How would you deal with an acquainted killer?
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Shock Trooper
Member # 3980
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 12:10
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I am struggling to align personal ideas about dealing with other individuals and just ask about your help thoughts. Please let us not get into politics in this thread. (t Alec: no creepyness intended, honestly) I saw what War does to people during my father's final days when his war-time nightmares surfaced between his last clear episodes. I had to think of this when I read about Colonel Ted S. Westhusing  a father of three young kids, who killed himself to attenuate shame in Iraq. I remember my own conchie trial and when reading about Darrel Anderson  I felt related to this 22-year-old GI from Lexington, Kentucky, who refused an order to shoot in Iraq when a car came too close to their Baghdad checkpoint, because he could only make out a man and children in the vehicle. A courageous man, I thought, maybe more courageous than his commander who told him off "Next time you shoot!"So it did not surprise we when I read that More American troops have died on US roads in off-duty motorcycle accidents after they returned from Afghanistan than have been killed fighting there since September 11, 2001, safety records show. I find the explanation plausible by Military commanders in north Carolina that "the deaths are largely the result of boredom, bonus pay, and adrenalin to burn off after troops return from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." We only read about the more dramatic break downs, like the one by Douglas Barber  .But then I read about an army veteran aged 24 whose fantasy fiction I have read and who appears to have killed his mother-in-law and sister-in-law last week. He called the police himself and was arrested on the scene shortly afterwards. The story was in the news but I will not give his name, partially to avoid this thread to be associate with his name by Google. He is still awaiting his trial, has pleaded not guilty and the media have mentioned the death penalty in the context. I have read the thread about the ancient forms of the death penalty and sensed the strange fascination that speaks out of some posts there, but those felons did not have a face. How would you react - emotionally or by action - if this were a fellow member of an online forum that you frequent? I tend to side with victims but they are dead in this case and they never posted on the forum so I am stuck with the personal perspective from the other side. I have found myself scrutinizing his texts for any indications but concluded that fantasy related online forums tend to attract far more "crazy" people,so it is not difficult to relate to the man now as he is sitting in jail and must realize not only what he has to live with for the rest of his life but also the utmost alienation from everyone he knows. [ Thursday, May 04, 2006 14:18: Message edited by: Yet another procrastinator ] -------------------- The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. (not mine) Posts: 311 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 2836
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 12:30
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When's it coming out in hardback? Posts: 587 | Registered: Tuesday, April 1 2003 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 14:52
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Isn't that just a more subtle way of saying "tl dr"? Procrastinator, I'd rather stay out of this one. It hits home too close; something similar just happened with a friend. -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 4153
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 14:54
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I have some personal experience with this sort of thing. In fact, way more than I ever wanted. It wasn't somebody from an online forum, it was a real-life friend of mine who went to my high school. It was worse. -------------------- Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice. I hate undead. I really, really, really, really hate undead. With a passion. Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 15:23
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EDIT: As a compromise, because the image is rather unhelpfully long but half of the thread makes no more sense now: http://alec.desperance.net/longstripgerman.PNG Beware: swears, sexuality, and mangled German. Also, in order to be helpful: I wouldn't think much of it. You could be a professional, prize-winning colombophile in your spare time, or you could have killed a man just to watch him die in between posts. People bring fairly little to an online relationship. The people who I know well online - the sort of people who I'd know if they raced pigeons or killed people at random - are people who I doubt would go around murdering. And if they did, well, I'd have the same kind of reaction as I'd have to someone I knew in person. I'd be unsettled, sure. Maybe a little disgusted. But ultimately, killing someone was their call, not mine, and has nothing to do with me. And I don't see the relevance of the .iq anecdotes. Although I understand your seemingly pathological desire to drag the American government through the mud at any given opportunity, the examples given don't seem to have any serious relevance to the question at hand. [ Friday, May 05, 2006 00:16: Message edited by: The Worst Man Ever ] Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 4153
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 15:25
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Alec... that was completely unnecessary. And it was also the most random thing I've seen this week. -------------------- Gamble with Gaea, and she eats your dice. I hate undead. I really, really, really, really hate undead. With a passion. Posts: 4130 | Registered: Friday, March 26 2004 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 20:31
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I killed your mom's hymen. Does that count? -------------------- * Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 7002
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 20:38
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quote:Shut the **** up you mother****ing insensitive *******. Go crawl under a ****ing rock and die! -------------------- Polaris Posts: 193 | Registered: Thursday, April 6 2006 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 20:43
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It looks like you found yourself an apprentice, TM. -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 247
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 21:14
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quote:I doubt you have the required equipment for said procedure. However I may be wrong, you may very well have acquired what you need at Home Depot. Then again I imagine you're still quite occupied with the neighbour's dog. -------------------- The Knight Between Posts. Posts: 2395 | Registered: Friday, November 2 2001 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 5450
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 21:19
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That comic, while racist, was quite funny. (no offence intended, Aran) -------------------- I'll put a Spring in your step. :ph34r: Posts: 2396 | Registered: Saturday, January 29 2005 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 7002
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 21:25
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Racism must be stamped out like a cockroach... Unfortunately, it's about as hard to kill as a cockroach to. -------------------- Polaris Posts: 193 | Registered: Thursday, April 6 2006 07:00 |
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? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 21:31
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Was that racist or just an unbalanced portrayal which has no more connection to the German people than it would to the Sudanese, or Timorians. I liked it because car sex is funny. -------------------- quote: Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 5437
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 21:57
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Hmm, mail order Germans huh, Aran… Oh, uh, moving along… Posts: 2032 | Registered: Wednesday, January 26 2005 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 3980
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written Thursday, May 4 2006 22:18
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I am German, so there may be some connection in Alec's mind, but I would need help to see an aggressive offense rather than some helpless reaction by Alec to being confronted with a real living "almost human" alien. Alec has written earlier in a reminiscient vein:You are all apes in human form. If you feel like responding to any of this, fine. But let it be known that you ... are grotesque excuses for human beings and ought to be killed. Unlike Hitler, however, I don't consider that an inborn trait - you can redeem yourselves, but it will take a hell of a lot of learning and a hell of a lot more shutting up. I am not sure how learning is to be accomplished without dialogue and how dialogue is to be accomplished while shutting up for fear of being killed. The creepy thing about H. was that he was not that special - at least until his WWI traumatic experience - which brings me back to my initial post in this thread. Do you want to nuke Germany, Alec? Selfrighteous as I am, I feel like Lot in Sodom just that I do not know whether I should plead with you to take the nucular option off the table if there are 50 righteous people in it, then 45, then 30, then 20, or even 10 righteous people. Or whether you are expecting me to respond "My brethren, please do not do evil. Behold now I have two daughters who were not intimate with a man. I will bring them out to you, and do to them as you see fit; only to these men do nothing, because they have come under the shadow of my roof." It might help to look for anybody around "struck with blindness, both small and great, and they toiled in vain". [ Thursday, May 04, 2006 23:15: Message edited by: Yet another procrastinator ] -------------------- The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. (not mine) Posts: 311 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6403
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written Friday, May 5 2006 04:01
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How the hell did you manage to find a quote from chabad.org? -------------------- ??? ?????? ???? ????? Posts: 883 | Registered: Wednesday, October 19 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Friday, May 5 2006 04:10
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quote:I assure you that I cannot be ordered, by mail, catalogue or otherwise. You'll have to make do with the photo threads. -- On another note, Dr, you didn't tell anyone here (or anyone from Polaris) the man's real name, did you? Because I just saw something weird. Ah well, no matter. [ Friday, May 05, 2006 04:11: Message edited by: Dagon ] -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Friday, May 5 2006 13:30
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quote:Ah, but you didn't rule out the possibility of patronizing German Hut. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 3980
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written Friday, May 5 2006 21:16
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quote:Thank you for your not understanding because it makes me clarify my thoughts. What you call "anecdotes" concern individual reactions to war and my struggle to identify guilt and my reaction to it. Starting with my very personal "anecdote" served to set the focus on individuals rather than politics. No concern with your government here and I believe I gave no reason for your ad hominem remark there. My father's dying is relevant to the question at hand because it exemplifies how communication is limited by nightmares gaining the upper hand in my counterpart leading to loss of coherent thought. I could only communicate with the integral part of my father and communication with the suspect in the double slaying is limited in a similar way. My father's nightmares were due to a war that was >50 years ago and the trauma to the self had not healed with time. Ted Westhusing is my voucher that there are inescapable dilemmas where the most honorable way out was to kill himself. I trust that this ethics expert was aware of all aspects of honorable behavior and priorities. I can relate to him because he was a father of three young kids. In his last letter he writes about being dishonored and I interprete that as "shame". What way out is there for the suspect in the double slaying? How do you communicate with someone who is ashamed and probably contemplates whether to kill himself or give up the initiative, undergo the personality vivisection in the trial and cooperate with the righteous until his execution. Darrel Anderson is my voucher that the definition of legal behavior by the judicial system may include to follow orders to shoot at children. He trusted his own moral judgement and acted to protect his integrity, risked to go to jail, and escaped to Canada. There is no recent news of him. I hope he is not in some secret prison in Uzbekistan. The suspect in the double slaying did not muster this exceptional courage. Douglas Barber is my voucher for an apparently normal veteran who "checked out of this world" with "permanent scars from horrific events that no one other than those who served will ever understand" (his words). The suspect in the double slaying was not in Iraq, afaik, but he is an army veteran. His fantasy texts include nightmarish scenes of first person killings without escape and the subsequent emotional collapse. I interprete this as "scars". So the "anecdotes" describe examples how individuals have escaped by killing themselves or buried the nightmares under a skindeep layer of normality which allows to function and communicate as Douglas Barber did for some time and my father did for more than 50 years. Since the Milgram experiment at latest, we know how thin that level of conscientious behavior is in normal people who are not war veterans. So my "anecdotes" are not related to your government, Alec. As I read your post restoring your reference to your "Wagenhumpen"-comic strip, I realize that there is indeed something personal about it. I would like to understand your reaction towards individual Germans like me. After all, we Germans have to live with being associated as individuals with atrocities that had such a different scale of magnitude from what is happening in Iraq that the difference is qualititive not a mere matter of perspective. If I take your comic strip for an answer to my question, and try translate it to the situation with the acquaintance in jail, are you suggesting to mock about whether he raped the victims before? I must be misunderstanding something terribly here because the idea makes me sick. That is not what you refer to as me being pathological, is it? [ Saturday, May 06, 2006 01:00: Message edited by: Yet another procrastinator ] -------------------- The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. (not mine) Posts: 311 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Friday, May 5 2006 21:41
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The fact that Alec followed the link by "Also, in order to be helpful" suggests to me that he was not originally intending to be helpful in posting the image. Don't read too much into it. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Saturday, May 6 2006 01:32
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There are a number of stereotypes of the Germans here, most fairly benign (at least compared to our stereotypes of others). 'Inscrutable, but vaguely sinister' is the one that that particular strip went for. (When it was made, two years ago - note the date-stamp at the end.) It was, in not so many words, my way of indicating you had lost me, but I wasn't entirely ready to take full blame for that. -- As a diction note - the sort I despise when used in legitimate discussion, so I'm getting it out of the way now - I didn't intend the connotation you drew from 'anecdote'. The word was the best I could think of to apply to a series of short biographical sketches that each worked to illustrate a point; while it is often applied to humorous stories, it doesn't have to be. -- It is too late to make sense of everything right now, so I will leave you with what I can say coherently. Stacking the deck. People are not particularly frail. Your father is a fine example; he survived the war, and while he did have vivid flashbacks as a consequence of it, he certainly managed to father at least you in the interim. The same goes for three, maybe four generations of Germans - someone they knew died in some war or another, and one of those generations would be unaccountably lucky not to see fighting. A substantial fraction of two of those participated in one of history's worst atrocities, then went home and lived normal lives, raised normal families, and died of heart attacks, cancer, and the other afflictions that do in old men. For every war veteran who goes crazy and kills a small family, loses his grip on reality and pitches his hopes to the race, the dice, or the bottle, or simply refuses to go on - there are hundreds, maybe a thousand more who live out quiet lives as if nothing ever happened, who go from firing blindly into shattered buildings to unwilling to run a red light. War is hell, but it's a buttoned-off kind of hell you can walk into and out of. That's all I can think to say coherently. It's 3 am here. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Saturday, May 6 2006 01:34
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Procrastinator, while "tl" is not helpful, you could do with shorter posts, slightly less labored analysis and just a bit less sanity. This is Spiderweb, not Polaris. --- Alec: I said you can't *order* me - but when you visit your local German Hut, be sure to ask if they have Aran in stock. :) -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 3980
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written Saturday, May 6 2006 02:31
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quote:Easier said than done. I did not have the time to make the point shorter. (forgot whom I am quoting here) quote:Sanity is not the only difference between Spiderweb and Polaris, Aran. Even one and the same person wears different hats on different forums, e.g. I doubt you would have closed the Zoophile-thread at the same point on Polaris or TCoA - it would never have gotten that far - not to say that bestiality is standard there. I posted here because I did get help on the "policing ourselves" thread here. In addition, I did learn something out of the Yom HaShoa topic here. There are people here who have had similar experiences and can relate to my question such as yourself and Ephesos. And I am getting something here too, not least from Alec. Take that, Alec! So, Aran, imagine you had a remore control for me, what would you like me to do? Shut up? BTW, I would. [ Saturday, May 06, 2006 02:36: Message edited by: Yet another procrastinator ] -------------------- The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. (not mine) Posts: 311 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6388
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written Saturday, May 6 2006 02:43
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Aran must have had a strange, strange childhood. Posts: 794 | Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Saturday, May 6 2006 05:16
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Procrastinator: As a favor for those of us who are trying to read your posts, please stop hitting "return" after just about every sentence and write real paragraphs instead. Your posts look excessively long in part because you've inserted too many line breaks. When you do insert a line break, make it a double one, as I'm demonstrating, and otherwise keep your paragraphs together. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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