EveKnight75

^A very common occurrence in fanfiction. Most fanbrats can't recognize the difference between negative concrit and flames. Anything that doesn't gush over their fics is a flame. If a review says anything in the form of an attack or insult but has no indication that the reviewer has read the fic, then I'll immediately discount it as a flame. If it's a simple "you suck" or "this sucks", it's still a flame but I can't really be bothered to react much outside of "I acknowledge this review". No deletions, not much of a defense. If it's "you suck and here's why", I'll reply with "Yes, but what do you think of the fic?." If it's "this sucks and here's why", I'm gonna read through the list carefully, and answer every point. If they have a point, I'll admit it and agree to try to improve. It doesn't matter how rude it is or if the person meant it as a flame - I'll take it as concrit no matter what. If it lets the wind out of their sails, there's not much I can do. I'm just not the "UR meen" type. Hell, I wasn't like that when I was 8 years old - why should I start now? I think the one thing I can't really stand is when someone flames another ficcer or group of ficcers on my review board in an attempt to explain how great I am. No - just no. I don't want to hurt other people's feelings deliberately and I don't want any flame wars over trivial things like that. Especially because I have the power to prevent it. I know that it's not a flame directed toward me, but it's a flame nonetheless and a volatile one at that. More volatile than any flame that attacks me on my own review board.

My first flame ever. I kept it for sentimental reasons. Some of the other reviewers told me not to pay attention to it. I responded with: The funniest part? The review right above that one is: and the next anonymous review after the flame contains this: I mean, go ahead and flame me if you must, but put some effort into it and do it with some finesse. Flamers can have finesse, you know. Hell, if you tell me it sucks and give me a list of why it sucks, I'll pay attention to it, look through the fic, and acknowledge you if you have any valid points. I seem to lack an ego. I can't help it. Really, the only reaction I had aside from laughter was "I really wish they'd change the system so that reviewers would be forced to provide an alias."

As a general rule, I don't delete reviews unless they're flames that have nothing to do with the fic itself. I remember deleting one from Wel-Zen (but I'm sure plenty of us have heard of him - he's a famous troll). There were also a few brats who tried to start a flame war with me while I was running an experiment for the concrit article. They down-rated one of my fics from a 5 to a 1, but I simply deleted their reviews, deleted my own flame after concluding the experiment, and rated the fic 5 just once to fix some of the damage (that's the only time I've ever rated one of my own fics). So much for their little flame war. It amounted to nothing. Other people have brought the rating for my fic back up to a 4. If a flame is actually relevant to the fic, then I'll keep it because it show that the person actually bothered to read the fic before flaming. They're good for a laugh. There's also one brief string of reviews that I had deleted off the board, but I've discussed that string right here on the forums and posted it to LJ.

Fuck this bureaucracy shit! I don't care if the people rebel against the government for being unfair. I'm not gonna give them a re-test. Just plain shove them into the car. It's what I wanna do anyway. And those who don't like it can leave the country - either the easy way or the hard way. Have we reached an agreement?

Of course there will always be fanbrats! All I'm saying is that the only fanbrats that will remain will be either the ones with longer attention spans or the ones who are so devoted to the series that their fics will actually improve over time. I can safely say that most fanbrats have short attention spans and are usually in a fandom for the review glory. They're the ones that will finally be purged.

I think the every single one of these possibilities will happen. After the seventh book comes out, the fandom will start to wind down. Fics centered around the postwar world, Harry and co. as adults (and their kids) already run rampant. After Book 7, there will be a surge in them. There'll also be more heated debates about what's plausible in canon and what isn't. No one will have the defense of "it could still come about in canon" because canon will be complete. This debate will branch out to the final flame wars about AU vs. "written before the book". I don't think there really will be any finalizations made in fanon until the movie franchise ends as well because there are so many fandom writers who rely heavily on the movie-verse. During that wind-down, the badfics will dwindle as well because the ones left will be the truly devoted fans. My personal favorite prediction: unauthorized biographies. If either Harry or Voldemort dies, someone will try to write a full biography for one of the characters. In fact, I think this can extend to other characters with devoted fanbases, including Snape, Lucius, Draco, and Neville.

I'd only throw in the re-tests because if I didn't there'd be an uprising against the government and we can't have that. A cross-country trip can be educational. Those who learn something about the country could be salvaged - the rest would be hopeless. Long, never-ending road trips are a rather effective form of torture. They've got better torture success rates than boat trips. The final boat would be the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm also envisioning unusually long hiking trips every time they ask for a break to get out of the car. Eventually they'll beg for the car again. Still not your cup of Starbucks?

When my mom goes to the dollar store, she ends up buying around $50 worth of stuff because OMGZ its so cheap!!!. Many people have this mindset when it comes to shopping, so despite the fact that the products are cheap, dollar stores may actually have more money in the register than department stores. Same goes for convenience stores as opposed to grocery stores. What surprises me is the timing of the robbery. I can see why someone would want to rob a dollar store, but I don't see why they'd inflict any violence in the process. Sure, they'll wave a gun around, but it's not like they'd want to use it, and they're more likely to pick a time when no one but an employee is present. Less fuss, less muss.

I was thinking more along the lines of you're asked to do a re-test. If you fail the second time, this is what happens: "I'm sorry, but you have failed the test. In order to rectify the situation, you are being offered a cross-country road trip!" "I don't want to go on a cross-country road trip." "I'm afraid that isn't an option. Get in the car!" And the people are driven all the way to the Northwest Territories or Alaska. They will be given a re-test. Those who fail yet again are then put on a ship to the North Pole.

There's two trolls in my family, but as long as they stay on their side of the planet and I stay on mine, we're fine. It's actually kinda nice to see the American media cover something like this. It shows that the general Muslim community is sane and doesn't like fanatics any more than the rest of the world does. If the rest of the major media took small steps like this, it would go a long way in diffusing whatever remaining tension over 9/11 remains. I have relatives living in L.A., and they say that it's still not that great there right now for Muslims.

Not safe for the brain link Pizza article Irvine Mosque I had provided the second link myself but it wouldn't work when I clicked on it. On the other hand, all of the links seem to be working fine for me now, so the issue has resolved itself. I haven't done anything to the browser or security programs to warrant any changes.

I already have one hormonal disorder affecting my ovaries. I don't need another one. I'm a virgin, and seeing as how I'm single and not looking at the moment, I'm likely to stay STD-free for quite a while. Honestly, I don't need a vaccine like this to complicate my medical history further. Because I'm over 18 and have PCOS, I get checked down there at least twice a year. That measure has worked for years and I'll stick to it no matter how painful it is.

Lately, there has been an issue with adding links in posts. If the URL is short, it'll work fine. Longer URLs automatically default to visible ellipses in the middle if we type out the full URL instead of linking a phrase. That's normal. Usually, what happens is that if you scroll over the abbreviated URL, the full URL will appear in the status bar, and linked text will lead you to a page without any issues because it'll re-direct to the full URL no matter how long it is. That isn't the case right now. What happens is that if you scroll over a phrase, the status bar shows an address with ellipses in it. If you click a link, it won't work and the address that shows up in the bar is the abbreviated one rather than the full one. I can manage to find the pages on my own after running a search, but I shouldn't have to do that every time, and neither should anyone else. Is there any way to fix the issue?

Why is it that the links with the longer addresses don't seem to work because it actually replaces the link info with ellipses? Now I'm going to take the NBS link and break it down line-by-line: http://www.justjared.buzznet.com/ 2007/06/28/ spice-girls-reunion-2007/

I already took an actual citizenship test and passed it "with flying colors" (evaluator's words, not mine) two years ago. Do I have to take it again? I've also taken mock U.S. citizenship tests and have passed every single one of them. Then again, I always paid attention in school and did well AND I listen to the news, so I'm not a typical statistic, am I?

Double pepperoni, mushrooms, extra cheese, and... porn? Corey Wildeman has opened a new franchise called Porno Pizza in Winnipeg. There's a racy picture at the bottom of the pizza box that reveals itself bit by naughty bit as you eat each slice of pizza. The franchise has only been in business for a week, but it's been so successful that there has been talk of expanding across the country. Apparently, he got the idea from the classic "pizza guy delivers something extra to lonely woman" concept found in porn. And he's still in awe that 75% of his customers happen to be female. This takes the concept of "sex sells" to a whole new level, doesn't it?

The link trae provided leads directly to a subscription form. Typing in the URL manually does the same. I decided to run a search on the home page and found a different URL leading to the same article that worked for me. Here it is: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/l...ack=1&cset=true If all else fails, type in Muslim Irvine in the search box. The first headline was the result I was looking for.

For several years, I had been considering doing my graduate studies in the U.S., but this has scared me. The more I read about stuff like this, the safer I feel in Canada. My cousin (Canadian) is engaged to an American and he plans to sponsor her so that she can move here and finish her post-secondary education at a lower tuition. Still, it hasn't been easy for her because they're being a lot more stringent with the American immigration cases nowadays.

Well, I'm finally getting back into the swing of things with work and volunteering. Tomorrow's the last day of school for my sister. I'm not sure how I feel about that - lately her mood swings and sheer hostility have been throwing me off. I remember what it was like being 13. Even then, I just can't seem to get used to it because she used to be so sweet and open. I was always a reticent child so it wasn't really a surprise that I was a reticent teen. Y'know how a teenager will always yell at his/her parents that "You don't remember what it was like!"? I'm beginning to see where they're coming from. You remember in your head how you acted, you understand some of their actions, but you don't quite remember how the emotional rollercoaster actually felt so you don't really fully adjust to the fact that they've changed so much in such a short period of time. I'll just hold on to my hopes that she'll change back into her nice self once the rollercoaster settles for a bit. Meanwhile, my laptop had crashed so I had to reprogram everything. Fortunately, the only documents that I had really lost were my fanfics, beta work, fanfic ideas, and a copy of my forum rules. I had already backed up the latest versions of the chapters in progress. The fanfic ideas were originally in my paper notebook. The latest beta work had already been backed up. The last back-up had been done because of intuition. I had a feeling that something bad was going to happen to the files soon, but I had no idea what. The laptop hadn't even been acting up at the time. Still, if a nagging feeling at the back of my head tells me to do something that may actually be good for me, who am I to argue? Speaking of WIPs, the concrit article I was working on with a partner was originally slated for posting in mid-July, but now I have to push it back even further. There's one more source that I need to survey. I had wanted to get opinions from GAFF, but the site had been taking forever so I had finally decided to screw it and go on with the article anyway. Now that the forums are back, they'd be a good source of finding out their opinions. A lot of them are concritters, and those who aren't know the difference between a negative concrit and an elaborate flame quite well. I might as well give it a shot and see if they can provide anything extra for the article. If not, it was worth a shot and we'll end up having pushed back the article by only two weeks, tops.

I had the same thing in mind as Pix when I answered. The image that came to mind for me was a three-way marriage (minimum), where every single partner was married to each other regardless of gender. There are several communal families that work this way (also known as cults). If you're married to every single one of your partners, and your partners are all married to each other, the issue of jealousy becomes less prevalent. If you're all in a mutual marriage, then it's also more stable in the respect that you'll be able to raise the kids just a little more easily. One problem with the "multiple wives" issue is that one wife is often resentful of the children that were borne from another wife. If the two wives cared about each other in a positive way and were married to each other, they wouldn't be resentful of each other's biological children because they would see those children as their own as well. If society legalized homosexual marriage first, then legalized polygamous marriages by putting a certain limit on the number of adults involved in one marriage, then the arrangement could potentially work. Lately, there have been arrangements where a homosexual couple would bring in a third homosexual person of the opposite sex into a special arrangement so that they could have a child. The contract would be drawn up so that all three would have parental rights to the child. Sometimes, this contract is drawn up between two homosexual couples of different sexes for the sake of bearing at least two children. I think that if we studied that model over the next 50 years or so, we might be able to gain a very rough idea of what an equal polygamous relationship involving children could potentially be like. I'm not saying that it'd be a perfect study seeing as how it's still centered around one or two monogamous couples, but it would give us some idea if that form of polygamy could be successful. And yes, I also realize that it would come nowhere near answering the question about emotional conflict, unless there was at least one bisexual person involved in the equation (such as homosexual man/bisexual man/heterosexual woman as third party).

When I was in 12th grade, we had a final project where we had to debate a specific social issue. There were an odd number of students in the class, and I had to defend polygamy by myself against two other people. At first, I chose to argue pro because I was iffy about it myself and I like a challenge. By the end of my research, I had changed my opinion of polygamy and won that debate because I was truly in favor of it. I honestly don't see anything wrong in being involved in a polygamous relationship provided that every single partner approves of each other. If they can play together in harmony and are both mentally and emotionally stable in the relationship, who are we to deny them? I honestly believe that everyone should be free to live their own lifestyle provided that they aren't harming anyone else. Why should it be any different for polygamy? As for myself - I'm not sure at this point. I haven't been in many relationships, and the few I have been in were never long or serious. I don't really know if I have what it takes, but I do know that I tend to be stable, so maybe it'd be possible after I've had some more experience with long-term relationships. As it is now. I think I could handle a three- or four-some. Any more than that and I'm pretty sure I'd be in over my head.

No prob. When we were first discussing GAFF, the majority of us actually liked the site after visiting it, so I thought you guys would be interested this time around, too.

The new Godawful Fanfiction forums are finally up and running. GAFF is where people go to spork badfics. Please remember to bring brain bleach with you when visiting - just in case. Speaking of GAFF, has anyone come up with any ideas for perfecting Uber-Vole yet? I want to add it to my profile or use it as an avatar. So far, we have this (courtesy of dazzledfirestar):

Poncho

Guilty. For what is life without mystery? G/NG: Embellishing a story for no reason other than shock value.