Artist: azoomer (locked)

Staff members involved: Lafcadio, Manitka, spe

From 2025-07-13 to 2025-07-17, aZoomer was mentioned by abadbird, Song, spe, and Swedistan Doge discussing an AI disclosure from Twitter that was later deleted by the artist, noting that aZoomer's work did not visibly change from their 2023-2024 work, supposing that this implied the 2023, 2024, and 2025 art all came from similar AI-assisted workflows. With no deeper technical or stylistic access performed at the time, the investigation was left hanging here.

Upon seeing a very suspicious post #6235035, Lafcadio started a more involved investigation to establish an understanding of the timeline, and various trends in aZoomer's art. This resulted in post #3834503 being found entirely unsuspicious, but some damning evidence was immediately present in the next post #3950773. Noting differences in the artist's decision-making and some data points in their portfolio, Lafcadio processed deletions with a very basic timeline for the investigation team to refer to later.

From there, further review began of the artist's Twitter and Discord activity. Different tweets gave contradictory information about the artist's workflow. Investigators from outside of e621's team suggested that aZoomer was operating "AnotherArcticFox" as an alias posting AI-generated images in a similar style, a month after aZoomer began the use of AI in their main portfolio, but this was beyond Lafcadio and co.'s ability to definitively prove.

What Lafcadio could prove, however, was the presence of several messages by aZoomer in a Discord server dedicated to furry AI art: several replies to aZoomer's discord account existed where aZoomer's messages were removed, making the original context for these replies unclear, although Discord still allowed these kinds of replies to be searchable by finding messages specifically @ing their Discord account. Of these replies, several spoke as if they were reacting to images: aZoomer had a secret AI art history and tried cleaning up the evidence by rejoining the server on 2023-07-08, around the same time that their deleted AI disclosure was being discussed internally by e621 staff. Lafcadio made a private record of all 46 remaining messages.

While the artist has previously claimed to receive apologies by appealing to several other artists, including Siroc, Waga, and Thousandfoldfeathers, Waga was reached for comment and replied that they never gave any apology or retraction, and both Siroc and Waga shared similar image collages used to accuse aZoomer of AI assistance. This would suggest that aZoomer's anecdotes about these artists were fabricated.

Users quickly noticed the deletion of much of aZoomer's gallery, and aZoomer took to Twitter to post a video and address the accusations. The following day (2026-03-04), aZoomer opened up an appeal to discuss privately with Lafcadio. They tried to share the new video they had posted, which Lafcadio immediately rejected with a note that it was possible for a video of this nature to be falsified, and aZoomer would have follow certain steps in order to make higher-quality evidence.

Lafcadio opened up by trying to learn more about the strange February 2023-March 2023 gap in the artist's activity, with the various changes that suggested the adoption of AI images. With repeated guidance, the artist consistently failed to conjure any evidence related to the February-March gap, instead posting art from 2022 to try and prove their innocence. Sensing some potential confusion, Lafcadio offered to plainly restate his concerns. After the artist replied affirmatively, Lafcadio again stated that the drastic changes between February 2023 and March 2023 did not seem believable without evidence. The artist again posted several images from 2022 that lacked any strong resemblance to their later 2023 works.

The artist claimed they would not be able to share files from this time range due to replacing their personal computer twice. Lafcadio asked the artist about 2022-2023 messages from their Discord account concerning AI image generation, also mentioning that context around their messages suggested they had been posting AI-generated images. aZoomer admitted to posting two AI-assisted images, but no more. This was unlikely, as 25 separate replies made to deleted messages from their account existed, including discussion on how to generate guns. They also claimed to be fearful of being replaced by AI, but messages from and messages to aZoomer's Discord account on this server were generally positive in nature. The artist's testimony seemed to be at odds with the visible evidence.

They then stated that a new "method" they had alluded to was to create collages by copying high-quality body parts from AI-generated images to refer to them by eye. This kind of AI reference is allowed on e621 when the reference is available separately, but without strong proof of this, it was more likely that images were being traced directly. The artist confirmed that they used this method solely for the AI-assisted Delphox and Cinderace they posted to their Discord friends, but when asked for the references from this time period, the artist could not share them.

Critically, these Delphox and Cinderace pieces, with regards to which the artist willingly admitted to AI assistance, did fit into the prior February 2023-March 2023 gap. Whether aware of it or not, the artist did have the evidence that Lafcadio was asking for, explaining the sudden transition from their human-made February work to their AI-assisted March work: they already had an approach to tracing AI art, but they changed it come 2023-03-24.

Satisfied with where this line of questioning led, Lafcadio offered to move to a new topic, following up on an offer by the artist to share Photoshop Documents. Lafcadio asked what they could share. The artist offered a Google Drive with sketches up to and including 2022, along with a small selection of Photoshop Documents from their more recent work.

After this, the artist posted another video, where they openly discussed using Pureref to keep references available on the side, but without direct traces. As the artist was clearly aware of Pureref's capabilities and how to use it to falsify video, Lafcadio gave specific directions on how to record their next video to remove certain possibilities for falsification.

The artist followed up early in 2026-03-05 by posting an art process of two feral My Little Pony characters having sex, including the Pureref window being plainly visible with human-made references. Significant differences were found compared to their previous work, including the PSDs received directly from the artist, that made it impossible to accept the new video as an honest demonstration of their ability to draw their usual work without relying on AI assistance.

While a human workflow was demonstrated for this MLP art alone thanks to a high-quality recording, it wouldn't be possible to admit the rest of their gallery. With several technical and stylistic details established among e621's investigators, and the artist's willingness to remove evidence proven by the existence of other Discord users' messages, Lafcadio reconvened with the rest of the investigation team to lay out all the evidence and draft a writeup for public consumption.