#real screenshot from my messages

[tagged-tombstone]

[iron-sparrow]

You've had a week, haven't you? Sometimes, those weeks can even feel like months going into forever.

It does get easier, though. Every day you keep going, it gets a little easier. Just don't forget to ask for help when you need to. All of us need help at some point or another, and asking for help is a sign of strength. It means you've refused to give up.

Hey, also? You are loved, and you deserve all of that love. ‧₊˚❀

[jichanxo]

sooooo... *twirls her hair* how many asks should i send until kuwagami art. jk as well. the real question will be: does it happen often that someone else’s art inspires you? in fandom spaces specifically

well you see it’s like a loyalty card program, every 10 asks or so you get a complimentary kuwagami

just kidding you can just breathe in my direction and I’ll be tempted to draw them. kuwagami blast! (you've caught me on a... just okay art day lol)

(people still like kabedons, right?)

anyway for my actual answer: in terms of direct inspiration, it doesn't really happen much? the last two times i did art directly based on someone else's work is probably this one from this fic, and also that time i drew art of someone else's judgment au. oh! and there's that moriohpsycho art based on this comic! (filthyguts' work is so very. hgngngghh. very good.) nothing else really comes to mind, and when i think of the other things i've been into recently there hasn't been as much opportunity for that to happen...

flex and herds = strong fixation but lmao. almost nobody else made stuff about them. nobody is surprised umineko = surprisingly i don't read much umineko fanfiction? and in terms of illustration, i certainly picked up imagery and indirect inspiration but nothing concrete enough for me to give an example... now that i think about it, i did once draw andromalius from redaction/sunny, but that was years ago, and also mostly because i was acquainted with the writer. ...i don't have that artwork on hand right now death note = didn't really get involved with the fandom + i enjoyed my own ideas well enough! ...i can't recall if i drew long-hair-L art before or after seeing other artists do it. and as for everything else the same kind of reasoning applies. didn't really get involved with the fandom or wasn't really compelled to make art in response to stuff i saw, or i just don't remember anymore.

buuuuuuut if we're opening this up to just... pulling ideas from other people? then yeah, all the time, though that kind of goes without saying when you have a creative hobby. ...it's probably going to be hard to come up with examples of this since it's more ambiguous.

there's uhhhhhh... kuwana listens to nickelback which was a @/four-white-trees invention, wasn't it? (EDIT: and @/overdevelopedglasses!) (not tagging in this post so he doesn't feel obligated to read my big ass ask responses 💀) as of writing this, it's not posted but i did end up making kuwagami art based on a nickelback song so. yknow. there's that LMAO

for sawashiro and arakawa, i do sometimes go reference @/todayisafridaynight 's art to help me with my own. ("how did he draw this part of the suit? oh, like that huh? hmm" <- this kind of thing)

and um. i'm not trying to pander to you (at least not this time), but genuinely it's one of the few examples that come to mind at this moment. but when i was writing my first kuwagami fic, i could feel the influence of the ever-changing on my brain... was turning over some of your ideas there...

you remember this? (you even pointed it out in your comment on my fic, and i should've said something then, but whatever i'm saying it now)

that was absolutely because of this

(obligatory poke at anybody else reading this post that you can read passthroughtime's fic here.)

so, um. yeah. not really sure what else to add to that. pretty self evident i think. (i'm always talking about the ever-changing but i don't think i can overstate the impression it left on me at the time)

anyhow there aren't really any other examples off the top of my head! these are all recent examples so they're not so difficult to recall, but there are probably others i've forgotten...

[potatoattorney]

I haven’t played Miracle Mask yet but my brother says this is basically Randall and Layton

[m00ngbin]

Mizuki confirmed trans but jesus fucking christ

[bumblingbabooshka]

ST Voyager: Repression - Horror Movie Vibes

[broke-on-books]

Don't know exactly how to express this in words but the Fast Car Tracy Chapman youtube comments section is a new emotion on its own

[vmprsm]

[bredforloyalty]

and i can't even look at animal pictures to feel better

[euniexenoblade]

since we're talking about call outs lately, i've been called out many times, most of which are made from lies and sometimes by altering screenshots, but the most effective call out i ever got was like, in early 2015 there was a tumblr user everyone knew was a terf, but she would say "actually i support trans women" this was before crypto terfs were as talked about so the language wasn't really there to say "hey this person is a crypto terf." but yeah some people put posts of this woman on my dash and i made a random post on my blog "why do yall reblog her shes a terf" and of course she searches her own name daily, found my post, and replied to it that me calling her a terf was racist. that was it. no other interaction. but she went on all night talking about me being racist and just making things up as she went "oh i bet she says the n word all the time irl" kind of shit that had, like no basis? But her follower base took it 100% and i literally had thousands of anons telling me to kill myself, trying to goad me into being racist (didnt work), and the most concerning thing was i got hundreds of anons being like "what was the point of doing hrt if you still look like that, you should kill yourself." It was like, violent and overwhelming. and on top of it I'd get random young teenager trans people who followed her and bought into her bioessentialism showing up in my messages being like "you give trans people a bad name" "you're why transphobia exists" etc etc it was fucking crazy.

but i lost like, no followers because everyone around me understood, this woman was a terf. this all set up the real one though.

later in the year a teenage "communist" trans girl made some snarky comment about me being racist on a post of mine blowing up. i ignored her cuz like, who cares it's just some random teenager. but i guess people were looking for a reason to hate me cuz that blew up, lots of people just took that at face value no need to investigate. when someone finally did send the girl an ask being like "hey how is she racist" she replied "I dont remember but I know she is" and even more people just took this as 100%. the thing is, i do remember her being one of those "you make trans people look bad" terf following young trans people, it's not that she didn't remember, it's that she didnt want to admit she followed a terf and she believed a terf just saying shit. I lost like 3/4s of my followers, i had a lot of people i thought were my friends just stop talking to me, and going forward every time i got a call out there would usually be a line of like "also she's racist, everyone already knows this" all cuz this girl needed to make a snarky comment cuz she just loves terfs.

the thing about the "i dont remember" bit is it made some weird game of telephone. "I dont remember" became "oh she's racist, i think she says the n word" which became "she called black bloggers the n word" like people just made shit up about me and connected it to this call out. and when id be like this isnt true id be met with a "this is just known, youre a known racist" and it's like, to this day i will still find people be like "hey good on you for growing as a person and not doing that any more" and its like I NEVER DID IT TO BEGIN WITH

[thunderbirdarts]

Art Raffle for a Palestinian in Need

News: I am doing an art raffle so that my friend @safaamq10 can get to safety with her family. Safaa has also been vetted here.

If you donate a minimum of $5 USD to Safaa and show proof of your donation to her gofundme, then you will be entered in to win a fully colored, full background, fully rendered art piece (such as the examples you see above) from me featuring whatever you want (within the set rules). Safaa is also vetted by Ahmed here on her previous blog that was deleted by staff.

The Raffle will go from now until October 31, 2024.

info:

one winner will be selected at random using a generator.

you must donate a minimum of $5 USD to Safaa's gofundme, and show proof of your donation (such as a screenshot of your gfm receipt) in order to be entered into the raffle. If you donate more than $5 then you will have more chances of winning (ex: $10 gets you 2 entries, $25 gets you 5 entries, etc). Send your proof to this blog or the blog neechees.

The winner may request an art piece on anything within the boundary of the rules (see that under the readmore).

the winner will be messaged upon winning, and they may relay what they wish me to draw in detail. The winner may post their art prize if they wish, or can remain anonymous.

any inquiries & concerns may be directed here or @neechees in an ask or direct message!

Rules of what I will and will not draw down below.

Will Draw:

Original characters

fan art

Mecha and armor

animals

fan art

blood & gore (within reason)

nudity and explicit sexual content

portraits of real people (all parties must be consenting)

Will Not Draw:

I will not draw any sexual content or nudity if the winner requesting it happens to be under the age of 18

cryptids (exception of mothman)

hateful/bigoted content

excessive gore and violence

any content depicting pedophilia, incest, beastiality, sexual assault, or abuse

I will not draw fan art for the following fandoms: Hazbin Hotel, Harry Potter, Hetalia, The Last of Us

[valsverse]

‼️ MY EXPERIENCE WITH @girlkisser13

🚨 HARASSMENT & PLAGIARISM 🚨

i want to address a serious issue that has recently come to light regarding a user in the fanfiction community (@girlkisser13) with a concerning history of plagiarism and ongoing harassment. this situation involves not just the act of stealing someone else's work but also a troubling pattern of aggressive behavior that has surfaced, indicating a lack of accountability and growth. it’s crucial for us writers and fans to stand together against such actions to maintain a supportive and respectful community for all creators. with that being said, read below. transparency is key, so i want to share the full context of this situation, including all relevant screenshots. underlined words/sentences include links to posts that are relevant to the incident, so i encourage you to check them out. (if you've recently received a message from an anonymous user about this situation, click here)

SECTION 1 : The Original Plagiarism Incident + Backstory

on june 3, 2023, i was notified by an anonymous user in my inbox that an account called girlkisser14 (now known as girlkisser13 after deactivating her old account) was plagiarizing my work. she repeatedly lifted sections of my writings and headcanons, merging them into her own posts. (note that i pretty much exclusively write for the percy jackson fandom.) after reaching out to her privately i discovered that i could no longer view her posts. at first, i thought she had taken her account down, but it turned out she had just blocked me. by june 5, 2023, i decided to create a post detailing the situation, which you can read here. shortly after, she contacted me, and we managed to come to a resolution. it seemed like a good opportunity for her to acknowledge her mistakes and learn from them. i updated my original post to reflect that the issue had been resolved. later on, she messaged me saying she couldn’t cope with the backlash. while i’m unsure if she was genuinely receiving hate, i felt sympathy for her situation. she asked me to take down the post, but i declined as accountability is important to me and i didn't feel comfortable with just erasing history. soon after, she deactivated her account.

although she deactivated her original account, she shortly after created a new one. i was notified by a different anon about this because her posts were moved to the new account, and some still included my work—presumably by accident. from that point on, she became known as girlkisser13, which can be confusing given her original username was girlkisser14. initially, she missed a few paragraphs of my work, as mentioned earlier, which prompted me to make a post about it (as seen in screenshot 2). however, she reached out to me, and we clarified everything through direct messages. after that, all seemed well!

however, things would get much worse from here. (this main character ahh dialogue bro.. 💀)

SECTION 2 : Account Tries a New Persona, Still Fails at Not Harassing Me.

(september 21st, 2024) an anonymous account messaged me with the following:

to be honest, i was completely baffled. i had completely forgotten about this issue, and out of nowhere, someone decides to bring it back up. it struck me as strange because… who gets so personal over something like this?

the user, which goes by the handle 'multifandombisexual13' also sent the exact same message directly to me, which made it clear that the anonymous message came from them, as shown.

first of all, the usernames are incredibly similar. both have the number 13, and girlkisser13 is a multifandom account. if you look at their profile, you'll notice they only repost stories from girlkisser13. even on the "check out these accounts" sidebar, there's only one account listed: girlkisser13. this is because they only repost content from that account.

let’s be real—this isn’t the behavior of a genuine fan. who goes through that much trouble? it’s obvious that this is girlkisser13 under an alternate handle.

i raised these concerns with the user, and i made sure to respond in a civil manner.

they didn’t respond to my initial message and only replied after I reached out to girlkisser13. i sent her a message about this situation. (just to be clear, this user and girlkisser13 are the same person.)

the user then responded at 4:38 PM. note that her main account, girlkisser13, replied to my message at 4:42 PM. (less than 5 minutes apart.) classic. (dates and times are included right under the text.)

if it wasn’t obvious by now, this person has been harassing me from their alt while pretending to be an innocent bystander on their main account. it’s like they’re playing both sides—using one account to send nasty messages and the other to act like they have no clue what’s going on. it’s honestly ridiculous and kind of sad at this point. (you will most likely have to zoom in to read the screenshots.)

you get the idea: this account goes off on personal jabs, claiming i have some need for control and a massive ego just because i refused to take the post down. i defended myself (obviously), but then she decided to accuse me of being jealous. (???)

i’ve made it clear SO many times—the post stays up for accountability. but no, she’s built up this entire fictional scenario where i’m obsessed with who’s getting more notes or attention. i promise you, i literally could not care less.

every single message is her droning on about “jealousy” or my supposed "ego and control issues," but never once acknowledging the actual point. it’s about holding people accountable for their actions. this isn’t a competition or a takedown—it's about transparency and honesty in the community. and to try and reduce it to some petty jealousy battle? that’s honestly ridiculous and completely out of touch.

like, she’s sitting there imagining i’m losing sleep over someone’s follower count on tumblr of all places. does she even realize how absurd that sounds? i'm a high school student who posts fanfic maybe once a month in a small fandom. tumblr is not my life, and there's definitely nothing here for me to be jealous of.

i don’t care how well someone is doing, i care about transparency and keeping things honest in the community. now, let’s address the obvious here. it’s super weird for another account to be going so hard defending a situation they supposedly have no part in. like, who does that? no one would go to these lengths unless they were personally connected, right? i brought up this whole issue in these screenshots below:

funny how they only stopped harassing me once i mentioned, at the end of my paragraph, that i’d happily make this public. up until that point, it was nonstop. i kept pressing them on whether they were connected to girlkisser13 (and if you somehow forgot—yes, this account and girlkisser13 are the exact same person). it was obvious, but i just wanted them to admit it.

it was around this time that i decided to message her main account, girlkisser13, to clear things up. i figured it was best to go straight to the source and get some clarification, but of course, things only got more suspicious from there.

SECTION 3: Ongoing harassment just a heads-up to pay attention to the account names at the top so you know who I'm messaging.

i like how i don't even have to comment on this part lmao. i sent the situation to girlkisser13 at 11:01 PM, and then at 11:39 PM, their other account decides to confront me about it.

anyways, i tried to get some honest answers from girlkisser13, but it was all just denial. at the very least, i asked her to reach out to the "other user" to stop the harassment.

at this point, girlkisser13 decided to backtrack and throw in an apology. i mean, i still firmly believed they were the same person, but honestly? i was just so exhausted from the whole ordeal that i thought, “whatever, let’s just agree and move on.”

SECTION 4: The Slip Up: GirlKisser13's Attempt at Damage Control

almost immediately after the conversation shown before, i received 13 messages TOTAL in my inbox, all in rapid succession, so obviously, they were all from the same person. i won't show them all because they're essentially the same. each one harassed me about my plagiarism post still being up, mentioning girlkisser13, and accusing me of jealousy in the same short, lowercase writing style. i brought this issue up to girlkisser13.

the first slip-up happened when I received a message from her alternate account, multifandombisexual13. up until that point, all the messages had come through anonymously, but it seems she forgot to enable the anonymous option this time.

shortly after, i got a message in the same style from her main account, girlkisser13. need i say more?

so, naturally, i sent the screenshot over to her main account, just to see what she'd say. and what did i get in return? excuse after excuse. it was honestly kind of impressive how quickly she could come up with new stories to cover her tracks. each response was more outlandish than the last, trying to justify what was blatantly obvious.

my brother sent that message!" yes—because your brother just happens to have access to your account. yes, because your brother happens to also be on tumblr, spending his time catching up on the latest percy jackson fanfiction drama... 💀 the sheer absurdity of it all. the pathological lying is honestly embarrassing at this point.

and, of course, the apologies only start rolling in after she's been caught—clearly just an attempt to redirect the drama and save face.

embarrassing...

SECTION 5: FINAL THOUGHTS—My Brain Hurts

in conclusion, this user does not deserve a platform on this app. she has failed to learn from her past mistakes and has clung to an incident that happened over FOUR MONTHS AGO. it’s time for accountability in our community.

harassment and deception have no place in spaces dedicated to creativity and expression. when individuals prioritize personal vendettas over respect and integrity, they tarnish the very essence of what fandom is meant to be.

it’s crucial that we foster an environment where originality is celebrated and where creators feel safe to share their work without fear of retaliation or harassment.

i highly encourage you to read everything i’ve shared and form your own opinion on the incident, but now you know my point of view.

ADDRESSING COMMON QUESTIONS

1. Isn’t this just a personal dispute?

while this situation is personal to me, it reflects broader issues within our fandoms. it’s not just about my experience; it’s about creating a community that values respect and integrity. we should all feel safe to share our work without fear of harassment or plagiarism. no one should feel comfortable stealing others' hard work or bullying creators into silence.

2. Why are some of the photos lower quality than others?

tumblr has a 30-photo limit, which meant i had to manually combine certain screenshots in a photo editor to get everything in. i also wanted to save space to make sure the most important screenshots could be posted in their highest quality. this is especially noticeable in the banter between me and her alternate account (see Section 2).

3. Why didn’t you just take down the post like she asked? Are you really jealous of her like she accused you of?

• absolutely not. i kept the post up for accountability. this was never about ego, jealousy, or a desire for control, as she accused me of—it’s about making sure people are aware of what happened and holding someone responsible for their actions. removing the post would allow her to escape the consequences of her behavior, which isn’t fair to me or anyone else she may target in the future. trying to turn this into a jealousy issue is a distraction tactic, and honestly, it’s irrelevant to the conversation. it’s not about followers or popularity—it’s about principles. 4. Why make this public? • because i gave her chances to handle this privately, and she chose to continue the harassment. this could have ended quietly, but she made the decision to escalate it. i’m not going to stay silent about someone who continues to lie, harass, and try to manipulate others.

5. Is it really that big of a deal?

yes. i know this whole situation is a bit silly, but plagiarism and harassment are serious issues, whether they happen online or in real life. it’s not just about fanfiction; it’s about respecting people’s work and holding individuals accountable when they cross boundaries.

to wrap this up, if you have any questions or concerns about the situation, feel free to reach out to me. i’ve tried to lay everything out as clearly as possible while trying to get this information out as quickly as possible, but i’m open to any clarifications or further discussion. i honestly don’t know how far this will reach or how many people will see it, but I think it’s important to at least try. for accountability’s sake, i’m tagging all the fandoms she’s active in, so all people can be aware of what’s been happening. hopefully, this will help set a standard in our community for respecting each other’s work and holding people accountable when they cross the line. i understand that some may want to defend her, but it’s crucial to consider the pattern of behavior exhibited. defending someone who has repeatedly shown disrespect for others’ work can enable harmful actions. i encourage people to look at the evidence and form their own opinions rather than simply siding with someone based on personal feelings.

thank you for your time!! ©valsverse— do not steal, edit, or repost my works. plagiarism is prohibited.

[jichanxo]

how it started:

how it's going:

[vaspider]

Look. A little advice.

Once you get to a certain amount of Known on the internet or a subsection of it, or even in a subsection of a RL group of people, there are going to be people who will make up a version of you which exists only in their heads and which has absolutely nothing to do with who you are. It might better resemble who you were twenty years ago or it might never have had anything to do at all with who you were then or are now.

You cannot stop this. You cannot prevent this. Once you get a certain number of followers or a certain amount of attention, that's going to happen: people will make up stories about you which either look through a fun-house mirror at some small aspect of who you are and twist it and blow it up until it doesn't resemble you at all, or which just have absolutely no basis in fact whatsoever.

This is just another kind of parasocial relationship; it's the kind which really sucks to deal with, because it's so negative and so pervasive. It's very real, and the frustration you feel about it is very real. Nobody wants to be known incorrectly.

But. You can't control this. It's gonna happen. No matter what you say, no matter how precisely you say it, the people who want to misinterpret you will find a way to do so. This doesn't mean 'don't pay attention to what you say,' or 'don't be purposeful and precise with your language,' but it does mean 'don't obsess over the people who are determined to get you wrong.'

You can be the most anodyne, run-of-the-mill, unremarkable human being, and the people who are determined to hate you will find something that they can point to and say 'ha ha! I told you that Spider danced with the devil at midnight! I witnessed it myself!' (It will not help the situation if you are, say, self-admittedly stubborn as fuck, long-winded, and sometimes kinda fucking obnoxious, but please realize that in the end, it doesn't really matter. This is gonna happen no matter what.)

The people who matter will look at what's being said, wrinkle up their foreheads, and say, 'uh, man, it looks like Spider was actually playing with his dog at 9 am?'

That said, if you don't have elephant-thick skin from being a marginalized-gender human being who's been on the internet since before the web had pictures, there are some things you can do to make it easier when people making things up about you starts to get on your nerves:

Establish protocols for when it becomes too much: have someone read your messages, turn off your notifications, have time where you purposefully disengage.

Establish protocols for how you interact, period: "I will block people without guilt if they engage positively with the people who spread untruths about me." "I will answer everything in public so people can't lie about what I said, because it's right there in public." "I will not answer work-related stuff in DMs, that has to go to the work email." Whatever it is, create some boundaries for yourself. Stick to them. The people who push you to bend them aren't doing that for your benefit but theirs.

If you get someone who really hits your Weirdo Alarm, trust it. Yeah, block and report, but also, take screenshots and store them somewhere that isn't easily erased. I have an 'Internet Weirdos' folder, which makes it a little easier to deal with when people start doing things like 'making threats of physical harm to me and my family.' Don't fuss, just take a screenshot and chuck it in the folder. Having that record makes it easier to just forget that it ever happened, because you have a paper trail if anybody starts doing something Real Weird.

Spend time offline, with people who do actually know you.

Don't get lost in the version of you that someone else makes up in order to make up for the shit that's missing in their own life. You aren't required to play the part that someone else is trying to script for you. It is never to your benefit, only to theirs; you gain nothing by standing in that role for them, and you lose precious seconds of your one irreplaceable life.

You could be using those seconds to look at this video of how to pick up a duck, which I think we can all agree is a better investment of your time.

[jeweled-traveler]

Verified Palestinian Fundraiser Raffle

I have been talking with Muhammad Al-Habil @aya2mohammed , a 30-year-old father of three from Gaza, Palestine. He is looking to get his family to safety.

He has 3 beautiful children, Ahmed: 8, Osama: 6, and Mira: 4. He is also caring for his wife and his parents.

In his most recent update, he reports that his children have scabies due to the harsh living condition they are currently under.

Time is of the essence to get his family to safety. Please consider donating. They are barely halfway to their current goal and need our help to get them there!

Verified by: @90-ghost

Raffle:

To enter please message me ( @jeweled-traveler here on tumblr) a screenshot of the page after donating on gofundme with amount donated clearly displayed.

The winner will be messaged after the end date. Shipping will be covered by me. USA entries only, please.

The raffle will run from 8/23/2024 to 9/23/2024.

The minimum donation amount need to enter is $5. each $5 donated will get you another entry. So if you donate $10 you will get 2 entries and so on.

The prizes are a fluorite point, an amethyst point, and a quartz point. These are real genuine crystals.

There will be 3 winners. 1st place will get to first pick of the 3 crystals, 2nd place will get to pick from the remaining 2, and 3rd place will get the one that is left.

Please consider donating to this wonderful family.

You can make a difference!

[leidensygdom]

Commission scams: A guide on how to avoid them and find legit artists

Hello! I am writing this guide in order to hopefully help people spot scammers and art thieves, to teach people how to deal with them and to give people ways to actually get real artists for commission work.

For those who do not know, there is a recurring, extremely widespread type of scam where someone will advertise their commissions using stolen artwork, or (sometimes) traced or AI-generated pictures. This started (as far as I know) on Twitter, but it is currently in all sorts of social media (I have found them in Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Tumblr) and also on Discord servers, often large Discord servers requiring no invites or that are easy to find through Discord advertisement places.

These do obviously hurt both, the people seeking to buy a commission (who will either get their money stolen, or given a product that is not of the quality that was advertised), and the artists whose work is being stolen, who are not getting the work themselves. It is important for people to learn how to identify these people, and to quickly take action when possible. This post is kind of lengthy, so please press the Keep reading button below for the full guide! (And please do share this post around if possible- This is a very common scam and I have met far too many people who have fallen to it or have got their art stolen due to it, including friends and myself.)

So, how do they work? (in Social media)

In my experience, a lot of these scammers either run multiple accounts or are part of a larger scheme, operating in organized groups that follow similar tactics. They will very often use automated means to advertise en masse. Those in social media will make accounts that post some example artwork, often with a myriad of tags, in styles that do not match (see first example, featuring my stolen art :'')). They very rarely post anything that isn't stolen artwork, or have any actual real following they interact with properly. They will then very often spam heavily through replies (such as it happens in Twitter), posting hundreds of really similar messages in a short period of time. In the second example, you can see an account from one of these scammers that is using automated posts to garner attention, which are shared by similar accounts (notice the same exact wording between the first and third post). The third example (in the Replies tab) shows how one of this accounts replies "Hi" to every single message they get.

They will often seek posts from people who are searching for commissions, answering them (often with a "I do commissions, DM me") or other variants of that. (They often only share their "art" on DMs to not be caught stealing by the original authors.) You can see an example of that on the first screenshot below. On Twitter, Instagram and pretty much any place where you can DM people, they may also come to your DMs, often starting with a "Hello" or something so you answer to them, and then they will suddenly share their commission information (as seen in the second picture).

In any case, they rarely have publicly available commission sheets, and will only disclose their prices on DMs. They may share more stolen artwork in there. From there on, they will often speak in fairly broken English, and try to lead you to commission them. They will haggle the prices if they can- But they tend to be fairly steep, with them going up to $300 a fullbody, which tends to be unusual in people without a fairly established following or popularity.

They will often give you a payment method that does not allow for refunds- Such as sending the money to "Friends and Family" in Paypal. This is actually illegal for commercial work, so if you get an artist telling you to pay them through such a method, please do be incredibly wary: Professionals will use methods that do have an option for refunds.

2. How do they work? (on Discord)

On Discord, they will often enter in servers where there may be a place for them to advertise, or servers available through Disboard and other Discord-community searchable sites. Then, they will often not interact at all with the community itself, but they will jump to advertising channels and post about "seeking for work". I have found out that scammers operating on Discord do only very rarely also have socials, so look out for that. Do reverse searches if you can. Legit artists don't tend to join Discords solely to advertise, so look up "from: [name]" on Discord and check how they have interacted in the server, if they have done that in any way. See the first and second example for an example on how they behave. First example has art from @ydteus (in the second message, the dragonborn's source is unknown.) Second example is from one of these accounts who entered on a Streamers' Discord. Streamers and VTubers are very popular targets for these scammers. Third example (with art from absent_lambeth on instagram, and unknown for the second picture) shows another important point, which I'll explain below.

Many of these scammers do not have solid commission sheets showing examples and prices for them. The third one even mentions "it is under construction", fully knowing a commission sheet is expected. Not every professional artist has them, but most do. It is often expected that people who do commissions will have some sort of Terms of Service at the very least, even if they do not have a commission sheet.

3. What do they do?

They scam you. You may never get any art from them. You may get traced art, or art that is not of the quality they advertised, because the art they used for promotion wasn't theirs on the first place. Or you may get an AI-generated picture, too. In either way: You will find yourself with +$200 less in your pocket and no way to seek a refund. So, it's very important you know how to spot them BEFORE they scam you. I have known people who have lost their money

4. How do I actually spot them?

Simply put, they do not act like normal artists would. Let's make a handy list of suspicious behaviours to look for, though.

Most people who draw commissions won't directly DM you unprompted to ask you to pay them for work. If you get such a DM- Report as spam and block.

Most of them don't act like bots, either. If you're on Twitter or similar pages, seek for extremely repetitive posts, hundreds of Replies in their Replies tab that are copypasted or very similar. If you see that, report as spam and block.

Reverse search is sadly very unreliable nowadays, but it does not hurt to try. A lot of them will modify the picture so it doesn't show in reverse search, but try it- And seek if it links to a different account with a different name.

As an ESL, I hate to say this, but the grand majority of them have really broken English, so look out for that. Not every person with broken English is a scammer, but it is something common amidst them. You will notice they fail to communicate general information. Try to ask them for Terms of Service, for example: They will probably be unable to provide you anything (if they do even understand you.)

You will rarely find them on your own unless you frequent specific tags, such as "commission" or "openforcommission". Or even using completely unrelated tags in their posts. I found one of them using a tag about someone's death to cop violence on their anime art. These people mostly only interact with their fellow scammers, but not with artists you'd find through other means.

As mentioned above, they won't provide you a payment method that allows for refunds the grand majority of the time. If someone tells you to send them money "as friends and family" in Paypal, or through something life Ko-fi's donations (although this one is rare), do not pay them. This is a general advice: Do not use payment methods that do not allow refunds for people you don't know.

Ask them for a commission sheet, a webpage, their Terms of Service and other things. Professionals should be able to provide at least one of these, usually.

5. What do I do if I find out they have stolen art/if my art has been stolen?

If you have found stolen art, let the original artist known ASAP if you can find them. Ask for help from friends if you cannot find them.

If you're the artist, DMCA claim. Every page has it, it is required for them to have it. If you search "dmca form (and the website's name)", it should show up. Bsky only has it in mail form right now, but it's there. A DMCA claim is a Copyright claim, and as long as you can show that you posted your picture somewhere before they did, you can do it. The form may seem scary, but it is not all that much. They will ask for your legal full name, address, a mail + a telephone, the url of the post stealing your art, an url to where you posted it first, and to sign/agree to some terms. DMCA claims tend to be processed swiftly (in about a day) because websites can get in trouble if they allow for copyrighted content to be stolen. And you actually do have rights to any picture you have created without needing to trademark it or anything.

You may also want to ask your friends to help you report the account and/or posts. Often, reporting it for spam will give you the best results. DMCA claims will take down the offending posts, but sadly, reports in most major places are rarely taken seriously, but they may limit an accounts' reach or auto-flag it as spam in DMs, so it is still a fairly effortless option to follow. DO still DMCA claim them though.

6. Where do I actually find real people to commission?

Your best bet is through other real people. Let me explain some good methods for this.

Do you have friends who are artists? Ask them if they have commissions open, or if they know other people who take them. Artists almost always know other artists, and they can quickly find you someone you can trust.

Did a friend of yours get a commission? Ask them who was it from if you like the style, and they may be able to get you a link to their social media!

Do you follow artists for any sort of content you're interested in? (General art, fanart/fandom stuff, people you look up to, etc). You can check their work first and see if they have commissions, or if they share art from other people, and then check those.

Scammers really don't partake in fandoms or have art-related posts go viral (some get some follower-begging bait going viral, but that's it). Chances are that, if you found a cool art in your dashboard or timeline, it is from a real artist.

I think places such as VGen need verification for artists and have ratings. I am not personally experienced with it, but you may want to check that out.

You can always ask people to double check with you if you found someone but are doubtful about them being legit. If you are part of any community, do ask there! If you have artist friends, tell them! A lot of artists are acquittanced with the scam issue.

I have seen people do lists of artists available for commissions in places such as bsky, too. These can be an option, but always do verify that the people doing the list in the first place do seem like an actual person.

Ending notes

This is a very long post, but I really wanted it to be very thorough. I would greatly appreciate if you could share it around, as it is a very widespread issue that not many know how to identify. If you do find out scammers in Discords, please DM the servers' admins and link them to this post so they can get banned, in order to prevent scamming and art theft.

If you have any question or you need someone to help you verify an artist being legit or a scammer, my DMs are open for that too. I have talked about this a bunch in other places and I am fairly experienced with these cases, and I would be very happy to be able to lend a hand and find you an artist, if you do need the help. Thank you for reading!