#first post with my real new watermark!

[rurukas-arcade]

animatronica badges (10/12)

[neechees]

hello, thanks so much for doing your scam busting, is the account @/shtunning another palestine scam? i can't find the images used on google anywhere, but the lack of a gofundme makes me wary

This one is looking veeeery suspicious & is pretty much most certainly a scam for the dollowing reasons:

El-shab-hussein, a Palestinian who's been helping us with vetting real Palestinian fundraisers from scams, says that the ONLY confirmed Palestinian fundraisers who claim to be in Gaza are on this list, and that blog is not one of them

That blog already has me preemptively blocked 🤨 🚩 I've never interacted with this person in my life, and its a big red flag to have scam busters blocked

Their donation post was made YESTERDAY, and their archive is turned off 🚩we see scammers do this to hide how old their blog actually is (that it's new and suddenly asking for money) and to make it harder to investigate them

Their donation post reblogs and replies have been turned off 🚩scammers do this usually after someone has called them out on their suspicious behavior, often with proof that they're scamming, and they do it to hide the evidence and prevent anyone from seeing or reblogging this evidence against them

They're asking for donations, but do not provide a paypal or gofundme attached 🚩 scammers nowadays also often try to hide their paypal because they like to reuse one account across multiple scams, and used them enough for those accounts to be recognizable bc scam busters keep track of them. Additionally, you can tell someone's actual location by a paypal link, so scammers often are trying to hide any discrepancies in their fake story (like say, pretending to be in Europe but are actually in Canada). Laura Deramas & co have been doing this a lot, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was her

They claim that the photos they provide are of their family in Gaza, but there's literally a watermark of these photos originally being from the website Gazanow 🚩 why you would use a seperate website's photos of your family & then blur out your family's faces from the photo (even though it's already on a public website & that's where you got it?), instead of any photos that THEY themselves took, makes no sense to me, & is extremely suspicious.

They claim their "entire family" is in Gaza and that they've been working & supporting their family abroad (presumably allegedly in Europe since theyre asking for money in Euros) since 2016, and that they are 24 years old. So according to them, They've been the single sole supporter of their entire family in Gaza & moved to & have been living in Europe ALONE since the age of 16? Idk that kinda doesn't seem that plausible to me.

They've backdated their blog, and tried to use posts with thousands of notes to make it harder to find that out lol 🚩🚩🚩according to the screenshots below, they backdated their blog (& in particular, this post) to look like it reblogged a post on February 17th, 2024. But once I looked in the notes, I very quickly found it in the most recent notes that it was ACTUALLY reblogged YESTERDAY

[Image description: two vertically stacked screenshots with a blue water filter over them. The first shows a screenshots of a reblog by the user shtunning, showing a falsified reblog date of February 17th 2024. The second shows the real date within the notes of this post that they had reblogged, dated to "1 day ago", April 17th, 2024. End image description.]

And as another thing, they're claiming to be Palestinian, but using language an actual Palestinian who has lived in Palestine would never use lol, such as "revive peace between us". There was no "peace" in Gaza before this, Gaza is an open air prison under a settler colonial occupation and has been bombed regularly for decades?

So yeah this is definitely a scammer lol

[artfightdramaconfessions]

I'm really grateful for how artfight reminds me that I'm actually a pretty good artist despite barely having 700 followers on my main art social media which I've been posting on for eight years (I've been drawing properly for 11 years) and getting 0 traction, no comments, 5-20 likes on a post if I'm lucky. A quarter of my following is just my sibling's following because they're a professional. If I put an ounce of care into my social media responses, I'd probably end up quitting art. But I do it for me, and by jove I do it for Artfight. Every July, I draw like a feral creature. The rest of the year I make about half of what I make for artfight.. total.

On Artfight my ratio is always greater than 50%, and I've commented on EVERY drawing I've ever received (except two who ignored my permissions). Plus, I've made friends... who I DON'T feel obligated to draw for and they don't feel obligated to draw for me.

I actually fucking love artfight and I'm proud of how far I've come with it. I LOVE looking back on my shitty attacks from the year that I first started learning digital art. I LOVE comparing them to the attacks that I'm GLOWING PROUD of now - attacks that for once in my life I actually care to watermark. I've been on artfight for MANY years now. I have over 1000 followers, over 100 profile comments, just under 250 defenses and what makes me feel really good is that I have almost 280 attacks. i.e, more attacks than defenses, despite my art and my profile being fairly popular (on artfight) and my hitlists getting over 250 responses this year and 150 last year. I'm putting numbers to give actual benchmarks for where I'm sitting now, after 8 damn years of fighting for this.

Trust me, first years. I had the most toxic, bittersweet, love-hate relationship with artfight for my first three years. It was not fucking easy. I barely got attacked. Half my drawings never got commented on, my ratio was always over 80%, buffered by friends from my high school and some chads from Wattpad (back in the days). I hated getting to the end of a week of artfight and dwelling on how "I drew all this" and "no one wants to draw my characters" and "my art sucks" and "no one attacks me first".

It's hard, it can be disappointing, but it gets so much better and really becomes properly rewarding over time if you just put yourself out there and do it all for YOU and YOURSELF. Draw like crazy. Improve like crazy. Learn new things. Interact. Go crazy bananas and make the most of it, even when it feels like you're not being seen. Advertise yourself on the discord in MAY next year, when the real G's are hanging around and the server is still quiet enough that you aren't posted over all the time. Join hitlists, make hitlists and add a compulsory "which character of mine do you like" question to make people actually look at your page and see how much much they like you/your ocs/your art.

Artfight is pretty awesome. It's hard not to get bogged down by high ratios, but trust me... it gets better. You just gotta do it for you. :) <3 If you're struggling to get defenses, remember you aren't alone and that if you keep fighting... one day in another fight in another year you're going to struggle to keep up with revenges and you're going to anguish over your ratio dropping. I hope you get some art that makes you cry happy tears this year <3

.

[vilevampirez]

long list of funny things abt my experience doing emote commissions for mike

first of all I wasn't expecting to get commissioned at all (my commissions weren't even open, I just made an exception for mike) let alone by MIKETHELINK of all fucking people, so I had nothing prepared. I had no portfolio, commission sheet, nothing. I had never made any twitch emotes, so I had no examples to show either. meaning that when barbmine showed up in my dms asking if I took emote commissions, first I lost my fucking shit, then I panicked and rushed to find the most recent emote-like illustrations I had, including animation, and the most recent animation I had on hand happened to be a viewtiful joe one lmao. the animation in question 👇

(the usernames on the watermark aren't even accurate anymore..)

I have some experience taking commissions but they'd always been for friends of mine, this was my first time getting commissioned by a real "client" and the client was fucking mikethelink tazercraft of all fucking people . I know he "found" me through Mine, she sent me a dm first asking for commission info, saying she would show it to mike later. the thing is that when she said that she also implied that she was in touch with other artists too, so I was like "oh ok I'll send my stuff but I probably won't get chosen lol" and then a few hours later I got two twitter notifs, one saying that mr. thelink tazercraft was now following me and another was his DM. to say I almost had a heart attack would be an understatement

later I found out Mine had made a tweet asking for artists to reach out/people to rec artists for mike's twitch emotes. that post had around 40 comments. many people had been recommended more than once. I wasn't mentioned by anyone once, and in fact, I had no fucking idea that post even EXISTED until way after the fact. I have no idea how I ended up getting this job

mike happened to contact me on a day where I was severely sleep deprived. our entire business conversation took place while I was half-panicking, half-almost-passing-out. I don't know how I survived

at many points during our conversation I gave a lot of leeway for mike to give up on commissioning me, implying multiple times that he would be better off commissioning a different artist. and it's not because I lacked confidence (though a bit of that too, of course), but because of my lack of experience. I was very open about that to him, so many times I expected him to second guess his decision to commission me. unexpectedly, he was really insistent. I think partially he didn't want to go through the trouble of finding and contacting a different artist, but also I guess he just liked my art that much (??!?)

I definitely undercharged him lol. it's not that I don't value my work, it's just that I was absolutely not prepared for any of this shit to happen and didn't have enough time to think

I use adobe after effects for animating mike's emotes. I already knew how to animate (though I had never animated anything big), but I had never used after effects before. I even told mike this before accepting the commission, but he just said it was easy and I could totally do it, and I was just like "fucking hell. fine". and look, I know my limits, I knew I'd be able to learn after effects with relative ease. if I thought it'be too much for me to handle, I wouldn't have accepted the commission. it just that to this day I'm still shocked that mike commissioned an artist who HAD NEVER USED THE TOOL NECESSARY FOR THE COMMISSION HE WANTED.

due to the point above I was pretty apprehensive about animating the emotes, but now I'm glad I got this opportunity bc it reignited my passion for animation that had been dwindling for a long time and I've been learning a lot while working. also with every new emote I figure out how to use a different feature of after effects and it makes the job a little bit easier

before giving my payment information I came out to him to avoid confusion with my legal name being different from the name on my socials. he was very chill about it and always used the right name and pronouns for me whenever he mentions me on stream

fun fact: I was reached out to by another big (brazilian, not in qsmp) youtuber for a commission but I had to refuse because I had too much on my plate already (still do..)

my favorite emotes are the devil one and the nerd one

I made his twitch avatar and banner too! I'm really proud of the avatar. the banner was absolute hell

I'm a lurker (and nowadays a vod watcher since I've been busy w/ uni work) but I do watch every single one of mike's streams, so just know that I'm always seeing you guys use the emotes :3

[judesmoonbeauty]

Update

Hiiii, it's been a a couple months since I've updated about translations.

First, a thanks to everyone for their support of my blog and content! I really enjoy being here and engaging with you all. ♥️

Next, sorry for spamming my blog with random thoughts and about Jude, but please be prepared for more to come.

Now on to the real blog updates. It’s a lot, but please bear with me:

˚☽˚.⋆ As you may know, I've returned to using full-sized screen shots in my translations because there seems to be no further issues, yay! However, CGs will still be watermarked.

˚☽˚.⋆ Originally, I wanted to get back into Prince translations, but this isn’t happening anytime soon. I do have one expo story I may work on, but it’s not a priority right now.

˚☽˚.⋆ All available bond levels on JP server for Jude are still capped for me, but whenever CYBIRD releases new levels, I will start translating those. In the meantime, I’ll continue to translate Nica’s levels that are available as I progress with him.

˚☽˚.⋆ I’m planning to translate all upcoming Jude events in addition to his main story. It obviously will take time, but I will do it....somehow. I do have a plan for now. If others translate his route and/or events as well, that's cool with me, but I’m still planning to translate them also.

˚☽˚.⋆ On my main page I have a Translations WIPs master list. I update this on a regular basis (date included), so if you want to know what I am currently working on then please check it out. This link has been added to Jude’s Main Story Master List.

˚☽˚.⋆ I will be adding a link to his master list for a main story highlights post. This will feature key points of each chapter, his side stories, premiums, epilogues and letters. This will be very pared down, so don't expect full summaries because that's not what this is; but I do hope it will provide a basic understanding of what happens in his route, so that his BD event translation will make sense.

˚☽˚.⋆ Not that any of you have done this, but I kindly ask that you please be patient and not send me asks or DMs about the next update. I know we are excited, and we've had to wait well over a year for him, but Jude is not easy to translate and he takes time. There's literally been times that I've gotten a headache over his lines.

That’s all for now. Sorry, this is a bit more lengthy than my usual updates, but it’s been a while. Thanks again for your support and I hope you're all doing well!

(⸝⸝> ᴗ•⸝⸝) -Cici

[sirfrogsworth]

My First "Viral" Post

Like, 20 people told me to submit my Brady Bunch GIFset to @world-heritage-posts and hundreds more tagged it #worldheritagepost.

So I was like, "OKAY OKAY, I'll submit it!"

And they never posted it.

Which is completely fine!

WHP, it's cool. We're cool. I don't need World Heritage Post reblogs.

I have reblogs at home.

(my reblogs at home)

I am definitely *NOT* going to do the "DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM???" thing.

I only do cool and funny "Don't you know who I am?" interactions like Tony Hawk.

But when I submitted the post it reminded me of an even earlier time on Tumblr when there were only a few people who could make a post go viral.

The main one was called @thedailywhat. If something got posted there, it could get HUNDREDS of notes.

HUNDREDS!!!!

Oh, that's another funny thing. Several people commented "Why does this only have 20K notes!!???"

There are currently 135 million active users on Tumblr and the site got roughly 2.4 billion visits in 2023.

In all of 2010 the entire site got 50 million visitors. Not users. Just people who went to a Tumblr address during that entire year.

In any case, if you thought you created something cool and you wanted more than 10 people to see it, you had to submit your cool thing to The Daily What. It was the first Tumblr to reach 100,000 followers which was more than the actual founder of Tumblr had at the time.

It was run by a single person but he was very private and never revealed his name.

His emails were very cryptic.

I'm pretty sure he sold the site and went to live on a beach or something. But whoever bought it did not understand how to run the blog and the final post was in 2013.

I'm not surprised the new owner crashed and burned. Johnny Internets was irreplaceable. He really understood what would connect with people. Nearly everything he posted would gain decent popularity. I'm not sure people realize how much of a skill curating content can be and how hard it is to post popular things with consistency.

He would reject a lot of content outright and was very picky about what went on his Tumblr. But when he actually posted something you made, it was almost guaranteed to go viral.

Well, viral relative to the time period.

I suspect I submitted nearly a hundred things before he finally agreed to reblog me. And I still remember the first thing I submitted that he liked.

I posted this in 2010. How many notes do you think it got?

Probably a million, right?

No less than 100K.

I mean, look at how cute that panda is!

SONOFABITCH!

Back then, that was enough.

But that was just me putting words on something. My ultimate goal was to get him to post one of my original photoshops.

And do you see how he gave proper attribution? That meant a lot during a time when other curators were cropping my watermarks and claiming things as their own.

A real mensch, this Mysterious Stranger was.

These two posts got me enough traction to grow my following and before I knew it, I was The Daily What for other people. I was able to help other artists and content creators get traction and grow their following.

It was a beautiful Tumblr version of paying it forward. Only not as awkward as those weirdos who do it in drive-thru lines.

I ONLY GOT A SODA AND NOW I GOTTA PAY FOR 40 MCNUGGETS?

It's fine.

Enjoy your nugs.

[frogletscribe]

Can you draw more Anthe? I love their design.

Hi! Thank you so much, I love Anthe that means so much to me that other people like them too! i do actually have a couple of drawings of Anthe i never got around to posting on Tumblr that I can share

The first one is the drawing Ref I made for them for ArtFight (and also just for myself) I honestly might add a bunch of outfits to it bc they keeps getting new outfits lol (@pollie-wog is my main art account, hence the watermark)

The second one is a cleaned up comic-style sketch i did a while back from the first chapter of Until It Doesn't Hurt! (ignore that i didn't really draw their riffle lmao i got lazy). Theres a few scenes that live in my head as like little comics over just fic stuff that im tempted to actually tackle, alas life is busyyyy

I did actually reread all of Until It Doesnt Hurt again just to like revisit Anthe and kinda got hyped to work on it again? I love and miss my ocs lmao gotta give them attention again. Don't hold me to that tho, I do have a real life job and such that takes priority and tends to burn me out creatively, but once ArtFight is over ,,, maybe 👀 (Also entirely possible i re-write the whole thing tho)

[sing-it-togetherzine]

F.A.Q*

I never participated in a zine before, what exactly are you expecting a “finished piece” to look like?

For artists, it depends on the artist and their style. For some it may mean fully rendered figures and backgrounds. For others it may mean a simpler background and colors. Everyone is going to have a different definition of “finished”. You want it to be presentable and nice to look at, not something you threw together without much thought. Try to think of what movie posters might look like, or phone/desktop wallpapers.

For authors, your story should have been edited at least once for spelling and grammar errors. Your story should be self-contained, a.k.a. a one-shot, with a beginning, middle, and resolution. There will be beta-readers available in a specific channel on discord, so if you need help and don’t want to ask anyone directly, you could always shoot a message there and someone will know to help.

Overall, it doesn’t hurt to apply! If you’re not sure what your “best example” work is, you can include a link to your blog/online portfolio (wherever you post art) and we’ll take a look.

Relationships aren’t always happy, can my piece be something besides fluff?

Within the limits of the PG rating, your piece can be happy/fluff, hurt-comfort, or angsty. Things that are generally not allowed for PG ratings include heavy violence/gore, heavy adult language, and explicit bedroom themes. Do you want to make us cry for Grandma Rosiepuff all over again? Bring it on.

What if I want to change my idea partway through the creation period?

If you get partway through your piece and decide on changing it to something totally new, please notify the mods first. Given that there are 3 months to work on your piece this will likely be allowed but you will have less time to finish it. To avoid this, we recommend really thinking over your idea early on, and if problems do arise you can use the #wip-feedback channel to get help.

Can I change from writing to art or art to writing after the creation period started?

Unfortunately, once you are accepted as either an author or artist, you are locked into that position. If you are someone who likes to make both art and fanfic, please take your time in deciding what you would like to focus on for the zine and apply at a later date. Applications are open until August 31st.

When I submit my art piece, how can I make sure quality stays the same?

To start, it helps to format your canvas to 2400px by 2400px or 8in by 8in and 300dpi. This will be the final size and resolution of each page of the zine. If you start with a smaller canvas and lower resolution the image will be blown up/stretched to the correct size and will likely loose clarity. When finished and ready to submit final files, you can simply save to Google Drive and share the link with the appropriate mod.

Can I sign/watermark my art before I submit?

Yes, you are welcome to sign your artwork anyway you normally do (if you do). However all creators will be listed on a credits page with their name and page(s) of their work, so you don’t have to worry about unsigned artwork not being credited. If you do decide to sign your artwork, we simply ask that you do so in a way that doesn’t interfere with the overall presentation. For example, a signature that is too big, a signature that blocks an excessive amount of details, or a watermark pattern that makes the image difficult to understand.

Do I have to use my real name for the credits page? What if I just want to use my online handle?

We will never ask for sensitive information, and that may mean the real or full name for some people. All we ask is some way to credit you. This can be your first name only, a nickname, or an online handle from any of your accounts (i.e. Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter/X, etc.). We will also include the primary account name/address for any creator who wishes to include one. For example, a piece could be credited like: Jane Doe, Jane, JD, Jbug, jbug @ tumblr, or any other combination. This goes the same for fanfic authors, although you will also be credited under the title of your fic.

Are alternate universe settings (AUs) allowed?

Alternate universes are absolutely allowed! However we do ask our creators to be mindful of how much the average viewer may know about them and work accordingly. For example, an au that needs a lot of explanation and previous knowledge may be a bit confusing, but more simple or self-explanatory aus (like human-aus or role-swap aus) should be fine.

Are original characters (OCs) allowed?

We ask that creators focus on canon characters in their piece, but ocs are allowed to be included. OCs are welcome as side characters, as in a fanfic, or in backgrounds of artworks for example. This is to avoid confusion for anyone who may view the zine but isn’t familiar with the multitude of fan-created characters.

*This list will be updated as necessary

[medfetabdl]

Attention all medfet content creators!

This is how you protect yourself and your content on tumblr and other social media platforms

Okay so I don’t consider myself a medfet content creator because I never post any pictures of myself but I am a content creator, I post pictures and videos about my hobbies on YouTube and instagram, I just don’t tell anyone here because I keep my fetish life separate from my regular life. So I do understand the struggles content creators go through. I also consider myself to be pretty good about my cybersecurity. So I want to give the other content creators on here some tips on cybersecurity and how to protect yourself and your content.

We’ve lost a lot of people here on tumblr because of supposed stolen content. Unfortunately there’s not much you can do to protect your content on tumblr, it’s a free website that is open to the entire internet and anyone can download images and videos from tumblr with ease. The only way you can protect your content on tumblr is to put watermarks on it. The watermark should have your username and should say for tumblr only.

-If there’s content you really don’t want to get out onto the open internet, tumblr is not the place to be posting it. Safer options are onlyfans, private Instagram accounts, and fetlife. These 3 sites have no direct way of being able to download content except of course screenshots and screen recordings. Onlyfans does actually protect against screenshots and screen recordings to a certain degree, and you can have an account that is free to subscribe to. Because of that you should also be using watermarks on these sites. Unfortunately there’s no way to stop a determined person from downloading your content without permission. I won’t explain how, to prevent others from doing it, but I can download anything I want from any of those sites with just my web browser and no other tools or software. Fortunately you have to be extremely tech savvy to accomplish that. Point is that your content isn’t really safe from being downloaded and posted other places no matter where you post it unless it’s behind a paywall and even paywalls aren’t safe from screenshots. The good news is onlyfans is working on DRM (Digital rights management) in web browsers to prevent screenshots from being used to save content. Unfortunately all DRM methods aren’t enough to stop tech savvy people with enough determination from getting images, but fortunately getting videos is much more complex, but not impossible either.

-I always recommend that if you share content via Google drive, you should setup a brand new email and Google account using your username on the sites you post content to. This is for security reasons, we all know that people are crazy and will dox you and blackmail you if they get ahold of any info they can about you. Always keep your personal account separate from this account as any little traces could lead to someone finding your real identity.

-Never have your real name, first or last attached to any of your accounts in any way

-Don’t use the same password for all your accounts. I know a bunch of different passwords is hard to remember so use a password manager, Google and Apple both have them available for free

-Have 2 factor authentication active on all your accounts. I know this is also annoying but it’s the best way to protect your account if someone happens to get ahold of your password.

-Refrain from showing your face in videos and photos. There’s many ways to deal with this; Only have your body in frame, blur or black out your head in editing software, wear a mask, put something in front of your head, etc… The reason you should hide your face is because it’s almost impossible for anyone to figure out who you are without it.

-Refrain from clicking links that come into your DMs, only ever click them if you trust the person who sent it. There are apps and websites that people can use to get your public IP address just from you clicking on that link. They can then use that IP address to locate the general area of where you are so it’s best to not take any chances. VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) can prevent this because they can connect you to servers in other parts of the world and then your public IP address is from that area even though you’re not in that area. If you’re paranoid about people finding out who you are or tracking you, use a VPN whenever you are on any social media sites.

-If you buy any used medical equipment and use it in your content, remove any asset tags because those could provide information to viewers on where you are from.

-Female and LGBTQ+ content creators should take their cybersecurity a bit more seriously than male content creators as you’re at more risk of being blackmailed, doxed, or stalked.

-If you get any emails or messages from Google or the sites you post your content to saying someone tried to sign into your account and it wasn’t you, immediately change all your passwords.

-don’t trust anyone to have your real name or address. The only exception I ever make for this is if you’ve talked to this person face to face over a video call or in person.

-If you’re a bit larger of a content creator and you want to accept donations by mail, get a P.O. box at your local post office they are sometimes free or they might require a small monthly fee. This prevents you from having to put your real address out for people to send you stuff.

-Payments are always better done through a content website such as onlyfans, just for fans, fansly, gumroad, clips4sale, manyvids, etc… This ensures that you receive payment and the customer receives the content immediately. These websites usually take a cut from the payment but if you factor it into the price of the content it’s definitely worth it as it leads to less instances of you getting scammed and more instances of you and the customer feeling satisfied.

-If you find your content somewhere where you didn’t upload it, first contact the person who uploaded it letting them know exactly what site the content is on, and describe the video that was posted. Then ask them nicely to remove it. Directly going in and saying that the content was stolen and not providing much context just leads to confusion, sometimes the uploader may have been sent the video and has no idea where or who it originally came from. If after you politely explained the situation and you asked them to remove it, then you can threaten to request to have it removed. And if they still don’t remove it then you should contact the site it is on, explain that it’s your copyrighted content and ask to have it removed, they will usually get back to you and remove the content.

-Be mindful of the power you have as a content creator. Try to only post about people you don’t like if it’s about an issue that affects everyone such as pedophilia, or someone who you legitimately made you feel in danger. Unfortunately there are way too many men on here that can’t keep it in their pants. Sometimes they are legitimately creepy and sometimes it’s just a language barrier and they just don’t know how to say anything nicely or politely in the language you speak.

-If you have trouble getting someone to remove your content and it’s watermarked, it might be better just to leave it up. It’s basically free advertising. Often I find myself looking at content and if I really like it and it’s watermarked I’ll go to try to find that person on other platforms.

-Never connect your contacts to any of your social media, this almost certainly guarantees that the people in your contacts will be able to find you, which will at best lead to a very awkward conversation. If you want to be extra careful and there’s people you are worried about finding your account you should block them immediately.

-Keep records of all transactions that you’ve done for people purchasing content. This will help you later down the road if someone claims they didn’t get their content or in other situations.

-If you make more than about $1500US a year from content sales, make sure you report it to the IRS or your countries equivalent tax agency. Large purchases they see will get you into trouble. They won’t judge you for reporting it so do it. You will be embarrassed if you get audited and you have to explain to them where you got the income you didn’t report.

-Keep a local backup of all your content. Local does not mean in the cloud, you should have it on a physical device. External hard drives for your computer are a good option because they are relatively cheap and are pretty reliable. If you want to keep your content in cloud storage that’s also a good idea just make sure you have it on physical hardware as well. Losing data kills content creators businesses so having a backup of your data will save you hours of headache.

-Onlyfans, Fansly, and LoyalFans advice: If you really want to attract an audience who will continue to pay for your subscription profile on OF, LoyalFans, or Fansly make sure you chose to either charge the monthly fee and then have all content available, or don’t charge the monthly fee and you have to pay for each piece of content. You will have a lot of trouble keeping subscribers if you charge the monthly fee and you charge an additional fee to unlock each post. Statistically you will gain the most followers and keep them by only charging the monthly subscription fee and keeping it as low and consistent as possible. The more you charge for it the less people who will have the money to continue to pay for it every month. I’ve followed people on Patreon for years who have their monthly subscription at $1 because it was very easy for me to afford, where as if there’s an onlyfans account I want to follow but the subscription is above $5 I only subscribe for a month because I don’t have the money to pay that every month. One of the people I paid $1 a month for on patreon was at one point the largest creator on patreon because he specifically had the $1 subscription fee and he advertised that it was only a dollar on YouTube. At his peak he was making over $300k a year from patreon $1 subscriptions alone. Make sure that you have a few pinned posts on your page that are available for people who aren’t subscribed to see so that they know what type of content you post. There is nothing that makes subscribers more angry than seeing what type of content you post on other social media and then paying for your subscription service and then there being content that’s nothing like all the other content you’ve posted on other forms of social media. Having a taste of what you post also can be the deciding factor of whether someone will buy your subscription.

Sorry this was such a long post. Please share this with your favorite content creators as I think it will really help them out.

[rinumia-blog]

THROWBACK SUNDAY

18/8/24 The Olympics have come and gone. The highlight of the summer, there was enormous amount of space and connection in both opening ceremonies torch and closing ceremonies medals.

Last year Google posted a video reel of hits based on most frequent searches on its X page. various moments ranging from sports to pop music to protests and peace-advocates made the cut.

Today in sifting through the grain of consumer-apps, we rely on the unobtrusive Play Store. Google understood the mass appeal of social media and mobile support early on, and figured out service models like *GoogleTalk, *Google+ and *V8, all native to Android TM.

● KEEPING DATA TO OURSELVES?

With expansion of machine learning services ( including TENSOR processing unit upgrade and COLAB integration ) there will be unprecedented interest in protecting data from "scrapers".

This interest is in opposition to one of the founding principles of Google, to take the world's knowledge and make it universally accessible. Libraries are taking down books in response to complaints, and even Archive.COM reports losing its legal claim to 500,000 published works, all because the publishers vowed to 'secure' those titles.

● MIDDLECLASS TAX DOLLARS VS MULTIMODAL AGENTS

For better or worse this panic: over A.I. getting in touch with source data, and training on looks, poems, or speech style IS REAL. Pretty much every 12 weeks new models are rolled out and leaderboards construct new tests / build better red teams.

Google, being a W3C leader: is heading the efforts to 'fix the environment' by requiring guardrails in the form of digital watermarks . Second, encouraging banning of bad actors, angry scrapers going behind people's backs just to gain access into their private data. Apple is also motivated to redeem their brand from security flaws either through monitoring or misinformation prone apps.

We grew up with an /Internet which might have been slow, but for the most part there was a reliability in security /protocols and /antiviruses. However, our children will have to cope with a deluge of generated ads, artificial scripts and comments.

[cxsmiicc]

a friend of mine the other day said that he didn't see editing as a real hobby because it had no deeper meaning. everything im about to say in this post i said to his face on this day. now this dude is like. classic snobby english student. turns his nose up at any book that isn't written in such a way that it takes a week to read. genuinely enjoys poetry and is forever trying to get me to like it too (i violently hate poetry, just not my thing no hate if u like it). we somehow got onto the topic of hobbies and i was talking about how i had a fair few, and i started listing some off of the top of my head. the few i mentioned were editing, writing, reading and crocheting. he offhandedly says that he doesn't think editing is a real hobby because it has no deeper meaning and the look i gave to this boy could have levelled cities. first and foremost, editors. work. fucking. hard. it is not easy to find clips, find audios, and put them all together to make something cohesive. shit takes hours every time. i have cried over edits countless times. i've seen people cry over my edits before and it feels amazing (sounds odd i know but you get it). my next point, a hobby BY DEFINITION is something you do for fun. to relax. to enjoy yourself. not in pursuit of some deep life lesson. hobbies are hobbies because they are something you do for enjoyment, in pursuit of some peace of fucking mind. my edits lately?? mostly lanfear, with a hot audio, and minimal transitions. and what do they mean? that i think she's hot. i still made it. that edit didn't spring fully formed from the void. time and effort went into it. editing is a real hobby, a real career if you're good enough, and an edit can have as deep a meaning as any novel or any song, or be as shallow as a fucking teaspoon. and someone still made it. someone still found the song, marked the beats, cut the clips, added their effects and transitions and colouring and watermark. just as a book can be self indulgent, so can an edit. obviously the two are different, and people can and will argue themselves blue about which is better, film or literature, the old versus the new. but for fucks sake don't be like him. he knows exactly how much time i spend on my edits, how much i agonise over the smallest details. it hurt when he said that so casually. he just threw a year of my life away, saying it doesn't qualify as a pastime because it doesn't teach me anything. okay. can he use after effects with the skill that i can? no. he didn't even know what an mp4 was until i explained this morning. having practical skills can only be an advantage. plus ofc doing anything for a long period of time will teach you these deep philosophical lessons he's oh so fond of. i met my favourite person in the world through editing. she's the reason i started my current editing account. ly babe if ur reading this. posting edits and being an active part of a niche fandom is also incredible for getting better at interacting with people. both the comments on my posts and the comments i leave on other peoples edits are so so supportive and sweet, and yeah. im losing steam with this post so imma leave it here bcs its 2:30am and i am most definitely rambling.

sorry for a long post but this is important to me and every other editor who has had people laugh when they mention what they do for fun

[quantumvaudeville]

It's been an age and a half since I updated my commission info, so here's the new prices and info for the new year!! More information and a transcription of the prices listed are under the cut.

Prices: Bust Sketch: $20 Waist-up Sketch: $25 Full-Body Sketch: $30

Bust Color: $40 Waist-up Color: $45 Full-Body Color: $50

Reference Sheet: $125 (Includes two figures and one detail shot OR three figures)

Additional Charges: Complex character designs, difficult poses, or major revisions: $5+ Simple backgrounds, complex props, or intricate patterns: $10+ Additional characters: Same as base price

I'm generally willing to draw

Humans, including portraits of real people

Animals

Furries/Anthros

Non-sexual nudity

Clothed pin-ups

Mild injury and blood

I'm generally NOT willing to draw:

Real people in sexual or romantic contexts unless I have the explicit consent of the involved parties

Cars/Mechs

Explicit sexual content

Gore/Dismemberment

Please note that there are exceptions to both of the above categories. If you are unsure of where you stand, please feel free to email me and we can discuss the specifics, though I reserve the right to reject any commission for any reason. Thank you for your understanding.

How to Reach Out/What to Expect: If you're interested in a commission, please email me at ApplesToAtoms@gmail.com, outlining the details of what you want. I'll look it over and quote you a price, which may be slightly higher than those listed above depending on how difficult or complex your request is. When you confirm that you're happy with my offer, I'll send you an invoice.

Once payment is received, I'll do my best to send you the first preliminary sketch within 3 business days, via email. After that, I'll try to send further updates within 4 business days of receiving feedback on the previous stage. If it looks like I won't be able to meet these deadlines, I'll let you know. Generally speaking I try to finish commissions within 30 days of receiving payment, but that's not always feasible depending on how many revision passes are required and how quick the commissioner is at responding.

By default I retain the right to post the finished commission, albeit resized and watermarked, to my social media, though I will credit you as the commissioner. You may opt out of this, and I will prompt you to either do so or give a means by which to credit you when the commission is completed.

Revision Policy: After we’ve decided on a price, I generally like to send over one very rough sketch to confirm that I’m on the right track with pose/composition/expression and so on, at which point extensive revisions can be made at no penalty to you. I’ll keep sending progress sketches after this, but at this point any revisions that require me to redraw more than half the piece will cost an extra $5, so make sure we’re on the same page before then.

Payment Policy: I only accept payment through PayPal - however, do not send me money directly. After we have discussed the details of your commission I will send you an invoice. Payment of half the cost of your commission is due up front, with the rest to be paid upon receiving the finished piece. If something prevents me from completing your commission or you change your mind before I've sent any sketches, I'll refund all but $5 of your payment.

You MAY:

Repost your commissioned piece to your social media or use it as an icon, as long as I'm credited as the artist in the post or somewhere on your profile.

Color sketches or pay other artists to color sketches you've commissioned from me, as long as I'm credited as having done the sketch.

You MAY NOT:

Use my art to train AI art generators

Use my art as an NFT (Non-Fungible Token)

Resell my art in any form, including as prints or other merchandise, unless you've discussed it with me prior to paying.

Pay in any form of cryptocurrency

[verdart]

hi i just wanna clear up that i never copied your art idk how i can prove it but i swear i just used the reference pic from pinterest i reblogged with,, i assume its the same one you used hence the same poses and the placement of james and sirius is just coincidence!! im really new to the marauders fandom and havent seen much art or had chance to follow artists in the fandom or anything yet i just wanted to have a go at drawing them and ik how annoying it is to have ppl copy your art and i wouldnt wish it upon anyone i swear i didnt copy your art

Honestly i made it like in 2021 may so idek what ref i used lol. No worries bro your art is so cool btw like your style and all. Im sorry it got a bit rude I've just been seeing my art coppied and traced and posted with no credit (especially that dtiy cuz it has no watermark ;-;) all over the place so i got on the edge real fast. Sorry for all that ;-;

Edit: also welcome to the fandom been here since 2017 (first as a consumer then creator om ig mostly) and its always fun to see new artists and writers bringing in their stuff.

[finlaure13]

As It Happens

Why those AI-generated portraits all over social media have artists on edge

Apps like Lensa are powered by AI trained on images by real artists — without their permission

Sheena Goodyear - CBC Radio

Posted: December 08, 2022

AI art

From left to right: A Greg Rutkowski-style image generarted by the Stable Diffusion AI, a portrait of YouTuber Casey Owen Neistat generated by the Lensa app, and a generic avatar from Lensa. (Stable Diffusion/Lexica, Lensa/Twitter)

Greg Rutkowski makes his living creating detailed fantasy art depicting epic scenes of swords and sorcery.

He labours for hours on his freelance illustrations for major gaming titles like Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering and Horizon: Forbidden West.

But an art generator powered by artificial intelligence can churn out a decent reproduction of his style in mere seconds.

"I was terrified that it was being made so quickly, and with really better results over time," Rutkowski told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

Rutkowski, who is based in Piensk, Poland, is one of many artists speaking out about the dangers of AI-generated art as the technology becomes more precise, accessible and popular.

These AIs are often trained on datasets, or collections, of millions of images scraped from the internet, including ones that are copyrighted or watermarked. But the artists who created them never consented for their work to be used — and they don't get a cut of the profit.

"We could say that, ethically, it's stealing," Rutkowski said.

The problem with those pretty avatars

Rutkowski's name is one of the most popular prompts on the AI art generator Stable Diffusion, which launched in August, according to Technology Review.

Stable Diffusion works like this: You type in a phrase or list of keywords describing the type of image you'd like to see, and then the AI generates an image that fits the description.

For example, you could write: "Powerful wizard battles fire-breathing dragon Greg Rutkowski" and get an illustration that, at first glance, looks like something Rutkowski drew himself.

According to the website Lexica, which tracks Stable Diffusion images and prompts, Rutkowski's name has been used as a prompt more than 93,000 times. Some of the generated images even have his signature, he said.

"I was really confused for people that were searching or exploring art and then came across images that weren't mine, but were signed by my name," he said.

Greg Rutkowski art

This is one of Greg Rutkowski's actual illustrations. He is known for his unique style of epic fantasy artwork. (Greg Rutkowski)

Enter Lensa, the app that's been taking over Facebook and Instagram feeds in recent weeks.

This photo-editing app has been on the market for some time, but has recently seen a surge in popularity when it launched a new feature powered by Stable Diffusion.

A user can upload a handful of selfies, and Lensa will generate a series of avatars in different artistic styles. For $7.99 US, you can get 50 unique portraits.

Karla Ortiz, a San Francisco-based concept artist, says people using apps like Lensa need to understand that the avatars they're getting are the product of real labour by millions of uncompensated artists.

"I think they need to understand that those images look really good because artists' work was stolen to make it good," she said.

Karla Ortiz and Greg Rutkowski

Artists Karla Ortiz and Greg Rutkowski both say their work has been used in datasets to train artificial intelligence to generate art. (Submitted by Karla Ortiz, Submitted by Greg Rutkowski)

Ortiz first noticed her work showing up in AI datasets months ago on smaller, niche software. But she says it really exploded with the launch of Stable Diffusion.

"I found a lot of my work there. Almost every artist I know who's a peer, who's a professional, who's been working for a while, whose work is recognizable, was in those datasets," she said.

"Furthermore, I started seeing that people were using our full names to generate imagery."

She says none of the companies that have used her work to train their AI models have contacted for permission. But even if she could somehow force them to extract her work from their datasets, it wouldn't really matter.

"The way that machine learning, you know, works, you can't even take it out. You can't unlearn your work once it's trained," she said.

AI dragon

This AI-generated image of a dragon uses artist Greg Rutkowski's name as a prompt. (Stable Diffusion/Lexica)

Neither Stability AI, the company that created Stable Diffusion, nor Prisma Labs, the company behind Lensa, responded to a request for comment from CBC.

Prisma Labs defended its AI art on Twitter, stating that AI-generated images "can't be described as exact replicas of any particular artwork."

"As cinema didn't kill theatre and accounting software hasn't eradicated the profession, AI won't replace artists but can become a great assisting tool," Prisma tweeted.

"We also believe that the growing accessibility of AI-powered tools would only make man-made art in its creative excellence more valued and appreciated, since any industrialization brings more value to handcrafted works."

Prisma Labs tweet

Prisma Labs, makers of Lensa, says AI will never replace human artists. (@PrismaAI/Twitter)

Is it legal?

Rutkowski and Ortiz are still considering what steps to take next. But whether they have any legal resources remains unclear.

Ken Clark, an intellectual property lawyer with Toronto-based law firm Aird and Berlis, says copyright infringement is a deeply complex subject, and the laws around it were crafted long before the proliferation of AI.

"You have to ask yourself: Who's doing the creating? Is it the person who is smart enough to create the computer software to go and analyze things … or is it the artist who you're taking these ideas from, right, in such a way that you've substantially reproduced their work?" he said.

But one thing is clear, he said. You can't copyright a "style" of work, only a piece of work itself.

Omens

Omens is an artwork by San Francisco's Karla Ortiz. (Karla Ortiz)

Daniel Anthony, a trademark and copyright lawyer with Toronto-based Smart & Biggar LLP, agrees.

"We can replace AI with a human as a thought exercise. If a human reviewed many photos and learned a style of an artist and then produced their own work from scratch in that style, it is not an infringement," he said in an email.

"Indeed, copyright is intended to inspire other creators, provided they make their own versions. Therefore, at its core, what these artist AI software does is likely not infringing."

But that doesn't mean an individual artist couldn't make a case against these companies.

"If the AI-produced work is 'changed enough' from any original source input, it will be very hard for the artist to claim infringement. However, if the AI work is substantially similar to any artists' prior work (such that it appears to be copied), then infringement may be present and legal remedies would likely be available," Anthony said.

Legal or not, it's ethically dubious, says Karina Vold, a University of Toronto associate professor who specializes in the philosophy of science and technology.

"At a minimum, companies should seek informed consent for the data that they use to train their machine learning algorithms," Vold said in an email.

"When it comes to works of art, these are not public property just because they may be publicly available online."

Artists are losing money

Ortiz, who works for big corporate clients, says she's not losing work to AI. But she says most smaller-scale artists that she knows are feeling the burn.

"I have a friend of mine from Romania. She was telling me a lot of illustrators there do a lot of work for musicians, and they're losing out now. They're cancelling commissions left and right because a lot of these musicians are just using [AI-generated art] as covers," she said.

Rutkowski says anyone who makes digital art could be impacted. Some organizations, including the San Francisco Ballet, are already using AI-generated art in their promotional materials.

"We get into this industry using our skills to sort of create better visual designs for movies, for games, for book covers," Rutkowski said. "And right now it's being replaced by AI-generated images."

Interview with Greg Rutkowski produced by Morgan Passi.

[selitoxicmoon]

New Life (READ DESC.!)

Ooook.... Here it comes finally the moment to talk and explain what is going on. Some of my friends already know it while others like you watchers don't, so let's go part by part shall we?

To start, I'm starting my own business plan as a freelancer. I'm prioritizing now commissions, YCH, Adoptables and exclusive content for my Ko-fi and SubscribeStar. Not only that but what is coming from me soon this end of the month is... MERCH! I'd start with prints to see how it goes and if I find enough money from my commissions I'll start with more prints and designing more BNHA dragons to create fanart keychains and stickers! If it goes well... then even more products!!!

NEXT THING, I'm gonna show after hiding them for so long my sonas, my own personal OCs like Sonda and Sekira as you remember them and show how I named this Original Universe, bc I think you deserve to see them and stop hiding them as you may find comfort on them. Talking about personal projects... I'm prioritizing as I said projects that can bring me profit so Pizza Tower Prologue, South Park Island and Security Breach: Revision will be delayed for these reasons but... there's hope for one simple thing I'm also working on: 3D!

I'm learning 3d modeling, sculpt and such. As I'm developing a videogame in a new INDIE STUDIO I've created among with my friends (where we studied together videogames these past years), I'm basically learning while developing our first videogame and with it my own purposes... which leads that maybe... JUST MAYBE... Security Breach: Revision is gonna be in stylish 3D (that would definetely earn me a lot of time tho).

NEW INCOMING 3D ANIMATIONS for live wallpapers for you! All of 'em are gonna be free to use as I'm practising coming back to animate (for those who knows me back in the time I used SFM).

AND... THE BEST NEWS!!! In... 3 WEEKS, I'll meet in real life, physically, my love and boyfriend @taymazuky to live together after 7 years and half of distance relationship so as the title says: My Life, my schedule, my lifestyle even...! Everything is gonna change in my life. I need to start and I want to start big. I'll post more in terms of shop, products, any updates, even a Commission status as post to make you know about it, that's why I made my new watermark btw, as a mark of myself, my products, my art.

With all being said, I can be calmed back again, thanks for reading and for anything you're confused or need to ask anything, just comment!~

[shinxistudio]

Studio Thoughts 2024MAR01

I've been thinking a lot since first finding out about the MidJourney deal Tumblr is taking. I've been wanting to make this post for just as long. (This sounds ominous, but it's not.) (Cut for a giant wall of text. Massive rambling.)

I don't know what to do. I've made an infinite number of new accounts across all the different social media I can find. I had to make a sheet to keep track of all the different websites I've joined. The thought of trying to post and maintain 20 accounts minimum to cover myself depending on where people flee to is overwhelming. I'm already averse to updating the accounts I have now. It takes too damn long as it is. (I need to set up PostyBird for the love of god. It doesn't work on a lot of mainstream sites, though.)

I want to share my art, but I don't want that to mean that I'm giving up my rights to it so some fuck can shove it into his dataset to create images and act like they're superior to something made by a real human and the human experience. I've opted out of the 3rd-party sharing option that they gave us, but I know that doesn't mean anything without proof. If they were giving data over that they shouldn't have from private conversations and password-locked blogs, they're not going to give a shit if someone toggled a setting. The whole issue with these datasets is the lack of consent to begin with, so why would they stop Now. I don't even know why they plan to pay Tumblr for the data in the first place because how much of it has already been scraped before they decided to tie it up in a bow for them?

I hate that people just parrot "Nightshade and Glaze!!" as if they're not open-source software that the tech bros can reverse engineer with the available coding. (As well as being easy to remove/get around in the first place.) Not to mention the stupid amount of processing power to use them, if they even work on the type of art you're putting into it in the first place. Even if they worked for your art, they're not accessible to everyone. That's not fair to artists who don't have or can't afford the highest-end PC parts. And even if they Worked to prevent AI it would only be a matter of time before they Didn't, like the constant fight UBlock is having with blocking YouTube's new coding to prevent ad blockers.

I'm just tired. I'm tired of feeling that the modern internet hellscape is just not meant for artists because the algorithms expect you to post as much as possible in order to get seen. I'm tired of artists finding a place to settle only to feel the need to move again and again because they just want their work and themselves to be respected. I miss old DeviantART when it was still a giant hub and community for artists instead of the shell it is today. I still see a lot of people still posting when I check in every now and then.

I don't know what the answer is, because I know data scraping for generative models isn't going away. I can only hope that it cannibalizes itself into hot garbage by taking in generated images that weren't tagged as AI. I would love it if all the wild shit people post on here could make the dataset completely unusable.

At the moment it looks like the only thing I can do is continue to watermark my art heavily and post low-quality versions. I've never had a large enough following to worry about art theft, but I can't control an all-consuming bot scraping everything.

I've been toying with the idea of making my own website and it's seeming more and more appealing. I've seen that you can make your own Patreon-adjacent subscription setup and have a pay-to-access feature. I don't know if that could help prevent scraping or if there are methods to get around that, too. Can bots scrape Patreon itself?

I'll need to update my LinkTree with all the other hundreds of sites that I'm on I guess. I was hoping that this long-ass post would help me come to some sort of conclusion or peace. I think I just gave myself more work to do. I also feel bad that my only other text post here is so hopeful, only to be slapped down immediately in this one.

TLDR: I'm gonna keep posting but like, I'm Not Gonna Like It. MidJourney Sucks. Tech Bros Suck. Ya'll can eat my entire ass.