waterlily love interests except for tiffany and luna stop treating the mc like a four year old with no personal agency or autonomy and is not a grown ass woman herself challenge.
My disclaimer: please go into this post with an open mind and know that as of this point I am not accusing RC of anything, I am merely bringing up concerns, specifically concerns about their new book Waterlily.
I would like to mention that I am against AI being used in a creative writing way on an app that is specifically for visual novels, if that isnât something that concerns you thatâs fine and you may not find anything in this post to be of note. You may also just find my evidence to not be compelling, that is completely fine.
Second Disclaimer: This was put together by @cordonia; she has worked very hard to go through much of this and is working on a more in depth document citing as much as she can.
I feel like since theyâve started using AI to do most of the art in these books I have worried about the inevitable: AI use in the writing of stories.
Which brings me to my main claim: I believe that RC and Klara have used AI, at least to a certain extent, to write Waterlily.
If you feel uncomfortable with that I completely understand, it was one of the books I have been most excited about and genuinely enjoyed. I have made posts praising it and only two days ago I would have had defended this book wholeheartedly.
In the past day unfortunately I have been presented significant amounts of evidence that show that the writing has many of the hallmarks of AI. At first I was confused and denied it but the more I have looked into it, the more I have realized the severity of the situation.
I cannot feasibly list everything in this post that has been curated showing AI usage but I would like to give some examples that have been particularly egregious to me. All of these are things that are seen regularly when using generative AI in creative writing.
1) Heavily repeated words.
- For those have heard of the book Shy Girl, you know that it was revealed to have been made, at least in part due to AI. One of the big things noted in the book was the overuse of the word âsharpâ as a descriptor. This book unfortunately not only had this problem, but has it in part with the very same word.
- Sharp is repeated 17 times, including 7 times in one chapter. This includes many lines where most humans would likely not consider that to be the optimal word for the situation. While thatâs also possible to be human error, itâs the pure amount of times it is repeated that gives me pause. Examples: âsome truths are too sharp to say out loudâ, âhe inhales sharplyâ, âis grin widened, sharp and delightedâ.
- Other words that are so far noticeably used repeatedly include: heavy, weight, spine, and memory. Theyâre not insanely overused but they are used pretty consistently in similar metaphors and contexts (such as both the lines âthe memory burnsâ and âthe memory releases meâ in the same chapter). Memory in particular seems to be a word often repeated by AI.
2) Repetitive and Fragmented Sentence Structure
- A common gen AI writing style seen is short fragmented sentences, some examples from WL include: âI looked away first. Heart hammering. Throat dry.â âNot like that. Not in a sad way. In a poetic way.â or âMe at the edge. Tiffany beside me. The shift in weight. The push. The fall.â
- In less than the first three chapters this is seen at least 20 times (there may be some not spotted yet, and more in the remaining two chapters).
- Again these are commonly used writing tropes on their own but the sheer amount is unusual, even among something like fanfic (which ofc AI has been trained on).
3) Mirrored Dialogue Cadence
- Again this is shown at least 13 times in the first three chapters alone. While this is a common writing quirk, it is very common in this story.
- Some examples include [Riley: âIt's called repetition for emphasis.â / Declan: âIt's called a limited vocabulary.â], [Lily: âStop sulking. We're having fun.â / Riley: âYou're having fun. I'm having heatstrokeâ / Lily: âSame thing.â], and [Fabian: âGirls tend to like my confidence.â / Riley: âGirls tend to like a lot of things that are bad for them.â]
4) Overuse of Similes:
- This includes both âlikeâ and âas ifâ statements.
- Again if any of you know of the Shy Girl drama, you know that book had a severe over reliance on similes, many of which make less and less sense when thought through.
- While I like a lot of the imagery in this book, looking at the similes in one document together raised many red flags.
- A total of at least 46 similes are used in the five chapters of WL that are currently out. Thatâs almost ten a chapter. I know many people enjoy writing flowery language but this book has an over reliance shown in examples such as Shy Girl.
- Some just first glance examples that I find to be a little unusual are âa touch so gentile it feels like a secretâ or âin the corner stands the easel, draped like a corpseâ.
5) The Dramatic Pause
- Ok full disclosure: I love an ellipses, truly I do. But it gets to a point. When thereâs over 55 uses of them in just 5 chapters it raises some red flags for me. These are seen in dialogue from every main character as well, it doesnât read like a character quirk from any one person.
- I guess some examples: âYes... I guess you always did have a hard head.â, âYour hands are... questionable.â, or âTo stay in there. Most people would find it... haunting.â
- Idk if I even need to include those, Iâm sure most of you know what ellipses are. Iâm sure many of you are also aware of gen AIs overuse of both ellipses and asterisks so I donât know if I have to explain this one as much.
6) âThe Kind Ofâ
- Another thing noted as being common in gen AI writing is using the phrase âthe kind ofâ. This is seen in WL in lines such as âA harp. Gilded and gleaming. The kind that belongs in a concert hall, not a bedroom.â and âThe kind of voice that's learned not to give anything away.â These arenât the only examples but a full list of them hasnât been compiled yet.
7) ânot ââ but â.â or âno â-. No â-. Just â-.â
- This is an extremely common thing to see in gen AI writing. I bet even if you donât know too much about it, you may have heard about this at some point.
- For instance âIâm not lying, Iâm just managingâ, âNo expectations. No pressure. Just live the summer.â, âNo pretense. Just sound.â, or âHe didnât want everyone. He just wanted to be wanted.â
- Iâm not fully sure how many of these there are total since theyâre still being curated but there certainly seem to be many so far.
Some final thoughts:
AI has been trained off of human writing, so to an extend most creative writing will read in some ways similarly to AI. This is why I am hesitant to even accuse Klara of using this amount of AI. It does seem suspicious though that she possessed a large amount of the writing quirks seen in AI. Many of these sparingly or individually donât raise any red flags to me but the sheer amount raises uncertainty.
If it is true that RC is moving in a direction that either encourages or allows AI to be used in the writing process, I would feel less inclined to support them. Itâs unfortunate but I truly donât understand the point of making visual novels if not to have someone write the novel. AI steals from other artists and I consider it to be theft, I am very hesitant to support a company that encourages theft.
So yeah, thatâs the thoughts of today, I apologize for the ramble. Again thanks to @cordonia for the hard work she has put into examining this book. There will be much more added to her current document looking into this and Iâll update this post in reblogs as more comes out.
Again please know I wouldnât be making this post if it was not a major concern for me. I was very into the book when it came out but I worry now that this is showing a bad direction RC could be going in.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbeKTa5xhZo&t=1961s - I watched this and unfortunately saw some things that reminded me of Waterlily, hence why âsharpâ is a major tell for me.
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