For the Record, and for the last time.

[Shyal_malkes]

I’m gonna start this monster with a little stroll down memory lane.

I’m a sucker for nostalgia and, in going back, I couldn’t help but reminisce about all the people I used to know, both here and elsewhere.

I feel a bit like... there was an old episode of an old cartoon called “Bump in the Night”, where the doll character, I forget her name, got torn apart. See, the doll had a purpose, to make people comfortable, and would always be there for people to comfort them. But one day, the kid, who was basically the master of the room, got upset and ripped her arm off... I think, it was a long time ago.

Anyway, she got a replacement arm but, it kinda got to her head, she liked the strength of it and wanted... more.

You can probably see where this is going. Eventually she got so power-mad that she decided she wanted the “head” of the main character, which would have killed him. So, he’s running for his life while the secondary character, a living glob of toothpaste, puts the doll back together from her original parts... minus the arm because they didn’t have that.

She came back to life as her old self again and they confronted the... monstrosity she had created/become.

If only life were so simple.

When I first joined, I saw Ralph and the little company as trying to travel upstream, when everyone else wanted to go the other way. A real David and Goliath situation. I also kinda liked the message and the atmosphere of both the forum and the comics Ralph had going.

This place, this forum, it has always been a kind of pain in my heart, for all the people I used to know, many of whom never even left with us to follow the forum after Ralph left. A tragically high number of these same people have left basically NO contact information. They existed, only for a brief blip of a few years and, when Ralph left, they essentially stopped existing... here at least. But with no contact info... they essentially never existed out there at all.

Forever lost in an ever growing sea of meaningless sites and advertisements.

When I came back here yesterday, I knew I had to make a list. It was late though, so I started making one today instead.

Aurrin, Axelgear, Bengaley, Luna_Northcat

These four I am the least certain about. Their names seemed familiar, but, well... for those who don’t know, Ralph’s forums have undergone at least two resets since leaving Comic Genesis, making this the first of 4 generations of the forum. Each reset/move, people could change their username and info.

I did, at least once.

Shyal_Malkes

Shyal Malkes was a Sonic SatAM fanfiction character I created... I say fanfiction but, I never actually wrote anything about him, just a little, really. At the time I was infatuated with the concept of alternative languages like in Watership Down.

Shyal - “silver”
Malkes - “sails”

Yes, in the story I made, all of the characters had names in this made-up language, and they were all fairly on-the-nose.

It didn’t help that I had an English AP teacher who would poke fun at me for the slightest misunderstanding. I didn’t even know what a “kitsune” was other than some Japanese demon or something. He started making fun of me for liking some demon-thing.

Yes, my English AP teacher was making fun of me, a student. This was in High-School.

But back on topic.

What really hit me, while making the list, wasn’t the people that had stuck it out to the end, but those that didn’t...

BlasTech, Bo Lindbergh, Camarogeddon, Capnregex, CasVeg, DracoDei, DragonMasterHawk,
Earl McClaw, Madmoonie, Mikhail Dragoslav, Mwalimu, Narnian, NydaLynn, RedSquirrel456,
StrangeWulf13, Wayfarer, Yuoofox,

I might be mis-remembering, but I feel fairly certain that yes, they did indeed make the move with the rest of us... but they did NOT stick around, or if they did, they stopped posting a long time ago.

And... I had to ask myself why.

There were four reasons I came up with.

1) IRL crap happened and by the time they were able to post again, they just didn’t want to, if they were able to post again at all.

2) They just didn’t see the point, got interested in other things, and drifted away. This is most likely, as Ralph basically updates about 2-4 times a year these days.

3) They saw an increasing rise in the bitterness and conflict and hate and were slowly driven away.

4) They got offended directly


These people were my peers, I might even have called them my friends at one point. When I joined I was in a bad state. I lacked self-confidence and had effectively NO social outlets. I think I really just became dependent on the RHJunior forums for any kind of social interaction. I got hooked on something that, in the end, wasn’t worth it.

I think I should have seen the signs early on though.

Some years ago, I posited a theory about how to shape plasma such that it would be self-containing and maintain its shape for longer. I was met by Skydander, who was more or less recognized as the go-to physics and science guy at the time. Skydancer told me to look up lenz law, as it would tell me where I was wrong.

I did look it up. It didn’t prove me wrong.

Without even knowing the terminology, I had accidentally USED Lenz Law as a basis for my theory. Looking even further I discovered that I was not the only one who’d had this idea. In fact, 5 YEARS PRIOR a Youtube video had been posted of people not only having, but EXECUTING this idea, using it for open-air plasma fields!

The guy who told me that I was wrong, and even gave me citations for how to be right... didn’t have a CLUE!

That was emblemic of how my arguments would go for the next few years.

I’d posit an idea, other people would tell me I was being stupid, I’d look at their information and realize they had misunderstood the idea I’d posted from the very beginning, and judged me for it.

Let me repeat that, they called me STUPID, because they MISUNDERSTOOD what I was writing about.

They judged me based on their own misunderstandings.

This pattern continued even when I POINTED OUT that they were misunderstanding and showed them where. They would CONTINUE to judge me.

So, why bother?

Why bring all this up?

Why would I dredge up all this, reminiscing about the past?

Because... I’ve left them.

It was strange, really.

These people are, essentially, hypocrites.

They claim to believe in such things as freedom of speech, and hating Fascism.

But, in the end, that is not the environment they have built for themselves.

I posted a concept, an idea that went against the norm, disagreed with the group narrative.

They argued against it, of course, and I defended my position. Both are allowed, of course, nothing wrong with that, but then the mistakes, misunderstandings, and judgements settled it. I was again labeled as “the bad guy” and accused of “ignoring arguments”.

I did not “ignore” them, I “disagreed” with them. I even “quoted” their arguments while arguing against them! How does one “quote” an argument and simultaneously ignore it?!

They treated the concept of argument as though it meant that, if they posted something that had convinced them, then it MUST convince me as well.

No, that... that is just stupid.

They all have a general political alignment and if... if that form of thinking... that if it persuades me it should persuade you too... if that were allowed to pass muster then there is NOTHING stopping people from being persuaded by the opposite political alignment.

ANY argument would be validated that way.

And I tried to tell them just that. I tried to tell them how to properly make an argument.

And they hated me for it.

How does one make a proper argument?

Find the bricks, the kernels, the small pieces, the points upon which the points being made stand upon.

Each conclusion of an argument is like the last space along a laid-stone path. Each stone in this stone-path is a point being made. Each point being made is like the top of a pyramid. Each pyramid is made of stones of facts and other points having been made previously.

To make a proper argument, or rather, counter-argument, one must...

M.U.S.T.

...One MUST try to understand the foundations, the bricks, upon which the points are made, and the way in which these points are being laid out.

“tl; dr” has NO PLACE in a proper argument.

And if you can’t, or won’t, make a proper argument... ADMIT IT! Make the best argument you can and ADMIT that it isn’t the best or that it is proper.

There is NO SIN in admitting that your argument isn’t full or fully valid.

I admitted to it SEVERAL TIMES!

And all they did, was rip me all the more for it.

It went back and forth until one of them decided to use “binary thinking” as an excuse for making simple arguments.

Let me repeat that, in an effort to find an excuse NOT to form a proper argument, they tried arguing FOR the concept known as “binary thinking”.

This was beneath him and I informed him of such.

Thing is, I wouldn’t really blame them, but I felt that they were so much better than that. I’ve tried making random suggestions, like ideas I’ve had for MONTHS to the TF2 community... and if there was ever a practice to find the stupidest people on the planet, ADHD gamers that have NO patience and “tl; dr” EVERYTHING in sight is not a bad place to start.

Thing is, these weren’t those kinds of people. The argument of binary thinking was LITERALLY LEAGUES beneath them, but they made it anyway, desperate to NOT HAVE TO argue properly and just make me cave in to their poorly made counter-arguments.

Which, again, I was not ignoring.

Then I got barked at by the B-mod.

B-mod, my name for a specific moderator on the Rhjunior forum.

See, there are several moderators there, including myself, technically. I was given “moderator” status over a small sub-forum when it became clear that I was hosting an RP that... eventually died.

Anyway, B-mod was the only moderator that, to the best of my memory, actually shut down my arguments as a moderator. Yes, I’d argue against other forumites and some of them might be a mod, but NONE of them saw fit to wave that hammer of authority over my head.

Only B-mod.

And I started to realize the pattern that had been happening.

I’d make a point.
The forum would disagree.
We’d argue.
B-mod would step in and label me as the bad guy.

Nothing would actually get resolved, the topic would be left without conclusion, meaning that, sooner or later, it’ll just come right back. All B-mod managed to accomplish was to delay the inevitable, sooner or later, the argument would come right back.

And I got labeled as the bad guy all along the way.

I went AWOL, and AFK for a while. A few days later and I tried reporting B-mod for harassment to the local administrator. If he even DID anything, he remained in absolute silence about it. For all intents and purposes, he did nothing at all.

About a month or so later and I realized that I needed to make a choice. Either leave now, or come crawling back to the same crap I’d been enduring for years.

Remember, I joined the NPC forum back in April of 2005, its February 2023 now, you do the math.

I told the Administrator, the same Admin that did NOTHING when I tried reporting B-mod for harassment, and formally requested that he delete my account.

He did so, within 24 hours.

Wow, I guess I’m the bad-guy to him too.

If there is a sudden change in attitude. I left to go shopping somewhere I'd never been before, got a chance to clear my head a bit, and I realized something.

I hate losing. Not contests, not arguments, not losing against people... I hate losing PEOPLE.

I hate how, I can come here and I am surrounded by names of people I'll never meet or get to talk to, ever again. I cannot go back, and have no place forward to go to right now.

Maybe, some day, someone will come back and see the thread and post and be like "oh, so that's what happened".

But odds are they'll only read through the first few lines, tl; dr the whole thing and misunderstand it, possibly even throw a "oh grow up" at me and be off.

That's what they usually do.

So yeah, that’s it really. So here I am, trying to make a kind of memoir for my departure. I’m also trying to find a new social outlet because I basically have nothing right now. Still, there are a few hopeful prospects out there, I can’t go back, not while B-mod is still there, and not with people that will judge me based on their own mindless misunderstandings and... binary thinking.