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Blackjack Gabbiani

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  • Hello!
    I just read your fanfics and you’re a pretty good writer. Looking forward to more.
    Blackjack Gabbiani
    Blackjack Gabbiani
    Awesome! Well the one I just posted is done, but I do have more in my signature.
    • Like
    Reactions: Morax
    Er, hey, you mind if I finally review that Conquest oneshot of yours, Your Light?

    Because I promised you I would and you seemed eager for me to, but it's been over a year and while I've been givenn the go-ahead to bump it now that I've figured out what to do about my review backog and it was my first priority, I'm not sure you'd want my feedback at this point or not. On my end I quite liked it and dearly want to encourage more Conquest fic.
    Ah, my Skype! You miight have to bear with a really weird skype handle I'm afraid, because my unprofessional account is a little bit too unprofessional. ;P I'll add you! I get free at the end of every day so we can go over it then.
    Now, see, this is where I'm a bit confused. I never said you didn't want an explanation. I said I was continuously giving you one, but for some reason, you didn't want to hear it, or it's not getting across. I'm sure you do want an explanation; as you've said yourself, you're expressing confusion. But when an explanation comes along, you're calling me incorrect and blowing off my explanation.

    The long and short of it is this. You said you were confused in the thread about a rule. People explained it to you seriously. You made an ill-timed joke that could be interpreted as a serious statement. I come in and offer a bit of clarification because it seemed like you were still confused about acronym rules. You tell me you already knew what I had to say, and I should've figured that out because of the :p smiley. I proceed to explain to you that not everyone will interpret what you said as a joke. You clarified that you thought it was silly and minor that the acronym thing was brought up. I explain to you that you were being given concrit. And things just spiraled from there.

    Point is, I've been trying to give you an explanation and to help clarify your confusion. Your response was to tell me that this isn't what you intended, and I've been trying to tell you that what you intended isn't always going to be what's apparent to anyone who isn't you, which is why you need to be careful and why it's so important to be careful with the people you interact with on the forum.

    That's my explanation. And on that note, I'm going to also say that if it looks like you're (general you're) making fun of someone on the forum, it's my job to act on it. Period. So again, please be careful.
    Look, I'm sorry about making you uncomfortable, but I'm saying that, as a mod, it's not okay to poke fun at other people's reviews unless they're joking around with you. Period. Don't do it. That's the problem. And regardless of whether this is the first time you did it or what-have-you, I'm telling you for future reference that it's not welcome.

    Or in other words, you told an ill-timed joke that could be taken the wrong way and happened to take up an entire paragraph of one of your posts. I explained what the reviews meant to you, and you responded with "I was joking" and also that you were confused by the fact that I was explaining things to you. The only reason why this is a continuous conversation is because you said you were confused, and I'm trying to explain things to you. It just so happens that by "things," I mean "please don't poke fun at reviews out of the blue because that can be taken the wrong way."

    I legit don't know how else to explain that that's all that's going on, so I'm just going to say that I'm right now offering a simple solution. Don't poke fun at people's reviews (even if it's just one thing—still not okay!), and if you don't want these explanations ... don't keep saying you're confused. I'm just going to continue to try to explain things to you because, as I've said before, it's my job to make sure people understand and follow the rules and guidelines for interacting on the forum.
    Lemme put it to you this way: poking fun at someone's review–especially by calling the thing they point out "silly" and "minor" and doubly so if no one was joking prior to this point—can be seen as blowing off a reviewer. Sure, you could argue that you react to things differently on your thread, but that's irrelevant at the moment. The point is that right now, you're saying that what your reviewers are pointing out (and, again, it wasn't even all of them, and one of them brought it up as an example to a larger issue) isn't worth focusing on. And that's not okay to do out of the blue like that. It doesn't lighten the mood; it just makes people think that you're not taking them seriously.

    That being said, I'm going to have to ask that this conversation end for the night. If you have further questions in the morning, you're free to ask them, but for now, I want you to think carefully about what I just said and think about what you've said both in the thread and in this VM exchange from the perspective of someone who might not know you that well. If that doesn't help, then we could keep it simple and say that making a joke out of a review right out of the blue when no one else is joking about it isn't okay. If your reviewers are joking with you, that's one thing. If they're taking the conversation seriously, then they expect you to do the same.
    I'm not really making a big deal about it. I'm simply explaining to you things because you seem to be confused. :/ It's just that you're kinda not really listening to what I have to say (either that, or what I have to say isn't really getting across), so I'm trying to re-explain things as much as I can.

    Well, that and I'm a bit worried here, if you don't mind me being frank. See, as I've said before, the reason why they brought up such a minor point (according to you) is because they're reviewing you. Folks around here do in-depth grammatical reviews, and they had a bit of constructive criticism to give to you. Sure, you might not have known that "ok" wasn't correct, but that's kinda the point. Because you didn't seem to know that, they pointed it out with the hopes that they could explain it to you in a respectful way so you don't make that same mistake again. You responded by poking fun at their reviews and saying they're criticizing minor and silly stuff, and that is borderline disrespectful and could be a problem when it comes to author-reviewer interactions on the forum. As you probably know from the rules, for the past couple of years, Serebii's been pretty big on the idea that both the reviewer and the author should be respectful towards each other. It's my job to ensure that's a thing that happens. So if a person is confused about a review, I do my best to help out, and if a person sounds like they're about to make things hella uncomfortable for a reviewer, then I step in and remind people about the whole respect thing.

    Or in other words, it's the reviewers' job to point out things like that, and it's my job to ensure both sides are respectful towards each other during the exchange.
    So in other words, you were asking me if I understood you were joking. (This goes especially because the thing that preceded that question was the comment that you already knew and understood what I had to tell you.)

    Moreover, the reason why I brought up the fact that the judges' comments were secret to each other was because you're confused by it. And also because, as you keep saying it's a minor thing and that it's a silly thing to bring up, it sounds a lot like you're complaining that it's being brought up. I'm explaining to you why the judges brought it up. :/

    My point is, if you meant it as a joke, you could have delivered it a little better—as in, by not calling it a minor, silly thing to point out and by not suddenly saying in the thread that you're going to do things contrary to the concrit you'd received at the end of a serious discussion. As it stands, it sounds a lot like you're complaining about a review, and while you're free to do that (without flaming or harassing your reviewers—which, to be fair, you aren't), please remember they're free to bring up whatever they notice so long as their comments are made in a respectful manner (which they were). I'm sure you're well aware of this; this is just a reminder at the end of an explanation.
    I'm only reading exactly what you sent me. :/ The conversation started off with you straight-up saying in the thread that you're going to go ahead and do something contrary to concrit because of a reason. I respond by saying, "Well, [reason] isn't exactly solid there." You respond by telling me you were joking. I respond with an explanation as to how it's easier to assume you're not joking. You follow up that by saying all of the reviewers brought up this one point, and it seems so minor it's silly. I respond with, "Okay, but each reviewer had no way of knowing what the others would say, and in any case, they have every right to comment on it. So ... it's not silly, and it's pretty much coincidence that two reviewers out of four pointed that out."

    I'm literally not reading into it any deeper than what you've been telling me. Like, I'm literally taking all of your statements at face value to the point where this VM chain started off with you telling me I should have been analyzing your comments a little deeper. :/
    They were reviewing you, and all of their reviews are kept secret from each other until it comes time to post it. Consequently, they had no way of knowing any of the other judges would mention it, so they separately brought it up in their reviews because it was something to comment on. :/ Only two of the judges out of four brought it up (rather than all of them), and those two are thorough reviewers when it comes to grammar, syntax, and spelling. Which is a fair thing to comment on because it's still pretty important to the presentation of a story, and if a writer can improve upon an area, a reviewer's got every right to point out (politely, of course) what that area is. In fact, they're encouraged to do so according to the forum rules. Doubly so if they're judging a contest, where reviewing standards are a little higher than in normal story threads.

    'Course, again, not trying to offend or anything. Just trying to offer up an explanation that helps make things make sense.
    Sure, but that doesn't necessarily mean you were joking. Lots of people punctuate statements they're actually being completely serious about with a tongue emoticon (or similar smiley) to make what they say sound a little more friendly and easygoing. That and the joke didn't really have much in the way of context there—as in, there's not much leading up to it, and given that we were talking about the proper way of spelling "OK," it's easier to assume you're presenting your reasoning, rather than being facetious. So in other words, it pretty much looks like you're being serious, even if in a lighthearted way. Just as a heads up!

    (I mean, not trying to argue or anything there. Just giving you an explanation behind why I sent you that VM.)
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    Haha I'll have to do some grammar check first. But I'm keeping "ok" because unlike the other examples, it's not a proper noun (and if we go by that, it would be oK since the o just stands for old).
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    Uh, for what it's worth, you don't have to be a proper noun to be capitalized as an acronym. Look at MIA and POW. Both are adjectives, and one of those isn't even made up of a single noun.
    I had no idea you got inspiration for locations from Oregon! I think you might have told me long ago, but I totally forgot. And the meaningful names, which I had remembered, were interesting to see all at once. Their simple and prosaic meanings make it feel like a hidden fable where they're the actors ("Blackbird went down to the village where Chestnut was living").

    I also like that Veronica is in fact describable as nouveau riche -- that's what makes her endearing in my eyes.
    Aww, thanks. I hardly go to TVTropes anymore, but I'm very interested in what kind of stuff other people might have filled. There's a lot of trivia there I didn't know or forgot. I'm not sure I have enough of a grasp of tropes to contribute though, haha.
    (Sorry for insanely late reply keeping you worrying. Distractions, distractions everywhere.)

    But I didn't mean to yell at you and I'm so sorry it seemed that way! ._. (If it was the capslock that made you think so, that was supposed to be a joke, but you know what they say about reading tone on the internet.)

    But yeah, just wanted you to give me some space, sorry if it came across as overly harsh. ^_^;
    Again, huge review backlog + really REALLY busy with stuff elsewhere means it's still gonna take awhile but I'LL GET TO IT, DAMMIT

    (Though with that in mind could you please not ask again until it happens?)
    First, sorry for worrying you were actually going to flame my entry because of your trash-talk thing and assuming you were some horrible person because of it; that was far too rash, even if I have... A history.

    On a more positive note to make up for it...

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