Copycat? :(
So uhh... I need advice because I have no idea how to handle a situation like this. I don't want to take to the confession blogs either, I don't think posting anything anonymously is the way to go about solving anything. I'm not popular, and I don't aspire to be. I'm grateful for my followers and friends that I've made here though so, again, I hope you don't mind me and entertain my thought.
Initially I was really apprehensive to bring up this discussion. As some of you may know I was falsely targeted and accused of copying another hobbyist's doll in the past so I felt really horrible to even refer to copying at all, but it's gotten to a point that I just can't ignore anymore.
As you might understand from my prologue, I am suspecting I might be the target of copying. I don't wish to cause a fuss about it though. Perhaps it's all a huge coincidence, but once the pattern was brought to my attention by a friend I couldn't for the life of me unsee it and it's kept bothering me still. I'm not going to be dropping any names, if that's why you are here for, and I don't seek to gain "publicity" by causing drama. I really just need help.
It started with me noticing a trend in the faceups that person did that took after faceups I had done and posted online just a few days before each incident. From the way I do lips, to the coloring of special freckles, to application of shimmer in the same fashion, the exact same placing of speckles on a faceup (which I had only just changed to move a little away from the general trend with the dots under the eyes), to one specific faceup blatantly copied in its entirety from the overall style down to the face tattoo. I'm not the greatest faceup artist around, far from it and some people will say it's flattering but it keeps getting more and more irritating.
Then everything else started to happen. I was receiving a head from a split that I intended to sell, this person was also expecting the same head and had the intention of selling it right away too. As soon as I posted about my decision to keep the head they also made a post saying the same. The moment I received my seahorse tail from fairyland (a while after the initial release) they put one on layaway too. Right after they saw one of my dolls, they bought the same doll in the same skintone. They now want two dolls that I own as well, in the same configuration and skintone again even though it's not the kind of dolls they even collect.
The thing that pushed me to actually seek advice though was the fact that just two days ago I made a post about switching the focus of my dolls and story entirely to the medieval fantasy setting of Another Story, and not 24 hours later they announced that they wanted their dolls to take a medieval turn as well.
I may just be paranoid but the timing is too convenient in every single of the cases. I've been trying to ignore it for such a long amount of time too that I'm sure people would ask, if you stayed quietly this long why bring it up now? And to be honest I don't have a comeback for that other than that I tried to bring the subject up in multiple occassions and the responses I got was just that "we must have used the same references" or "Oh, but I've ALWAYS wanted to do that" (even though I can prove that just three days ago they were saying they didn't know what to do with that doll of theirs.) and "You don't even know how much I wanted this doll." when it had never even been on their wishlist...
Can it really be a huge coincidence? I'd still like to believe that against all the odds. I’m terrified people will see me as conceited for saying things like that... How would you guys handle a situation like this? I don’t want for anyone to be hurt or targeted... I don’t want for this to end how it did with me... :(