mickeym: (Default)
mickeym ([personal profile] mickeym) wrote2026-02-11 09:39 pm

oh, yikes!

I've been watching "Emergency!" on Peacock, and decided to poke around on AO3, just to see what's what in fiction for that show. And I came across a very...aggressive...note on someone's story that said, "If you post a review requesting to do art for my stories, I will block you."

Is that a thing that happens frequently? I mean, really? I'm not real active in any fandom right now, so I don't spend a lot of time on AO3 -- or anywhere else -- so I don't know. It just seems really aggressive, if all they're doing is saying they want to do art for a story.

*is confused*

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ratcreature: RL? What RL? RatCreature is a net addict.  (what rl?)

[personal profile] ratcreature 2026-02-12 10:38 am (UTC)(link)
(wandering by via network)

It is currently a common spambot angle to solicit "art" commissions to scam people. Often written by LLM chatbots. These are not actual fans commenting and asking to illustrate for free. If anyone falls for the scam they might pay and get AI slop art at best. Sometimes money isn't mentioned right away, but a common sign is if the bot tries to move the conversation private.

Idk whether the author doesn't realize that these are bots with AO3 accounts and that blocking as if they were fans is pointless but they ought to flag them as spam instead. But yeah, AO3 works get a lot of these scammy replies.
turps: (Default)

[personal profile] turps 2026-02-12 02:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I got hit with one of those art bots and posted about it on here. Not that I knew it was an art bot at the time, but people soon filled me in.