The plagiarism thing was so random - someone commented on the more-than-a-year-old LJ post where I had first put up the wallpaper to let me know about it; someone had taken a wallpaper and used it in the background of some graphics of theirs on tumblr. I commented, and they were adamant that they didn't mean to take credit for my work, it was all a mistake. Which, like, I get that it's difficult to own up to something like that - "yes, I totally yoinked your work because it was easier than making my own background and I didn't think anyone would notice - but sheesh. Ultimately, though, it's just fanart. So I'm not too worried about it, y'know? Original art? Yeah, I wouldn't chance it unless you went to the trouble to do a CC on everything, etc.
Man, the falling out thing. It was the strangest thing. We've been pretty good friends for quite a few years now, to the extent that we were invited over for Thanksgiving, exchanged decent-sized Christmas presents, hung out a lot; fairly close. Well, my little sister had a fight with our parents over a dating situation, and she contacted these friends - whom she's also friends with, they did a lot of concerts together the last couple years. And the friends decided to drive over, pick little sis up, let her stay with them.
Which, like, I guess is well-intentioned? But they didn't contact us, didn't really know what was going on, just took it upon themselves to swoop in and be the white knights. And I know my parents, and how they react to things. We had been over to talk to little sis, she was upset, mom and dad were upset, but there was no reason she couldn't stay there that night. We had explicitly told her she couldn't come to our house because she does that when she throws tantrums; she just refuses to engage and leaves, and we told her that she has to actually talk to our parents, deal with them, be an adult. She can't just stomp off when she doesn't get her way.
Anyway, we found out about the friends going to pick her up - and at the time, what little sis was saying was that they were offering her a place to move out of the house to. Later this was amended to "only for that night," but I'm not sure about that. I really do think they offered to let her move out of mom and dad's and in with them. So I called and asked them to just leave everything alone. She's fine where she is, we appreciate the gesture (not really, but I was trying to be nice and smooth things over), but let it go. And I had to argue with them for like 20 minutes over it. Early on, one of the friends claimed her cell phone was on the fritz, and I was like, "I'm not sure I believe that," which ended up feeling accurate as never once in the phone call did she ask me to repeat myself or did I hear anything weird. Apparently she took HUGE offense to that, claimed I was calling her a liar. The other friend took offense that we asked her not to intervene in the first place.
So yeah, I haven't spoken to them since. My sister Laura spent a week trying to call and message them, no one would answer or message back. When they finally did, it was like, we were just trying to help, we did nothing wrong, Shannon called us a liar, she should apologize, etc. And Laura was basically like, whatever. Not choosing sides against my own sister. So that's been that. It's been almost six weeks now, and I doubt anything will change. I, at least, have no desire to hang out with them anymore, not necessarily because of the initial incident, but because of the way they froze Laura out when she was trying to patch things up.
Woof, sorry, didn't mean to go into it that in depth, but yeah. Like, it's such a weird situation. I'm pretty bad about washing my hands of a friendship when the other person does something to lose my trust or does something really, really uncool, but this didn't feel like that kind of a situation. I was just going to let things cool off and then see what happened. But it seems they don't want anything to do with me anymore, and, well. What are you going to do after that?
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Man, the falling out thing. It was the strangest thing. We've been pretty good friends for quite a few years now, to the extent that we were invited over for Thanksgiving, exchanged decent-sized Christmas presents, hung out a lot; fairly close. Well, my little sister had a fight with our parents over a dating situation, and she contacted these friends - whom she's also friends with, they did a lot of concerts together the last couple years. And the friends decided to drive over, pick little sis up, let her stay with them.
Which, like, I guess is well-intentioned? But they didn't contact us, didn't really know what was going on, just took it upon themselves to swoop in and be the white knights. And I know my parents, and how they react to things. We had been over to talk to little sis, she was upset, mom and dad were upset, but there was no reason she couldn't stay there that night. We had explicitly told her she couldn't come to our house because she does that when she throws tantrums; she just refuses to engage and leaves, and we told her that she has to actually talk to our parents, deal with them, be an adult. She can't just stomp off when she doesn't get her way.
Anyway, we found out about the friends going to pick her up - and at the time, what little sis was saying was that they were offering her a place to move out of the house to. Later this was amended to "only for that night," but I'm not sure about that. I really do think they offered to let her move out of mom and dad's and in with them. So I called and asked them to just leave everything alone. She's fine where she is, we appreciate the gesture (not really, but I was trying to be nice and smooth things over), but let it go. And I had to argue with them for like 20 minutes over it. Early on, one of the friends claimed her cell phone was on the fritz, and I was like, "I'm not sure I believe that," which ended up feeling accurate as never once in the phone call did she ask me to repeat myself or did I hear anything weird. Apparently she took HUGE offense to that, claimed I was calling her a liar. The other friend took offense that we asked her not to intervene in the first place.
So yeah, I haven't spoken to them since. My sister Laura spent a week trying to call and message them, no one would answer or message back. When they finally did, it was like, we were just trying to help, we did nothing wrong, Shannon called us a liar, she should apologize, etc. And Laura was basically like, whatever. Not choosing sides against my own sister. So that's been that. It's been almost six weeks now, and I doubt anything will change. I, at least, have no desire to hang out with them anymore, not necessarily because of the initial incident, but because of the way they froze Laura out when she was trying to patch things up.
Woof, sorry, didn't mean to go into it that in depth, but yeah. Like, it's such a weird situation. I'm pretty bad about washing my hands of a friendship when the other person does something to lose my trust or does something really, really uncool, but this didn't feel like that kind of a situation. I was just going to let things cool off and then see what happened. But it seems they don't want anything to do with me anymore, and, well. What are you going to do after that?