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Appreciations of the day

Started by thepanda, November 25, 2005, 11:45:21 AM

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Dracos

Woot =)  Less stress.  Real Ninjas find time to rest.
Well, Goodbye.

Jason_Miao

Passed phase I to be promoted today.

Brian

#857
Okay, I may be jumping the gun a bit, but I've got a really good feeling that it's finally worked this time.  So, time to come clean.

Some months ago I left ff.net for reasons I kept vague (actually, I totally lied, and claimed it was amicable and my own decision).  What actually happened is a long and convoluted story involving me getting really angry at someone posting a nasty trollfic and intentionally using the wrong genre tags (ie., 'Crime'/'Drama', when it was a parody (and a bashy one (oh, god, so infuriatingly bashy!!))).

A certain (influential, very popular) author who I've been careful not to name in conjunction with me leaving gave that trollfic author an incredibly positive review, congratulating them for being so clever.  Abuse of the system like that kind of hits one of my beserk buttons (Hi!  I'm a global moderator for this message board, have admined the Refuge, and am still moderating the FFML; I take this stuff seriously).

Maybe it's projection, and maybe I'm stupid to think this, but ... I kind of think it's the responsibility of an author that's become popular to realize that, and not encourage poor behavior.  Another berserk button.  Being ticked off and angry enough at this author (who has done some pretty gray-area stuff in the name of 'humor' in the past), I tried to PM him to say, "Dude, not cool ... AGAIN."

Only to find out the guy had pre-emptively blocked me from PMiing him.  That felt, to me, like the work of a troll, and a proud one, so my already frayed temper snapped, and I posted some pretty unkind things about that author because (as I saw it) he was actively encouraging the destruction of what little function/community there is in the Haruhi section of ff.net.  (Yeah, anger, not the best motivator.)

Well, before I could calm down enough to get over it and move on ... I started getting the death threats.

(I wish I was kidding -- oh, how do I wish I was kidding.)

Best as I can figure, some script kiddy with a depreciated botnet decided to set it to 'mailbomb,' and thus, since the day I posted my initial inflammatory remark (long-since covered up with, ("Lawl, I'm a jerk, my bad -- gonna go somewhere jerks like me are welcome~!") post I've been getting just shy of 400 e-mails a day telling me one of four different messages.  They are roughly, "You can't write your way out of a paper bag," "Die, die, die, die, die, die," and "You wish you could write as well as <nothingtoseehere>".  I'm not even going to bother trying to paraphrase the fourth one.

Now, before anyone gets the impression that this was super effective, only about 12 or so e-mails didn't go straight to spam (hooray!).  But ... I check my spam.  And it's those annoying (somewhat outdated, I thought?) e-mails that starts off seemingly to be a badly spelled personal message (machine generated, I'm sure), and then--  Oh, well, usually they're trying to sell me something when it comes through like this.

So, I don't have to read them.  But you know what?

The fact that someone went through that much trouble really wears a guy down.  Really.  Randomly generated from addresses, source server switching every few days....  I'm ... almost flattered that I was worth the attention.

Almost.

The longest break so far has been 70 hours, and currently it's only been a little more than 5.  But damnit, I am really, really hopeful that I can put this behind me.

For those doing the math, yeah, I got a hair under 18,000 e-mails over this.

Kind of explains why I've been so on-edge these last few months, eh?  Like the personal life issues weren't bad enough....

So, the positive?

I asked someone who was able to speak with the person I suspected was responsible (or at least knew him) and said, "Can you tell them to knock it off?  This $&%@'s gettin' old."

And ... it stopped.  Sure, I didn't get any kind of reply, but....

So happy I could cry.




Quote from: Jason_Miao on October 07, 2011, 07:58:12 PMPassed phase I to be promoted today.
Oh, cool!  Grats, Miao. :)
I handle other fanfic authors Nanoha-style.  Grit those teeth!  C&C incoming!
Prepare to be befriended!

~exploding tag~

Dracos

Well, Goodbye.

Anastasia

Congratulations, Brian. Nice to put that sort of thing behind you.
<Afina> Imagine a tiny pixie boot stamping on a devil's face.
<Afina> Forever.

<Yuthirin> Afina, giant parasitic rainbow space whale.
<IronDragoon> I mean, why not?

Brian

Well, I'm glad, too.  I'm not proud of it, but all the needling did prompt quite a few unkind remarks of my own elsewhere.

I've offered the author a chance to have those removed, but so far, no reply.

I suspect he won't, and that'll be the end of it -- as long as the e-mails stop, I kind of don't care.


Remember when we thought I'd never run out of angry?  Well, this has completely left me worn out.
I handle other fanfic authors Nanoha-style.  Grit those teeth!  C&C incoming!
Prepare to be befriended!

~exploding tag~

Jason_Miao

Quote from: Brian on October 07, 2011, 08:07:20 PM
The fact that someone went through that much trouble really wears a guy down.  Really.
I've had it happen.  I can see how it is annoying, unless you thrive on argument and enjoy manipulating such people.

Quote
I asked someone who was able to speak with the person I suspected was responsible (or at least knew him) and said, "Can you tell them to knock it off?  This $&%@'s gettin' old."

And ... it stopped.  Sure, I didn't get any kind of reply, but....

So happy I could cry.
You know, maybe this guy thought you didn't know who he is.  A lot of people are obnoxious on the internet because they think they're anonymous, and they somehow feel that shields them.  When someone proves them wrong, it freaks them out.


@Bri, Drac
Thanks.  It's somewhat odd how I passed, but mostly uninteresting unless you work at the same office, so I'll avoid boring all of you. :)

sarsaparilla

#862
@Brian: Sounds like wonderful news!

My appreciation of the day: for some time already I have been doing background research for a novel-length fic and now that it's looking like I could move on to the actual writing phase I encountered an unfamiliar problem -- I couldn't commit myself to writing anything down. It wasn't a writer's block since I had prepared perfectly good outlines and my head was full of ready-to-use dialogue but I still couldn't start. I just sat there for hours, unsure of whether I even have what it takes to see through something that will keep me writing for the better part of a year or possibly even longer.

So, I killed time by surfing randomly around the net until I happened on a Youtube version of Susumu Hirasawa's Mediational Field (theme tune from the anime movie Paprika). Grabbed and ripped to mp3, dropped into the player and put on repeat ... my mental block just melted away! ^_^ (The movie is a real treat, too!)

Brian

Indeed; good news abounds. 

I've been meaning to watch Paprika for some time....  Unfortunately, I have a roommate who absolutely refuses to have anything animated in the house, so have been waiting on getting my new place to watch it.  But that should be soon!

When it comes to writing (as I have learned), sometimes the trick is to just get yourself to start writing anything at all.  Even if it's terrible -- and then when you've built up some steam, go from there.  Kind of just getting the ball rolling and then seeing from there....  :)

Also, BBCode is a pain on the default iPad softkeyboard. >_<
I handle other fanfic authors Nanoha-style.  Grit those teeth!  C&C incoming!
Prepare to be befriended!

~exploding tag~

Anastasia

Quote from: Brian on October 08, 2011, 06:30:59 PM
Indeed; good news abounds. 

I've been meaning to watch Paprika for some time....  Unfortunately, I have a roommate who absolutely refuses to have anything animated in the house, so have been waiting on getting my new place to watch it.  But that should be soon!

When it comes to writing (as I have learned), sometimes the trick is to just get yourself to start writing anything at all.  Even if it's terrible -- and then when you've built up some steam, go from there.  Kind of just getting the ball rolling and then seeing from there....  :)

Also, BBCode is a pain on the default iPad softkeyboard. >_<

Gonna second that. Whenever I can't write on one thing, I go to write on another thing. It fixes it every time, even if I have to write a few pages of unrelated dreck.
<Afina> Imagine a tiny pixie boot stamping on a devil's face.
<Afina> Forever.

<Yuthirin> Afina, giant parasitic rainbow space whale.
<IronDragoon> I mean, why not?

Brian

I handle other fanfic authors Nanoha-style.  Grit those teeth!  C&C incoming!
Prepare to be befriended!

~exploding tag~

Anastasia

Quote from: Brian on October 08, 2011, 07:31:10 PM
Ah, .snippets files....

For me it's random DM work I may or may never use, but the concept is the same.
<Afina> Imagine a tiny pixie boot stamping on a devil's face.
<Afina> Forever.

<Yuthirin> Afina, giant parasitic rainbow space whale.
<IronDragoon> I mean, why not?

Brian

I have forty minutes to dispose of half a bottle of rum.

Brace for awesome.
I handle other fanfic authors Nanoha-style.  Grit those teeth!  C&C incoming!
Prepare to be befriended!

~exploding tag~

Jon

I made it through another birthday alive.

Brian

I handle other fanfic authors Nanoha-style.  Grit those teeth!  C&C incoming!
Prepare to be befriended!

~exploding tag~