Artist: crimsnek (locked)

Staff members involved: Lafcadio, Manitka, Versperus

CrimSnek was first mentioned in private staff channels on 2025-10-16 when post #4766378 was linked as part of a conversation related to "AI-generated" post flags. At the time, Lafcadio had not seen this message.

Lafcadio later saw post #5835013 on 2025-10-17; noting several uncomfortable similarities with generative imagery, he made a memo to do a continued review later. On 2025-10-22, Lafcadio noted more blatant posts with similar technical and stylistic tells, and provided a link to an alternate account on DeviantArt and Fur Affinity with obvious associations to CrimSnek, displaying a strikingly different artstyle, which stopped receiving new uploads after 2020.

On 2025-10-27, CrimSnek appeared in Discord to make an appeal. Lafcadio started by linking to a post from CrimSnek's Twitter account, accusing it of being AI-generated and not matching the rest of CrimSnek's posts. CrimSnek immediately confirmed "Yes, I did", adding that they subscribed to the premium service to make a post with the increased character limit. They remarked that they had been targeted by such accusations "many times". Unable to confirm any other AI-related accusations against CrimSnek, Lafcadio asked for further details; CrimSnek declined to share, stating they "simply removed such replies [to] discuss such things privately".

From there, the appeal process continued as normal. Lafcadio prompted CrimSnek for source files related to post #4766378 and post #5835013.

CrimSnek first provided lineart for the latter post, showing the combination of four different lineart layers stacked on top of each other, but no sketch. Following this, three more versions were posted: the same post with flat coloring, the colored version with simple shading, and then the final version showed the final coloring, including several telltale smudges. Finally, screenshots from IbisPaint were provided, showing the existence of 45 layers and a total of 12 hours and 07 minutes spent with the file open.

The next file they provided was from one of the standing poses used in post #4668573. Two lineart iterations were shown, and three coloring iterations.

It was at this point that Lafcadio asked about the absence of sketches. At this time, CrimSnek testified that they deleted unused lineart and merged certain layers, citing reduced phone performance as a reason.

Finally, post #4766378 had 8 lineart iterations (4 for the character, 4 for the background) and 5 coloring iterations provided.

Lafcadio then explained that their images contained many artistic, technical, and data tells considered to be highly consistent with traces from AI-generated images. An opportunity for a partial exception was given: noting the use of 3D models in post #5342307 and its variations, Lafcadio offered to restore some posts if human-made 3D image references could be provided for them. (The post was not restored at the time because the 3D image references showed significantly different angles of the same characters, and an additional character was shown without an accompanying reference image.)

CrimSnek left additional responses to the ticket, maintaining that it would be impossible for them to make video recordings of their process, and that the provided files were already sufficient for demonstrating a human workflow. Lafcadio disagreed, specifying that the still images did not disprove an AI-assisted workflow; the inability/unwillingness to keep sketches, the use of AI text generation, and the similarities to raw AI image generations were also noted as suspect. Lafcadio's responses ended with: "I have seen your 2020 art. I know you don't draw like this."

On 2025-10-29, CrimSnek posted parts of the exchange to Twitter, censoring Lafcadio's avatar and username, and mentioning @e621dotnet while misrepresenting the appeal/flag process, claiming that they could simply accuse any random artist. While they included multiple screencaps of Lafcadio's latest responses, they completely omitted Lafcadio's final message which included a mention of their more recent art being unlike their 2020 works.

On 2025-10-31, CrimSnek posted post #5946630, which incorporated various filters and overlays in order to mask AI-generated coloring. The e621 upload included a bit of extra text in the description that was not present on the Twitter or Fur Affinity versions.

PD: Don't delete my artwork, I don't have time for such clueless nonsense if you think you found any trouble in my art or want a excuse to delete all my art again for no reason and without any warning/notice, okay?
I share my sources (Twitter and FA) for a reason, in case my art gets deleted again .-.

In response to the attempts to work around the appeal by uploading more AI-assisted art and mentioning @e621dotnet, Lafcadio deleted the new post, disabled the account's uploads, and gave a notice that the appeal would be considered closed after a week of no activity. CrimSnek sent a reply saying they would not reply further.

On 2025-12-01, the artist uploaded a new post, "AI my ass (Some info in description)", with a description reading as follows.

The majority of the bullet points raised were either misrepresentations or factually false. In order:

• The artist admitted to using AI text generation at the time of the appeal, so this isn't just a claim by e621's staff, but a claim supported by the artist themself.
• It is true that e621's AI-related staff do not disclose these kinds of details, but this is done to avoid informing AI-assisted artists as to how to evade detection.
• It is false that e621 staff "assumed" CrimSnek's name change from XSlimyZardX was related to the usage of AI art. In fact, two of the posts on their Fur Affinity "CrimSnek" gallery are old enough that the use of AI image generation is unlikely in these cases. Knowledge of XSlimyZardX's existence was established to demonstrate that the artist did have non-AI artistic history, but their output changed significantly from the known safe art.
• This is a misrepresentation: the change in CrimSnek's art style is notable because it is a significant transformation, and the artist had not demonstrated the ability to create human-made art that resembled Stable Diffusion/Pony XL/Illustrious outputs.
• It is true that their posts were deleted with no further attempts to reach out, but this is standard procedure for such deletions. Several artists are known to use software such as PostyBirb which enables them to upload without ever being notified of DMails sent to their account, and DMails to third-party uploaders would generally be ineffective.
• True: Lafcadio held that the works-in-progress submitted were not sufficient to demonstrate a fully human workflow, but merely an AI-assisted one.
• False: Lafcadio made private backups of the XSlimyZardX and CrimSnek galleries in order to make sure the evidence was not lost later, and the "example for good uses" reasoning provided by the artist was completely made up.
• This is a misrepresentation of a statement by Lafcadio where he accused several new posts of being extremely obvious in origin, not being artistically bad.
• False: the number of layers was never raised as a complaint, but rather the complete absence of sketches in spite of otherwise keeping a high number of layers.
• True: CrimSnek's uploads were disabled after posting post #5946630 on 2025-10-31; CrimSnek's appeal was not actually concluded until a few days later, when CrimSnek responded that they would cease replies to the ticket on 2025-11-03. In other words, CrimSnek chose to circumvent the appeal by posting more AI-assisted art anyway.

On 2025-12-22, CrimSnek uploaded this post from a new account as post #6062846. The new account was subsequently banned for evading a site restriction, and detailed instructions to make another appeal were provided. The e621 version of this post additionally included a much less detailed description.