baby boy actually thought he was subtle...

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@eksilipilav
baby boy actually thought he was subtle...
Let's Talk About Ir Abelas, Da'ean
As some of you may know, I am vehemently against the dishonest use of AI in fandom and creative spaces. It has been brought to my attention by many, many people (and something I myself have thought on many times) that there is a DreadRook fic that is super popular and confirmed to be written at least partially with AI. I have the texts to prove it was written (at least) with the help of the Grammarly Rewrite generative feature.
Before I go any further, let it be known I was friends with this author; their use of rewrite features is something they told me and have told many other people who they have shared their fic with. It is not however, at the time of posting this, tagged or mentioned on their fic on AO3, in any capacity. I did in fact reach out to the author before making this post. They made absolutely no attempt to agree to state the use of Rewrite AI on their fic, nor be honest or upfront (in my opinion) about the possibility of their fic being complete generative AI. They denied the use of generative AI as a whole, though they did confirm (once again) use of the rewrite feature on Grammarly.
That all said: I do not feel comfortable letting this lie; since I have been asked by many people to make this, this post is simply for awareness.
You can form your own opinion, if you wish to. In fact, I encourage you to do such.
Aside from the, once again, high volume word output of around 352K words in less than 3 months (author says they had 10 chapters pre-written over "about a month" before they began posting; they are also on record saying they can write 5K-10K daily) from November until now, I have also said if you are familiar with AI services or peruse AI sites like ChatGPT, C.AI, J.AI, or any others similar to these, AI writing is very easy to pick out.
After some intense digging, research, and what I believe to be full confirmation via AI detection software used by professional publishers, there is a large and staggering possibility that the fic is almost entirely AI generated, bar some excerpts and paragraphs, here and there. I will post links below of the highly-resourced detection software that a few paragraphs and an entire chapter from this fic were plugged into; you are more than welcome to do with this information what you please.
I implore you to use critical thinking skills, and understand that when this many pieces in a work come back with such a high percentage of AI detected, that there is something going on. (There was a plethora of other AI detection softwares used that also corroborate these findings; I only find it useful to attach the most reputable source.)
Excerpts:
82% Likely Written by AI, 4% Plagiarism Match
Originality.ai - AI Content Detection
98% Likely Written by AI, 2% Plagiarism Match
Originality.ai - AI Content Detection
100% Likely Written by AI, 4% Plagiarism Match
Originality.ai - AI Content Detection
Some excerpts do in fact come back as 100% likely written by human; however, this does not mean that the author was not using the Grammarly Paraphrase/Rewrite feature for these excerpts.
The Grammarly Paraphrase/Rewrite feature does not typically clock as AI generative text, and alongside the example below, many excerpts from other fics were take and put through this feature, and then fed back into the AI detection software. Every single one came back looking like this, within 2% of results:
So, in my opinion, and many others, this goes beyond the use of the simple paraphrase/rewrite feature on Grammarly.
Entire Chapter (Most Recent):
67% Likely Written by AI
Originality.ai - AI Content Detection
As well, just for some variety, another detection software that also clocked plagiarism in the text:
15% Plagiarism Match
Detect AI-generated text with GPTZero's dashboard
To make it clear that I am not simply 'jealous' of this author or 'angry' at their work for simply being a popular work in the fandom, here are some excerpts from other fanfics in this fandom and in other fandoms that were ran through the same exact same detection software, all coming back as 100% human written. (If you would like to run my fic through this software or any others, you are more than welcome to. I do not want to run the risk of OP post manipulation, so I did not include my own.)
The Wolf's Mantle
100% Likely Human Written, 2% Plagiarism Match
Originality.ai - AI Content Detection
A Memory Called Desire
99% Likely Human Written
Originality.ai - AI Content Detection
Brand Loyalty
100% Likely Human Written
Originality.ai - AI Content Detection
Heart of The Sun
98% Likely Human Written
Originality.ai - AI Content Detection
Whether you choose to use AI in your own fandom works is entirely at your own discretion. However, it is important to be transparent about such usage.
AI has many negative impacts for creatives across many mediums, including writers, artists, and voice actors.
If you use AI, it should be tagged as such, so that people who do not want to engage in AI works can avoid engaging with it if they wish to.
ALL LINKS AND PICTURES COURTESY OF: @spiritroses
ah, the lengths people go to.
this writer has admitted to using ai, consistently uses ai voices to play around with their work, and has been booted from an online space before for using… guess what…. ai. there's nothing sinister or cruel in this post, it's a very simple request for taking accountability.
if this post sparks any anger in you toward the people who made it, i implore you to sit with that for a moment and carefully reread it. spoken as someone who wrote a callout post that was a bit mean, this is clearly not that.
it is so tiring to see a post containing absolutely no malice be turned on its head and made out to be bullying. i understand that ai accusations are scary and it's wobbly ground we haven't treaded before, but you guys. asking for accountability and transparency is not bullying or witch-hunting. criticism is not bullying or witch-hunting.
in a time where ai is gathering momentum as quickly as it is right now, it's important to keep each other honest. even if, and perhaps especially if, the persons in question are people we like and consider friends.
Whether you choose to use AI in your own fandom works is entirely at your own discretion. However, it is important to be transparent about such usage.
also, in premature defence of this post based on some of the criticism i got on my own: this is not cancel culture. this is not about cancelling anyone, and i think that's quite clear if one doesn't skim read the text and fly to the replies going directly for the jugular.
as i've said before: please be kind when you can. this post was clearly not made with ill intentions, so try not to respond to it as if it were regardless of whether you agree with the findings or not.
I don't know why this is hard for writers to admit. Look it's this simple: Hello guys, I'm trying to write fics. I'm new to this. English is not my native language. Even though I'm an English(as a second language) teacher -and especially because I'm a teacher- I KNOW FOR A FACT that my writing is lacking. Hence, I use AI tools (namely Grammarly or Quillbot) to fix my errors, avoid repetitions, and have some fluency in my writing. As a working person, sometimes I write whatever in my native language and translate it to English and you guessed it, it needs editing because not everything in my language sounds authentic when translated. One thing I DON'T do is generate the WHOLE of whatever I write. I stick to editing. I'll not go and share my fic here now; for one, I kind of left it because I'm busy, and the other thing is I don't think it's good so we leave it at that but here are some scanners' results of them:
It's the same chapter, checked on different AI checker websites. As you can see, results vary from 0 to 40 something per cent. What YOU DON'T SEE is a number higher than 50%. Are these AI checkers always accurate? Definitely not. For example:
Some checkers flagged these sentences as AI-written, but in all actuality, they are one of many that haven't been edited or changed from my rough draft. Since I use AI checker tools in my job -sts bringing a lot of AI-generated content like I WOULDN'T KNOW AND UNDERSTAND THE CAPABILITY OF MY OWN STUDENT WITHOUT A CHECKER- I can say with 100% certainty that sometimes if you write REALLY GOOD, like, all grammatical and professional -not good in literature-wise-, these tools flag your writing as AI, but not to the extent of 70+%. In my case, I said my writing is lacking, but it doesn't mean my writing is bad. I'm well-versed in writing skills (in mostly an academic context, I admit). If you put my rough draft and the end result next to each other, you can see the changes clearly; and say, if someone asked me if I used AI editing, I wouldn't deny it and provide both versions. Seriously, it is not that hard if you have nothing to hide.
I think I hauve covid dude
Ok I watched the full video for context 🥲
They really were fighting to get Joplin greenlit. Promising three quickly-released games was just a way to try and get the funding they needed. I can't be mad at that but man. Is there no situation where companies can make the money they want without devs having to build AAA titles in 18 months.
Feeling so desperate to get the game greenlit that they were like "Man, let us make this game and we swear we'll make two more quickly"
I'm just...UGH.
Me: Maybe I've been too harsh to John Epler.
*enter these (thankfully, cut!) lines by Anaris, written by Epler*:
Me: Nevermind...
(huge thanks to @corseque for uploading the Veilguard script!)
✨Seven of Pentacles✨
Reaping what is sown, perseverance
🌿Lily of the Valley🌿
Return to happiness
Can you guess what my tarot card symbolizes?
not wise, stranger. you try to take justice into your own hands, the magistrate'll have your head
What’s really jumping out at me on my second playthrough is that the writers of the first three games understood that your character was the main character. The Veilguard writers clearly thought that the main characters were their characters, the companions.
Every scene is about setting the companions up as cool or competent or sympathetic. Often, this is done at Rook’s expense. The companions get all the witty one-liners; Rook’s attempts at humor not only frequently fall flat, but are frequently called out for falling flat (even when they’re completely automatic and the player has no say in them).
The companions have all the knowledge and skills; Rook just brought them all together and gives them all pep talks so they can focus. I’m trying to edit out all of the comments where Rook is like “Um… what????” from my videos, and let me tell you, it takes WORK. There are A LOT of them. I can count on one hand the number of times when the Inquisitor or Hawke comes across as dumb, but it seems to be a built-in, unavoidable part of Rook’s character. I have not selected a single “purple” option in all of Act 1, and Rook is still coming across as the kid who tries to be the class clown to cover for the fact that he’s always confused. Rook’s role in most scenes is to say “Uhhh… what?” so that the companions look smart.
Rook is always the one offering sympathy and never the one getting it. No one actually comes to comfort you after Varric’s death. No one asks you how you’re feeling about having to lead the team now that Varric is gone. No one tries to reassure you or give you advice for dealing with the trickster god haunting your dreams. We’re told that Neve could keep Solas out of your head, but she never actually offers to do this for you. No one comforts a Shadow Dragon Rook when Minrathous is destroyed or a Grey Warden Rook when Weisshaupt is destroyed. Rook’s problems don’t matter. Only the problems of main characters matter.
Rook is a secondary character in their own story.
veilguard is the most finished unfinished game ever. it's hard to explain if you haven't played it but it's the most polished half-baked experience I've ever had with a game
It is the middle of the night and I cannot sleep and am once again thinking about what Veilguard could have been.
Do you ever think about the fact that there's not a single abomination in the whole game? Doesn't happen. Not even to Venatori. No, Lucanis does not count. He genuinely is not actually an abomination. It's just that most of the cultures of Thedas don't have any other term for spirit possession. I just think it's interesting that in the game where your whole and unquestioned job is to keep the Veil up, there's not a single example of this well established tragic consequence of the Veil.
Not a single living ancient elf. Solas had agents. There were unequivocally still ancient elves around. We see none. No one who could attest to what the world once was. No one who might dare agree with Solas. And what of the spirits who were waiting to help? Not a one in Solas's own crossroads? None. The spirits there are silent. They have no voice.
Is there a single mention of uthenera? I don't remember one. The unknown number of elves who might still live, cut off from their bodies. Don't worry about it! Don't you worry.
We roam the halls of Arlathan itself. Not a single veilfire rune with visions of a time before death, when magic was as easy as breathing. Not a glimpse into the world that existed before the Veil. Not a moment of wonder over what once was.
It's been scrubbed.
Castles in the Fade, or What Was the Point of the Veil Anyway
Something that will now haunt me until the end of time is why was the concept of the Veil ever introduced into this series.
i want to talk about this line because i havent seen anyone talking about it and it feels absolutely essential to me to understanding solas's mindset and motivations in this scene.
"And I will have... She will have died for nothing."
maybe im absolutely delusional but i have always interpreted this as a freudian slip. he is about to say something else. he says "and I" he catches himself. changes course. makes it about mythal. he was about to say something else. he was about to say that HE had done it all for nothing. it immediately made me think of dostoyevsky's:
"Your worst sin is that you have betrayed and destroyed yourself for nothing."
his repeated insistence that he is doing this "for mythal" is a coping mechanism to give his actions meaning. everything he has done so far, he has done for her. it is the paradigm he operates under, to change the world at her request. it is what he did when he sundered the titans. it's what he did when he took a body. he is thus extending this reasoning out to his continued actions, regardless of mythal's actual wishes. it gives his immense guilt and suffering meaning.
it is easier if he makes it about mythal. it gives him a simple, clear reason. it's consistent with his identity as her protector. when its for her, the root of his actions become his devotion to her- something positive, something good. rather than being random, or foolish, or accidental. everything he has done he can say he did it because he had a reason. i dont think he's shirking responsibility or shifting accountability, not at all. he takes full accountability repeatedly. but saying he is doing it for her makes it so that it MEANS something. its not about who he's doing it for, its about it not being for all nothing.
he is stuck in this sort of twisted inertia, because if he stops, what was the point? he's gone too far. he has to see it through. or else, he killed felassan for nothing. he killed varric for nothing. he killed mythal for nothing. he broke the inquisitor's heart for nothing. if he takes down the veil, it means something. they were casualties in the pursuit for a greater good. their sacrifice has meaning. their sacrifices were not in vain.
he needs this reason, some sort of meaning other than "i made mistakes and i keep making them". one, because hes literally a manifestation of pride, but also just literally to keep him going, to allow him to get to the next goal post, to literally stay alive under the weight of his immense guilt. but he cannot admit this; or he must admit there was no point to any of it. so he makes it about mythal.
maybe im being too generous to the writing here, but i do think it was intentional. solas does not mention doing this for mythal up until this final breaking point, with the inquisitior in front of him, in a vulnerable moment where he slips up. every other time he talks about his goals, he repeats similar refrains of "this world is a mistake and i have to fix it". until he says:
but we know this is not true, according to the same game (not to suggest that veilguard doesnt have any internal inconsistencies LOL but i dont think this is one of them). fragment mythal does not give a fuck. we have literally never heard her mention anything regarding the veil. meanwhile flemythal literally tells him not to do it:
and he literally says "too bad" and kills her
he is very clearly not doing this for her; her opinion on the state of the veil and the modern elves is irrelevant, or at least secondary to his need to fix his mistake and alleviate his own guilt.
you could argue that he doesnt see flemythal as the same mythal he's doing this for. its possible. but we do see them interact as old friends, NUZZLE FOREHEADS, and we know that he "wept" after killing her (according to fragment mythal), so its clear he considers her to be mythal on some level. i do think fragment mythal feels more "real" to him than flemythal, considering he is able to face willingly face her meanwhile he never goes to see fragment mythal, and considering his body language and general reactions to being near them in the inquisition end credits scene vs. the veilguard finale. theres definitely something about the freshness, anger and authenticity of fragment mythal, as the exact spirit that he pulled out of the dagger that killed her and locked away, that is uniquely painful and real to him. but anyway. there is nothing to suggest mythal wants him to do this. he is literally making things up.
and this is why it is fragment mythal who has to be the one to break the spell. he says "i am doing this for you, just like i did everything for you" and she says "no. you no longer have to" and the cognitive illusion he has been operating under has shattered. and it is literally, physically, crushing. to accept that it was all for nothing. he killed his friends. he destroyed the world. no reason, no command, just a series of unfortunate mistakes and poor choices. as varric said, it was no longer a choice, he's no longer the intentional villain, he is no longer in charge of fate. he is a victim of circumstance and other people's manipulations and bad luck and his own foolish miscalculations. no higher power, no reason.
if i'm wrong, i have to face what i have done. i have to face what has been done to me. yeah.
i am not sure what i think would have happened to him here if the inquisitor did not offer him a path forward, romanced or not (i dont have a screenshot of a friendly inquisitor's line, but its wonderful and something the lines of "you are free to find new path"), but i am not sure that he would have been able to stand up if it werent for the atonement offered to him in exchange for his now-shattered purpose. spirits are, fundamentally, beings of pure purpose made manifest.
though he may be embodied for thousands of years now, solas is no different. his purpose in taking a body was to follow mythal, it is congruent with his nature that he would frame everything in the context of that purpose, and do everything in its power to fufill it whether or not that conception was based in reality. or at least, that is the familiar pattern that he would fall into. it was a desperate clinging on to a comforting echo of his past self. when mythal releases him from her service, that purpose is shattered. he must accept that he has betrayed and destroyed himself for nothing. the inquisitor then offers him a new purpose, and it is only then that he can stand up and bind himself to his new purpose of guarding the veil and healing the blight.
i think this line is so, so telling. solas rarely stutters, rarely misspeaks. and to have misspoken about this? he does think of himself first. i do genuinely believe he fears that he may have betrayed and destroyed himself for nothing. he is pride, after all, and he must embody that, the same way he embodies devotion to mythal. his assertion that he is bringing the veil down for mythal is an attempt to give meaning to the suffering he has caused and the suffering he has experienced. it is a last ditch effort, after already wavering (as we see him do after rook hands him the dagger), to remind himself of this. he is trying to convince himself here as much as he is trying to convince the inquisitor that there is a reason. his true reason is his guilt. he does want to restore the elven people. he does want to fix this broken world. he does want to save the spirits (even if veilguard forgot about them). he does want flowers to grow again. but he also is being drowned by a truly unimaginable amount of shame and regret, and framing it all as a necessary sacrifice for her, the same way the titans souls were, allows him to assert control over his experience and make sense of it.
if i am wrong i have to face what i have done. i have to face what has been done to me.
should the veil have come down anyway? yeah. but this one little line makes up for like 1.2% of my anger about that.
The Insidious Cycle of the Abuser Who Says They Love You: Mythal and Solas
Likely goes without saying, but Veilguard spoilers all under the jump.
I have been absolutely wrecked by the end scenes in Veilguard for weeks now, and I want to do a deep dive into Solas's relationship with Mythal and how it absolutely reeks of abuse. Long post incoming!
CW for heavy discussion of cycles of abuse, trauma response, and abuse tactics.
(link)
Solas was redeemed by 72% of players. SEVENTY-TWO percent of people found all the memories, talked to/fought Mythal, found the option to redeem Solas hidden on the separate second dialogue page, and chose that option.
And the Solavellan kissy ending was chosen by players MORE THAN ALL OF THE BAD ENDINGS COMBINED, by the way. (31% of ALL PLAYERS)
The Dragon Age fandom said “that is MY tragic wolf god, tortured and neglected and alone and growling for 10,000 years, and I WILL be breaking the curse on him and helping him, thank you VERY much.”
You make a video game where you can finally live out your revenge fantasies against a character you hate and wish to violently punish so everybody has to play exactly the way you want in an RPG but this one writer you can't get control of manages to negotiate a "redeem" ending because they're on a one-person "he's a deuteragonist" crusade, and then everybody chooses that option anyway, and not just the shippers, but your little fans too
things i learned today:
solas could've avoided this whole mess and probably had enough free time to take lavellan on a nice little date if he just took up archdemon hunting instead of all the rituals and the other dastardly deeds
lucanis won't romance rook if they go to minrathous but will romance neve because despite saying he's cool, he's not cool
everyone's nice and no one has slaves or anything because *checks forearm* the blight
all your companions get along with you and each other because also the blight
even though he's like, really manipulative and uses people all the time, solas accumulated but then gave up an entire army's worth of spies and agents because he decided he wasn't ready for a management position
red lyrium isn't really around because—and you are not gonna believe this—the blight
solas just lies. all the time, outright, to everyone. so I guess he was actually only super careful to not ever actively lie in Inquisition as like a fun little challenge to himself
tying the veil to his life force (you know, the guy who couldn't even take down an archdemon on his own and actually just got his ass beat so is not in great shape in the best ending) fully repaired the veil! \o/ don't ask how you wouldn't understand it it's not a big—
everyone near minrathous is cured of the blight! but @ everyone else you may be entitled to compensation 🥀
the only ritual solas has ever gotten or will ever get right is cleansing the idol into the ritual dagger. good thing too bc it was way more dangerous than this one. other than that, wrong about everything ever
elven magic is like not that big a deal, dude
the griffons are, unfortunately, long-term fucked
the elves don't see the crossroads differently anymore because uh.. because....... war
spite does not get involved in rookanis sexytimes. so perhaps him spreading his wings was actually just in preparation to leave bc ew they're kissing gross
NO ONE cares about the goddamn spirits
You guys might think op’s exaggerating some of these points from the Q&A – she’s not
thinking very casually about how in one of felassan's codex entries he writes that solas always thought mythal would join them one day, and that he believed it so strongly that he made a place for her near him in the fade, but she never came, and he never saw her again. thinking even more casually about how all these many centuries later solas seems stunned when lavellan comes to join him. comes to stand at his side and support him, as he hoped mythal would do. how stunned he is when the person he loves (who he did not even dare hope would join him, this time) does exactly that. in the fade, for the rest of their days.
It hits even harder if you think of how Solas sacrificed the fade that he loved, his morals, and committed atrocities at Mythal’s request and the one time he asked for something in return, for her to join him, she never showed up. And the place he created for her was everything she could have wanted.
So then when it comes to Lavellan, he expects nothing. Why would she follow him, after the lies and the absence, to a place he believes is terrible, sacrificing the world she knows for him? He gave everything to Mythal and she couldn’t put aside her wants to be there for him, so then why would Lavellan after everything he’s done to her?
But then she does. He didn’t even have to ask. And it brings tears to his eyes to realize that her love is unconditional and that he is enough.
The Betrayal of Felassan | DeviantArt
A slow arrow breaks in the sad wolf's jaws.
Solas' betrayal of Felassan deserves a place as the seventh mural in the Lighthouse ;_;