@mousey Oh, definitely. It probably has its roots in SEO, too, though I admittedly have no idea what the nuts and bolts of that are. But especially for as long as a business can be driven on an "algorithm" and engagement.

Still... yeesh. I'd just had a thought that this might be where some of my recycled tech is going, and that gave me a weird feeling inside.

@davidrevoy @doctormo Yeah, that too!! It would be so hard for a translator to try to adapt a dynamic text layout to a hand-painted bubble. It's all wasted time and effort for no gain at all.

@doctormo Yeah, I think David once said that he created the font based on his handwriting, or a hand-written comic script? But the bubble one is really something! I guess they expected him to painstakingly paint the bubbles by hand instead of... using a vector template like most folks would.

@Mudlark Do iiit! 8D It's free! You have nothing to lose! And it's so much fun.

@mousey Whaaaat? o: That's crazy! ... And kind of eye-opening!

@petitmote Oh, la vieille rengaine!

@arabine C'est une idée d'image à la fois hilarante et tragique, je ne vais pas mentir.

EDIT: AAAAHHHAHA he did it!
@davidrevoy

@leberschnitzel I am also very happy when the Avian Intelligence parrot appears. (I saved it for you!)

@tanavit Oh, bless! Yeah, there's a thing about AI output having a yellowish tinge, to the point that people point to it as a "tell" for AI output. There's even a joke about it being "piss-tinged" or sommat.

I think this is becoming less of a thing, or else I'm just not seeing it as much (but truth be told I don't lurk in places where AI is around a lot, like Meta/Twitter). But old memes die hard.

ETA: Fun fact, this is why Avian Intelligence's text boxes are yellowish!

@davidrevoy You're welcome. Good luck, mang! I definitely sympathize with your struggles, here. I'm eager to watch your journey continue.

@davidrevoy Obviously I'm not going to make demands. And I will support you in any decisions you make. I like your art because it comes from you, not because it looks a certain way (and definitely take some time off!)

But I think it's more important to live authentically, than to worry about if other people think you're "doing it right". I know that's different when you're worried about a career, but industry peeps have a different perspective from randos who might just want to shitstir.

@mirabilos Nawww, mate. I learned about the ctrl+shift+alt+U trick that lets me insert nice pretty em-dashes into a text, so I don't have to look amateur with double-dashes, but I ain't gonna do that for every punctuation mark. I'm not that anal.

@davidrevoy I don't think changing the style would change anything. I honestly don't think your style looks like AI (or at least not the AI I've seen), and you might end up chasing dragons for something that won't stop the accusations anyway.

It's just... so strange. I think that, since those kind of places are so full of AI, people are extra vigilant. It stops being a reality check and starts being a defense against "falling for it", to the point that people want to see AI that isn't there.

@davidrevoy Man... You know, the really, really bizarre ones to me aren't the ones that, like, accuse you of using AI, despite you having literal decades of documentation and video proof of your hand.

It's the ones that accuse you of deliberately using an AI style, as if you're trying to trick them into thinking it's AI?

I wonder if some people just genuinely can't tell the difference between corporatized AI "style" and a soft, stylized cartoon with warm colors and a painterly texture.

@davidrevoy Aawww, that carefree little stretch. The cat wisdom never fails.