The Restricted Section

Solidarity is a weird thing… all of a sudden you’re seeing the Pope on your dash and the tea is… piping hot? (To offset the Vatican.va link, here's a tl;dr from The Onion.) ... Look at him go!

(Disagreements with his Holiness aside, it’s great to see a powerful figure power taking the side of the people.) ... EDIT: Wake up babe, a new Inquisition just dropped - apparently, not even the Pope can escape being wrongly accused by AI "verifiers."

If someone’s work has EVER been put through a detector (I know mine has for a fact, they even had the gall to show me the 13 detectors they’d run my work against), you have a much higher chance of setting them off in the future because now it has your writing style in its database.

It’s not worth it. Don’t like it? Move on. Feels like AI? Stop reading it and Move. On. It’s very simple. Some of us out here are busting our asses to write stories and having them disparaged like that is so damaging. It makes new authors not want to put their work out there.

Just give it time. The authors using AI as a crutch will eventually fizzle out. Why? Not because their work is somehow instantly detectable as AI. But because their work lacks soul. It lacks spirit. It lacks humanity, and while it can sometimes be subtle, it compounds over time. You read one story and then another and another and while the words are coherent and the story follows a pattern, you’re left feeling nothing in the end. You can’t recall what you read. You can’t tell someone else what you found compelling about the story because there was nothing.

Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.

Including (sigh) the em dash.

There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.

A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.

No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.

You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.

Defend the em dash.

(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)

I wasn’t going to talk about this, but this post by Ellipsus made me change my mind. I was recently accused by a group running a Christmas gift exchange of using AI to write my story. When I asked how they came to that conclusion, and asked what detector they were using (not that ANY of them are completely accurate and free of false positives), they said they didn’t use any, and that instead they had a “friend who is an expert at detecting AI”. I’m sorry, what? Is there a degree for that now? What are their credentials? What secret peer-reviewed industry standards are they using to determine whether a block of text is AI-generated or not? How are they avoiding false positives? So I asked them to provide me with specific examples of where they felt my writing had elements of AI. They would not provide these to me, instead giving me a word salad of flowery words and stating that, in short, my style was similar to what AI can produce.

It was made clear that nothing I said would change their minds. It was made clear that they didn’t believe me when I told them I wrote this on my own, and it was said with a sort of smugness that made me feel the conversation we’d been having up to that point was mere posturing, as they had no intention of allowing me to try to clear my name whatsoever. So because an anonymous third party had a “feeling”, I’m to be burnt at the stake for a crime I did not commit.

Want to know a funny story? I once joined a fanfic competition in which I granted access to the mods my original files (so they could go through the entire edit history) and allowed them to watch me write in live time. And you know what? Some of those stories still pinged various free AI detector websites. Despite direct evidence to the contrary. This proved to those moderators that those tools are completely useless, because guess what companies have used to train their AI? That’s right, freely available, human-generated text on the internet. Blogs. News articles. Millions upon millions of fanfictions. Ellipsus is completely correct in stating that humans don’t write like AI—AI writes like humans. Because it was trained on humans. It didn’t just develop a style out of nowhere, it relies on the bones of what we as a civilisation have created.

As for “proving” myself, it becomes a slippery slope. There are, of course, many works that you or I might feel deep down wasn’t fully written by the author. But does that give us permission to start a crusade against that person, to accuse them without real proof, just because we “think” they’re writing with AI? Unless they left the AI prompt in their text by accident, there’s really just no sure way to prove they cheated, and asking them to provide original files or to watch them write live time like I did is a slippery slope into invasion of privacy. The same rule applies that has always applied: don’t like, don’t read. If an author really wishes to degrade themselves with the use of AI, no one is forcing us to support them. Simply exit the screen and move on. Perhaps one day, it will catch up to them, and perhaps it won’t, but it’s not for us to police or enforce without irrefutable proof.

I for one refuse to change my entire writing style to satisfy the anti-AI masses. My style has remained consistent for as long as I’ve been writing. I have readers who can pick my works out of anonymous lineups. As much as I agree with and sympathise with the statement that AI should not be used for writing, neither can I do anything to stop my works from setting off various online detectors from time to time—at least, not without substantially changing the way I write. Some detectors will even tag the Declaration of Independence as “likely AI”, and I have put old papers and stories I wrote in college fifteen years ago and also had them ping back as AI, so sorry, not sorry, I don’t trust those detectors and neither should you.

I just want to write stories and have fun doing it. I will not be joining the AI crusades against other authors and I will not be responding to anyone who accuses me of it. I know where my integrity lies. I know the amount of blood, sweat, and tears I’ve poured into my writing. I write for myself, first and foremost, and will continue to do so. If you come into my space to accuse me of something, the burden of proof lies with you. I’m done jumping through hoops to prove myself over and over to people pointing fingers in the wrong direction.

And quite frankly, if I was using AI, I would have no reason whatsoever to have such long breaks in between all my WIP chapters. If it’s as simple as telling a machine to write the next chapter and then copy pasting it into AO3, then I’d do that instead of making people wait months for updates. Sorry, but real writing takes time. Bursts of energy come and go. I might be able to do back to back chapters for a short period of time, but then you won’t see me for a while after. But I digress, as this post has gone on long enough.

Hello everyone, 

The main part of our fest is over, but we, the mods, would like to address one more thing before we can truly and officially wrap it all up. 

For the most part, everything in the fest went really smoothly, and we are truly grateful for everyone’s cooperation, but there was one issue that came up, a few times, quite unexpectedly. Even though all of us mods have been taking part in various fandoms for many many years, we still hadn’t foreseen any of this. With how the world works these days, we probably should have.

There were multiple issues with AI use in fest submissions this year. These were both from authors and from betas who used AI to suggest edits without authors’ knowledge. 

The mod team, along with a wonderful volunteer, worked with individual authors to address any potential AI use, and, as of now, as far as we can tell, no works in the fest collection include any AI written content. 

However, this experience only confirmed our fandom values.

They put us firmly against using AI in fandom spaces.

The next time the fest runs we will be stricter from the start and will include an explicit rule barring AI generated content. 

We recognise that there is no perfect way to address suspected AI use, and, just as fandom is for humans imperfectly creating art, we are humans who also might imperfectly respond to possible AI use. Any suspected cases of AI use will always be handled privately with authors/artists from a place of curiosity, not blame. 

Still, we would much rather this fest celebrate imperfect art and fic crafted by humans than anything AI can produce. 

Nothing AI can ever produce can embody the true spirit of hedonism.

And though her soul yearned for the light, her heart forever belonged to the darkness.

- I'm here. You're not alone.

Not too long ago an anon asked me for more smutty Snamione.

HERE YOU GO ANON.

What a wicked game you play (3 chapters, completed, post-war AU) by @antebellum13. It's been years since the end of the war and Hermione moved in back to Grimmauld Place. Her only other roommate is Severus, but they never see each others. One day she comes home early and starts touching herself. Her door is open... There's voyeurism. It's glorioussss. *muah*

I added it to my fanfic reco masterpost.

Oh, anon, thank you! 💝 I actually read it one or two weeks ago (it was recommended to me in a comment section) and I REALLY liked it! I need to read more of @antebellum13's work, it's amazing! They're the one who wrote the fic I linked twice already, 'what a wicked game you play' (I forgot to tag them, shame on me, gonna do that away!)

☀️ Claiming is OPEN! ☀️

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Check out our rules and guidelines here for more information, and if you have questions don’t hesitate to ask! 

I have been so overcome with emotion by these works of art that I had to put words to it. Thank you for the inspiration and for the breathtaking artwork that is still bringing tears to my eyes.

The Escape

The air smelled green.

Padfoot had been running for what felt like hours. Days, maybe. His paws were raw. His muscles trembled with every stride, and the wild thundering of his heart no longer came from panic, but from sheer exhaustion. Still, he ran. Away from cold stone walls. Away from the sea. Away from the rotting chill of Azkaban.

Until, at last, he couldn’t anymore.

The shift came mid-stride, as though his body had made the choice for him, fur to flesh, paws to hands, beast to man. He staggered and hit the grass hard. Human again, though barely.

The wind sighed through the tall grass. Lupines swayed like they knew his name.

Sirius Black lay still. His robes were torn, his hands filthy, his bones ached with every heartbeat. The earth was soft beneath his cheek was too soft. His mind, conditioned to stone and chill and filth, mistrusted it. He didn’t remember what grass felt like. Or air that didn’t taste of salt and despair. He didn’t remember the weight of his own body when it wasn’t being crushed by hopelessness.

He was free.

But the word meant nothing. Not yet. Not when freedom came with no purpose but pain. He was gaunt, starving, half-mad. The silence felt like it might swallow him.

And then… a sound.

A quiet rustling in the trees. He flinched, but his body refused to move.

He cracked his eyes open.

At first, he thought he was hallucinating. Or was it a dream?

A stag stood at the forest’s edge, head lifted high. His coat shone like polished bronze in the shafts of morning sun. Behind him, a doe stood protectively over a fawn barely taller than the grass.

Sirius’s breath caught. His vision blurred.

James.

But no, it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. James was gone. Lily too. Their boy, all that remained. The boy Sirius had sworn to protect.

A sob caught in his chest and curled there like a fist. It hurt to feel again. Hurt worse to hope.

But that fawn. So small. Shielded by its mother the way Lily had stood between Harry and Voldemort. So fragile. So alive.

His fingers dug into the earth. Not out of fear, but to anchor himself to it. To this moment. To this field far from the sea and the screams and the shadows.

For the first time in twelve years, Sirius Black didn’t feel only grief.

He felt hope.

Just the tiniest ember of it, buried beneath the ache and the madness and the ghosts. But it was there.

And as the deer family vanished silently into the trees, Sirius whispered into the grass, his voice cracked and barely there:

“I’m coming, Harry. I’m coming.”