lillupon

Hi, I'm Lei! I like to write fic.

[lillupon]

Spot the difference: Human vs. AI-generated Fics

With all the AI-generated writing flooding AO3 (in some fandoms more than others) and the Internet in general, I'm curious if readers can distinguish between human-written prose and AI-generated prose. Of the four options below, one is a chengwei fanfic written by me, and the rest are written by AI.

Can you tell which one is human? Poll at the bottom if you'd like to vote!

Option A

Chi Cheng woke to the urgent pressure of his bladder and the pale gray light of early morning. He fumbled out of bed, still half-dreaming, and shuffled down the hallway in his rumpled sleep shirt and boxers. His eyes were barely open, his thoughts formless and slow.

The bathroom door was closed. He leaned against the wall to wait, scratching absently at his stomach.

The door opened. Suo Wei emerged in a cloud of steam, hair damp and skin flushed from the shower. He stopped short when he saw Chi Cheng.

"Morning," Chi Cheng mumbled, moving to step past him.

"Wait." Suo Wei's voice came out strange—thin and stretched tight. "Chi Cheng, I—"

Chi Cheng blinked at him, wondering distantly if something was wrong. Suo Wei looked odd. His hands were clenched at his sides, knuckles white. His jaw was set in that way it got when he was forcing himself through something difficult, like the time he'd given that presentation with food poisoning, or when his mom had been in the hospital and he'd insisted on going to their exam anyway.

"What's wrong?" Chi Cheng asked, sleep falling away.

Suo Wei's throat worked. His eyes were fixed somewhere near Chi Cheng's collarbone, refusing to meet his gaze. When he spoke, his voice shook despite the obvious effort to steady it.

"I love you."

Chi Cheng stared at him. The words hung in the narrow hallway between them, incomprehensible at first, like hearing a familiar phrase in the wrong language.

"I love you," Suo Wei repeated, quieter now. His breathing was uneven. "I'm—I'm sorry, I just needed to tell you. You don't have to say anything, you don't have to—I know you don't feel the same way, I just—"

He was trembling. Actually trembling. Chi Cheng had known Suo Wei for eighteen years—had seen him break his arm falling out of a tree without crying, had watched him stand up to bullies twice his size—and he had never seen him look this terrified.

"Wei-ge," Chi Cheng said softly, but he didn't know what came after that. His mind was still catching up, still processing. Love. Not friendship-love. Real love. The kind that made Suo Wei's voice crack and his hands shake.

The kind that changed everything.

Option B

Chi Cheng woke to the dull gray of early morning and the insistent pressure of a full bladder.

He groaned softly, dragged an arm over his face, and lay there for a few seconds trying to convince his body to go back to sleep. No luck. The pressure only got worse.

“Ugh…”

He rolled out of bed, hair sticking up in several directions, and shuffled toward the hallway in a pair of loose sweatpants. The apartment was quiet. Too quiet for Suo Wei to be awake, which meant Chi Cheng could pee in peace without having to listen to him ramble about some random video he’d watched at three in the morning.

Half-asleep, he pushed the bathroom door open—

—and immediately collided with a solid body.

“Oof—”

“Ah—!”

Chi Cheng blinked blearily as Suo Wei stumbled back a step, grabbing the doorframe to steady himself. Suo Wei was fully dressed—jeans, hoodie, sneakers tied. His backpack was slung over one shoulder like he was about to leave.

At… six in the morning?

Chi Cheng frowned. “Why are you—”

“I love you.”

The words dropped into the quiet hallway like a brick.

Chi Cheng blinked again, slower this time.

“…What?”

Suo Wei looked like he’d just jumped off a cliff and realized halfway down that he couldn’t fly.

His shoulders were stiff, his hands clenched tight around the strap of his backpack. He wasn’t looking at Chi Cheng—he was staring somewhere near Chi Cheng’s collarbone, breathing like he’d just run up five flights of stairs.

“I—” Suo Wei’s voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again. “I love you.”

There was a faint tremor in his voice. Not dramatic. Not loud. But unmistakable.

Chi Cheng stared at him.

It took a second for the words to actually process.

Then another second for the meaning to catch up.

“…You mean like—”

“I know.” Suo Wei rushed the words out immediately, like he was trying to outrun them. His fingers tightened on the backpack strap. “I know you don’t. I know. I just—”

He finally looked up.

His eyes were bright with something that looked a lot like pure, unfiltered terror.

“I just needed you to know.”

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Option C

It came out of nowhere as Chi Cheng, eyes still bleary with sleep, lumbered down the hallway to the toilet to take a piss:

“I love you.”

Startled by the way Suo Wei had accosted him, Chi Cheng said intelligently, “Uhhh… Okay. I love you too?” After a beat, he asked, “You’re not dying, are you?” 

Suo Wei had never, ever been the type to say I love you to his friends. At least, not to Chi Cheng. Chi Cheng cast his mind back weeks, months—even years—trying to recall a moment when Suo Wei said I love you to him, and came up with nothing. So the only reasonable conclusion he could arrive at was that either he was dying and didn’t know it, or Suo Wei was. Or maybe this was some sort of prank. 

But this was no joke, and the way Suo Wei was looking at him should have tipped him off. Suo Wei stood with his shoulders squared, chin jutted up in challenge, fists clenched so tightly at his sides that his arms shook with the tension. Suo Wei had sweet boyish features, with round eyes and soft cheeks, but right now, his dark eyes gleamed with intensity. A flush rode high on his cheeks. His jaw was set with determination, the muscle there ticking. Chi Cheng had never seen his best friend like this: face so sharp and hard that he looked carved from marble. Jesus, Suo Wei looked ready for a fight, like he was two seconds away from busting Chi Cheng’s nose.

“I love you as in: I’m in love with you,” Suo Wei said. His voice trembled. “As in romantic, sexual love.”

Chi Cheng blinked. The sleep-rusty gears in his brain creaked painfully as they turned, one slow click at a time. 

Suo Wei continued, “I’ve loved you since we were in middle school, and I thought my feelings would go away, but they haven’t. It’s gotten worse since we started rooming together, and I can’t ignore it anymore. So, this is me confessing to you.” 

Chi Cheng’s mind had abandoned him. Not a single thought clanked around in his skull. He could only stare at Suo Wei—who was looking at him expectantly, awaiting his response—and think, Huh???

Option D

The 6:00 AM sun filtered through the dusty blinds of their shared apartment, hitting Chi Cheng square in the eye. He groaned, the sound muffled by a pillow that smelled faintly of Suo Wei’s laundry detergent. His bladder was making a more compelling argument for consciousness than his brain was, so he dragged himself upright.

Chi Cheng stumbled down the hallway, his gait a heavy, uncoordinated trudge. He was still half-ensnared in a dream about a giant sandwich, his hair standing up in a static-charged crown. He didn't even notice the light was already on in the bathroom until he was nearly at the threshold.

Suo Wei was standing by the sink, a toothbrush in hand, but he wasn’t brushing. He was staring at his own reflection with the intensity of a man facing a firing squad.

"Move it, Wei-wei," Chi Cheng mumbled, eyes barely slit-open. He reached out to shove his friend aside so he could reach the toilet, his touch casual and entirely platonic—the way it had been for fifteen years.

Suo Wei didn't move. He felt rigid, like a statue.

"I love you."

The words were quiet, but they hit the tile floor and shattered the morning silence. Chi Cheng froze, his hand still resting on Suo Wei’s shoulder. The fog of sleep didn't lift so much as it was scorched away.

"What?" Chi Cheng blinked, finally looking at his best friend.

Suo Wei looked sick. His knuckles were white where they gripped the porcelain, and his chest was heaving in shallow, jagged hitches. He wasn't looking at Chi Cheng; he was looking at a spot on the wall as if expecting it to swallow him whole. His bottom lip trembled—a tiny, betraying twitch that made Chi Cheng’s heart skip a beat out of pure confusion.

"I’ve loved you since we were ten," Suo Wei choked out, the terror in his voice so thick it was almost tactile. "I can't... I can't keep it in the room anymore. It’s too crowded."

Chi Cheng stood there, hand hovering in mid-air, the mundane urge to pee suddenly the furthest thing from his mind. He looked at Suo Wei—really looked at him—and realized he had no idea what to do with his hands.

Which one was human?

Option A

Option B

Option C

Option D

Voting ended onMar 15

Update: March 15, 2026

Results from Twitter poll:

So the vast majority of respondents mistook AI-generated writing for human writing! These results are both terrifying and fascinating, and prompted many thoughts from me, which I will definitely be posting about later.

I pasted these same scenes into gptzero.me (not to be mistaken with zerogpt.com) and found that it accurately clocked AI-generated writing. There seems to be a lot of skepticism surrounding AI detectors (which is fair—no AI detector claims to be 100% accurate, anyway), so I plan to play around with them a bit more to see which ones are most (in)accurate and easiest to fool.

So option c was HUMAN and written by me! It's actually a fic I wrote back in 2019, with the names changed and edited to suit my current writing and fandom of interest.

Link to the fic: Give Me A Chance To Be Yours

Update: March 25, 2026

So I did actually end up testing GPTZero a bit more, along with other AI detectors. In my own testing, I found GPTZero and Pangram to be very effective at clocking raw, unedited AI generated creative writing (keyword being creative).

You can see some of tests I ran on this Twitter thread. I plan to write more about AI detectors and how humans can identify AI writing later, but for now, I encourage folks to run their own tests with GPTZero and Pangram. Try running writing through it where AI generation or AI assist was disclosed. Test your own human works, if you feel comfortable. Or even test mine! I tested probably a couple dozen AI generated creative writing pieces, and GPTZero and Pangram correctly flagged them as AI every single time. What I'd like to know is if anyone was able to find an AI fic or generate a piece of writing that GPTZero and Pangram failed to detect, or if they declared false positives.

Based on the results of the polls, I'm inclined to believe that AI detectors like GPTZero and Pangram are much better at clocking AI than humans. Again, no AI detector promises 100% accuracy, so I would hesitate to treat these AI scores as gospel. That being said, if GPTZero/Pangram flagged every single scene in a piece of creative writing as 50-100% AI, I would be suspicious. From my experience, if a piece of writing is entirely AI generated, or if AI had a role in generating large chunks of prose or heavy editing, GPTZero and Pangram will catch it.

[merrimentsmight]

U dont understand i had to write the first 70,000 words because if i didnt the sex wouldnt be as perilous or emotionally fraught. Which is the POINT.

[lillupon]

Hi i just stumbled upon ur fics as a new carat.. they’re SO good. So good. I loved the vampire mingyu fic sm. Will u ever write another mingyu x wonwoo? No pressure ofc just wondering! hv a good dayy ^^

omg welcome welcome, i hope you enjoy your time in the fandom! ❤ (ɔˆз(ˆ⌣ˆc)

i currently have no plans to write minwon fics in the near future. that being said, the first minwon fic i wrote was in 2015, and the last minwon fic i wrote was in 2025, so i somehow always end up returning to them haha

[lillupon]

lmd(lmb) ch 14 killing floor: considered and discarded pathways

I agonized for two fucking weeks about chapter 14, going back and forth between various possible scenarios. I wanted to share them, because I still think the ideas have merit and are kinda fun to think about (at least, for me...) even though I decided against them in the end.

Contains spoilers for the main story, so please read chapter 14 first!

Option 1:

This is it! This is the option that I almost went with.

Chi Cheng, in a moment of weakness, accepts Suo Wei’s offer to service him. Well, maybe accept isn’t the right word… He’s shocked speechless by the proposal, and Suo Wei takes his silence as an invitation. Suo Wei slides onto his knees between Chi Cheng’s open thighs, hands going to undo the buckle of Chi Cheng’s belt. He’s looking up at Chi Cheng’s face as he does this, searching for a sign that this is unwelcome. But Chi Cheng is as silent and still as a spectre—he doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. He’s just staring down at Suo Wei from beneath heavy-lidded eyes, gaze blown. Dizziness sweeps through Suo Wei when he realizes that Chi Cheng wants this, too. With shaking hands, he pops free the button of Chi Cheng’s trousers, slides the zipper down the growing swell of Chi Cheng’s erection…

It could escalate to mutual masturbation or sex. Afterwards, I see two possibilities:

After sleeping together, Chi Cheng shuts down hard. Says, “We shouldn’t have done that.” Tells Suo Wei that it was a mistake, and it can’t happen again. Suo Wei would feel used, humiliated, and discarded, and in the end, I couldn’t bear to put him through that. That’s irreparable damage to me. I wouldn’t know how to write chengwei out of that hole lol.

Sleeping together was a heat-of-the-moment thing, and afterwards they’re awkward and shy and bumbling… But they’d probably sit and talk about how they want their relationship to progress from this point onwards.

I decided not to go with this option because I felt that Chi Cheng had been holding back this entire time to avoid a power dynamic. He wouldn’t want their relationship to start on a transactional note, which it would if he accepted Suo Wei’s body as repayment for the tuition—regardless of how much Suo Wei wanted it. 

Option 2:

Suo Wei doesn’t make the blowjob proposition, but confesses his feelings. After which,

Chi Cheng rejects him, and the story follows a similar thread to the actual path I took, or 

Chi Cheng accepts Suo Wei’s feelings, and the fic turns into a story where Chi Cheng and Suo Wei need to navigate the difficulties of their newfound relationship. I didn’t feel like this was the right place for Chi Cheng to accept Suo Wei’s feelings. They both obviously have things that they’re hung up about—Chi Cheng, especially—and it made more sense to me for Chi Cheng to voice these issues first. I like the idea of Suo Wei and Chi Cheng coming to terms with their age and status difference, and confronting external pressures, but I kind of felt like that was material for part two/a sequel.

Option 3:

Lean into the sugar daddy-aspect of the fic. I thought that these were kind of fun and flirty, but I think Chi Cheng is way too sensitive about the whole money thing for this to realistically happen. Chi Cheng would not joke around about something that confirms a fear about himself (that he’s buying Suo Wei’s time and attention with his money)

But if I went this route, it would start with Suo Wei barging into Chi Cheng’s apartment and blurting out, “Am I your sugar baby?”

Possible responses from Chi Cheng:

Response 1: Chi Cheng considers him for a moment. “Do you want to be?” Suo Wei was the one who brought it up first, but having his own question turned back on him has him flushing hotly. “Do you want one?” he squeaks out. Chi Cheng hums, thinking. “That depends. What are the benefits of having one?” Suo Wei probably explodes on the spot, mind swan-diving straight into the gutter.

Response 2: Chi Cheng gives him a long look, and then turns away with a snort. “If you were my sugar baby, I’d be getting a lot more out of this arrangement.” “I made you a watch box,” Suo Wei points out. “True.” Chi Cheng smiles. “That was very sugar baby of you.” “I could also wash your car. And clean your house. And wash your car,” Suo Wei lists out. And maybe suck you off.

Response 3: Chi Cheng regards him from beneath half-lidded eyes. When Chi Cheng looks at him like that, it always puts a squirmy feeling in the pit of Suo Wei’s stomach. Makes him feel small and vulnerable, like he’s about to be eaten alive. “If you have to ask, you’re not,” Chi Cheng says. Suo Wei flushes with embarrassment. He knows he sounds a little defensive when he mutters, “Well, what was I supposed to think? You buy me expensive things. And you look at me like… like—” He can’t finish his sentence. Says huffily, “All my friends think you’re my sugar daddy.” Well, his one friend, Wang Shuo. “Is that right?” Chi Cheng says. “Well, if you were actually my sugar baby, I’d expect something in return.” “Like what?” Chi Cheng takes a step forward. Looms over him. Suo Wei’s insides shiver. His knees actually grow weak. “Like your time. Your attention. You, whenever I wanted you.”

Anyway, they do the whole sugar daddy-sugar baby thing, laying out their terms for the agreement. Lots of spoiling. Lots of hugging and touching and kissing. Sex, too. But, for some reason, this arrangement makes it hard for them to be honest about their feelings for each other. Suo Wei thinks Chi Cheng wants some no-strings-attached fun. Chi Cheng thinks Suo Wei only wants him for his money. Neither of them want to risk asking for more and losing what they already have.

So, yeah! I’m intrigued by the ideas, and will perhaps explore them in the future, but I really feel like it’s a separate fic.

Option 4 (but it's really an au):

OK so this one I wrote MONTHS ago when I first started brainstorming for this fic. Originally, I was going to have Chi Cheng and Gang Zi live together, and Suo Wei was Gang Zi’s friend who spent waaaay too much time at Gang Zi’s apartment—even when Gang Zi wasn’t there (lol). I ditched this idea pretty early on because I couldn’t imagine Chi Cheng and Gang Zi living together when they were both filthy rich and Chi Cheng is an established, independent adult. And also because Chi Cheng struck me as somewhat… slimy in this early rendition. Like, he’s aware of Suo Wei’s feelings, and encourages it because he thinks the kid is so cute. I feel like Suo Wei’s character is a little different, too.

Consider the following scene an AU! In this AU, Chi Cheng is still very much Suo Wei’s sexual awakening, and he’s still the indulgent older brother figure. In this scene, Suo Wei has a crush on Chi Cheng and wants to try experimenting:

Suo Wei was fidgeting on the couch cushion beside him, the leather seats squeaking with each motion. On the boy’s lap was a textbook, whose pages had not been flipped for the past quarter hour. Chi Cheng could feel eyes stealing peeks at him, the undercurrent of nerves radiating off the boy. Suo Wei clearly had something he wanted to say, but for whatever reason, was struggling to do it. 

Chi Cheng gave the boy some time to piece his thoughts together, swiping a finger across his iPad to peruse the morning news on Caixin Daily. Even on his days off, he dedicated some time in the morning to read the latest headlines in business and industry. But his focus had already been disturbed by Suo Wei’s strange and skittish behaviour. The characters on the screen melded into meaningless strokes of black. 

Conceding defeat, he flipped the cover of his iPad shut and turned his attention to Suo Wei. “You alright?”

Suo Wei jolted as though Chi Cheng’s voice had shocked him out of his thoughts. “Yup!” he chirped. “All good!” His quick eyes jumped around the living space, looking everywhere but at Chi Cheng.

“Hm,” Chi Cheng intoned, unconvinced. “What is it?”

“Nothing!”

“You look like you’re about to short-circuit.”

“I just, uh—” Suo Wei wrung his shirt with his fingers. “I was talking with Gang Zi the other day, and um—you came up, and he sort of mentioned…”

When Suo Wei trailed off for long seconds, Chi Cheng prompted him, “Go on.”

“Er.” Suo Wei scratched his nose. “Well, he mentioned that you… Hementionedthatyouweregay.”

The last part of the sentence tumbled out of Suo Wei so fast that it took Chi Cheng a moment to parse out the words. 

Ah, Chi Cheng thought, when he realized.

His sexuality wasn’t a secret. Not really. Everyone in his family knew. His friends (well, one friend—Cheng Yu) knew. People at his firm gossiped about it behind his back, the true reason why he divorced Yue Yue, but Chi Cheng had never given them anything concrete to work with, keeping his personal life firmly out of his profession.

Chi Cheng took a measured breath to compose himself, then said, “Yeah. I am.” He paused, cocking his head to study Suo Wei. The boy’s cheeks had turned an alarming shade of firetruck red. Chi Cheng’s lips twitched at the corners. Cute. “Is that a problem?” He didn’t think it was. Not with the way Suo Wei had been acting around him lately.

“No!” Suo Wei practically shouted, shaking his head. “No, no, no.”

“Alright,” Chi Cheng said easily, returning to his iPad. Feigning interest in the news, when in reality, he was more curious about how Suo Wei would respond to this revelation. 

The poor thing was like a kettle about to boil over, shaking with tension. Chi Cheng swore he could hear a loud whistling noise escaping from Suo Wei’s throat. Any moment now, the boy would explode. And as he thought that, Suo Wei blurted out, “I think I like boys.”

“I see,” Chi Cheng said carefully.

Suo Wei had used the word ‘think’, as though he were still uncertain, but Chi Cheng knew: as soon as you could confess something like that out loud, it was already a sure thing. Suo Wei had thought about it, probably for hours. Had probably focused too much on the man when watching straight porn. Suo Wei had probably studied the expression of pleasure on the man’s face, ears pricked up to catch the porn star’s low moans. He’d probably stared at the man’s cock, wondering what it would feel like in his hand, in his mouth. When he watched a woman’s pussy being pounded, he probably wondered what it would be like to be held down and have his ass plowed in the same way.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure. ‘Cause I’ve always liked girls, but there’s this guy…” Suo Wei peeked at him then, and oh, this kid was precious. Chi Cheng wanted to eat him right up. Could feel anticipation growing in his chest.

Easy now, he told himself. Don’t scare him. 

“How did you know? That you were gay?” Suo Wei asked.

Chi Cheng shrugged. “I was curious. I gave it a try. And I liked it.”

“You just… Gave it a try?” 

“Yeah. With a friend.”

“Wow,” Suo Wei breathed, wide-eyed. “You weren’t worried about messing up your friendship, or anything?”

“Not really. It just kind of happened naturally. I could tell he wanted it, too.”

“Wow,” Suo Wei said again. “I don’t know if there’s anyone like that for me. I don’t know anyone who likes boys. I don’t think. Well, except for you.” Suo Wei rolled his lower lip between his teeth, worrying at it. His gaze flickered to Chi Cheng, and then skittered away again. “Um, so… How did you know that your friend wanted it? Like, how did you bring it up?”

Chi Cheng cocked his head, studying Suo Wei, who was now staunchly refusing eye contact with him. “I didn’t have to bring anything up. Like I said, it just happened. We were watching a horror movie. He was scared, and got close. I let him. You can always tell if someone will be open to it by the way they look at your and their body language. If they don’t pull away when you touch them, if they touch back…” 

“But what if I’m reading it all wrong?” Suo Wei fretted. “And they’re just being nice? I don’t want to make things weird.”

Chi Cheng’s mouth curved into a smile, knowing. “If you’re not sure, you could always ask,” he prompted.

“Just ask?” Suo Wei grimaced at that. “That’s so scary…”

“It is, at first,” Chi Cheng agreed. “Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s worth it though, for the times when it works out.”

Suo Wei’s mouth twisted as though he were chewing on Chi Cheng’s words. Suo Wei got this look on his face, whenever he was thinking hard: brows pinched into a vee, a slight pout in his cheeks. What Chi Cheng would pay, to get a glimpse of what was going on in Suo Wei’s mind. After a long moment of contemplation that Chi Cheng patiently waited out, Suo Wei spoke.

“Okay,” Suo Wei started, looking determined. His voice wavered only a little when he said, “So, theoretically, if someone wanted to ask you. Because they were also curious—like you had been, when you were younger. If um, someone asked you to help them figure it out, how would you respond?” The colour had never quite faded from Suo Wei’s cheeks, and the blush returned with a vengeance now, making Suo Wei glow.

Chi Cheng tried not to smile. “It would depend on who’s asking. And what they’re asking for.”

“Um… I guess they’d be asking to try with you.”

“‘Try’,” Chi Cheng repeated. “Try what?”

“You know.” Suo Wei waved a vague hand around. “What you did with your friend.”

“What do you think I did with my friend?”

“I don’t know. Um. K-k-kiss, maybe?”

Chi Cheng swallowed down his amusement. They had done a lot more than kissing, back then. “I might be open to it. Who’s asking? Hypothetically.”

“Chi Cheng…” Suo Wei whined. Hid his face in his hands. The red tips of his ears were on full display. “You know…”

Chi Cheng let out a breath of laughter. Finally took pity. “Suo Wei, you’re cute, but if you can’t say it, we shouldn’t do it.”

[lillupon]

writing recap (2022-2025) & goals for 2026

2022 – 2024

2022 through 2024 were extremely dry years of writing for me, as I was focusing on other aspects of my life. 

In 2022, I posted absolutely nothing. 

In 2023, I started posting The Holy and the Profane, my vampire Wonwoo fic. That fic had been sitting in my drafts about 75% complete since 2021. Somehow, it still took an entire year to write the remaining 25%, and I didn’t complete the fic until December of 2024. Writing is always frustrating to a certain degree, but those last few thousand words felt especially difficult to write. I was so fed up with it that I even cut the ending short. The final word count was 28,416. When I look back on it now, I don’t know why I was so unhappy with that work. I actually found it quite enjoyable to reread, and was pleasantly surprised by some of the creative turns of phrases I came up with.

In the second half of 2023, I had a brief flash of inspiration after watching Stay With Me, and posted two fics: Bao Bei and you’re the summer i can’t bear to part with. The first one is fluff, and the second one is porn, which is pretty on-brand for me.

In 2024, I finally posted the last three chapters of The Holy and the Profane. I was also obsessed with Love is Better the Second Time Around (I even ordered the DVD and merch from Japan, and rewatched it everyday for like two weeks lol), and wrote a short PWP for it. 

Thoughts on 2025

I started to feel the itch to write again in the summertime of 2025, but I wasn’t active in any fandoms. In July, I found Revenged Love, and even though the show itself was pretty cringe (sorry…), Xuning’s and Ziyu’s performances were fucking stellar. They hard-carried the show and chengwei/xuyu ended up consuming me. 

They inspired me to write again. I first finished up butter tarts, tender hearts, an omega Mingyu and alpha Wonwoo fic that had been sitting half-complete in my drafts since 2021. I wrote a little canon-compliant fic for Revenged Love to get myself familiar with a new fandom, and then I jumped into my sugar daddy/sugar baby chengwei fic, lay me down (leave me breathless)—my second ever long fic!

Honestly, any year where I write a long fic is a fucking spectacular year of writing for me. I write at approximately the speed glaciers move, and it takes even longer for me to edit. I’ve been doing this whole fanfic writing thing since 2015, but my stamina for writing is still awful. Out of the 40 fics I’ve posted on AO3 (one is just art, so I’ve excluded it from my count), 30 of them are under 10k words, with the majority being between 3k and 6k words. 

I wrote the entire first draft for lmd(lmb)—which was 60k words across 12 chapters—before I started posting, but it still takes me an entire week, if not more, to rewrite and edit a chapter. I fiddle around with the timeline—which inevitably changes events down the road, which in turn requires more editing and rewriting—and I add a bunch of details that I skipped over while drafting. I’m an underwriter, so I expect to add roughly +25% words during this editing and rewriting process. 

Anyways, lmd(lmb) has been—is—an absolute blast to write, and I’m so proud of myself for writing something novel-length. I still need to wrangle the last few chapters into shape and make some major decisions regarding the ending, but I think this fic will soon be coming to a close. I know I’ll miss this little universe with this particular interpretation of Suo Wei’s and Chi Cheng’s characters.

Goals for 2026

Post 60k words on AO3. A modest goal, but still about 10k words more than what I’ve been able to average from 2016 to 2024

I’d love to write more fics in the 20k to 30k range. I am very much a oneshot writer, so these are challenging wordcounts for me. I really want to build up the technique and stamina to write longer things, and maybe become the longfic writer of my dreams lol

I want to start roleplaying again. I used to rp a ton from 2016 – 2018 and I miss it a lot. Creating and discovering a story with another person, squeeing about my favourite characters with another human being, and writing without stress or expectations was just so damn fun. I have a few ideas for chengwei I want to try out, but I don’t know where to find rp buddies now that Omegle has shut down ;;

I’d like to just write and experiment more in general! Even if the end result is unusable and can’t be posted on AO3 (maybe I could post the scraps to my tumblr or Twitter instead), I want to get better at writing and try my hand at different genres. I subscribe to the newsletters of some of my favourite authors, and one author said she wrote between 800k and 900k words in 2025, which is roughly the same amount as I’ve written in ten fucking years. If I want to get better, faster, and write longer things, I need to practice more.

AO3 Word Counts

Baby numbers… But in my defense, I’ve rp’d hundreds of thousands of words, and have written fics that will likely never see the light of day.

2016 — 70,222 

2017 — 43,619

2018 — 46,836

2019 — 48,634

2020 — Nothing 🙁

2021 —123,876

2022 — Nothing 🙁

2023 — 29,167

2024 — 19,181

2025 — 83,302

[lillupon]

lmd(lmb) chapter 9 extra: chi cheng's pov

Author’s note: This an AU of chapter 9’s events. I only meant to write a couple hundred words of jealous Suo Wei from Chi Cheng’s perspective, but it kind of spiraled out of control and turned into this alternate universe/canon divergent scene… I don’t really consider this extra to be compliant with the main fic—more details on why at the end!

It does occur to Chi Cheng to hook up with someone while he’s at Cheng Yu’s club. He hasn’t gotten laid in god knows how long. Maybe that’s why he’s so fucking horny all the time as of late, and since Suo Wei is in close proximity, the boy ended up a convenient target for his sex drive. If he could just get it out of his system, then maybe he would stop lusting after a kid. And if he searches specifically for a boy with soft features and round, disarming eyes, no one would have to know.

But then Suo Wei comes home from work looking drained, a dispirited slope in his shoulders, and the idea evaporates from his mind. He can’t let loose when Suo Wei is so obviously unhappy. A rough day at work, Suo Wei tells him, assuring him that he’ll feel better after a shower and some food. Chi Cheng wants to press, but Suo Wei runs off to his bedroom to get changed. Chi Cheng stands there for a moment, feeling off-kilter, then decides that he should get ready to leave, too. 

He’s at the door tying the laces of his boots when Suo Wei’s door flies open. Their eyes meet and Suo Wei freezes, staring at him like a deer caught in the headlights. A flush is climbing up his cheeks. Chi Cheng has no idea what prompted the outburst, but it’s instinct for him to approach Suo Wei. Pitching his voice low and comforting, he asks, “What’s wrong?”

He notices Suo Wei’s eyes jumping from his face, to his open throat where his chain rests, to his clothes. Suo Wei’s gaze lingers for a beat on his exposed chest, and then drops. His cheeks are sweetly pink. Chi Cheng swallows. Wonders if that response was prompted by his outfit. If Suo Wei liked what he saw. No… He’s reading too much into it. Projecting his own feelings onto Suo Wei’s reactions. 

“What’s wrong?” Chi Cheng asks again.

“Uh—” Suo Wei is jittery. His eyes won’t stay in one place, and he can’t stop fidgeting and squirming. Clearly, he has something he wants to say, but is too scared to admit it. His eyes flit around the apartment, as though the answer to Chi Cheng’s question is hidden between the furniture. He lights up when he sees his phone, practically shouts, “I was just looking for my phone!” as he scurries over to grab it. Shows Chi Cheng. 

“Okay… Well. If that’s all, I suppose I’m going to head out now,” Chi Cheng says hesitantly, taking a half-step in the direction of the door.

And that’s when everything bubbles out. 

“Um—! When will you be back?” Suo Wei’s voice is heartbreakingly tiny. “I mean… How will I know if you’re spending the night at… at—” The boy doesn’t finish his sentence. Tries a different line of questioning, “How will I know if you decided not to come home, or if something happened? Like, what if you get into a fight? You’ll probably drink, right? What if you get drunk and… and drive? And you get hurt?”

Oh. He was worried about me. Chi Cheng melts, every last atom of his being turning into a warm, soppy mess. He has to fight the grin that threatens to overcome him. Before Suo Wei can spiral into a full-on meltdown, he interrupts gently, “Suo Wei. I’m not going to get into a fight. I won’t get drunk.”

But Suo Wei isn’t done, and starts babbling about finding somewhere else to stay, and the thoughts are so disjointed and apropos of nothing that Chi Cheng doesn’t quite follow until Suo Wei stammers something about Chi Cheng possibly bringing someone home. 

Taken alone, Chi Cheng might have interpreted that comment as a considerate offer—Suo Wei genuinely not wanting to intrude in case Chi Cheng wanted to invite someone over. But taken in conjunction with Suo Wei’s earlier worries, and the nervous and embarrassed energy radiating off the boy… He realizes that Suo Wei isn’t just worried about his safety. He’s jealous, fearing that Chi Cheng will hook up with someone. 

Chi Cheng can’t help it—he laughs. So this is what had Suo Wei in a tizzy. And it makes Chi Cheng so irrationally, deliriously happy. He feels so fucking soft and fond for this boy. They’re not together, but he’s struck with guilt for even thinking about sleeping with someone else. He has the powerful urge to gather Suo Wei into his arms to soothe the fretting boy. He wants to bite Suo Wei’s soft, glowing cheeks, pepper kisses all over the heated skin and croon, Baby, don’t worry, I’m not looking at anyone but you, and then hug Suo Wei hard to his chest.

He comes close to doing it, but manages to stop himself at holding Suo Wei by the elbows. He brushes his thumbs back and forth over Suo Wei’s thin arms. Suo Wei looks sweet and tempting like this, with his eyes downcast and lashes dark fans against his pale skin. His lower lip juts out in an unhappy pout. 

Chi Cheng wants to eat him right up, kiss away his pout. He ends up going to the club, if only to keep himself from doing something crazy. But the entire time he’s there, he can’t stop thinking about Suo Wei. 

Suo Wei had been subdued since this morning when Chi Cheng said he had plans to go to the grand opening of Cheng Yu’s club. Suo Wei had come home from work upset. Suo Wei was at home alone, possibly freaking out about Chi Cheng being at the club. He feels like such an asshole for being here. He should have just stayed in tonight. Then maybe Suo Wei would be the one smiling at him, and not the bartender who keeps looking in his direction and asking if he needs another drink.

Chi Cheng shrugs off advances from the bartender and other strangers with a grunt, barely looking at their faces. Beneath the table, he pulls his phone out of his pocket to check his messages. There’s nothing. That’s a good thing, he tells himself. It means Suo Wei is asleep, or otherwise preoccupied.

“Are you waiting for a message from a client or something?” Cheng Yu asks.

Chi Cheng shoves his phone away, like a student caught on their device by the teacher. “No.”

“Really? It seemed like you were waiting for something important. You’ve checked your phone five times in the last ten minutes.”

Chi Cheng doesn’t check his phone for the next little while, no matter how much his fingers itch at his side. He drums them on the bartop to keep himself occupied.

Eventually, he can’t resist looking at his watch. It feels like he’s been here forever, but it hasn’t even been an hour yet. He knows this is an important night for Cheng Yu, but he keeps hearing Suo Wei’s voice in his head, thick with emotion and cracking with anxiousness; he feels arrested by the mere memory of Suo Wei’s big, damp eyes looking up at him. He doesn’t think he can bring himself to stay for any longer without going stir-crazy. He downs the rest of his beer. “I think I’m going to get going. It’s late.” It’s not even midnight yet. The version of him from ten years ago would mock him.

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to keep Suo Wei waiting,” Cheng Yu says.

Chi Cheng stares. He’s not one to show a blush on his face, but he can feel the heat gathering in his ears.

A grin grows across Cheng Yu’s face. “Oh shit. Was I right?” He barks out a laugh. “Damn! So are you guys a thing now?”

“No,” Chi Cheng says. “It’s not like that.”

“But you wish it was.”

Chi Cheng isn’t expecting Suo Wei to be up when he arrives home—he told Suo Wei to sleep, after all—but he feels strangely bereft when he comes back to a silent apartment and there’s no Suo Wei in sight.

He wouldn’t have minded, if Suo Wei waited up for him. 

He’s untying the laces to his boots—these things are such a fucking pain in the ass—when a door creaks. He looks up and his heart does a death-shudder in his chest. “Suo Wei,” he says, voice melting into something embarrassingly soft. “What are you doing up?”

Suo Wei looks shame-faced at being caught, but emerges from the bedroom with his blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. “I… I heard you come home.” He walks over soft-footed to Chi Cheng.

“Sorry. I tried to be quiet.” 

Suo Wei shakes his head. “It’s okay. I was up anyway.” And then his eyes slide almost imperceptibly in the direction of Chi Cheng’s bedroom, as though wondering if Chi Cheng was hiding someone behind the door.

“It’s just me,” Chi Cheng says. “There’s no one else.”

“Ugh, fuck,” Suo Wei says, pulling his blanket over his head and hiding. “Sorry, I know I’m annoying.”

“You’re not,” Chi Cheng murmurs. “It’s cute.”

Suo Wei makes a tiny noise in the back of his throat.

“Come on. You should try to get some sleep.” Chi Cheng guides Suo Wei back to his bedroom with a hand between the boy’s shoulderblades and stops at the door. It’s his own apartment, but this feels like a threshold he shouldn’t cross. They make quiet conversation at the doorway, Suo Wei asking about how Cheng Yu was doing, how opening night went. 

As they talk, Suo Wei drifts towards bed and Chi Cheng finds himself following. Suo Wei crawls into bed and flumps down, shifting over to make room for Chi Cheng. Chi Cheng sits at the edge of the mattress.

Suo Wei bunches his blanket in his fists and draws them up to his chin. 

Conversation peters out. The air between them turns thick. Chi Cheng wants Suo Wei so much he aches with it. He thinks Suo Wei might feel it too, judging by the way the boy snatches looks at him, rolling his lower lip between his teeth. 

He should leave. Already, he has let himself get too close. Suo Wei is eighteen. His younger brother’s best friend. Off-limits to him. He needs to leave.

Instead, he finds himself staring at Suo Wei’s plush, pink mouth. He feels himself swallow. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and he sees Suo Wei track the movement with dark eyes. Chi Cheng’s heart is going fucking insane in his chest; he hears it slamming all the way up in his ears. He’s not imagining this. Suo Wei wants him back, is practically pleading for Chi Cheng to cross the line. 

“Chi Cheng,” Suo Wei whispers.

“Hm?” The syllable rumbles from deep inside his chest, gravel-rough.

“You came home early tonight.”

“Yeah,” Chi Cheng says. “You were waiting for me.” And then he leans down and kisses Suo Wei.

So this last part diverges from the main fic, of course. This wasn’t where I had imagined Chi Cheng and Suo Wei folding to their desires; this path honestly never occurred to me until I started this extra and the scene formed itself. In the actual chapter 9, Suo Wei doesn’t come out of his room when he hears Chi Cheng return home. I thought it would be fun to imagine what would have happened if Suo Wei did take a peek, so I started writing and this is where the scene ended up. If Chi Cheng came home to Suo Wei waiting for him, I think it’s totally possible that he would make a move lol! Another reason why I consider this extra to be somewhat canon-divergent is because at this point in the fic, I personally think Chi Cheng is still uncertain about how Suo Wei feels about him. He notices Suo Wei’s flustered and coquettish behaviour, but he tells himself that he’s just projecting his own desires onto Suo Wei. He’s willfully oblivious, and desperately trying to talk himself out of a possible relationship with Suo Wei! 

[bitterrfruit]

people using ai to generate fics is terrifying because large language models are getting better and better at approximating real writing, for the very reason that they steal more and more work from real writers every second.

ai generated writing has become sophisticated enough that often you truly have to rely on a gut feeling that what you’re reading isn’t written by a human. as @bi-writes says in her post, it’s the same as ai images that just have a certain look to them. sometimes there are specific “tells” you can pick out as evidence, but sometimes there aren’t.

ultimately what ai writing lacks is a true understanding of what is being written.

crucially, large language models aren’t actually intelligent. the way they work is simply predictive text on steroids. they generate words based on the words that come before - when they start a passage of text, they don’t “know” where it will go. this is why sources like chatGPT consistently give incorrect information, it doesn’t know what it is telling you, it is only regurgitating words in a human-like order based on the swathes of information it has stolen from other sources.

one thing ai writing will always lack is a true thought-out plot. it will constantly repeat itself. it will have plenty of adjectives and similes and “creative” synonyms, it'll be rife with cringey wattpad tropes as bi mentioned, because it is entirely unoriginal.

what frightens me is a future where the difference becomes indistinguishable to laypeople or casual readers, especially those who aren’t writers themselves. making accusations is near impossible without evidence and we don’t want a world where real art is dismissed simply out of ai paranoia, but the thought of a future in which real authors are sidelined in the industry because readers are sated by robot-written slop is genuine nightmare fuel.

all this to say, i guess, is human writing can never be genuinely replaced if readers and writers are aware that ai generated work is hollow, meaningless, unoriginal garbage whose very production is harming our planet. or, rather, that readers continue to care that the art they consume is produced by a human being.

i honestly don’t know how anyone can stomach to read or enjoy work produced by ai knowing that there is no human feeling behind its creation. all i can do is hope the majority feel the same.

[lillupon]

suo wei keeps chi cheng's cock warm while they watch a movie

Inspired by the events of ch 7 and ch 8 in my unintentional sugar daddy Chi Cheng, accidental sugar baby Suo Wei fic, lay me down (leave me breathless). Set after the main story, when their relationship is established.

Chi Cheng returns home from a twelve hour day at the office, exhausted down to the bones. He feels like a towel wrung out, every last drop of energy squeezed out of him until all that was left was a dry husk. Tension twists along his shoulders and neck, the muscles across his upper back locked tight. When he opens the door to his apartment and sees Suo Wei already there to greet him, he feels like he’s taken his first full breath of the day. 

Suo Wei beams at him. “Yay, you’re back.” 

“M-hm.” Chi Cheng wastes no time curling an arm around Suo Wei’s waist and reeling him in. He dips forward, catching Suo Wei’s lips with his own. He swallows down the soft noise of pleased surprise that Suo Wei makes. In the background, Chi Cheng hears some movie playing. Horror, judging by the swarm of dissonance that culminates in a piercing shriek. The sounds melt away when Suo Wei’s arms come up to wind around his neck.

Suo Wei readily opens his mouth for Chi Cheng’s prodding tongue. The boy’s lips are plush and pliant, his tongue eager, and it smooths out the jagged edges of Chi Cheng’s frustration. It flicks a switch in him, heats him in a different way. Not the red-hot anger that seethes inside him while he’s snared in a meeting, but it sets fire in him an all-consuming desire to devour. Liquid arousal pools and swirls low in his gut. 

Chi Cheng breaks away to trail kisses along the angle of Suo Wei’s jaw until he reaches a delicate ear. “Get yourself ready for me,” he says lowly against Suo Wei’s ear, delighting in the shiver that passes through the boy. “I’ll join you in a bit.”

He hears the click of Suo Wei’s throat as the boy swallows. “Okay,” Suo Wei whispers.

Chi Cheng goes to change out of his dress shirt and trousers, slipping into a plain t-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms. He forgoes the boxers. It’ll only get in the way. He freshens up in the bathroom, splashes some cold water on his face. He doesn’t rush, even though he’s eager to be close to Suo Wei. Lets the anticipation build instead.

When he returns to the living room, he finds that Suo Wei has discarded his sleep shorts off to the side. An oversized shirt covers his modesty. On the coffee table is a bottle of lube with the cap open. Chi Cheng scoops it up, squirts some of the gel into his palm, and sets the bottle down again. He takes a seat beside Suo Wei, reclining back against the sofa. Reaches into the slit at the front of his pajama bottoms to pull out his cock, which is already starting to fill. He gives himself a few cursory strokes to spread the lube along his shaft. Lets out a shuddering sigh as he does so. His eyes are on Suo Wei, watching the boy watching him. Suo Wei’s attention is riveted to his cock. He’s fidgeting a little. Hips moving. Thighs pressing together. A pink tongue darts out to wet those kiss-swollen lips. Chi Cheng smiles.

“Take a seat, baby,” he says, holding his cock at the base. “Keep me warm.”

Suo Wei hurries to obey, getting himself in position to sit back. Chi Cheng puts a steadying hand on Suo Wei’s hips, helping the boy sink down onto his cock. Suo Wei moans as he’s stretched open, lowering himself down inch by delicious inch. Chi Cheng groans as the velvet heat of Suo Wei’s body envelops him. Once Suo Wei is fully seated on him, Chi Cheng wraps his arms around Suo Wei’s waist, hooking his chin over the boy’s shoulder so they can watch the movie together. 

Chi Cheng has started to find watching horror movies a cozy and comforting experience, likely because he has come to associate them with cuddling, followed by sex. For the first little while, Suo Wei’s immersed in the movie. 

Jump scare after jump scare after jump scare. It’s the hallmark of a shitty horror movie—relying on cheap tactics to frighten the audience. It gets its intended effect out of Suo Wei though, who squirms and jumps in his lap, hole clenching around Chi Cheng’s dick during particularly stressful moments.

Chi Cheng groans, shifting to rest his forehead on Suo Wei’s shoulder.

He starts to get handsy. He likes touching Suo Wei while they’re like this, rubbing his palms up and down slim thighs. Gripping and squeezing. He plays absentmindedly with Suo Wei’s cute little cock, giving it a shake, rubbing the tip between his thumb and two-fingers. That has Suo Wei moaning, inner walls pulsing around Chi Cheng’s shaft. Sometimes, he holds Suo Wei’s balls kneading and rolling them in the cup of his palm. Suo Wei lets him touch as he pleases. When Chi Cheng starts kissing the line of his shoulders and the side of his neck, Suo Wei tilts his head to the side to offer him more access. 

Chi Cheng teases them both like this, giving each of them a taste of what they want, though it only serves to whet their appetite. It’s like taunting a dehydrated man with a drop of water on his tongue; it only makes him thirstier. Suo Wei’s cock is all hard and heated now, leaking profusely at the slit. Chi Cheng smears the wet around with the pad of his thumb.

The jolting movements that were at first startled out of Suo Wei turn deliberate. Suo Wei’s starting to grind down on him, swiveling his hips in circular motions. Little huffs escape him, barely audible over the discordant crashes of sound from the movie. 

Suo Wei’s small hand finds his, gripping. “Chi Cheng.” His voice is strained, edged with a plea, and Chi Cheng knows exactly what his baby is asking for. He needs it just as badly, and lets himself give in. 

He maneuvers them to lie down on their sides so that they’re pressed back to chest and Suo Wei’s ass is tucked into Chi Cheng’s pelvis. He gets a hand under Suo Wei’s thigh, hiking it up to give himself a better angle to fuck Suo Wei. 

“Yes,” Suo Wei moans as Chi Cheng begins to move, rolling his hips with slow, deep thrusts. 

He takes his time, savouring every clench of Suo Wei’s body around him. After the frenetic rush of his day, this is exactly what he needs: to be buried inside his lover, taking his pleasure, making Suo Wei feel good in turn. Chi Cheng groans, nuzzling his lips into the back of Suo Wei’s neck. “So good, baby. You’re always so perfect for me.” 

The praise makes Suo Wei whimper and tighten around him. 

Chi Cheng adjusts the angle slightly, searching for that place that’ll have Suo Wei crying out. He knows he’s found it when Suo Wei jerks in his arms, back arching. “Ah! Right there—oh, right there, please—”

Chi Cheng obliges, grinding against that spot, and Suo Wei practically sobs with it. The boy shudders in his hold, around his shaft.

Suo Wei’s moaning in earnest now, desperate little uh uh uh’s spilling from his lips. He’s always so loud and honest about how good he’s feeling. Doesn’t try to hold back his moans, just lets himself feel. It’s music to Chi Cheng’s ears: the sounds of Suo Wei’s pleasure interspersed with the squelching of lube and the slap of Chi Cheng’s balls against Suo Wei’s ass every time he snaps his pelvis forward. Chi Cheng feels his own orgasm building inside him, spurred higher and higher every time he drives his hips forward. He can feel Suo Wei’s inside fluttering insistently around his length, and knows that his boy is close, too.

He abandons his hold on Suo Wei’s thigh to wrap his arm around the boy’s chest, locking him in place so that he can fuck Suo Wei faster, harder. 

“Oh god, ohh.” Suo Wei’s voice has gone high and breathless. The unrelenting rhythm of Chi Cheng’s thrusts has turned his moans into staccato. “I’m gonna come, I wanna come, please—can I?” 

Chi Cheng thinks about saying not yet baby, just to hear how cute Suo Wei is when he whines about it. No matter how much Suo Wei complains about being denied, Chi Cheng knows his baby will obey him all the same, wanting to be good. He’ll let Chi Cheng fuck him and come inside him, all the while keeping a tight leash on his own orgasm even though he’ll probably cry with how much he wants it. But Chi Cheng is feeling especially indulgent towards Suo Wei right now. The boy likely has no idea how much he has helped Chi Cheng decompress tonight. 

“Yeah, baby. Let me have it,” Chi Cheng says, and just like that, Suo Wei shakes apart with a moan, his inner walls contracting and releasing around Chi Cheng’s cock. It yanks Chi Cheng’s own orgasm out of him and he groans hotly against Suo Wei’s neck as he spills into the hot clutch of the boy’s spasming hole. 

They drowse like that for a while after, his cock still inside Suo Wei, though gradually beginning to soften. Chi Cheng’s limbs feel loose and heavy, all the tension drained out of him. He runs his palm up and down Suo Wei’s arm, which rises and falls in sync with the boy’s heaving chest, before Chi Cheng’s body decides even that is too much effort for him. He drapes a heavy arm over Suo Wei’s waist, holding the boy close to his chest. And then he snuggles in, pressing his lips to the curve of a pale shoulder.

[lillupon]

hii, was reading your promts and older stuff when i found a alphaxbeta minwoon roomates situation and i would like to say that i'm very interested in reading that, you prob dropped the idea already but its never bad to let you know that someone is interested in your work!! btw honeysucke and winterpine is 10/10 best things i ever read, cant never get tired of it!!!

This is super sweet, thank you! I can't commit to anything, but I will say that the first fic I ever wrote for minwon was back in 2015, and the latest fic I wrote for them was just earlier this year, so... Mayhaps more minwon fics in the future?!

I really love the idea of alpha x beta pairings (as in, actual, beta, not just an-omega-who-presented-late), though, so I hope to write an alpha x beta fic eventually!

[troubled-mind]

3rd Year in This Corner of Tumblr: (Some of) My Fav Reads (so far)

Early December marks my second third year in this space (yay!). It's been an odd one, since there were very few shows that made me join the fandom craze. Still, it's interesting to observe how this space evolves; people come and go, engagement fluctuates, trends change, the world changes... Sometimes I feel like @absolutebl's weekly round-ups are the only stable thing hah.

Anyways, even during this quiet year, I tried to highlight 10 (well, more) texts that stuck with me. They're presented without any particular order.

-> If you missed it here are my 1st Year Reads, 2nd Year Reads

#1 Generative AI in Fic and Fandom by @lillupon

I've been struggling with AI on every front this year. At work, in daily life, in fandom spaces... It's honestly overwhelming. I have extremely mixed feelings about it, especially in its generative form, and especially in art. I came across OPs text through the AO3 fic, and it was honestly super heartbreaking to read quotes like this one:

When I returned to AO3 a month ago and saw the amount of AI-generated or assisted work, I literally thought, "What's the point of me even writing anymore? People can just use ChatGPT to bring their stories to life."

The author is offering thoughts on AI in the fanfiction world and how hard it is to see which works have been augmented using AI and which have not, and how it changes the fandom dynamics. It's a great opportunity to read a fic writer's point of view on the issue.

#2 Visual Analysis: Secrets Happened on the Litchi Island by @romchat

This was the most beautiful little series I watched this year. Maybe it was vibes only, but oh, what vibes! I want to live inside this series, inside that summer, and OPs post perfectly captures the essence of show's visual tricks.

#3 Why is Revenged Love So Compelling by @biochemjess & Queer Relationships in Revenged Love by @bronte-blues

I think those two posts sum up very well why I went insane about this show (honestly, I haven't left the fanfics rabbit hole yet). There's something about the dynamic between all the characters that just hit the right spot, messy as they all are. It might be the delicious tension and acts of care that @biochemjess points out or its take on relationships described by @bronte-blues but I was bought quite instantly.

#4 Integrating Real Space and Digital Space in Gelboys by @moutheyes

I still have to finish this one (the first episodes were a little too much for me at the time) but I admired gifs and read the discourse. It was definitely one of the most interesting series of the year on so many levels, but especially when it comes to the format and realistic way of presenting social media in teenage life. OPs post delves into the aspect of space that made that "realness" possible.

#5 On Apologies (via My Sweetheart Jom) - @befuddledcinnamonroll post with @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle and @dribs-and-drabbles responses

I have never really thought that much about how differently each culture approaches apologies. But this conversation made me look back on all the times I thought the characters are taking the blame for no reason. Maybe there is a very valid reason indeed, maybe they just don't see it as blame, and I should have looked at it from a different perspective.

#6 My Personal Weatherman Can Be a Comfort Show by @nabi-unveiled

I've been reading OP's takes throughout the year (and enjoying them a lot - Nabi, you are a powerhouse, my gosh), and this one is one of my favourites. It's such an elegant answer to the ask that half of the people wouldn't have the energy to counter. If anyone has any doubts about why people like Taikan Yoho, this is the post to read. It made me even want to rewatch some scenes.

#7 How slutty is his ponytail? (Rating men's ponytails in wuxia/xianxia I've seen.) PART 1 & PART 2 by @fiftysevenacademics

I need more unserious rankings on my dash. I LOVE these types of posts. I may have watched only 1.5 of these shows and seen the rest through my dash, but this is such a hilarious concept I must applaud. Made my day. And the year, probably.

#8 Grieving & Poverty in When Life Gives You Tangerines by @hoekhti

What can I say, WLGYT is my series of the year. There were many beautiful meta written about it (e.g. things that @lurkingshan wrote halfway through that fortunately stayed true to the end), but this post stuck with me cause it's about a loss, and grief under harsh circumstances - the theme that this series tackled extremely well which surprised me a lot (it's woven into the series until the very end).

#9 Khemjira Must Know companion posts by @hinmotion

Those posts were vital for me to get to know the landscape, so to say, especially at the beginning when I felt quite lost. They made me enjoy this show even more with all the neatly compiled cultural context!

#10 Pat Grows Up by @telomeke-bbs

@telomeke-bbs blog and @waitmyturtles posts were a great companion during my first Bad Buddy's watch. I am especially fond of episode 11, Pat's perspective, as it presents all the details that I missed but instinctively felt. Pat's realisation and coming to terms with reality is one of my favourite little twists in the series.

------

Once again, to each creator of any kind of content that I reblogged or liked stuff from, and to people I shout at in asks and dms (@colourme-feral needs an honourable mention):

keep doing what you're doing, you are fantastic and you make this space awesome

Let's see what the 4th year brings!

[lillupon]

Hey Lei! I’m here to say that i like your fanfic about Wu Bi and Su Yu omegaverse. Can you make it more of them if you please? tysm!

Hey! Sorry if you've been waiting a while for a response; I don't check tumblr often nowadays.

I'm really glad you liked my fic (♡˙︶˙♡) Maybe if season 2 happened, or if I ever revisited the series, I would feel inspired to write for them again, but at the moment, I don't have any plans to write more Wu Bi and Su Yu.

[lillupon]

Generative AI in Fic and Fandom

I'm having a lot of complicated thoughts towards AI in writing, and in particular, AI writing in fandom spaces. So here's my great long ramble, which culminates in: human writers, keep writing, there is value in your story; readers, please give your hard-working humans some love by leaving kudos and comments. 

I took a fairly long break from writing and fandom to focus on life and work on other hobbies, and now it feels like I'm seeing partially, or entirely, AI-generated fics everywhere. There are fics that I am certain are AI-generated, but haven't been tagged as such. AI has a unique tone and structure that I personally feel is recognizable—and it is not the same as (beginner) writers who are still trying to find their voice, which a lot of people seem to be worried about. AI description, dialogue, and sentence structures all have the same underlying beat.

It's often a combination of certain characteristics at a high frequency (please note: CHARACTERISTICS at HIGH FREQUENCY) that scream AI to me. However, I'll leave aside stylistic tells and instead focus on two other major signs that a work has been AI-generated: (1) the inhuman rate of posts, and (2) the marked difference between earlier works and more recent works. These two things are harder to argue against. 

One author in particular, who writes in a fandom I participate in, comes to mind.

Regarding the inhuman rate of posting, this person published 1.5 million words since the beginning of this year (January 2025). That's an average of 1,500,000 words ÷ 235 days = 6,383 words a day, without a single day off. In the past thirty days alone, they've averaged posting 10k words a day. Anyone who has tried writing before knows how difficult it can be to write several hundred words a day, let alone a consistent (and coherent!) 10k a day. 

This same author also went from being an English learner to being able to apply native-level fluency in two years. Compare these sentences from the author's work: 

From 2022:

[You can Put it this way, it was Taehyung's first time to receive a marriage proposal.]

From 2024:

[The world was simple then—summer days that stretched forever, laughter that carried on the wind, and a friendship that seemed inevitable, like it had always been written somewhere in the stars above them.]

From 2025:

[The doors exploded inward with a flash of smoke and steel. In seconds, black-suited bodyguards stormed the warehouse like a wave of shadows—masks on, silencers up, tactical lasers slicing through the air.]

I'm not trying to diminish anyone's efforts to learn a language. As someone who was raised bilingual, I know how fucking hard it is to learn a language; I also studied French in school and spent the past two years grinding Japanese. But this is precisely why I know this is not a realistic rate of improvement for a normal human being. Understanding a high-level of English and being able to smoothly converse in it is a different skillset from being able to employ it in writing. Writing is hard, even for native speakers. So language learners, if you were truly able to make this kind of progress in two years, you are actually in the top 0.1% of the human population, and I would like to know all of your secrets. Again, language INPUT is not the same as language OUTPUT. Outputting language is far harder than understanding input. Conversational, day-to-day speech is not the same as the language encountered in longform writing. 

But at the end of the day, my "AI detection" isn't based on irrefutable evidence. Many AI-isms can be edited out. I know I can't participate in an AI witch hunt based on vibes alone. I know my own writing also contains AI-isms (though it is more accurate to say that AI sounds like a human because it was trained on millions of fanworks and published authors). I love em-dashes and italics for emphasis. I love fragments and "groups of three". I reuse the same phrases and expressions all the time. I still think "It wasn't just [A], it was [B], [C], and [D]" is a great structure to highlight contrast. Sometimes my metaphors are trite and nonsensical. I love cliched tropes and I think they are cliches for a reason: they're just so damn fun! AI can't keep a storyline straight, but neither can I, because I've fucking forgotten what I wrote two days ago. Inconsistent writing styles are often seen as a marker of AI usage. But you know what? Sometimes I am astounded by the brilliance of a sentence I came up with, and other times, I am astounded by the complete garbage of a sentence my brain cobbled together.

I just hate how AI has made me paranoid and critical of everything I read. Now I feel like I can only read fanfics with a unique voice, or fanfics that were written prior to 2023, or fanfics written by authors who have an established track record from years back. I recognize this is actually fucking stupid. This way of thinking pushes out new writers (who may even end up turning to AI to polish their works), and I know—I know—there are still fic writers who devote hundreds of hours to their craft. Who spend hours plotting and daydreaming scenarios. Who agonize over every word and sentence they write down. In fact, I imagine that these are the majority of fic writers. I think the majority of fic writers write fic because they love the world and the characters, and they love the process of creating!

I understand that AI is a tool, and that it's here to stay. I think traditional artists had the same fears when digitial art came about. I'm sure that photographers in the past felt that digital manipulation of images did not count as "real" photography, and now digital editing is the norm. Hell, artists went—are going?—through the same thing writers are contending with now. I'm trying not to be an old man shaking his fist at the clouds, but right now, I just cannot seem to reconcile my belief of what creative writing should be with new technology that is making writing more accessible. 

I don't know. I feel so conflicted... I think AI, especially when combined with fact-checking, is great for research. Nowadays, when you look something up on Google, the first thing that pops up is an AI overview, anyway. But where do we draw the line? Is it okay to use AI for research, but not for brainstorming? Is it okay to use AI to help with line editting, so long as you actually wrote everything yourself first? Is it okay to use AI to generate names and fic titles, but not summaries? Many people will agree that AI should not be used to generate entire fics, line by line. But there are so many other nuanced ways to use AI. Who is to decide what is acceptable use of AI, and what isn't? I feel like it's impossible to police AI use, and attempting to do so will hurt real writers more than writers who use AI. 

I love writing and all the exhilarating and agonizing moments that come with it, so I won't be using AI to write my fics for me. I love daydreaming and the act of writing itself too much to let a machine do it for me. If I knew an author was using AI to write prose, I would exit out immediately; I want to only engage with stories written by humans. But there is a tiny part of me that worries about how I'm going to keep up with fic writers—if you want to call them that—who are doubtless embracing AI and using it to enhance their writing, or generate entire fics. I feel stupid saying this even as I type it, because fic writing is not some capitalist venture. I don't make any money off it. And yet!

I guess why all of this bothers me so much is because I see AI-generated fanfics garnering hundreds—even thousands—of kudos and comments, while fics written by human authors are receiving crickets. As a fic writer, this is gutting. Like many other fic writers, I write for myself, but I share my work because this is my way of engaging with the fandom. Fic writers want to scream with their readers and fellow fans about their favourite blorbos—and yes, they would also like to be acknowledged for their work. It's the only kind of compensation and motivation they receive to keep creating, after all. 

I had to get this out because I've been struggling to re-engage with fandom now that it feels like AI has invaded the space. When I returned to AO3 a month ago and saw the amount of AI-generated or assisted work, I literally thought, "What's the point of me even writing anymore? People can just use ChatGPT to bring their stories to life." I'm slowly getting over that initial shock and dismay. I'm trying to remind myself that actual process of writing brings me joy, not just the finished product. I'm trying to convince myself that the majority of fic writers don't rely on AI, and that fanfic is very much still a labour of love.

I might come back to this to add more later, but for now, I'll end this by saying: writers, keep creating; and readers, your comments mean far more to writers than you know.

[deadlovedonoteat]

we need to talk about The Silence and The Song

[PLEASE READ] edit to add: i realise that this post has been reblogged far and wide and that there is not a lot i can do about it now, but this is me trying anyway.

posting examples from the fic about my issues with its repetitive structure was careless of me, and i apologise to those of you who read it and became insecure about your own writing style. as someone who has worked with ai in academic settings, it's incredibly difficult for me to explain to you how the tone and structure of ai-generated fiction works and how, after reading enough of it, you can simply just tell. i do also realise that this is an incredibly weak argument, which is why i didn't include it when i originally wrote this post.

all that to say: there is an enormous difference between "beginner's writing" and ai writing. being repetitive as a new writer (or a seasoned one who just likes using repetition) is so normal. as is flowery/purple language. i've read hundreds of books and fics and the difference between these traits in ai-text and actual works is starkly clear. please don't feel anxious over the examples i've used in this post.

again, i apologise for any distress i have caused.

as per my last post, i have received a lot of encouragement to go public with this, and the more disappointed people i have in my dms, the angrier i get. so i will.

the silence and the song is an ancient arlathan au DA fic on ao3 by luxannaslut, and it is partly, if not entirely, written by an ai. i have no wish to be involved in any kind of fandom drama or witch hunting or bullying, but as a writer myself there are few things that piss me off more than watching people steal the work of others because they can't be fucked to write. it's disrespectful to your fellow writers, it's disrespectful to your readers, and it's disrespectful to the authors of the works the ai is stealing from.

ai is a plague that has no business being in creative spaces and you must do better.

the writing pattern

there was something very odd and monotone about the sentence structure of tsats that i couldn't quite place, so i fed chatgpt a prompt along the lines of "two people in a fantasy novel hate each other, but they secretly desire one another, and they kiss", and the screenshots above are the results. the third one is an excerpt from chapter 40 of tsats. the writing pattern is identical and it doesn't seem like the "writer" has even bothered to pretend they wrote it. if you're going to use ai, at least be sneaky about it. you know, paraphrase a little.

nonsense descriptions

"her nimble fingers worked with quiet precision" (ct. 1), "his grip firm but tender" (ct. 33), "her gown pooling around her like embers" (ct. 1).

fingers don't make sound, so what does quiet precision mean? as opposed to what? her joints cracking with every movement? how is a grip firm but tender? what does that mean? since when do embers pool?

the entire fic is littered with these adjectives that contradict each other or just straight up do not make sense, because all an ai does is generate descriptive language with no understanding of what the words it's spitting out actually mean. i could spend hours picking out examples from the seven billion pages worth of text, but i quite frankly have better things to do and would simply challenge you to try getting through a chapter or two without noticing the pattern.

repetition at structure-level

all the scenes in this fic are described in pretty much the same way. they open with purple prose vomit of the surroundings; solas is standing somewhere looking "unreadable as ever"; ellana's fiery golden molten fire copper ember ginger red hair is flowing this and that way; there's some dialogue with whoever is present and it leaves ellana feeling different variations of "something she couldn't name". this is, once again, a blatantly obvious sign of ai. below is the result of me feeding chatgpt the line "write me a scene from a fantasy novel where a woman with red hair is sitting on the ground in a magical garden at night", and side by side with that is the opening scene of the fic. make your own judgement.

repetition at word-level

this one speaks for itself. we fucking get it. her dress is orange, her hair is red, mythal's presence is heavy in the room, solas looks unreadable, compassion is sitting on her head like a crown, solas' ears are betraying him and ellana's move with every thought she thinks. we get it. the issue here is that an ai remembers the info you feed it, but not necessarily the info it shits out. if it's being told to write scene after scene of an elven woman with a gown that looks like fire doing xyz, it's going to do so with no regard for how many times the reader has already been informed of these details.

lastly: the breakneck speed

359,6k words in four weeks by a person who allegedly is employed and married and hasn't pre-written anything? no. any writer will tell you that this simply isn't possible. it absolutely infuriates me to see how much praise this "writer" gets for posting up to three full chapters in a day without anyone calling bullshit. i am pulling out my hair, you guys.

why i'm not going to live and let live this one

perhaps i would be less angry if the fic was some silly bullshit court intrigue Y/A stuff, but this is a text that handles very heavy and triggering topics such as SA, coercion, domestic abuse, and other things of the same vein. to sit back and put your feet up while having a robot write these extremely sensitive and very real human experiences with words it has stolen from texts written by actual persons is fucking heinous. the "writer" should be deeply ashamed of themselves and i'm sick and tired of watching people eat up their bs.

and on that note: the amount of people in my dm's telling me that they feel stupid and naive for not clocking this has infuriated me more than anything else. you're not foolish for this. being fed ai-generated bullshit is not what is supposed to happen on any creative platform and much less a fandom-centred one, so of course no one approaches a fic through that lens. fandom and fic writing is supposed to be about passion and the only person in this situation who needs to do better and change their behaviour is luxannaslut. polluting our creative spaces, wasting the time of your readers, and minimising the effort of actual writers who are working hard to provide content for us all to share and enjoy is vile and so, so lazy. i beg of you: do better.

[loveisactivated]

Chi Cheng manhandling Wei Wei

[bluesandfilms]

chi cheng looking at his weiwei with loser aura 🥹

[lillupon]

hey do you accept prompt? :) if yes what about bodyguard mingyu x son of mafia wonwoo. it is cliche but the thought of mingyu being a bodyguard wouldn't leave my mind. wonwoo is in rebel toward his dad and mingyu .. just doing his job ... or maybe it can be made as aboverse . i really like ur meanie works!! read almost most of it ♡ thank you

I'm glad you like my fics! However, I'm sorry, I don't accept prompts ;w;

[isabellebissonrouthier]

WRITE IT ANYWAY!!! EVEN IF YOU DONT THINK YOURE GOOD ENOUGH!!! WRITE!!! IT!!!! ANYWAY!!!!!!!