There are plans being made to build an AI data center right next to the Nashville Zoo. If you wish to know more and are against it, please click the link to the article and sign the petition.
Data centers are popping up when we least expect it, and are having terrible consequences for those near them. If something isn’t done soon, it may be too late to change things.
ARE BOTS AND SCAMMERS, SOMETIMES USING HACKED ACCOUNTS FROM REAL TUMBLR USERS.
The first one will try to claim they falsely reported your account or something similar and will then try to redirect you to discord to talk to "staff members", sometimes using fake email screenshots for proof
The second one will likely try to pull some kind of chargeback scam on you!!! That, or they might threaten to report *you* for scamming *them* and attempt pull the previously mentioned tactic 🥱
There will be explanation for why the images attached are suspected of being influenced or "touched up" by Gen AI.
I am emphasizing the latter because a lot of the art in or promoting IDV is still made by artist but is "touched up" by Gen AI. This is still significant because it can progress to laying off the artists entirely in our unregulated world, or a "reversal" where the art is primarily Gen AI-created but is touched up by a human artist.
I'm also taking a somewhat more hesitant guess at AI usage. Not because I don't believe it was used in other pieces of artwork or concept art (I do), but because undeniable evidence is extremely important.
Because of this, I will remind again to ask myself and others whether you are accusing a design of being Gen AI-influenced because it would be beneficial to the case or because you dislike the design?
Anything here is free to use, whether it's evidence for emails, for journalism pitches, or anything to stop Netease from implementing Gen AI into IDV.
In reblogs you are also welcome to add onto the document. This is meant to be a living resource to combat Netease's usage of Gen AI in IDV, but other Netease games are appreciated too. Please explain your reasoning though.
In-Game Material
The usage of obvious Gen AI-assisted artwork has been recent in the game itself.
The first example was from the countdown to the "Libero's 'Visitor from Beyond'" Truth and Inference. The countdown began March 26th and continued until March 31st. The background is suspected to be Gen AI-influenced.
The reason why this is suspected of being Gen AI-influenced is the bottle on the left, which has very uneven, melting writing on the bottle. You can also see there's some completely untranslated Chinese behind bottle. While IDV has had translation mishaps before, it's notable since there's two different languages on the poster that, when combined with the melting writing, looks Gen AI-influenced. For comparison, here is a background from the Shrouded Bélostáin event in 2022 which lacks such artifacts (I dislike the IDV Fandom Wiki but I appreciate its store of images.)
Another example of Gen AI influence is the design of daily posters for the Libero event. I will be using the gryphon poster here as the first example.
If you look at the feet of the gryphon, you can see one is a bird leg and the other a hoof-like foot. You can also see inconsistencies in the wing feather number, the number of talons on the forelegs, the spines on the gem, the swirling near the bottom "ABBATE" and the sunlike crown near the top ABBATE.
When you look at the food depicted on the Libero Cuisine Guide poster, you can see there's some stylistic inconsistency between each of the foods. In addition, you can see a lot of "nonsense lighting" on the food itself. Normally I'd brush this off as artistic mistake or rush (if with some doubt) but with the Gryphon Poster, it's likely the Gen AI touch up.
Again you can see the stylistic inconsistencies I mentioned, with a lot of uneven line work and an unusual gradient at the top of the "A THRILLING" Hot Air Experience poster.
Note the inconsistent lettering and very fuzzy small lettering, which is possibly an artifact of Gen AI being used to help create the text.
Next I want to talk about the Ivory Tower concept arts which were announced April 10th.
Lucky Guy himself appears to be his usual weird sprite (yes his sprite has 4 fingers and I checked to confirm), if with some unusual smoothness on his fingers that could either be upscale or "touch up," and the negatively received optimizations announced.
The background, though, is the problem. If you look at the flying pages, you can see they have very value variation from the light, which can be contrasted by the pages in the Composer concept art in 2022. The bookshelf has a Gen AI crack in it in the upper right corner. Most egregiously, you can see a Gen AI artifact with the scientific tools where the stand clips through the highlight.
The background had the highlight artifact and bookshelf crack removed, but the Gen AI-assisted background art remained.
The Gen AI-assisted artwork for Eli's skin remains.
I will remind again that Eli, as an old character, has bizarre proportions, but they don't do the Gen AI-assisted background any help. If you look in the upper left corner, you can see some flowers are grown from nowhere. You can also see the books in the foreground do not have the proper lighting for its context. The stained glass has some "wobble," likely also a Gen AI artifact.
In the previous skin concept arts, I want to note the lack of background art. Using the Once Annie for reference, I want to note we can see very little of the background, so it's difficult to judge. However, the items in the foreground also feature that "gloss" I discussed previously, alongside details being somewhat chaotic. It makes me wary.
I've seen some discussion about the recent concept arts about whether Gen AI is being used to build some of the skins, due to inconsistencies with the models, what concept art is show (only one or two drawings), and everything else involving the Gen AI usage.
I chose not to include this, even though I believe this is occurring, hence why I am referencing it. This area can be very blurry where I cannot entirely confirm or deny the usage of Gen AI. Concept art posts can vary, some showing very little variation in concept design, and while less concept arts since 2020 directly show reference photos, we know from COA IX they existed up until January 2026.
I want to re-emphasize I believe this, especially with post-March 2026 skins. Again, I want to keep little doubt.
What we can say with little doubt that recently there has been the loss of background art in IDV concept art and in its place has been Gen AI influenced art.
Promotional Material
The usage of Gen AI-assisted artwork has been far more prevalent in promotional, with the proportion becoming significant in 2025.
The NAEU and JP birthday account art from 2024 until 2025 shows several signs of being "touched up" using Gen AI. I do believe there was an actual artist involved, but I don't know if the "touch up" was with consent or not.
Using the Nightmare and Clerk Birthday Arts for example, you can see Keigan's shut eye has very inconsistent form, the fabric shading lacks reason, the inking is odd, and the overlapping of the fabric near her right hand is unusually flat compared to the rest of the portrait. These could be artist mistakes but given this was the period Gen AI was more boldly chases by Netease, "touch up" is more likely.
Nightmare's hat is a nightmare of odd, "muddy" details that can't align with his beak's perspective, the ravens in his portrait have extreme stylistic inconsistencies even within the portrait. On the top left, the raven on NM's hand clips with the frame.
The most egregious use of Gen AI-influenced artwork, though. comes from the announcement Identity V would come from the June Sixth Anniversary Livestream, where it was announced that IDV would be at the Los Angeles Anime Expo. The Gen AI-influence could be seen in Aesop's arm being detached from its body.
I don't have video and thus haven't linked them, due to relying on my friends for Rednote or TikTok content regarding my IDV archive, but I will say there are many egregious cases of Gen AI created ads or videos on both sites.
Why This Is Bad
For a brief moment, let's ignore all of the copyright and environmental issues caused by the growing field of mass LLMs. I will assume, for this hypothetical, that the Gen AI being used in Joker Studios was trained exclusively on art with consent and it causes zero environmental problems, running off a sustainable system. Let's also ignore the debate regarding what is art. I know some places are more open-minded to the subject than others. I'm going to argue against IDV Gen AI from cold economics and pragmatism.
Some might argue that "AI speeds up production process."
We are receiving less characters from now on in IDV. The production quality has slowed, it's not Marvel Rivals where they're trying to release a character per month.
In 2022, IDV released 6 characters in the year: January 20th (Weeping Clown), April 7th (Clerk), April 28th (Professor), August 4th (Antiquarian), August 25th (Hermit), and December 1st (Composer). February, March, May, June, July, and November did not have character releases.
If you count Weepy as February, Luchino as May, and Alva as September, you could roughly say a character is released every other month in IDV. This increased to seven from 2023 onward before the slowdown due to the release of ID swaps in November.
In 2026, the year with less characters announced, we've had Matador (February 5th), Dentist (April 23rd), a Game 0 Survivor (most likely Roy Kafe), a Game 0 Swap. We can only have one more character, likely the COA announcement, to fulfill having six characters per year. One of the character slots from midyear was scrapped.
Yet, with that slowdown, Netease is choosing to lower production quality with Gen AI and a slower schedule.
We have also lost crucial promotional arts such as chibis of skins/characters. There has yet to be released chibis of Finsen, Once Annie and Ivy, Family Feast Leo, and Dissociation Fool's Gold.
Faster production isn't the goal here. Neither is quality. Cutting the costs paid artist need to create high quality art is.
But what if you say not all the artists are gone, that "there's still artistic supervision"
Generative AI is prone to errors when it creates images, due to being a pattern recognition and repetition machine. These are some of the "artifacts," which can be as small as slight repetitions or light inconsistencies, or as big as disembodied limbs.
The "artist" is less polishing the Gen AI and more removing egregious errors that would be noticed anyone who takes more than a first glance at the artwork. You can see this the Lucky Guy Gen AI background. Even though the highlight and bookshelf were fixed, the formless paper, lack of depth, and stylistic inconsistencies within the art remained.
On a deadline, the artist can only do so much to remove these artifacts, which inevitably slows the production pipeline and degrades the quality of the final product.
There is also the problem of when the Gen AI, whether by creating on its own or touching up a design, makes up features that are portrayed differently in the model, due to the sculpted model still being designed by hand. This results in discrepancies between the poster product (done by hand), the concept product (with Gen AI influence), and the model product (done by hand). IDV's primary sales come from its skins, which are works of art. The high-quality, detail-orientated of the artwork is the assurance you should buy the skin. Considering there is a community of IDV fans who are very passionate on details, particularly on the Weibo, this is more than just error.
It's false advertising.
I also want to note how the Gen-AI influence was not evenly distributed in the promotional artwork. While the ads were more distributed, particularly recently, on TikTok and Rednote, the characters that were the most "touched up" by the Gen AI were the rare characters. Nightmare, Keigan, Reptile Luchino, Burke. Whether it was due to the artist not knowing how to draw them and the Gen AI touch-up worsening it, the Gen AI's fault, or some combination of it, the more obviously "touched up" artworks were those of unpopular characters. The disembodied Aesop arm appeared in an artwork for the first Los Angeles Anime Expo event for Identity V, an event for the NA community of IDV, which is half the long-neglected NAEU server.
It shows Netease is willing to cut costs towards players they think are less likely to complain, whether due to a lack of tea, or gratitude for even a poor product. It is poor business, especially if that minority can gain a vocal status.
I'll end it here for now and add more if I have the time, but feel free to reblog with your own images/writing/music/etc and explain why you suspect it is Gen AI influenced. Be aware of the gravity of the accusation.
Reblogging myself to say a friend sent me a link to this source where there appears to be Gen AI influence on the frames/artwork of this NGP Discord Return Gift Package. After looking it over, I think it's reasonable to say there's some suspicion, particularly due to it falling into the "promotional" category as a NGP package.
The poster obviously isn't Gen AI-influenced and is from the Finsen Essence.
On the righthand side, though, you can see numerous. On the "trial character" frame, you cans there's some melting on the orbs. There's small but notable inconsistencies in the symmetry, and not the kind created by a hand, such as missing forms. The teddy bear in the top left is missing one of its eyes, without an X or other side it's an intentionally missing button.
There is also inconsistent text fonts, melty text, inconsistencies with the in-game icons, and the Gen AI-influenced "fuzziness" that can come with touched up artwork.
According to my friend, people in NAEU are currently loud and upset about it, as they should be. Currently many people across all three servers are distracted with Deduction Star and COA, but do not mistake that for no one caring about the boycott. On Weibo, a lot of comments regarding Gen AI are deleted, but the Golden Apple BLK Tracy is the current bastion of anti-Gen AI comments.
You shouldn't be using A.I. to generate rough ideas either.
It's bad for your brain. Studies are finding that offloading your cognitive thinking causes your brain to atrophy to a degree. (On my phone, can't bring up the studies). Not to mention incorrect info and the mental health issues it causes.
Still built off racist models
Still causes pollution
Still scrapes from other creatives.
I am so sick of people dismissing the overall creative process.
Given the recent discussion of Netease's plans in advancing the usage of the usage of LLMs and generated images in Identity V's art and writing direction, I want to note Antonio's design notes from 2020. I will be using automated translation, but the point transcends the uselessness of google translate.
Hello everyone! I've been responsible for the character designs of several survivors before, and the violinist was the first hunter I worked on. (The other two writers produced the brilliant designs for all the previous hunters; I'm in awe of their talent!)
...
In addition, I also hope that the character can transcend the elegance of a musician and have the qualities of "playing in madness" and "being manipulated in depravity" (laughs).
...
Under the strict supervision of the lead artist (crying), the new hunter's physique and temperament had to be distinct from the existing hunters (once again, I'm in awe of the brilliant character design! There's not much room left for newcomers). Besides the basic settings like being slender and tall, the long hair design, brought to life by the master artists, became a major characteristic of the character. Finally, a violinist who was once possessed by a demon was born:
These are the words of someone who loves what they created. These are the words of someone who adores Antonio and was proud at the effort of not only themselves, but everyone who helped design him. These are the words of an artist.
The Video Game Industry, like many industries, has had AI act as a parasite invading every corner. It's easier to name large studios and publishers that haven't have attempted to use AI than not. Capcom, Krafton, Larian, Warhorse Studios, and more.
Even before the invasion, layoffs are always around the corner. I found this interview with Jeff Kaplan, former director of Overwatch about the pressures he and his team faced to create increasingly larger profits. If they did not deliver profits, the team would be axed and the blame would be laid at his feet. The increasing skin favoritism in Overwatch towards popular characters was the symptom of a developer team trying to keep their air filled with lungs as the water of greed rose around them.
Netease has been particularly ruthless towards its own developers lately, with multiple overseas studios being axed. Before then, it has run games with beautiful art, interesting storytelling, and fun gameplay into the ground, until a decaying corpse dragging itself in the present day is what remains. Onmyoji fans can testify.
I've suspected something's been going on since 2025. In the behind the scenes video for Cage of Yesteryear, the developers seemed overwhelmed with the request to make a cutting edge, Triple AAA event and spent all their effort in one storyline, resulting in the technically impressive but unfulfilling main update. At the same time, the birthday art for the Asia and NAEU accounts had clearly become generated or assisted, which was most obvious in unpopular Hunters such as Nightmare and Keigan.
There was backlash and it stopped, but events such as Cage of Yesteryear and the of Sea of Remnants worsened my concern. Publishers are willing to guarantee a new game is a profit at any cost. Right now that means laying off anyone deemed unnecessary and replacing them with the snake oil that's LLMs. And Sea of Remnants is a very big bet.
COA IX felt like a warning sign. The willingness to drop subtly and discuss things like the nature of Orpheus and Alice's relationship felt... urgent. The themes of an AI incapable of creativity, forcing the world into a generated stasis were personal. It felt like a swan song.
Suddenly, I noticed Kurt's Global Art had cut-off legs, that the Truth and Inference buildup had the squiggly writing of a generated imagine (and untranslated Chinese behind it), and that the translations of some Character Day Letters were word-for-word Google translated (implying the loss of an English localizer). There were whispers on the Weibo that Netease was planning on firing some of the art staff.
And then whispers grew to shouts.
Joker Studios is a domestic studio under Netease. It is not Netease directly. NE aren't the people who make IDV a beautiful game. They're the higher ups who decide whether to implement AI into a studio and fire anyone they deem unnecessary. They're the ones who make many of the bad choices regarding IDV, but none of the great ones.
The writers, artists, programmers, developers, and composers of Joker Studios are who what made IDV this amazing game and Netease is throwing them away to maximize a profit. This has been the disgusting nature of the Video Game Industry the past decade and more.
Be angry about it. I'm currently working with my Marvel Rivals friends to see if we can use their global manpower to cause an upset, since Rivals is directly under Netease and is thus under threat as well. I know there are those trying to coordinate with other servers given the concerns voiced on Weibo and other sites. NAEU may be neglected, but it is not helpless. At the same time this has been going on, there has been a greater effort to create IDV-centric events in the USA. There have also been efforts to promote interest in Sea of Remnants in NAEU. Use this to advantage and be a nuisance.
Remember that companies take advantage of apathy to try and force acceptance. They are conflict-averse and profit-driven. Do not let anger at the state of the Game Industry go to waste.
some of y’all will be engaging in witch hunt, accusing writers left and right and then wondering why more and more writers take their works down and don’t share them with you ungrateful losers anymore.
“this fic looks like it was created by ai” yeah that’s because ai was trained on human-made works and it was trained to mimic human-made works.
you claim you hate ai because ai harms real artists, yet you are out there accusing and harassing artists because “their vibes just aren’t right”. at this point, you are the ones who cause more harm — to art and the writing community — than ai does.
you are the ones killing art and writing community, the community you want to “protect against ai”.
so at this point, you’re killing the community faster than ai is. good luck when the community you want to protect has no human-made work left because you accused and harassed genuine artists/writers away and the only things that are left for you to read are actual ai-generated fics.
if you think a fic is ai and if that bothers you like it does me, quietly exit the tab and avoid their future works like a normal, decent person. because with every "this fic looks ai" comment, there's always a chance of you wrongly accusing an innocent writer and further harming the writing community as a whole.
am I the only person who’s annoyed with how people throw the word ptsd around.
no, that one weird thing you saw did not give you ptsd. No, that one hard game did not give you PTSD. No, you’re not getting “ptsd on the daily”. Stop tossing around serious disorders like it’s nothing.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a disorder that forms from trauma. It is not funny or slang. It is a real fucking thing that makes the lives of me and other people 100x more stressful.
Traumatic incidents/events like death, rape, bullying, etc can cause the disorder. I can’t be in school related environments without getting stressed. I can’t be around most people my age without getting paranoid.
I am convinced that anyone who turns to AI generators as a creative outlet doesn't actually give two shits about making something.
Because why do you expect me to care about something that you couldn't even be bothered to make yourself by using a shareholder-fueled gimmick that actively makes the world worse with:
data theft
identity fraud and harmful misinformation
hardware hoarding (RAM crisis)
wrecking the environment (insane water pollution and waste + electricity usage for data centers that's so high that nearby towns and their citizens have to pay the price)
causing corporations and studios to underpay and fire artists and other creative jobs in nearly every creative field because AI is "cheaper"
consistently shitting on the very purpose and meaning of art
eroding critical thinking skills
preying on loneliness and the addiction-prone
Fuck off with that.
Don't serve me lazy, unethically made slop and expect praise.
Pick up a pencil, keyboard or an instrument or idk, go on fucking BeepBox.co - show me some genuine fucking effort in something you made with your own hands and brain and I'll give you your due credit and actually praise you for your efforts, regardless of the actual quality of the end result.
Whoever made this specific ad is going to be tortured by a thousand demons in hell. Avatar of the lonely type piece of shit i hope they push away all their loved ones in favour of ai and no one goes to their funeral. I want to rip their face off like a chimp
If your friends get annoyed at you for texting them to the point where you'd rather talk to a fucking water guzzling oversized autocorrect you need better friends
You know who they're targeting like this? Vulnerable kids and awkward teens who are too scared to make friends even online. Disgusting. Actively, borderline knowingly encouraging young people to make their mental health worse. I already hate ai but no other marketing tactic would make me think of the people behind this as literal dirt like this. "Hey, your mutual probably hates you bothering them. Go socially isolate more by pretending a chatbot that sells your data to assorted fascist pieces of shit is your friend! Chatbot always responds! Chatbot has no boundaries!"
Report them as malicious. That's what they are. It's not false reporting when it's literally preying on users.
When Americans say our health insurance is tied to our jobs, we mean. It's the ENTIRE family's health insurance. It feels like a lot of folks who live in places where Healthcare is affordable really don't get just how much of a privilege it is to not worry if you're able to afford your child's insulin or asthma medication.
People aren't just going to quit their jobs because they have to consider repercussions of doing so and it's not because the person quitting is going to be uncomfortable. It's because they have to consider their loved ones health and safety too.
It's so easy to look down on how the people are fighting back because you have never had to live in a chokehold for the last 20 years.
hey, i know i keep reblogging stuff about internet services being restricted and freedom of speech being censored and stuff like that, and i know it might be scary, but im reblogging all of it because there is some actual, tangible good we can do about it all.
we have the power to stop our speech from being filtered, censored, inspected, silenced--all of that. im not signal boosting solely to make people worried, but im also very much not doing it to reassure anyone. we're at an EXTREMELY integral tipping point with all of this, and, if it bears reminding:
if we lose access to the internet and all the things we can do on it now, by the time we get it back, it will be too late.
the only advantages we have is that a group of congresspeople are slower in legislation and implementation than the wider population is in raising hell about it. which is why you need to NOT RELENT about any of this shit in the SLIGHTEST.
i get it if you're tired. i get it if you're over hearing about every new censorship law. but that is what the ENTIRE OPERATION hinges on: your inaction. your apathy. so stop feeding all of your energy into not doing anything, because there is literally NO EXCUSE for you not to be annoying the shit out of credit card and payment processing companies over the phone. there is NO EXCUSE for you to not be calling your representatives in droves.
there are scripts you can use. there are resources. there are places for further information about all of this. it's all out there, and you need to go and use it. find all the pages about KOSA you can. about SCREEN. about all the other awful laws being proposed. find all the pages about the laws being proposed in the EU and Australia if you live in those places, and use whatever email and phone-sending powers you have to put pressure on lawmakers to change this shit.
an assault on everyone's right to the internet should scare you. it should scare everyone. and it should make you want to do the right thing. i don't know what else i could possibly tell you to make you care about this.
stab your apathy in the back and stand up for yourself and everyone who will be affected and damaged by these laws. because they will affect EVERYONE.
DO NOT WASTE YOUR CHANCE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
since I'm getting more and more of these lately...
Y'all, if you receive a comment that reads something along the lines of "hey I have something important to tell you (about your account), but I can't message you idk whyy??"
... DO NOT DM THEM.
THIS IS A PHISHING TACTIC - they will most likely tell you that they accidentally reported your account or something and that you have to get it resolved with tumblr and then give you an email screenshot or something that tells you to contact a "tumblr staff" on discord - THIS IS FAKE.
THEY ARE TRYING TO GET YOUR LOGIN INFORMATION, TO USE YOUR ACCOUNT TO TRICK OTHERS INTO THE SAME TRAP.
likewise...
... DO NOT DM ACCOUNTS THAT SAY THEY "WANT TO COMMISSION YOU" AND TELL YOU TO DM THEM. <- <- <- THESE ARE PHISHING/SCAM BOTS TOO.
----
If you're unsure:
bots tend to comment almost immediately after a post went up
bots never compliment anything specific about your post so that it's easier to copy/paste automatically
unless you have this setting different, by default anyone should be able to dm you and a commenter acting like you have to do the first step to initiate a DM convo is a red flag
tumblr HAS ways to contact them about issues through their help center. Tumblr does NOT handle these things through DISCORD
The bullshit about AI Art making art more accessible for disabled people is just….ludicrous on its face? I don’t think I can name a bigger group of people who are more likely to be disable than artists. There’s a whole stereotype about artists being mentally ill. Michelangelo had mobility issues. Frieda Kahlo was bed bound when she painted most of her art. Be fuckin fr
The setting that prevents your work being used to train AI models is turned off by default! I had no idea about this until now! Artists, go to your settings, click “visibility”, and turn on this setting! Protect your work!
being anti ai is making me feel like in going insane. "you asked for thoughts about your characters backstory and i put it into chat gpt for ideas". studies have proven its making people dumber. "i asked ai to generate this meal plan". its causing water shortages where its data centers are built. "ill generate some pictures for the dnd campaign". its spreading misinformation. "meta, generate an image of this guy doing something stupid". its trained off stolen images, writing, video, audio. "i was talking with my snapchat ai-" theres no way to verify what its doing with the information it collects. "youtube is impletmenting ai based age verification". my work has an entire graphics media department and has still put ai generated motivational posters up everywhere. ai playlists. ai facial verification. google ai microsoft ai meta ai snapchat ai. everyone treats it as a novelty. every treats it as a mandatory part of life. am i the only one who sees it? am i paranoid? am i going insane? jesus fucking christ. if i have to hear one more "well at least-" "but it does-" "but you can-" im about to lose it. i shouldnt have to jump through hoops to avoid the evil machine. have you no principles? no goddamn spine? am i the weird one here?
I am SICK of Generative AI being shoved into spaces it doesn't belong and I'm absolutely sick of the people who promote it. And I am ESPECIALLY sick of the disrespect artists are getting from it, especially disabled artists.
I want Analytical AI more, the one that can detect breast cancer early and can figure out who is at risk for homelessness the most so that person can get the help they need.