~iiimystiii

Just a note that due to some bizzare bug with my AIM account showing nearly everyone offline all the time I am swapping to my secondary account. Though I have let most people I chat to know, if I missed anyone, you can now catch me on IIIShadowMystIII.


And if anyone has a frigging clue what is with this damn thing I'd love to know...

It has come to my attention that myself along with several other DA writers are being targeted by massive spam note campaigns. Now, every day I am greeted to half a dozen notes by paid scammers. Half of me is outright annoyed but the other is rather bemused. If you muppets are going to try and con someone, show some damn intelligence and a little less mental retardation.

1) Writers on DA in terms of popularity and respect by the general community rank somewhere between "Flaming barrels of medical waste" and "Audits by the IRS." With that in mind, when someone sends me a note titled that you love me or what a genius I am, the ol' alarm bells start ringing right there. We are not visual artists after all. Random praise from strangers just looks wrong to us.

2) When typing said fake flattery note, try taking the 18 other people out of the recipient bar. Even the most attention staved hermit on DA is not going to take your buttering up to heart when you told the exact same thing to 2 dozen or so other people.

3) Now if you got caught and busted for trying said scam, why the hell would you bother trying with the SAME message another 8-10 times to the SAME person???

4) Finally, why on God's green earth would you pick DA for a target for a literacy scam? Considering most users here haven't even read a book without anime characters in at least a year let alone written one, it just seems like a comedy of errors...


Seriously though, the biggest give away was actually getting a note in the first place. No one sends me notes anymore unless they are up to something!

You know, I have been around DA for a while. First through the DT community then kinda freelance on my own. Now as I am sure the regular viewers that drop by have noticed two things 1) I am *GASP!* NOT a visual artist 2) I am unconventional in the fact that I do not usually hand out favs and comments on DA like jellybeans at a kid's party. I prefer to talk to the artist if I want to give some feedback and make something constructive out of it.

That puts me in an unusual situation as us types with our big words and lack of sparkly photoshopped shiny effects tend to be rather unpopular. Now that's fine. I am writing to a smaller, more deep thinking audience and if a horde of furries with their Naruto headbands came by on an hourly basis to hoot and holler at my work, I'd feel I'd be doing something reaalllly wrong.

None the less, the artist friends I do have here are always poking and prodding me that I don't "take part enough". That DA is a "community" and I could communicate to more people. In artist-to-normal speak, that roughly translates to "leaving a lot of notes, comments and favorites". Not quite being my style, I tried to meet the concept half-way and mix a little of both in.

Anyway the results for my experiment are in and the verdict is......*Bing!*


"DA is full of jerks".


You know I haven't worked out the science behind it, but the basic formula is "Mediocre to decent artistic skill + DA + Popularity = Ego, disdain and often outright contempt for other mediums." Now there is always a few that resist the taint, like how there is always a handful of survivors in a Resident Evil story who somehow resist the T-Virus turning them in to zombies. These people are the reason I still bother with this place and I am grateful for everyone of them. Sadly, like Resident Evil though, those people are few and far between...Plus usually end up getting devoured by some mutated bio-monstrosity sooner or later. The majority I have encountered though, seem to take one look at my account, see there is no art there and make a lunge for my throat chanting "Not one of us!"

Of course you can never actually SAY such a blasphemous thing. Most have a trained army of zealots that would speak their praise if they burned down a home for blind orphans on Xmas Eve. Others are more cunning putting up a warm and fuzzy public front even claiming to "help" other artists (visual artists of course. Not us heathens!) only to slap you in the face in private if you try and drop them a line.

So yeah, I think I'll go back to my "silent vigil" style of DAing. Frankly I think the last thing many people here need is another excuse to inflate their ego that little bit more...

Yes yes I know it too far too long but Chapter 2 (though a tad rough still) is up!

Well its been a while but I am back with a little surprise. Having been planning a novel for about a year now on and off I have finally been convinced to get off my ass and write it. So here is the Prologue and Chapter 1!

They are still in rough draft format but feel free to give me any feedback (preferably though IM).