PSA: You cannot steal a design of a character that you designed.
I will not go into details, but something has recently come up in my friend group, the Mesaverse friend group. We had to remove someone from the group a month ago. And last night, (if anyone saw it or cared), said person went on a public rant on their various blogs about my latest character, Anthony Powell.
I was accused of being an art thief and replacing that person entirely both in RP and in the AU. But as you may not realize I was asked by said person to design the original character that was in Powell’s place before. By all means, I owned that design. Now, just because this person was removed from the group does not mean the rest of us will stop doing what we love with the Mesaverse, life moves on after all. So I took it upon myself to fill the void. I did everything in my power to make sure Anthony Powell did not look like the other character, but still wanted to keep that vibe the other character gave. While I also drastically changed Anthony’s personality as well. (Which I am still building, he is a new character after all and these things take time.)
Once I posted his new design this person began harassing me and my friends in dms. I spoke my peace to them and blocked them promptly. This person then began ban evading in my inbox by sending asks from different blogs and via anon.
All I can say is this. I did replace the character, yes. After all the person was no longer welcome back into the group and therefore their characters had to go as well. I did not steal anything. I designed that person’s character for them with another friend’s help. I, by all rights, owned that design. In my heart I knew that design was to be retired and I was not going to just use the same design. Its just not in my nature. So I made Anthony. Yes they are both white 40 yrold males in position of Security Chief. But thats where the similarities stop. I could have made Anthony an entirely different race and this person still would have lashed out at me for “replacing them.”
So for anyone who cares to know, here are the facts. If this person continues to harass me and throw dirt on my name, just know we have receipts of everything. We have proof of everything. And just because you design a character for someone, unless a contract is signed or money was exchanged, you still legally own that design. And you cannot steal your own art work.
This is just an RP. This is just fictional characters. This is just light hearted creative fun. This is not something you should be this upset over. There is a whole world out there. Go touch grass.
