Whoa, a review, at this late date

[Bob Schroeck]

The following showed up on the FFML a couple nights ago in what amounted to an anonymous posting thanks to what appears to be a massive mailglitch caused
(or maybe not) by the sender's attempt to send an HTML-formatted message. I managed to extract it, but I haven't had time since then to even read my
mail, let alone respond to it. I appreciated it greatly, though; unfortunately I have no idea (yet) who actually sent it, so I'm just going to post it
here and give my very public thanks for the kind words. (And when life finally gives me a chance to get back to my email, I will send a more detailed response
via the FFML.)

With all the talk about Drunkard's Walk V going around, I decided to


take a peek at the whole series. Naturally, I started at the very


beginning, DW2.

Read it. Now.



Why are you still here? You're wasting valuable time that could be


spent reading DW2.



OK, I guess you want to know why I consider it one of the top ten best


anime fanfiction works. Here's the short list

6. Lisa Vanette. I never thought any one could write her as


anything other than background noise. DW2 proved me wrong.

5. The overall characterization of Looney. Throughout the whole


series Loony is portrayed NOT as a "Superhuman" but as a


"superHUMAN." He makes mistakes, he stumbles both mentally and


morally. Then he gets up, dusts himself off and tries again.

4. The way he manages to go into Looney Toon's history without ever


actually going into it. This guy can turn a phrase so well that he


can give us an entire flashback scene without ever having to WRITE the durn


thing.

3. The endless psychological twists and turns. Nobody is


completely in the right and nobody is completely in the wrong.


Throughout the series, you start to realize that every viewpoint you're


treated to is at some point, justified. Sure what Madigan's actions


are wrong, anybody would know that, but by the time she's done it


all, you can't help but feel sorry for her.

2. The idea that someone could consider the Knight Sabers' mission as


wrong and possibly evil. Don't laugh, don't scoff. Looney


Toon's harangue at Sylia is very compelling. Which could explain why


the Knight Sabers' take it so personally. A big subplot is Nene is


wondering whether or not she's evil and Rob Schroeck pulls it off


beautifully.

1. The Plot Twist at the end proves once and for all that Robert M.


Schroeck is actually a pen name for M. Night Shyamalan. Saying any


more would be spoiling it.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

I'd like to have a few words with you about Signs...

--Sam

"This is graveness."

[Black Aeronaut]

*Snrk!*

[Bob Schroeck]

Believe you me, if I were an alias for Shyamalan, I'd want to have words with myself over Signs.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[David Lewis]

"4. The way he manages to go into Looney Toon's history without ever

actually going into it. This guy can turn a phrase so well that he

can give us an entire flashback scene without ever having to WRITE the durn

thing."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Bob Schroeck]

Thank you.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[ECSNorway]

It also touched off a brief flamewar on the topic of the appropriateness of pure-ASCII vs HTML text in email. (The item was originally sent as an HTML
attachment to the email, and the ML software scrubs such things automatically.)
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Bob Schroeck]

Joy. I get to erase the entire flamewar in one go when I finally get to read my email tonight.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[ECSNorway]

Yep.

The opposing sides:

1) Pure ascii is outdated. We should go to 100% HTML.

2) HTML is overblown and overrated and can carry trojans and viruses. Email has always been pure ASCII and should stay that way.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[Sweno]

Dealing with spam all day long, I fall firmly into camp #2.

If you can not convey your message in plain unformatted text, you need to rethink your message. I won't be such a hard-ass about pure ASCII, cause support
for extended character sets is a good thing. But yes, I despise html formated email with a passion.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Black Aeronaut]

I don't usually have that sort of problem with HTML email as the only version of that that I get tends to be in the form of notices of purchases and such
that I make online.

[robkelk]

HTML spam often includes 1x1pixel images with "confirmation codes" in them - this shows which e-mail addresses actually received and opened the
messages, thus showing which addresses are valid. That's a rather blatant security hole in HTML e-mail. One that's been closed by the "do not
automatically load images" option in most but not all modern e-mail clients (yes, Apple, I'm glaring at you), true, but a heck of a lot of people
still run legacy e-mail clients because they came with the computers...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012