It truely does blow that there are those out there that make it unpleasant and even scary to contact people in a community. I joined this site to share my work and communicate with the other members. But it's been slow going. And if more then you have had these types of experiences, I can understand why.

A true shame.

If you spoke with Garyu somewhere else, then I apologise if the conclusions I've drawn from the only conversation I saw between the two of you are incorrect.

But as far as the one exchange I can see, right here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/15260/

You are being FAR from polite and courteous.

I quote:
>>"Garyu, grow up, settle down, and DON'T TAKE THINGS SO FUCKING PERSONAL!!!<< Your art is awesome, but if you're going to >>flip out over every tiny little thing that doesn't agree with what you envision with your perceptions of your perfect little art world<<, then you will quickly find that whatever art fans you had will vanish into thin air. No one likes a whiner, especially a >>whiny artist that pulls his stuff at every little thing that doesn't go right with him. It's childish, it's unprofessional, and no matter what level of art talent you have, NO ONE will take you seriously as an artist, ever.<< Trust me on this, I've seen it happen. >>Grow some of those big balls that you keep on drawing on your characters, and get a life, will you?<< And you erased your work from y!gallery long before the furry ban was put in place, do >>don't you even dare<< try to use that as an excuse on fchan, anymore."

Just for your personal information, this is neither polite nor courteous. The parts in >> << are particularly unacceptable language to direct at someone who hasn't personally wronged you somehow. I'm not being sarcastic. You said you were polite and courteous to him, and this is what you said to him. If you consider this polite and courteous, I am simply letting you know that your definitions of the terms are not correct.

That is what you said to him before he even said anything to you. Your first response directly TO him was;

"Wrong, bucko: it's clearly defined in the Copyright law that a person may make one copy of someone's work for their own personal use, and no more. Nothing you nor I can do or say will stop that. So again, grow a brain, grow some balls, and knock this shit off, pronto. No one's fooled by this, and no one will."

"Grow a brain" and "grow some balls" are never, ever, EVER, even remotely within the realm of polite and courteous. It doesn't help that you seem to be missing your own point. You are right when you say copyright can't hinder a person keeping a personal copy for their own use. Re-posting something in any way shape or form, which is what upset him, is NOT keeping a personal copy for your own personal use, and not allowed by copyright.

I do agree with you that some artists are assholes despite having amazing talent and that sucks. However, not becoming immediately friendly with a fan who wishes to communicate does NOT make someone an asshole. Not every artist has the time or desire to be openly communicative with every single fan, so sometimes they might get short or testy with someone they percieve as wanting to be buddies whom they simply don't want to be friends with. Often, attempts at politely giving someone a hint that they don't want to be bestest pals don't work. So it takes a bit of bluntness to communicate this. And that is often taken as being an asshole.

It isn't being an asshole to not want to be friends with EVERYONE who speaks to you.

And given the way you spoke to Garyu, ESPECIALLY when this was a matter of HIM Feeling misused and abused, it is hard to believe that you're not most often at fault for any mistreatment an artist might give you. He felt wronged, and even though he did over-react, you did not try to politely explain to him how he was reacting poorly. You were immediately rude and condescending. Being such to a person who already feels abused by their "fans" is about the most sure-fire way to get them to react poorly, and in that particular occaision at least, the way you spoke to him fully deserved the response you got.

You do not speak that way to someone you respect, and if you do not respect someone, you have no right to be angry if they show you disrespect as well. You were not polite OR courteous to him. YOU were an asshole in that particular instance.

If you genuinely are bothered by the way things turned out between you and Garyu, take a close look at how you spoke to him, and never speak to anyone like that again who hasn't DIRECTLY and INTENTIONALLY wronged you in some manner FIRST. If you do that, and keep in mind that not everyone wants to be buddies with anyone who talks to them, and RESPECT their right to not HAVE to be your buddy, I think you will have MUCH better experiences with other artists in the future.

Again, this post is not made with sarcasm, anger, or hostility of any kind. I am merely pointing out to you how what you did, and how you behaved, was not how you seem to have seen the situation. I hope you an understand what I'm trying to say, and have better luck in the future with controlling your behavior towards the people you wish to be on good terms with.

I've already been confronted with this by the mod, and we agreed that I should leave him alone, and report him if he tries to contact me.

The thing with Garyu is that, since I've first discovered his art on y!gallery, I've already seen his reactions to petty little things that he doesn't like. In that isntance, from what I read in his journal there, a few people on 4chan made some negative comments about his art on there (whether or not they were posted on there by himself or by another person, I don't know, but since the bulk of the bitching was about said negative comments, I'm assuming that he posted them up there himself), and his reactions to those comments were the same as his reactions to fchan's reposting of his stuff: the instant deletion of every piece of artwork he's put up on whatever accounts he has, and the whining about people treating him like crap and not doing what he 'asks' them to do. This is less about him feeling misused and abused than it is him being under the apparent delusion that he and his work is perfect and that everyone has to cater to his wims, no matter what. And, when confronted by fchan posters as to why his y!gallery was empty, when he directed them to it as proof that he was the artist, he did use y!gallery's recent ban on furry art as his excuse for pulling his art off there, not the actual incident with 4chan that happened at least a month prior.

Even more disturbing, is his constant references to the fact that he doesn't have a set IP address for fchan to ban, which can be perceived as a threat or challenged to the moderators; if he keeps on reminding the mods that they can't permanently ban his IP, then he's essentially threatening to continue his bitching and trolling at them, or something worse.

Believe it or not, I'm fairly good at getting inside a situation, understanding the ins and outs of what's going on and what caused it to happen, and help defuse it before it can go any further. I've dealt with people like this before, believe me (JaguarMaster comes to mind as a BIG example of this), but this, from what I'm seeing, is a guy that can't see and/or refuses to see the negative behavior he's showing, and is insistant that it's not HIM that needs to change, it's the person that his ire is directed at, right at the moment. His claims that he's not a 'furry' artist but a 'yaoi' artist, and the kind of condenscending remarks he's made to the furry fans that enjoy his art, further strengthens the assessment that he's just a spoiled brat who's used to having things go his way.

I'll admit that I was a bit heavy-handed with him, but like I said, I've dealt with people like him before, and considering that he's already had one episode like this before, I doubt that sweet-talking him would work that well. Hell, my first official comment to him was about what his inspiration was for his cock design for one of his Breath of Fire fan art (a compliment, for all intents and purposes), and he freaked out over THAT, acting like I was accusing him of doing something horribly wrong. What is the problem with asking what gave an artist the inspiration to draw what he drew? That proves to me, right there, that he can't handle any comments that - to his mind - isn't fawning over how much of an art god he is, without question.

Regardless, however, I won't be contacting him again, no matter if he comes back or not. I may download more of his art, if and when he feels it's 'safe' for him to post again (most likely in another, separate free gallery, like he did last time), but I'm not going to talk to him, comment on his work, request for a commission, or anything. The guy's just way too unstable to even converse with.

To be honest, my first actual comments to him about the fchan thing was over PM, and it wasn't anything like the comments I made to his journal, at first.

It's actually a rather funny story. Like I said, I found out about Garyu from his y!gallery account, and all of the text posts that I saw him make on there were in German. So, when I saw him bitch at fchan to take his pics down in English, I had assumed that it was an overzealous fan of his that decided to take it upon himself to 'protect' his art from thieves, and for some reason, decided to do so by impersonating him. After posting my theories on who it was on the board, I had PMed him a very polite notification of the incident, and suggested that he go on there to get things straightened out. When he informed me that it WAS him that was doing the posting, I rethought my approach and - once again very politely - attempted to offer suggestions on how he could peacefully resolve the issue. That's when he snapped; he bitched at me, apparently grouping me as being in league with the 'oppressive' mods on fchan, and generally making me out to be the bad guy that I never was, nor was I trying to be. So I have tried to be civil with him, prior to my comments on his journal, and all I got out of it was hostilities on his part.

Note that the comment I made about his BoF fan art was my first comment to him ever, while my PM to him was the first comment I made to him about the fchan thing. Just wanted to be clear on that.

Even if everything you are saying is 100% true - because I try not to call someone a liar unless I have more than a little reason to believe so - you were still in the wrong, 100%.

Someone wronged him. If he asked for people to not redistribute his stuff, and it was redistributed, he was wronged.

The fact that SOMEONE will always be an asshole and wrong people in this manner does NOT suddenly make it less of an asshole thing to do, nor does it make it less wrong. Something that is wrong to do is not any LESS wrong just because nobody can ever stop ALL of it.

An artist is not an idiot if they want people to respect what they are sharing, and expect people to show that respect by doing as the artist asks them to do with the pictures. Anyone who actually respects that artist, WILL respect those wishes. If you know an artist does not wish their stuff to be redistriubted, and you do it anyway, you ARE disrespecting them. They are not in the wrong for asking people to respect their stuff, the person ignoring that request is in the wrong.

Just so we're totally clear: when an artist wants their stuff to stay where they put it, and people are putting it up elsewhere, the people redistributing are in the wrong. Always. Period.

Now, that aside, YES, he over-reacted. Quite extremely. He was in his right to be upset and even angry, do not begrudge him that, but yes, he did take it too far.

That makes him look bad, and if you want to judge him on that, that is your prerogative.

That does not give you the right to go be an asshole to him unless his bad behavior was directed at you BEFORE you said anything to him.

If someone comes to YOU, and is rude, you can be rude back. Their behavior was unwanted and uninvited, and you are within the right to respond in kind. Sure its better to not be rude, but you didn't ask for their two cents, so they can't get too upset if you tell them to go shove it. If you go to someone ELSE, and they are rude to you, you go away silently. YOUR behavior, even if it was perfectly civil, was unwanted and uninvited. They are in the wrong for being rude to someone who wasn't rude first, but remember, YOU came to THEM, so if they show they are someone you don't want to talk to by being rude to you without reason, you stop talking to them.

To keep going back at them with the language and behavior you expressed to Garyu makes you an asshole. It completely overshadows their own bad behavior because you've turned a situation from "artist flips out over trivial matter" to "random jackass attacks artist over trivial matter."

If you feel his behavior was excessive given how trivial you hold the offense he was upset about, it makes your behavior all the more unacceptable, because now YOU are responding just as, if not more, aggressively to the same thing. Not even the same thing. He went overboard on people for doing something to him you see as trivial, but YOU went overboard about his going overboard. Your reaction to him was even more childish and unnecessary than his reaction to fchan, because you were reacting to a reaction. If his reaction was wrong of him, your reaction to his reaction was doubly so because you were not defending yourself or anyone else. You were attacking him.

If someone is making an ass of themself IN REACTION to something done to them, let them. They have a right to react to someone wronging them, and if they react poorly, that just hurts their image. Let them.

If someone is being an asshole TO someone, and NOT in reaction to anything done against them personally, THAT is when you should speak up and try to intervene. Because that is when someone is not reacting to a wrong against them. They are INITIATING the cycle of assholishness by being an ass to someone who did not give them reason to.

For example: Garyu wasn't being an asshole to you. He was making an ass of himself the way he was reacting. You went to him to give your two cents uninvited, and even if you were INCREDIBLY polite initially (something that IS harder to convince people of given the visible reaction you made on the page), and he reacted as an immediate ass, all that means is that he is someone who turned down a helpful gesture. You shake your head and walk away, and you remain a person who just had good intentions and he turned you down.

If you respond back, the way you did, you're no longer the person who just wanted to help. You're a person who came to him uninvited to tell him he was wrong, and then you stayed to keep attacking him after he made it clear he didnt want your opinion. That, I'm sure, is why you were confronted by a mod. You were on his page, in his space, and attacking him, and you were not invited into the discussion by him. That puts you in the wrong.

I really do hope I'm getting my point across, it is really hard to explain to people when they are in the wrong because a lot of times, people take any attempt to tell them they are wrong as an attack. Just as Garyu obviously took your initial contact about this mess as an attack. Remember, you should know first hand from this, that sometimes someone who pops up to tell you you're wrong about something could very well have a point.

My apologies, but I still don't get your point. My initial interaction with him WAS civil, nowhere near the asshattiness that I showed in later posts, and yet he decided to take everything that I said the wrong way. Your theory of me trying to initiate the circle would only be valid if I was TRYING to be an asshole, and if my words reflected that. Politely asking for his inspiration for a picture of his that caught my eye and letting him know about a potential problem with someone impersonating him on another forum can hardly be considered initiating anything, and any reaction that he made in response to whatever perceived insult he gathered from my initial posts is something he created, not me.

The only reason why I attacked him, was because of his constant irrational hostilities towards my posts, no matter how many times I tried to calm him down (and I HAVE tried to calm him down and talk civily with him; it only serves to piss him off, honestly), and I honestly cannot see how I'm in the wrong for his overreactions to my attempts to make friendly conversation with him. Regardeless of how I came off, during my later posts, I still try to focus on the issue and provide solutions to it, like any good samaritan. And, no matter how heavy-handed I seemed to be with him, I always tried to let him know in no unclear terms that my personal opinions of him as a person in no way reflect my personal opinions of him as an artist, that I don't want him to leave, and that I AM trying to help (as stated, I've dealt with people like him before, so I know that sometimes, you HAVE to come across as heavy-handed to get your point across to them. If you don't believe me, just ask the Administrator handling the problem, DragonMyr; he's tried to come across as Garyu's friend, as well, but he's quickly starting to resort to tougher actions, because of Garyu's refusal to listen). Tell me: if you were trying to have some friendly conversation with someone, or give them some advice as to how they can solve whatever crisis they're going through, and all your attempts to talk with them has been met with irrational anger and accusations, would you blame yourself for invoking his ire, because he's 'obviously upset'?

I am in no way taking your posts as a personal attack, and I can sorta see how - from your self-admitted lack of knowledge of what really happened between me and Garyu prior to the point on his journal - you could get the impression that I was simply trying to attack him. However, as admitted even by yourself, you don't know the entire story, so you might have missed important exchanges that may change your opinion of how I handled Garyu. I'm not saying that you're wrong, per se, but I do acknowledge that - because of your limited knowledge of what transpired beween me and Garyu - your assessment may be a bit inaccurate. I will admit that I may have been getting a bit overzealous towards the end, there. I just don't like people misinterpereting or ignoring anything important that I or anyone else has to say to them, and if there's a way to make them listen to and understand where I or those people are coming from, then I'd like to think that I'm helping to get that message across, preferrably without any further flame-warring.

As for whether or not he should be upset over his trivial thing and be able to express it, that's debatable, since his supposed 'problem' with fchan seem to be more a case of 'I want you to do everything that I want you to', instead of a genuine concern over a violation of his rights as an artist. Let me explain:

First, he bitches them out for reposting his art on the site, yet his art doesn't have any sort of disclaimer on it whatsoever reflecting his desire for them not to be redistributed (not even a watermark; just his name at the corner of the page, like he expects that to be enough), and from what I've seen on his y!gallery account, he didn't really express that much concern with having his art redistributed. Also, any suggestions to him to put disclaimers on his art has been met with the same hostility that he's been showing, lately, like the very idea of reinforcing the 'perfect' protection of his work is outrageous.

Second, both Garyu and the fchan administrators have claimed to have problems with Garyu sending them emails requesting to be put on their DNP list: Garyu claims that he's sent emails to all of the administrators, but a bug/arrogance/incompetence on the administrator's part has prevented them from getting it, while the Administration has confirmed that they never gotten any emails from Garyu, but insist that their email accounts are working fine, and that they check it every day for fchan-related mails. Again, when asked to try alternatives to solve the problem (like their IRC channel), he flips out and accuses the administration of being 'god-modders'.

Third, despite the painfully obvious fact that he can read, understand, and speak English rather fluently, when confronted with someone who he doesn't like for whatever reasons, he attempts to switch between English, German, and Russian, most likely in an attempt to get them to leave him alone (under the idea that, if they can't read what he's saying, they can't respond, a theory easily proven by myself to be false, thanks to the knowledge that he DOES speak and understand English, and the fact that one can just run his posts through a translator to get at least a rough idea of what he's saying). For someone who wants to get his way, actively trying to avoid people in this kind of manner isn't going to solve anything, no matter how angry you are at them.

Fourth, every single post he's made to fchan has been anonymous, under the premise that "if they refuse to listen to his request, then they wouldn't bother reading his name, either". He's also deftly refused to comply with suggestions by the fchan mods to prove that he is who he says he is, the most ID he's submitted is his now-empty y!gallery account(which, as we all know, is not enough evidece to prove that you are the artist of a particular artwork). Again, if he was so adamant to protect his art, then it would be illogical for him to refuse a request of any kind to prove his identity, essentially leaving his anonymous claim to be the artist as his sole evidence supporting itself.

Finally, his constant claims to the fchan Administration that he has no fixed IP account that they can ban can, again, be construed as a threat, in the sense that he's essentially saying "Go ahead and try to stop me; we both know that you can't". I've seen how that kind of arrogance and anger towards a board can cumulate in, so his constant reminders to the fchan mods that 'they can't touch him' has me worried for him. He could very easily slip into criminal behavior against the site, if he wanted to, and if he was simply trying to protect his art, then why would he hang such a threat over their heads?

Simply put, the guy seems like a grossly oversensitive and paranoid spoiled brat that has gotten used to getting his way all the time, and feels that throwing a hissy fit whenever something even remotely pisses him off. I can see now that, no matter what I would've said or how I would've communicated with him, in the end, it would've been the same: him finding some reason to go all ballistic on me, and this journal of why some artists can be such paranoid assholes. Regardless, however, I've agreed with the Administrator to not talk to him or reply to any of his stuff, and to report him if he tries to contact me or reply to my stuff (like he did to my replies to his lat Journal entry, after the Administrator told both of us to leave each other alone). I dunno why he wants to be such a bastard, about all of this, but I can tell you right now that he's lost a fan in me.

See below, sorry..

" (and I HAVE tried to calm him down and talk civily with him; it only serves to piss him off, honestly)"

Which is why you stop and walk away. If you are polite, and he reacts with hostility, he is an asshole. If you try to calm him down and explain yourself, and he reacts with even more hostility, he is a bigger asshole. The point where you realise all you're doing is making him angrier, when you realise its just pissing him off, that i the point where you either walk away, or you become an asshole too.

"Your theory of me trying to initiate the circle would only be valid if I was TRYING to be an asshole"

When I said you initiated it, I meant when you initiated contact, even if initial contact was polite. You stepped into HIS space, with good intentions, but still, not invited, and obviously by his reaction, not wanted. Your proper reaction at that point was to walk away. Giving it another shot, trying to calm him down and explain yourself is all well and good, but then that too was only met with more hostility. You should have walked away. You didn't, you started yelling back. You're on his page, you're in his house, he didn't ask you to be there, and when he made it clear he didn't WANT you there, you chose to stay and fight with him. That makes you the bad guy.

"Tell me: if you were trying to have some friendly conversation with someone, or give them some advice as to how they can solve whatever crisis they're going through, and all your attempts to talk with them has been met with irrational anger and accusations, would you blame yourself for invoking his ire, because he's 'obviously upset'?"

A: if the person I offer advice to is not a personal friend, and they meet my good intention with hositility, I walk away. I am not in a relationship with them that grants me the ability to know them on a level where I have a right to say "I know this guy, I know this is whats best for him." If it is a stranger, and they don't want my help, I don't try and force it on them. That is not something I have any right to do, and neither do you.

If it is a good friend, someone you do actually know personally, THEN you can say "I know this guy, I know he just needs to be told this."

You do not know Garyu. You can't say "I've dealt with his type before, I know what I'm doing" for two reasons: One, that is an incredibly dismissive thing to say. You are disregarding any possibility that maybe he ISN'T the type of person you think him to be. You don't KNOW him, so you can not know you are right. You can only think you are right. And thinking you are right about someone you do not know does not grant you the right to try and force yourself on them if they do not want you.

All of that though is still made irrelevant the INSTANT you started being hostile back to him.

He did not want your help. You say yourself you realised you weren't helping. It was just pissing him off. Yet you kept at it. You pushed, and pushed, and pushed, getting him more and more hostile until you were hostile back at him, and at that point, the point where you say something nasty to him, EVERYTHING is irrelevant except for 3 things: Did he ask for your help? Did he want your help? Is your relationship to him close enough that you have any right to say what is in his best interests?

If ANY of those were "yes", then you would have some grounds for being an ass back to him. But all of them were no. This means you were not in any way justified to treat him the way you did. If The kindest, sweetest, nicest person in the world tries to be helpful to a stranger, and that stranger tells them to go choke on it, Mr. Sweetness needs to go away and help someone who WANTS it.

They are an asshole for being nasty to you up until the point you are nasty back. He didn't want your help. That's not something that justifies your behavior.

Your post right now basically goes on and on about how much this guy is just an unsavable asshole, and every single attempt made by anyone to be helpful was met with hostility. You tried this, and this, and this, and this, and he JUST kept being an asshole. You should have taken the hint.

Trying to help someone you don't know is a great and cool thing. Trying again, even when they were kinda nasty to you, is still commendable, but starts into the realm of pushing it. The more he shows he does not want your help, the more you are in the wrong for trying to force it on him, and the instant you start insulting him, you nullify all the good intentions you may have had. It doesn't matter if you started off trying to help, you ended up in a flat-out fight with the guy, and it is your own fault for not leaving him alone when he indicated he didn't want your help.

That's your opinion, and I'll respect you for it. I can kinda see where you're coming from, but my opinions about how I handled it are still different from yours.

You're right, I don't know Garyu, but his reactions to my help are very similar, if not identical, to those of people that I've dealt with in a similar situation before, including those that I AM very close with. I agree that you have to take every case individually, but if the person's reactions are similar, then there are general tactics that one can use to try and work with them. And, some of those incidents have ended very similarly to how this thing to Garyu ended.

I know it looks like I like to press buttons and push the limits of what I'm obliged to do, but that doesn't mean that I don't know those limits, or that I ignore them. To be honest, by the time the mod talked to me about Garyu, I had committed myself to leave him alone, so it's not like I would've gone on indefinitely with him about it.

I don't want to seem like I'm arguing with you about this, though, so like I said, I'll respect your opinion, and leave it at that. It's still a shame, though; I never like to see an artist pick up and disappear because of petty crap like this. It just makes me wonder what compells people to do this kind of thing, y'know?

There's no need to wonder. People treating them the way you treated him, and having an attitude of 'nothing's wrong' about it afterwards, is a big cause of it.

"To be honest, by the time the mod talked to me about Garyu, I had committed myself to leave him alone"

It had gone way beyond anything that should have happened by your third response to him. Your SECOND response to him on that thread was more than you should have done.

Artists who withdraw from the fandom typically do it BECAUSE of this absolute inability people seem to have to put themselves in someone else's shoes.

He felt wronged, he was upset and angry. Someone showed up telling him he was wrong to be so upset and he needed to just grow up. This made him mad, and he made it clear he didn't want this person's help. The person stopped trying to help him, and just started attacking him then. That is not going to give a person a reason to come back.

Artists are given numerous reasons to leave. One of the biggest being that there are so many people who, like you, will insult any artist that gets upset that their wishes with their art are being ignored. For future reference, if someone is upset that "omg my arts are stolen!1!", telling them to "grow up and get over it" is not what they want OR need to hear.

They're given very little reason to come back. What would give artists a reason to come back, and make a lot fewer of them decide to leave to begin with, would be if something changed. Rather than artists come under attack for being upset about art theft, people should be going out and harassing all the disrespectful people who are DOING the re-posting of stuff people do NOT want re-posted. If artists saw that they would be respected, they'd have less reason to leave, and more reason to come back if they did get pushed to leaving.

Everything else aside, simplifying this situation to its very basic core: someone was hurt by something. You made it worse. His reactions made it clear from the start that heavy-handed was not the way to go. Yet you heavy-handed him to the point of beating him. Like a parent who strikes a child because they won't stop crying and says "I'll give you something to cry about!"

He was hurt, you hurt him more. There just is no way to look at that exchange as being remotely helpful, and every single response you made to him that was hostile and insulting makes it that much harder to believe you ever had his best interests at heart.

You even admitted that you don't even know all of my exchanges with him, so how do you know that I DIDN'T?

I'm not trying to argue with you, or anyone else, but I DID try to help him out, and I WASN'T trying to insult their rights. I offered suggestions on how he could PREVENT what happened on fchan from happening, and he didn't listen. I told him repeatedly that I wasn't trying to be his enemy, but he wouldn't believe it. I even told him that I didn't like fchan any more than he did, but that that didn't condone the overreaction that he did with them.

If you want, I can send you transcripts of my PMs with him to prove it, I can even give you a transcript of his posts from fchan (I'm pretty sure that they're still up there), but the fact is, that I wasn't trying to browbeat him into letting them steal his work, I was criticizing his refusal to listen to and consider suggestions that people were giving and demanding that they do what he said in the rudest manner possible. People tried to help him solve this problem he had with fchan peacefully, and he didn't take them. He wanted instant satisfaction the way he wanted it, no matter what anyone said or how he got it. Considering that, from all I've seen of his art and his methods of 'ensuring' his work doesn't get stolen, he brought this on himself. No disclaimer on his art directly or on any of his sites telling people not to redistribute it, no hints that he even wanted them redistributed, just his name on the page and the assumption that that would be enough to fend off any potential 'art thieves'. I'm sorry, but he DOES need to grow up; no one's going to do what he says, simply because he tells them to, especially without any apparent sort of proof that he's who he says he is and a hostile attitude that makes people accuse him of believing he's god. Even the mods on here are realizing that the guy has no respect for anyone but himself. Talk with the dragon, he'll tell you.

No, dude, you're missing my point entirely. X3

I'm not arguing that you didn't try to be polite first. I said it was hard to believe given how you reacted on that one thread, but even if you were the nicest guy in the world, even if you were trying to help, even though he WAS over-reacting, all of that became completely irrelevant the moment you started being insulting to him.

If someone is an ass, and you try to help, and they're still an ass, you walk away.

That leaves them the ass, and you a person who tried to help.

Once you start exchanging insults, like you did, you are no longer on the high ground of "just trying to help."

No matter what may have come before it, EVERYTHING from your second response to him on that journal, all the way to the mods breaking you guys up, all of that was NOT "just trying to help." It was "I tried to help this jerk and he's a fucking jerk to me, well he can just eat this and I'll be a jerk back."

I'm not talking about anything before that exchange with you two just yelling at eachother back and forth. I'm just trying to tell you that at THAT point, that is where you went wrong.

You tried to help him out. Cool. He was a dick in response. Not cool. You were a dick right back. Also not cool, and it invalidates your initial good intentions. Because YOU let your attempt at helping end with things being worse than they were. Which means you never should have stepped in.

If you'd tried to help, and he'd brushed you off, and you went away, then nothing YOU did would have contributed to the negativity of the situation.

Okay, now I understand. I'm still going to disagree with you slightly on that one (I still feel that I was somewhat justified in continuing to try and help him, since I DO have a bunch of experiences with how to deal with people on fchan, and felt I could still give him some suggestions on how to salvage some peaceful resolution with his problem), but as I've said before, I will admit that I was becoming a bit overzealous near the end. It's a bit of a vice for me, one that would probably make me an excellent politician: I end up growing a bit too passionate about the topics that I'm debating about. Ask any one of my friends how that usually goes. I usually drive them insane, even though they know I have a good point :P