congratulations and congratulations

in the early hours this morning i got my black guardian badge (#ingress resistance!), which is kind of a big thing, because it means you've controlled a portal for 150 consecutive days.

it's hard to get, but it's not a badge i particularly love, because most of the badges are as a result of things you did, like capturing, or recharging or glyphing and this one is simply as a result of not having something taken away from you. it's not so much a badge you get as one that happens to you.

but as i got close to getting mine, i got kind of excited anyway.

now there are asshats in the game who will actually hunt down your guardian by means of illegal data scraping and they will kill it just for the sake of killing it. it isn't strategic. there's nothing you get from the badge besides a shiny thing. it confers no powers, but there are asshats who will hunt yours down and keep you from getting it because they're THAT kind of person.

"hi. there's no reason for me to do this to you other than it gives me pleasure to take something from you. i'm an asshat. have a nice day."

so i was sort of expecting a guardian hunter to come looking for mine, because they do that.

now unless you keep a database, it can be really difficult to identify your OWN guardian, let alone other people's.

which is why is was so weird (and yet not unexpected) that creepy stalker guy would send me a message on the last afternoon of my guardian's clock to "congratulate" me without saying what it was for.

i hadn't done anything. i hadn't gotten any badges or captured anything. the only possible thing was a reference to the guardian that wouldn't tick over for another twelve hours yet.

now, when most people say "congratulations", they mean "congratulations". when creepy stalker guy says "congratulations", he means "i am watching you, and i want you to know it."

so creepy stalker guy reached out to me from the other end of the country just to let me know he's watching me.

oh, gob. we all had a laugh over THAT.


ewwww. he what? hahahahahah!