#ive had it with ai slop

[kaiju-krew]

make art, wussy

[angelzeph]

vent

[zipmode]

Scary when the Zip put the PortaBand in its hands

[kirkwallguy]

okay i forgot how frustrating that cc is actually so i went back to the games they actually belong to and made them in both. long post beneath the cut because i'm just bored and rambling.

first we have metuite surana. i stole anders' backstory a little with her name - tevene seems pretty close to latin and metuo means i am afraid. she'd just arrived from tevinter with her mother when the templars raided the alienage and took her and several other mage children that were being harboured there. she didn't speak much common so when she was asked her name she just said metuo and it stuck. when she grew older she began to go by metuite instead, which means be afraid she alternates between the two names pretty frequently though. (this may be bs though because my latin conjugation is not good). anyway during her harrowing she gets possessed by the spirit of valour that's hanging out in the fade after she starts an argument with it. it slowly turns into some kind of demon that i haven't named yet lol. she knows the blight is probably her only chance of being free and is kind of bitter about it. origins cc is VERY limited so i see her as looking more like veilguard with her facial features but with origins elf proportions rather than whatever was going on in dav.

alec hawke is just the publicly blue privately red pro-templar hawke i've been thinking about for ages. he's a half-elf and malcolm is pretty obviously not his father but i'm still figuring out what exactly went down there - either way it facilitates a WEIRD family dynamic where he has a bad relationship with both of the twins. he sucks up to the templars and is desperately clinging to the safety of his outward persona of being a hypermasculine straight human. many such cases. he romances anders and is really mean to him but ends up sparing him and begging him for help fighting against the mages. according to the wiki (this is my first time doing rivalmance) if anders does this he'll imply he's going to kill himself after. so um. i'm sure alec is normal about that and isn't haunted for the rest of his life. the da2 cc is kiiiind of accurate to how he looks tbh, but he's all scarred from ostagar. his hair always covers his ears, he doesn't actually HAVE elf ears but they're a slightly different shape which gives him a complex.

catgut cadash is the inquisitor i used to get my last steam achievements because the guide said a dwarf rogue was the easiest lol. she's like 40 and has a veilguard-style "they just found her somewhere" origin. everyone calls her catgut because she had a habit of getting really sliced up in battle when she was young and reckless and almost always had some kind of stiches in (and the local healer used catgut for their stitches). she doesn't believe in andraste and kind of hates everyone there. she just wants to restore order asap. she looks cool af in dai and i couldn't reacreate her at all in dav. idk about romance but i think she and sera have a Thing.

one thing veilguard IS good for is designing new da ocs

[mythalism]

about ai in fanfic, wasn't there some huge drama about a popular solavellan fanfic "writer" who used ai to pump out a total of 700k words in a month or something a while back?

I will never understand people who do that, not stolen valour, but just fake valour. Cheap plastic valour that breaks after a single use.

i have been largely not commenting on these AI fic debacles because im controversial enough on my own however at this point its getting so fucking annoying that idc anymore. yes people across the fandom keep writing AI fics that are blatantly AI in terms of the INSANE literally physically impossible word counts in short periods of time, lore inconsistencies, internal inconsistencies (characters changing eye color between chapters, for example), repetitive prose, repetitive scenes (like literally the same scene happening 5 times), repetitive formatting (very little variation in paragraph length), absolutely no spelling or grammar mistakes in an entire 400k word fic, no intentional stylistic errors, no character development across 400k words, strange nonsensical metaphors, and also they just feel... off? i DNF'd the one you're alluding to because it was just OFF. also i thought the portrayal of sexual assault was careless and clumsy and the age dynamics were... bizarre. a red flag even. AND THIS IS ALL NOT EVEN MENTIONING THAT THESE FICS COME UP AS 70-100% AI ON AI DETECTORS. ive literally been trying for weeks to get a false positive and ive yet to be successful. nothing human-made that i have put in that detector has ever come up as more than 0% AI. nothing. and yet people are literally fighting for their lives in the streets to defend these authors against "false accusations"? when they get accused and then cannot provide any proof in the form of notes, outlines, google docs version history? and then people start sending the accusers death threats and calling them slurs????? (yes this happened on both twitter and tumblr) ARE YOU PEOPLE FUCKING INSANE???????? WHAT DO YOU GET BY DEFENDING THESE PEOPLE THAT ARE LYING TO YOU???? POINTING OUT A FIC IS AI IS NOT BULLYING. ITS NOT A SMEAR CAMPAIGN. ITS A FACTUAL STATEMENT THAT MAKES THEM UNCOMFORTABLE BECAUSE THEY ARE RIGHTFULLY ASHAMED. GET A GRIP OHHHH MY GOD. dragon age has famously some of the most fantastic fic i have ever encountered and the fact that people are literally putting forth AI slop TRAINED THROUGH PLAGIARISM OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN PUTTING THEIR SOULS INTO THEIR WRITING FOR YEARS is so disgusting. AI is encroaching on every facet of our fucking lives and if you cannot speak up against it we are going to be literally devoured by it. chatGPT's energy consumption is immense, it uses the same amount of wattage daily as 180,000 US households and consuming what is equal to a bottle of water with EVERY. SINGLE. CONVERSATION. and every time someone uses it to write one of this braindead fucking fics THEY ARE DELIBERATELY CONTRIBUTING TO THIS. THE CEO OF OPEN AI HAD A FRONT ROW FUCKING SEAT AT TRUMP'S INAUGURATION AND DONATED A MILLION FUCKING DOLLARS TO HIS INAUGURAL FUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY ARE WORKING TOGETHER!!!!! DOES THIS NOT INFURIATE YOU? YOU ARE MORALLY BANKRUPT!!!!!!!!! HOW DARE YOU CONTRIBUTE TO THIS????? FOR WHAT???? INTERNET CLOUT???? THAT YOU DID NOT EVEN EARN YOURSELF????????? GOODBYE!!!!!! LITERALLY LOG OFF. I WILL CHASE YOU OFF THE INTERNET WITH A BROOM I CANNOT STAND IT!!! GET OUT AND DONT LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE WAY OUT

[ladyofthebookcase]

the wiki is locked until the 11th so ive had to resort to making my own observations about creatures and what they do. here are some notes off the top of my head

nudibranchs:

definitely passive

aposematic and poisonous (but seemingly not all of them???)

give differing amounts of food pips also? between 1 and 2

if you stab them, you can make a poison spear and they can withstand one spear hit so they're tougher than they look

native to watery areas like coral caves and rusted wrecks

barnacles:

seem to like being in groups and climbing on each other to block off pipes

when threatened(?) they start to shriek and hiss and spew water out of their coral tubes? the purpose of this is unknown because it doesn't actually seem to do anything, but maybe is just a threat display idk

cannot be killed????

have mild electric charge as a defence mechanism

loaches/slop beasts:

seemingly omnivorous from what i've observed; they don't always eat slugcats, but it seems to be that if you fall on one from a great height and get stunned they'll slurp you up

otherwise they seem to mostly graze

rain deer ish ai; ive seen them climbing on top of each other and getting stuck on terrain before

they appear to be blind and have four long facial tentacles that they use to feel out prey

capable of eating green lizards

spearing them doesn't seem to do much

may have some connection to lizards/the rot because rotted versions of them were seen in rotted garbage wastes, and no other unlizard creature has been seen to be rotted so far? their eating is similar to rot but otherwise i got nothin

gila monsters:

their spit has some kind of effect that prevents cicadas from attacking; could just be that it dampens you, since mud does the same thing

bioluminescence??? their spit is at least brightly colored, which i'm not sure why

probably a lizard subtype like axolotls since they have a different head and body shape but are still able to become rotted (i have Theories about the lizards and their connection to the rot but that's a different post)

they can burrow out of the ground; it's probably meant to be limited to sand, but currently they can burrow out of ANY ground which like jumpscare hello there

those rattling things in rotted regions:

they rattle when you get near them, seemingly as a way to alert the rot creatures nearby

they don't actually attack or hurt you themselves, but will pick you up and incapacitate you; presumably this is also so that rot creatures can grab and eat you

symbiosis???

they make a batfly grab sound and i'm not sure what that does-- maybe a way to lure in slugcats? but they don't eat them so idk

can be stunned with a spear or rock, allowing you to pass

moths:

seemingly peaceful at least to slugcats??

i've seen a group of them kill a blue lizard tho

they sometimes pick you up and drop you from a great height to kill you-- i'm not sure if this is intentional or buggy ai bc they didn't eat me when they did that

clumsy, raindeerlike

some of them have their little proboscis tongues sticking out and others do not-- again not sure why but it's very cutes

are they carnivorous?? probably not with those tongues but then why do they kill

they cast shadows like vultures!

lizards are afraid of them

i thought the small moths in ancient urban were their babies at first but after seeing the [SPOILER] there i now think they're probably actually ancestral forms of the current moths; they are small, unable to fly as much as their current counterparts, and harmless.

rats rats we are the rats

also found in ancient urban and nowhere else, so they probably died out

seem like common earth rats honestly

edible and harmless

very cutes

fancy neuron things:

when idle, they do a sort of "projection"; unclear what this is for but it's likely related to the mechanisms of the locations they're found in

exhibit a symbiotic relationship with the big living pipes in which they inhabit them and allow them to become mobile and defensive, blowing toxic smoke at infiltrating creatures

probably serve a role similar to inspectors in their host facilities, since they seem to be found exclusively in industrial environments

alive pipe:

incapable of moving or doing anything without a fancy neuron

you can pull out the stopper things in it and eat them and it's gross, it shoots out some water and squelches

those stopper things can be stored in a shelter, but they vanish and become intangible the next morning

they also appear to visibly decay when no longer connected to the pipe

they seem to have an optic nerve like thing?

glacial lizard:

seemingly extremely hostile and tanky

covered in "fur" that probably insulates them from their own extreme temperatures if i had to guess? since other lizards in those locations don't have it but rather have the spikey things they have in saint's campaign

are surrounded by winds that knock potential attackers away

they can charge up and release a literal beam attack for some reason-- unclear how this would have naturally evolved, so they could be artificially created because Come On Man how do you naturally evolve a fucking beam attack

i dont liek them they're too OP

drugs lizard:

have a natural field of time dilation similar to what mushrooms give you, that affects them and any creature that gets near enough

probably get this by eating mushrooms, like how monarch butterflies are poisonous bc of their diet

being in range of their field for too long causes you to start taking what i've been assuming is poison damage, or else a drug overdose; if exposed to it for too long you just die

they're very annoying and their ai seems a bit buggy

snear (snail deer):

another mostly defensive creature

walks on long legs to avoid the sandworms most likely

cicadas don't attack them

when a creature gets too close to them, they retract their legs, collapse to the ground, and activate "drill mode", wherein their snail shell ignites like an engine and they start bouncing around

instantly kills any creature that touches it while in drill mode due to excessive kinetic force

probably their shells are shaped like that to create a football bounce effect and heighten their potential for damage

they do seem to pursue you while in drill mode but they're pretty easy to evade

obviously not naturally like that

sandworms:

i'm not super clear on these cus i've only had a handful of encounters

they just hide in the sand and when you come near they attack you

can be hit with spears

frog:

amphibious, lives in dark damp areas or floats on the surface of water (can be avoided by swimming underneath)

latches onto creatures to suck out all the nutrients

not sure how you get them off but it's not by going in water

probably a snail would help

scav priest:

very cool

they can weaponize their karma and use it both as a defensive shield (it goes down each time they're hit and then releases a blast at karma 1) or to just explode and save themselves if captured

some have blindfolds and others don't, but all wear golden elite masks and capes

they can echolocate!!!!! so cool!!!

they probably trained themselves to do that by being blindfolded and i assume the karma thing is achieved through the power of religion

but also who brought religion to the scavs. how do they fit in with normal scavs. i have many questions.

ive probably missed something bc there are just SO MANY new creatures in this dlc it's really fantastic

[anarcho-smarmyism]

(Different anon from the one who pointed out the statue)

Why don't you care? AI is eroding our ability to tell what's real, and being able to pick up on it is a CRUCIAL skill when there are so many people in power trying to manipulate us. AI destroys the ability of artists and creatives to make a living and makes the slop that replaces their creative labor shitty and low-quality, all so tech bros can make money off their suffering. AI is a way for capitalism to take away the need for people to create art. AI is a massive threat to the environment that takes up more energy than we can produce, which means it requires new energy sources, which worsens climate change, which will kill all of us, starting with the most vulnerable (and that is a FACT).

It's very weird to see an anarchist not see an issue with sharing it.

cry about it tbh. i don't disagree that """"AI"""" as it currently exists is a net negative for the working class but ive had about enough of people pearl-clutching (over me rebogging a photo y'all act like this???) while the political situation is as dire as it is here in the U.S. talk about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic jesus

[nonbinary-sticks-the-badger]

i keep getting these really annoying bots (particularly on art posts but not always) where they just comment a link to a youtube video. every time it'll be the most random ai slop youve ever seen on a channel clearly too small for any kind of monetisation. they're never anything harmful beyond being ai generated and they clearly arent made by someone who was trying to say something either. just bots for the sake of bots.

for all i know this could be something more sinister, although the only theory i really have is that they're scraping posts + art for training ai models

2 blogs that i think are these bots:

these two have the same pfp and link to the same video, but ive had other blogs with different pfps and different links (cant find them rn). some have no posts at all. some have a few posts. some have loads. most are reblogs, but sometimes they post their youtube links. i have no idea what's going on so if anyone knows, do keep me informed

btw: their pfp is ai generated too, it looks fine from afar but when you see it up close it has that weird, melt-y texture that indicates its ai

also this channel isnt too small to monetise actually, i must have misremembered, however i have seen other channels that are

[katjohnadams]

im a computer scientist. i dont usually mess with AI stuff (and my god do i hate that term. its all A and no I. i just call them Models or ML Models. MLM if you will lol) but i have made them before for college classes, and studied them during this slop boom we've had.

youre absolutely right. they are a tool capable of much good, and much evil. like a knife, or hammer. yeah it can be used to stab or smash someone, but it can also be used to cut fruit and bread, or bonk a nail to secure a board. what we have is an epidemic of the former for Models, where people are using it in a bad way to create slop or porn from stolen content and other nonconsenual means. or terrible assistants no one wants.

but ive seen the other side. ive seen Models used for much more impressive things. medical diagnostics, where they can find cancerous growths before any human notices them. defect detection, where they can scan thousands of items and notice manufacturing errors in them and note that theyre unsafe for use/consumption/whatever. even generative Models, like the photoshop tools you mentioned, which gives artists a weird new brush to work with.

once again, the problem is not with the tools themselves, but with the people and corporations using them for profit. they steal what isnt theirs and use it to make a shitty machine that makes bad stuff in massive volumes to turn a quick buck or threaten other people, and they can do it because they have power and authority. and because capitalism is crumbling and this is one of the last straws theyre grasping at.

sorry for the rant. youve touched on something im really passionate about lol. some people dont understand the fullness of this topic and make quick judgements, but thats okay, i love them anyway. i love everyone here. yall deserve to know the full story of AI, and hopefully we've both shed some light on it. always research stuff you arent sure about, and stay curious!

I love when people who Know Things™ add great info to my rants! I'm just an old bitch out here stacking soapboxes, so I deeply appreciate your input! 💜

[littlest-bugz]

Im not going to tag this bc I want this to only reach, like, 3-4 followers, BUT…

The argument that being against AI is ableist (specifically in the case of art) pisses me off as a multiply disabled person. I would rather see scribbles on a canvas than anything AI could ever produce.

Disabled Artists have been creating for at least 100 years (to my knowledge, but Im sure it extends farther), and to imply that a disabled person would have to use AI to create “art” is, in itself, ABLEIST AS FUCK.

Calling disabled artists “trauma porn” based on the sole factor that its a disabled person creating the art is fucking DISGUSTING. We are not “trauma porn”, we are real people with real talent.

Sure we have had to adapt our artstyle and mediums to work with our disabilities but for fucks sake! Thats part of the beauty of art!! The beauty of art is that EVERYONE can create! Like jfc.

If you’re really concerned about only an end product, which is the point of AI generated slop, commission an artist- hell, there are artists who take requests FOR FREE. It is not hard to avoid AI if you have a good set of morals.

Anyways, that’s where I’ll end it. I just wanted to rant about this after I saw a post MONTHS ago. It’s been brewing, but after watching a video about AI slop, Ive been particularly angered.

[sdv-confessions]

(In response to the ai discourse question mod posted)

Generally speaking, at least as far as I know from the art, writing/writing adjacent, and dev communities I’m in, it has to do with the following (from least important to most important imo) -

5. It’s lazy/low effort/etc. This tends to be a concern in creative and fan spaces for the most part, as many people find it to go against the whole kind of ‘drive’ of fandom; sharing things you’re genuinely passionate and care about and are willing to put in effort for about something you enjoy

4/3. It takes away work and opportunities from actual creators, be it programmers, designers, writers, musicians, etc. and instead steals work from unconsenting creators who’ve had their work skimmed by the AI or training algorithm

4/3. It’s harming the environment/water usage/etc. (Yes, so does most tech, but the extent of power and water Generative AI use is far more than essentially anything else. It also comes at a time where many countries, including my own, are in states of emergency regarding water shortages, heat waves, droughts, or contaminated waterways)

2. It cannot be held liable for crimes. Given the status of AI as non-living, it cannot be held responsible for harm it causes. This has led to everything from everyday people being placed into NSFW stuff and it ruining their lives to theft to near-murder (see the many mushroom incidents, chemical incidents, etc.)

1. AI is not an actual intelligence, meaning that nearly everything in it is stolen in some way or another. Be it artists getting their work skimmed, authors (both fanfic and officially published) getting their words, plots, and the like taken to be used without their consent, or even everyday people using Google Docs and having whatever they write be possibly used to train AI without their knowledge

The way this applies to SDV mods and the like is that -

A) It takes work away from artists, programmers, and writers (many of whom would probably even do it for free)

B) Shows often a seeming lack of commitment or interest in the content being put out, as well as seemingly like they don’t care about their customers (similar to when a celebrity does a ‘cash grab’ project where they sell absolute slop for like thousands of dollars to scam their fans that have supported them and who helped build the celebrity’s career)

C) Sends the message that they support the use of AI, or at the very least don’t see much of a problem with it’s usage which just reinforces the idea that they don’t value their customers or other creatives

Sorry if that’s a lot! AI politics can be fairly difficult to research at times and rather difficult to sort through so I wanted to list as much as possible for folks who haven’t had time to look super into it. Personally I’ve not had my work skimmed by AI (never gotten big enough for that) but I know people who have and there’s really nothing that can be done about it after it’s stolen. Generative AI is, and seemingly forever will be, founded on the violation of intellectual property rights, copyright, and human rights in regards to a safe planet and that shouldn’t be seen as okay.

- 🌾 anon (if anyone needs further clarification please ask!)

while i appreciate you typing out a detailed response, i was not asking about AI in the broad sense but specifically about chatbots based on sdv characters. so #4 and 2 aren't relevant. CA is working on a new game and wont be bringing any more major updates to sdv, there's no job opportunities here.

#5 - this is very subjective. personally i dont think that Being Lazy is strictly a bad thing. just part of being human.

#3 and #1 - this is why i mentioned specific sources in my original post. most of the articles ive seen are about chatgpt, im aware of its issues. idk anything about the programs used to make sdv chatbots. what are they called? how do they work? do they rely on chatgpt? are they using its databases? are they trained the same way? are they more or less harmful than chatgpt or an older program like cleverbot? thats the kind of info i was looking for. i did get some program names so ill read about them when i have time.

and lastly... i do not care about intellectual property rights. i am a communist. copyrights and patents are capitalist inventions that stifle creativity and progress.

[quiietjay]

the internet has been completely ruined for artists.

I had just went on to pinterest to look for some character design things relating to geodes because usually I could find good shit there. but now? no matter what I search up its filled with ai slop.

ive been desensitized to ai shit flooding artists spaces for a while now, but I think this broke me. no matter where I go, no matter what I do, where I look for art I see AI-generated images. there is no corner of the internet where ai hasn't infected with its disgusting fucking hands places that were once for real artists.

pinterest is fucking useless for me now, because with all the ai splot that got uploaded there, actual relevant pictures don't show up anymore.

it actually feels so fucking bleak now. the only thing I've ever wanted to do, the only thing I CAN do, is be an artist. but we live in a capitalist fucking hellscape that prioritizes efficiency and consumption, actual humans be damned. I'm considered obsolete even before breaking into the field.

i want to yell and scream and break shit because its all so fucking unfair. ive been told over and over and fucking over again that this is the future, deal with it, sink or swim, fuck you. but it feels like I'm drowning now. it feels like that the world never had a place for me, and if it did, they're actively destroying it. i feel like there is no scenario in the world where me as an actual artist will ever be accepted over ai because it's faster, it's better, and it's "democraitzed art."

i dont know what to do anymore. i try to stay in my little bubble but every time i try and step out to do anything I'm met with this shit. i know this looks like I've lost my shit about a pinterest search but its not just that, it's everything. twitter. deviantart. artstation. Instagram. its all gone to shit and it prioritizes ai art i want to scream. sometimes i want to disappear forever because i know the world doesn't want my shit it wants ai.

so what the fuck do i do? what do i do from here? let myself drown? fight back? i don't know. it all feels hopeless. i don't know what to do. i feel helpless

[jewelmoon17]

gotta be real, struggles with time and energy aside i think i lost the art spark somewhere and its difficult to face bc its all ive ever had going for me. All my desired projects are long term goals but in reality im just trying to get through the week and my 9-5 dayjob and MAYBE a whim to work on something unrelated happens.

Im truly grateful to share my stuff on my page for ppl here to see it. but its also a case that if i do finish AND share something, thats hours of time out for free forever, the options for me to give more with merch/print is getting ever smaller but not for stolen bot merch & ai slop generators and i have to think why i dont enjoy it anymore?

For my ko-fi as well im heavily considering cutting the memberships to 1 cheap tier with no benefits, or that plus some sort of ‘art sponsorship’ to support my personal work specifically. i just dont specialise in extra/exclusive stuff. the memberships as is i can barely deliver a thing.

basically, im never quitting and i will always call myself an artist. but need to step back, maybe take this side of things more offline for a while and reconsider things, again. such is the life posting art online.

if you enjoy anyone’s work, please show em some support. even a nice comment helps people keep doing their thing.

Its hard out here man

[neovisceral]

Insane how every single mobile game ad ive seen lately is using AI art I mean its not like anything of value was lost because most mobile game stuff has always been some kind of soulless slop that people were probably underpaid to make but its still kinda crazy to see. People who had the job of drawing sexy leprechauns and white pharoahs for slot machine scam apps are out of work now and that sucks

[nailgunstigmata]

sorry for doomer posting about this ill stop now and take a little break but im genuinely so upset….ive had to see this shit happen with ai art and incredibly talented people losing opportunities to a machine that stole all their work and now its happening with writers to. like fuck!!! we have humans working themselves into the ground and robots creating the art for us. just more machine generated slop with zero thought and zero creativity behind it just more bullshit to keep people distracted from the garbage that is our capitalistic society. i dont want anything ai i literally dont give a shit if its good or if its funny because its stolen enough ideas from people passionate enough to put their stuff out there for free a lot of the time, i want real humans putting real passion and soul into their stuff. i dont want the corporate ai drivel i want real stuff being done by real humans who are paid well for their craft but it looks like none of this is happening!! capitalism squeezing every droplet of joy out of the human experience and useful idiots like glenn clapping and laughing along

[mylifetherant]

While i agree webtoons is a fucking nightmare company, and every comic artist ive seen who uses it kinda hates it, i think its more a symptom of a way larger problem.

The gentrification and homoginization of the internet at large.

Think about it. When was the last time you actually "surfed the web"? When was the last time any of us truly just went to a website we'd never heard of before and discovered something new? Can you remember? I cant.

And its not our fault, because theres only really a few websites to go to anymore. Its all the same 3 or 4 social media websites we all cycle through. Everything else on the internet has become a slew of garbage and cloned articles and dropship scammers. The days of the wild west of the internet are dead and gone. Capitalsm dug its claws in and scratched out anything that didnt exist to generate profit or scrape your data.

But back in the day, things like homestuck could exist because people were making websites! They made them by hand and with love and intention. There was a webcomic i used to read that intentionally had open clear PNG spaces in the comic, so that the background of the site itself would come through them, like the textures in Chowder. There were webcomics with hidden hyperlinks to bonus content and silly little injokes. When you hovered over every image with your mouse because there was always a little editors note hidden there for you. People were experimental and different because everything was new and they wanted to stand out.

Now everything is a product. Your art is a product, your website is a product. Its all about how much following you can garner and you cant do that without the main social media sites. Why? Because its the only place anyone goes to anymore. No one just looks up cool things in google anymore. Because we cant even trust google to not flood us with paid advertisements and AI slop. The internets not about finding and creating new and interesting experiences anymore. Its about money, like everything else.

Webtoons is just the end result of that change. Its creativity as a product and it feels like its all the same garbage because its more about platforming what sells then it is about promoting creativity. There are some truly amazing webcomics on webtoons. And most of them die on the vine because they never make it out of canvas. Because they wont sell well enough, so no one cares anymore.

Its hard to be seen in such a sea of mediocrity and garbage. And its drowning out some seriously impressive talents.

People don't like to admit it bcs cringe or w/e but Homestuck really did revolutionize the webcomic as a storytelling medium and I am endlessly frustrated that before webcomic artists could really stretch our legs fucking webtoonz swooped in, set a new, more restrictive standard, and then monetized and monopolized the ever living fuck out of the concept of The Webcomic until it drove away anyone who couldn't be a professional quality manga artist for free, and now the only webcomics that actually feel like spiritual successors to Homestuck are so obscure they're basically cult classics that you have to beg people to read.

Like it's just so wild to be in high school and see Homestuck be like "we're using like fifteen different artistic mediums to tell this story bcs we can" and be really fucking inspired by that, only to grow up and see basically every webcomic ever have to conform to One Single Standard or fucking perish.