Avoidant discard + unpaid creative labor: I helped build my ex’s publication. Continued use of assets after I had objected. I asked for compensation for the LONG LIST of work, says "you are not getting a handout," and argues these are gifts given during the relationship. Help! I feel exploited?
My ex and I were together while he was developing an independent publication and project. From February through June, I contributed a substantial amount of creative, strategic, promotional, cultural, and logistical work that helped establish the project online and connect it with people and communities in the Philippines.
I initially did this because I believed in him and in what he was building. I was not treating every contribution as a business transaction at the time. I was helping someone I loved. But there is a difference between giving generously within a relationship and pretending afterward that the resulting professional work had no independent value. Plus, the discard was pretty f*ckng brutal.
What I actually contributed
I created the magazine cover, including manipulation and graphic treatment of a photograph he supplied, composition, typography, layout, and final preparation.
I reworked and refined the project's logos and visual identity, including cleaning and reconstructing material he provided, changing typography, and creating transparent versions.
I created reels and other short-form video content- striking videos with original music- DM me to view them. I handled more than 50 revisions, requests, adjustments, and refinements.I created three original music tracks for reels, with both one-minute and 30-second versions, and did associated editing and sound design.
I created promotional graphics and campaign materials.
I developed social-media content and a social-media calendar.
I contributed creative direction, research, strategy, logistics, messaging, and ongoing problem-solving.
I created stickers. I promoted the project through word of mouth and through my own professional and social networks.
This work came from years of experience in journalism, writing, cultural strategy, marketing, music, editing, design, and communications. My work and practice have been documented internationally.
The cultural and professional access I brought
The creative work is only part of the story. I also brought him into parts of the Philippine cultural ecosystem through relationships, knowledge, and connections I had already built independently.
I connected him with the person who built the project's website. Through that connection, he obtained a functioning website for around ₱20,000. Because of the connection with me.
I introduced him to people through my existing network.
I told him about the first Pax Silica talk he attended at Chapterhouse, which I paid for him to attend, and brought him into that context. I also translated the Tagalog discussion for him in real time.
I brought him to his first punk show in the Philippines. I introduced him to people, spaces, conversations, and communities that became relevant to the project. I shared cultural context and information that helped him navigate a scene I had already spent years participating in.
I promoted the project through my own networks and professional relationships.
One reason I am also sharing this in an awareness context is the cultural contradiction I am struggling with.
The project is becoming associated with parts of a punk community whose history includes resistance to imperialism, exploitation, hierarchy, and oppressive structures. That history matters to me personally and professionally because I have spent years working within and around these cultural spaces.
Underground punk and the oppressive conditions that fuel it have also been a major subject of my research and journalistic work. I have reported on these communities and their histories for international publications, so this is not simply a cultural reference I am making from the outside. It is part of my own professional field of research and practice.
That is why the contradiction is particularly difficult for me to ignore. I contributed substantial creative, strategic, promotional, and cultural labor to this project while it was being developed, and some of that work continues to be used publicly while compensation, attribution, ownership, and authorization remain disputed.
I am not presenting the punk community's politics as proof of a legal violation. I am asking a cultural and ethical question: what does resistance to exploitation mean when the creative labor of a person who helped build the project is subsequently treated as though it has no independent value?
For me, this is especially significant because the same cultural histories that inform the project's public positioning are also the subject of my own research and reporting. I therefore find it difficult to separate the project's anti-exploitation rhetoric from the way my own labor has been treated.
At the same time, I am a Filipina cultural worker who contributed substantial creative, strategic, promotional, and cultural labor to the project. Some of that work continues to be used publicly, while compensation, attribution, ownership, and authorization remain disputed.
That is particularly difficult for me because the work was not incidental. It helped establish the project's visual identity, online presence, promotional material, and access to parts of the cultural network it was entering.
I also find it difficult to reconcile that with the language of resistance and anti-exploitation associated with the scene around the project.
I am sharing this because I think these contradictions are worth examining, especially when creative labor is provided within intimate relationships and later becomes invisible in the public history of a project.
I am not claiming that he could never have developed a project without me. I am saying that the version of the project that emerged publicly during that period was materially shaped by my creative work, professional skills, cultural knowledge, and network.
I can document that.
Why I think this history matters
I keep coming back to a relatively simple question:
How much of the project that people now encounter publicly was already being built through my work, knowledge, relationships, and creative infrastructure from the beginning of our relationship?
I don't know what the answer to the hypothetical would be if we had never met, and I don't need to know.
What I do know is what actually happened.
I created the cover.
I created and refined the branding.
I created the reels.
I created the music.
I created promotional materials.
I helped establish the online presence.
I made introductions.
I connected him to the person who built the website.
I brought him into cultural spaces.
I provided information and context.
I promoted the project.
I worked on the project repeatedly over months.
That is part of the project's history whether or not it is currently visible in the public narrative around it.
The compensation dispute
After the relationship ended, I began separating the professional work from the personal relationship.
I made it clear that I was not asking to be paid for being his partner, caring for him, cooking, cleaning, emotional support, or ordinary relationship contributions.
I was talking about identifiable professional creative work.
His response was that there had been no contract for payment, no agreed hourly rate or payment terms, and that asking for compensation retrospectively was unfair. He characterized the work as contributions made within the relationship rather than professional services. Even when I itemized the commercial and market value based on standard rates, not even the rates commensurate with my decades of experience.
I subsequently narrowed the request to tangible deliverables such as reels and graphics.
The position I was left with was essentially:
“You're not getting a handout.”
I am including this because it is part of the documentary history, not because I want this post to become a demand for money.
I have estimated the replacement value of the documented creative work at approximately ₱220,000 to ₱250,000, based on the scope of the work, number of deliverables and revisions, specialized creative expertise, and my professional experience as a multidisciplinary creative practitioner whose work has been documented internationally.
But at this point, the valuation is secondary. The more important issue for me is that the work existed, it was performed, it was used, and there is a documentary record of who created it.
The intellectual-property issue
There is also a separate issue concerning intellectual property and continued use.
For the logo, I have the original material he sent me and the transparent versions I created after cleaning, reconstructing, changing the typography, introducing new fonts, and preparing the final graphics.
For the magazine cover, I have the photograph he supplied and the versions I created through manipulation, compositing, typography, layout, and graphic treatment.
I have source files, exported files, revisions, messages, timestamps, and other records showing what I produced.
I also expressly told him that we had never signed an agreement transferring ownership of my original music or assigning all intellectual-property rights to the project. I asked that compensation and continued use be documented formally.
That means there are separate questions concerning authorship, ownership, authorization, licensing, attribution, continued use, third-party use, and compensation.
The work is still visible
While the IG posts have now been deleted, the value, visibility and benefit remain. The logos I created are still appearing on the website. The magazine cover I created is still appearing on the website and in posts.
My version of the logo has appeared in promotional posters for events connected to the project.
I have repeatedly seen reels that I created appear on other platforms without my name or credit.
I was also blocked from the publication's social-media account and have not been given access to the relevant metrics. Even after repeatedly asking for it since July.
I mention these things because removing or deleting individual posts does not remove the historical value that the work already created. The work contributed to the project's presentation, reach, branding, and public identity while it was being used.
Why I think awareness matters
This is the part of the story I want to preserve. A project does not emerge in a vacuum.
Behind a publication, brand, cultural platform, or media project are often people whose work is not visible in the final presentation: designers, editors, producers, researchers, strategists, photographers, musicians, friends who make introductions, people who open doors, and people whose networks make access possible.
When those relationships end, the public version of the project can make it look as though the project simply appeared in its current form.
That is why I think it is important to document this history while the evidence still exists.
I am not claiming sole authorship of the entire project. I am documenting my actual contribution to its development.
The relationship context
The relationship ended during a period when I was dealing with a serious situation in my own life. It became serious enough that I am now being represented by the University of the Philippines legal aid team.
During that period, he became increasingly distant and deliberately limited communication. When I told him that I felt he was being insensitive to the seriousness of what I was experiencing, he characterized my communication as hostile and used that as part of his explanation for limiting contact.
When he explained why he chooses to leave me during quite possibly the hardest, most challenging period of my creative and professional life... and i am someone who build things independently, enduring years of attacks and defamation. He had replied, after I asked to talk face to face--- he simply said
“to be feeling shit and not enjoying my time and the process is such a waste of time, after all those years of grinding.”
I found that difficult because I was dealing with something serious and was asking for some understanding, not asking him to abandon his ambitions.
The breakup is relevant to the story because it is when I began looking at the professional contribution separately from the relationship.
What triggered me to finally talk about this
I probably would have continued dealing with all of this privately, but I recently ran into him on an island that I had originally told him about.
Before that, I had also come across his Tinder profile. He had changed the name on the profile, claims he is a filmmaker (but it's funny how thats the case as he relied on me to create short form videos). He was still using photographs from our relationship, and in at least one photograph I had been cropped out while some of my identifying tattoos remained visible.
What I find particularly difficult to reconcile is the public presentation of the project as a magazine that pays contributors fairly and takes questions of exploitation seriously, while my documented experience as someone who contributed substantial creative work to its development has been the opposite.
I contributed the cover, branding, reels, original music, promotional materials, revisions, research, strategy, cultural access, introductions, and other professional work that helped establish the publication online. I have records documenting that work and the subsequent use of those materials.
I was then told that because there had been no prior agreement specifying payment, asking for compensation afterward was unfair, with the position ultimately being framed to me as “You're not getting a handout.”
That creates a serious contradiction between the publication's stated principles and my documented experience as a contributor.
If a publication publicly presents itself as one that treats contributors fairly, then the treatment of contributors should be consistent with that representation. In my view, presenting a publication as committed to fair treatment of contributors while an extensively documented contributor is left disputing compensation, attribution, ownership, and continued use of her work is not simply an interpersonal disagreement. It raises a legitimate question about the credibility and integrity of that public claim.
I am therefore interested in hearing from people with journalism, publishing, media-ethics, or accountability experience about how such a discrepancy should be assessed. I am not asking Reddit to determine whether the publication has committed a legal violation. I am asking whether the public representation of its contributor practices is consistent with the documented experience of someone whose work materially helped build the publication.
Why I am posting this: It is very easy to think, “I'm doing this because I love them,” and therefore never formalize anything.
I am sharing this partly because I think there is a broader lesson here for anyone, regardless of gender, who contributes significant creative work to a partner's project.
That is what I did.
In retrospect, I would have kept a more systematic record from the beginning and clarified much earlier which things were personal generosity and which things were professional creative contributions.
I would encourage anyone in a similar situation to preserve original files, source files, messages requesting work, revisions, timestamps, delivery records, publication history, attribution, conversations about pricing, and evidence of where the work eventually appears.
That is not about assuming a relationship will end badly. It is simply good protection for both people when creative work becomes part of a shared project.
What I am looking for
I am in the Philippines, where copyright includes moral rights, and I am already being represented by a legal-aid organization. I have extensive documentation, including source files, transparent PNGs, revisions, timestamps, messages, original materials, website captures, social-media examples, third-party promotional posters, examples of my reels appearing elsewhere without attribution, and correspondence concerning compensation and intellectual property.
I am particularly interested in advice about where this kind of history and any associated IP or attribution concerns can appropriately be documented or independently reviewed in Australia and the Philippines. I am looking for platforms that can help me investigate the ethics of this kind of journalism practice, especially if refusing to compensate the valuable creative work of a Filipino.
I would appreciate recommendations for copyright/IP lawyers or clinics, artist and creative-worker organizations, journalism or media ethics organizations, and people experienced with cross-border creative-work disputes.
I have documentation I can share privately, including the identity of the publication/project and the people involved. Please DM me if you have relevant experience, know an appropriate organization, or can point me toward a suitable reporting or review process.
I am not posting this primarily because I want compensation.
I am posting because I think there is an under-documented history of this project's development that should be part of the record, particularly the amount of creative labor, cultural knowledge, professional access, and network-building that went into it from the beginning of the relationship.
I want to preserve that history accurately, share what I can substantiate, and make other people more aware of the importance of documenting their own creative contributions when relationships and professional projects become intertwined.