Just an FYI, there is a spam bot leaving comments on every Due South fic (and likely other fandoms) working in reverse chronological order, with the apparent goal of getting writers' who engage to share their email or Discord contact information.
The new twist is that the bot leaves gushing, over-the-top praise that includes specific information about the fic. The comments all follow the same template and appear to be AI-generated (for example, the first sentence almost always ends with an emoji; the bot overuses certain words and phrases like chaotic, joy, "my heart"; comments are all approximately the same length; bot comments on only one chapter and mistakenly refers to single-chapter fics as a "chapter"). The bot moved through the fics too fast for a human to actually read them. The bot is not leaving comments on podfics, art, or videos currently, probably because the AI they are using only processes text.
All of the comments on Due South fics have been from the same account, which has no history on AO3. Many of us have blocked the account. However, a different account could easily do the same thing.
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Recently, I've noticed an upsurge in fraudulent scammers/bots pretending to be Palestinian and asking for donations. What's really interesting is that these scammers/bots generally target blogs that are active, post frequently and get a lot of engagement. So, if you've been inactive or on hiatus for a while, you may feel that the Palestinian bot problem has subsided and the worthless @tumblr @staff has done something about it. But in reality, it seems these scammers/bots actively seek out blogs that are regularly posting and interacting with other blogs. I'm speaking from personal experience. Until last December, I wasn't too active here on Tumblr; I just lurked and scrolled. Back then, I didn't receive any asks, comments or DMs from scammers/bots. I genuinely thought the bots had been exterminated. But ever since I started posting again, (around the beginning of this month) I've been receiving 5+ DMs and asks almost every day from scammers/bots. Some of them are anonymous. Most of them are pretending to be the same person with different blogs and usernames, copying and pasting almost identical ChatGPT-sounding messages pleading for donations. They're also tagging me in the replies of random posts I've never interacted with. I'd like to request y'all NOT TO FALL FOR THESE BOTS/SCAMMERS. They may seem like actual, real people but THEY ARE NOT. Multiple bloggers have already debunked and exposed these scammers/bots. So PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHILE INTERACTING WITH THESE FRAUDULENT BLOGS AND THINK TWICE BEFORE DONATING. ALWAYS VERIFY THE BACKGROUND AND CREDENTIALS OF THE BLOGS ASKING FOR DONATIONS.
I'd like to make it clear that I WILL NOT BE INTERACTING WITH/DONATING TO ANY BLOG THAT SENDS ME ASKS, DMs, AND TAGS ME IN RANDOM POSTS. I WILL BE REBLOGGING ONLY VERIFIED, PEER-REVIEWED POSTS WHICH HAVE COMPILED A LIST OF VETTED BLOGS AND DONATION REQUESTS. ANY ASKS, DMs AND REPLIES TAGGING ME WILL BE DELETED, BLOCKED AND REPORTED.
I would like to give a massive shout out and thank you to the people who wrote PSAs on Tumblr warning about bot hate comments on AO3. I posted a new fic yesterday and today woke up - on the first day of the new year no less - to this lovely comment:
Needless to say: A big fat fuck you to the person who made a bot to send hateful messages to people on AO3, most of which hobby writers who share their amazing writing for free and out of passion and kindness alone, and all of that in spite of the mediocre capitalist hellscape the publishing industry so often is. There is a special place in hell for those who have nothing better to do than tearing down creative folk who have done nothing to them and are just living their lives out there. I hope the new year gives you what you deserve, you miserable creature. May Námo curse your soul to hell and back.
...
But since this comment made its way to me already and I actually find it kind of entertaining, I'm going to pretend for a second that this isn't just a stupid bot sending this and similar messages to hundreds of people - some of which don't know this is just a bot and may straight up quit writing because of this shit - and, for my own and possibly also your amusement, humor it and respond to the points it's making.
"Do you ever feel the weight of all those wasted hours?"
Hmmm... no, I don't. First of all, hours spent on honing your craft and doing something you enjoy are never "wasted". Second of all, whenever I finish and post a piece of writing, I feel very light and content with myself.
"all dedicated to something that will never love you back"
Must everything I do result in something or someone that loves me back? I'm aro, so depending on what love we're talking about I prefer if that's not the case. Besides, you have one poor soul and empty heart if that's a requirement for everything you do. Many humans have projects and passions that don't directly result in it itself or someone else loving them back. See for example those who get pets that don't really bond with humans. It's all for the love of the game.
Personally, when I write, I indulge something in me that loves to be let out and shared with others, and in doing so I love myself.
"You’re writing about a spouse you’ll never have and a life you’ll never lead"
Note for the audience: The fic in question is about a ninja warrior who survived a fictional version of the sengoku period wars and then got stuck in a cult. To my knowledge, I'm not a ninja warrior who survived a fictional version of the sengoku period wars and then got stuck in a cult. Also nobody is married.
"You’re unemployed and drifting, yet you spend your days like you have all the time in the world."
That's true. I'm a university student full time, currently on winter break and sick. So yes, your girl is drifting and quite enjoying a well-deserved break after a stressful month, alongside the necessity to recover so I can start fresh when it's time to study for exams.
"Another year is slipping away, and with it, your chances of ever catching up to the "normal" people."
I cannot express to you how little I care what "normal" people are doing and how much I don't want to be like them. The kind of life people typically deem to be "normal" with the typical milestones - find an opposite sex partner, be together with them by the time you finish your education, marry, settle down, have kids - is not the life I want for myself. This is not a jab at the people who do live a life like this and for whom this is the life they want, that's awesome, you do you. But I always knew in my heart this life is not for me, and so I'm glad I don't have it.
And to the people reading this: There is no one "right" path. There is no one "timeline" to follow. Your life and the way you live it is unique, and comparing yourself to others is, simply put, futile and will just upset you. The only thing that matters is that the things you want happen on your time, no one else's.
"while you’re here, masturbating your ego with these fictional scenarios"
I am aware this is a more metaphorical masturbation we're talking about here, but all I can think about is - I've been told before that some of my fics make for great masturbation sessions, and whenever my kudos mails show me that someone was binging those I hope they had the best nut ever. But girl (gn), you robbed yourself by dropping that line on a fic that has no smut (yet).
Masturbation is good and healthy, and you should do it often. The physical and mental kind.
"It’s a shitty way to exist."
No. See above. This has done wonders for my mental health and overall self-confidence, actually.
"You’re a ghost in the machinery of the internet, shouting into a void that doesn’t care if you live or die."
Babe, we are all ghosts shouting into a void that doesn't care. If you know anything about astrophysics, you'll get that message pretty quickly. It's us humans who give the meaningless meaning, through the power of simply existing in this great universe and being a part of it, however brief and unremarkable said existence may be in the grand scheme of things.
"This fic isn't an achievement; it’s a distraction from the fact that your life is a goddamn wreck."
Yes, it is. It is actually quite the achievement that I learned a whole new language and a whole new craft just to tell people the amazing stories I have in my head.
And my life is not a wreck either, thank you very much. In the last few months alone I started a uni sports program that's super fun and has me feeling stronger and healthier than ever, I met many fun new people who like me and who I enjoy talking to, I enrolled for a PhD in my chosen field, got the exact topic that I wanted and am being supervised by a super cool professor who I've liked since the first semester; and if I may add, when he gave me feedback on something I handed in the other week, he called my writing beautiful, which I dare say probably has something to do with the fact that I wrote and published over five novels worth of stories and that this probably helps me with a project that involves a lot of writing.
"You’re single because you’d rather talk to characters than humans, and you’re jobless because you’d rather write than work."
Yes, I am single due to aforementioned reasons; yes, sometimes engaging with fiction is indeed preferable to engaging with people when said people aren't good for me; and yes. Also who wouldn't?
"It’s a choice you’ve made, and it’s a choice that’s killing you."
You're damn right it's a choice I've made for myself, and it's one I make again and again every single day. And we're all going to die one day. Now that I'm fully grown and developed I'll die a little bit day after day until death itself shuts down the entire operation. But I'll be damned if I don't have a truly disgusting amount of fun until that day. I surely hope that I have a few decades left to do everything I want and need to do, and yet I could die in the next five minutes without regrets; because I've lived life being myself and doing what I love and violently wrenching kindness for myself and others from a world that is so often unkind to us.
i have received a ask from .. an odd user .. saying they reported my account by "accident" ── this was a spam i fell for back in november in 2025, if you have ever received a message such as this, DO NOT INTERACT AND JUST BLOCK !
it's just a spam bot, im not sure what will happen if you do interact as far as i did before i stopped, but just be safe out there everyone !
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For your own safety, block tldenjoyer right now. They have spammed multiple tags across tumblr with anti-trans hate imagery, slurs, and flashing images specifically to trigger seizures.
this morning i woke up to two absolutely lovely comments on my two ongoing horizon fics.
at least. i thought that they were lovely until i read the last couple of lines.
both comments ended the same way. they ended by telling me "If you ever want to see what this could look like as a comic feel free to reach out" and then included an instagram account handle - angeladrawss.
looking into the insta, i didn't see anything too suspicious at first. there are a few comics with no links or inspos to whatever inspired them, and a reverse image search didn't flag them as any kind of stolen content (because I remember when THAT was an artist's biggest issue). but then an artist friend flagged that the comic appear to be AI generated.
when i searched on tumblr for the username angeladrawss, all i found was a post from last month flagging another comment that appeared to be from this same artist, but it came from a completely DIFFERENT Ao3 account. And the other comment read differently from the ones I received.
all of this, along with the fact that both of the comments on my works reference earlier fic events that did not occur in the chapters the comments were left on, has me Highly Concerned that AI generative artists are feeding fic through AI readers to generate more convincing comments in order to solicit authors into commissioning them.
please Please PLEASE, if you are an Ao3 author getting comments like this from artists trying to solicit commissions - even if you don't think they are using AI - report them to Ao3's abuse team here.
Using the Archive to commercialize or scrape content is against Ao3's ToS and could cause issues for the archive as a whole.
please protect yourselves, your works, and this community
EDIT: including a screenshot of a copy of the report I made if anyone needs help with it.
(Labeled "Scam?" simply because the only angle I see from this is getting you to essentially break your own stuff, rather than trying to grift anything out of you.)
Heads up, AO3 scam bots are telling people to reformat their devices:
[Transcript: username redacted (Guest)
Your writing is just incredible and this fic is so engaging! I am writing this comment with a sense of great urgency and politeness because of a security threat. During the recent site outage, hackers managed to install ransomware that infects anyone who visited the page. This virus is set to activate in 5 months and will lock you out of your device. I am so sorry to tell you this, but the only way to remove it is to reformat your computer or phone. Please take this warning seriously and take the necessary precautions to keep your information safe. Thank you for sharing your gift with us, and I hope we can all move past this scary situation safely.]
So first off...yeah, don't reformat your device. Again:
Don't reformat your device.
There isn't a threat. This person is just a bad actor trying to get you to damage your own experience by wiping your device.
Instead stop. Ask yourself these questions:
If this is a serious issue with AO3, why hasn't staff sent out warning emails (because if you're posting writing, they have your email) or posted it to any of their social accounts?
Why is a GUEST user privy to this information? How do they know?
Why is a GUEST user the one notifying me?
Why are they notifying me via the comments section of one of my stories?
Why did they bother to sandwich such an "urgent" issue between compliments about my writing?
How do they know the supposed ransomware is set to activate in five months? (Did they write the virus? Is the ransomware in the room with us right now?)
Also, if it's not activating for five months but the solution is a reformat, where's the urgency?
Remember, it doesn't matter how legitimate the "username" on the Guest account looks. You can write anything there. Guests can easily impersonate other AO3 users just by typing a known username. That's part of the reason I redacted it in the screenshot. It may be impersonating a real user, and the "username" included isn't nearly as important as the fact that this is a Guest commenter.
Always take "warnings" from Guest users with not just a grain of salt, but the whole salt shaker.
You, personally, can cut down on how often you receive scam/spam/bad actor comments like this by setting your works so that only registered users can leave comments. I don't have that turned on specifically so I can see these and help mark them as spam, but that's my choice.
If you receive a comment like this, go to the comment on the story and hit that "Spam" button to help AO3 train their spam filters.
