So I’ve written a sequel to my The Looking Glass War fic Border Crossing (only two years later…)
The Broken Bridge is part two of what is now a trilogy. As well as nobody’s hero John Avery it features John le Carré’s Circus faves George Smiley, Peter Guillam, Connie Sachs and more. Plus cold tea, betrayal, wet streets, sadness, and paperwork.
So we were at a music festival last weekend and we were walking back from where the bands were playing to our tents and there was this dude that was clearly super, insanely intoxicated He looked like he was going to fall over any second. I was like “hey hope you’re not driving home,” and he was so confused but he was like “no I’m camping” and left it at that. It turned out he was camped right next to us and I was like “oh I think he’s trouble” to my husband and he was nodding like yeah. The next day were sitting eating breakfast and this guy came out of his tent and we were talking to him and he was drinking coffee with us and I realized that the way he was standing he just really leans a lot. His normal sober condition is to look drunk as hell and when we asked some of his friends about it later they were like “oh yeah that happens all the time. He wasn’t even drunk last night.”
Because it is pride month i highly encourage you to watch one of my favourite polish movies, Hiacynt (Operation Hyacinth in english), avilable on netflix… set in mid 80s Polish Peoples Republic durning the titular operation hyacinth (secret operation of communist police targeting and arresting polish gays in order to create a national database of polish homosexuals), it follows Robert, a citizens milita worker, whos unsatisfied with militias lack of action about the murders of gay men in Warsaw and decides to discover the truth himself. In order to do that, he infiltrates the local gay scene through Arek, a german language student, and begins discovering a lot about himself in the process
it may not be the greatest movie to ever exist but its special to me specifically and i wanted to share it with you. :)
Artists, let’s talk about Instagram commission scammers
There’s been a huge rise in commission scammers recently, mostly on Instagram. A lot of new artists don’t know what to look out for, so I figured this might help people.
How they begin
Usually the scammer will write to you asking about a commission. Something deceptively cute - mostly I encounter asks about pet portraits, with one or two photos sent. They’ll probably try to sell you a sweet little story, like “It’s for my son’s birthday”. They will insist that they love your artwork and style, even though they don’t follow you or never liked a single piece of your art.
What to look out for:
Their profiles will either be private, empty, or filled with very generic stuff, dating at most a few years back.
Their language will be very simple, rushed or downright bad. They might use weird emojis that nobody ever uses. They will probably send impatient “??” when you don’t answer immediately. They’re in a crunch - lots of people to scam, you know.
They’ll give you absolutely no guidelines. No hints on style, contents aside from (usually) the pet and often a name written on the artwork, no theme. Anything you draw will be perfect. Full artistic freedom. In reality they don’t really care for this part.
They’ll offer you a ridiculous amount of money. Usually 100 or 300 USD. They’ll often put in a phrase like “I am willing to compensate you financially” and “I want the best you can draw”, peppered with vague praise. It will most likely sound way too good to be true. That’s because it is.
Where the scam actually happens
If you agree, they will ask you for a payment method. They’ll try to get to this part as soon as possible.
Usually, they’ll insist on PayPal. And not just any PayPal. They’ll always insist on sending you a transfer immediately. None of that PayPal Invoice stuff (although some do have methods for that, too). They’ll really, REALLY want to get your PayPal email address and name for the transfer - that’s what they’re after. If you insist on any other method, they’ll just circle back to the transfer “for easiest method”. If you do provide them with the info, most likely you’ll soon get a scam email. It most likely be a message with a link that will ultimately lead to bleeding you dry. Never, and I mean NEVER click on any emails or links you get from them. It’s like with any other scam emails you can ever get.
A few things can happen here:
They overpay you and ask for the difference to be wired back. Usually it will go to a different account and you’ll never see that money again.
They’ll overpay you “for shipping costs” and ask you to forward the difference to their shipping company. Just like before, you’ll never see that money again.
The actual owner of the account (yes, they most likely use stolen accounts to wire from) will realize there’s been something sketchy going on and request a refund via official channels. Your account will be charged with fees and/or you get in trouble for fraudulent transactions.
You will transfer the money from your PayPal credit to your bank account and they will make a shitstorm when they want their money back, making your life a living hell. They will call you a scammer, a thief, make wild claims, wearing you down and forcing you into wiring money “back” - aka to their final destination account.
Never, EVER wire money to anyone. This is not how it’s supposed to go. Use PayPal Invoice for secure exchanges where the client needs to provide you with their email, not the other way around.
Ask the right questions: inquire about the style, which artwork of yours they like, as much details as you can. They won’t supply you with any good answers.
Don’t let the rush of the exchange, their praise and the promise of insanely good money to get to you. That’s how they operate, that’s how they make you lose vigilance.
Don’t engage them. As soon as you realize it might be a scam, block them. The sense of urgency they create with their rushed exchange, and pressure they put on you will sooner or later get to you and you might do something that you’ll regret later.
Never wire money to anyone. Never give out your personal data. Never provide your email, name, address or credit card info.
Don’t be deceived by receiving a payment, if you somehow agree to go along with it. Just because it’s there now doesn’t mean it can’t be withdrawn.
Here is a very standard example of such an exchange. I realized it’s a scam pretty fast and went along with it, because I wanted good screenshots for you guys, so I tried going very “by the book” with it.
Please share this post, make it reach as many artists as possible. Let young or inexperienced artists know that this is going on. So many people have no idea that this is a thing. Let’s help each other out. If you think I missed any relevant info, do add it as an rb!
Also, if you know other scam methods that you think should be shared, consider rb-ing this post with them below. Having a master post of scam protection would AWESOME to have in the art community.
This is a common scam on facebook marketplace as well. I posted a dining table on there one evening and the next morning I had two very eager buyers. One wanted to use venmo and the other wanted to use paypal. I started with the paypal lady since that is the service I use most frequently. She was dodgey right from the get go. She didn’t ask any questions about the item, or talk about arranging a pick up or anything. She wanted to go straight to payment. And then she started sending me all these DMs that were really demanding about using this “corporate account” that needed to have a certain amount of money ($1,000) deposited in it to work, and she sent me an email that that was supposedly from Paypal, but it went to my spam folder and she kept saying “check your spam folder” like every two minutes because it wasn’t showing up in my email. When it finally turned up it was really obviously bad. I use paypal, I know what a paypal email looks like. When I questioned why she wanted to use this account she said it was to avoid fees. In reality it was to trick me into thinking she’d given me $1,000 and that I should refund her the other $500. When I said “cash only” she started a whole song and dance about how she had six kids and needed a table and this would really work and she couldn’t get to the bank because she didn’t have a car. Just how she was supposed to pick up the table with no car wasn’t covered. I googled “facebook marketplace scams” and found that this scam is common and it used with ALL KINDS of payment apps. Not just paypal. My venmo customer then started sending me the same damn messages. The same exact script. I’m sure that it was the same scammer working both accounts. I reported them to facebook within two minutes both accounts were mysteriously gone from the platform…
The facebook accounts of both of these scammers used super generic family photos in their account with very professional lighting– like stock photos or advertising photos not actual people.
Any time you are approached when selling something on ebay, poshmark, craigslist, etc. and someone wants to do something to skirt app fees in one way or another there is almost a 100% chance you are being scammed.
The overpayment/refund scam is just putting a fresh coat of paint on the classic Nigerian Prince scam…
the best song ever made? Well, in 1980 a coked-out Italian producer and a vapid New York society girl made a song about being a mindless hole, for a movie about a male prostitute who gets framed for murder. A few years later Disney approached a novelty musician from the late 50s about making modern music sound like it was sung by cartoon chipmunks for an upcoming piece of direct-to-video shovelware. Then in 2015 someone slowed the cartoon chipmunk cover of the male prostitute song down so the vocals sound normal but it’s the instruments that sound fucked up
if I’m lyin I’m dyin
When I was ten I asked for the Blondie record and my parents bought me chipmunk I’m not shitting you. I’m still fucking mad to this day….but I could have just slowed it down and had the sickest most badass version of Call Me possible. This is amazing.
Seriously though, modern fandom, y’all need to remember that you can, like, ship multiple ships.
Like I can ship two ships that are diametrically opposed, at the same time, because I like both ideas. You don’t have to choose one or the other.
Like I can ship, for example, Sam/Frodo, and also Sam/Rosie, both AT THE SAME TIME. I don’t have to pick ONE couple and denounce all others, and tell everyone else that their ships are WRONG and BAD and mine is the only TRUE AND CORRECT ship.
Related: You don’t have to sink other ships to sail yours.
Exactly! You can have more than one ship. You can have an ARMADA!!!
Ship everything and ship it so hard you end up sideways in the Suez.
goshdang whippersnappers, in my day it was an honor to designate a character your fandom bicycle. ship that blorbo uphill both ways in the snow, with a different character each time, so everyone can have a ride!
i’m curious to know the ratio of writers to readers on ao3 so here’s a poll. when i say writer, i mean people who have published works on ao3, doesn’t matter if it’s once, or if it was ages ago, or if it’s a regular occurrence. when i say reader, i mean people who have never published a work on ao3. the reader vote still counts if you don’t have an account on ao3. if you’re a writer who is also an active reader, please still click on the “writer” option!
