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He? It's another trap!

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you talking to me? What the ******** just happened here? What contest? What opportunity? What "silver ******** platter"? What does my post have to do with the two of you? You're right. This joke isn't funny. I'm already having a ******** up day, and now you're jumping down my throat for something that had nothing to do with you.

Inopportune? Seriously? So it's my fault that he misunderstood what I said and took it to mean I was talking about him? Contrary to popular belief, not everything is about Kai. It wasn't until I read his comment that I noticed his sig and found out he was in a ******** auction. Forgive me for posting such a ******** "inopportune" comment. While it had to do with an auction, it had nothing to do with Kai's, hence my status. Apparently I was far better off lurking, so if you'll excuse me.

This is more of a table flipping rage moment rather than a complaint...

Art theft is the topic today. I rarely browse through art contests as I really don't care about proving whose art is the best and I prefer to draw what I like rather than it be dictated by someone else's rules, but I ran out of material to look through and I needed to kill some time so I went in and lurked around a bit to see what people were doing.

One contest I happened across was themed for expressing grief and sadness and the contest was over so I looked at who placed and the person who got third very obviously copied a piece drawn by DestinyBlue from DA down to every line and the coloring scheme (poorly, but still..).

One of the rules being no stealing art, I pointed this out to the contest organizer and linked them to the original. They said something along the lines of, oh well contest is over so whatever. An Olympic gold medal can be taken back so I'm sure that something as small as this contest could have given 3rd place to the runner up. I'll get back to that later.

A couple hours later I get a message from the copy cat trying to explain themselves and how they did no wrong. That they don't know what DA is and that they found the image on google and it was pretty so they decided to copy it and that they never said it was their original idea and they would have given credit if they knew who made it.

Google images link back to the original page the image is displayed on and Blue signs all her work. Their argument is invalid stressed

No, they never came out and said their's was the original image, but they never argued with the praise at how creative and original "their art" was, which in my logic is taking credit in a subtle way by not correcting the people who think the knock off is the original.

Onto the subject of copying images. It can be a great exercise to pick up the subtleties and nuances or how great artists work and I've done it a lot when I was coming up and learning to draw myself. Almost every art class I've been in has a segment to try and replicate a painting or some such thing so it's not an unconventional way to learn.

The problem is that even the best copy is still just a forgery. A lot of us being RPers and some of us artists ourselves, are rather attached to our OCs and images of them and being able to relate to the feeling that if I saw someone using my creation and trying to attain personal benefits and rewards from my hard work, I'd be a little hurt at first because my characters are more than just some text and lines on paper. Them and their growing story are a part of me in more than a metaphorical sense. Kai has grown to be one of my proudest creations and one of my first OCs. He's changed directions and grown and he has his faults, but hell, we've been together for nearly 10 years. I don't think I can imagine going through my day without him floating around in my head now. xd

Blue, not being there to protect her art herself, I will do it myself without hesitation. No one deserves to have their feelings or OCs trampled on for nothing more than a child's greed and need for attention. And one of the tragedies of the contest is that the knock off placed. So everyone who put themselves out there and took the time, effort and creativity to make an original piece of art lost to someone who copied a pretty picture they found on google. I know how frustrating that can be for the rough, developing artists who haven't found their style yet. I don't want anyone of them to think that they should have just copied someone's art as well so they would have a shot at winning.

I'm pretty good at emotionally distancing myself from things and being able to think things through rationally, but when it comes to art and people's hopes and dreams for it I can't just turn a blind eye when there is something that's just plain wrong on so many levels going on.

Oh s**t... I wrote a lot lulz rofl

So apparently me being sick means the both of us starve as the spouse is too stubborn to get something premade and has come to discover that figuring out and actually making something to eat from scratch isn't so ******** easy after all.

I slap everyone equally.

emotion_eyebrow *Recalls a sample marriage vow ... *

"I, ____, take you, ____, to be my lawfully wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part."

*Then thinks ... No offense, but just wait until there's the RL factor of having kids added into that picture and one or more are sick.* sweatdrop

Oh goddammit!! classified_fu

On the one hand, the whole thing of youtube telling you if a band you're watching a video for is playing in your area is kind of neat, but ******** classified_fu

*flips a table*