LOL WUT? A troll's partial guide for responding to downvotes and comment criticism · 1:41pm Jul 4th, 2020
* Treat everything as a conspiracy. For example, if you post your story and find that within twelve hours of publication, it has gathered two dozen downvotes, this means there is a group of people who have deliberately hunted you down to poison your supreme work with the falsehood of their hate, because there is no way anyone could have located your story otherwise and besides, it's impossible to find real fault with your work. Misspelling the title, repeating the same plot sixteen times in the short description, and starting off your first story sentence with six different tenses? That's just your style. And as for having people somehow find your story, what's this New column thing, anyway?
* Only respond to people as if they're part of a category (or conspiracy). Someone who pointed out an error is a Grammar Nazi. Those who found a plot hole are Stupid Jerks. You can also make up your own categories, which should largely be based on what you feel the commenter's racial background and sexuality are. Feel free to throw those terms around, because they both show how incredibly mature you are and in most cases, they're the only words you can actually spell.
* If someone seems to have made a legitimate point, respond with your choice of the following.
A. LOL WUT?
B. HUH?
C. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.
D. (Racial and/or sexual epithet of your choice.)
Repeat forever.
* Do not read the site's rules. If someone insists on explaining them, make sure you very carefully fail to understand them. If the rules are repeated so many times that it's impossible to avoid having read them, you are then permitted to understand how they in no way apply to you.
* Remember: everyone who doesn't like your story is a fragile snowflake who can't stand the smallest thing which offends or disagrees with them in any way and in order to prove that, your response to a single correction of your spelling will be running to the moderators and demanding that everyone involved be banned because they're all picking on you.
* Install a grammar program and spellchecker. This is so that if anyone asks, you can say you have them. Never turn them on.
* Whenever someone asks you to back anything up, deflect. If you lied about there being a website which proves you right, you do not name it and you do not link. Instead, mock whoever challenged you because they can't find it. If they link anything which says you're wrong, just start laughing and say that any source they use is obviously corrupt and untrustworthy, because you're not the one who linked it. Accusing them of faking the entire site is good for bonus points.
* The fact that you have posted the exact same plot forty times is simply a reflection of your having found the perfect plot, which no one else is capable of working with. Should the plot not involve ponies at any point, that just proves that you have transcended the site's petty restrictions. Really, why aren't you a mod? No, seriously: why aren't you? They should just give you the power to ban anyone you don't like. Such as the mods. It would save so much time...
* As a corollary, never do any actual research because that's something which only Grammar Nerd Virgins would engage in. Anything you think of is superior to reality, especially since you won't let anyone prove what reality is anyway. This applies doubly to any sex scenes you might write, because you are the world's greatest expert on sex. You may choose up to one term for each body part involved, followed by repeating it at every opportunity. This includes when characters are saying hello to each other. You are such an expert on sex that you've convinced yourself that the reason you've never had it is because you don't want to give anyone a chance at proving you wrong. Fortunately, there is no chance of your knowledge ever being tested. Or invalidated. Forever. Also, don't worry about foreplay. It's a myth. The only way you know how to have sex is the same way you write about it: repetitive action with no concern for anyone else who's involved and so your reader's period of potentially-enjoyable interaction with your story is exactly like theoretical sex with you. Namely, if they weren't repulsed before anything could begin, it's gonna be over in two seconds anyway.
* You have autism. Also dyslexia, multiple sclerosis, partial to full paralysis, cerebral palsy, and if you're faking being older than fourteen and you think you're dealing with idiots (because you are, as you're clearly a genius), go for polio. You have, in fact, any and every condition which would indicate that any criticism of your work would create a situation where people are just mocking those with a handicap and therefore must be banned. In reality, you have none of these conditions. But don't worry: your being completely brain-dead more than covers all of it. Oh, and if anyone talking to you has one of those conditions? Mock them until you've convinced yourself that your never-original insults have led to their suicide. Because that's what a real adult would do and five, six, ten years from now, you're gonna be ready.
* If you find yourself in a situation where you must back down, blame someone else. Your father found your account and forced you to take it down. Your cousin hacked you and deleted the story. That conspiracy which has been acting against you the whole time? They're in your house. You are the eternal victim, and the best way you can prove that is to constantly attack everyone.
* Should the situation seem to be turning against you, there are two options. The first is to seek pity. Have a list of your family members next to your monitor at all times. Choose which one of them has recently died. Advanced students might want to consider crossing used relatives off the list, but don't worry if you slip up: it's possible that your mother has remarried during the last two weeks and besides, maybe you're an abandoned orphan, you just found your birth father, and he died. How do they know? But if you have a living relative (for now), go to the threat option because they work for the FBI. And the CIA. At the same time. And they will hunt down and ruin the lives of anyone who doesn't like your story, because that is the reasonable response. Also, this is totally how government works. Lately. And remember: you can always sue someone. Everyone. Like the site's moderators, because they made these mean rules which in no way apply to you and so under the power of a document which you have never read, they have no right to enforce them. Yeah! Let's attack the moderators with the threat of the FBI and say you'll sue them out of existence!
* ...well, so much for that account. Time to don a new disguise for your next one. Say, like taking your original site name and adding a 2.
Don't worry. They'll never figure it out. You're a genius!
You alright dude?
Thanks for posting this
Ejem. Some event you may wamt to tell?
5300906
Breaking out in sarcasm is a common symptom of being allergic to idiocy.
5300906
I'm pretty sure it's been years since anything about Estee's life has been "alright", and we've all been trying to hug her but she won't let us. In terms of identity, even the pronoun is a supposition based on relatively little evidence, and you can't get mad at me because it's just as valid a default as the reverse.
5300906
Sometimes you reach the point where there's two options:
1. Blog.
2. "Yes, I understand that a mass murderer receives no online access. That was part of the goal."
5300920
More towards a gradual observation of trends, but one entry in the blog had a recent inspiration. (The story involved has since been deleted by its author.) At one point in the Comments, the writer claimed to have Grammarly: a program which goes through your composition and checks it for basic errors.
The writer's title for Chapter One:
They're Warrior
I asked if he'd ever considered turning it on.
5300929
That’s true.
5300930
Well I just got here, (relatively speaking) so I got a lot to catch up on.
That's me; I plead guilty.
Corporal Klinger tried that strategy:
Didn't work for him, either.
5300931
The incredible thing is that I have no idea what that's a typo for, and therefore am starting to wonder if perhaps this isn't some new grammar they teach in today's schools.
Like, of course they're warrior, otherwise the chapter title wouldn't have said so! Are you fool?
Laughter really is the best medicine sometimes, harassment becomes far less effective when the nominal victim is doubled-over laughing at you.
Huh never thought Id see this today.
5300955
My best guess had it as a mistake on 'Their Warrior', especially as the writer occasionally tosses that error category into reverse and spams near-endless you're=your swaps.
I can safely say that it wasn't an Ultimate Warrior In Equestria story, because then the story and main character would have made a lot more sense.
I know what I just said.
He had a comic once. I'm not linking it. You do the research on that of your own free will and accepted risk to your sanity.
Oof, I feel so called out.
Seriously though I freely admit to sucking at keeping my tenses correct. I need to find a good program that helps with that.
I'd ask what color the sky is in this sort of person's world, but it's clearly just their own face.
You got me to search stories for "skronk." There were no results. I can't tell if I'm more relieved or disappointed.
5300959
To be fair, one of the guys from My Chemical Romance had a comic once. It's how we got Peni Parker from Into The Spider-Verse. (There are probably people who think I'm making any part of that up.)
They're warrior? Is that some kind of youth slang? Is stuff totally warrior now? Do we still say totally? Help?
Hey, I VERY seldom downvote stories & always give my reasons when I do.
On the other hand, sometimes I read stories on my cellphone & accidently hit the "downvote" button by mistake trying to turn the page.
Clearly, it's either God's Will or Bill Gates' fault. (Sometimes, it's hard to tell them apart)
Foolish mortal, porn doesn't HAVE plot
I feel you. Hoo boy, do I feel you
I swear this feels like the making of the prefect character to meet Twilight. It’s the Fourth of July and I already have popcorn cause the fireworks are gonna be great.
5301005
oh, you made me think of a porn reference in that one Estee story,
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/445495/the-free-public-mini-libraries-of-canterlot
5300961
Computer programs for the task have been steadily improving over the years, but this remains a fairly Hard Problem because language is really messy and humans are unpredictable.
The best recourse is to do your audience the favor of being the First Reader -- take the time and attention to read your work, as at much a mental and emotional remove from the writing process, before you present it. Reading aloud tends to help wth this. One term for this is "dogfooding", as in you eat what you make. Another take, presented bluntly (and, in keeping with this blog post, directed more at the distracted, idiotic, or infantile), listen to yourself.
Ah, the unwritten site rules laid out plain and bare
.
5301049
Maybe one day that'll work for me. I just don't think in the proper tenses so it is hard for me to notice when I mix them up in a paragraph because to me it makes proper sense that the character did this action before doing what they are now in preparation for what they will be doing.
I've tried a lot of tips and tricks for it and more than a few slip through. But I just keep having to try.
5300955
Maybe it's like the prevalence of, instead of using "is" and "are," using the subjunctive "should it be" or "were it to be" except without the crucial words that make it the subjunctive and simply saying sometimes it really do be like that.
5300961
Microsoft Word's built-in Grammar and Style proofing setting helps. You have to understand what it is correcting before you can really rely on it, however, because it sometimes marks instances of correct grammar or structure erroneously.
I dunno. The little red squiggle underlines do provide a rather festive accent and flair to your prose. Like tinsel for youre text!
Everybody has one, nobody likes a wise one. Being one is a spectrum disorder, because some of them *can* be taught, brought out into the world of civilized humans where logical arguments can be made on both sides, and even if you don't agree (Some of my arguments with TD come to mind), you leave with a warm sense of having presented a good case. And contrary to popular opinion, I have been caught 'barking up the wrong tree' on occasion, and after suitable discussion, changed my mind. Note that 'suitable discussion' did not include being called names, having my family threatened, being told I am some sort of criminal due to actions of people who look vaguely like me a century ago, or the stunning logical impact of 'LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.'
Unfortunately, the civilized world is slipping into a strange place where physical locations have either merit or disgrace depending on the political alignment of the visitor, and various news organizations promote stories simply due to Twitter 'heat' which is normally caused by flaming (see above) with no life, but the problem is not a modern one.
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
-- Socrates
5301268
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...
5301049
Amusingly enough, there's more and better effort put into the nutritional effectiveness of pet food than for what we put in our own mouths.
I pray I'm misunderstanding you Estee but are you saying that people with Autism and Dyslexia are stupid. Or are you doing what I pray your doing and mocking the people that say that.
5301441
They're mocking people who bring up a (possibly real, possibly fake) diagnosis to deflect any criticism.
5301441
Estee is mocking the people who claim it when it's not true to deflect valid criticism.
5301268
Honestly, the news reporting on Twitter and other social media sites as if they're news is one of the worst 21st century news trends.
5301461
5301465
Thank you and I think that's the most likely case but I would really like to hear that from Estee themself just to be absolutely sure.
5301202
People still pay for Word?
I kid, I kid. For the longest time I was a Word user. I've since moved on to OpenOffice because it has, almost, everything I used in Word and I didn't have to buy it when I bought a new computer even though I still had a valid copy of Word on my old computer.
Maybe Writer also has this functionality and I've not turned it on or I'm just not using it right.
Probably the latter.
Dang. Is this still a common thing?
Given the fandom's declining state, I would've expected most Fimfic authors to have gotten past this habit by now.
Maybe the silver lining is that FiM's still managing to draw in new fans despite G4 being over.
5301487
It's referring to how trolls will lie about having any kind of difference/divergence in order to put themselves above criticism.
5301534
I paid $85 for Word 2013 by itself because I didn't want the rest of MS Office, even though the cost for a single application was much greater than if one were to buy the entire package. I've used one version of Word or another for 15 years; at this point, I'm accustomed to it and don't feel like switching to something else. I have Libre Office, too, but haven't bothered familiarizing myself with it yet.
When Microsoft eventually pulls an Adobe and makes Office subscription-only, or my license is no longer usable with a modern system, then I'll switch completely to something free and open-source.
5301240
Some word processors even include those those squiggly lines for you when you tell it to print!
Congratulations, Estee, the first thing I thought of when I read this was "Is this some kind of in-character post as Coordinator?" because lets be honest, the only part of these which doesn't fit him to a tee is the part where they might not be being incompetent on purpose.
Naturally it wasn't, because of course real people are that infuriating, but it would have been nice if the subject that provoked it was fictional.
Being a successful troll in 2020 is realizing that people are in fact dumber than anyone truly understands and using that knowledge to lift yourself above them and impart your teachings unto them in order to open their eyes.
You will of course be mocked and labeled as a troll even though you have literal years of evidence to back up your claims.
5301553
Ok. Thank you so much. Your answer means alot. Thank you
5300931
Grammarly is good stuff if you don't mind using commas like you're Alexander Hamilton drafting the US Constitution.
5301777
I'm so damn confused about the proper use of commas in English.
Half the time it's the same as in Czech, half the time it's completely different.
The trouble is, I'm never sure which half is which.