“He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.” Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere ******** ******************************************** infrequent ramblings of a bibliophile, film freak, cat fancier, procrastinator extraordinaire
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.
Ilya shoving his tongue in Shane’s mouth in that Tampa hotel room as if to say “we can go back. We can just be this again. This is all I’m worth” & Shane responding by taking it in but then kissing him with a hand clutching his cheek saying “I’ll take that. But I want you, the sad scary stressful parts too. I want this to be real.” & guess what guys? On our televisions for us to watch forever
Shane shows up to an open practice with a black eye. Shane refuses to talk about it and Ilya keeps trying to hide a grin. Someone takes a picture of him and it goes viral.
The internet is divided: Is the black eye a sex injury or is Ilya an abuser?
The locker room is full of guys making sex jokes at them, to Ilya’s great amusement and Shane’s annoyance. Shane keeps hoping people will stop talking about it, but when the black eye only looks worse at the next game, it’s unavoidable. The media keeps asking cheekily about it and there are think pieces being written online about how Ilya is an abuser and here are all the signs of how he has been abusing Shane for years.
Shane gets his hands on the latter and is angrier at that than he is prideful. So, he drops the video.
The video is from a surveillance camera of the Rozanov-Hollander house’s backyard. Shane is crouched down playing tug of war with their dog Anya. He and Anya are both refusing to let go of rope. Suddenly, Anya drops it and Shane’s hands fling back toward his face and he smacks himself in the face with hands still around the toy. He drops to his back and cups his hands over his eyes.
Ilya runs into view, kneeling next to Shane and is seen as asking him what’s wrong. When Shane explains, Ilya falls over laughing on the grass and Shane throws the dog toy at his head. Ilya gets up and crouches down over Shane and gives him a kiss on the cheek right below his eye. The video ends as he’s leaning down while speaking to give him a kiss on his lips.
Shane captions the video: Word of advice. Let the dog win.
the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.
1. Ampio orizzonte by Ettore Tito, 1910
2. Mariana (Millais) by John Everett Millais, 1851
3. Bathing Girls by Paul Gustave Fischer, 1860-1934
4 If a woman reads a book in the forest but no one is there to see it... by Jenna Gribon, 2020
5. The Reader Wreathed with Flowers / Virgil's Muse by Camille Corot, 1845
6. In the Garden by Helena Janecic
7. A girl with her bike looking over the water by Alexander Akopov
8. Girl with a Straw Hat by Francine Van Hove
9. After the Ball by Ramon Casas, 1895
10. Untitled by Francine Van Hove
DO NOT PIRATE ANYTHING. NOT SHOWS/MOVIES. NOT GAMES OR SAFER GAMES. AND CERTAINLY NOT BOOKS. AND DO NOT DOWNLOAD YOUTUBE VIDEOS. AND NEVER EVER EVER WATCH MUSICALS WITHOUT GOING TO THEM AND DONT USE ADBLOCKERS/OTHER ADBLOCKER TO AVOID ADS AND VIRUSES PIRATING IS VERY HARMFUL TO THE CORPORATIONS WHO WORKS VERY HARD TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF PEOPLE AND THEIR MONEY. ANYONE WHO PIRATES IS BAD. BAD PIRATING. EVIL. OH AND THIS
Ilya turns off his Find My Friend location and Shane gets paranoid when he notices and works up the courage to ask why in the most nonchalant-i trust my boyfriend-he used to be a playboy but he swears he's monogamous now-i can be chill about this kind of way and Ilya is forced to admit that it's because he didn't want Shane to know how often he goes to McDonald's.
imo hollanov don't really eat tuna melts for a long time, both because of the Memories, but also neither of them really loved tuna melts and there are other things they'd rather eat. but then their kids looovvvvee tuna melts. and enough time has passed that the Trauma™️ is funny now. So every time a little voice says "tuna melt please papa?" Ilya is like "😔 you know the drill, barricade the doors and go fetch daddy, tuna melt is very dangerous" and these toddlers go 🫡 and put a pile of toys and shoes in front of all the external doors and they drag Shane into the kitchen whilst Ilya cooks. And Shane just sits there rolling his eyes and smiling at his stupid husband that he loves so much as Ilya places one child on each of Shane's knees so he can't run away this time.
pixelskylines
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izzy806
blakekathryn
stormborns
andulkaphoto
