not really happy about this but i want to record this publicly for posterity as i feel afraid that i may become falsely accused in the future

background information:
succubuns are an adopt species and arpg owned and run by lucacrafts and Yvesbun, featuring a website where most activity is hosted. i joined the site 9 or so months back, but only became active about 2 months back. after becoming active in the group, i heard from multiple people warnings about arbitrary levels of strictness and uneven enforcement of rules in regards to art and designs on site, though as someone who is not typically active in large groups due to shyness, i was only distantly aware and had not seen any specific examples or spoken directly to people affected

succubuns has a system of prompts available in order to earn on site currency, both permanent currency and limited time event currency, with prompts as such being both permanent and limited time. each prompt has specific minimum requirements for the submitted piece, and prompts may be filled with either art or writing. there is an on-site guide for definitions for art criteria to aid in calculating the rewards received from fulfilling prompts and in ensuring that minimums are met

current situation:
on december 31, i submitted an artwork for a limited time prompt, "Freign Dear". unfortunately as the prompt has ended, it does not appear to be visible any longer, (this link would be the prompt info page ) however i recall the minimum are requirements including, relevant for my situation, a simple background, as well as one fullbody bun or halfbody doll (the name for the humanoid form succubuns take ) and one freign, the subject of the special prompt

"simple background" is a specifically defined term for the purposes of succubuns. here the the exact definition from the site:

A simple background in your piece should consist of more than just a gradient/abstract shapes, but does not need to have depth or a specific location in mind. Something that is heavily blurred is also simple.
You can see simple background examples by our community linked here: 1,  2,  3,  4

here is my submission piece:

my submission was rejected, however the reasons cited for the rejection do not appear in official rules, and for at least one accusation are simply untrue of my piece. the following is the reason given for the rejection:

staff comments from yves:

HI there-- this is really cute, but backgrounds need to be fully colored (not just a single tone). Additionally, basically all of the leaves and texture appear to come from texture brushes. Please make sure most or all of the piece is hand drawn. Thank you!

i was understandably upset, as i felt that i had followed the guidelines, and messaged yves to dispute this rejection. i am not in the discord (anxiety and i'm in enough groups as it is ), and many rules and guidelines on the succubuns site are difficult to find (i have provided feedback about this in the past, asking for a search feature or better organization ), so i was not aware that this is apparently against the rules until after messaging (as i had messaged mods directly in the past in regards to submissions and not had any issues ). the following is my message:

hello, I was wanting to message about my rejected submission

 

first on the subject of it being single tone, I'm not sure where that's from as it's not? it's a limited color palette for the background but multiple tones are visible and used to create depth, including some basic shading and suggestions of snow. unless you're using some other definition of tone, or purposefully using similar colors in a piece is disallowed, I do not think this is accurate. 

 

second, the brush used is a default in the program I use (firealpaca), and functionally a texture brush. I feel it's kind of clear I was using it more in the vein of a texture than anything? I would have gotten nearly the same look if I used the crayon or textured watercolor brushes that are also defaults, which I assume would not be disallowed. unless every brush aside from perfectly smooth ones are disallowed? they use the same basic methods to function, in that a base image is provided and then copied and rotated as desired depending on settings to create the texture

texture brushes are brought up by yves as apparently not being allowed, which confused me as nowhere in any of the site's rules did i find any mention of texture brushes. there is mention of "no heavy use of asset brushes" on the carat guide; i do not consider a simple default brush an asset brush. my understanding is that asset brushes refer to brushes meant to imitate complicated shapes and designs; including complicated laces, crowds, buildings, etc. searching online, i struggled to find any clear definition. the succubuns website, too, does not provide any definition for "asset brush" that i could find after doing fairly extensive searching

here is the response i received from yves:

Hi there-- it is not allowed to dm succubun team members to debate claims. I apologize for any unclear wording, but that background did not fulfill the succubuns background requirements. If you have further questions, use an official channel such as the succubuns eedback form (which has a section for questions and for complaints) or a ticket in private help. If you dm me about this matter further, you will recieve a strike to your account.

and my response in turn:

apologies, it was not clear to me, as i've dm'd mods before to clarify things or ask questions. i will go through the proper channels. hope the new year is going well

i feel that i made it clear this was not intended as harassment. i had previously dm'd a mod in regards to a comment on a submission to clarify something, and had not had an issue, and so was not aware that this was not allowed. to this day, i have not been able to find anything about this rule written on the website

as stated in my last response, i went ahead and opened a report, after poking around a bit to try and figure out the correct way to go about this. i felt that a feedback form would not allow for a dialogue and did not properly represent my feelings on the situation, and after looking around, it seemed that private help tickets are only available in the discord (which seems to be an oversight to me, to limit creating help tickets to a third party platform that is not clearly explained and took some digging to find ), which as mentioned, i am not a part of, and at this point was very discouraged from joining given the stress of the situation. hence, opening a report, which essentially allows you to type a title and description and submit it to the site, where it is then assigned to a moderator to review

unsurprisingly, yves was 'assigned' my report.

the following is my report:

REPORT (#142)CLOSED

USER

hinatot

URL / TITLE

Submission Claim Dispute

SUBMITTED

1 January 2024, 03:35:48 EST (18 hours and 36 minutes ago)

ASSIGNED TO

Yves at 1 January 2024, 17:06:41 EST (5 hours and 5 minutes ago)

REPORT DETAILS

hello- i submitted this piece for the prompt freign dear:
https://succubuns.com/gallery/view/21531

which was rejected, which i would like to dispute. these are the staff comments:
HI there-- this is really cute, but backgrounds need to be fully colored (not just a single tone). Additionally, basically all of the leaves and texture appear to come from texture brushes. Please make sure most or all of the piece is hand drawn. Thank you!

my reasoning for why this rejection is invalid:

1. "backgrounds need to be fully colored (not just a single tone)": the background criteria listed for the prompt was a simple background. i referenced the site definition-
"A simple background in your piece should consist of more than just a gradient/abstract shapes, but does not need to have depth or a specific location in mind. Something that is heavily blurred is also simple."
my background is clearly not just a gradient, and i do not believe it would count as too abstract given that this is one of the examples linked as an example of a simple background: https://succubuns.com/gallery/view/63
the only difference is color choice and that i chose not to use a blur effect for my piece, neither of which seems like it should be grounds for my background being deemed unacceptable and the example one being ok
additionally, i could not find anywhere that referenced tones in regards to what is or is not acceptable for backgrounds, and even if there is such a rule, my background is clearly multi-toned, with both darker and lighter parts and simple shading. it's somewhat covered by the snow, but is clearer when i toggle that layer off-
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/891543923921661982/1191290288640106557/image.png?ex=65a4e689&is=65927189&hm=d18a05207719ac94540a34b01ab517b0e086b2b7331fdd7d6adbafacadb23ecf&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1191&height=670
if tone was used in error to mean color, it also differs in color, as it uses pink for the base layer, a light purple for the middle layer, and navy for the front layer. i could not find anything about limited color palettes mentioned in any of the rules i went through, so i do not feel as if choosing to use similar colors would be an issue

2. "Additionally, basically all of the leaves and texture appear to come from texture brushes. Please make sure most or all of the piece is hand drawn."
i used two brushes for this piece, both of them being default presets in firealpaca, the program i use: the basic round brush and a leaf texture brush. i referenced the carat guide for the stance on "asset brushes" (not texture brushes):
"All art must be your own, and must be made specifically for each individual submission! This means no heavy use of asset brushes, bases, tracing, photos, or 3d models. These things may be used as references and accents, but no background should be just an ulaltered 3d model or asset brush. We do not allow things like reusing tweaked backgrounds or making a complex background out of simple tiled elements."
this art is entirely my own and was done from scratch for this prompt. i can send you my workable file for it and you can look at my layers, if you would like. 'asset brush' is not defined, and i did not (and still do not ) believe the texture brush i used to be an 'asset brush', however this term is entirely undefined and i struggled to find a solid answer when searching elsewhere on the internet. the brush is meant to create a texture similar to leaves, and functionally works the same as my crayon or textured watercolor brushes
the left brush here is firealpaca's textured watercolor brush, and the one next to it is the leaf texture brush i used:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/891543923921661982/1191292999041302589/image.png?ex=65a4e910&is=65927410&hm=fd64a38fd7c79245d048a68702b9ef4daa51a973f242edd755b368a76f0e0f88&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=920&height=551
i feel like a textured watercolor brush would not be an issue, and functionally, both brushes work the same, using a premade texture and then applying transformations to it repeatedly so that when a line is drawn, that texture is created. pretty much any brush that isn't a completely basic brush (round brush, airbrush, etc ) has some kind of base shape file that is then used to transform the stroke. the leaf brush is not especially detailed, and i still figured out all the shapes and placements and colors and highlights and shadows for my piece, i just decided to apply that texture brush for some of those colors and shapes
if this leaf brush is unacceptable, then that needs to be more clearly communicated. i do not consider 'texture' and 'asset' to be synonymous, and what is or is not considered to fall under 'asset' is unclear at best
additionally, while i am unsure, it seems to me like the flowers in the aforementioned simple background submission may also be from a brush as well?
https://succubuns.com/gallery/view/63

please let me know if you need any additional information from me

i went to bed, hopeful that i might have a positive response in the morning. i was upset but trying to remain calm, and laid out my reasoning as clearly as i could. the next morning, i saw i had a response, and that my report had been assigned to yves, which did not give me hope. the following is the response i got:

We do not accept disputes. I'm happy to clarify my reasoning, but please note that this piece will not be accepted.

>The "single tone" referred to it just being purple. Saying "single hue" would have been more accurate, but I was trying to clear out hundreds of prompts before rollover yesterday, so I do not always choose my words correctly.
All art submitted to sucubuns must be fully colored. While it does not strictly need to be realistically colored, it does need to have multiple hues across things like the tree trunks, leaves, ground, and sky behind them. We have never accepted monochromatic art or backgrounds on succubuns.

The texture brush is referring to the fact that none of the leaves here are hand drawn. There is a distinct difference between hand drawing leaves and throwing them down using an asset brush. The texture on the trees is fine in a vacuum, but the fact that it was made with the same texture brush made the piece very overwhelemed with this single brush. Textures being applied too things is fine, but it should not be used to replace hand-drawing huge swathes of the piece like the leaves on the trees, which account for more than 1/2 of the background. It having things like floating leaves detached from the bushes also makes it feel less finished.

When you submit a piece on the day of the deadline, a rejection is always a possibility. You're welcome to resubmit this as general art without a background marker. Please let me know when you have read this and I will close the ticket. Otherwise, I will close it after 24 hours.

upsetting, especially so as the things i am being accused of are changing, and even still remain patently untrue on at least one count. the following is my response:

1. the art is fully colored, and falls in line with multiple examples linked in the official guidelines. https://succubuns.com/gallery/view/13, https://succubuns.com/gallery/view/109, https://succubuns.com/gallery/view/28, and https://succubuns.com/gallery/view/108 all feature single hue backgrounds, with the latter two (both specifically linked as examples of what are accepted as simple backgrounds on the official definition ) both featuring about the same amount of detail and shading as the one in my piece
additionally, my piece does use different hues. here are the colors color-picked from my piece from the different background layers (doing my best to avoid the snow and simple shading):
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/891543923921661982/1191458946859413534/image.png?ex=65a5839d&is=65930e9d&hm=446e0b41b6532a84bdfb00ab897e64faeb9fab3178788938b34606d3b1e00068&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1050&height=250
i suppose i misspoke when i said pink, as it's more accurate to say light purple, dark purple/indigo, and navy, but the fact remains that there are differences in hue, tone, and value for the entirety of the background. in fact, there is more variety in hue in my background than in the background for 'Scarf for the Rain', one of the examples given for what constitutes a simple background:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/891543923921661982/1191459697065218108/image.png?ex=65a58450&is=65930f50&hm=2d05807c9128f0e140677e8171cda48e7b2d63eb98d4dd4a4ead39f81e2e3c18&=&format=webp&quality=lossless&width=1050&height=251
'monochromatic', 'monochrome', 'single tone', 'single color', 'single hue', and a few variations of those search phrases do not bring any results when i try to search any of the guidelines pages on site, or when i use the site: search feature on google. if this is a rule, it is not clearly communicated anywhere in either the writing or examples provided

2. "The texture on the trees is fine in a vacuum, but the fact that it was made with the same texture brush made the piece very overwhelemed with this single brush" is communicating to me that this is a difference in style preference. if this is not what was intended, i would like to ask for clarification, but given i have no further context. i did not feel that my piece was particularly overwhelmed, nor did the friends i shared it with as i was working. if 'overwhelmed' is criterion for rejection, then that should be communicated clearly. i can only find the term "asset brush" (still not clearly defined; to me, an asset brush is a brush that creates complicated shapes, like buildings, people in crowds, entire trees, etc. searching online does not bring up an easily accessible definition, and no definition is provided anywhere on site as to what this means. "texture brush" is not mentioned anywhere on site that i could find ) in the single aforementioned quote:
"All art must be your own, and must be made specifically for each individual submission! This means no heavy use of asset brushes, bases, tracing, photos, or 3d models. These things may be used as references and accents, but no background should be just an ulaltered 3d model or asset brush. We do not allow things like reusing tweaked backgrounds or making a complex background out of simple tiled elements."
as i did not and do not consider a texture brush an asset brush, and such a thing is never clarified, i do not feel that the use of the brush should be an issue. if things like 'overwhelming' a piece with a particular brush, and certain types of brushes being disallowed are issues, then this needs to be clearly communicated, as it is not as of right now. if it is leaves in particular that is an issue, i could not find any guideline specifications regarding leaves and trees needing to be hand drawn every single time, including in simplified backgrounds where they are not the focus; if this is a rule, then it is not communicated
there are additionally other user submissions that clearly use similar brushes in similar or more clearly standing out ways than the leaf brush in my piece. for example, this piece, which is clearly using a sparkle brush, which has been approved for a prompt:
https://succubuns.com/gallery/view/21664
i am not saying that this piece should not be approved. i think that it is fine. but it is clear that a brush of some sort was used for a majority of the sparkles, and that they stand out clearly as such

the two main things i am being cited for are 1. using a single hue/monochrome/etc background, and 2. 'overwhelming' use of a texture brush. there are several issues, but they boil down to neither of these being clearly communicated on rules anywhere on the site (if they are on discord, i am not aware of this, as i am not part of the discord. and to be frank, if there are secret rules on the discord, then maybe they shouldn't be only on the discord )

on the first count, i provide direct evidence that i am not using a single hue for my art... but even if i was, there is no rule against this, and actual examples linked on the definition for what is acceptable for this style of background use single hued backgrounds

on the second count, this is more arguable, however i still feel that this claim is not applicable due to the lack of definitions for "asset brush" and "overwhelm[ing]". i used a default brush using simple shapes to create texture, and nowhere did i find it indicated that this is disallowed, or if it was disallowed under certain circumstances, what those circumstances are. there are additionally official examples linked on the examples page that seem to utilize similar texture brushes, and approved prompt submissions that utilize texture and particle brushes

these rules are unclear at best, and unevenly enforced. additionally, i have been accused of something that i definitively have not done (monochrome background )





reason for this bulletin:
i received one final reply before my report was closed by yves. i still feel that this situation has not been resolved in any way, and none of the unclear rules being cited have been clarified, and further, that this final reply is a threat towards my online standing:

I told you i was expalining my rulings. We do not repeal rejections. You need to drop this topic, we will not be discussing it any further. If you continute to try and discuss this with me, you will be striked. I do not have time to do this.

*small edit to clarify/add: after sending this response, yves closed the report, which prevents any further correspondence through it. i would need to dm, open a new report, or go through one of the other feedback avenues which are not good options for my situation if i wanted any further replies

the entire point of report and ticket systems is to report and find resolutions to problems. additionally, there is an entire mod team which in theory should be available to assist if there is not time to go through them. if yves did not have sufficient time to address this situation, then they should not have picked up the ticket, or passed it off to another. i worry if every issue raised is met with 'i do not have time to do this'

additionally, even if you entirely ignore my piece in specific (including outright false accusations regarding my color usage ), there is still the issue of multiple rules being prohibitively unclear. not even attempting to clarify these rules leaves the door open for further issues in the future, for every single user on the site, and indicates a lack of care towards community activity

i would also like to point out, in a large way, running a community like succubuns is a job. between the patreon, usd myo sales, and the cut of money from the (very frequent ) adopt sales, succubuns is doubtless making a lot of money. as such, there is the expectation of a certain level of care, given that this is a community making the owners a lot of money. this is not coming across to me

i am making this bulletin for posterity, as even after going through the proper channels to bring up this issue, i have been threatened with a strike, and i fear the situation being twisted against me. i am most likely going to be leaving the species, as i do not feel welcomed after this interaction and fear retribution given that i am an ordinary user with no particular sway

to anyone interested in succubuns or active in the community:
please be wary. the community itself and the designs and interactions have been really fun, but be aware of the issues higher up. i don't know if anyone will read this far, or care about any of this, but just. be careful

i overdrafted my account :' ) pls check out this thread for info- https://toyhou.se/~forums/13.adoption-center/462893.urgent-resells-cs-hq-designs

it's been a good day   

today is the last day with my dog feferi. she's been struggling with a returning tumor for several years now, and despite our best efforts, it's never really gone away. a leg amputation bought us two more years with her, but it's come back in the past six months and there's not been anything we can do.

tomorrow morning we're saying goodbye to her. she's been getting a lot worse the past week and instead of letting her wither away indefinitely, we've chosen to let her pass comfortably with her family present

i'll likely be gone the next few days. everyone who has pets, please hug them and kiss them and tell them you love them

https://toyhou.se/~forums/5867.service-reviews/207691.review-on-komugitsune-letter-to-northern-ruins-?page=0

if you haven't seen it yet, please check out this thread, and be very very wary of komugitsune/wyvernbites/swirlix/nimble. it's a long thread, but the comments bring forth a lot of important allegations and evidence not covered in the initial post

tw: harassment, abuse, pedophilia