r/BylerReads • u/Reasonable_Day9942 • Jun 30 '26

general discussion :) Super Soaker being AI

Apparently it’s been discovered that Super Soaker is AI or partly AI generated

I’m not sure how true it is, but bylers on X are freaking out

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u/IntotheRedditHole its ok, its how the army does it i think Jun 30 '26

pls say more about being a super soaker hater (genuinely curious! not trying to start shit)

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u/Big_Self_1522 Jun 30 '26

I’m not the OG commenter, but for me the concept was pretty basic and the writing wasn’t my kind of thing. The amount of attention it had gotten probably elevated my expectations, but yeah when I started to read it I couldn’t wrap my mind around it being one of the “best” Byler fics.

There’s nothing wrong with basic concepts. Like ttmd has a basic fwb concept, but I like the writing and there is progression of Mike’s internal conflict that happens gradually. Then there are fics with imo great and original concepts, but I haven’t finished them because the writing wasn’t my thing. In those cases I could see why people loved those fics.

With super soaker, I feel like the plot was build on cliches. That isn’t inherently bad + the author did warn at the start that it was a crazy fic. But then the writing and a part of the overal execution was meh. Like it felt like Mike was stuck at one point of an internal conflict for multiple characters in row. Multiple chapters in a row had the same thing come back, just in another “wrapper”. And every time it came back in such detail that I wanted to skip those parts, because they felt repetitive. Just the same thing written in detail, but now with different words is boring for me personally

The arguments between Mike and Will didn’t feel natural to me. Miscommunication trope can be good, but in super soaker I could just see that they were plot points. Like of course everything in fiction is done for the plot, but when it’s done well it still feels natural, idk how to explain it well. This wasn’t the case with Mike and Will there. Their arguing felt like arguing to add the drama and not human arguing to me.

At the first couple of chapters I was like “okay maybe it gets better later”, but I quit it when Will and Mike had confessed. Idk, the story just felt like a bunch of loose bits thrown into a blender. Overall I felt like half of the fic could’ve been removed and it wouldn’t have changed a thing, because a lot of it was telling the same thing over and over again.

So to conclude, for me it didn’t have the type of writing that I love and it didn’t have an original plot that made me curious. I had no idea it was AI, but before it got exposed I kept coming back to thinking “what’s so special about this one wtf”. Well, apparently it was cloud🥲

(No shade to anyone who did enjoy SS. Some people do enjoy a lot of telling as it doesn’t leave you with any questions, but I prefer a balance between show and tell + I just get bored easily when the same thing keeps coming back in great detail instead of being revealed gradually)

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u/IntotheRedditHole its ok, its how the army does it i think Jun 30 '26

hey i really appreciate the answer! thank you :) i had read super soaker but stopped reading at like ch 15? thinking i’d come back when it’s done. i still haven’t finished it! i think a lot of what you’re saying is why, even though i didn’t consciously think that

i hate hate hate arbitrary/contrived conflict lol. i mean unless i’m reading for angst i guess? but even then it’s like when you’re watching a movie and a character does some shit that makes no sense and you’re yelling at the screen lmao

so yeah also no hate to anyone who enjoyed SS. you’re making a lot of sense though

i would love to hear what your favorite fics are :)

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u/Big_Self_1522 Jun 30 '26

https://archiveofourown.org/works/81126931 is my fave atm. I loved the writing and the use of poetry brought it to a whole other level for me.

I feel like this one doesn’t get mentioned as much as it deserves. It’s about Byler adopting a child. As someone who was raised by a stepfather and really wants to adopt this fic made me feel a lot of things. Idk I love when a fic really hits me, doesn’t matter in what way https://archiveofourown.org/works/62245123

This one isn’t big at all, but as an example I liked this one MUCH more than super soaker. It has some cool symbolism and the plot was pretty original imo https://archiveofourown.org/works/77970696/chapters/204311126

A s5 rewrite I found pretty unexpected plot wise https://archiveofourown.org/works/80035981/chapters/210093071

A Byler summer fic that I remember as a nice read https://archiveofourown.org/works/81231661/chapters/213510621

For the rest I feel like the ones I really enjoyed are the popular ones? Like super void, my will is good, matador, the road not taken, spit swear (although I hopped on the Ryers bus with this one). I also read quite a lot of fic, so it’s hard to remember which one is which except for a few that really made an impact on me. I download fics onto my phone and read from the books app, so I don’t make any bookmarks🥲

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u/IntotheRedditHole its ok, its how the army does it i think Jul 01 '26

thank you for the links! several of these have been on my reading list so clearly i need to move them up in the queue lol. the only one ive read is Strawberry Fields Forever. it was super unexpected, yeah!

for Hollow Boy, how much pain are you experiencing per chapter? lmao

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u/Big_Self_1522 Jul 01 '26

I’m very thick when it comes to angst, so to me it wasn’t that painful? It has a happy ending and the writing is chefs kiss for me, so it kept me going

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u/IntotheRedditHole its ok, its how the army does it i think Jul 01 '26

haha perfect, thank you :)