Legit art and artists definitely get swept up in this. I've seen it happen a number of times.

This is sometimes used maliciously as well.

When I was a mod, I handled a ticket that ended up being innocent, and I'm genuinely sorry I got it wrong. But we fixed it because of the appeals process.

Moreover, when it's malicious, it's pretty obvious. The kind of person who false reports furry art over a petty, immature grievance tends to leave clues to their intentions slathered all over their messages, profile and other social media. It's REALLY not hard to fix that problem lmao

From what I've seen, people's art gets yoinked first, then they have to appeal no matter what.

I suspect that you're right about the kind of people who file false reports in general. It's a lot like police dealing with false reports of crimes, etc.

I mean that's the process. On appeal, if it's wrong it will get put back up.

Tbh, I think FA could use a button at the UI of a post to report AI in one click.

Fully agreed. But the biggest issue is the old code and heavy technical debt. It was one of the biggest things Neer was working on, and I know it's part of what the programming crew is tackling. There's a lot of modernizing and updates everyone wants, and they're working on it.

Still, I would say open a trouble ticket and selecting General>Feedback under categories, and suggest that as a feature. It shows theres interest.

The ancient and creaky code here seems to be at the root of the problems with any updates here. It just takes SO much time and work to do anything.

From my understanding, yup.

Some day it'll have to be updated. That'll be a REAL project.

But at that point future updates will be much easier.

God I hope so lmao. There's so many cool ideas I'd love implemented on FA!

You and everyone else here, brother.

We're all gonna hafta step up if we want to see this happen.

if the code is old and just barely holding together and functioning, I swear to god it should get a major rework for more streamlined efficiency.

I ain't no expert, I'm just saying what people have been sayin'.

edit:
Spelling error / grammar

From my understanding, this is whats happening. Its basically updating older code for 2024 and beyond, ideally. But FA is one of the top 1k most visited sites in the US, and top 2k sites globally. It gets 19m visits a month. So updating code on this scale is difficult because of the complexity of the code, meaning changing one part could break others unexpectedly on a site that serves millions.

FurAffinity is like a cruise ship that was built by a labor of love, not by a qualified shipbuilder lol. And its not as easy as just blowing up the boat while we're all onboard in the middle of the ocean. That would be bad. Its the Ship of Theseus, and they have to take the cruise ship apart, piece by piece, and replace it with better, modern stuff. Simply "Building a new ship" also doesn't mean people wouldn't get lost in the database migration, or that they don't find rot during inspection and replacing stuff, discover security flaws that need fixing ASAP, and the big fact the FA team just lost the owner of the site, who knew a lot about how things ran and was a pretty good programmer himself.

Idk. The site works. I'm fine with it, as is. Obviously could be improved in some ways or have performance tweaks. But I feel like a lot of people just want FA to be like Twitter or Facebook when they say "UPDATE IT!!!!" FA is a gallery site, and I use it as such. It does its job just fine, as is. I would love 2FA or maybe even an auction system for YCHs to avoid hidden bids and sniping, but it works fine as is IMO. Twitter and Facebook suck anyhow, why would we want to be more like THAT ugh lmao

yeah, as long as the it-ppl manage to keep the 'ship engine' running and fix the metaphorical leaks, I hardly care as long as I can watch me favourite artists

Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaame

Wouldn't it be easier to link the FA data base to a new modern website framework?

Ya asking the wrong guy lmao, I am very green to programming currently. My understanding is at this scale, the risk of a botched server migration is real. MySpace infamously lost all songs, pictures and videos uploaded between 2003-2015 in a migration. Given FA hosts mostly photos and some music.......... better safe that sorry.

😜🤙

I try to avoid some of the hypertoxicity on the net sometimes (Hello Tumblr/DA/twitter drama), but yeah fair this looks like a good post.

I don't think im rabid but i mean for economic purposes of each site yeah, making sure you're not spending 30-200$ on something that might be a fake here or a 0.1 cent gen somewhere else might be iffy.

Making sure that the sources is legitimate before paying for a fleece can be fair, and with all the custom ocs, a great tell might be if the character looks nothing like your oc at all.

Despite all this, i think for some people there can kinda be a conspicuous consumer element to it, some people despite it all, sometimes might just buy a piece from a say 1-10k view popufur just for say recognition or they like their work.

Though there's definitely like a tightrope act going on im not sure if people will want to touch with a 1000 foot pole.

I think keeping it off fa even if it makes it's way off sounds fair, some of the fair ways to get a good configuration instead of hunting might just to glance over if anyone hypothetically wanted. It can already do flat styles, but most people just make what they like and most of the flat models were old models i heard.

I think there's more to art than just a picture if the experience is positive, though if the human experience becomes a potential perceived negative due to say idk like da's drama like mobbing/user harassment or negative feelings i've seen some things go south on da.

Hence i just feel like even if im not rabid, keeping it just peacefully off FA to keep the peace sounds kinda a healthy take. There can be places for it, but keeping it civilly off FA doesn't sound bad.

Going to a profile and also checking age and if there's lots of posts of ocs can be a good tell or at least unusual species. Despite ai often looking good at what it does, it as mentioned tends to be whiffy at fingernails though those are polishable and infamous fingers / ghost details. I think a fair configuration is just going to a place and attuning to it though but maybe respecting the peace of each place.

There's some DA /carry over drama though so i prefer to stay 50-100 feet away from either sides. Some people get caught up and have fun without meaning ill or knowing all the drama. I've seen some people kinda refer to it as "a endless free porn/picture generator" instead of "ima Arteest stuff." And then like 500 million people or alts from Deviantart will come to harass them or something.

The whole thing has some of the worst e drama i've seen so far on the internet and there's some real rotten apples on both sides over what for many is a side hobby after work/dayjobs. I'm not kidding when i say abortion arguments looked civiler on the net than most DA arguments, i kinda get why most people prefer to just bury the giant drama circus it tends to bring.

There's also a running in joke that many people improve incrementally, so like years of suck or just signs the person has done stuff before can also be a semi poker tell. A human will tend to increase over time. Like i loved Latex's (now deleted) middle gallery when he had tons of shiny art, but a lot of great artists show natural increments.

o Ai arts tend to stay around the same unless the person is fiddling each time, and if they do, they'll tend to look radically different but blocky vs same but consistent.

Still though, i think within all the toxicity like it's still can be important for us, or at least (imho) that many people are human, and say if some oldfurs leave, having new people come in to replace them and maybe some slack for the catch22 of "need art to get a ref, can't get a ref without art, can't get art without a ref" people.

Not every user is malicious. but it does seem like it just takes 1 ai artist phisher to try and imitate like 1000 from the crypto nft scam people. I think a fair amount of people who could be in the discords just seem to be chilling though. The population of some is technically 5x higher than Furaffinity's official discord server at times, but i don't know if many of them are good payers for coms.

A lot of ai users seem to spend money on 300-2000$ gpus and i've heard annoyance stories even from the people asking for endless edits on 0$ budgets haha. Despite all the talk it's mostly only good at generic species and fur. It seems to kinda falls apart if you see very custom or unique species or odd/sparkledog kinda patterns.

So a account that mostly looks the same with mostly generic species could be worth a glance. Still though on the flip end. It's a whole can of worms and im not sure how to balance the question of "I'm just here to have a good time, being demonized for a first impression wasn't very positives" vs "Protect jobs" vs "endless stuff generator."

Whole thing is a pickle jar of controversy trying to thread a needle. Whole point im not even touching the drama on it with a 1000 foot bar myself.

And oh, if you guys want to help mess up the training a lil without weird stuff. Putting lots of strong watermarks in the corner seems to work well, Plus help identify artwork when reposted too.

Like for instance, i think people like :Zackary911: and :blotch:'s watermark/signatures can be a good example of a way to mark people's work that seems like it can mess up ai training a little(?), i think.

Like it's just a signature that looks like part of the art piece, Zackary writes his name in a brush stroke, Blotch uses a little paw stamp. Ai looks for patterns and while it would hardly stop current models i think, people could just try brush stroking their name maybe or making a overlay and stamping all of their pieces on e621 and here(?) maybe if desired/wanted(?). idk.

Like it wouldn't stop current models, or be a huge roadblock but it does kinda mean for like art imitators, it could potentially make it harder to imitate if a garbled up signature started appearing over each of them.

Like it'd still be circumvuntable and maybe it's survivor bias but glancing through, could notice a lot of ones coming out with text like "ZACRERY" which.. It's not like life or death, but it does kinda make ai imgs kinda obvious. 🤣. It'd be like looking at NARF shoes instead of NIKE shoes lmao.

Thank you for the comment! Imma tackle things as best I can:

AI art is bad, and worthless. Even in its best case scenario, it is effectively worthless. What is the actual point of this tool? Well, writer Ed Zitron has a concept called "The Rot Economy" which basically says "Growth is not about bigger and better, its about MORE". The line must go up. If Google cripples their search function to make users have to work harder to find what they were searching for, that means longer times on Google, meaning more ads served. If Facebook is filled with Shrimp Jesus, it still collects revenue from advertisers because it LOOKS like actual people are using Facebook, something 404 Media called "The Zombie Internet". Its about doing anything and everything to make money, make the stock go up, look like you're doing more. And instead of innovating on existing tech (LIKE MAKING A PRINTER THAT WORKS AND ISN'T A MONEY PIT INK SINKHOLE, HP), they make "New" stuff like the Apple Vision Pro (which flopped) and AI generated content, which has been pretty widely reviled online by everyday people.

The tech industry isn't making stuff for us, its all for Wall Street. Its why everything sucks now. Before AI, it was crypto. Theres just... nothing. No use. No purpose besides "MONEY". It doesn't even work lmao! We just suffer the consequences of dumb rich men living by "Move fast and break things", and they all need to go to prison lol.

From Pew Research:
-"A quarter of US teachers say AI tools do more harm than good in K-12 education"
-"Many Americans think generative AI programs should credit the sources they rely on"
-38% of US Adults do not trust information about the US election that comes from ChatGPT, a majority behind "Has not heard of ChatGPT"
-At the end of 2023, 52% of US Adults were "More concerned than excited" about AI in daily life.
-Somewhat unrelated, but a similar survey from around the same time found "Just over half of Americans (55%) support the U.S. government taking steps to restrict false information online, even if it limits people from freely publishing or accessing information. Given the amount of AI spam and troll bots now, I think its a fair comparison.
-"About 1 in 5 U.S. teens who’ve heard of ChatGPT have used it for schoolwork"
----"With a majority of teens having heard of ChatGPT, that amounts to 13% of all U.S. teens who have used the generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot in their schoolwork."
----72% of White teens say they’ve heard at least a little about ChatGPT, compared with 63% of Hispanic teens and 56% of Black teens.
----75% of teens living in households that make $75,000 or more annually have heard of ChatGPT. Much smaller shares in households with incomes between $30,000 and $74,999 (58%) and less than $30,000 (41%) say the same.
----"Teens who are more aware of ChatGPT are more likely to use it for schoolwork... For teens, whether it is – or is not – acceptable for students to use ChatGPT depends on what it is being used for. There is a fair amount of support for using the chatbot to explore a topic. Roughly seven-in-ten teens who have heard of ChatGPT say it’s acceptable to use when they are researching something new, while 13% say it is not acceptable. However, there is much less support for using ChatGPT to do the work itself. Just one-in-five teens who have heard of ChatGPT say it’s acceptable to use it to write essays, while 57% say it is not acceptable. And 39% say it’s acceptable to use ChatGPT to solve math problems, while a similar share of teens (36%) say it’s not acceptable."

Given the risk of hallucinations, the information is never reliable. It is a gamble on whether or not the AI is mixing up its information or plagiarizing it from Wikipedia or a random blog, on top of the biases that cannot be easily removed. AI generated code is "Spaghetti", where it spits out a ton of good-looking, well formatted code, but none of it actually works, and often takes more time to debug than simply coding yourself.

All AI will get better. These are the problems of the moment, in a technical sense. That doesn't mean the underlying product of AI generated anything is worthwhile, valuable or intended to help every life. It does not "Democratize" art creation, given that there is nothing more "Democratized" than making art. Anyone, anywhere, at any time, can make art. It is not hard to grab a stick and doodle something in the sand, or pile your laundry and take a black and white photo with your phone and call that something that speaks to you. Art is whatever speaks to your soul, and AI has no soul, meaning the work produced is soulless. It is tainted from prompt to production. I can't speak for why the FA staff decided to ban AI art, but the fact it is already affecting artists economically was likely priority, followed by the fact it just sucks lol.

Other stray notes:
1. If you want to tag an artist on FA, you need to say :icon before their name, as in (and I include spaces for clarity, but there wouldn't be spaces in the real version) :icon name:, or colon icon username colon. You input :Zackary911:, which is close!  zackary911 is correct, hence the icon displaying and a hyperlink to the users profile.

2. Watermarks are very easy to erase these days. Photoshops Content Aware Fill means you can just lasso around it, press Delete, hit Enter on Content Aware Fill, and it not only erases the watermark, it fills it in with details from the surrounding pixels, making a near-flawless edit.

In terms of digital watermarks, similar to EXIF data, I introduced Nightshade and Glaze to the FA team, which is supposed to "Poison" AI art by not altering the image for human eyes, but changing the pixel data so dogs get labeled as cars, plants are cats, etc. My idea was that by adding this to every upload to FA, it would make it that much harder to scrape FA for AI images, but the problem is the tools don't work as advertised, and frankly the easy way around the data manipulation is simply having a human look at the images and label it by hand. Its slower, but not impossible to get around, and again, it didn't really work in the first place.

Hid my last comment cuz of link errors in the text, and some formatting stuff. A lot of the Pew stuff got erased for some reason. THIS IS THE STUFF THAT NEEDS FIXING, fully agreed. But I still give kudos to the FA team for keeping the site going no matter what hurdle comes. I would rather have this FA than no FA.

Yeah fair, scammers are scammers wherever they come from, and some of the controversy over these topics is about as thrilling and exciting for me to touch as the once in the lifetime opportunity to have a spiked nailboard colonoscopy done by a unattended Sid like child.

I avoid the drama for a bit of a reason, not that i haven't been completely blind but just like i think there's some common sense of self preservation that's fine for everyone. The economy is shit, a lot of people are in self preservation mode. And the whole shindig might remind me a bit of Prisoner's Dilmena.

Where people, only looking to optimize their own path, tend to screw over the other. And maybe i won't care to admit that i've kinda been in the perspective as a accidental black sheep. I looked at AI as a field like 4-12 years before AI img controversity became like a major stick and like my position as a name cleared anonymous burner might easily be different than a FA staff / retired one. And we're all fighting our battles.

For me, it's kinda less like a "Oh wow, unlimited hand drawn/ai waifus" kinda shindigs. Scammers are definitely just scammers plain and simple and like i guess we might be all each coming from our own perspectives, either as burnt/ happy / YIKES-ED out former commissioners or married or happy or just trying to do less unhealthy amounts of life affecting pornography over potentially neglected meaningful real life relationships.

I think mileage can vary but i might be like a weird black sheep. I'm not commission quality but like many i used to do lots of art fights and trades to a decent amateur level, but i don't really value the internet's approval. Im on a anon account and so i have the freedom to say the internet is in general, mostly stupid, has a poor grasp on adulting, and for the most part prefers things that are unfunded and great to hear.

But have as much grounding as wanting a 400m f2p 0 monetization game 20x bigger than World of Warcraft developed on giving the players 40,000$ a year for playing it, for all 7 billion people on earth. It's easy to think about, but i don't have the 280,000 TRILLION dollars a year to make it work to give every 7 billion people 40,000$ a year. Do you?

And that's kinda where i'm a little peeking at a little from. We're coming from Dragoneer's death and he's kinda the closest or biggest thing Furaffinity had to a superdonor, even if he passed weeks ago, the site could still be in financial jeopardy. And it sounds like he took out loans to keep the site afloat.

My kinda aversion to picking a stance here even on a anonymous burner is kinda less like "i have not heard any information, i must be molded" or the Futurama ("I HAVE A VERY STRONG LACK OF OPINIONS") ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfsl8_o4VKc ) Kinda shindig.

But just like i'm kinda some weird black sheep waffling around who's peeked a bit at both sides, but also kinda gotten the proverbial middle finger bad apple throws of both sides and good apples from both.

But it's less of a "oh i need to pick a opinion" but kinda like a grumpy old man "I wish every bad apple lit on fire and every good apple lived happily the way they treated others" kinda vibes, sipping a shot of whisky on a front porch, pissed off and holding a shotgun in case of anyone wanting to visit MAH house to give MAH a BAD time lmao. XD. But only if they were like, just like front porch poopers just like trying to go out of their way lol. Just kinda. I've tried showing vulnerability before and got stabbed so now i wear armor.

I'd rather people pick a path that leaves them each self sufficient. Just as you mention financial problems. Ai hallucinates and as far as things go. There's already some good ai communities for the furry arts for those interested that already exist.

Even someone critical, wanting to learn what to avoid to avoid getting scammed might potentially be interested in doing respectful research, just to learn what the most up to date models and images look like. Kinda like a vaccination, maybe not to join it, but just to learn enough to avoid getting scammed or falling for a aibait phisher account like the ones plaguing here.

From what i get, amount of interaction doesn't always necessarily equal average user. I think keeping FA as a non ai site though and other areas kept apart sounds a sensible take though. I might be waffling but we can all take one look at DA, and any potential public or private sides or not. DA is like a flying maggot corpse where you have choice of aids or HIV. Both of the choices on DA suck and that's why even though im not rabid, i think it could be one of the worst ways for FA to end up. Not ai this or picture that, but just like the community and site might be like a Old Yeller, once friendly, now rabid, frothing, and convulsing with a "Press 20$/month to generate eyeless shitty even for ai pictures of funko pops now!"

Like while im more avoiding the fence. I think kinda taking away some of the near rabid like tribalism, like both a lot of people can see how the common consumer has limited direct power to influence the company's ceos and vice aversa.

Everyone could all contact their congressman to have them pick a stance, but i think the problem is it doesn't fall upon party lines. It's something like 50% of blue are artists and 50% of blue are techies and with red one half enjoys having something to hate, and the other 50% enjoys using ai to make pictures of Donald Trump making Elon Musk pregnant. 🤣🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

Even glancing over at some of the people. It's a hole can of worms and like it's not lack of knowledge. I think for the most part, there's maybe some potential virtue signalling and artist x artist VS Customer x artist VS customer x customer potential povs going on.

When you glance over the subreddits, i think while not accurate, we see furaffinity has like 10-17k registered users at a time while for discords, Furaffinity's official discord tends to lean around 2k active while one of the more popular furry diffusion servers i think is about 10k. It's hard to estimate populations but when you look at rough guesses like say, 6k in a anti ai reddit but all very active, 20-50x comments a day, vs a sub like Midjourney or stable diffusion having 1000k-3000k members, but only getting 8 posts. It kinda seems like most users could be silent users. People might use the tech or watch it silently, but mostly personal and not big news.

I think the talk of human art being more than just the picture though might be fair. Like for some people it's a main primary source of income, for others maybe it's more social, It was one of the fandoms you could make anything and sometimes it's the antics people could enjoy, both good and bad.
Like i can't do embeds but like the whole shitposting thing ( Objection! | Warrior Cats: Having stupid time with friends etc ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ5B2hDI-Ls&;

But at the same time, from a anonymous account (opinions being my honest own), i kinda also feel like the current strategy of one of the more mainstream takes on the issue, kinda tends to lean towards literal cyber harassment in hopes people will come back and financially support someone who just sent a mob after them for life out of stockholm syndrome or something. Idk, maybe too pointed, the whole thing is like a caustic bucket of worms and that's the whole thing about the neutrality.

I'm staying out of it but even from like secondhand places like those r/aiwars reddits and the others, it seems like there's a lots of mobbings, and from your own figures, 70% to 90% of people should already know the tech.

If they're buying a artist, they probably had a 70-90% chance to know, but chose to anyways. Some people in the discord admit it might be more than just the picture, but also a way your oc can be seen, and others might go "i've always wanted to be drawn by X artist!" "Yeah, me too" "omg, did you get it from them?" and those can easily be positive feedback loops. You have a good experience, people love your character, it repeats.

But for negative reinforcement loops, say if someone tries to buy, but they hypothetically got witch hunted / mobbed or the vibes are like "Your character is dumb and stupid!" "Don't bother talking to me about your character, i do this for the money, not the art!" "Im upcharging your commission from 80$ to 340$, my fridge broke" "Uh then i'd like to cancel" "NO REFUNDS!" "I'm not going to send the money for a price i didn't agree to then" "I'LL POST YOUR INFORMATION ONLINE!", like.. idk yeah.

Like i think most people have a kinda fantasized vision of like fights leading to like treasure chests and loots. I guess i don't know embeds lol but Kinda a example of drama just leading to drama, not resolutions and money: Bojack Horseman: Bojack Confronts his mother over his "loving treatment", antics ensue ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v50T3oT4PAg )

Like i kinda might be wibble wobbling, the tightrope is unclear and scammers are around on fa. Skipping any ai endorsement just for drama reasons like DA went through and finding sustainable ways to sustain it, whether from donation drives/fundraisers/ads probably sounds wise.

I kinda get the feeling that while there can be money in the arts, (especially the people who can sell for 1000-2499$s), only a few ever reach there. And Dragoneer's tragic death with people asking if his grave deserves a urn kinda sends out a shock to some more life adjusted / "normie" friends i have.

I think there comments were less of the likes of "ai is DA FUTURE/ DA DEMON OF HELLLLLLLLLLL" "NOW I won't need to ever find a real life girlfriend when ai/furry waifus
can fuck me!" 🤣

But kinda stuff along the lines of
"Yikes, So it sounds like that guy, poured out that he could into the site, and then they just let him die. And then during his memorial fundraiser.. People complained about the cost of his 100-1000$ urn and suggested a cardboard box. Some "friends" those people sound like."

"I'd hate to have some friends that literally wanted me to die to fund their dream over our life. Normal people care about you, as a person, not a -240k/yr atm. It's frightening that he let himself be ran into the grave. And people weren't concerned a 27k bill could have saved his life, or if he choose to pass. But if his 1k-8k funeral took too much money from the 100k+ raised. "

I know it's kinda morbid but like i think i had enough drama even just as a former small time commissioner, nothing crazy, nothing big. Just the taste i had kinda just put me off it in general. I guess instincts get the better and i glance from time to time, but idk.

The aversion is less lack of information, just kinda like having less desire to go to a adoption center for a puppy after seeing a pit bull mauling and pit bulls in the area. It's not that i don't think a puppy would be great, just with online, you have no idea what's underneath the face, is it a mask? a real face? A business persona?

You don't have tone, facial expressions or knowing genuinity on a text screen. Sure a lot of the art is cute and free to watch or pass by. But like i kinda just get the feeling that the whole AI drama is like a potential fierce Abortion+++ level drama debate.

I like/d this place as a community, people came together and had fun, not a infighting flying maggot corpse trying to eat itself.

But like, it's kinda like the tylenol problem for me and idk i kinda just wish we had more magic solutions. I probably post too many vids but just like, i feel like many humans imho are risk adverse.
I think some people think demonizing people will just make them want to buy more, but i also feel like it's like there's a very potential difference between a natural connection, a fantasy love potion, roofie, and handcuffs.

Like that Pet Cemetary or Monkey Paw where you can wish for something but have it "come back wrong", I think a lot of people might enjoy those like "OMG, Your art is the best ever!" "That's so cool and awesome!" "It's gorgeous!" kinda comments, but when it's forced or a person is post mobbing to 'come back', it might be jaded or "...." "....." "............"

Or just signs the pot might be potentially boiling over. ( Tone Povs: Like Red Hood AMV: "I could be mean, i could BE angry, i could BE just like you. I could BE fake, i could BE ruthless" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C3Fcz__EQY ) kinda YIKES NAH of the tylenol bottle.

I kinda get the feeling many people didn't come to the arts to fight in it and the whole thing is a can of worms under potential pressure from other places. I'd rather have the place stay sweet than go down seething and spitting in my personal stance, idek.

I think there's kinda a selective effect where most people don't mind a positive experience, but we all seem to remember negative experiences 10-1000x worse than fleeting positive ones. I don't exactly know if a crowd of unhappy, potentially demonized for a solid year straight for 1-2 years and mobbed people would exactly make the 'best customers'.

Again i know im probably frustrating in not picking a side but idk, the whole thing feels like a boiling pot with fa ai scammers, ai grifters, deviantart mobs, drama, fighting, furry/art schisms. And i think the anti furries in general are just laughing and watching with popcorn like it's a zoo with happily deranged homelander gifs ( https://x.com/DelysidOfficial/statu.....93264194904073 )

Like it's not that i haven't touched any halfs. Just that i poked it for a year and it was equivalent to the positive human experience equivalent of voluntary rectal cancer with a taser and hammer to the balls. It's just like been one of the most unpleasant and productive 1-2 years of my life touching the drama, so i don't blame or discourage anyone having a tactical opinion just to have the cessfest go away.

For the most part, i just kinda want to do more of life and it's not lack of knowing how to draw. I still have years of drawings pre done from the high school to college summer vacation days.

But while i have some office leeway, i have to do adulting and running feet. It's less apathy just time budgeting. I want to spend time on my kids and while someone else's priority or income might be Arts > arts > arts. My mental priorities be Safe and fun / Family > connections > Entertainment/arts.

For my own situation, im not floating millions of dollars, im in a setup phase of life where i might be looking at 10-40 years to afford one of our areas low crime but pricy 500k-750k houses, if we work 9-6 and come back to eat 6-7, that leaves 7-10 and im in a position there's already few hours in the day and i might want to leave memories by being present in my kid's lives. Not just sit alone and draw amateur art 7-10 pm.

People can have different priorities, and i think i'd rather disappoint the internet than make the mistake of trying to care about the opinions of the people struggling to live lives on their own advice. I know it's boring adulting.

But the whole ai wars thing is quite a pickle, and whatever people do to take care of their own bases, speedbumps or selling or fighting it legally, that's up to them! And it makes sense for everyone in survival / life in 2024 mode to do what's right for them.

But as for me, i'll probably bail on 1-4+ years of the aiwars kinda antics just to do more life with the people i've been neglecting already as is. I'd rather spend more time on the things i can fix, than the ones i can't. ( Tone pov: Phineas: Evil Love Song: Enjoying more genuine connections than virtual fakeities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK-6Td9INxM )

I guess i ramble and spill the thoughts. But hmm.

o Sentiment: Avoiding drama, trying to enjoy more of life, hiking, seeing the sunsets, real things, over being caught in drama i can't affect or care to.

o Tactical positions vs wishful ones: We all gotta put food on our tables, scammers are scummy but idk. Tried being a keyboard warrior, seems like a waste of everyone's time and the people i neglected. I got mouths to feed.

Definitely some honest eye raisers on how the data is acquired but i'm not ignoring the battles, just picking the ones that matter to my house. Same for you guys. Keeping local jobs from being replaced, keeping the wifey happy, avoiding mother in law aggro.

And currently playing Among Us with the furry antics. I have messed up past arts man. I WILL NOT DRAW THAT IN FRONT OF MY FAMILY. My FURRY NSFW DIES HERE D:. I am not drawing nsfw with a kid who runs around the house like a little motorcycle and gabs about everything! !!!