The bulk update request #4436 is active.
create alias alfiepha (0) -> kinkopia (51)
create alias alfielofa (0) -> kinkopia (51)
create alias hiddenmode (0) -> kinkopia (51)
create alias voreopia (0) -> kinkopia (51)
Reason: Well, here's a rabbit hole I accidentally fell down. Where to start?
In April 2020, a now-deleted user signed up to e621 and began posting. They tagged all of their uploads alphiepha, they never edited any posts, and they only occasionally remembered to include a source - all common behaviour consistent with an artist trying to get more exposure without bothering to learn anything about the platform. The few posts which were sourced linked to https://twitter.com/alfiepha (deleted) and https://www.furaffinity.net/user/alfiepha/ (also deleted). They posted in this manner semi-consistently until December 2020, before vanishing for a few months.
On 2nd April 2021, they started posting again. Over the next 5 days, they posted exactly one image every day, in the same art style as before. This time, however, each image was tagged alfielofa and all five had a source provided - in each case, to a tweet from https://twitter.com/Alfielofa (deleted). In case there was any doubt these are the same artist, the following two images were both posted by the same account, the one on the left tagged as alfiepha and the one on the right as alfielofa:
Two other notable things about this batch of uploads are that all five of them were tagged "kinktopia", and two of them were tagged "non-canon" (that should definitely be invalidated). They then took another break of a few months... or did they?
See, the other thing that happened on 2nd April 2021 was that a new user signed up. Unlike the previously-mentioned account, this one has yet to be deleted, so we can see that it went (at least most recently) by the name "Alphirea". Of course, that account couldn't actually post anything until 9th April... which is exactly the date of its first post, again tagged alfielofa and sourced to the same place as before.
That second account only has 12 uploads, and 9 of them came on 28th April after a short period of inactivity. For the first time ever, more than one source was provided! This revealed the existence of accounts on Newgrounds, Patreon and Eka's Portal as well as the previously-mentioned Twitter account. Needless to say, all of those sources are now gone. However, searching Newgrounds for the "alfielofa" in the URL did throw up https://alfielofa.newgrounds.com/, which now has exactly one piece of art remaining on it - also posted on 28th April 2021, as it happens, although it does not appear to have ever been uploaded here. But the more interesting info comes from the wall of links in the sidebar.
From Alfielofa's Newgrounds, we can follow the trail further to https://www.patreon.com/alfielofa (deleted), https://picarto.tv/Alfielofa (deleted), https://discord.gg/xRwyxyMURU ("invite invalid"), https://mega.nz/folder/T80xAQCC#KnAn-Dvr53EOb8KR5BRDJw (gone), and most interestingly, a new FurAffinity account and the Eka's Portal account. Both of the latter are still in existence.
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/alfielofa/ is empty save for a short bio linking to the ex-Patreon and https://linktr.ee/Alfielofa (deleted, as if you need ask), a single journal giving commission prices (all of the examples are deleted), a plaintive message from a former fan asking where the Discord server went, and the skeleton of an organised gallery with only empty folders remaining. One of these top-level folders is called "Kinktopia", a word which also appears in the account's subheading. A subfolder under that is called "Non-Canon". Other links are provided to previously mentioned sites as well as a Telegram page under the same name. I know nothing about Telegram so I can't tell if this message means the account is still active or not.
https://aryion.com/g4/user/Alfielofa, however, has an entirely different set of links. Naturally, the gallery is empty, and the shoutbox once again features someone commenting on the disappearing act, but the "Other links" section still survives. Unlike FA, it links to three accounts under the name "Kinkopia".
https://kinkopiawastaken.newgrounds.com/ is 404. https://www.furaffinity.net/user/kinkopia/ has an empty gallery but 161 watchers, a bio simply reading ":heart:" and one journal with the subject "No subject" and an empty body. https://twitter.com/Kinkopia has no tweets but 53 followers, the bio "A funky smunky adult game in production about a kink utopia" and a header image depicting nothing but the digits "2 0 2 6".
Meanwhile, back on e621, the second account went silent for five months, but the first one suddenly started posting again in June 2021. This time, the artist tag used was hiddenmode, and source links were provided to Twitter and FurAffinity on every post, as well as Eka's Portal on some posts. The nature of links to the latter two is such that we can't divine the account name (the works are, of course, deleted), but the Twitter handle was https://twitter.com/modehidden/ (equally deleted). Of note is that all of the FA links have a trailing "?upload-successful", a mistake that presumably only the owner of that FA account could have made.
I drew a blank searching FA for "hiddenmode", although I did find https://aryion.com/g4/user/hiddenmode which has all the usual hallmarks - a completely empty gallery which nevertheless apparently moved one user to write "Amazing stuff so far!!" in the shoutbox. No "other links" this time though. It was registered on exactly the same day that the first "hiddenmode" post was uploaded to e621, and was last seen on "Feb 20th, 2022". By contrast, the earlier "Alfielofa" account was last seen "Feb 8th, 2022".
All 31 posts tagged hiddenmode were uploaded by the same user, mostly during a frantic period of activity in late June 2021. (One of them has since been deleted for reasons of relevancy.) Compare the first post tagged hiddenmode (right) with the last post tagged alfielofa uploaded by the "hiddenmode" account (left):
Both of these were tagged alphie by the uploader, BTW. "hiddenmode" (both the account and the tag) then went quiet for a short while before the e621 account posted its final two pictures in early August 2021.
But that wasn't quite the end of the story. On 25th September 2021, the dormant "Alphirea" account suddenly sprang back into action and posted post #2943445, the first post to be tagged kinkopia. It is here that we finally discover traces of this artist's existence outside of their e621 activity, for the other three kinkopia images have all been uploaded by third parties. Three of them (including the artist's post) are sourced to that empty Twitter account ostensibly promoting a game, but the other one links to a commissioner's FA account, where we see the "Kinkopia" FA being credited for the art.
This leaves just "Alphirea"'s final post on e621, posted 27th September 2021. post #2947106 is tagged voreopia, the only post with such a tag, and sourced to https://twitter.com/Voreopia/. As usual, this account is now empty, but it hasn't been deleted. It "Joined September 2021", it has no followers, and the bio reads simply "WIP".
In conclusion, all of these posts were drawn by the same artist operating under at least five different pseudonyms, who is in the habit of frequently nuking everything and starting from scratch. Who can tell if they are still active in the furry fandom somewhere - if so, they must by on something like their 10th alias by now - but that's all I've managed to track down so far. I did check, and "Alphirea" does not ever appear to have been used as a tag.
"Kinkopia" is one of the most recent known aliases and also the only one to have been tagged by anyone other than the artist, so it seems a suitable target.
And to think this all started because I was trying to work out if the "Elle" in post #2498082 was more than a one-off character. It was the only time that tag was used by the deleted account, but I reckoned without the second account uploading post #2716483...
EDIT: The bulk update request #4436 (forum #361026) has been approved by @furrypickle.
Updated by auto moderator