Hey, look, sorry about earlier. You have to understand where I'm coming from here; I'm just some small, shy, loner guy who pops up out of nowhere at the oddest times and whose feelings and emotions are so weird that even I can't understand why I react as I do half the time. In this case I just first wanted to write up my opinions on contests and awards and judging and all that because I just felt like it and, yes, I wanted to vent some about my experience with being judged on Serebii. Then when you said your thing about good fics inherently being popular, it struck a chord. A lot of things strike a chord with me; I'm an easily offended man. Generally I can restrain myself but my feelings when it comes to my writing and lack of popularity are strong... I've finally admitted to myself after a long time that what I solely want above all else isn't exactly popularity itself, I just want to be recognized. While some people may now recognize me, more on here than Serebii due to me being able to actually integrate myself somewhat into the community here (although I still post just as rarely), I often find myself looking up at the big name authors (mostly at Serebii where there are big name authors) and wondering how they could be so popular, especially since, well, a lot of those big name authors downright suck, or are merely mediocre at best.
What you said about me needing to work for it is true and I've recognized that for a long time now, but what got me so aggravated was that all of that was besides the point. All I wanted was to show how quality does not equal popularity, and for you to recognize that what you said was wrong. But as you kept bringing up the minor aspects of my posts and neglecting the original point, it just made me frustrated. As for what I said to Astinus by VM, you have to understand that it's all pretty much a big joke. If you'd see some of my posts in the lounge (or simply read my part of the recent Exquisite Corpse) you'd probably understand; I thrive on over dramatizing things and voicing them in the most over the top way. Rest assured especially that when I called for someone to kill you, I didn't mean it literally...
So, no hard feelings? It's not common for me to apologize like this, but I realize that you probably didn't even realize what you got yourself into when you started posting in that thread and I don't want you to think we're all a bunch of savages or anything for how some of us--yes, namely me--reacted. We are insane, but hey, is that necessarily a bad thing?