The brilliance, the skill, the creativity of humans will always triumph.

I don't like ranting online. Let's get that cleared up. But lately, I’ve been seeing something that really bothers me, and as someone who’s been writing fanfiction since the days of dancing to dial-up internet tones, I’ve got a few thoughts.

I do not like reading somewhere on the internet about someone being a total tosser and accusing an author of using AI to 'write their book' or some nonsense.

Sure. Yes. Some authors have been caught red-handed with the prompts still in the text. I know. I also don't actually care.

Why?

Because good writing, good stories, authors and writers who are skilled and brilliant at what they do — they'll always win out. They'll always triumph.

It annoys me that people are so hell-bent on this idea that we must accuse everyone of using AI, for art or writing, or anything creative.

Have you lost so much faith in humanity’s creativity?

Where have you been?

Dude, have you read the same Lord of the Rings novels as I have? Have you seen the restoration of Notre Dame? Humans are incredible.

Sure, we haven't built a base on the moon yet. That's totally lame, but we'll get there, eventually.

Because the brilliance, the skill, the creativity of humans will always triumph.

I've been in the fanfiction writing scene since I was about fourteen. I have seen things, I know things, I was there when the Deep Magic was written, okay. There are some haunts on the internet that no longer exist, but I have folders printed out of what feels like ancient websites with fanfictions that just don't even exist anymore.

Lost fiction, forgotten to the data of time.

I'm saying this because AI has been trained on fanfiction. Whole databases have been scraped, that's where the em dash comes in.

Fanfiction writer's use em dashes - all - the - time.

One of my beta-reader's is always telling me to cut-it-out, cause I am a terror with em dashes. It probably makes it worse that after all these years of writing, I still actually have no concept of grammar. Like. None. At all.

I'm just winging it.

Maybe that's why I'm not published.

Too much work for a publishing company? 🤔

My point is. I get really protective of other writers, even though I don't know them and I'm not in any communities or anything. I just loathe seeing the discourse online, and feel worried that someone might get accused of something and abandon all their dreams and hopes and that'd be awful! I can't help but feel like the world has become bitter and nasty, that everyone so easily throws stones and hurdles accusations instead of being uplifting.

I don't like social media, and I will never be comfortable with the idea of an author having to market themselves. I want to always stand the idea that an author's work speaks for them, of course, I can't really do that when - I have no idea how to even publish my work anymore so...

I will wait, and believe that eventually triumph comes with all the hard work.

And I'll still use em dashes.