Step into my office, Gul. Close the door behind you.

So verr srs. You don't see what Gul posted as an attempt at intimidation? I could practically hear his toilet-paper-tube Darth Vader breathing.

Well, first of all, it's that ambiguous. It does make the proviso that common sense is the deciding factor. Most people have a reasonable idea of what common sense is, and if a mod followed a decision that went against normal comon sense then I suspect that the rest of the modship and/or the members would stand up against it.

Plus, you also insisted that such a rule apply to everyone, which it clearly does.

So what you're saying is you really have a problem with private entities and people freely speaking.

I've already explained that, in the Workshop.

Explained that, too. The "meltdowns" were orchestrated responses, every one. The Facebook one was a gamble, I have to admit, but a fairly safe one since it was in a private group. But a new medium was an opportunity to see if your responses would change dependent on a change of medium.

No, I have problems with assholes like you mucking up the place and treating people with differing opinions like shit.

If it was all just research, why is it that each time you had a meltdown you'd rush to delete the more embarrassing posts?

You haven't read the excerpt, have you? Shifts in perception, primarily of time and location, are part of the story. If I simply posed the question, "How would you react if you were shot in the chest, fell off your chair and landed on a park bench a thousand miles away 24 hours ago?"could you even understand that question without giving a response that was authentically visceral?

The only way to simulate the dynamics that would generate an authentic response would be to create conditions to which you would respond with visceral emotion, then remove or alter those conditions without warning.

Wait a minute... this office doesn't have a door. It doesn't even have any walls! There's a seagull pooping on the filing cabinet!

Hey! That's not a filing cabinet, it's a rock with drawers drawn on it, in chalk!

So if its orchestrated, what the hell was Saturdays cry baby act for?

Your full of shit castle. Fuck off!

Guess I'm busted. I've been mailing your office to Paramus one piece at a time. Drawing the drawer frames and handles on the rock was sort of a Hail Mary, but I guess it worked out okay. I thought about taking your stapler, too, but things tend to happen when you take away somebody's stapler.

Bad. Things.

Me and my boys took care of the printer.

Save that you were claiming the experiment excuse at the time you were melting down, so I don't buy your post event reasoning.

So, wait. You don't buy it because I've been telling the truth behind it the whole time?

So you're saying you want an emotional reaction as part of this experiment, yet told people that at the same time that it was an experiment....how therefore could you obtain an informative and accurate response?

Because just as the character in the story comes to the realization that he's being toyed with, so came you. Would the Stanford Effect alter the overall tone of your reactions? Interestingly -- surprisingly, even -- it did not.

Ok, let's try this another way then. If this was meant to be a reaction to a character, which character? Because if it was supposed to be this Rock Dylan fellow then I don't see why you'd portray the experiment in the character of a pitiable embarrassment of a man. Surely that's not who your lead character is meant to be?

No, different character. The character of Lloyd Mayes, from a work called 46th & Mercury.

Ah, so he's the hysterical joke of a man then?

What's that one going to be about?

Yes, and no. He drinks himself into a blackout and kills his wife and stepson. Because of the blackout, he regains his senses while on the run, but doesn't know why he's running. The cops spot him and he flees into a hotel. The hotel is actually a manifestation of Nyarlathotep, the Lovecraftian "messenger of the Old Ones (race of gods pre-dating the gods known to humans).

The hotel divorces that deranged and violent component of Lloyd's personality from him, manifests it into corporeal form in a manner similar to how a tulpa is manifested, and lets it hunt him along with visions of the woman and child he murdered. He has no idea how he's connected to any of this. The hotel also prevents him from leaving by shifting his location and time within its walls.

In the end, the tulpa finally causes him to accidentally set fire to the hotel, then fall down a flight of stairs, breaking his leg. He passes out and, in that unconscious state, relives the final piece of the puzzle, realizing what the tulpa is. When it comes for him, he grabs it and holds it tight to make sure that it dies with him.

The hotel is meant to lampshade the old trope of the "monster that feeds on fear" -- because the victim is the monster, and what the hotel feeds on isn't fear but remorse.

Pure entertainment value for me. I admit, I love a good freak show.

Psst...the races are different. Just an fyi...

I can't find whatever Castle is talking about from The Workshop, and this is obviously bullshit, but if it's an exit strategy that allows Castle to back down from being such an asshole while thinking he hasn't lost face, then that's good news.

...uh oh, this ain't good. "Pop your clothes over on the stool, and spread your cheeks", is never far behind.

I see you noticed the spiked baton in my hand. But never mind that.

Regardless of whether Castle is telling the truth this time, he's much easier to deal with right now. Even making jokes that aren't at the expense of anyone.

I'm just as easy as Sunday mornin' when there aren't any jackwagons incessantly beggin' me to go off on 'em.

Dude!!! Fuckin' spoiler alert!!

I know, I know, I'm sorry!

But these fuckin' children around here, man, they have no intuition, no fucking imagination, they won't even guess unless you hand them the whole goddamn thing on a styrofoam plate!

This isn't a bright enough crowd that you can let something like that ride and expect them to read the finished product later and go, "Ohhhhhh! That's what he was doing!" This crowd, with a few notable exceptions, is indistinguishable on a literary front from all the bulls of Barcelona. They just run through, shit everywhere, and haven't the first fucking intuition of any meaning behind anything.