• #1 APPLEROT FAN🫀 •

Because there is no way to tell with 100% accuracy that a piece of writing was created by or with the aid of generative AI, and anything less than 100% accuracy is completely unacceptable, no nuance, no exceptions. You can tell with 100% accuracy if something is not a fanwork--like an ISO or placeholder post that does not contain a fanwork--and you can tell with 100% accuracy if a fanwork contains a link to a payment apparatus or is otherwise soliciting payment for fic in violation of the TOS, so these things can be disallowed and, when discovered and reported as violations, dealt with by PAC. And you can tell with 100% accuracy that a fic has been plagiarized, meaning that it has pulled entire passages word for word from another fic and this can therefore be detailed in a report in order for PAC to take action. (This is important to note because while generative AI is in fact The Plagiarism Machine, that can only be proven on the back end via the datasets used to train it. You can't actually look at generative output and tell which place the words were ripped from, because LLMs operate on statistical probabilities of word order, not actually pulling phrases wholesale from a specific work.)

But you cannot tell with 100% accuracy that a particular passage has been generated with AI.

And we are already seeing the problem with spurious AI accusations! People are claiming that 'excessive use of em-dashes' is a 'tell' for AI, when the only reason em-dashes exist in AI-generated output is because the machines were trained on human-generated writing that used them! (And as a writer who frequently ODs on em-dashes and italics, I find that particular 'tell' especially insulting. My overuse of em-dashes comes from my own brain, thank you very much.) So the only way to actually tell that someone on Ao3 is using AI to write their fic is if the admit as much up-front.

Guess what would happen if Ao3 decided to ban AI fics from the platform? Those fics would stop being tagged, and then we'd run into the exact same problems we had on FFN with fics being grudge-reported by bad faith actors, which was one of many reasons Ao3 was created in the first place--so that people couldn't do that.

go out and fuck someone you aren’t attracted to because a stranger on tumblr said to

go out and date someone you aren’t attracted to because a stranger on tumblr said to

You’re Not Allowed To Be Gay Anymore

what this post DOES mean

if you just ‘prefer’ to avoid majority black areas of your city

if you just ‘prefer’ to read, write, think, and talk about men

if you just ‘prefer’ to socialize with people you (perceive as) your assigned birth sex

if you just ‘prefer’ to exclusively watch white-directed movies, read white-written books, listen to white-authored music

if you just unconsciously perceive men as more authoritative/competent and ‘prefer’ to be spoken to by them

(The I think is therefore more about how I think it applies from the very start of the series, rather than coming to the conclusion later)

But it occurred to me today that Owen's pre-vampire existence is one he actually would have seen represented in stories, but specifically as a Test.

There is a very old trope of a powerful entity -- often a witch, angel, or god -- disguising themselves as a poor old woman, or a desperate beggar, and knocking on the door of the well-to-do.

If they show the beggar the kindness demanded of them by the rules of Hospitality, then they pass the test and are rewarded. If they fail they are punished, and often severely: their line is cursed, their house falls to ruin, people die.

And it's interesting, isn't it, that of all the people in Oakhurst, it's only Louis that accepted Owen into his home and fed him according to the rules of Hospitality. Everyone else refused him entry, refused him food, kept him far away. Of all the people in Oakhurst, only Louis passed the test. Everyone else failed it.

And so, when the poor, diseased lumberjack revealed himself to be/became something powerful--

Well.

but then I realised that same challenge would be infinitely more funny with folks who have atypical or horror OCs