Hello. Welcome to my page! If it isn't already apparent from my name, I've no clue what I am doing. I would have no idea, but that username was taken. I made an account to further confuse myself over my stance on fanfiction.

Sure, some (or most) in mainstream literature may consider fanfiction a lower art – cheap imitation only appropriate for silly teenagers (which is understandable – it often is) – and in reading it, I am repeatedly reminded of Sturgeon's Law (the principle of most things being terrible is one with which I fervently agree), but most people do it "for the lulz" anyway, so why not? If I cannot stem the flow of abominations, why not add to it? I always did like watching things (metaphorically) burn. And perhaps, if I really try, I could be the 10%.

I will not be prolific. I will not be significant. I will melt into the shadows, contribute infrequently and lurk anonymously. In fact, how did you find me? Oh well. Whether it was from curiosity or by accident, I do not know. If you want to learn more about me...I don't understand it, but okay then.

My interests include being alive, being a timid pedant, the abstract, irony, and non-sequiturs. They are vast and diverse, but generally fall within the spheres of science, literature, and fun (not that science and literature can't be fun). I love the acquisition of knowledge. I love correcting mistakes, mine included. Therefore, I do not have a neat list of fandoms (or as I call them, "spheres of interest") I subscribe to. (I dislike the term "fandom". I am not a "fan". I am not "fanatic". I just happen to like it, gosh darn it.) Anything and everything is possible. I do not post purely negative reviews. In fact, I barely post any reviews. They will either contain advice or praise. I will gladly point out flaws upon request by PM if possible – I like to rip apart texts line by line, and nitpick stories to death, but I mean well. I tend to be a bit effusive in an attempt to soften the blow, so you should probably tell me if you don't want unnecessary fluff in your criticism. For my full disclaimer, see my beta reader profile, something I only recommend in case of severe boredom.

If I post anything in the future, I welcome and humbly request plenty of constructive criticism – something I sorely need. Feel free to message me with complaints, corrections, stories about your day, vitriolic recriminations – whatever you'd like. I've never been cussed out in my life and I'd like to experience it. (It'd be really helpful, actually: I've always wanted to make my written profanity more realistic.) Just note that I'm not the most socially adept person, so any conversation with me may be awkward and stilted. If at any time you'd like me to stop replying, just send me a message saying "SHUT UP ALREADY" and I'll shut up already.

(I have decided to allow my account to show the fact that I am Canadian. I feel like justifying my use of Canadian spelling to my computer, which only has American English spellcheck. No, Word, that is a perfectly acceptable alternate spelling! *hoards extra 'u's and 'l's jealously*)

In the meantime, I hope you have a pleasant day. Live long and prosper!

NEW SECTION IN WHICH I VAPIDLY COMMENT UPON/COMPLAIN AT LENGTH ABOUT VARIOUS THINGS (REPLACES THE SECTION IN OTHER PEOPLE'S PROFILES WHERE THEY TALK ABOUT STUFF THEY DO AND STUFF). Just look above for the "important" stuff.

Note to self – How not to take criticism:

1. Stare in shock for a few minutes, then wail loudly for ten.
2. Angrily call into question the critic's sanity, moral integrity, and family life.
3. Call them a "hoor" and storm off.

Problems with FF.net:

1. This site has no quality or plagiarism control. For that, it is nicknamed "the Pit of Voles". I love that name. Too long to type, but fittingly epic. Case in point: I have uploaded no less than FIVE stories of questionable quality. It is too difficult to implement a vetting system with the sheer volume of stories coming in and making betareading on stories mandatory would face RIGHTEOUS BACKLASH. Besides, then we wouldn't have hilarious crack and trollfic gems.
2. The default font is Verdana. VERDANA. I've grown bacterial cultures with more personality than that font! IT IS A FOOLISH, ROUND-LOOKING THING. I'm sorry, but I've channeled all my nonexistant anti-Comic Sans rage into anti-Verdana rage. A font with such a beautifully balanced name (Verdana – it just rolls off the tongue!) should be BETTER THAN THIS.
3. The favourite – sorry, FAVORITE GEEZ – system is jacked up. There is a logical error there, I feel. There should be only one favourite. That's the definition of favourite: THE ONE YOU LIKE BETTER THAN THE OTHERS. Unless you like them all equally, which is hard to do (especially for me – I'm so damn indecisive). So I default to "follow", which is like "like" but just the following part. There should be a range of reactions here, from "AWESOME!" to "it's not bad" to "HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS TAKE THIS OFF MY SCREEN!".
4. No support system. They SAY they have a technical support group and they have an email and everything, but it is NOT FUNCTIONAL. So if there's a glitch, we just have to wait it out.
5. DocX SUCKS. It is A SILLY THING. For one, it doesn't allow you to edit directly on it, nor does it allow you to place helpful comments on the sides. For another, it says it preserves the source formatting, but NO MATTER WHAT I DO, MY ITALICS ARE ALWAYS SWALLOWED UP BY THE UNHOLY BEAST THAT IS DOCX. AND MY BOLD. I cannot abide this.
6. The whole document system, actually. The documents DIE after 90 days. What if I forget my password or go to China for three months? That means constant back-and-forth hard drive/on-site saving.
7. There is no strikethrough for stories. Nor is there highlight. It is allowed on profiles, but WHO READS THE DAMN PROFILES ANYWAY? (Prospective betareading clients, readers maybe, but still! Not many!) Do you know how much of my plotless irreverent unfortunate uncomprehensible humour is predicated on the use of strikethrough? Very little, but it'd still be nice to have! Also, when I put certain symbols it goes all wonky (the plus sign and the angle quotes are murdered senselessly).
8. There is also no source code editor to complement the visual editor for documents. WordPress has it. Wikipedia has it – although that's a simplified wikimarkup system. It would help greatly if FictionPress and FanFiction had it too. I mean, it and WordPress has that CamelCase/capitalization-in-the-middle-of-the-word thing going on! They're practically sisters! You can't have double line breaks, and you can't edit the source to put some break (br in angle brackets) tags or p (p in angle brackets) tags or \n line feeds or SOMETHING. You have to slap it in the visual editor, which is kind of a weird system. And there's no support for special characters like accents and rare punctuation. This is outrageous.
9. More about source code editing: it would be nice if we could edit our own stories, and selectively enable pending changes for others. There is no "report typo" on this site. (Please "user" another email?! Also, "and etc." basically means "and and other stuff".) There is no comment/reply system for reviews. There is no "ask for criticism" button or "request copyedit" button. With that source code editing, typos, Easter eggs, replies, and whatnot could be inserted without resorting to doing odd things to circumvent the NoCopy on the site (control plus a and control plus c – after removing the extraneous text – various extensions, asking the author, saving a copy, downloading...), which incidentally, is also a problem.
10. Many measures on this site are very annoying and nearly worthless. I've just delineated the MANY WAYS that NoCopy fails. On my FictionPress account, helpful people who wanted to correct my grammar were UNABLE to copy it without being inconvenienced. THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE. And the no external links thing: people will put piecemeal links or some other workaround and it's basically the same thing. Why can't you have a blacklist like other sites, FF? (And what redundancy! When is spam ever solicited?) Finally, making us "read" the Guidelines every few days does not make us more likely to follow them!

Phew. Okay. Done complaining.

Good things?

Now for some "Future Plans":

1. Finish "Team Fortress 2 is Weird". It started out as "Pyrovision", but then I found another story by that name, so it became "Pyrovision is Weird". Gosh darn it...it's like the time I tried to make my account all over again! Then I noticed it was marked as "incomplete", and my brain got wildly out of control and told me it would be a good idea to make one for all the classes, and now "Team Fortress 2 is Weird" it is. I'm in too deep now – I am compelled to finish this incoherent jumble (and I am so darn close!), which I nip and tuck at after posting like it's an article on the Great Wiki. I apologize for my moment of weakness that has unleashed such a pathetic monster upon the world. YES IT IS DONE I HAVE WASHED MY HANDS OF IT I AM RID OF IT oh was that a typo? I AM MOSTLY RID OF IT
   Seriously though, that took way too long. Sorry about that :/
2. Continue "Let's Make Purple". Oh man. I shouldn't have done this. I was planning to retire forever after "Team Fortress 2 is Weird"...but people blinked no. I am ridiculously behind on this and I have but a rough idea of what I'm doing. I think I must wait until the last comic comes out because now my plans are ruined. Now I understand what being Jossed is like.
3. Write more Flatland. I have some pretty cool stuff with hypercubes and superstrings planned. It's going to be awesome. That is, if I ever get around to doing it.
4. Finish "Dragonvale Tale". It's been sitting in my Google Docs for...what...5 years? Time to finish it.

This is, of course, after I wade through my Olympic-sized swimming pool of life obligations, schoolwork, and original fiction pieces...

...and by that I mean I am now in the midst of an indefinite limbo state while I try to sort all of it out. (Yes, I know, it was bad practice to start posting without having written it, but I had no clue what I was doing.) This is a good thing for the overall integrity of the Internet. I am very sorry, my five or so loyal readers.