#saltblogging.

[fairymint]

What are some things you are tired of seeing in the RPing community?

Lack of nuance, and respect when it comes to conflict. mind you that anything past this first dot isn't recent rather than experience.

pseudo vagueblogging about "bad" people without context. seen with hate anons, "if you do [this issue]", and blocked people- this carryover shit makes it hard for some people to read community meta hour without wondering 'if something happened'. Be Clear. if you can't, that's a good sign to reconsider saying it. Especially if it's offsite or off blog, lest people mistake it for here (or worse, themselves.)

More "I" statements and less "you" and "we" statements if you have an actual conflict- it's where a lot of accusatory statements and rough edges lie. muns are people, not problems. Don't assign yourself as a problem and wonder in the dark, don't assign others' hurting your feelings as 'a problem' without clear basis. ask questions. people are often ignorant rather than malicious. malicious for a reason, etc.

shut the hell up about the people you've blocked; notsomuch the information and what they did. idk possible unpopular opinion here, but don't speculate, don't tease, etc. people can be so quick to tell perpetrators to fuck off without giving that same respect. Right or wrong, most people need some space to process that kinda shit, or might have moved on. similar case if you've been blocked, though there's a fine line between grieving it and doing the above. Like, if you must read up on them, be mindful of that. and re-enter their lives gracefully if you choose to do so. There's a reason that people can be so black and white about things like callouts, and this contributes to it. People have rights, friends, sometimes willingness to change, depending. tl;dr let people breathe ffs.

[peepingcreek]

Oliver head-cannons:

Oliver tracks down every girl and guy Felix ever hooked up with and sleeps with them too.

Right after his triumphant penis dance, he curls up on Felix's bed and cries hot, angry tears.

He makes Duncan do the weirdest and most absurd requests for his own freaky pleasure. "Duncan, decorate the front yard with plastic dildos, wont you?"

Farliegh Head-cannons

He admits defeat in the begining, slinking back to America, but vows revenge. Farliegh and Oliver meet for a passive aggressive esspreso date in Venice, which Oliver pays for.

Felix fingered him LOL

Venetia Head-canons

She's been in and out of ED treatment through high school and finished her education with a tutor.

She never had a good group of school mates, and mostly hangs out with Felix and who he brings around

Felix fufills his savior complex by trying to help her, feeling sorry for her.

Elspeth Head-cannon

She also had bulimia when she was modeling

She is a closeted lesbian and has 0 attraction to sr. James

huge lesbian crush on Oliver

Duncan Headcannons OHHH

His family has been serving the Cattons for generations

He and the servants were all privy to Olivers freaky little escapades, but have a strict no interference policy

Duncan loved Felix, and all the servants thought that Felix was the only decent one of the family, aside from maybe James but idk

[catinheadlights]

PSA: The pet game Sylestia uses AI generated "art".

Sylestia has been using AI generated assets for a long while now, and I decided to write this up because I'm not sure how well known this is among the remaining playerbase (not that I think many of them are gonna read this but I guess it's here now if they care to). Krinadon (site owner/admin) has explicitly said this in a mass PM before, screenshot and examples below context.

Context: This was a mass PM from late 2022 sent to a large section of the playerbase with a long list of allegations against different users. Some of the claims were blatantly petty and others were seemingly serious but in reality extremely shaky. Some players receiving the PM had no involvement in any of the perceived antagonism, and not everyone receiving it was in some kind of clique like the wording in the Glaselk section would suggest. Krin was largely complaining that people were criticizing him and Faiona (other owner/admin) in a private discord server, of which a handful of people sent him screenshots. For transparency, I committed two apparent crimes: one was assuming the AI assets were made by people, and in a private discord server, criticizing the decision to update them over focusing on more important parts of the site. The second was complaining about the shitty stereotypical "Pow Wow Costume" (since renamed but otherwise unaltered) and associated clothing items in its set, as well as the name of the "Wild Wendigo Morkko" theme. As far as Krin complaining that people think he was giving Glas special treatment... well, if you know, you know. No clue if they even play anymore, but you all know that harassment is bad already, so don't do that. I didn't edit that section out of the screenshot because idk if that'd be seen as suspicious or something.

[Image ID: A screenshot of a private message from Krinadon on Sylestia titled "Official Player Conduct Warning (1 of 2)". The last section of the message says the following: Experience Orb and Magical Pie Art: No, no artist time was spent nor wasted on these assets. No, we did not divert any site resources to the specific creation of these assets. We were learning and testing with artwork created by AI and these were our initial test projects. The end results actually ended up being pretty decent, so we decided to use them. No, we are not going to replace any artists with AI artwork. However, we most definitely are looking to supplement where we can so that our artists can continue working full time on more important projects. I think that we are aware of how to properly budget our time and resources. We have been doing this for a decade now. And yes, our artists are aware that we are using AI artwork. /.End ID]

Now, I think the first thing I should point out is that the artists knowing the site uses AI doesn't necessarily mean that they like the decision. I don't know the artists personally, but I do know that at least one of them has, unsurprisingly, posted about not liking AI art.

Secondly, it wouldn't be fine even if the site artists loved AI, because as it is, it's unethical to use regardless. The training data is artwork scraped from the internet without consent from the creators. No amount of promising that you won't replace human artists will erase that. Informing the site artists that you're using AI won't erase that.

Here are the confirmed AI official assets (descriptions in alt text):

(The orb pic is comically large because they kept it at >500x500 for a while and I saved it)

Additionally, there are background items that are almost definitely AI generated:

Some have glaring issues while others may be less obvious, but when comparing them to the art styles in other items, the difference is apparent, and is not explained by having multiple artists and the seeming lack of a style guide.

There were also several coloring contests with obviously AI generated lineart:

And also official threads where players were to design pets based off of AI generated images. These ones were from the faelora design raffle during the 2023 spring festival:

If you're not convinced they're AI, the images on the thread were hosted by Sylestia's server's and reverse image searching didn't turn up any matches. They would never commission these, and they didn't just take them from another site. They were generated for the raffle.

Do not support this site. The are so, so many games made by people that actually respect artists.

[retroactivebakeries]

[lorwolfdrama]

For all of your salt and frustrations. Hate fishing? Annoyed by staff or a user? Don’t know why the heck anyone would spend $$ on the game? This is the blog for you.

[santae-salt]

I'm not young and read SMR and the old DR all the time. It's clear the owner of this blog is heavily negative leaning to the point I find it incredibly hard to believe they care about the site. Agree with everything bad and post anything without any proof.

☁️

[critter-screams-into-the-void]

Guhh!! Saw your recent post explaining the whole “the world is edd” being ableist, and sorry if this sounds rude btw!! But! It’s kind of a normal human reaction, he was alone and going literally insane takes less than a few days if you’re alone. Humans were never made to be completely alone. It’s a natural reaction to..like make stuff seem like people out of objects that resemble let’s say close friends. It’s a way for your mind to keep itself sane for just a bit longer, hence why the sock puppets. He could use those as a temporary solution to at least talk to someone, anyone, pretending they’re real to cope. Yet ofc that isn’t a permanent solution, hence why he went insane to the point ending it all./vlh

trying to make psychosis come off as scary for shock value humor is bad actually

[fyrets]

ehhhh i think it checks out pretty well

is it just me and my weak ass eyes/memory or is the rosette pattern a bit… busy??? like real leopards dont have that many spots right???

[fairymint]

4. What are some things you are tired of seeing in the RPing community?

the most definitive and simple thing i can think of atm is if I ever make a promo again, I'll probably straight-up just put 'do not like, reblog only'. i'm just simply gettin tired of the passive shit. do not get the point. is it not 'pretty' enough? honestly, i get more followers from either following first, or some sort of wacky interaction- or, association. popular/liked writer like me, therefore me good to new people. might never make a promo post again, what's the point when i got mooties' blogs. i've shitty luck with promos and opens from anyone who isn't immaculately friendly and adaptable. (this might just be a me problem or community problem, but it gets exhausting feeling like i have to prove myself over and over, and i simply do not know 'how' to do so. i get urges to rewrite bios and rules all the time, but ig it just comes down to me making ppl feel special by saying hi sometimes. idk idk-)

otherwise just stuff like vagueblogging, conflating self-insert characters with bad writing/muns, the entire initial concept of 'mary sue', and my personal pet peeve the 'tumblr police'.

[dragon-salt]

Sincerely, fuck off if you think your Oh So High And Mighty Elder Veteran status gives you the right to be such a cunt to other players for having differing opinions about a *checks notes* online pixel collecting game for children. Log off, go look at a sunset and stop waving your dick in the wind before you get piss in your eye.

I'm trying so hard to figure out which of my recent saltblog interactions would have warranted calling me a cunt and I can only assume it's over my response to that "light sprite is ugly" ask? But also I find it very hard to believe that it alone would have pissed someone off bad enough drop this in my inbox. What is happening. Why are people so valiantly defending Lightsprites Ugly anon as if I threatened to kill their family.

(unless this is about something else after all, but I really haven't got a clue what)

[alstroemeria-fox]

i think part of it is this blog allows anonymous submissions so people feel less self concious asking things. which could also be why people send in asks instead of reblogging, as well as sending in an ask being more visable to people than being in the notes of some post

missing when this blog used to be a salt blog and not just a random discussion forum. why are you asking here what the price of skincents is. why are you just making an ask to say "haha liking [gene] makes me feel old" or "im from plague and i like the color green". why does nobody comment on posts and instead just make a whole new ask with 8 words in response to whatever post. this blog is such unconcentrated, fluffy filler that its impossible to find any actual salt. more like normalminerising

[lorwolfdrama]

Signed up earlier. Good overall, lot of the same things as FR, whatever. I am so confused tho. Like one, my quest is already fucked up because ?? idk. Just keeps sending me back to the river. Idk how to get more water at a sustainable rate. What the hell is the pageant. Also, a pageant? I sound like a boomer but like I've been doing pet sites since 2007 and I have never just been so "ok cool but ??" to like half the features

.

[santaespeaks]

the puffin thing is really nothing to me like i think art is dead if that's considered copyright infringement and an immoral offense. like literally that's nothing. that being said i think the nail in the coffin for me is ... $6 for a complicated header illustration. one which looks like to have taken anywhere from 3-10 hours depending on skill. out of EVERYTHING thats been talked about, that's so fucked. i cant even support this project in jest anymore cuz like sure we can wag our fingers at fomo or silly moderation decisions and thats all just saltblog discourse. but these rates are so much more serious you're not even paying the lowest minimum wage in the US which id at LEAST be slightly more okay with. like that's so serious in comparison.

.

[zaerog-infinity]

i gotta unfollow that saltblog man some of these people drive me up the wall and back LMAOO

[fyrets]

For what it's worth, I have hope that PB will be different if only for the fact that we know they have quite a bit of long term content already planned. Specifically the 22 breeds they want to release for the lifetime of the site, with only a little less than half being available at launch (founders + KS exclusive + KS stretch goal).

Assuming future releases will be done in domestic/mystic pairs and we get two releases a year (a possibly reasonable schedule for development time assuming we have a good number of breed concepts done already + what I think a good pace to satiate player demand for breed updates would be), that gives us about three years of content in breeds alone! The fear of development slowing down for some reason or another still exists I suppose, but I think the knowledge of there being a hard limit of what to expect on some level brings me comfort.

There's also a pretty good write-up by @/solborough comparing and contrasting LW to PB which has put a lot of what I've had bouncing around in my mind into words.

Man lately it feels like none of the newer pet sites are holding up very well. DV being slow on updates, communication and KS promises - and now LW updates also coming to a standstill. Makes me worried about the future of PB - it seems the standard recipe now that the devs are very active and hopeful before beta/release, then radio silence after they have raked in their fill of early release hype cash.

Psst, since this post seems more relevant to Pawborough - please submit Pawborough salt over to @saltboroughs instead!

[saltminerising]

friendly reminder to some users here that your disability does not automatically make you immune to being ableist, nor are your experiences universal. this is a saltblog to be complain-y and i do the same thing but geez the whole "i have ___ but i did NOT do the thing and was completely fine blah blah blah whats your excuse" shit really makes me pissed off haha. yall are coming out of the woodwork for this one i think. thanks for the blocklist..?