hell is enjoying mmos

my friend's 5 year old recently got a toy veterinary medicine set - it's super cool, like one of those mini play kitchens a lot of kids have, but it's set up to pretend to be a vet (it's this thing) - it has stuffed animals and things to weigh them, give them medicine, take x-rays, write on their charts, etc.

so this kid, who is five and to my knowledge has no experience in the administrative bureaucracy of modern healthcare, puts a stuffed pig named Piggy on the exam table. she pretends to draw blood from Piggy using a fake syringe, and the blood goes into a toy test tube vial that she calls "the resulter"

i'm playing with her, right, so i'm like, awesome, what are the results of Piggy's blood test? and she says "we have to send it to the scientists." so we send the vial to the scientists (put it in her bedroom) and when we get back to the vet playset i'm like awesome what did the scientists say? and she says they have not gotten back to us yet

so she rolls her eyes, exasperated, and says we have to call the scientists. she pretends to call them. apparently, they tell her that Piggy's blood test is "at the bottom of the list" and "we have to WAIT." she frowns. we wait a bit longer and call them back. they tell us it will be a while! she says we should go ask the scientists in person so we go back to her bedroom and she inquires at this imaginary lab, at which point the scientists yell at her and tell her now they will make us wait even longer!

keep in mind she is 100% directing this play. she is making all this up. she is fully in control of this game, and she has decided that what we are going to pretend is that we are dealing with this exhausting nonsense, not actually treating Piggy.

finally the blood tests come back. they are inconclusive. the scientists do not know what is wrong with Piggy. the little girl walks back to the stuffed pig on the exam table, sighs deeply, and says in a very serious voice "we can never help you."

i'm obsessed with this kid. when given complete control over a make believe scenario, instead of becoming the heroic rescuer administering effective cures, she is instead a beleaguered vet making multiple calls to an overworked lab only to be left unable to help her patient.

if anything, I think it’s better if these people feel comfortable enough to tag their stuff as ai, so that other people can avoid their works if they’re not comfortable with ai-generated contents.

that said, I think ai writers will stop tagging their stuff as ai entirely if people shame or harass them for it.

so now their stuff is still ai, just untagged, meaning there’s no way for others to know if it’s ai.

keep in mind that speculation, accusations and witch hunt harm genuine artists and writers as much as ai does, if not more.

so if you go to the “ai-generated” tag on ao3 just to harass people for using ai, just know that you’re not actually fighting against ai — you’re just being a bully and you’re also making people more wary of properly tagging their ai-generated works as such. so you’re just making sure they no longer tag their ai-generated stuff as ai. also you can be reported for harassment, and ao3 will not take your side. (whether or not you like it, ai-generated works are allowed on ao3, whereas harassment is not.)

the “ai-generated” tag on ao3 is there so people can either find or avoid works with ai (but in order for it to work, ai users must feel comfortable enough to be honest and tag their works properly, that won’t happen if people keep shaming and harassing them for it — the only thing harassment will do is make sure ai stuff go untagged, harassment doesn’t stop people from using ai).

So yes. AI generated works is allowed on Ao3, because people will use AI whether you like it or not.

You don't go harassing people because they have written a [insert here your worst ick] fic, you don't go harassing them for tagging a fic AI. Remember the old saying "Don't like? Don't read"

Tangential, yet related example: I spend a lot of time (too much, let's be real) on Pinterest. I click through to a LOT of sites from pins.

And every time I get part way through what I thought would be a nice blog post/article on craft room organisation or a new recipe or X other topic, and I realise that the images/text are AI generated, I feel betrayed. Every single time. I want to know what *actual people* have done to solve problems similar to my own. A gen-AI image can't show me that. It's gotten so bad that I installed a blocker extension in my browser so I can block entire whoops!AI websites from my presence.

Out of the dozens of web pages I've landed on in the last few months, ONE has had a disclaimer at the top saying that the images were AI generated. It's the only one I didn't block. Because *they were honest about their content*. I even read about a third of the post before deciding that no, this wasn't what I was looking for after all.

'goon' -linguistic drift gave her a new meaning. i hope her new life is good for her. i miss her.

'henchman' -too gendered. can be shortened to 'hench' in a pinch, but lacks punch.

'servant' -too domestic to apply to all those who serve evil.

'underling, subordinate' -this one only works if they get off on being beneath you and/or you don't properly pay your workers.

'associate' -this one's good for grizzled mercenaries or lone agents but doesn't work good for broad swathes of an organization.

'slave' -same as underling but more intense. really fun for some of the group. unsavory for others in a way that limits the scope of the thing.

'thrall' -only really applies if you're brainwashing them and that's not something i've learned how to do en masse yet

'flunky, toady, stooge, lackey' -these are just insulting, and that isn't conducive to a healthy work environment. imagine going to work and your job title is 'stooge'.

'acolyte' -works for those that worship you, but again. lacks the scope.

'supporter, follower' -unspecific and vague

'assistant, helper, aide' -not sinister at all. just means you're doing things for me. swagless in this manner. could be good if used to describe someone who's so clearly more that as a way to emphasize their obedience via understatement, but that's only useful for a few members of the organization. and even then, 'associate' works better.

And sometimes fanfiction is, ‘Watch me do a fucking KICK FLIP off this cool sentence!! Also here's some sex'