By: Rebo Valence
Perhaps you might recall a Lemure in June,
written by me, telling the tale of
the Sailor Stars dub rumor that I inadvertantly created as an April
Fool's
joke. It flew wildly out of control when people began changing select
portions of it to make it sound legitimate and people were seriously
believing that it was true. I felt extremely guilty that innocent fans
were
being taken in by something I only intended as a joke and worked hard
to try
and correct it, including writing the Lemure here, so I could get the
word
out.
Well, the reaction to my good natured efforts has really ticked me off.
The
day the Lemure went up, I discovered a flame in my e-mail box. I don't
save
flames, but basically the author chewed me out for attempting to
confuse fans
because she had told all her friends it was true and now they found out
it
wasn't and it was all my fault and how dare I write that. I sent her an e-mail explaining my position, but she never bothered to
respond-such childish individuals rarely do seek a response, lest
someone
show them the folly of their reasoning.
Yet this wasn't even the FIRST! I went out of my way to find websites
that
had the rumor on it so I could help them out, and got a nice, juicy
flame in
response to another one. That fellow accused me of attempting to
discredit
his website and the SOS and then threatened to sic Naoko Takeuchi on
me. The
fact that I doubt he even knew her or that she can't even read/speak
English
didn't matter. After chewing me out for trying to help him, he never
even
bothered to take the rumor down (and even posted an update on July 27th
railing about Cartoon Network's "mistake" for not running the new
dub!).
But mindless flames are one thing. We've all gotten them, and e-mail
flames
are generally pathetic. But this is what did it:
http://www.geocities.com/sosenshi/. This is the Save Our Starlights
website,
spawned entirely because the web author's friend told her that she got
the
rumor from the Toonami Mailing List (Something I INVENTED for the
joke!). It
is THESE comments that annoy me:
"This was actually a VERY cruel april fools joke(even tho that was 3
weeks
ago) and it started up quite an up-roar to all that saw it. This was a
VERY
mean thing for this person to do.. heh, guess they forgot the "April
Fools!"
part at the end, ne?"
"HEY, THIS IS BELLE. I WAS JUST WONDERING IF YOU HAD AN EMAIL ADDRESS
WERE YOU
RECEIVED THAT EMAIL? THEY ARE SAYING IT IS AN APRIL FOOL'S JOKE AND IF
IT IS
SOMEONE WILL DIE."
Aww, thanks for the concern. I wouldn't even list these here except
for the
fact that I've e-mailed the author of the site to explain the story and
received no response. The site is unchanged. These remarks and flames
are not the only ones I've got, just the
biggies,
but this will give you an idea.
I've just got to say-What is your problem? Why do you people flame
someone
who was trying to correct a grievous mistake? I had no obligation to
go on
message boards, forums, newsgroups, websites, etc. to try and kill it.
I was
even told that I should just let it go and laugh about it. But because
I
felt bad about what was happening, I tried to help people out, and got
spat
on in return. I can only conclude that the real reason people decided
to
flame me was because they were upset for falling for it. It's all so
ridiculous. To the flamers out there-GROW UP! And to everyone
else-don't
forget to take anything you read via e-mail as news with a grain of
salt and
not as fact. More often than not, it's someone pulling your leg.
Comments on this article can be sent to: Rebo Valence.
