Let's clear the air....

I feel something needs to be said. I started this clusterfuck by simply stating that fleed's harmless. He keeps his opinions where they belong and long things stay that way, I will most certainly keep the welcome mat open for him. This triggered an outpouring of...support...that struck a nerve in a few people. People who continue to not use the Ignore feature, but that's beside the point.

I stand by what was said about fleed around Christmas, if, I'll admit, I could've phrased it better, and certainly didn't meant to put forth the idea that he's our fucking gimp mascot or whatever. I believe he's got issues, but I also continue to believe he's just happy to be here, happy to be seeing whatever anime/80s cartoon inspired madness Hollywood happens to churn out over the next few years, and happy to discuss it all here. And unless somebody asks him, he knows when to keep his mouth shut on certain things. That, to me, is at least a sign of wisdom, and it's appreciated more than he realizes. That earns him the right to be here.

Don Piano's a different story. A vast majority of his posts have this air of malignant, unearned, unjustified, nose in the air, "I'm right" superiority that makes me want to upchuck my fucking Cheerios, and he has the nerve to be surprised when he encounters the same attitude in return. He casts a wide net of ignorance on several topics, seems to have little to no love for the people who write for and on the site, and, just generally, sucks.

And yet, he also has the right to be here, as did fabfunk, swedish miyagi, Diva, JuddL, Owen, and several other still-posting people who have said epicly stupid things in their past. Obviously, the people with the power to deny that privilege agrees, in that neither fleed or Don have been banned yet, and rightfully so, since just like no actual community has no right to deny people entrance based on their intelligence level.

So, since it's obvious these gentlemen will be with us for some time, a few of you need to work this shit out, either by people discovering the aforementioned ignore function, making a serious, concerted, one-voice-from-many plea to the mods to ban them, which will make a lot of people look like assholes, but any consensus on these guys, at this point, will make the boards a happier place, or my personal favorite option, shutting the fuck up about them already and continue posting about fucking movies/video games/politics/Britney Spears as we always have.

Because I'll take one random post of discordant, avoidable ignorance a day over thread after thread derailed by people I actually like and/or respect dogpiling on either of them. Save it for people who have opinions worth debating.

Every single goddamn one of you is better than this, otherwise you wouldn't be here.

Call me an optimist, but I can't help but think, even on the internet, nobody goes to this much effort, employs this much subtlety, does this much research, even, just to be an annoyance.

If we are, in fact, dealing with the Kobayashi and Keyser Soze of dumbasses here, then that's even bigger impetus for people to just drop it.

As for Gabriel Williams, as I mentioned, I kickstarted this whole mess by tossing Fleed an olive branch. I simply prefer if I ended it, or at least started the end by getting people to come to some sort of conclusive course of action on these two, because the responses are more of an annoyance now than the people who earned them.

Yes, but, technically, same goes for people wasting posts on people and topics they claim to hate.

And so, we are all connected to the great internet paradox.

Calm down. You were lumped in that group just because it was your moment of epic stupid. Aside from a brief skirmish over the finer points of the PS3, I've had zero beef with you since.

But, I digress.

Eh. I've said my piece. I still think there's a pretty obvious divide between fleed and Don Piano in that, even if he didn't post about bullshit, Don would still be a 3rd degree cunt. If fleed was able to articulate himself better, he'd be innocuous, if misguided. And let's not lie, every single person on these boards is friends with someone despite their abysmal taste in film. And at least fleed gets points for knowing who Jean Pierre Jeunet is.

But, whatever. Even with people, YMMV still applies. Do what you will.

They're megalomaniacal and harder than the rest. Of course they still apply.