long time lurker, first time caller. i know we’re past the fact of everyone sharing their tearzah stories but i have one of my own too. hope it’s ok to share.
without delving into my whole life story, i kind of grew up using rp as an escapism from my real life. struggled with a shitton of stuff, whatever, created ocs to help cope. one of them was an oc for a popular anime at the time that was an obvious self insert. i was 11 when i made her and she was a 9 year old which... makes sense for someone my age. at one point the oc had self harm scars on her arms. before ash was a thing.
i roleplayed in chat rooms for a long time until i joined tumblr with my oc and began to roleplay with her. joined a group. had friends. etc. this was wayyy before ash was a thing as a fluffy haired doll girl, but my oc was a direct extension of myself so it had shorter fluffier hair and was a kid and etc. got a fairly large following for the time but ended up deleting it after some shit with a couple other infamous tumblr users. i remade them account and continued rping. and then tearzah happened. and then ash happened. and people started bombarding my roleplay account with calling me a thief because of my oc. i was like 14? and so scared because they said it was copyright violation because i could get in trouble. i tried providing proof that my oc was at least a few years older than ash’s current design but it was no use, they basically wouldn’t stop and i got scared and deactivated my blog.
it messed me up as an artist and as someone who liked to roleplay because i barely saw any similarities in our ocs except the fluffy hair. i put mine on the shelf and stopped using it until recently, but i occasionally get worried ill be called a copycat again just because our characters had coincidences way before ash was a thing and i changed the design a bit more, but it still sort of resembles ash. i don’t think i shoul have to revamp my own oc because its based off of my natural features, yknow? and learning that she has stolen so many characters just makes me mad cus i got accused of being thieved
if you got this far, just wanted to say thanks. it’s appreciated.