PJ’s Apology Letter

 

This is the letter PJ had on his site concerning the Grey Archive forum incident where he apologizes to his readers.

My Thoughts

Well, today was one of the few days when being online at home is more stressful than work. I'm sure that all of you have read Pyros' latest rant against me, I stopped visiting Grey Archive after Pyros "banned" me on Saturday. I won't repeat my side of the story, my two forum posts, if they're still up, should explain my thoughts adequately. Pyros closed my forum account Saturday afternoon, so I won't be able to respond to his further verbal assaults except through e-mails and this homepage. To be honest, I don't care what he says, I've never liked fighting, let him say and think what he wants, I'm through with him and the corrupted Grey Archive.

What is more disturbing to me is what lordgriffin wrote to me in an e-mail today. He charged that I unfairly raise your hopes when I agree to write fanfics for you, that I often don't follow through with my promises. He said if I want to write whatever I want, I shouldn't promise you to write certain stories that you ask for.

This letter got to me because he's right. I've made a lot of promises to you over the years, especially this past year, and never followed through. I've failed to write stories for Warhammer, Nagash, and Legend of the Five Rings, stories that I promised you I would write. It was wrong for me to promise things I can't deliver, and I deeply, deeply apologize for that. I just promised a loyal reader of mine, JnEricsonX, several short Final Fantasy 8 pieces with the Guardian Forces. I promised him last year that I would write these fanfics for him, but I always find some reason, some excuse, to avoid fulfilling my promise. I could tell you I get tired from work, I suffer from burnout, I can't seem to concentrate on writing as much as I used to years ago, but they would be excuses. I can't offer you any other explanation, I countered lordgriffin's charges by saying I'm not getting paid for any of this, that I maintain these webpages and write erotic and non-erotic fanfic for my own pleasure. He countered by saying I can't have my cake and eat it too, I can't write for my own pleasure and attempt to fulfill your requests too, he said if I want to write for myself I should do it and not make promises to you.

I thought about that really hard. Maybe it is unfair to you. You've all been so kind with your feedback and support over these last four years I hate to say "no" when you ask for certain settings and characters. I never meant to give you false hopes, although I didn't think about it when I dropped projects, I lost interest in them so I just forgot about them. I keep saying that these webpages and my stories are just "hobbies", but you do faithfully visit my sites and give me feedback whenever I write something you like, so in a way it is more than a simple hobby, I owe all of you alot, and I've taken you for granted. I'm sorry if I've hurt any of you, even if it was unintentionally.

I blocked lordgriffin from my mail address, at another time I might have been more understanding, but all this ugliness with Pyros has me at loose ends, I really can't take anymore hard letters right now. The guy was basically mad because he sent me a very detailed request for a Dragonlance story where Takhisis defeats Paladine and has sex with him, he also included some stuff about getting women pregnant to make more draconians, and Takhisis giving birth to some new draconian race with Paladine, I forget the exact details. That request became the seed for my Return of the Dark Queen fanfic. Paladine was defeated, but I just couldn't bring myself to write the sex scene between Takhisis and Paladine, I thought the concept was kinda silly, really. He made a big point about evil winning, and I thought it did, Laurana became Sargonnas' love slave, Raistlin and Crysania went to rule the Abyss, and Morgion had a field day feeding from the slain, plus a nice look up Mishakal's gown, what more can you ask for? So now at least two people online are mad at me. Sigh.

In addition to this little argument, I 've been responding to e-mails ever since I got home from work, for about three hours now. I had to write JnEricsonX and apologize for not writing the Squall/Shiva fanfic I promised him for today, I'm so tired and stressed I'm afraid of what would appear if I tried to write a story tonight. This apology is what motivated me to write this posting, I ordinarily prefer to concentrate on content on my webpages, I'm not fond of ranting like Pyros, but this extraordinary situation seemed to require it.

I promised (there's that word again, I have to quit using it) that I would write the Final Fantasy 8 fanfic before I resumed Baldur's Gate, and I really will do my best. I'm in the mood to write another Final Fantasy piece, I just saw Spirits Within again Sunday afternoon, I love that movie, it has such a beautiful story, and Aki is wonderful. I was sad to read that Spirits Within didn't do very well this weekend, I really thought it would be number one at the box office, but it wasn't even in the top three. A.I. isn't doing very well either, and that film is probably my second favorite movie this year. A.I. is so heartwarming and innocent, a boy trying to earn his mother's love, I don't understand why people wouldn't be touched by that. I thought the movie was beautifully filmed, it was like a classic fairy tale, a noble quest, with really magical settings like New York underwater, or Rouge City. I guess I'm more sensitive to movies like that than most people. I'm gonna see Spirits Within again Tuesday night, it's in a big stadium theater right now and I want to see it one more time there before the theater moves it for Jurassic Park 3 on Wednesday.

I guess the main point of this post is that I'm feeling bad right now, so if I don't update Tales for awhile please don't get mad, I think I'll get over my depression quickly, I usually do after some rest and quiet.

Before the diluge of e-mail today, I wanted to share two things with you. The first is that the animated Lord of the Rings films are coming to DVD! The Hobbit, The Return of the King, and The Lord of the Rings animated movie will all be released on September 11th. I really like my Hobbit and Return of the King videos, I watch them every few months. I like the animation style and the voice actors are good, I remember watching them on NBC when I was a kid. The Lord of the Rings movie was neat, the animation was really dark, with lots of blood-red fog and creepy orcs and nazgul. I remember that the movie scared me when I first saw it growing up. The film hasn't been available on videotape for quite awhile, so this is a great chance to pick it up, I was hoping the new live-action Fellowship of the Ring coming in December would prompt the video companies to release all three films on DVD, I got my wish!!

The second thing I wanted to share is that I got my Shannara issue of Dragon last weekend! I subscribe to Dragon so I get it a little earlier than the newsstands. It has a cool, fold-out map of the Four Lands, the map's poster-size. The mag is full of Shannara articles: an illustrated overview of the Four Lands exploring the major sites, a detailed description of the Elder Druid class, a treatise on the heroes and villains of the Shannara world, with character portraits, a compendium of creatures from the Four Lands, an article about the major relics of the Shannara world, and an exclusive excerpt from the upcoming Shannara novel, Antrax! (I like the picture of the Ilse Witch, very nice!) Definitely get this mag if you're a big Shannara fan like me!

Well, that about covers everything. I hope all of you are enjoying Tales and the Throne of Bhaal story in progress. When I feel better I'll add some new stuff. I'm about to finish Legend of the Five Rings: The Crab, so I'll work on a review for that too. I want to begin reducing my pile of Warhammer novels next, I've only read three Slayer novels so far. I thumbed through the new Dark Elves army book that I picked up last Wednesday, it really has some great stuff in it, a lot of neat Dark Elf history and background stories. The art is first-rate too, the Dark Elves look lean, jagged, and sinister.

It's getting close to my bedtime now so I'm gonna wrap this up. It's just you and me now, hopefully the e-mails generated by Grey Archive will stop soon, then we can just have fun together in peace. Good-night, everyone.

PJ