chewing on you

WHAT THEY ARE AND HOW TO SPOT THEM

okay, I thought I should make this post since there has been an influx of scammers plaguing AO3 comments section and people are falling victims to them. so here it is;

WHAT THEY ARE

so far, there are three main types of these scam bots

bots that tell you AO3 is deleting works, and that you should delete the works yourself because your entire account will be affected if your works get deleted by AO3

bots that tell you your works are terrible

bots that tell you they want to draw comic panels from your works

ALL OF THESE ARE SCAM WITH MALICE INTENTIONS

bots that tell you AO3 is deleting works, and that you should delete the works yourself because your entire account will be affected if your works get deleted by AO3 are just trying to get you to delete your works, most certainly because they want to steal and/or use your works to train their AI and, once you delete your works, it becomes extremely difficult, almost impossible for you to claim ownership of your works when the original works have been deleted. AO3 IS NOT DELETING ANY WORKS.

bots that tell you your works are terrible are also just trying to get you to delete your works, most certainly because they want to steal and/or use your works to train their AI and, once you delete your works, it becomes extremely difficult, almost impossible for you to claim ownership of your works when the original works have been deleted. (more examples here and here)

bots that tell you they want to draw comic panels from your works are trying to hack your password, personal data and credit card information (they will say they see potentials in your work and are interested in drawing comic panels from it, and then they will ask you to discuss this with them on discord where you will have to pay/commission them for the “comics” you will never get, but you will get your password hacked, personal data and credit card information breached and stolen instead, do not fall for them).

HOW TO SPOT THEM

what all these 3 types of bots have in common is that;

most of them (keyword, most, not all) are guest users or empty accounts that have just been recently created.

their comments are all the same copied and pasted scripts that they mass leave on lots of authors’ works at random.

they will ask you to contact them outside of ao3 by giving you their discord, or instagram, or other social media handle.

their comments are all vague, in the sense that there will be no mention of any specific characters’ names, no mention of any specific scenes or events from your works (granted, they need to be vague because they are bots, they never actually read your works, and they have to be able to use the same comments on other writers’ works too).

EDIT: I’ve been told they got “smarter” and are now mentioning characters by names and also specific scenes from the story. Most definitely because they ran your fic through AI and let AI write comments for them. So basically, if a comment, from someone you don’t know, ends in something along the lines of “I’d like to draw a comic panel about this”, “can we chat on discord (or anywhere outside of ao3)” or anything that’d require your email or other personal information, always assume that it’s 90% a scam.

report them for spam then delete their comments when/if you get them.

please spread this if you can. us writers gotta look out for each other. stay safe, everybody ♡

EDIT (Dec 10, 2025): NEW TYPE OF BOTS WHO THREATEN PEOPLE WITH LEGAL ACTIONS

EDIT (Dec 15, 2025): BOTS IMPERSONATING LEGIT USERS, WITH REGISTERED ACCOUNTS, BY USING THESE LEGIT USERS’ AO3 NAMES AS THEIR GUEST-USER NAMES IN THEIR GUEST COMMENTS

EDIT (Dec 22, 2025): BOTS PROMOTING THEIR APP/PROGRAM AND ACTING AS AN AD (WHICH I BELIEVE IS AGAINST AO3’S POLICIES) ON COMMENTS SECTION

EDIT (Jan 16, 2026): BOTS TRYING TO PASS FOR GENUINE COMMENTS BUT FAILING AND ACCIDENTALLY MENTIONING NAMES OF RANDOM CHARACTERS THAT ARE NOT PRESENT IN THE FICS OR THE FANDOMS

EDIT (Jan 18,2026): BOTS TRYING TO ACCUSE INNOCENT WRITERS OF USING AI, BY COMMENTING ON OTHER WRITERS' WORKS AND TELLING THESE OTHER WRITERS THAT 'THIS WORK BY THIS SPECIFIC WRITER IS AI'

EDIT (Jan 30, 2026): BOTS TRYING TO TRICK YOU INTO DELETING AND DESTROYING ALL THE WORKS IN YOUR COMPUTER/FILES/DRAFTS

EDIT (Jan 31, 2026): BOTS TRYING TO ATTACK YOU FOR THE LACK OF TRANS CHARACTERS IN YOUR FICS (DOESN’T MATTER IF YOUR FIC HAS TRANS CHARACTERS OR NOT)

EDIT (Feb 2, 2026): BOTS TRYING TO ACCUSE YOU OF TERRIBLE THINGS

1. Progesterone: not for everyone, but for many people it may increase sex drive and WILL make your boobs bigger. Also effects mood in ways that many find positive (but some find negative). Most doctors won’t prescribe this to you unless you ask. Most trans girls I know swear by it.

2. Injectible estrogen: is more effective than pill or patch form. Get on it if you can bear needles bc you will see more effects more quickly.

3. Estradiol Cypionate: There is currently a shortage of injectible estradiol valerate. There is no shortage of estradiol cypionate. Functionally they do the same shit.

The concerns surrounding venous thromboembolic events as a side-effect of hormone replacement therapy can mostly be traced back to one particular study known as the Women’s Health Initiative. This study was an enormous undertaking which, unfortunately, demonstrated significant adverse effects of the hormone therapies studied. As a result of this the use of hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal cis women was dramatically reduced as the medical community began to question whether or not the therapy caused more harm than good.

Naturally, trans women have been suffering from this fall-out ever since.

What physicians seem to fail to recognize is that the study examined a very specific hormone regimen which was, arguably, outmoded at the time the study was conducted: It examined the use of conjugated equine estrogen (Premarin) with or without the use of medroxyprogesterone acetate. Neither of these drugs is regularly used for the treatment of transgender women.

The estrogen most commonly used to treat transgender women nowadays is 17β-estradiol either in pill form or in the form of a sticky patch that you apply to your skin. Esters of estrogen (e.g. estradiol valerate) are also sometimes used either in a pill form or as an intramuscular injection.

Transdermal estradiol patches are the gold standard when it comes to treating women who are at high risk of a venous thromboembolic event. It simply does not increase the risk of developing a venous thromboembolism. The only thing you should keep in mind is that patches are not always well tolerated because of the lifestyle changes required to keep them from falling off and the fact that they tend to irritate the skin.

Fortunately, oral 17β-estradiol appears to be safe, regardless of the increased risk. At least one large study has shown that the use of oral estradiol in trans women is not associated with venous thromboembolic events. An individual woman’s risk would need to be substantial in order to contraindicate the use of oral estradiol.

For those who have significant risk of venous thromboembolism because they have had a previous thromboembolic event, because they are paralyzed, or because of some other factor it is good to know the relative risk between oral and transdermal estrogen. The latest research indicates that the use of transdermal estrogen lowers your risk of a thromboembolism to 80% of what your risk would be using oral estrogens.

It’s difficult to find hard numbers regarding the relative risk of venous thromboembolic events with regards to hypertension. The best I could find after an hour or so of searching was this study regarding VTE in lung cancer patients. Hypertension increased the risk by a factor of 1.8.

However, to put that into perspective being of African descent increases your relative risk for deep vein thrombosis by a factor of 1.3 when compared to Europeans. Europeans are, themselves, at increased risk when compared to Asians and Pacific Islanders by a considerable margin: a four-fold increase.

I should point out that being ‘male’ is also a risk factor for developing a thromboembolism and hormones are likely to be a contributing factor. Also, menopause is another serious risk factor. Given this information it is likely that the use of transdermal estradiol will lower your risk of thromboembolic events significantly.

As far as the anti-androgen is concerned: The primary use for spironolactone for cisgender people is as an antihypertensive.

Even if the risk of thromboembolism was truly significant with modern hormone replacement therapy it wouldn’t justify what your doctor is doing to you. The fact is that mortality in the transgender community from suicide–caused in part due to the lack of access to hormone therapy–is substantial. The quality of life lost when a trans woman is denied hormone therapy is substantial. The fact that your doctor does not appear to be taking this into consideration when they weigh the risk of thromboembolism against not receiving necessary medical care is deeply concerning.

I strongly recommend that you seek a doctor who is more sensitive to your medical needs as a transgender woman.

Sign me up for the Bong Joon Ho anti-AI military squad.