Brasil

Alex, aka Brasil, also known as PoisonTongue, Bean, Anime Fangurl, Siren and Papa Smurf, was a member of OtakuBoards from 2003. Brasil was lured to OtakuBoards by his friend Charles by the prospect of good video game discussions, and Rick Hunter’s false success with Rage of the Inferno. Thus his reputation for biting critique and take-no-nonsense attitude first came to prominence in the community when he was the first to openly question the validity of Rick Hunter’s movie script being picked up. His first avatar was one of Simon Cowell from American Idol. This led to some members asking if he actually was Simon, given their personalities matched quite well.

Brasil was arguably at his most dangerous in the Anthology area, where he gave prospective writers feedback and critique,which was commonly harsher than the usual feedback given in response to creative works in anthology. This often led to the OP feeling personally insulted, although Brasil would argue that his critiques were aimed solely at the work in question and helping the OP improve at their game. Brasil also fatured a number of his works in anthology, writing essays on modern pop culture and science fiction movies such as The Terminator and Star Wars. His essays were usually noted for going against the grain of popular thinking (eg, Star Wars’ rebellion is actually the antagonist) and making his points and thesis convincing.

Papa Smurf had no problem arguing until he turned blue in the face.

Brasil came to feud with former Anthology moderator Mitch. Originally this feud was restricted to Mitch’s threads that Brasil decided to critique, but eventually spread out to any thread where the two found themselves on opposite sides of the specturm. This led to the spectacular demise of both members memberships here in the 2005 Lounge thread “So I’m going to run away from home.” The thread itself revolved around a troll’s threat to run away from home until Brasil and Mitch started opposing each other and ended up taking the thread down into farcical one-image-post-war against each other, in an obvious attempt by both parties to be, or at least look like, Charles. The thread ended up being closed and both members got whacked with a ban courtesy of Shy. Charles remains king of the one-image-post.

Brasil continued to post for a few months on his MyOtaku before ceasing to update it. He re-registered ofr OtakuBoards in 2006 under the name Papa Smurf, simply because “the name was too good to pass up.” Initially Papa Smurf kept a low profile until he was attacked for his criticism in The Boss’s Otaku Fiction. The general attitude was that Papa Smurf was a new member and didn’t know what he was talking about.

Papa Smurf’s posts became increasingly hostile over the next several months. For example, he thoroughly flamed Fasteriskhead in the the thread entitled “Tree.” Once Papa Smurf flamed Retribution over his views on public execution, the staff as a whole began to realize his true identity and take him to task for his actions, citing that he should know better.

Papa Smurfwas re-banned for disregarding James’ warnings in the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess thread and making “personal attacks” against him. He continues to write articles for SomeFantastic, a web-based pop culture ‘Zine.

Categories: Banned Members, Members