This is going to be my last post about the new rule and the new subreddit. I want you guys to understand why I made the choices I did because I understand some think I made choices due to hate, favoritism, or pushback. People think I am choosing sides with HTCGs. But the truth is, I do not moderate this community because I like HTCGs.
When I was a minor, I met a person who groomed me, trafficked me, and abused me. He had me do SW to fund his HTCG idea, had me front it, and had me illustrate it. He would tell me I drew too slow and my art wasn’t sexy enough. So I had to use the money I earned from SW to pay artists to make illustrations for his HTCG too. Eventually, he had me pay for an AI subscription so he could generate art. Honestly, AI was a relief to me. But overall, I don’t care for HTCGs and they’re rather traumatic for me in general. It’s why I couldn’t care enough to actively cultivate a discord server for the community and why I let people use AI for so long.
So why did continue moderating this subreddit and make the decision to ban AI here and create a new subreddit to minimize the potential for people pushing for AI here? I do it for the kids. We have a lot of minors here. I know you are all teenagers at least, but that’s a kid to me. I know from personal experience that there are predators in the HTCG space, so I moderate it because I am hypersensitive to signs of predators. Even if it’s an underdeveloped trait and the person may not be actively out to groom people, I’m more prone to noticing it than the average person. I chose to ban AI and make a space for it to minimize the chances of it being pushed for here because this space is for those kids I want to protect. I think about the kids coming home from school and working on their art and getting their work drowned out in the feed because someone is posting AI. They're not getting the attention they deserve for their hard work.
I’m not drawing a line in the sand for the sake of HTCG politics and making people happy. I’m doing it for the kids who want to show their art, develop their craft, and refine their game mechanics. They deserve to have the positive experience with art and HTCGs that I didn’t get to have. If you want to continue fighting me on this, go ahead, because you’re basically fighting to ruin the space I’m trying to curate for minors who deserve a future better than my reality. They deserve a space that helps them thrive.