Comic artist, illustrator, sometimes writer. I am interested in a variety of anime, fantasy novels, video games, and manga/comics. Longstanding Fandoms: Final Fantasy(Various), CLAMP, the Volstovic Cycle, Breath of Fire, Natsume Yuujinchou. I play FFXIV on the Malboro world.
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So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
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If you're a new writer and you're asking yourself "is this too personal, is this too much, will people think this is weird" that feeling is the exact location of your actual voice. The stuff that makes you want to close the laptop is the stuff nobody else could write. The safe version is always worse. Always. I have never once read something and thought "this would have been better if it was a little less honest." go further. It's always go further.
The whole point of Xenaâs character, of course, is that she really kind of enjoys murdering the shit out of people and it takes conscious force of will on her part to hold herself back from doing so when itâs not moral, and Lucy Lawless plays that so well. And I appreciate that. Not a lot of female characters who are allowed to just go fucking feral with bloodlust.
Xena basically frames hatred and violence as a sort of addiction, and I actually think that this is a more sophisticated treatment of a redemption arc than most other stories Iâve seen on the subject.
I think one of the gentlest things in the world is when a friend just gets your weird little brain. like you say half a sentence and they finish it. you reference something incredibly niche from seven years ago and theyâre already nodding. they understand your strange vocabulary for emotions that donât have real words yet. itâs being seen and known and still loved. maybe especially because youâre known. god. what a gift.
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What happened to the Hiveworks Artists Guild? Are there any initiatives that you're doing to try and bounce back from what ended up happening? Sorry if this is super sensitive to bring up or comes off like an overreach. It's just that seeing something like that come out was just so overwhelming that I assumed there'd be more happening to try and help other webcomic and indie creators.
We eventually went our separate ways.
After years of fighting for respect, missing payments, responsibility on hiveworks' part, and the hope for general change in the company- we decided that after the open letter, it was time to part.
Many of us are still in contact with each other over at Chimera Comics Collective if you'd like to still support the artists who left Hiveworks, but a majority of what we could do was settled months before the open letter went live. We were in contact with Cartoonist's United to help our guild meet our goals (demanding missing payment, offboarding artists who needed help, setting up websites) and we're pretty proud of our efforts over the years.
But that's kind of a wrap on how it all went. There were many artists who probably were owed money from hiveworks, and as far as I know, the two leaders are back to doing their usual thing. I suppose if I could implore anything, it would be to avoid associating professionally with Xellette Velamist or Isabelle Melançon (Crow Time/ Namesake), those two were the root of all of the issues.
And also to listen to your fellow comic creator when things seem off. Unfortunately this isn't JUST a hiveworks issue- it's an industry wide problem. Lots of folks in creative fields getting taken advantage of, and only so much we can do. If we have more voices and demands for better treatment, it would help avoid situations like the CEO of a comics publisher using someone else's kickstarter money to buy a car with.
Commissioning artists really makes you feel like a renaissance noble. Like youâll get an email that just says âHey sorry some things came up but Iâm working on your piece and hereâs a WIPâ and suddenly youâre wearing sumptuous velvets and eating grapes on a reclining couch like âOhoho! Take as long as you need, my Orpheus! My riches and time are a paltry price to pay to bring your beauty to the world! I am a ~Patron of the Arts!~â
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logging onto tumblr like heyyy i'm thinking about the same character i've spent the past few weeks thinking about. no change here. just wanted to let yall know
I genuinely wonder if people realize how many projects get abandoned because the readership "wasn't there", when in reality, the readership just stayed silent. It's a big thing in trad pub that book series get discontinued because readers pirate the books or wait until the series is finished to buy a copy, leading the publisher to think that nobody actually wants the book enough to continue the series, but it happens with indie creators too.
I've discontinued a lot of free, online series because it's not worth putting 3-5 hours a week into posting a project for no readers. Sometimes I finish the series for me but just never post it again, other times I don't finish it at all because it feels more worthwhile to put my time into other things. Sometimes I hear from readers who are sad or upset that I didn't finish something they were liking, but the *reason* it never got finished is because I didn't know anyone liked it. If you like something, tell the creator, tell your friends, make some noise about it. If you would be sad if a story never finished, make that interest known because one of my biggest considerations before discontinuing a series is "will people miss this? Will I be letting people down" and 9/10 times, I come to the conclusion of "no, it doesn't even seem like anyone's reading this" only to learn after I've moved on that apparently someone was.
I've said this before in a different way, and this post said it so well. With real examples.
If you like something, tell people.
If you want more content from an artist or author, if you like their stuff, tell them. It will give them creative fuel to keep going. And often it gives them other resources as well.
Recommend a work to other people. Leave a comment or a review. It doesn't have to be long, just genuine, a sentence or two.
Not many people know that a book's success is judged by book reviews as well as sales. Review the book on Amazon or another site to help it pass the metric of success and be recognized by publishers and retailers.
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