Stealing ashtrays, writing fic.

Fannish stuff, mostly Supernatural, recently fallen into heated rivalry, rwrb and malec (sideblog @a-stray-thief). Ship and let ship. There will always be dinosaurs. Fics on AO3 under ashtraythief/a_stray_thief, ongoing ramblings on bluesky. anon asks always open. she/her, queer

[ashtraythief]

Hello, didn't know if you still entertain requests for Underneath Verse, but I'm giving it a shot and how about a chapter or two of Jensen taking a bullet for Chad.

Ah sorry nonnie, I'm in the middle of writing The End and I don't want to take detours to distract me from that, it's taking long enough as it is 😅

Jensen taking a bullet for Chad would be so much fun though... I'm hoping their relationship in The End will make up for the fact that it's sadly not going to happen 💙

[a-stray-thief]

On ai and fanfic (fuck ai but why)

Full disclosure, I’ve been anti generative ai in fandom and all other spaces for a while now. I knew people were using it, but I’m kind of appalled how widespread it is and how “good” AI has become between the last time I looked and now. (Good meaning that sometimes it takes me a while to catch on, sometimes I never catch on, but the fic itself is still not what I would consider good if it’s entirely written by ai.) I usually stay out of fandom discourse that makes me unhappy because fandom is my strict happy place, but AI just makes me really mad, and since the JohnDoe AI report dropped last night, I had to try to sort my feelings and get it out of my system. Something that letting AI write for you can never do for you btw. (All of this applies to AI generated art as well, but since I am a writer and not an artist, I’m writing from a writer’s pov, but I think the same applies to AI generated art as well.)

I think for me, both as a writer and a reader, the question of ai use for fanfic comes down to three different questions: environmental, philosophical, and ethical. (I don’t know if those are great terms for it, but it’s what came to mind and I’m not going to brainstorm with fucking Claude or chatgpt about it. If someone has ideas for better categories, lemme know!)

Environmental is the question if using ai is worth it, considering its incredibly harmful impact on our environment like the energy consumption of it, the water waste and the pollution of data centers, the enrichment of soulless tech bros who are building up the ai bubble without any kind of sustainability or accountability and just want to make money before the bubble bursts by farming any and all of our output to collect our data. Like AI in itself can be incredibly helpful, i.e. in medicine, but generative AI is not created to benefit humans. They might claim they’re creating chatbots as research helpers and co-editors and friends (how can something that neither thinks nor feels be a friend???), but there doesn’t seem to be a single benign thought behind creating generative ai. It’s collecting data and the sycophantic nature is actively harming people’s ability to navigate rl interactions and especially conflicts, never mind the horrific and extreme examples of encouraging suicide. They’ve also repeatedly said there’s not enough money being made with generative AI, so they’re pushing it harder for people and companies everywhere to use even if the benefits are limited. So no, I don’t think whatever story or picture or essay you could get out of AI is worth it for fucking our planet or our society.

All of these issues obviously pertain to all generative ai use, whereas the philosophical question for me is fandom specific. What does it mean to create fanfiction?

By definition, fanfiction (or fanart) is created by someone who is a fan, or someone who has strong emotions about a piece of media, to engage with that piece of media. It can be done out of love, to stay and play with favorite characters, to continue the story, to expand the universe, to bring different beloved characters and worlds together. It can also be fix-it to overcome what someone thinks are shortcomings and missing bits from canon and it can be spite fic to deal with something you really, really dislike. Either way, it comes from a place of feelings, and it’s written for people who might have similar feelings about it. AI does not feel. So how can it engage with the source material in the same way we do? How can AI hope to create something that is so fundamentally rooted in feelings when it’s the one thing it doesn’t have? It’s no surprise, I think, that many people describe AI writing as soulless or cold. It’s also the question of the process. Writing is often called a labor of love. We love to write, and sometimes it’s easy, but it’s also always work. Work we love, work we hate, work that makes us despair and pull our hair out or makes us do little happy dances in our desk chairs. We take all our feelings for our little blorbos and we put them in words. It’s a struggle, but it’s worth it. It’s catharsis. It’s dealing with what’s going on inside of us and sharing that with the people who also love our little blorbos. Writing fanfic is only part of it, sharing it is the other part. It’s a communal thing. For many people, writing itself is also communal. Some people approach writing as a solitary task, which is absolutely valid, but many others have beta readers and plot brainstormers and prompt writers. Using AI for your fic is not communal. It’s not a person reading your writing for love of the game and thinking with you about your writing because of a shared passion. Using AI is having a machine string the most common words together dictated by an algorithm that was trained by absorbing millions of words on the internet. Sure, you can do that, but it’s not really what fandom is about. Fandoms grow and live and thrive because we love the same thing. AI has nothing of value to add to that. Sure, there’s more content. But content is not what fandom makes. A community of people is what makes a fandom.

Of course, some people use AI tools only to edit their fics, to spellcheck or to correct grammar. I think that that’s sort of fine, but your mileage may vary on that. I’m personally not a huge fan of it, because of the aforementioned environmental issues, but there are different tools for this, i.e. I think specific writing tools like grammarly are better than just putting everything into chatgpt, and I understand that people who struggle with spelling and grammar or who are not native English speakers appreciate the help. I’d always recommend getting a human beta reader instead, but I also understand that finding betas you jive with and making yourself vulnerable like that with other people can be a challenge. However, I’d also argue, if you want to improve as a writer, it’ll go much better with a person looking over your writing and not feeding it into an AI generator. (Disclaimer that fanfic is a hobby, no one has to improve or use a beta if they don’t want to, this is very much a matter of preference, but if you do want someone to look over your writing, please get an actual human being for that.)

All this does not even touch on the copyright issues and the inherent plagiarism of AI which was trained on everything on the internet without anyone’s consent. It also doesn’t consider all the biases rampant on the internet that AI picked up on, i.e. racism, sexism, homophobia etc. Which means by letting AI write fanfic, potentially it’s letting AI bring all of that shit in too. So it’s an issue of morality too.

The last, and ethical part, is directly in response to the AI accusations and people’s reactions to it in the HR fandom. Many people clearly do not want to see AI in fandom spaces, but some people also don’t care. In response to this, it seems, many authors are just lying about using AI. And that’s just fucked. If you use AI, just cop to it. Especially if you just use it for editing or research. But be fucking transparent. I’ve seen many people say, just tag your work so we can avoid it, and it’s fine, but apparently to these authors hits and kudos and comments are more important than honesty. And the hits and the kudos and the comments are more important than the true experience and community of fandom of caring about something together. Clout chasers in fandom aren’t new. People have always plagiarized works, have always lied for attention (and sometimes even money), but AI gives people a whole new tool to grab attention, to do it quickly and to do it often. And then to fucking lie about it. So the question is, how do we want to engage with people who create fanfic or fanart with AI? And that’s something that everybody needs to and should answer for themselves. Transparency is a good first step, but the thing about people is, they lie. We can call for transparency, but it might not make people be more honest and then in a quest to discover more AI in fanfic, we will remain in murky waters because not everyone leaves visible prompts or coding in their works. I’d argue that most people probably don’t. Especially now that it’s been revealed people will be more careful. People who only have very few instances of code left in their fics have probably already been careful. And recognizing AI by style alone is possible but not definitive. AI was trained on a lot of fanfic so the stylistic similarities are there. So there’s the danger of accusations without proof and an incredibly toxic climate in fandom that might discourage fic writers who don’t use AI from posting for fear of being accused. But we also need accountability. And honestly, when it comes to letting AI write your fics, shame. Insert the GoT shame gif here.

I don’t know if there’s a feasible solution for this. This might just be one of the pitfalls of fandom, one of the dark sides we have to deal with to enjoy the good stuff. Personally, I think using AI to write fanfic of all things, is fucking shitty, both for environmental and moral reasons and for it being the fucking antithesis to everything good that fandom stands for. I have no interest in reading what an AI generated about my favorite blorbos, I want to read what other people who love my blorbos have to say about them. I understand the rush of posting a fic and getting kudos and comments and positive feedback. I understand the pressure of finishing a WIP or the desire to post a new fic as quickly as possible. But at what price? It not being your own? Posting a soulless creation strung together by a machine that scavenged the internet for words that go together and drained a lake and destroyed a chunk of forest in the process? No thanks. I’ll take your slightly wonky, spelling and punctuation sporting fic with a weird premise and a charming execution over that any day.

So to everyone not using ai: keep writing. Keep loving your blorbos and keep putting them in situations because it brings you joy and catharsis and keep sharing it with other people to bring them joy and catharsis. Fandom is a living breathing community that we create by being in it. There’s always going to be shitty people and shitty things, but fandom has been prevailing through decades of dealing with shitty people and shitty things and we’re still here. We still love. And while everything is bigger now, and more public and more exposed, bringing more and new issues with it, including attention and notoriety (which are probably a huge part of the allure using ai), we can still make fandom a community we love. We might have to shame a few people into fucking stopping using ai, but it doesn’t have to ruin the whole community for us. Fandom is ours and I refuse to let shitty ai take that way from us.

[normal-horoscopes]

Everyone shut up and look at this carving of a whale from the 1200-600 CE Chumash culture

[theslowesthnery]

ohhhhhh my godddddd

[ashtraythief]

You inspire me so much! Your writing & characterizations & world building….. omggg

Oh thank you so much! That's so kind of you to message ❤️

[laurakansas]

❝  Endings are hard. But then again.. nothing ever really ends, does it ?  ❞ — In which my favourite TV show and Disney meet to create my perfect Supernatural ending. 

[petite-madame]

Wanted Dead or Alive - (2022)

I asked people on Twitter what they wanted to see from me next and a lot of answers were “Sam & Dean Winchester as cowboys”. Ok! Enjoy then! 😁

[sasquatchandleatherjacket]

[chapelh1ll]

They're so 👬

Was rewatching s2 and NEEDED to draw this scene

[ashtraythief]

Hey..do you concern yourself with the current spn fandom discourse?

Not really. Sometimes I see it of course, but I just steer around it. I know that not all discourse is negative, but a lot of it is, and I just want happy vibes.

[ashtraythief]

Do you ship destiel? Either as canon or fanon?

No. I'm all for ship and let ship, destiel just isn't for me.

[ashtraythief]

underneath verse: if for some reason one of jared's crew was suspecting jensen and they were super convinced of it who would jared believe?

Look, guys, I love all the underneath questions, but you can't keep asking me questions that go into The End territory 😅 Like, I've thought about this, of course I have, but any kind of answer I could give here could potentially go into spoiler territory. So... no comment?

[ashtraythief]

i kinda just feel like i'm pestering you atp but i was curious about this so: in True Lies jensen is super upset after that guy calls him a whore and wants to make sure that jared knows he isn't in it for the money. jared chalks it upto campbell's mom being a sex worker but we know this isn't the case for ackles. so, why is he this disturbed by it? -ann

No worries! Happy to answer asks when I have the time.

I think I answered a similar ask a while back but I can't find it now, so the short answer is that technically Jensen is whoring himself out for the FBI but he also isn't doing anything he doesn't want to do. And it's important to him to make that clear, for himself, and also for Jared in case the truth ever comes out. Jensen tries to tell Jared the truth as much as he can and show him that he really does love his him even if Jared doesn't understand (sort of like the proposal too).

[ashtraythief]

When the fic is done will you tell us what ended you had in mind originally? I’m curious to know! I remember you saying that when you started the fic that you always knew how it was going to end (with the big, important stuff) and that’s not changed. The fact that stuff has changed is interesting 👀

Also, wow, sometime this year would be amazing!!!!! That would be in the next 6 months. I’m holding out hope for it!!!!

Oh yeah I can do that!

And okay so with the changed ending, the thing is that I wrote the first ending before I ever finished the first fic. Like the ending came after writing the first chapter of Underneath it all. But then I finished writing underneath it all and because I was an inexperienced baby writer at that point I had no idea what I was getting myself into and my characters completely got away from me (and so did the word count, I thought I was writing a 50k fic lmao. Like for everything, start to finish. That's why undernesth it all itself has such an open ending lol. 500k later and I realized I slightly miscalculated... ) and so by the time I had finished underneath it all, I knew that my original ending was not going to happen. And I realized there was really only one other way this could end and I've been working on how to get there ever since. If that makes sense 😅

I'm really hoping for like a Christmas miracle to get this done this year 😅 though the more I think about it, let's shoot for 27 to be safe...

[ashtraythief]

underneath verse: same anon who said that they were through with 30 works and i'm done now!! it was so good. god, i can't imagine how you're going to end it. just. this verse is so vast and detailed and i can't even imagine writing an ending to something like that. i hope you continue writing little timestamps and maybe even take up some prompts for the verse after it's over. also i'm so scared of what decision jen's going to make TvT. i don't even know what ending *i* would be satisfied with, let alone the one that would satisfy the creator who's been working on it for years now. i mean, the obvious conclusion would be for jensen to leave the fbi and truly embrace his thrill seeking side but how would that work? jeff's not going to let it go that easy and would he tell jared about the whole thing? would jared ever trust him again? also, i don't know if jensen (ackles, that is) would just let a mob boss go like that, even if the guy is super hot and kinda woke, lol. anyway ignoring the pointless ramble, lovely, lovely fic. is there a tentative timeline for The End? this year or next, maybe? -ann

God okay first thank you so so much for your kind words! Love for this verse always makes me go extra gooey inside, so thank you!

Yeah, The End. I've been struggling working on that for a while now lol. The folder with the fic was created in 2020, but I'm pretty sure I had a document for it before that, so...

I'm pretty satisfied with it, but I know that not everyone will like it. I'm trying to ignore that anxiety though, because then I'll never finish. I will admit that at the very beginning of the fic I had a different ending in mind but once I started writing the timestamps it became clear pretty quickly how this had to end. It just took some time to figure out how to get there. On that note my underneath beta (she's like the main person I brainstorm and plot with for this verse) recently visited me and we worked out most of the remaining issues. Which brings me to the timeline. I'm tentatively hoping for the end of this year. My health has been futzy and my job situation right now is weird, so I can't really predict how much rl is going to fuck with my ability to work on this, so next year is probably more realistic 😭. (I have also fallen head first into Heated Rivalry and been writing for that but honestly I don't think that's writing energy I would've spent on underneath in the meantime because underneath is such a different kind of beast emotionally)

However. The draft is currently at 80k. 40 of those are the first two chapters which are in pretty good shape. The other 40k are in a rough third chapter and an absolutely messy heap of bits and pieces for chapter 4. I predict about 20k - 30k more to write and lots of edits for chapter 3 and massive edits for chapter 4. Actually I have to complete write chapter 4, using like 8k of messy notes. And I honestly cannot tell you how long that'll take.

I will have outtakes to post after it's done bc there's so much I've been cutting and so much that never made it into the verse. Whether I do prompts afterward will probably depend on how everyone, me included, will feel after it's posted lol

I know that this is taking me an atricously long time to finish, and I'm just so grateful for everyone still sticking with it.

Thank you so much for messaging, ann 💙

[ashtraythief]

i'm usually totally incapable of reading super long fics and even if they're really good i still need to take a bunch of breaks. your whole underneath verse is soo good though i've read through the first 30 works in only one day lol. you're super talented and i'm really grateful that you've written these wonderful fics.

Omg thank you so much! Your message is an absolute day brightener!

[ashtraythief]

For the first time in two years, my underneath beta is actually in the same room with me. And we just finished plotting out the rest of the fic. I still need to write it. But. We solved all major problems I think? I don't know? Is this real? It might be???

(no one get their hopes up for a quick turnaround please. But it is still happening, despite the atrociously long pause!)

[redstopgringo]

Are Pinky and the Brain still trying to take over the world? Because at this point, I'm willing to hear the Brain's platform.

[the-other-sandy]

At this point, I'm willing to hear Pinky's platform.