The Battle Forums
Those words may send shivers down your spine, or they may excite you. Intense battles over words take place for days, months, or even years; sometimes, with no final conclusion. Over the couple years I've been here, I've noticed a few emotions that some users may go through as they battle someone in those threads. Much like the 7 emotions you go through when someone close to you dies, these 7 stages apply only to people afflicted with "fanism." (Which is something each viner has inside of them) These are the emotions many battlers go through as counter-point evidence is presented to them.
Evidence-shmevidece! Your character is the best, and you know it! You flaunt it for everyone to see. How dare someone go out and find counter-point evidence, then present it to you in the thread! You don't need evidence. The sheer awesomeness of your character is enough evidence. Plus, you know that one issue where that fill-in writer accidentally confused the character's powers and made them over-powered for one panel? Yeah, that's canon.
By now, the cockiness has blown away and you realize, "oh man, that piece of evidence was pretty relevant." If you think like I do then "an attack on a character is an attack on you." You are shocked and appalled that someone would dare challenge you to a battle in the battle threads! You open a new can of your favorite soda and plan your next move.
Your next move is simple… Let’s get angry! Various people develop various different methods of displaying their anger on the intraweb: Exclamation points, emoticons, common misspellings, and the king of angry typing, CAPS LOCK. Your words may convey only so much, BUT YOUR WORDS IN CAPS PORTRAY SO MUCH MORE MEANING AND FEELING! Now the person you’re debating knows how angry you are, some may say you just shown weakness, I say you have the upper-hand!
Depression
You believe you’ve lost, and bow down. Maybe you’ll go back to the thread and delete all of your posts, maybe you’ll even go to the “hello/goodbye” thread and state it used to be fun, but you can’t go on anymore. You’ve lost your lust for battle.
Denial
Lost my lust for battle? NEVER! After a 15-20 minute break, you have a renewed vigor and jump back into the thread telling everyone that you’re leaving of the site was merely a joke! HAHA! Joke’s on you! You attack the battle thread full-force denying every piece of evidence with compelling arguments like “That’s non-canon” or “CURBSTOMP!” This may be the strongest your argument gets because it was true; none of the counter-points were canon. You got em’ now tiger!
Directed Anger
This is probably where you’re going to be forced by the staff or mods to take a week vacation from the vine. And hey, you deserve it with the gamut of emotions you’ve gone through today! Counter-COUNTER-evidence is presented, and the only rebuttal you have is “go F yourself.” You have officially lost this battle; you may circle back to depression and move forward again in a week if you like.
Acceptance
After your week vacation, you are relaxed, renewed, and able to accept the inevitable: Your character is still the best. You never lost that battle! You won! What does the “Rate the Debaters” thread say about your glorious battle? 3 out of 10? Well, what do they know? You brought glory and honor to that thread and you still remain undefeated in your mind. Congratulations fan, you are victorious once again!
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