itababeeee

Even with the interruption, his husband's magic continued tracing the outline of his body, now focusing on his clothes. His black dress shirt reappeared, closely followed by his trousers and velvet cloak. As Theodore wrapped an arm around his waist, Draco could feel his husband's magic lingering on his chest and neck. Layer upon layer of disguising magic, a new glamour was building beneath his robes, and no one but three people knew what his body concealed on a full moon day. He gave Theo a subtle nod, hinting that he had done more than enough.

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!)

merry christmas!!! redraw of the drawing I made last year :D https://www.tumblr.com/substellaris/770740315782070272/merry-christmas

“No —” gasped Harry.

Dead-eyed in class.