undertale, sailormoon, adventure time, sgt frog, stormlight archive, mistborn, Digital Circus, bee and puppycat fan | They/Them | Call me Lexi or Skele | 20+ | Im fkn back!!!!
10 Uncommon Tips for Managing Chronic Symptoms Disorder That Few Know About
If you or a loved one suffers from Chronic Symptoms Disorder, this is a great and comprehensive list that could boost your everyday life. Get ready to be able to do things like Normal People with these simple tips!
Breathe: using your lungs brings vital oxygen to important systems in your body, and is essential to life!
Sleep: if you have Chronic Symptoms Disorder then it is double important to get the rest you need, if you dont do this you are a piece of shit!
Eat a balanced diet: food is like, sooooo important, but stay away from any icky yucky BAD food. Try our sponsored diet plan at www.eatingyuckybadfoodiswrong.com
Stay hydrated: drink only water! Only water hydrates! Dont even THINK about those yucky bad foods and yucky bad drinks that take your water away.
Exercise: having Chronic Symptoms Disease is no excuse to not go on a 5k, get out of bed you lazy piece of shit and MOVE
Go outside: go on, do it. It's not hard.
Meditate: if you hate doing this you're just not trying, fuck you
Make a list: bet you havent thought of this, have you?
Use our app: this specific app can do things that you need and all it costs is money and it has in-app purchases and if you dont use it then fuck you, I hope you suffer
Talking: go to shadytherapywebsite.com and talk to our unqualified therapists where you will pay premium rates to Get Fucked while we steal all your data
With all of these tips and tricks, soon YOU will be the master of your own life. All cured of everything! Just do these 10 things that NO ONE knows to do! GO FUCK YOURSELF! :3
important reminder that most people you follow online are significantly lamer than you think they are including me. and if you feel insecure comparing yourself to someone online: DON'T. theyre probably also lame and weird. most people on the internet are
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!
Just when you think you're making a new friend its just a scammer reaching out and asking you to send them 30 bucks for a "commission" they want to do for you. And you look on their blog and some of their original posts are stolen from other creators.
Also, just got my ADHD diagnosis (yay!) so I will be deciding what to do going forward.
My therapist though suspects that i may have AuDHD (which is validating because I dont feel like I fully relate to the more common ADHD experiences). I've been doing some research people's experiences with autism in their daily life and I feel like the other parts of my life are making so much sense.
I have no idea if I will pursue an Autism diagnosis, but for now I will explore it and treat my ADHD.
Man, something that I need to break is the hesitation to join fandom spaces. I used to participate in fandoms online before the purge, and then it just felt like it's not worth the effort because what I care about will be taken away.
That and the secondary emotion of "what if fandom doesnt engage in the content the same way and I just don't like what other people do". Which is understandable, but not realistic on my part. I know what to do if that happens (staying in my lane), but still is a hesitation.
the way teenagers are treated these days is wild. when i was a teenager we were all watching porn, jerking off, and going to horror movies with 3000 gallons of blood. Nowadays they make kids get a permission slip to watch anything darker than Barney the Dinosaur. Insane.
& then for some reason people fixate more on "ugh these teenagers just want to be treated like babies!!! teenagers are to blame for the rise in puritanism!!!!!" than how this is a very obvious example of ageism and the increased control over a socially vulnerable and exploited group
I think a commonly overlooked part of this coddling is that it teaches kids and teenagers to be afraid of things they don't need to be afraid of, which is exactly how they end up as "puriteens". I remember as a child being terrified to change the channel on the tv because I had ended up with the impression that seeing even seconds of an R rated movie or tv show would give me nightmares. And then as a tween every time I saw swearing I felt sick to my stomach because I had been taught such a thing is bad and harmful. I think I would have suffered less if I hadn't been raised with everyone around me acting like mature media was so bad. By the time I was a teenager I had figured out this was bunk, but understandably a lot of people don't. By making this whole system worse and stronger you have teens who have been told that seeing explicit or dark media Will Harm Them, and so they act in ways that would be appropriate if it really was the info-hazard it's implied to be.
^^ never heard anybody specifically talk about this but yeah. parents acting like sexual or any "dark" content in a story or show was going to put bad things in my head that were going to be there permanently just gave me a deeply distressing sort of contamination anxiety
I was pretty much a puriteen for a good chunk of my teen years thanks to conservative religious upbringing. I was taught that thought crimes were a thing and constantly felt like I was being watched and judged and that my thoughts always needed to be pure, etc. And it was fucking hell on my teen brain.
I was depressed and anxious all the time. I felt behind and like I had no context for things people already knew. Hell, I didn't even know why people would enjoy things like horror, tragedies, or NSFW content. "Why would you want to see these gross things/feel these "bad" feelings?"
It took me decent chunk of time into my adult years to unlearn things and actually be able to challenge my limited perceptions. I really wish I didn't have to. But I did not live in an environment where thinking for yourself was encouraged, just blind obedience. This is not to say I'm excusing myself, more of a cautionary tale for those that are raising the next generation need to do better than the ones that raised us.
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i know it's not that simple and it's unlikely to happen but man i still wish tumblr would just unban adult content. i'm so lazy and i hate having million different places where i post my art (especially since they all have their drawbacks), nothing would make me happier than being able to post nsfw art here where i post my other art too. i'm too old and lazy to have many places for my art, i barely remember to keep my art-only tumblr up-to-date as it is
I agree with you so much. I fell out of fandoms for the most part mostly because of the ban. I feel like if the things are just gonna be taken away cause of someone else deciding what the rules are... then why engage in fandom? (I figured out why my hyperfixations don't go as far as it used to anymore! Yaaaayyyyyyy)
I really enjoy making nsfw art, but rules about where it can be hosted always changes and its just too much damn trouble to have to pick up my blog and move somewhere else. Really feels like there is no winning.
man, im thinking about trying binders again but i already cant find a bra that fits me comfortably. Plus the one i did have it felt kinda suffocating to wear (i dont like feeling of tightness on my chest, just calls attention to it more). i just want to take my tits off for a bit and be able to slap them back on when im not in my masc era.
“The clearest metaphor I had for my own gender identity in college was the image of a scale. A huge weight had been placed on one side, without my permission. I was constantly trying to weigh down the other side. But the end goal wasn't masculinity - the goal was
b a l a n c e.”
― Maia Kobabe, Gender Queer: A Memoir (Affiliate link)
