Randomness

@abluescarfonwaston’s idea

It's the "I kept picturing" line listing things that really reveals the nonsensical processing of AI, because choosing visual moments that would make good connected comic panels is more difficult to simulate, and it also attributes "the glimmer of amber scales" to Essek when that is very very obviously Caleb in the fic, and there is a grammar/punctuation issue ("as panels the row") that doesn't feel natural. And for the scam element, the classic unsolicited "reach out to me on Discord" hook should always be suspect.

I decided to check the user's tumblr profile, and what do you know: it's empty, of course, with 0 posts. And their profile banner is literally an AI generated image with the big DREAMS TIME watermark right in the middle. And if this was not enough: all their Likes/Comments are visible. And all of them are on posts with Ao3 links like mine, and every single comment shares the exact same format. A few sentences complimenting themes and moments, followed by "I draw comics, and honestly I kept picturing [that scene] as a panel/series of panels [described]. If you ever want to see a scene as a comic, I'm on Discord at margarita._.morales. This fic really stuck with me, thank you for sharing it." And the time stamp for all these comments are like 2min apart, because the bot is trawling for ao3 link posts that have the tag "Ao3 link".

Most people already know or should know that any comment from a stranger (positive or negative!) that's trying to get you to go to a different platform like Discord is a scam. The laundry list of other flags are also familiar: soulless empty profile, the fact that likes/comments are not hidden, the fact they only follow the default Staff account, the fact some things that don't quite make sense in the message. But before I registered all these things, the effusive specificity of the message initially made me happy. It achieved seeming real at first glance, even if it fell apart immediately under a due diligence mental checklist. And it's because it fed my work into fucking AI.

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