Decanter So I've gone over the dialogue again in light of your comments. And I think that you're right that this hasn't been my best work. So, I apologize to Maize for having lost my temper.
I'll say that, as I read it, "the third degree" didn't start until after Maize accused me of having a personal grievance against him. Up to that point I was annoyed by him, but not pissed off. The comment on post length he took umbrage at was proximately caused by his post, but included other lengthy posters like throwaway531 and the previously mentioned flame war between Fulminato and BurningHeretic, so it wasn't personal.
I used to be active in forums advocating rational skepticism and dedicated to debunking political conspiracy theories, and the discussion triggered the habits of thought associated with that community. As you note, treating speculation on the plot of a fictional game with the same gravity as something in the real world isn't really sensible or proportionate. If you want to understand why I had that reaction, imagine that Elleani were an actual person who had suffered trauma, and someone accused her of being... cliché as it is... the secret daughter of Hitler. We have no idea how Maize would behave when thinking about the real world based only on his spec theories.
The reference I made to the quote you posted ought to have been something along the lines of "I don't actually recall that Elleani's mother was 'unnecessarily vague' in her story, and now that Decanter has posted the exact quotation, I don't see how you can continue to claim that she was."
As noted above, the spec thread update emails from Maize were an annoyance at a time when I didn't need one. I probably ought to have turned off notifications for the thread, but was keeping it open so that I could answer questions like Sotter's about the timing of the next update. Hopefully the stress in my personal life will settle down a bit going forward and my bad emotional state won't bleed into my posting.