A revenge review, and otherwise polite responses.
TheDreamIllusioner
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/10619713/
Reply link: https://www.fanfiction.net/pm2/post.php?rid=234821119#new
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Subject: re: Your review to Wonderous Illness
A response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/12905976/
You made a lot of really good points. However, I just wanted to point out that Alternate Universes could be anything. I get that you say that it would be more of inspired by, but it would still be an Alternate Universe. Another thing to point out is that even though it is not canon to use the phrase “legendaries”, it is still a short term for an existing legendary pokémon. Just like how multiple of a person would be called people. One other thing is that I know I made typos. Even if you reread it you may miss over small details. However, if it is too small of a typo then the reader will know what the author actually meant. Either way, thanks for the review!
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Not sure why they blocked me.
St Elmo’s Fire,
A new guest review has been posted to your story. Please login to moderate this review.
Story: Do No Harm
Chapter: 1. Home and Hearth
From: You’re A Jackass (Guest)
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You’re A J***:Shut the F*** up already. If you got problem with this site organization, then leave you shitstain.
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XT3100A response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/12903741/
uhh thanks for the feedback. But to be honest. I find the first part of the review to be a bit rude. Just the part about it should be in the anime category. For one. This one may be like the anime but it mixes in the game worlds and i might even mix in some manga. So it fits better in “any”.
Now, Grammar is not my strong suit and i never cared about being perfect with gramma with “Hello”, i normal catch that. So that i can look at but i all fairness. I never care about that. Now i about the pokémon…. again its a name, so i make it capitalized for that reason.
Also about the horizontal ruler….. i hate those. I can never delete those damn things and i rather not use them to be honest. Also, i always make my author notes to be Bold. it is a common theme i see that everyone does. And i personally just write this way.
Lastly, while i appreciate the grammar tips. i would have loved to see some feedback on the story.
[i would have loved to see some feedback on the story.]
I’m not familiar with the anime, so it’s impossible for me to give you fair feedback on the story. This is why I’m so insistent about proper labeling.
Ah, i see. I’m not mad about that. Just the way you went about it. It felt like you were treating me as someone who knew nothing of how to use the site. I’ve been around for a quite a few years so i knew. If it was you should put this in the anime category. Then i would have treated it better.
Also i did split the parts of the story apart with extra space. It’s just that FF doesn’t like that and deletes that excess space. Very very annoying.
Sgt.MufflebunsA response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/12903968/
Yo, I appreciate your criticism. I’d like to address each one.
“You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like trainer or professor or gym.”
I disagree with this one the most, honestly. I’ve seen that Pokemon are considered to be proper nouns. On pages such as Bulbapedia, the games, and even official press, Pokemon are considered to be proper nouns, not common nouns, such as ‘The Aggron roared mightily’, as well as titles like ‘Mega Audino’ or ‘Delta Rayquaza’ are capitalized. The same thing applies to gyms, you’d say something like the Fuschia Gym because it’s a proper title, like Cafe Mimosa, or Hotel Indigo. For titles like Professor or Trainer, those are also capitalized in the games, like ‘You are challenged by Professor Sycamore!”. I mean, already things like Dr. Who, or Mr. Turner are considered to be proper nouns, and the same thing applies to Prof. Oak or Prof. Birch, I would say. It could be a matter of preference, but I’m sticking with what official sources have those nouns down as.
[Sinnoh is a region that is home to a wide variety of natural features. From the sprawling Eterna Forest, to the many large lakes that are scattered around the region, Sinnoh is often seen as the region to have the most diverse place when it comes to the environment.]
Not really? Sinnoh is actually one of the least diverse regions; it’s pretty much entirely forest. It doesn’t even have a desert like most other regions do.
I mean, it’s not really all forest. I could have elaborated better by also including features like the mountains, or the tundras, marshes, or other sorts of features because it does contain those. Admittedly, Sinnoh doesn’t have many of the hotter sorts of environments, like deserts or rainforests, but not every region needs to have a desert to be diverse. No other region has a mountain range nearly as large as the one that Sinnoh has; does that mean every region without a large mountain range isn’t diverse compared to Sinnoh?
[So far, nothing of those myths are to be proven, but for trainers, it remains a place for most trainers to explore.]
This is awkwardly worded – repeating words in quick succession sounds awkward.
Definitely that, yes. Should reword that into ‘…remains a place for many of them to explore.’ I’m aware of that, and that one slipped past me, which was my mistake.
[But, the hike, the climb, and the grit needed to traverse the mountain range are seen as well worth the challenge for trainers, a rite of sorts to improve their skills, and sticking around in the hostile area is quite a feat, and overcoming it entirely, more so.]
This is a run-on sentence – the second-to-last comma is a comma splice.
Yeah, that could look a lot neater. I thought that the second-to-last comma onwards was fine, however, because it serves as extra description for ‘sticking around…is quite a feat.’ and would support it as ‘If you manage to overcome the area by simply being extremely good at it, then that’s even more of a feat.’ Should just have it as a seperate sentence, I suppose.
[But all of them shared the same goal; to be a trainer first and foremost, and to go on their own adventure.]
This is improper semicolon usage. As a general rule of thumb, you should be able to replace semicolons with periods and still have the resulting sentences make sense; for instance, what I’m doing here. A full colon would work here.
I think commas work for that purpose as well, but you’re right that replacing it with a period does make it sound more awkward. Perhaps that wasn’t the best time to use a semicolon then; though, I could have also reworded the sentence to make it fit better with a semicolon too, as another option.
[The sun shone high in the sky, and yet, it was quite dark.
Or, at least, it was hard to see, due to the shroud of fog that covered much of the area.]
You really shouldn’t backpedal in narration like this, it’s confusing. Fog can actually make places look darker, so it would be reasonable to have the second thought expand on the first rather than contradict it. You could also make some point about how it was impossible to see the sun’s position through the fog, if you like the contrast of the first sentence.
Fair point there. I actually spent a while at that part trying to make it connect better, and I still flopped at it. Heh, that was another mistake of mine, thanks for pointing that out, and I’ll do that instead.
[For areas like the valleys and canyons, which were farther down the base of the mountains.]
This is a sentence fragment.
Yeeeeeep. That’s a bit embarrassing to have in there. I forgot to connect the sentence afterwards with a comma, so it would be more like…
[For areas like the valleys and canyons, which were farther down the base of the mountains, it was far down enough so that the cold air wasn’t blowing snow, but it was cold and humid enough to produce a strong fog within the canyons and nearby forest.]
That’s better.
[He was taller than your average Lucario, standing at a 4’3″, and not a 3’11”]
Exact measurements are ironically more confusing to the average reader, as it’s hard to pull up a mental image for these numbers. It’s better to describe height in more descriptive terms – even just a simple “he was a few inches taller than your average lucario” would flow better here.
That’s another fair point. I knew that sounded a bit awkward as well, but I never actually got rid of it, since I thought that exact measurements would be better. But yeet, I’ll be sure to just be more ‘broad’ in the sense of describing that.
I missed out on too many grammar errors, and I actually wanted to get someone to beta read for me before, but the people I’m close with are quite busy. I’ll be sure to try and check out that forum post later, once I get some proper sleep, and try to improve on those grammar convections. I’ll definitely need that for my next chapter. Thanks again. If you have critiception to be able to provide, then I’d like that too.
Capitalization arguments go here: https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/11834/55376155/1/Capitalization-Thread
[I mean, it’s not really all forest. I could have elaborated better by also including features like the mountains, or the tundras, marshes, or other sorts of features because it does contain those.]
That’s what I mean though, it’s pretty clearly a temperate or taiga climate; mountains aren’t terribly unusual there. It is true that the mountains are a bigger deal than in other regions, but mountains aren’t really a diverse climate themselves. If you want to focus on the mountains, I think it would make more sense to simply talk more about them instead of this opening preamble about other, unrelated aspects of the climate.
Huh…Well, color me surprised. I’ve always seen Pokemon as in referring to the species name as capitalized. I’ll bear down and say I was quite incorrect; I didn’t read your statement well enough, did I? I also realized that by professor and gym, you were referring to the common nouns, right? That’s correct as well. What I get for writing a review at 1 o’clock in the morning. Should have known you heard that argument a lot. Still, I’m much more comfortable with keeping pokemon species names capitalized. I might jump off the cliff with everyone else, yes, but it’s the preference I prefer more.
[That’s what I mean though, it’s pretty clearly a temperate or taiga climate; mountains aren’t terribly unusual there. It is true that the mountains are a bigger deal than in other regions, but mountains aren’t really a diverse climate themselves. If you want to focus on the mountains, I think it would make more sense to simply talk more about them instead of this opening preamble about other, unrelated aspects of the climate.]
Maybe in real life, yes, but in terms of Pokemon, I see those mountains as incredibly diverse there. You see Rock-Types, Ground-Types, Fire-Types, Ice-Types, Steel-Types, etc…all more uncommon Pokemon in other areas. In real life, you won’t see things like living boulders or weird, floaty, bug steel thingy-ma-bobs, but in Pokemon, you would. As a whole, pokemon can fall under a lot of different other categories, and so thats why I would see it as diverse. But with how much the focus is on mountains, you’re right in saying that the preamble should focus better on the mountains, though, that’s what I did later on too, no?
[I might jump off the cliff with everyone else, yes, but it’s the preference I prefer more.]
Alright then, I can’t stop you.
[But with how much the focus is on mountains, you’re right in saying that the preamble should focus better on the mountains, though, that’s what I did later on too, no?]
You did, but the opening bit about the entire climate still strikes me as unnecessary. It might be more efficient to just jump straight to talking about the mountains.
[You did, but the opening bit about the entire climate still strikes me as unnecessary. It might be more efficient to just jump straight to talking about the mountains.]
I wrote the whole climate tangent because the story, from what I’m thinking, is going to progress into other areas, the other climates that I mentioned. Perhaps that could be saved when they’re introduced, though.
By the way, this is not over my story, but I’d like to hear your side of the story. I got two PMs talking about how you, Talarc, and some others are bad, warning me that you all were terrible, and that you should all be blocked immediately, and of course the person who reviewed after you was against you. Naturally, I was cautious at first when I saw that they were right, the part about you going around reviewing, but honestly, it’s just critique. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. Maybe that PMs are posted on a blog being different, but I’m sure you’d be fine if someone asked you not to have their PMs on a blog (except if, of course, they’re attacking you and you need back up or something.) But what’s the huge deal? Why are people so hostile against you?As best I can tell, one user (Dragon’s Blaze) got angry about a review I gave her months ago and enlisted her friends (?) to start this weird harassment campaign over it. I do indeed remove reposted PMs at request, and I clearly declare that I do so on my profile; it’s not intended to be some evil secret. Basically, just ignore them.I think it’s also worth noting that I have repeatedly told Dragon’s Blaze I am a man, yet she continues to misgender me. So yeah.Alrighty, I gotcha. Is this a recent thing that’s occurred? I even saw the same person, Dragon’s Blaze preemptively posting on new stories warning them about you, but only like around this time period.Yes. She did the same thing for a few days at the beginning of the month, and recently started again.There anything site admins could do? It kind of beats the purpose of it as a review, and ultimately has nothing to contribute as a comment.I’ve already reported them, but there does not appear to be anyone at the wheel in FFN’s offices; I’ve gotten no response. The best you can do is ignore them until they burn out, I think.Was that a pun? You know, they’re fire and they’ll burn out? Yeeeeeah.
Still, honestly it kind of seems like Fanfiction as a whole really isn’t getting too many updates and such. Like the site as a whole is less quiet, but that’s just in my eyes.
After all the drama that’s been going on lately, it’s honestly refreshing to see an author who approaches your review as a suggestion rather than a demand. It’s not like you have the power to control others and you can’t force them to change their story.
I only wish other people would see that…
Oops, I meant:
“It’s not like you have the power to control others and force them to change their story.”
It’s also good to see because it’s the attitude you need to plot out stories. We can say what’s a problem for us, and we can give examples of what other options would avoid that specific problem, but it’s on the actual author to figure out what would work with the story they want to tell – especially with reviewing as opposed to critiquing a finished work, as we can only see what’s been posted so far and have no idea how it’ll interact with later ideas. Feeling obligated to do exactly what we suggested even though it conflicts with a later idea we have no idea about would be just trading one problem for another.
I liked Sgt. Mufflebuns from the name alone at first, but then everything got *so* much better. It’s really wonderful to see people appreciating concrit instead willingly allowing themselves to be a part of the Istwill/Blaze/Final hivemind.
I can’t seem to log in via mobile, so I guess this name is just going to have to suffice whenever I’m away from my laptop. Good responses this week.
You can log in on mobile, but you have to scroll alllllll the way to the bottom.
Let me know if it doesn’t work.
@ Act: Well, I thought it was just my goof at first when I logged out on my computer and say that the username was “The Reeds of Enki,” with spaces (I had been putting “thereedsofenki”), but after putting spaces it still didn’t work. It redirected me to a wordpress page that said that my information was incorrect. I put “the reeds of enki” though, so I tried capitalizing it like the username on my computer, but that also didn’t work. After a few failed entries, I was asked to prove that I was not a spambot, but doing so did not result in my being able to log in via phone. I have an android, if that clears anything up in any way.
Did you try logging in with your email instead of username?
The mobile site is incredibly finicky, unfortunately.
That also does not work, it looks like. I was redirected to a wordpress page again, told to prove that I am made of flesh, then redirected to another wordpress page. None of them allowed me to log in, sadly.
mothereffer. Thanks for flagging it, I”ll troubleshoot it tonight/tomorrow and keep you posted.
No problem! Let me know if you have figured it out, but it’s not a big problem, really. Thanks!
Looks like istwill56‘s guest-impersonating you.
Yes; someone will ask me about it in a few posts. Fortunately, most people do not seem to be falling for it.
Ah, if people are getting tricked, maybe get a profile picture? It’s pretty obviously out of character for anyone who’s seen you operate, but there’s not much way someone could confuse anonface with greencross or babyseal or reedpipes more than they could confuse anonface with anonface.
That is actually a good idea. I initially held off on using the cat picture because I thought it looked too smug, but eh, why not.
I always thought it was for the irony. You know, devious evil demon spawn with a cute cat as a profile pic.
The eeeeeeeeevil adorable baby seal and kitty pair.
Exactly!
Thanks for letting us know. We’re already aware, but the heads-up is appreciated.
On a really funny note, check out the link, everyone. “Blaze” sends a review, then Istwill sends *the exact same one,* and then says a moment later “And my review got replaced with someone elses. Oh, that’s so fanfiction. I hate these glitches.”
THE IDIOT FORGOT TO SIGN OUT OF THE OTHER HALF OF THE HIVE MIND AND THEN ALL BUT ADMITTED THAT THEY SHARE ACCOUNTS. I really, really hope you all find the irony of that as beautiful as I do. I mean, fanfiction has some bugs, but *randomly signing into a person who just so happens to have the same damn hate-crusade* is a bit much. I don’t recall ever randomly reviewing as another person. Them wacky glitches, amirite?
@ Indiscretion, thank you. This really made my day.
Edit: The formatting got me. Sadly, this is not the case; both say the same thing, but they have different dates on them. That would have been amazing, though.
Damn. Of the samey group they seemed to actually have the most distinct quirks…
Maybe they’re the roommate? Because it makes no sense for someone to scream at me I need to unban them from my forum when they’re still bugging me on the forum with their other account…though I guess it does fit with how Blaze took the banning so personally and started the crusade at that point.
@ Farla, I think they do know each other somehow. I think you might be onto something with the roommate idea; it’s been brought up enough and we know that this roommate definitely agrees with Blaze.
@ Farla: That and yeah, they have the same quirky, broken English. I thought that I had hit the motherlode for a moment there. What did Istwill mean by a glitch or another account, though?
@ Indiscretion, do you happen to have the sources for the posts on Imgur?
The first two. I can’t find the third one looking for it now, but I’m not sure if that’s if I’m bad at looking or because it got deleted or something. Either way it should show up on the review posts here because St. Elmo’s Fire did review it.
Here’s another fake St. Elmo’s Fire, and hoo boy would you believe the delicious amount of hatefandom that’s generating itself right now.
At least we can finally reap some rewards from doing things in such a repetitive way! Everyone complains about our signed reviews all the time, so it’s harder to sell that we’ve suddenly gone anon. And we post all our reviews already, so why wouldn’t we say so?
Yeah, it really would not make any sense for any of us to randomly switch to using guest accounts. St Elmo’s Fire has outright stated that he does not like to use guest accounts to get around things and the mock reviews really don’t go into much depth either; they just say that one thing about capitalization and leave it at that. Even the opposition has to realize that Elmo at least explains what he means or gives further examples or such most of the time.
Plus before the mock reviews got going they were using the anon option to have him say that he disagreed with everything he said in the first review and do the opposite, which was maybe not the best decision when it comes to seeming plausible.
Personally, I thought that saying “St Elmo’s Fire will do X,” then having a guest review say exactly X right afterward was the most implausible part. Like, how obvious can you get?
Well, the most obvious bit that it was him, anyway. St Elmo’s Fire has never gone back to say something like that, I think, so that’s odd, but that’s such blatant trolling that I didn’t even count that.
It kind of impresses me how low-effort it was. The anime world thing doesn’t even apply for that story!
[Also thanks to Istwill56 for “warning” me for lack of a better term.]
The author seems to have taken it to heart, though.
Oh, and @ Reeds of Enki, if you liked that you might find this amusing as well. :D This new guy’s kind of like The Farla Hater mixed with the review baiters, with a concern trolling tilt.
@ Indescretion, holey moley this is getting out of control. I’ve seen a few stories posted purely to say their opinion. At least this one put the effort to try as much to integrate pokemon in it, but it’s still pathetic satire. The comment about pokemon being sentient beings, that they deserve to be capitalized, is painfully ironic. God forbid we use a lowercase letter, that’s way too inhumane, but beating the crap out of someone and sticking them in a high-tech sack? Totes fine.
It is, however, fun to watch the hive mind abuzz with their craziness, sometimes. I hope that these people are just young and too immature to think rationally, but my interactions with humanity have lead me to believe that way too many are willing to go with the group consensus even if it leads them all off a cliff.
They might genuinely think that constructive criticism is evil or something. Yes, sometimes St Elmo’s Fire can come off as too harsh IMO, but he’s never been a troll, per se. Eh. This too shall pass.
Yeah about that. This has been going on for years. I recalled linking to posts from websidesvwhich date anywhere ffrom 2013, to 2009. I simply lite the match on the powder kieg that’s been brewing for years.
I mean in the end if it does pass that doesn’t mean that the hate won’t be gone. A lot of users and readers have seen complaints, have posted them, and what not.
The only difference between you and past blowups is even the most self-serving stopped short of going anon to copy-paste the supposedly soul-destroying crit onto random stories. Just because you’ve only just got here and weren’t paying attention doesn’t mean nothing else has ever happened before.
Well, they don’t see it as constructive criticism so they probably just hate flames! I’m curious as to how they got the motivation to put so much effort into hating, though– the ones on the side (lstwill, brtnvm… if they’re not the same person) make sense, someone goes hopping into a group chat with a LOOK AT THESE ASSHOLES AND THE STUPID THINGS THEY CARE ABOUT and it circlejerks to the other people who go YEAH THEY’RE SHITHEADS from there, a perfectly well built machine learning algorithm jumps off the bridge with the rest of them while the trolls in their group sit under the bridge telling them to jump they can eat the ones that do, but how did the person who first jumped in start off caring so much? Did they only care a little, and grew off of the circlejerk, chats, forums, whatever until it became a crusade against St. Elmo and Enki and Farla and Talarc doing wrong? @Cerrie, would you care to elaborate?
Oh, sorry @Cerrie, you ninja’d me. Have you been following Farla and co. for that long, or did you come upon the cellar full of black powder recently?
I wonder if it has to do with the fact that St. Elmo’s started reviewing year-round. If I understand things right, it used to just be Farla every January, but somewhere in the last year or so, St. Elmo’s been really active. Maybe that’s the change that brought things to a head?
That definitely made other people cranky before now, and I assumed it would follow that was the real issue, but no, Blaze lost it over the Arceus thread for reasons that are still not wholly clear. She doesn’t think it’s wrong to shit on other fanfic, because she has an entire list of things that you’re not allowed to do in fanfic on her profile and if you do them it means your fic sucks, and we’ve also been informed that so much as thinking about pokemon treatment is completely banned, let alone writing fics with that element. She doesn’t mind people getting the reviews, because the gang copy-pasted the same reviews all over to try to harass people. No issue with PMs because before finding the blog they were posting their PMs from me in an attempt to win the argument somehow. Doesn’t care about spamming, because the “these guys are trolls” was spammed. Etc.
This isn’t even “to a head” – there’s been actual large numbers of people mad before for stuff we’ve actually done and not invented sins. This is just psychotic obsession triggered by god knows what.
That makes sense. The Farla Hater and the review baiting crew that Farla? made a post about on here were circling during NaNo January. I’m curious as to just what drove them, and Cerrie presumably, to complain so much and so hard when other mad people slipped by with a few PMs or angrily taking down their story, though, too.
Less then a mouth. When people see soomeoneone actively fighting them it tends to get noticed. And again.. their are posting dating years ago.
I posted a link twice that’s dated from 2009. 2009. To put this into perspective… I wasn’t even out of school or barely knew whhat fanfiction was until 2014 when I wrote my first one on fimfiction. I’ve meet people who have delt with them for years.
Why are you fighting? What drives you to warn authors, argue on here, and dislike them so?
Wait? You actually believe that its just me? I don’t have only one alt account and I just gave it away less then a day after making it. Which again was about a week ago.
Everyone else you’ve been dealing with? They are either other people. And know others are moving out of the wood works because again.
People hate you.
One that list is a over a year old… and delt with the Winx Club fandom which does have a problem. An actual one as most stories their are rathered easily repeative,
And secondly, the thing was clear. i was seriously made that Elmo didn’t stop for an actual talk and figured “Its a debate” and after reading the forum… I ended hateing you for ironically trying to enforce the same thing I left Winx Club for.
Stagnation.
…you replying to me, or Farla?
I believe it’s not just you! Just, you seem the most strongly motivated, to be posting on Dragon Quill about it, and that kind of motivation is interesting!
Oh, is this what this is about then? St. Elmo wouldn’t give you the time of day so now you have a way where he does listen? That’s kind of clever, actually, in a hilarious sort of way.
You should probably listen to people. Seriously for fun I typed in Complain about Farla… then St’s user name… and boy did I find a lot of people complaining.
I posted a whille back a small taste of it but I’kll be honest… you’re thinking way to highly of me in regards to your foe their is a lot of people who complain and hate you. Its not that hard to get them to become piss. Because it is. And I’m not the only person warning others.
Every person that dislikes you guys tends to warn their friends. Its partly why you don’t see the warning review anymore. Its not that people complained about it so much as they had already been warned.
This is one of the most common reasons I’ve seen people not likeing you all. You don’t really read everything before replying, and attempt to rationalize anything in a way to not appear bad.
As sated before the problem is not “Because of St,” I also took a look at how yoou handled your forum and THAT was what pissed me off.
Boy and you call us ahivemind.
[And secondly, the thing was clear. i was seriously made that Elmo didn’t stop for an actual talk and figured “Its a debate” and after reading the forum… I ended hateing you for ironically trying to enforce the same thing I left Winx Club for.]
Ah I was replying to this part with that. Given that I have bad reading comprehension, can you point me to where you said why you’re doing this?
(Sorry if I missed it, I actually just stumbled upon this about a day ago. I haven’t been through most of the posts at all.)
[Its not that hard to get them to become piss. Because it is. And I’m not the only person warning others.]
Yeah, I don’t doubt it. A lot of people were and have been mad over what they’re doing (with all their PM posts), but very few of them have done much about it, which is the part that gets me curious about why you stood out when they didnt’.
[Every person that dislikes you guys tends to warn their friends.]
I’m actually not part of this site or their crew, haha, just a hate-eating lurker. You can tell because I was a guest a few minutes ago and there are about five posts with my name scattered around before that. I’m, hm, a curious onlooker, at best. I’d like to believe my goal’s still up in the air.
One that sounds stupid. Two I never did that. Three I’m not the person who came up with that. Four, it’s brtnvm (maybe) I say maybe as I wasn’t the only person listened on your hate bargade.
Oh and five. Anon reviews actually still have ip addresses. Fanfiction like a host of websites keeps track of eacch IP address. So if you reported me for it (which I believe you have) and seeing how I’m not removed that kinda discredits it.
I mean after seeing how far you are willing to go just to attack me. I didn’t even do it and you’re already accusing others of being me, or me being anon St, andtreated me like your archenemy.
I’m actually horrorifed by this… yet I’m also strangely enough laughing at thhe fact that my joke about being “The one person they hate” actually came true.
@Indiscretion, it apparently started on the Arceus thread over here.
Hmm, it does look particularily strange that someone would post an identical review twelve days after the first one, so I’m going to be doubtful on this one. If it turns out to be true then I’m going to go full on amateur psychology on this subject. I’ve seen similiar things happen to people with large egos before, but not anything that lasted this long.
And speaking of your hecklers’ action and all, I spotted some story wher the author had lowercased the names of the pokémon and had one of the reviewers complain about that and sounding upset that they took your advice of what not to do. I’m going to assume the author themselves have told them off since I didn’t see any further reviews from that person.
Golly gee, this is turning out to be come quite a mess.
It would fit really well with how things work. FFN is really good at remembering what you type into the browser. I just checked, and if you type something in the review field and refresh, it’s still there. Log out, and it’s still there. Log in again, and it’s still there. It usually goes away after you send it, but I’ve had half-written PMs live on as ghosts for months.
This would also explain why they’d know they screwed up and immediately post about a glitch. Most people don’t go to the review page after reviewing to check, and those that do wouldn’t see their own review because there’s usually a delay in the page updating.
@ Farla, I’ve noticed that about FFN as well. I have to actually make a space after writing something if I want something to truly be erased. I’ve had many a jump scare from what I was going to send as a PM to someone else and I had to check if I was sending something to the right person.
On a more detailed note, I’ve been under the assumption that Istwill was male because I thought that under their profile it said so, but it doesn’t. I just checked and apparently, I’ve been suffering a catastrophic misremembering of sorts. Istwill pops up to comment on at least one story that has to do with Blaze from about a year ago, about the same time as Istwill joined FFN– a quick google of the name brought me that much. Do you think that it’s possible that it really isn’t the roommate, that Blaze and Istwill are the same person? That they got the idea that we could be one person with multiple accounts to gauge reactions, because they/she had been doing the exact same thing for some time?
Holy cow, if that’s the case, we’ve been dealing with some next level crazy. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
The biggest hole in the idea that they are actually the same person might be that Istwill actually criticized Blaze for taking a while amongst praise on one of her stories. Yes, I’ve been doing some snooping. I want to get to the bottom of this madness. There’s definitely a connection though. No one else has the same level of obsession coupled with the same exact grammar quirks. If they aren’t the same person, they might know each other IRL and share the account.
I don’t know for sure — maybe the review was a weird sort of deflection of sorts by saying “sorry I took so long, don’t get mad at me, someone else already did,” but even as I’m typing this I got the inexplicable urge to reach for a tinfoil hat, so…. Maybe I’m being just a wee bit paranoid. There are an awful lot of strange coincidences though.
Yeah, this is just so weird it’s hard to tell what’s going on.
Blaze was on here under multiple names, so we know she’s okay with that, and appears to have multiple reddit accounts as the one that posted on the fanfic one hadn’t been around long and only had like one other comment. Both 45s are the same person, and that’s probably who the Anonymous45andsomeothernumbers account was as the story that was supposed to destroy us was posted to one of those. Fire has at least one alt account because she used it to get around the forum block. Only Blaze has officially shown up here, the one place IP addresses can be seen. All of them sound the same, and all of them behave extremely similarly. But they also keep being dicks to each other and supposedly feuding, which, if it’s to throw people off the track, is amazingly sophisticated compared to absolutely everything else we’ve seen. On the other hand, the fact they supposedly are feuding doesn’t seem to do anything to how well they work together, with Blaze bugging us about how Fire wanted to get in contact with someone uninvolved and apparently PMing them in Fire’s stead despite Fire spamming that callout post theoretically aimed at both sides but which only named my name. But on yet another hand that’s come out of nowhere, the different accounts have dropped in and out of this fight instead of working coherently to harass people.
The ages are weird – Blaze who is supposedly 23 and female’s roommate is a 29 year old man? – but the ages have been the most dubious part of all this so I don’t put much weight there.
Allow me to compound our mutual need for tinfoil: do you notice who has been suspiciously missing in all this time that we’ve been theorizing, who would likely have been the first to jump out and accuse us of something similar, or that we were being crazy? Someone who has been astonishingly quiet compared to how busy they’ve been in other posts these past few days?
Yup, which means ??? I don’t even know. She’s been reviewing over on FFN, and not just to say she likes the fic, but none of the rest of the gang seem to have reacted to that or to anything else.
To muddle it even more, someone called Megaer just posted a thing on FFN asking for you all to be banned. I poked around on their profile and apparently St. Elmo and Talarc reviewed them back in February. Apparently, they’ve been around since 2014, so they’re probably not part of the potential Dragon’s Blaze hivemind.
I’d believe they’re real. I think we’re getting actual copycats now that so many people have decided the story section is where their screeds go.
If they are the same person, they could be operating under one Master Account, which uses several smaller accounts to support one chosen Master Account of the time. Notice that Istwill has no stories under that account. Just favorites, I think, which really aren’t hard to make. The stories that are favorited often overlap with Blaze’s.
I think they were all like that, although given how many alt accounts have been in play, it’s entirely possible there are accounts with stories on them that we haven’t seen.
Buuut there is how much time was spent on the importance of big numbers – having favs and follows and review counts, and writing to what people want to get attention. So there’s existing motive to have a bunch of supporters on tap.
TBH all this does is prove once again that people who accuse us of using multiple accounts and harassing users are just projecting like whoa.
Yep, this is insane. I don’t know if this Megaer is different or not. I don’t think so though; her(?) fandoms seem to be a lot more varied. I recognize some Megaman Zero fics among her favorites, for example. (The source for my first ever fanfic, btw!)
I think Farla’s probably right about Megaer being separate from the others. Megaer has Puerto Rico listed as their country of origin while istwill has America listed and Dragon’s Blaze doesn’t have anything. Making sure all the hivemind accounts have diffent origin countries listed seems like too much attention to detail.
I take two personal days and you are going crazy? Wow. Ok then.
I think we’re not nearly as invested in this as you think we are.
We’re all here in our spare time, as a hobby, doing what we enjoy.
You seem to have now dedicated your life to making other people miserable, which is in and of itself disturbing, but you also seem unable to imagine that no one else cares that much.
It’s very weird. Very weird.
[I take two personal days and you are going crazy]
Euh… how are they going crazy?
You just spent 20 something posts arguing over me. Literally accusing me of being the anon user and misunderstanding reletionships.
(news flash Istwill isn’t my roommate)
Yet this is becoming a hobby of mine, well allmost I have a story I’m still updating and a video games I play.
I have no idea what your diffention of mierable is. Outside of you guys I don’t really hear any of this. Hell St said they had pms that proved how annoying I was… alll I see is one. Literally one.
I should feel insulted that you think this… but given how you refuse to listen to me (somehow you think the worse of not your friends which I find disturbing) I find arguing with you lot pointless.
Exculding everyone ellse here, people actually care. I got four followers just for the act of opposing you lot.
Besides this is the low end of prorities for me. The low end. Let me repeart that the low end.
And you lot have gone crazy. So what does that say say about you all?
Seriously paranoid concipery theory that everyone that opposes them this past month is me?
Either you genuinely think I’m Farla or this comment doesn’t make much sense.
Also, stop calling people you disagree with ‘crazy.’ Our policy here is not to moderate trolls, but I don’t have any patience for that kind of shitty ableism and I’m going to start throwing those kind of dergatory comments into moderation.
edit: I was not fucking joking about this. The answer is no.
Yeah, I’m also going to delete posts calling people ‘you idiot’ for not understanding your illogical, typo-ridden comments. Farla can decide for herself where to draw the line in her conversations with you, but you do not have the right to talk to me or other commentors that way.
Grow up and stop being a dick if you want to keep commenting here.
I feel like I’m arguing in a echo chamber
I still question if you guys understand irony.
The goal of this blog is not to be a platform for you personally to feel validated. I don’t give a fuck about whether you feel listened to. As the moderator, I absolutely care that our real readers don’t feel personally attacked or triggered by other comments.
You don’t seem like you’re very used to hearing ‘no’ but I can promise I will not tire of saying it. You follow our very, very generous rules or your comments don’t make it through modding. Period.
This is the end of this conversation.
I may be wrong, but I believe the story you were talking about was mine. lstwill first “reviewed” it, but even before that, Blaze sent me a PM. Naturally, I had a big conversation with both of them in my PMs.
The thing is, lstwill did not even read the story! They claimed it had a “move in” opening. I thought they made a typo, so I asked for clarification. But they did actually mean “move in” after referencing the Hoenn games. My story did not have that type of opening.
I did notice a similar response time between the two, as I was having conversations with them both at the same time. This could obviously be a coincidence, but there’s already a lot of evidence that they share accounts.
Yeah, that all sounds about right. And someone over here mentioned being tired of seeing opening of Emerald over and over again, so maybe to be contrary they decided to add “the Hoenn opening is super great, loved it!!!” to the review spam.
I feel almost like I need to go around apologizing for how bad they make the people who normally disagree with us look. Other people actually just have different opinions they legitimately hold! Their “don’t listen to that other review!!!” is based on the fact they actually read and liked the story!
It isn’t. I already told you this but of coutse you don’t listen to anyone.
Given we keep getting praise for It I don’t think you apologying would help. It would make you look worse actually.
Citation needed.
If you keep doing this, Blaze, I think I will also invoke moderator privileges and delete any comments that provide no evidence or logical reasoning. You cannot continue just yelling the same point over and over.
Yeah, I’m also going to be deleting off-topic comments. If you want to talk about something, figure out how comment chains work.
We don’t even life in the ame region, or time zone! What evidence? All they yell about is speculation at best!
Seriously people I’ve gotten pms from five people in what amounts to few minutes between. Its not uncommon.
I’ve been doing the feedback review stick for two days now. Well whatever.
Email us with the responses you’ve gotten and we’ll do a post on it, then.
Why would I do that?
Because the crux of your argument is that people prefer your way of reviewing, and you can’t prove that without evidence.
Your asking me to go ahead and just casually post peoples pms? Yeah no I’ll ask them first.