The Harbinger of Ferocity

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Why the fuck do they need to prove they are just as worthy of respect? What in all of creation makes it ok to make them prove themselves that extra mile?

@POOHEAD189

As I said to @Penny, everyone has the responsibility to prove their worth. No one is excused from that. But if you really want to dispel people's mindsets, blow them away with individual qualities. Again, and I restate this, this should be the goal for anyone but especially those who think they are at a disadvantage.

If one is not willing to do something that extra mile, in any task in life, perhaps it better they might not do it at all, but that is beside the point. So to address the rest of your statement, here is my counterargument;

I do not care.

Seemingly heartless, I know, but giving anyone special treatment or added favor I find morally wrong. You can read it here from me in the past, but if there is to be any question on it, I simply am aloof to it. This is not to say I will not donate, assist or support, but that is under my own volition. I do not discriminate.

I can sympathize with having a bad start, having that scenario played out as you described it, but if you told me that was your life and what could you do to improve it, I would tell you, "Go join the military." People don't like to hear that option of course, just like they do not like to hear "Go apply for student loans, just be sure to finish your degree and do a stint of internship or volunteering to get on the job experience and possibly a way into that work place." I could sit here and rattle back arguments - I could even argue the reverse racism or misandry I have experienced because of "diversity" mandates where less qualified candidates were chosen over myself.

My point is, will be as well as I freely admit my mind will not be changed, that there is no shortage of fighting and clawing people need to do for what they want. The challenges aren't going to be the same so cease comparing them.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

You have very selective reading ability, @Penny. I clearly do not limit my statement or response to just those people. In fact, I believe I say something explicitly along the lines of and I quote;

These could apply to anyone, really - they are not exclusive or limited to.

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

Strange, it is almost as though I accounted for that argument! As if I have heard it before. If you do not want to be stereotyped as anything then do not be that thing. This becomes a problem in our day and age because there are a bunch of people running around, rushing to so called "social justice", claiming everyone but "white males" is under some kind of prejudice.

You do realize "white males" are not significant enough by themselves to utterly and wholly eclipse every other minor group in combination, correct? No less, by making this claim, you do realize this too is reverse discrimination that is somehow validated because of nebulous "privilege", right? Furthermore, this does not hold true accrosd the board at all. We have several white males in this very topic who are proof enough, living proof, that they are not living on the ritz.

This is a "feels good" argument because it feels good to blame others than overcome individual difficulties. Why change or adapt anything when I can just cry out, "He's so privileged! There is no way I can catch up in life!" and welcome applause as if I made some sort of profound revelation? It would be much too hard to do a self assessment, identify strengths and weaknesses and exploit them to my own advantage so I can achieve what I want.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@POOHEAD189, I understand very well exactly what they mean, thank you, because the way people execute it and use it. "Checking your privilege." has become synonymous with saying "It's just so much easier for you so shut your mouth." It has evolved well beyond any "race" context and origin it had, which in itself I find to be a lie in this day and age, especially given just how much opportunity there is for anyone.

People invent their own hurdles or stick to those crafted for them in preconception. You are a woman? Prove that your gender doesn't determine you, your caliber of person as an individual does. An immigrant? Show that you are as American as anyone who was born here, if not more than through your hard work, dedication and loyalty. Minority? Make everyone look foolish for entertaining stereotypes by being whoever you are first and avoiding those things you do not wish to be. These could apply to anyone, really - they are not exclusive or limited to. I simply do not buy and will never buy the notion of "white privilege"; I certainly had none of it.

As a later addition to this post, I do not conscribe to the idea of "minority oppression". You have equal opportunity, act on it. Use initiative and determination.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

People define themselves, @POOHEAD189. Perhaps that is the best way I can phrase my understanding in its most simple incarnation. It matters nothing if you are man or woman, white or black, disabled or able bodied, young or old, among many others. Either you decide who you are, or what you will be, and pursue that with the hand of advantages and disadvantages you were dealt or you accept defeat. You can renegotiate some, many even, qualities and factors of life, but most people choose not to because it is difficult and often quite long term.

I, for example, should not have been on this green earth from the start. Medical odds alone suggested I shouldn't have been conceived, let alone born. I myself am a testament that disability and deficiency are not all an individual is either beyond that. Additionally, I survived a family feigning normalcy with a number of terrible realities in it, all of which were disguised by illusions and I even got to experience living with plenty, the idyllic American Dream, down to outright having nothing, at best from check to check. Later on I willingly gave up years of my life to do what I was told I could never do - told I never could be - so that I could do whatever I wanted with my future no matter what.

Claiming "privilege" is an excuse to shift blame on to someone else, a factor of the victim identity that many people have enthralled themselves with. This is not to say it is less difficult for some or harder for others, but everyone has their own demons. For example, the ones I face are invisible, but if anything all of those disadvantages made me greater and at this point I no longer fear them - some I have gone so far as to embrace. Do not misunderstand me, I tried to whine and complain, especially when I was younger, but instead of getting a handout or even assistance, circumstance gave me no mercy; I had no option but to fight on.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

If your mental picture of me is anything other than "embittered, seasoned, jaded person who knows the human animal too well for their own good", you might already be further off than you initially believed. Nonetheless, yes, I do not believe in the notion of privilege and on the contrary I believe people to have the power to largely determine their own fate, disadvantaged or not. Instead of this however, I have witnessed most simply opt not to and instead point at anything but themselves for their problems, wasting away that energy rather than actually doing something about it. In short, "privilege" is an excuse, @Penny.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

You previously knew I did not believe in the notion of "privilege" as people have constructed for themselves, @Penny; no less, I still do not and find the concept ridiculous, if not an outright amusing fantasy. Why would you only now be filling out that missing mark? Not convenient or timely enough for you then? Perhaps just off your game there for the past few days, weeks, months?

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@Andreyich, the official term is "speciesist". You best check your labeling privileges lest we rile the locals, heaven knows we cannot survive their victimhood screeching just as we couldn't a banshee's.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@mdk, I prefer my looters shot on sight unless they surrender immediately, regardless of race, age, gender, orientation and the like; I am not one to discriminate. I can understand a desire to act on opportunity where one might get something for free, especially with no real consequence or opposition, but raiding another person's place of work or home is not exactly excusable. This is compounded and made worse by the fact that it is fairly overt opportunistic behavior. They had a chance to evacuate preemptively or to seek aid from actual sources or just asking others. As expected, the majority of the looting that goes on is not even for essential items - those being food, water, and medicine - usually it is your high value electronics, clothes, jewelry, so on and so forth.

I do not enjoy making excuses for people, so I choose not to. Looters haven't many excuses to begin with and given the events of Harvey where they fired upon rescuers in some cases, no less tried to rob them as well, my limited sympathy for their "plight" is strained to the point where I do not exactly take issue with people defending their claims, or those of others, with deadly force.

D&D 5e - The Lost Lands

The Vale

The Town,
Currently

The gnome's eyes grew huge in wondrous surprise, almost as though they would eclipse the rest of him at this rate.

Valmjr... lived? His mouth sat slightly agape for a moment before the paladin and her wizardly escort bolted past him. Blinking and shaking his head from side to side some to throw off his own surprise, he quickly followed - well, as far as it seemed reasonable down the worn dirt path that was. Holding none too far from below where the slayer and scholar perched, his hands began to work the little magic he understood; a pink and almost at times lavender aura swelled around them with a light thrum. Concentrating as best he could on his spell, Birbin could hold back his excitement at seeing another friend no longer.

"Don't worry, Valmjr! Birbin's friends can do this!" He shouted, hands still working arcane gestures no higher than his shoulders.

Thea on the meanwhile, still at a near charge, had drawn her greatsword and was well prepared to cut down the offending mage; the being whose black, lightless robes seeped with infinite darkness, almost as though they were shifting atop it. Whatever it was, it was no threat to be ignore if it did know magic as it seemed and the redeemed crusader of the Kingdom of Light was certain she would be the best to put such a threat to rest. Haemar knew this just as well, allowing his companion to handle that danger. In the meanwhile, sword slipping deftly from its scabbard as he slowed, he chose with lightning alacrity a spell to be cast the next moment following.

The enemy at bay for the moment, the heroes knew well their advantage was not going to see them through forever; swords were being drawn, shields being raised, dark enchantments and spells beginning to eek into the air. Soon again the town would erupt into chaos and conflict, this time on the footsteps of the Hall, a place dedicated to it as though it were some sort of strange shrine or temple to heroic violence.

Effects

Haemar and Thea advance directly toward the enemy, weapons at the ready and prepared to meet them. Birbin too draws closer and readies an action to cast some sort of ray of purple light when an enemy comes in range.

Score
A Fellow Hero

Map
Town

Initiative Order

• Haemar (19)
• Thea (19)
• Katia (16)
• Theodore (16)
• Birbin (13)
• Cesar (12)
• Shadows (10)
• Night Fury (10)
• Wick (5)
• Valmjr (4)

@Cu Chulainn, @Gordian Nought, @Hekazu, @JBRam2002, @Rig

D&D 5e - Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Another arrow free from the leather grasp of his gauntlet, Brannor's eyes watched it sail off into the distance; the target, still fleeing, neither seemed to slow or stop, meaning the shot had likely gone off course. He swept attention then from the man to the fleeing dragon-things. For a moment he had a desire to rain a shot down upon them in the hopes their greater number would catch it, but the call to finish off one of his foes was too great. Granted the man might have been in panicked retreat, but he would have just been wiser to lay down and play dead at this distance. The casually loosed arrows proved to be a sort of amusement at this point for the hunter, almost as though he was toying with the target, just hoping he would be lucky to cinch his grasp around them by sheer chance.

There was some purpose to it. It wasn't malice that drove him, not like the anger that rose from boiling depths to fill the young priestess of Chauntea now, rather the fact that a dead foe proved no threat. Like in nature's domain, other predators were better off made dead than allowed to flee and roam if it were possible. A single man would regularly not survive even here in the wilderness, but these stakes were higher for if he survived, he might just find his other surviving fellows and warn them. For the man, as he adjusted his old chain shirt and drew yet another arrow from the hunting quiver, this was excuse enough.

Angling higher his next arrow, the bow's string withdrawn to the rear, the stern jaw of his face gritted and prepared to fire again. The wildman waited for an added moment, overhearing some of the events unfolding...

Effects

Brannor makes a longbow attack against the retreating enemy, rolling a 6 to hit and almost assuredly missing. He then knocks another arrow and readies to try again.

@Hekazu@Ryonara@Lucius Cypher@Gordian Nought@Norschtalen