#there’s a million free cute avatars why my damn wallpaper bird

[creativitycache]

I am discomforted as fuck. Someone took my avatar on AO3 and used it for their own. I made my avatar in 2009 from a sample of Victorian wallpaper I personally edited. It’s not a famous character. It’s a little borb I found on a Victorian Aesthetic Livejournal wallpaper pack resource post, cropped, color corrected, and added a phrase I thought would be funny in the font I could get to be the tiniest and most legible on my bootleg virus ridden Photoshop knockoff.

AO3 (wisely, imo) doesn’t allow for dms. So I had to awkwardly as fuck reply to their comment on a fucking dark!fic telling them this avie isn’t free use.

No reply. Been 3 days. No worries, not everyone logs on every day right? They were bookmarking things yesterday. They replied pretty quick to comments authors left them so I know they check their messages.

Left another message just now, more firm. But holy hell what a weird fucking awkward situation to do this on another authors post, this poor OP has absolutely nothing to do with this and yet here it’s happening in their comment section.

I know I’m not the one who did anything wrong, but I feel fucking weird anyways. You know when someone makes a total faux pa at a party and the person who calls it out feels like they ruined the vibe? That’s how I feel.

Avatars are so damn personal when you use one for a long time and ESPECIALLY if you made it. That’s been my face for fanfiction for thirteen fucking years. This little borb is a teenager. And someone just goes to my profile, copies my avatar, and ghosts? Dude. It’s be one thing if they said “Oops thought this was a free use cute generic thing! I’ll change.” But to freaking ghost????????????

Why me? What? I don’t write for what they post/bookmark on, but I do read that fandom. So they must have seen me comment on something and then decide to yoink it from there.

The vibes are absolutely rancid in this chilis tonight.