bad at it.”

We were all bad at it when we started. Whoever your favorite fandom authors are? Their earliest stuff wasn’t the quality their stuff is now. I started writing fanfiction in middle school, eons ago, and whether my writing is considered good or not now I’m sure no one would recognize the stuff I posted back then as mine today (except maybe @vael-fire). But writing is a skill that you improve through practice. If you keep going you will eventually write something you are proud of.

Find friends in your fandoms, exchange ideas, participate it fun little writing memes and prompts. All of that is practice. You can absolutely write quality fanfic if you try.

“I don’t know how.”

Totally fair. No one is born just knowing how to write fiction. So find authors in your fandoms you enjoy and ask them questions! I have never met a fanfic writer who doesn’t like talking about their creations and how they crafted them! I promise, even your fandom’s BNFs (or whatever they’re called these days) are just people doing this because they love it, like you are.

Just ask! You’ll probably get an answer.

So go write! You can do it! Join the fun and the insanity!

(And for the love of whatever you consider holy, please do not use AI.)