Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, this guy waded through all the court docs and sums it up well for me:

So here I am, a person on the internet, delivering my verdict. From where I sit, identifying the Bad Art Friend is easy. In the early years, it is Sonya. She abused Dawn’s trust to mock and gaslight her, while lying to their mutual friends to make her look even worse.

In the later years, it is Dawn. Someone you considered a friend turned your intimate reflections into a derogatory short story and humiliated you in front of your social circle. That sucks, but turning your hurt feelings into a career vendetta and a years-long legal battle is sucky behavior too.

https://rottenindenmark.org/2021/10/10/identifying-the-bad-art-friend-is-easy/

Nope. This was discussed pages ago. This a rotten take from a Grub Street employee, who is sucking up to the director who is also involved in this. If he had even mentioned the word “plagiarized” or even “lifted” it would be more honest. It’s not just a cat fight. As pp explained it would all be over instantly if Sonya - right now - omitted the letter from the story.

I think you are talking about this (ridiculous) piece from Steve Almond rather than the early Michael Hobbes take: https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2021/10/11/bad-art-friend-new-york-times-steve-almond

My thought is that Larson discover despite all her friends in the literary world that she really has little or no talent in writing. POC or not her writing is not up to par. So she tried a publicity stunt. And it back fired.

Anonymous wrote:Clearly an unpopular opinion here, but to me this is an issue of interpersonal meanness versus material harm -- the purposeful sabotaging of a career. Yes they should walk away from each other, absolutely, and they've both behaved poorly, but one of them tried to destroy the other's living! There's just no getting around that.

To quote my DH who is a lawyer:Sometimes things that are mean and spiteful are also unethical and illegal. As is the case here. Larson should be slammed for her behavior.

Because isn’t the question really: what is your course of action when someone plagiarizes you?

Was Dawn just supposed to sit down? If so, at what point?

I think this goes back to the gaslighting…why can’t we even acknowledge this is at the center of it and therefore worthy of being discusse?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, this guy waded through all the court docs and sums it up well for me:

So here I am, a person on the internet, delivering my verdict. From where I sit, identifying the Bad Art Friend is easy. In the early years, it is Sonya. She abused Dawn’s trust to mock and gaslight her, while lying to their mutual friends to make her look even worse.

In the later years, it is Dawn. Someone you considered a friend turned your intimate reflections into a derogatory short story and humiliated you in front of your social circle. That sucks, but turning your hurt feelings into a career vendetta and a years-long legal battle is sucky behavior too.

https://rottenindenmark.org/2021/10/10/identifying-the-bad-art-friend-is-easy/

I really don’t agree with their takes that Dawn trying to get the story pulled from One story, One Boston was “ straightforwardly unethical and immoral behavior.” There are a few other issues with this take that have been detailed on twitter

He wrote this before the court docs were made widely public. I’m assuming his take now would be different given that he was the one whose questions to Becky Tuch on her first apology to Dorland prompted here to respond with the second, more meaningful one.

+ 1. Hobbes’s take is still getting touted as definitive, but it’s out of date. He didn’t comb through everything if that was how he framed the BBF and One City, One Story.

Anonymous wrote:Actually, this guy waded through all the court docs and sums it up well for me:

So here I am, a person on the internet, delivering my verdict. From where I sit, identifying the Bad Art Friend is easy. In the early years, it is Sonya. She abused Dawn’s trust to mock and gaslight her, while lying to their mutual friends to make her look even worse.

In the later years, it is Dawn. Someone you considered a friend turned your intimate reflections into a derogatory short story and humiliated you in front of your social circle. That sucks, but turning your hurt feelings into a career vendetta and a years-long legal battle is sucky behavior too.

https://rottenindenmark.org/2021/10/10/identifying-the-bad-art-friend-is-easy/

Nope. This was discussed pages ago. This a rotten take from a Grub Street employee, who is sucking up to the director who is also involved in this. If he had even mentioned the word “plagiarized” or even “lifted” it would be more honest. It’s not just a cat fight. As pp explained it would all be over instantly if Sonya - right now - omitted the letter from the story.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, this guy waded through all the court docs and sums it up well for me:

So here I am, a person on the internet, delivering my verdict. From where I sit, identifying the Bad Art Friend is easy. In the early years, it is Sonya. She abused Dawn’s trust to mock and gaslight her, while lying to their mutual friends to make her look even worse.

In the later years, it is Dawn. Someone you considered a friend turned your intimate reflections into a derogatory short story and humiliated you in front of your social circle. That sucks, but turning your hurt feelings into a career vendetta and a years-long legal battle is sucky behavior too.

https://rottenindenmark.org/2021/10/10/identifying-the-bad-art-friend-is-easy/

I really don’t agree with their takes that Dawn trying to get the story pulled from One story, One Boston was “ straightforwardly unethical and immoral behavior.” There are a few other issues with this take that have been detailed on twitter

He wrote this before the court docs were made widely public. I’m assuming his take now would be different given that he was the one whose questions to Becky Tuch on her first apology to Dorland prompted here to respond with the second, more meaningful one.

Anonymous wrote:Actually, this guy waded through all the court docs and sums it up well for me:

So here I am, a person on the internet, delivering my verdict. From where I sit, identifying the Bad Art Friend is easy. In the early years, it is Sonya. She abused Dawn’s trust to mock and gaslight her, while lying to their mutual friends to make her look even worse.

In the later years, it is Dawn. Someone you considered a friend turned your intimate reflections into a derogatory short story and humiliated you in front of your social circle. That sucks, but turning your hurt feelings into a career vendetta and a years-long legal battle is sucky behavior too.

https://rottenindenmark.org/2021/10/10/identifying-the-bad-art-friend-is-easy/

I really don’t agree with their takes that Dawn trying to get the story pulled from One story, One Boston was “ straightforwardly unethical and immoral behavior.” There are a few other issues with this take that have been detailed on twitter

Anonymous wrote:Actually, this guy waded through all the court docs and sums it up well for me:

So here I am, a person on the internet, delivering my verdict. From where I sit, identifying the Bad Art Friend is easy. In the early years, it is Sonya. She abused Dawn’s trust to mock and gaslight her, while lying to their mutual friends to make her look even worse.

In the later years, it is Dawn. Someone you considered a friend turned your intimate reflections into a derogatory short story and humiliated you in front of your social circle. That sucks, but turning your hurt feelings into a career vendetta and a years-long legal battle is sucky behavior too.

https://rottenindenmark.org/2021/10/10/identifying-the-bad-art-friend-is-easy/

I like Michael Hobbes but I think he’s wrong about this (heehee). While I agree Dawn was overly aggressive in contacting Sonya’s employees and publishers, I think Sonya is equally responsible for dragging out the legal case and prolonging the problem.

Sonya could just remove the letter from the story, promise not to use it again, and it all ends. This wouldn’t satisfy Dawn, who wants the story gone altogether. But it would destroy any legal claim. I think if Sonya had done this years ago, and offered to drop her lawsuit (remember Sonya sued first and Dawn simply counter sued as a standard part of her defense), Dawn would have been pressured into dropping her suit as well.

When you say Dawn is the bad actor at this point, you are suggesting that she should have accepted the theft of her letter AND accepted the humiliation of the story itself and “let it go.” I don’t think that’s a reasonable expectation, and I believe Dawn’s anger and frustration about the story and letter theft are not only understandable but inevitable. I don’t think there are many, if any, people who would respond that differently to bring in that situation. Dawn’s behavior is a pretty typical reaction to this kind of personal attack. It’s how people respond when their existence feels threatened.

In that light, this whole situation is within Sonya’s control, and is of her making. Her refusal to remove the letter from her story, something that would have allowed her to publish the story free of legal questions, is inexplicable to me. The letter is not essential to the story and (key point here) Sonya didn’t write it. Dawn did! So why persist in this? I don’t get it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of me almost feels bad for Larson. She was given really shitty advice by everyone surrounding her.

There’s definitely an element of frenemies giving bad advice for drama. “Omg you’ll great with an asymmetrical bob!!” “You should TOTALLY tell him how you feel!”

Right? I can’t tell whether it is sneaky frenemies or people so up their own petards or a mix of both. But no compassionate, savvy, wise, experienced writer would tell their writer friend: Yup you definitely should run with that lifted content.

Anonymous wrote:Part of me almost feels bad for Larson. She was given really shitty advice by everyone surrounding her.

There’s definitely an element of frenemies giving bad advice for drama. “Omg you’ll great with an asymmetrical bob!!” “You should TOTALLY tell him how you feel!”

Actually, this guy waded through all the court docs and sums it up well for me:

So here I am, a person on the internet, delivering my verdict. From where I sit, identifying the Bad Art Friend is easy. In the early years, it is Sonya. She abused Dawn’s trust to mock and gaslight her, while lying to their mutual friends to make her look even worse.

In the later years, it is Dawn. Someone you considered a friend turned your intimate reflections into a derogatory short story and humiliated you in front of your social circle. That sucks, but turning your hurt feelings into a career vendetta and a years-long legal battle is sucky behavior too.

https://rottenindenmark.org/2021/10/10/identifying-the-bad-art-friend-is-easy/

Anonymous wrote:Clearly an unpopular opinion here, but to me this is an issue of interpersonal meanness versus material harm -- the purposeful sabotaging of a career. Yes they should walk away from each other, absolutely, and they've both behaved poorly, but one of them tried to destroy the other's living! There's just no getting around that.

Did you even read the facts of the case?

Anonymous wrote:Clearly an unpopular opinion here, but to me this is an issue of interpersonal meanness versus material harm -- the purposeful sabotaging of a career. Yes they should walk away from each other, absolutely, and they've both behaved poorly, but one of them tried to destroy the other's living! There's just no getting around that.

Her living is based on character assassination and plagiarism. I don't feel bad for Larson.

Clearly an unpopular opinion here, but to me this is an issue of interpersonal meanness versus material harm -- the purposeful sabotaging of a career. Yes they should walk away from each other, absolutely, and they've both behaved poorly, but one of them tried to destroy the other's living! There's just no getting around that.