SQART

[squeen]

I appreciate the sentiment. Thanks. I think I've been pretty clear from the start --- I don't really care if folks disagree with me (that's more often a liberal/leftist's affront) and don't really spend much time thinking about it. You can't abuse me over the stupid internet with the written word and if you tried to physically abuse me in person you'd be in a world of hurt fast. You shouldn't care what I or others think of you personally. Really. An actor friend of mine once told me his acting coach explained to him that "Other people's opinion of you are none of your damn business!". Just be genuine and honest & folks might not like you but they will respect you.

I've said many times that you "stir the pot" and keep things here interesting. I may not like what you have to say, but that's better than total silence. Beoric, DP & The Heretic are tuned into your frequency. That's should be good enough. Peace.

If I'm going to have "internet discourse" it's simply to hash out ideas that are rattling around in my head. What pisses me off if folks who are disingenuous & waste my time. My kids have gotten into the "work" phase of their lives, so I'm not playing much D&D at the moment. That's why I'm quiet. Some other serious things are going on for me too, so elf-games take a back seat. My "message" about what makes for good D&D, if I ever had one to articulate, has been said ad nauseam.

Also, EOTB's right, at some point you see you are not changing minds and wasting your breath. So you either you continue posting for the silent watchers in the peanut gallery or just move on. Right now, I'm sort exhausted by fighting (on many fronts) against those who I am pretty convince live in a world-view that is either youthfully naive (and fanciful) or deluded by a crumbling world-wide western/global-elite propaganda machine (likely both). Rather than keep shouting into the void, for the moment, I'm content for the currents of time to change minds and open the eyes of those that I can't seem to reach.

These days I do something far more productive with my angst: I pray.

Something you might think about when you start to suspect that I am anonymously attacking you --- there's another name for the Devil, and that's "The Accuser". It's not a health state of mind for anyone. Fight the temptation.

Lastly, thank for the encouragement, but I'm definitely fed up with my artistic failings, ATM. Seriously: mediocre and pissing me off. I'm not fishing for compliments---just going through a frustrating phase that made me more-or-less put down my pen for awhile. I am that skeleton.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Something you might think about when you start to suspect that I am anonymously attacking you --- there's another name for the Devil, and that's "The Accuser".

Yes, I came to realize this a bit after (can't edit the dang blog comments, unfortunately). I saw Anonymous post a #MAGA thing, and it made me first suspect you. In hindsight, I shouldn't have jumped to that conclusion because A) you don't really have history of taking "the troll road" by making hit-and-run disparagement just to bolster your anger - you own up to your opinions, no matter how unpopular, and B) your responses have historically always been thorough, if nothing else. What the Anonymous user in those comments was doing just wasn't your style; they were being deliberately antagonizing and petty and angry (which again isn't your style).

If my initial accusing you of being Anon was insulting to you, I apologize; I was mainly going off their pro-MAGA style rhetoric, and you came to the top of mind as the only outspoken MAGA guy I know around these parts (not to say the only one, just the only open one). Funny to consider, but I guess we've known each other quite a while now (has it been 6 years already?), and I should have known you better than to be so petty as that.

It's no surprise that I rub a a few people the wrong way around here. It bothers me more than it should. Not because I care about how random faceless strangers who don't even know my real name think of me over the internet, but because I have a deep-seated fear of being misunderstood and assigned false blame. It happens a lot. Most of communication is non-verbal, and I apparently lack the punctuation in my messages when you get me at text-only. When people like Prince or EOTB or Sorcerer, or whomever call me "stupid" or "retard" or "scumbag" or some other personal sleight based solely on one facet of my life, it gets to me, because it's literally my phobia manifesting - they don't get what I'm trying to do, what I'm trying to say, who I really am. I know I'm not that way. Anyone who knows me in person knows I'm not that way. But the false accusation has stuck in their heads, and sometimes it eats me away more than is healthy. Anonymous was pushing those buttons with his personal attacks. I have committed the cardinal sin of doing this same thing to you by accusing you of being the Anonymous troll in the comment section. As you know, I absolutely cannot abide a hypocrite, and yet I had become one in that moment. For that, I admit fault, and again apologize.

I came to a stark realization earlier tonight after facing down accusations of my picking on you, and it's this: this is a small pond. The big fish here, the ones whose unfair judgement I fear, are only big fish in a small pond. In the grand scheme of things, I could cut ties tomorrow, leave forever, and my life would be largely unaffected. I've been a part of many online communities in the past, and they all end up embroiled in this kind of infighting eventually. What I feared is really just the natural order of online interaction, of people's egos clashing. Some folk get damaged and lash out, like Lopez's infamous comment section, or me in some moments of weakness. But I realized that it's just words, and just the opinions of literal faceless nothings. And in that sense, I realized that it was more important for me to clarify that I did not intend to pick on you, than it was for me to be right about something.

Prince earlier accused me of never having done anything of note in my life because I hadn't been on a buddy's niche podcast or whatever - he has no clue, of course. He doesn't know what I've accomplished, like, at all. Oh sure, he knows DangerousPuhson as the guy lurking around the 10footpole forums, but he literally doesn't know anything else about me at all. He couldn't even tell you my first name if you had a gun to his head. If he knew my other online handles, or what I get up to in the world outside of D&D, or what my friends and family know that I've done, he'd have to retract his words. If his proudest achievements are what he's done under the name 'PrinceOfNothing', then by far I've got him beat (again, he may be big fish, but it's a small pond). I have been a bigger fish in much bigger ponds, be he'll never know that, because he only knows the "DP" side of me, and it's all he's ever going to know. He has naively believed this is all there is to me. I had let his words and the words of his cronies cut at me, but I took a little introspection tonight and realized it doesn't matter. He is irrelevant. He doesn't know jack about me. He doesn't even live in the same hemisphere as I do.

I hope you can adopt the same mentality when it comes to me and how I speak to you, squeen. My opinion of you doesn't matter. I don't know who you are. I'll probably never know who you are. I know your stance on some issues (and admittedly I believe you're wrong in a lot of ways), but I also don't know how you spend your evenings, or if you've ever changed a life, or what your children think of you. Those are the things that matter. What some dude on the internet thinks is just temporary vapor.

You keep praying, and you keep being you. I may not personally ascribe to it, but damned if that should stop you in any way. Even if your responses get long winded in your special way (and I'm one to talk with this post, lol), I want you to know that I appreciate your participation, even when we don't see eye to eye. We are men - we must live as men, and we must therefore discuss as men.

 

[squeen]

Having finally skimmed that comments thread now, I will add this: you (DP) can be quite vicious to your perceived enemies. I do not trust you at all, even when you are showing a reconciliatory face.

Oddly, and as strange as it may seem, there is a valuable lesson (for me and my own misdeeds) in that statement, and I thank you for that.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't censor you here or anywhere---even though I would never count on you returning the favor.

Would I trust EOTB? Bryce? Prince? Yes in each case. Now why is that?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

(DP) can be quite vicious to your perceived enemies. I do not trust you at all, even when you are showing a reconciliatory face.

If you read the comments in proper chronological order, you can see that I only get vicious after someone makes the first move against me. I fight back, and I do it well - I won't apologize for that. I don't know why you'd expect me to just take that kind of abuse lying down.

I actually started out being really civil to Lopez (a few people we trying to point that out to him, but he was blind with Karen rage). He started getting downright nasty, then Prince came in, aligned with Lopez, called me "stupid", and everything went to shit.

I'm not saying my hands are clean - I could have severed things and walked away rather than escalating. But can you honestly say that what I did wasn't justified? Would you have just sat there and taken that kind of abuse?

 

[squeen]

I wasn't even on the thread. You thought I was and then decided to dragged my name through the mud. If nothing else, isn't that a moment for self-reflection?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

You thought I was and then decided to dragged my name through the mud.

The only "muddy name dragging" that was done was asking if you were the Anonymous person who jumped in to praise Lopez for being a MAGA champion and "speaking truth" about things like trans people having mental issues. Since that statement largely aligned with your beliefs, I said "squeen, is that you?", hoping for clarity (this is what I apologized for above, for jumping to that conclusion). When Anonymous said in a very suspicious way "who's squeen? he sounds like a cool guy", I mentioned that you were someone probably had conflicting feelings about Epstein (because you support Trump, who is definitely embroiled with that list), and also that you draw a lot of chainmail bikini women.

That's it... that's all the disparagement you'd been inflicted squeen. It's not exactly the most slanderous of situations - not like what Anonymous was doing to me by making very vile personal attacks and calling me names.

Or Prince, who just now said (direct quote here):

DP is an obnoxious, useless, parasitic cretin that manages to persist in communities by manipulation and preying on the kind and tolerant. There are plenty of people I have disagreements and even antipathy against that I don’t hold in such contempt as DP. He’s a grima-wormtongue-like character, duplicitous, deceitful, vicious and stupid and he should be rooted out of any community with extreme prejudice as a moral imperative. If I banned him (I have no idea because I only recall him when I have the unpleasant experience of parsing over his noxious thought-pellets) i’d say it was over the same behavior that he exhibits here, and my only regret is not doing a more permanent job of it, for which I should apologize to everyone.

Like, how am I supposed to react to such unmitigated, frankly unwarranted hostility? Do you see what I have to deal with here? Do you see the vitriol that gets thrown my way? I ask "are you the Anonymous guy in the comments supporting MAGA, squeen?", and in response I get the above as retaliation. So excuse me for being vicious in defense of myself - as I say, it's only ever defensive, because I have deal with bullshit like the above on the regular, and frankly any one of us would be just as hostile if we were facing down those levels of personal hatred as Prince shows towards me, a guy he doesn't even fucking know.

 

[squeen]

I mentioned that you were someone probably had conflicting feelings about Epstein (because you support Trump, who is definitely
embroiled with that list), and also that you draw a lot of chainmail bikini women.

Gee. When you put it that way, I can see you were just stating the facts. In fact, it was almost like you were complimenting me.

Truly you are unfairly misunderstood, Saruman, and deserve our sympathy.

"He’s a guy who has undoubtedly conflicted opinions on the Epstein files, and a fixation on drawing women in chainmail bikinis dominating pig-faced orcs."
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