Can someone explain to me why these two covers were rejected?!

[azariasin]

Idk if this is the right place, but I have to say it because I’m very upset and spent a lot of money, along with the hard work the artists did, only to be rejected for zero/invalid reasons. It’s literally just a romantic embrace, not even nude and fully clothed. Which blows my mind on THIS reason was given:

Nudity / Sexual Content: portrays adult themes, including pornographic content, nudity, or prostitution
Implies that characters are having, have had, or are about to have sex, including (but not limited to): use of actual or implied nudity, a bed scene with more than one person, depiction(s) of one or more characters who are sexually touching themselves or one another, images that depict sex work or a sexual act in exchange for compensation

These are the covers in question I just resubmitted.

SMALL COVER
The small cover with the story title: I removed the “Mature” part because that MIGHT have been the reason it was rejected, despite again, anyone can see that this doesn’t violate TOS. But I think it’s really because of the “mature” part that might’ve been somehow interpreted as “sExUaL cOnTeNt”. This one is now virtually the same one that got rejected.

LARGE COVER
This is where it gets extremely confusing. This was a commissioned piece that WAS ACTUALLY approved before, though this one was a second upload after the first one was rejected due to “weapons” shown. After censoring and pixelating it, it was approved. However, this time (3rd upload), they now claimed this has sexual content which makes no sense because they approved it the second time no problem.

The only reason I reuploaded was because I wanted to add a watermark to prevent art thieves, both with my name and the artist name. I must’ve forgotten to censor the gun so I went ahead and did that in this attachment, so hopefully this one isn’t rejected either. But the most confusing part is really just the sexual content part, the same one as above. How???

Sorry I might sound really mad but that’s because I am. I paid a lot for these beautiful pieces and so much work/time has been put towards it.

It’s not even them half naked, THERE ARE LITERALLY COVERS by bigger creators and even some moderate sized ones that are far more suggestive/indicating sexual relationships. Don’t get me started on the mafia ones. Since when were romantic, fully clothed embraces against TOS???

I went ahead and submitted a support ticket along with resubmitting these two and waiting with bated breath. It’s going to be devastating if they’re rejected again…all without valid reasons.

Be honest, everyone, do any of these (now edited and pending review) pieces contain sexual or explicit content? If it does, I wonder what that says for Official and even bigger community stories focusing on gangs/cheating/half naked characters. Ridiculous.

[azariasin]

OKAY edit cuz it won’t let me edit OP without an error showing up.

Idk why but they sent 4 separate messages for two covers (lol):

Small cover.

-Nudity / Sexual Content: portrays adult themes, including pornographic content, nudity, or prostitution
-Nudity / Sexual Content: portrays adult themes, including pornographic content, nudity, or prostitution
Implies that characters are having, have had, or are about to have sex, including (but not limited to): use of actual or implied nudity, a bed scene with more than one person, depiction(s) of one or more characters who are sexually touching themselves or one another, images that depict sex work or a sexual act in exchange for compensation

Large cover (the first bullet is something I didn’t see after I posted OP.
-Brands, Real People and Places: use of content that infringes on the intellectual property rights or rights of publicity or privacy of any third party
Use of copyrights or works of authorship of other parties, including (but not limited to) excerpts or passages taken from literary works, video games, television or film

• Nudity / Sexual Content: portrays adult themes, including pornographic content, nudity, or prostitution * Use of sexual props and/or contains items being used in a sexual context
  Assault, Violence & Torture: promotes or depicts excessive violence or assault, including (but is not limited to): sexual assault, murder, and torture against humans or animals * Includes firearms, including (but not limited to) guns

I guess we can’t watermark the creators of the image and those who commissioned it now…? Ugh what a headache. I wonder that’s why the first attempt was approved cuz it didn’t have a watermark and everything gun-related was censored. Weird cuz it has my name watermarked on it too so people know I technically own the art lol since it was paid for. And it doesn’t obviously resemble any celebrities.

[FeeneyK0405]

Some parts of the second cover are blurred out. Maybe they think it’s explicit or something?
I feel like the handcuffs could be part of the reason as well.
If it won’t let you credit the artist in the cover, you can credit them in the story.
If the woman was standing rather than sitting in the first one, that might make it look less sexual idk.

But you’re right, there are way more explicit covers out there.

[ColeCatalyst]

@azariasin

Probably the pose mixed this the fact that she’s wearing a skirt that appears to be going up her thigh while straddling the guy.

@azariasin

updatedlarge1916×1062 134 KB

Probably a mind in the gutters reviewer who sees handcuffs and thinks kink.

[azariasin]

1. I might have to enlarge the photo then and shift the art to the bottom. Once again, I’ve seen covers with ppl’s fine asses hanging out and borderline being groped lol. Makes me wanna bang my head against the wall. I guess cute summer dresses rising up realistically are no longer allowed. Bruh moments.

2. It’s a murder-mystery involving two detectives Good Lord, did someone on the review team get rejected by some hot cop and taking their frustrations out on a Episode author minding their own business? Got me f*ckedddd up. It’s funny you say that because I never censored the cuffs (is that even a weapon lol) in the approved version of the image. Only the 2 guns and 2 combat knives, which is whatever to me as long as everything else is shown.

[ColeCatalyst]

@azariasin

• Bruh moments.

Happens a lot with Episode, sadly. And I totally agree that there are much “worse” covers out there- I’ve had issues with having bar backgrounds being rejected and I’m like bro, you literally have 5 MINIMUM bar backgrounds available - but somehow I’m “glorifying alcohol” by having a menu board that says you can order wine by the glass or bottle? Sir or Madame Reviewer, have several seats. They got approved after I challenged it and offered their own bgs as evidence. lol

[azariasin]

It’s more wildly inconsistent. They’ve approved my cover for a (now-archived) story (old artpiece by someone else) and the background I use as an opener. Said cover was this by the ever so talented EllaStorys.

Now I’m kinda afraid of using it after publishing despite it being approved. Then again, the roadblocks really seem to be getting it approved more than actually being in a story. Stories being published, iirc, aren’t reviewed as much as they should be.

I’m glad that it was approved. A beautiful fitting noir piece. I feel like if I tried uploading it again under a different name, something tells me that it might get rejected lmfao.

[azariasin]

Sh*t lol my last post I accidentally deleted.

Might as well repost to shorten my post.

I really don’t like the idea of the [rejected] watermark images now being against TOS or seemingly. Especially since I went out of my way and watermarked my name. If the reviewers paid attention, the text was in the same font, similar positioning, etc: both for the artist and me, the writer who owns the piece. There aren’t even Episode assets for the BG. It’s all handdrawn by the artist, so I WISH THEY WOULD try telling me that it’s copyrighted assets. Absolutely not lol. Went ahead and enlarged the original art png because of big scandalous thighs.

As for the thigh part, I decided to edit it (again, ugh) and enlarge the PNG.

This is the large cover that was approved. Or well, I had to censor again (just to make sure) because I don’t have the original rejected cover. Still the same exact thing though. Both guns and knives are gone. Guess I’m gonna have to reupload it as before since it was approved then. Episode really doesn’t respect artists or its like they WANT crap to be potentially reposted. Now I get the feeling it might get rejected DESPITE it being approved before. If it does, I’m gonna jump into incoming traffic smh. Wouldn’t put it past them at this point because…yeah.

[Faintest]

Yeah watermarks will do it. I believe they just assume it’s not yours regardless of any context. It’s a typical, telltale sign of stolen art; it has little to do with TOS type issues, I think. You’ll get there though, good luck.

[azariasin]

UPDATE:

Edited small cover got approved. Large cover didn’t even tho it was the same one that was approved initially. What the hell, I removed the watermark and there are zero weapons. And what part of this still has nudity reviewers??? The weapons are censored again too which they had no issue approving before.
Right after I send a ticket too one of them said they’ll forward to their image review team.

[ColeCatalyst]

Is there a way you could edit the guy up higher and crop it out so the gun (even though its blurred out) isn’t visible?

[StoriesByRayna]

I’m guessing the “sexual” part is the handcuffs. I think they assume that with the characters smirking, that they’re gonna be using them for kinky business! Even though that’s most likely not why she has them.

[piyi]

episode is finding A LOT OF excuses to reject covers and stories lately. It happened to me too using the weirdest reasons.

[azariasin]

I get the feeling that might be it too. I have a backup of the handcuffs being cropped out by zooming (along with some parts of the desk).

Man, it’s a shame. I’ve emphasized also that I do NOT think other covers that can be “worse” than this should be removed. But the inconsistency is what gets me. We can’t have cops now in our covers? It’s not like it’s those kinky fuzzy handcuffs too lmfao.

[azariasin]

Each time I see a spicy cover I’m gonna complain about “tHinK aBoUt tHe cHiLdReN” if this fuckery keeps up lol. It’s strange because they’re looser with OLs and BGs. Not by much, granted, but I’ve rarely gotten OLs and BGs rejected.

And even if they were, I’ve seen some REALLY gory stuff like this one story that had an overlay of someone’s spine ripped out. Was bloody and hilarious.

Someone on Episode must’ve had a rough day if they went out of their way to approve it lol.

[StoriesByRayna]

Usually when this kinda thing happens to me, I challenge it by screenshotting other community covers [or even occasionally Episode Original covers] that I believe have worse… or similar content to mine.

Then I ask why it is that those covers are approved, but mine hasn’t been. Then suddenly they correct “their error” and tell me that my cover was rejected by mistake.

[piyi]

I know, I see some stories that contain things my story was rejected for. I thought those might be old stories, but no. Episode reviewers find so many excuses; they reject a cover or story for things that not even a 10-year-old would notice! My story was rejected so many times for seemingly trivial reasons that I considered giving up on Episode. I got some overlays approved, but my story was rejected as soon as I used them. I am getting more and more frustrated seen people like you that gave so much effort for the covers just for a reviewer to act all bossy and unreasonable.

[azariasin]

You know what, that’s exactly what imma do if the edited one I went ahead and reuploaded (thanks to @ColeCatalyst for removing the weapons).

Hell, I won’t even have to do much searching. Just launch the app, and can easily pick out like 10 covers. Not to mention, I just noticed their own stock cards have weapons lol. Maybe I won’t even have to open the app And I include the first blood one because they have rejected this one outro piece of mine for “iNtEnSe ViOlEnCE” like too much blood.

[azariasin]

If my story ever gets deleted off the app, I’d be like whatever, at least I tried despite me doing my best to stay within TOS. After I appeal it, that is. I’d be off Episode for good, and this time rework it like a novel which is my dream. It is ridiculous and I have no issue making a lot of noise about it. I hate the idea of the artists working so hard only for Epi to reject for the most bizarre, unclear or inconsistent reasons. If that makes me a Karen, so be it, though I’m not the one giving the okay to more crude covers.

I would prefer if they took more time, like a week even, reviewing covers to prevent mistakes, than rush through and reject non-violating art. That’s heaps better than dealing with frustrations and submitted tickets.

[piyi]

They won’t delete the story without informing you. If for wtv reason the story get rejected it will just stop being trending and you’ll have to edit the part that they’ll tell you, if you don’t do it that’s when they’ll delete it. (But just in case I keep my chapters on documents)

@azariasin

If that makes me a Karen, so be it, though I’m not the one giving the okay to more crude covers.

It won’t be making you a Karen if you have an actual reasons to be mad… They are making a fuss for nothing… like literally… there’s nothing stupider than being rejected for a watermark or for handcuffs… like wth?!