tweeting this has made me realize a lot of people don’t know how to...
atlas@twinkgenius
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May 08, 2026
~2 min read
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tweeting this has made me realize a lot of people don’t know how to spot ai writing so i’m here to lend my knowledge
HOW TO IDENTIFY AI WRITING IN FANFIC, a 🧵:
x.com/twinkgenius/st…
HOW TO IDENTIFY AI WRITING IN FANFIC, a 🧵:
x.com/twinkgenius/st…
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before i begin, a few disclaimers:
none of the things i mention in this thread are definitive proof that a fic was written by ai, and all the internet “ai detectors” are complete bullshit, so unfortunately unless an author comes out and says it, we will never truly know.
none of the things i mention in this thread are definitive proof that a fic was written by ai, and all the internet “ai detectors” are complete bullshit, so unfortunately unless an author comes out and says it, we will never truly know.
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i’m making this thread for the sole purpose of pointing out patterns i see frequently in ai writing, so more people have the knowledge and tools to avoid ai slop. its usage is becoming more and more common in fandom spaces, to the detriment of actual fic authors
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1. "it wasn’t ___, it was ___" or "not ___, ___" ai LOVES to use this shit. this has clued me in to a few fics being ai because it is CONSTANT and unavoidable once you see it. this can take many forms, so i've attached a few examples from published fics
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2. colons where it doesn’t really make sense
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3. groups of three, often with a common word throughout. this one is pretty self explanatory. humans love groups of three too, in writing it often flows better, but again it's the frequency of use and combination with other things with this thread that make it stand out.
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4. long lists of things, again not a telltale sign on its own, but coupled with others its a bit more significant
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5. things in quotes that don't need to be
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6. inconsistencies in the plot, e.g., the scene begins in the day but ends at night with not much having happened that would lead to such a long passage of time, a character enters a scene on bike but both characters leave on foot with no mention of the bike whatsoever
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7. the first sentence of a paragraph is kind of a summary, and the rest of the paragraph just adds more detail (take this with a grain of salt, as it’s a bit harder to spot cause this is also common in human writing) here is an example from a fic that has many other ai flags
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here are the full screenshots from which i've taken the examples shown above so you can see just how frequent some of these are.
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the last thing i wanna do is start a huge witch hunt for ai writing, we have enough drama in this fandom as is, but i do think it's good for people to know these things so u can make an informed decision on what works u wanna support and give your time to, thanks for reading <3
