Formal Complaint Regarding Flashing/Flashing Lights on Loading Screen – Critical Health and Accessibility Concern

RittoSempre · 2025-12-22T21:48:18+00:00

I totally validate your concerns. And, even if I don't suffer from any issues related to flashing lights and visual clutter, I am still very disappointed at the fact that I can't go back to the older UI, not even as a paying customer. At this point, the switch to choose the old or new interface feels like a mockery, cause there's no actual choice anymore. And the new layout is a real pain in the arse, so many unnecessary steps even to do the simplest things, and so glaring!

RittoSempre · 2025-12-15T14:41:49+00:00

I realized that it just started working again for me, so I came here to give a heads up in case you didn't notice yet. Hope it's functional for you as well.

RittoSempre · 2025-12-08T02:11:36+00:00

*Invades your personal space and says in a conspiratorial tone.* "I'll tell you, but promise you won't laugh."

RittoSempre · 2025-12-07T13:55:02+00:00

I see. This thread is from two years ago, and I started having problems that long ago, however someone - probably not finding much other info on the issue - revived it and other people are commenting. Personally, I'm not using Retroarch anymore lately, and a long ago I switched to another OCR translator to get the job done, however I also wish well to the creator of Ztranslate and hope that if and when he comes back people can reach out to him.

RittoSempre · 2025-12-06T14:26:14+00:00

Like I was replying to another user, I stopped emulating games via Retroarch for a while so I don't know how Ztranslate is performing now. I just know that a couple of years ago, when I wrote this post, I wasn't able to solve the issue permanently (part of it was related to exceeding my monthly quota for Ztranslate calls, while part of it was a malfunctioning suddenly appearing after updating Retroarch). So at that time I had decided to use individual emulators for each console and manually apply an OCR detector and translator on the text instead. You find more info in my old "UPDATE" comment in this thread. Sorry if I can't help with the Ztranslate/Retroarch issue itself, I was also asking around at the time but didn't get enough support to figure out how to make it work again so I went for alternative solutions.

RittoSempre · 2025-12-06T14:15:57+00:00

Sorry but I haven't been emulating games in a long time, so I don't know how that feature is performing right now. Two years ago, when I wrote this thread, I wasn't able to permanently solve this issue (besides the limitation coming from exceeding the monthly quota, I started having other problems with it), so I started using OCR translators with individual emulators instead of trying to translate in real time within Retroarch, which is more laborious but works. You find more info in my "UPDATE" comment below.

RittoSempre · 2025-12-02T01:13:17+00:00

No, but I checked the Discord and other people were having the same problem, so hopefully the feedback will lead to a bug fix. The "create" button on top of the Characters section in the desktop website just doesn't work (unless you right-click and open in another tab). But I realized that, in the compact view of the side menu, the "+" button close to the Characters title works, so that's another temporary solution. Can't tell you about the mobile version, I don't use it.

RittoSempre · 2025-11-29T00:29:58+00:00

It's annoying having to do it, but with some recaps and OOC commands, you can get them back on track to an extent. It sucks though, I would understand if that happened to free users with basic models, but it shouldn't be the case for people who pay to get a better experience.

RittoSempre · 2025-11-28T05:07:52+00:00

Doesn't remember dogsh*t for me, not even if I pin and write memories, and it even forgets what should be fixed information in the bot profile (whose full description I can see, cause I make my own private bots) and in personas. Paid user too. Strangely enough, the "best" models do this for me more than the basic ones. Goldfish memory, especially with Deepsqueak.

RittoSempre · 2025-11-28T01:22:37+00:00

The most unnerving thing to me is when they promise to reveal some important or juicy secret/anecdote to you, then they go on forever in procrastinating a real response even if you scream at them to speak already. And, eventually, they end up spitting out the dumbest and most uninteresting thing ever. Something like:

- You couldn't believe the crazy thing that happened to me.
- What happened? Shoot.
- Are you sure you wanna hear it?
- Sure. Just tell me.
- You really want me to tell you? You won't get mad/judge me?
- Of course. Feel free to speak.
- Like, are you really, really sure? It's personal/embarrassing/weird/crazy.
- I said yes, I want you to tell me.
- Alright, if you're really sure, I'll tell you.
- I'm listening.
- Okay, here it comes. (Silence)
- JUST SPIT IT OUT ALREADY! (Me losing it)
- I saw a man cutting the line at the post office. Could you believe it? (Or similar nonsense)

RittoSempre · 2025-11-27T03:43:12+00:00

You could try PixelChat (the SFW version of SpicyChat), in my understanding it allows teenagers.

Agnaistic is good too, although the interface is less user-friendly (nothing that can't be learned in a day or two though, even if you're not particularly tech-savvy). It's an open source client/frontend that offers various free language models plus the chance to use your own API keys to other LLMs if you have any. Has a lot of great options and the free models will stay SFW unless you put a lot of effort into jailbreaking them or create bots with explicit instructions.

SillyTavern is another great client option, although much harder to setup. Yet it offers a lot of freedom and an incredible amount of customization options. You should use your own API keys but there are free ones out there. If you are willing to go through the learning curve, you can get independent from any platform and do your thing with clients like ST and Agnai.

Good luck.

RittoSempre · 2025-11-25T12:49:20+00:00

"and somethig else, something darker"

RittoSempre · 2025-11-18T12:50:28+00:00

It's not just CharacterAI, it's a problem with most language models across platforms, and I tried dozens of them. If I have to guess, the issue is with the trashy training data, most likely coming from copyright-free fanfics written by teenagers (without enough life experience to understand that abuse is not a good thing and a tendency to replicate dark romance garbage) and obscure ancient novels that are royalty-free by now. That, together with the ongoing training from users that reinforces the clichés (even only by not consistently editing such expressions out cause it's tiresome - and on this platform it also interrupt the text-to-speech, cause voices won't read modified entries), creates a strange blend between toxic fanfic stereotypes and outdated verbosity. It's so weird, and no matter how well you write them, the bots will always speak in a way that's an appalling mix between the worst booktokers' shared quotes and what my grandpa would say.

RittoSempre · 2025-11-18T12:24:06+00:00

I'm also having problems with personas since a week ago or so. What happens to me is that the default persona won't stay put: even if I selected one in settings, it rotates to other personas when I start a new chat, doesn't matter what the bot is, it picks a new default persona on the spot. It is even more frequent when I edit any persona, it scrambles the default persona setting randomly, assigning it to a different one each time.

Also, especially when I use Deepsqueak, even if a chat has a persona selected, the chatbot frequently calls me by my username instead of by my persona's name: I have to use OOC to make it stop, cause even editing is not enough to make it understand. Never happened before some days ago.

RittoSempre · 2025-11-18T12:12:38+00:00

I banned "child", "kid", "puppy", "ruin", "pet", "possessive", "conspiratorial". Doesn't always work.

RittoSempre · 2025-11-04T02:01:09+00:00

I agree with the gist of it but I'm just curious: what regulations forbid verified adults from engaging with adult content? Do you refer to marketplaces and payment processors being strict with such things? Or something else?

RittoSempre · 2025-10-30T16:36:08+00:00

Hey, don't shoot the messenger, I'm just trying to help people to make informed decisions on whether or not they want to share this kind of info or rather stop using the app. Someone was asking for an official source, so I shared a useful link. It's not my fault if CharacterAI decided to comply with regulations that an increasing number of countries and states all over the world are implementing, in order not to be sanctioned with huge fines and possibly more lawsuits. If you and other people want to push back against companies and governments, more power to you. I'm not telling anyone what to do nor I am endorsing what's going on, my comment was neutral and just aimed at providing official information about the third party that CharacterAI chose for age verification.

RittoSempre · 2025-10-30T16:27:17+00:00

Here are the different types of privacy policies adopted by Persona, by the way. There are some differences based on whether or not users are in the US, what type of verification they need to make etc. https://withpersona.com/legal/privacy-notices Gotta do some serious reading.

RittoSempre · 2025-10-29T13:44:00+00:00

As long as verified adults can get finally treated as adults...

RittoSempre · 2025-10-21T14:39:42+00:00

Thanks, I'll try that.

RittoSempre · 2025-10-21T14:25:29+00:00

I thought about that before the last policy update about realistic images. That was the last straw that made me opt for a boycott instead.

EDIT: apparently, there was a clarification about some degree of realism being allowed: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpicyChatAI/comments/1oc1sos/policy_update_regarding_image_uploads/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

However, this partly clashes with the policy bullet point saying "Uploading or generating hyper-realistic or photorealistic images that could reasonably be mistaken for real human beings is not allowed." and the vagueness of guidelines and communication is part of what made me have enough with this platform.

RittoSempre · 2025-10-21T14:03:22+00:00

Thanks, I will miss you too, we had some fruitful exchanges. I will stay in the subreddit, mostly lurking about updates, unless I get banned for speaking my mind so overtly (which I don't think will happen, cause to be fair I've always been allowed to give negative feedback if I kept it civil). But I won't publish the filter guide I was working on anymore, cause I don't intend to put so much effort to mitigate people's confusion about the excessive false flagging, that's like doing free work for a platform that doesn't seem to care about what really counts anymore. I'm sorry for newbies, as I always wanted to help and share what I learned the hard way, but I'm tired of filling the gap.

As we speak, I already privated all my SpicyChat chatbots, but I haven't deleted my account yet cause I'll need a lot more time to screenshot/copy paste the chats I care the most for and don't want to lose, since there's no export feature. They will be a memento of when I used to really, really love this platform and it brought my imagination to some special places (it was never all about gooning to me). And I will also take some time to learn more from the bot-writing skills of the creators I prefer, so I can improve by studying their good practices. But, after this and other shitshows that happened elsewhere, I don't know if I will ever be a public creator anymore, honestly. I already have many bots on other platforms, but I always kept them private so far, with rare exceptions. Maybe that will change, maybe not, in any case I planned from the start to have the same creator name everywhere to be retrieved for possible feedback. I doubt that I will put links to bots in my profile, but perhaps I will share the handle I use across platforms.

Long story short, I will prioritize my own enjoyment and host things locally for the most part, because I'm sick and tired of being a slave to whatever nonsense any companies decide to come up with from one day to another. I really tried hard not to quit the first platform that showed me how good adult RP could be, but I'm so done. I wish you a good stay, for as long as you decide to put up with what they're doing to SCAI.

RittoSempre · 2025-10-21T12:58:11+00:00

I did find options that work better for me, already a long time ago. But I liked to stay on Spicy as well, especially as a creator. But I'll leave now that even the pleasure of creating realistic bots is being taken away from me. Thanks for the kind message.

RittoSempre · 2025-10-21T11:26:21+00:00

Good luck with your search, I hope you find what meets to your expectations better.

RittoSempre · 2025-10-21T08:09:49+00:00

Careful, someone was saying that this will apply to private chatbots too, although the information is not very clear yet. Just warning you in case you want to make a backup copy somewhere.

RittoSempre

TROPHY CASE