From: adplummer@comcast.net   
      
   Mord wrote:   
   > *puffs on a stolen bubble pipe*   
   >   
   > On Jan 28, 5:25 am, Harold  wrote:   
   >   
   >>It was ten years ago when a regular discussion thread was elevated to   
   >>the legendary Otaku Wars! on alt.fan.sailor-moon.  Arguments among fans   
   >>aren't new.  But what happened when a bunch of fans decided to poke a   
   >>little fun at each other was magic.  It was lightning in a bottle and   
   >>something clicked among friends and strangers.   
   >   
   >   
   > The amount of creativity and projects that spurred from it was mind   
   > boggling at times.  Although I think I'm probably the only person who   
   > probably actually has everything that was "produced" like t-shirts,   
   > cds, etc. ^^;;  I'm actually wearing the first-year's Otaku Wars!   
   > soccer jersey shirt thingy. Minpire-variant of course. ^_-   
      
   The fact that it produced not one but two soundtracks is something I   
   personally found amazing and awesome.  Not just blank CDs with music   
   burned onto them, mind you, but actual *soundtracks*, with CD labels,   
   case covers, liner notes, the whole works.  That these were made and   
   distributed for little other than the sheer coolness factor of it was,   
   well... really cool.   
      
      
   >>Out of the experience, I made a lot of friends.  There were a lot of   
   >>e-mails and irc logs that made the wars a pleasureable experience.   
   >>Today,  I am very good friends with Mord.  I still talk with Korb once   
   >>in awhile.   
   >   
   >   
   > There are times I wish I actually logged IRC and the like back then,   
   > or at least saved more of the emails.  Plenty of it's been deleted,   
   > especially the first few years when the email went to the uni account   
   > I no longer have access to, but there -are- some things still sitting   
   > at the deepest bowels of the webmail accounts.  Probably the oldest is   
   > Frank's original ending post to the Dark Crystal Arc he made over   
   > christmas when I was offline which he CCed to me.   
      
   Thank God for Google Groups and the Yahoo ML, just for the fact that the   
   vast majority of the actual OW! themselves are still accessible to anyone   
   who wishes to relive the past.   
      
   I too, though, wish I still had a bunch of the "behind the scenes" stuff that I   
   no longer have anymore, because those were often just as cool, if not cooler   
   at times, as what actually appeared in the Wars! proper.   
      
      
   >>I learned a lot of inadvertant lessons - sad ones.  I learned about my   
   >>own immaturity and the immaturity of others. The wars, at times brought   
   >>out the worst in people too.  I remember the first major split in 1999,   
   >>and then my own crisis OW! in the summer of 2000.  I cried a lot during   
   >>that time, and a lot of relationships changed for the worst between a   
   >>lot of people and me.  Going through the arguments, the broken trust and   
   >>the hurt did turn me off to OW!  I didn't think that a post in late June   
   >>2000 would be my last.   
   >   
   >   
   > Had I known where it would have led, I wouldn't have asked you to make   
   > that post in my place.  The reason I tried avoiding it was because I   
   > would have had the exact same post you made, only worse.   
      
   Being on the other side of that particular incident, in this case, I think   
   the whole thing ultimately was unfortunate for everyone involved.  As Chris   
   pointed out for different incident, this too seemed mostly to be a result of   
   a lack of or break-down in communication outside of the OW! itself which led   
   to bad feelings.  I don't know about the others involved, but I certainly   
   didn't   
   intend or expect any changes that were made during that time to actually   
   stick or anything.  It was more like an "OMG WE'RE IN UR BASE" moment, and   
   I fully expected to be asskicked in retaliation.  I just wasn't expecting that   
   when the asskicking came that it would be associated with such bad vibes.  Had   
   I   
   known, I would have tried to nip it all in the bud before it got anywhere near   
   as bad as it did.   
      
   I know I've already said this quite a few times, both in public and in private,   
   but I'll just say it again:  I apologize for my role in any bad feelings that   
   resulted from what went down during that period (or, hell, any other time, for   
   that matter).   
      
      
   >>I smile when I think of all the fun that went on between us.  I cringe   
   >>when I remember all the fallout from the fights.  The tragic thing about   
   >>the Otaku Wars! is that we all lost sight of the fun we're supposed to   
   >>have.  I loved writing posts, and I loved writing humor that not just   
   >>praised Sailor Venus.  Lampooning anime, pop culture, geek fanboys, and   
   >>life in general was a blast.  If it entertained the public out there,   
   >>I'm glad.  If it made other authors shoot milk out their nose, even   
   >>better.   
   >   
   >   
   > Fallouts were fairly standard throughout it's history unfortunately,   
   > no matter what happened.  Luckily we had a steady stream of people   
   > coming in during the early  years to keep participation up.  Then the   
   > last few years.... >.>;;;   
      
   Looking back on it from the present, it seems kind of silly to have gotten   
   so angry at times over what now seems to be such minor things.  But on the   
   other   
   hand, this is, in a way, a testament to the power of the OW! such that it   
   was something that people DID feel strongly about and sometimes DID get   
   angry about.  Honestly, looking back at it now, I'm a bit surprised that these   
   kinds of things didn't happen *more* often, which is a testament to our overall   
   general ability to mostly play nice while kicking each others' asses, y'know?   
   ^^;   
      
   >>There is no more forward in the Otaku Wars!  There's only room to look   
   >>back.  It's over and dead, not only because OW! got old, but   
   >>alt.fan.sailor-moon is dying.  However, that is another post for another   
   >>day.   
   >   
   >   
   > afsm's death was preordained exactly as OW!'s was imo.  A newsgroup   
   > based on a single show has no extensive future unfortunately.  Still,   
   > if it was fun while it lasted then it's not too bad.   
      
   It wasn't so much that OW! itself got old, at least for me anyway... well, it   
   *did*, but not because it was inherently running out of juice itself, but   
   because, as you said, the forum in which it primarily was hosted was getting   
   old and dying.  OW! died because of the lack of new people, which in turn made   
   the few left who still tried to hang in there begin to wonder what the point of   
   it all was.  Had OW! continued to receive new blood, I imagine that it could   
   still have been continuing to this day.   
      
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)