on manipulation and bullying
Righto, now I know why I lost five followers over the last few days, and why a few people I thought were friendly with me have me blocked. Cool beans.
Iâm in utter disbelief that Soignee/autodiscothings felt the need to do this.
If I may, Iâm going to add my two cents here. To begin with, the above letter that I wrote and which autodiscothings published (note that she didnât publish the message to which I was responding) was in response to a message she sent out of the blue after roughly a year of what she called âa breakâ in our friendship, suggested by herâagain, out of the blue. This break was actually her blocking me on every social media. She wanted a break because she said she felt like I was plagiarising her workâshe mentioned the writing as well, so obviously it is a problem, despite her statements to the contrary above. We had been friends for two years prior to this, and nothing had changed in my work. Not my style, not my writingâI just got better than I was before.
I respected her wishes and kept my distance, even though being blocked hurt my feelings and seemed a bit over-the-top, given that she had initiated our friendship to begin with. I thought âa breakâ constituted a temporary hiatus that still had some kind of opportunity for communication. Obviously, I was wrong, and she blocked me. It stung a bit, but that was what she wanted, so I didnât hold it against her. Again, I respected her wishes despite my hurt feelings.
Here is the letter she sent me, after a year of radio silence, which she initiated:
Here is what I wrote in response, in case anyone wants it from the horseâs mouth. Neigh.
Was her letter âpolite?â Maybe. Entitled and uncalled for? Also maybe. It costs zero dollars or pounds to just leave me be, to just shake off anyone who is too dumb to tell the difference between art styles. Was my letter polite? Maybe not. It was terse, it was to-the-point, but I believe I answered her criticisms logically. If you mistake assertiveness for aggression, which I think some of you in the notes may have done, thatâs your problem.
To the people saying âafter that letter thereâs not much else to sayâ and agreeing with herâwhat should I have done? Grovelled before her and begged for her blessing to draw the setting, the characters? Never draw them again, these characters that Iâve been writing and drawing since 2015? Fat chance, my dudes. Iâm not going to apologise for what I said, because none of you know the total context of our friendship, and none of you need to, because this isnât anyoneâs business but our own⌠not that privacy matters to her. I suppose I can be read as harsh, and rude, and blunt (if you canât tell the difference between aggression and assertiveness), but thatâs because I was hurting. I was betrayed, misconstrued, and punished by someone I trusted. Add that the cliquey nature of fandom, I was outright intimidated. Anyone who knows me will know I am a bit of an online hermit, a bit awkward, and no wonder, with stuff like this going down. Itâs like being back at high school. None for Regina George, bye.
Now, onto the screenshots that she has published for comparison (completely ridiculous). By her logic, I canât draw Indigoâs head from behind (those two examples donât even have the same colour palette!), I canât draw Indigo with her head tilted back at a 45-degree angle, I canât draw Kolyat doing⌠anything⌠I canât draw Kolyat and Indigo being intimate, I canât draw Shepard standing in front of a window with a datapad. I use screenshots for references, I use pictures of cities, I use Rose Leslie as a faceclaim for Indigo, and I use Kolyat as a faceclaim for Kolyat. What should I do, replace him with Kermit the Frog? Maybe I will, itâll be funny. Our styles are similar because we draw from the game, and we draw the characters semi-realistically. I donât cartoonify my art. Do you not realise that we are both drawing from the game? Soignee, you even say in your post that you donât own an art style, and that the problem isnât neon, Kolyat, or the Citadel. So, whatâs the problem, then? It wasnât a problem when I was sending you my WIPs on discord and asking for your thoughts, Soignee. When did it suddenly become a problem?
To be honest, I think all of this is in response to the fact that I have been posting more art recently. In her original letter, she said as muchââIt has come to my attention the amount of art you have doneâ. Again, why was it not a problem before? Look through my art tag. Iâve done the same stuff throughout the years, just with better technique as Iâve been practising and developing as an artist. I went from using photoshop to clip studio paint to procreate. Maybe we use the same brushes? I donât know.
I am not a competitive person. I have no desire to push people down to further myself, which is more than I can say for autodiscothings. She told me, verbatim, âI feel like you want to see me fail.â This was in our last conversation before she blocked me. I have never, ever felt that way towards anyone, and still donât, and was hurt that she would think that of me, particularly because I thought we were friends, mutually inspiring each other. Of course Iâd like more people to view and engage with my stuff, because every artist does, but never at the expense of anyone else, because Iâm not a psychopath. Honestly, if I may play armchair psychologist for a moment, I think she was projecting.
This is an insane situation. Soignee, I canât believe youâve done this. Whoops, I just quoted a Vine. Sorry, I get facetious when Iâm angry.
To reiterate: we were friends for two years. She blocked me because she said felt I was copying her, and she didnât want to be an influence or be influenced. Her feelings are fair enough, but they stem from a misreading of my character, my intentions, and my creative process. We had one issue where she wrote her Kolyat punching a vending machine, and I offhandedly said I didnât think my Kolyat would do that. She took that as me criticising her characterisation of Kolyat, and holding her up as my âI would never.â This is wrong. I drew comparisons between our Kolyats because thatâs just how my brain works when differentiating the characters. It was not a criticism of her, or her writing, or her character, but she took it that way and this led to her ghosting me for three months. This was prior to the final conversation before she blocked me. She vastly misconstrued me and my intentions and feelings, and punished me for them. I said this to her. I feel that this is ongoing punishment. I wish she would stop obsessing. All I have ever wanted is to keep growing as an artist and a writer. I never intended to hurt anyone. I do not set out to copy. All I want to do is just chill in my little corner of the internet and just do my thing. Iâve never asked you for anything. Just leave me alone.
Soignee, I want to say itâs unfortunate that you felt the need to do this. You could have just let it be and refrained from contacting me again, or talking about me behind my back, which I explicitly said I resent you doingâand not because I was afraid people would find out my âdeep dark secret that all of my art revolves around yoursâ (Iâm being sarcastic thereâthe quotation marks to not denote me actually quoting anything, just to be clear), but because it is rude, uncalled for, and unnecessary. I would never have published our correspondence if you had not forced my hand by making it public, and I made that specific in my letter to you, though I never thought you would stoop so low as to make a public post slandering me. I am entitled to show how my letter was a response to yours, and it is only fair that I publish yours as well, to show that mine was an attempt to answer your unwarranted criticisms. I still feel that I did answer those criticisms, and I thought that was the end of this situation, and you would be mature enough to let it go. But you say in your post, âItâs still ongoing,â meaning I am still creating art. The only reason it is ongoing is because I have kept doing art, and you want to twist the knife. You really seem like one of those people who needs to have the last word, no matter how much damage it does to other people.
Soignee, as you know, I suffer from anxiety and depression, both of which were galvanised by your bullshitâyour fake friendship, your bullying, your competitive, obsessive nature. You know how insecure I am. You know how much I struggle with creativity. You know this, because we confided in each other when I thought you were my friend. Iâm not trying to be all âoh poor meâ, but I also feel the need to put my feelings out there. You have made this fair game, Soignee. You could have let it go. I know you have medical issues as well, and fandom brings joy into your life and Iâm glad of that, but that is no excuse to behave in such a deranged manner. Again, this is INSANE. I am not a threat to you.
You have a fan base, dude. You have paying customers. Why do you feel the need to tear me down? My existence should not affect you. What I do has nothing to do with you, and what you do has nothing to do with me. Maybe it did, once, but not anymore, and it never did to the extent that you have accused me of.
Re: the whole DANDI 20 thing, that was me deciding to add a signature to my work after being too lazy to do so for a few years because I felt that you force my hand. I never believed I had to do this because I didnât take myself seriously as an artist. Your accusations of plagiarism influenced that decision, of course, but my world is bigger than you.
Iâm just done, by this point. I asked you to not reply. I asked you to just let it be. I thought you could be better than this, but youâre just a manipulative bully.
Also, I want to add, that even though I am angry and hurt, and that I do not like Soignee as a person because of her actions, I do not wish her any ill, and I do not wish for anyone to turn against her because of this. My feelings towards her should not affect yours, and I will not hold it against anyone who supports herâbut I am hurt by the accusations of gaslighting. People donât have to take sides in this. Also, to those of you who are saying that I am gaslighting her into being silent, that was not my intention with the letter, I just wanted to put my context of the story out and to avoid further drama by asking her not to discuss me with other people. I feel gaslit, myself.
Iâm not intending to instigate a war or anything. I want an end to this drama. I thought I had ended it with my response to her initial letter. I thought this was over. Can it be over now?
discoholicmusic
jacobvanloon
andulkaphoto
vaporwave
annaxmalina
