All you can do is the best you can do.

with all due respect, no. just because someone wrote something does not mean the thing is (again I am speaking in terms of literary ‘quality’ as judged by competitions and tradpub etc rather than whether or not it appeals to people) worthy of commendation. also don’t even try with the ‘but the environmental/social impact of AI means people i decide have used AI MUST be harassed on tumblr’. are you weighing the moral positionality of every author you kudos? what if your all time favourite porno was written by someone who owns a real fur coat? what scale of morality are you using here, and why is the moral worth of another human being contingent upon what you think counts as AI or not AI?

anyway. when you post a fic on Ao3, you are participating in a community, not nominating your fic for the Booker Prize. and this is why fanfic is so diverse and fun and varied in style and form and all that. because most things appeal to someone or the other out there, even if your fic is just a description of Aragorn unbuckling his belt when someone asks him to choose between washing his hair or shitting in his hands and clapping. the whole point of it is that it is fun and not ruled by literary prize criteria. hence, even if someone did write an AI generated fic and posted it on Ao3, they are not exactly seeking a prestigious certification of literary capability and neither is Ao3 or its reader offering that. there is no institution here claiming authority to certify quality, no structural gatekeeping function, no literary tradition being characterised as imitable machinery by the people in power. Ao3 is an archive site. it operates outside literary legitimation because it does not claim to legitimise anything.

which leads to my next point:

bro why do you CARE 😭

like if I came across that shitting in his hands and clapping fic, I would just say ‘ew’ and scroll. If I came across a story I suspect to be AI generated, I would do the same thing. I have done this on countless occasions. I would not come onto another website and talk about how Author X should be beaten with hammers for her poop fic. or make a canva graphic of Author Y’s mdash usage? why would I do that when I could just use the time to find a fic I enjoy and read that instead?

if, like i said above, writing a fic and posting it is not a declaration of literary prowess or assumed quality and is simply the act of engaging with a community, then AI generated fics are, as much as you hate to see it that way, doing the same thing. the ‘writers’ are engaging with the community with their AI fic. and sure, this way of engagement may be dishonest and what not, but clearly some people enjoy them and have made them popular or whatever, in which case that is a back and forth engagement. is the argument here that a couple of these fics have gotten a lot of comments or whatever? are we pretending that kudos and comments are now the measure of a fic’s quality, instead of reflecting whatever the primary audience in that fandom prefers to read?

there is no prize denoting literary worth that is handed out by kudos or comments or being posted on Ao3, this is just someone reading something and going yeah, I like this. are you going to go hound everyone who commented ‘great fic’ on every single fic where Naruto “gets pegged—not with a plug but a finger—a quiet, thrumming evocation of the Sexy Jutsu on the tapestry of his pubes, floating on the grammar of his balls”??? this is a person in a community saying I enjoyed this; the lit prize is an institution exercising cultural authority in a way that dictates, to paraphrase Roy, which stories are told, by whom, and how. Ao3 is not doing that. Ao3 is doing the opposite of that. Ao3 says “the person into Aragorn shitting into his hands and clapping” can post whatever they want.

and like. again. what are you getting out of this? what is the end goal? to harass some twelve year old for writing and posting OCfic using ChatGPT? this shit is always framed through the lens of pedagogical care and “accountability” but what it actually is is just a pure flame war lol. what is the educational value of slagging off someone to the entire internet over a zero stakes situation with no payoff? what does such an action garner you aside from the chance to chest-thump about your own virtue?

and most importantly, what if you’re wrong?

and this is the point of all points lol, the one that overshadows all the others i’ve made so far: the fact that what I am saying in my commonwealth prize writeup isn’t a contradiction of me thinking people should not be conducting public witch hunts over fanfic, it actually proves the point i am making! because if these people, who are in terms of writing qualifications and academic background, ostensibly at the topmost layer of the literary world, who have read much much more in their fields than you or I, have, for free, offered us a box of popcorn and an enjoyable demonstration of a reading practice lazy enough to award a prestigious prize to an AI generated story, then what makes YOU so confident that your decision and subsequent public witchhunt is justified, that your eye for ‘real’ literature and hallmarks of LLM generated writing, aside from really puerile shit like ‘goody proctor used an emdash’, is somehow better, is somehow good enough to harass people over?

idk man. in my book, a bunch of knowitall chucklefucks harassing people in their own community based entirely on vibes and a sprinkle of ship wars (yeah you mfs think you’re slick don’t you 😭😭😭), leads to a far more toxic community than a handful of young or inexperienced writers using LLMs and what not.

what you are doing is encouraging a paranoid reading practice in your own community, the community you partake in for fun! and like… man this is the thing that actually gets me, the thing that ties all of this together so bleakly: the paranoid reading practice this attitude is spreading in fan communities, the gleefulness of the witch-hunt, the "I have identified the tells" confidence… this is, structurally speaking, the same operation as what the prize judges used, just pointed in the opposite direction.

the judges had a model of what Caribbean literary fiction is supposed to look like and matched the text against it without actually reading it closely or engaging with it. AI-vigilantes on Ao3 have a model of what AI writing is supposed to look like and they're matching texts against that without actually reading them either. both of you are reading for the shape of a thing rather than the thing itself. both of you are outsourcing any actual encounter with the text to a paranoid checklist. and both your guns, subsequently, will misfire with potentially horrible consequences.

and I think the reason I find it worth saying all of this in one breath, the Commonwealth Prize, the judges, Granta uploading the story to some AI to ask about its AIness, the reactionary discourse, and yes, the AO3 witch hunts too, is that ALL of these are varying results of the same root problem, which is that we have collectively gotten very bad at tolerating the uncertainty and discomfort that actual literary engagement requires.

actual reading requires you to accept not-knowing, to at least attempt to stay in the room with a story that isn't immediately yielding to what you are demanding from it instead of deciding that something you do not understand on first skim does not deserve categorisation as ‘real’, requires you to ask "is this doing something I can't yet follow" before you ask "is this doing nothing???”.

it’s an uncomfortable place to be and I understand why people reach for the checklist instead, whether the checklist is emdash counting or "this sounds like the thing I know” or “people from X ship always use AI”. but the cost of the checklist, the cost of this paranoid, mechanical, securitised and surveilled reading practice, is that you stop encountering writing on its own terms entirely. and at that point you're not reading, are you? you're just confirming what you already thought, and some poor writer somewhere, who might have made every decision in every sentence and could account for all of it, is getting caught in the net of your refusal to engage with uncertainty.

it all is just so fucking tragic man. like the intellectual honesty of going "I didn't understand this and I wonder why that is" seems to have been replaced by the comfortable "I didn't understand this and therefore it is bad/fake/not worth my time.” and what do you lose here? what is actively being destroyed? the possibility of a real, genuine encounter, the moment of encounter that reading fundamentally is, the experience of a text doing something to you that you weren't expecting it to do, that you didn't have a framework for and had to build one as you read. that experience requires vulnerability and an admission that your existing framework might be insufficient or at the very least not throwing your toys out of the pram the minute you find in a piece of writing something you consider morally wrong.

and yeah maybe you’re right lol. maybe i should be naming and shaming. so here you go: fuck a fanwriting culture that has entirely given up on the idea that reading is something a person can be wrong about in ways that should provoke curiosity, even if the result of that curiosity is just ‘tbh yeah this is bad writing’. but alas, apparently we have decided that it's more important to be confident about what you're reading than to actually read it and find out.

He starts to pace across the grass outside his cottage where he and Ilya had kicked around the soccer ball earlier, an unserious bout of two-touch that neither of them really won. Ilya is no doubt still inside somewhere, dishing whole the sordid tale of their discovery to Svetlana in rapid-fire Russian like he had been when Rose called.

"I mean, yeah but - that's not a bad thing. I didn't want to come out yet. I didn't want this to be how I told them." The repeated words taste sour in his mouth. His mother's face comes back to the front of his mind when she saw Ilya step inside their home behind Shane. But you hate him. No. I mean, I get that, but no. I actually, uh... I love him. "I had a plan." Said plan having been to gently break the gay news to his parents sometime that year, and leave the Ilya stuff for later. Way later. As late as possible, preferrably.

"Shane. She told you to stop crying. When you were having like, a whole coming out moment, basically completely against your will." Rose almost sounds like she's begging him to understand, like it's painful for her to hear this, but Shane doesn't understand, not really. His mom has her way of looking after him, and this is how it works. She loves him. She protects him.

Uh... I'm sorry. Can we just sit down, please?

Shane groans. "That's not what I said. Don't say it like that. Like it's bad."

"Shane..." Her voice is softer now, like he's some wounded animal that needs soothing, and something acidic and hot burns inside him. "You got caught kissing the one guy you're not supposed to even be friends with, and she told you to stop crying and start brainstorming how to milk this for more brand deals."

"Jesus, Rose." He looks off into the distance, at the lake, at the ripples on the surface. Predictable movements that follow the wind no matter what. "My mom's just, she's better at that stuff. Business. I mean, she's dedicated her whole life to - to me. My career." Shane exhales harshly and shifts his grip on his phone. "The fallout will affect her too, if this gets out."

And do your teammates know?

One day they will. One day everyone that matters will know, and this secret, hidden weakness Shane has spent so long concealing will be another article, another podcast episode, another talk show discussion topic. The thought is lodged in his brain like a splinter. Always there, always aching. He tries not to touch it. The lake blurs and Shane turns away.

"Why didn't you just hire someone? You pay her, right? Or like, she gets a percentage or whatever?"

"What?" His voice cracks. Blood roars in his ears.

I mean, you never let him win, did you Shane?

Rose graciously lets the payment subject drop. There's a noise on the other end of the line, like shifting papers. "Why didn't you hire a professional manager?"

"My mom is a professional." Shane clears his throat.

I'm sorry that I made you feel like you couldn't tell me.

He can practically hear the look she's giving him. "Well duh, now she is. I meant from the beginning. Before you were drafted, sure, whatever, but after signing to Montreal, why wouldn't you hire someone with experience? Isn't it hard, with her... you know, being your mom?"

With her being a woman? With her being Japanese? Now it all matters? She's worked so hard. His whole life. Cutting his turkey sandwiches diagonally every time, not wearing perfume, removing the tags from all his clothes and hockey gear, adhering to his strict routines, driving him to practice, talking to his coaches, negotiating his contracts, taking over conversations with brand partners and executives when Shane can do little more than make his mouth smile for the cameras. Whatever he can do to make this all worth it will never be enough.

Shane is quiet, and Rose doesn't rush him. The papers shuffle again in his ear. Maybe a script for her next movie. He realizes distantly that he's stopped pacing.

Alright... okay. Okay. Okay, okay. Enough.

His free hand fidgets with the inside of his pocket. "I don't know," he finally murmurs. "I never thought about it. She's always just... even when I was a kid. If anyone picked on me, she would raise hell until something happened. She got me a written apology from somebody's parents once. My teachers always hated her," he says through a smile, despite the growing unease in his chest.

Alright, what's the plan?

Rose sighs. "I'm not saying she doesn't love you, Shane, but you have to admit, it's kind of fucked. What did your dad say?"

He scoffs. "'So there were no nice men in Montreal?'"

"Oh my god, what?"

"They're just worried! With the whole rivalry thing, and - it's not like he doesn't have a reputation. They just don't know him yet."

Which is true. Everyone thinks they've got Ilya Rozanov all figured out: a competitive asshole who thinks he's better than everyone else, on and off the ice, and doesn't care who knows it. A mouthy show-off who buys flashy cars to fuck every willing woman in North America inside and lives to irritate his numerous enemies.

Which... isn't wholly untrue. But Shane knows him better than that - knows Ilya, not just Rozanov, number 81. The Ilya that is sweet, funny, generous, considerate, and so loving sometimes it hurts. The self he hides. Like Shane hides.

"Well, yeah, I get that, but..."

"No," Shane disagrees. "You don't get it. It's complicated." He purses his lips, trying to think of the correct order of words, the logical impetus that will get her to understand. We need a statement prepared in case anything leaks. Something classy and simple. "My parents could only have one kid."

Silence.

Shit. Bad sign.

When Rose finally speaks, every word is slow, deliberate, and absolutely dripping with disbelief. "And that's your fault?"

Fuuuck. "No! That's not what I'm saying!" Shane manually unclenches his jaw and breathes deeply, like his mother taught him. "I'm just. Trying to be a good son, and I lied to them. I'm supposed to - this wasn't -"

There's a world of opportunity here, if they do it right.

"Wasn't part of the plan?" Rose offers.

Shane nods, which Rose can't even see. The words are getting harder to get out, and he wants to be done, but she called, and she's asking, and she cares, and it hurts. "Yeah."

"Getting caught or being gay?"

"...Both?"

"Jesus," she mutters. "Okay. Listen. I need to just say it. I'm telling you this as your friend. As someone who sincerely cares about you. Okay?"

"Okay...?"

He couldn't have prepared for her next words if he had a million years.

"No offense, but if your parents thought you might be gay, as a professional hockey player - a sport with no out players before Scott Hunter - and they didn't explicitly say something supportive about gay people in general to make sure their maybe gay son knew it was safe to come out to his parents, that is kind of fucked up, Shane! Like, so, they're happy to profit off you being a sexy hockey god - and go you, obviously - but it's too weird to, what, have a serious conversation about what it's like being maybe gay in a men's locker room, a notoriously homophobic and categorically evil place where basic human decency goes to die? But, again, it's toootally fine to rent you out to Rolex for commercials? Come on, Shane! You know that's fucked."

Shane is silent again. The flame inside him has turned to ice. There's Rose's voice, the biting cold in his core, and nothing else.

Rose gives him an endless ten seconds before continuing, a little less frantic now. Gentle, like a knife to his heart. "If you're gay now, you've been gay the whole time. In juniors. In fucking grade school. Right?"

The cold is radiating to his fingertips. There's buzzing. Cicadas?

"I talk to my brothers, Shane. I know things. I'm not in there with you, but I know enough, okay? The whole toxic masculinity thing is a thing. Jocks have a pecking order. There's always one guy getting hazed the most. Be honest with me. It was never you?"

Sorry, I don't drink. Non, merci. Bois tout! Okay, très bien, arrête. Tout le monde, regardez! Holl-an-der! Holl-an-der! Holl-an-der!

"Shane?"

Move, queer. Ugh, tapette! You fucking sissy bitch. Go home!

He's so cold. Shivering with it. When has summer ever been this freezing?

Mom, can you just take three steps back, please?

I ordered for you. Salmon, brown rice.

I'm sure you could have a glass of wine if that's what -

"I gotta go. Sorry."

"Shane, wait -"

He hangs up without another word and almost drops his phone with shaking fingers. He'll apologize later, when he comes back, but Shane is gone. He's far away. In a locker room, in his parent's house, in countless hotels, dizzy in a bathroom stall with his head between his knees and trying so hard to catch his breath but he just can't. He can't.

He's still somewhere else when Ilya comes bounding out the back door, practically glowing from his conversation with his beloved Svetlana, ready to tell Shane all about her newest client's fuck-ugly haircut and how she's sending them an expensive present she refused to tell Ilya the nature of. His pace stalls for just a second of hesitation and the smile falls from Ilya's face when he sees Shane, rooted to the spot and pale, before rushing to him.

"Shane. What is it?" Ilya's face is a mask of worry, a mirror image of when he had comforted Shane after David's abrupt arrival and departure earlier in the day. Warm hands come up to rub Shane's biceps up and down, and he is back inside his body. Barely, but he is.

"I'm okay," he says automatically, blinking hard.

"You are shaking." Ilya is trying to catch his eye, but Shane can't hold his gaze. He tries to aim at least in the direction of Ilya's face, he knows he's supposed to. Look me in the eyes when I'm talking to you, Hollander.

"I'll be alright." I can be okay. I can reel it in. I can control myself. I can do it right. Just give me a minute. A second. One more chance.

"Shane," Ilya pleads, and he looks so concerned, fuck. Shane can't look.

He closes his eyes. Breathes as best he can. Why is it so fucking hard?

Ilya keeps a gentle hold on his upper arms, trying to steady him, thumbs moving up and down the same way they do over the back of Shane's hands when Ilya is clutching them like he'll never get enough of touching Shane. Shane grabs the waistband at Ilya's hips like a lifeline. They breathe together, Shane trying to follow Ilya's slow and even example. Shane leans into Ilya's chest fully and those beautiful arms surround him and finally, finally, the merciless cold begins to dissipate. For a perfect second, nothing else exists but them. Ilya whispers into his hair, "There. Okay. Shh. Малышка."

Then Shane, to his own shock and horror, starts fucking crying.

He cries so hard and for so long there's a big wet spot on Ilya's shirt afterwards, but he doesn't have room to care right now. Ilya holds him the entire time and even follows him to the ground when Shane's legs give out. They nearly collapse into the grass together, but Ilya maneuvers at the last second to take most of Shane's weight to his chest so he doesn't go down knees-first.

Yeah, his ribs will feel that tomorrow. It doesn't matter. It wouldn't even if it should.

"It's okay, we'll figure it out," he says with a lot more conviction than he actually feels, but that's nothing new for Ilya. Shane makes a strangled noise that Ilya takes to mean no, actually, nothing will ever be okay again, and smashes his face harder into Ilya's chest. He's halfway in Ilya's lap, gripping his belt loops for dear life and Ilya really wishes he knew what the fuck was happening. He can't imagine Rose was unhappy with the news. From everything Shane has told him, she seems like a good friend. Thank God. Shane needs more of those.

Ilya holds him tighter. Okay, so that can't be it. Whatever put that faraway, empty look in Shane's eyes that Ilya saw when he came outside had to be something truly terrible. Ilya feels a little sick with the thought. "Shane, please tell me. Whatever is wrong, we can fix it. I will fix it." His only answer is a bite to the chest and another heaving sob. "Fuck. Okay," Ilya breathes, and makes peace with it. "Я рядом. It's okay. Hollander, breathe."

Shane wants to call his mom. He wants to scream. He wants to throw something fragile and watch it shatter. Instead, he puts his hands over his ears and Ilya cups them with his own. Shane isn't sure which of them is rocking them back and forth, but it's soothing nonetheless, and he doesn't have the energy to worry about it right now. The buzzing is finally subsiding, and his fingertips and face are tingling with numbness. "Sorry I bit you," he mumbles to Ilya's tits. He sneaks an arm between them and runs his fingers over the spot. Wet. Ew.

Ilya snorts. "Is nothing new." He's still practically crushing Shane against his chest, and the proximity is comforting, even though the awkward position of Shane's legs is starting to bother him. "Less kinky than last time, though."

"Shut up." Shane's lips twitch and he opens his eyes to glare at Ilya. It is not menacing. Ilya kisses his forehead as a reponse.

Shane feels wrung out. He doesn't even know where to begin unpacking what the fuck just happened, and he doesn't want to. He actually needs to put it all back where it came from. However, the idea of Ilya letting it go seems far-fetched, and... they promised to be honest, for at least the next two weeks. Shane had made them promise. Ilya is still searching his face, brows scrunched with worry.

Shane pats his hip with the arm still smushed to his side. "We can talk about it later, okay?" he finally offers. "I need to text Rose and tell her I'm sorry. I hung up on her."

Ilya's expression turns from worry to mean in a second. "She hurt you?"

"No." Shane shakes his head and sniffles. "Well... not her. She was trying to help." He rubs his eyes again. They sting.

"Help," Ilya repeats with a raised brow. "By making you cry like this?"

"Sometimes it's like that," is all Shane can think to say.

Ilya looks to be seriously considering it. He nods faintly and loosens his hold on Shane, who gratefully unsticks himself from Ilya's soaked shirt and wipes his face. "Fuck. Sorry." He frowns at the wet spot and pulls it away from Ilya's skin with pinched fingers.

Ilya rolls his eyes dramatically and adjusts his position to prop himself up on one arm. The ground is hurting his ass. "Yes Shane, you have ruined my shirt forever with your tears. They will never wash out, and I will forever have big stain on this black shirt, and everywhere I go they will ask me, Ilya, what happened to -"

"Fuck you!" Shane squawks, but he's grinning, and Ilya is grinning back, and the world feels like it's on the right axis again. He leans against Ilya's thigh and they're kissing, Ilya's free hand on his jaw in that possessive way Shane can't get enough of, and maybe it really will be okay. Eventually.