What am I doing with my life?

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

How should I deal with blogs like that? Do I report them? Block them? Should I do anything at all?

Because I commented on the first fic asking if its ai and they blocked me so I cant even protect anyone else from reading that because I forgot their name

And on the second fic I commented I asked the same thing and they suddenly deleted all of their post but they had a full ass masterlist

Is asking about ai an insult now? Cuz i dont want to blame this people out of the blue Im asking, but they are quicker to get offended then to defending "their" work..

Am I the crazy one??

can I be honest? you are in the wrong here. I stand with the two authors, and I’m glad they blocked you.

you said you “asked if their works are ai” which means the authors did not specifically say their works were ai-generated, meaning you guessed, based on vibes, and then you threw an accusation at them. I have already talked about why it’s rude, entitled and insulting for someone to ask a writer if their works are ai-generated here, here and here.

and I have said time and time again that “ai witch hunt, speculation and accusations harm the writing community as much as ai does, if not more”.

so whether or not you know it, you are harming the writing community — just like ai does, if not more — by going around asking random writers if their works are ai, as if writers owe you anything (fun fact: they do NOT owe you anything).

every “ai telltale” is something human writers write. what do you think ai was trained on? what do you think it was trained to mimic?

“how do I deal with this?” by curating your own internet experience. block them if that’s what you want (you can block anybody for any reason). it’s not your problem or your business how a writer writes, whether or not they use ai.

no, I am not a fan of ai, but I can accept that if someone chooses to let ai write everything for them, then that is their business. do I agree with them? no. will I harass them for it? no. will I call them out? no. what they do is literally none of my business.

also no, it’s not your job or your business to “protect anyone from reading their works”. you are not their parent. if someone reads their works and if they think it’s ai, then they can make their own decision on whether or not they will continue reading it.

if you think their works are ai, you can choose not to read them. you can block them if that’s what you want. but

1. writers do NOT owe you anything

2. yes, it’s absolutely valid for a writer to NOT want to be asked if their works are ai — them deleting their works after you asked them if their work is ai is NOT proof that they used ai. they could very well be devastated that something they worked so hard on was accused of being something it’s not, and if that’s the case then you should be ashamed of yourself. (if they did use ai then that’s still their choice, their business and something they have the rights to do — even though I don’t agree with them, I will never condone harassment.)

3. I have already seen enough writers step away from posting their human-made works online BECAUSE PEOPLE KEEP ASKING IF IT’S AI. and it can be very disheartening for them. (me personally I don’t care if someone asks me this, because I know I don’t let ai write for me and I never let strangers’ negativity affect me, but I understand why some other writers care.)

3. no, you cannot know “for sure” if a fic is ai-generated. unless the author says so themself, you can only guess based on vibes. as I’ve said before, every ai telltale is something human writers actually write, otherwise ai would never have been able to mimic it at all.

4. harassment will never ever make you the good guy.

also you cannot report them for being ai, let alone because you personally suspected that it’s ai, because ai-generated works are allowed. it’s allowed on ao3 (here’s what ao3 said about ai-generated works on their platform), and since tumblr as a site itself, just like every other social media platform, also promotes and uses ai to help them run the platform, I guess it’s fair to assume they allow ai-generated contents on their platform too.

again, I am not a fan of ai fics, but I condemn harassment, ai witch hunt and speculations more.

respectfully, do better.

"is it rude if I politely ask a writer if they use ai or chatgpt on their works because I'm almost certain they do?"

yes, it is rude. no matter how polite you are being when you ask them this.

you say you are almost certain. so you are not absolutely certain.

unless you are absolutely, undoubtedly certain — with actual proof — that their writing is ai generated, never ever ask an artist if their work is ai generated.

I know several writers who would stop writing and delete all of their works if they were ever accused of using ai. so it doesn't matter if you are polite when you ask them this, you are suggesting that their works are ai generated, that they didn't create the works they could have spent hours, days, weeks, months or years working on.

ai and chatgpt are trained on real humans' works, they are trained to mimic the way real humans write. so if you say a genuine writer's work "looks ai", I'm gonna have to ask you what you think ai was trained on.

a writer whose English isn't their first language may also write in a way that "looks ai" to some, if they write in English and have to rely on translator.

using em dash isn't a sign of ai. I do it all the time. my fellow writers all love em dash.

having long paragraphs with "overly described scenes" isn't a sign of ai. I do it all the time, and so do my fellow writers.

all the "ai signs" are actually just what most writers actually do. they get mistaken for "ai signs" because sometimes the way writers write or describe a scene in a fanfic or an original work is different than the way people talk or text. because they're writing a fic and describing a scene, not chatting with a friend. the way I talk is different than the way I write my fics.

if you suspect a work was ai generated, but are not 100% sure, you can always just stop reading said work without saying anything.

if someone does use ai to write, they will either a.) deny and continue using ai to write or b.) admit because they see nothing wrong with it and continue using ai to write.

if a genuine writer was wrongly accused of using ai, they may stop writing altogether.

asking a writer if they use ai or chatgpt to write will always do more harm than good. witch hunting will always do more harm than good.

it’s not “hey do you like x or y” question. it’s a subtle implication that your work looks like it was written by a robot within a minute. if you personally don’t find that offensive, that’s cool. but I know a lot of writers do. and they have the rights to be discouraged by it.

Asking a writer or artist if they “use AI” is an accusation, no matter how you dress it up. It’s not neutral. It implies you think their effort, style, or voice is artificial. It implies that their human work doesn’t look human enough for you.

You don’t protect the community by policing people who are actually creating from scratch. You protect it by supporting human creators, reporting confirmed AI misuse when there’s evidence, and learning the difference between this sounds different than what I’d write and this is machine-generated.

Writers—especially fanfic authors—already pour their time, emotion, and identity into what they share for free. They don’t owe anyone proof of authenticity on top of that. And if your question makes someone want to quit writing, it’s not protecting the community. It’s shrinking it.

👏 AI 👏 witch-hunts 👏 hurt 👏 legit 👏 creators! 👏

Because the question is accusatory by nature, and the people actually using AI probably aren't going to care, or will just lie to your face about it. Also people are terrible at identifying AI writing, because it was trained on real people.

If you think someone might have used AI in their work, don't ask them if they did. Scroll away. Quietly unfollow. Leave them alone.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

TUMBLR ADS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO AUTO-PLAY AUDIO! THAT IS A BUG AND YOU SHOULD REPORT IT!

"This ad is auto-playing audio" is literally on the drop down menu for reporting an ad. Tumblr isn't trying to implement this! Don't protest this "new policy", cause it's not one.

Report the broken ads.

This is all bugs or malicious advertising which is also against tumblers ad policy. You should report all ads which do this.

short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.

Witch: And that is?

She wants to learn photography. Do it stupid. Take a million photos. Don't think about why they're not good. Enjoy the process of taking photos.

Pick out tge ones you like the most and figure out why you like them. Is it because the subject is centered? Is it because you caught them doing something cool? Is it because the light made cool shadows?