I semi-told this story once when I did a post about calculating women’s menstrual cycles. And because I woke up with this story semi-on my mind, I thought I would relate it again.
At one time I hung out on a political webpage and spent a lot of time chatting on all things political. It wasn’t a bad place: I not only met a lot of good people, but for the few years I was there I was able to exchange a lot of ideas with people who wanted to see things “go forward”, so to speak.
However, as time went on, the board became less and less about politics and more and more about just hanging out and not doing a hell of a lot but comment on shit. Of course you had your unmoderated trolls who came on and had the difficult job of setting up straw men for the few suckers to knock down. There was our house environmentalism who berated everyone for not being as green as him, but who had a very strange habit on pissing on any technological efforts to create “clean” energy, and pretty much turned out to be another Luddite who loved his Internet while not thinking about how he had the Internet.
And there was this one guy . . . he never had anything to say. Oh, sure, he posted, but he never said anything. He’d throw out comments in 100 character strings like we were his own private Twitter feed. I didn’t pay much attention to him, because he wasn’t worth the attention, but it was impossible to ignore him, because you’d try to follow a discussion on the 2008 Elections, and there he’d pop up, bitching about his lack of a love life.
But what this guy used to love to do is play what I call Citation Troll.
A Citation Troll has only one purpose: they find posts where, when you are stating a position and mention a person or article in said post, point out that you didn’t supply a link to said person or article, therefore your post is bullshit. This guy was famous for jumping onto your comment and telling you, in no uncertain terms, that you didn’t supply a link to that article you quoted, which means your argument is completely irrelevant and spacious–haha, you got p0wned so you can go away now!
So there finally came the day when he was lambasting someone for not supplying a link, and me, being the loving and cuddly person I am, jumped in and said, “Hey, I’ve read that article, the guy you’re ripping apart knows what he’s saying”. So now it was time for Citation Troll to jump on my back and lament, “Where’s the link? Since you have no link your position has no merit. Therefor you are wrong.”
Well, now . . . I just couldn’t let that go.
I was very polite in my response, which was something along the lines of, “Hey, there’s this great tool called Google, so why don’t you take the information given and look it up yourself, you lazy, worthless fucker? Do something besides bitch and tell people they’re wrong because they won’t make your life easy and do a little work for yourself, you stupid assclown. I’m not your monkey, so kindly piss off and die.” See? I’m really a sweetheart. If I’d wanted, I could have been mean.
So what does Citation Troll have to do with today’s post?
It’s all about doing your research. Again.
No, not really. It’s about teaching, I think. It’s about imparting knowledge to others and watching it stick. For example:
Last night Trusty Editortm and I were going through my erotic story, and they had a few questions. Trusty Editortm is a “visual person”; they like to be able to see what it is happening in the story, and while I’m good at doing descriptions, there are times when they need to “see” something in all it’s glory. And Trusty Editortm loves to push me to get that visual out there, so much so that there have been times when found myself getting a bit frustrated because they just.have.to.see.it., and I gotta do something to let them “see” said thing.
So one of their questions had to do with a bondage position in which one of the characters found themselves. Yes, Trusty Editortm had an image of how this character might have looked in the story, but . . . say no more, I know where you’re coming from. With a quick Google search I managed to find a sit that, believe it or not, showed all sorts of different positions that a submissive could adopt, and right there: booyah! I found the exact picture I needed.
And a little while later they asked about a type of vibrator one of the characters was using. So time to fire up the Google search, and there you have it: the sort of vibrator I had in mind when I started writing. Once more Trusty Editortm was happy, and trust me: I like keeping Trusty Editortm happy.
But it was their last question that I liked the best. We were getting deeper into the action, so to speak (if you hadn’t figured out by now that said action involved someone being tied up and having a vibrator being used on them, you’re only skimming this post) and at this point the character in question had one more piece of “equipment” use on them–
And that was when Trusty Editortm asked, “Shouldn’t she be thinking about a safeword?”
See, this is where I’m kept honest. This is where Trusty Editortm keeps me thinking and makes me realize I better not get lazy, ’cause sometimes they are seeing something in the story in a way I don’t see it. And, of course, they are right: at that point in the story I should have had just a line, one little like, where the character in question should be thinking, “Do I need to drop the safeword right now?”, because, was was pointed out, the character in question was going through some mildly heavy shit.
But I had to comment, “I’m surprised you remembered that!” meaning they remembered the concept of safewords, which was something we’d once spoke about. I was very happy when I saw the reply: ”I’m new at this, but I’m learning.”
Trusty Editortm isn’t a Citation Troll. They like to listen, and they enjoy learning. And they help me out considerably, because they keep me honest, sometimes taking what I’ve given them and giving it back to me. They make me think and even look things up when I might not want to, because . . . well, that’s what you’re editor does.
They are your partner in this game calls story telling.
What more could one ask for?
