Eviora

No wonder I didn't get it. I haven't played that game.

Let me guess. Death by stampede?

Hello, monsters of Reborn! After getting up to my usualf mischief for the week and laughing about it like an insane little girl, I thought it might be fun to share our misdeeds with each other. The sins you speak of may have occurred in real life, online, in video games, or in any other medium. However, I do ask that you follow a few simple rules. If you break my rules, I will become very grouchy, and my grouchiness is legendary - I'll probably end up taking out my sadness on some poor, unsuspecting player in one game or another, and you wouldn't want that on your conscience, would you? --- RULES: 1. No stories that are blatantly offensive to members of any race, religion, sex, gender identity, sexuality, ethnicity, or anything else of the sort. If you hate political correctness and feel this rule is stupid, feel free to file a complaint with me after this thread has run its course. 2. In fact, for the sake of my fragile sanity, nothing related to (real life) politics or religion at all. 3. Don't go meta on me. I don't want to hear about the ways you've screwed over other members of this community. This is a thread where we are supposed to laugh at how horrible we are, not flame each other into smithereens. 4. If your story involves substantial spoilers for anything please use spoiler tags and clearly indicate what exactly it is that you'll be spoiling. 5. This one is more of a suggestion than a rule. Try not to share all your vilest acts at once. We should savor these experiences, not die of laughter in a single sitting! --- That said, I'll set an example by going first. As you may know, I play the infamous World of Warcraft. In that game, I like to collect things because I am a total magpie. Particularly, I collect mounts - animals or machines that your character can ride around on. Recently, however, I have been presented with a teensy dilemma. It seems that Blizzard, in all their infinite wisdom, thought it would be funny to offer a mount that requires maximum reputation with a group called Talon's Vengeance. This group requires that go to certain places you kill other players - from either faction - with the use of an item that makes you hostile to everyone. Now, on my server, my own faction greatly outnumbers the opposition, so it falls on me to prey upon my supposed allies to get this mount. I hate player vs player combat, so at first, I quite dreaded the prospect. However, in time, I learned that this situation can actually be hysterical. As a natural villainess at heart, it didn't take me long to come up with a simple scheme. In some of the areas that I can make my kills, players are given a quest to cut through AI controlled forces and make their way to the top of a tower where a boss residues. What I do is follow them, help them, show them that I've become their impromptu ally... until they grow bold and pull a bit too many enemies. That's when I execute the plan - I activate my item and slaughter them while they battle. It tends to work quite well. They fall over quickly, and I get my beloved reputation. But, yesterday, that was not where it ended. For some reason a player I'd murdered became quite angry with me and saw fit to broadcast that anger in a public chat channel. I was like "The things I do for mounts" and told him it was nothing personal, but that only seemed to make him more upset. So upset, in fact, that he ran back to his body and murdered me in return. Now, that didn't bother me in the slightest. In fact, that happens more often than not. I keep my reputation regardless, suffer only a small inconvenience, and when I return, my hostility buff has fallen off so my foe can no longer touch me. However, this particular player thought they would gloat about their revenge. Their laughter turned to rage, though, when I quote a few lines from "Still Alive". I ended up flying out of the zone with my quest complete, my reputation gained, and an infuriated player left in my wake. I was sure to wish them a good day before I left the zone. --- I hope you found my story funny, but if you thought it was a terrible bore, one-up it! I've been told you can't spell Evil without Evi, so for the purposes of this thread I will fulfill the role of goddess of death and darkness. Now, confess your sins to me!

Oh, I'm hoping that one way or another, we get to see an epic Trump meltdown on an unprecedented scale before the end of all this. After all, we could all use some laughter now, and who better to provide it than the clown we elected? Anyway, I predict that in the VERY unlikely event that the Electoral College gives us an upset, it will be sacrificing itself in the process. Right now, Clinton supporters are disgruntled about how it stole the election from her despite winning the popular vote, and if it betrays Trump I fully expect his supporters to go apeshit. With all that hate drawn on the system, it would be unlikely to survive, I think. The fact that Trump was electable is proof of something I doubt maybe people here will want to admit - that democracy itself is a terribly flawed system. How can we expect our country to thrive when its leaders can be chosen through mob mentality and, frankly, plenty of complete idiots? Tons of voters barely pay attention to the issues, but instead vote based on things like "I personally dislike Hillary" or "Billionaires are the scum of society." I have no citation, so you can consider that an opinion, but, real talk, I think we all know it's true. Many voters are shallow and uninformed. This may be the best system we've come up with so far, but it's very far from perfect. I'm going to be honest here - I want Trump to fail. Miserably. Not so badly that we end up with war or anything, but enough to turn us into a laughingstock. I want all that American pride to melt away and for people to understand the gravity of what they've done. This country is wounded, and if we're going to get better, we'll need to cauterize the wound - and it's going to hurt. But once that's done, hopefully we can actually move forward. Let Trump's fall make us great again.

It would have been easier for Trump to correctly identify the "enemy" on the campaign trail than you think. Simply put, the enemy is emphatically not American Muslims, it is ISIS. There have been several homegrown terrorist attacks in the past decade, and some of them were perpetrated by Muslims, but many of them were not. It would be more reasonable to chalk those up to the sad conditions in which many people grow and live rather than the religion they practice. And, frankly, if Trump is dead set on categorizing by religion, he is turning a huge blind eye to the many crimes committed by Christians in this country. His is a biased viewpoint. I find it... I don't know... Ironic? ...Amusing? That you, too, feel that this election challenges the way you live inside your own body. But it makes sense, because bodies are really only shells. I've never really been proud of this country. We allow too much bullshit to go through on a regular basis. We're so divided on so much that each president spends half their time trying to undo the things the last one did. As far as I'm concerned, this election has proven that Trump was right about one thing - America, as it stands, is not great. And, personally, all add that I see nothing beautiful in the process of democracy we employ. I wonder. You keep saying Trump won the election fair and square thanks to the Electoral College, but strictly speaking, that's not entirely true yet. I know this is quite a long shot, but what if, on December 19th, the Electoral College told the voters to go fuck themselves and chose HIllary anyway? Would that, too, be beautiful?

Identifying the ones who are attacking us is important, but choosing someone who overgeneralizes "the enemy" to include thousands of innocents as our representative is incredibly dangerous. I don't think this was a coincidence. We as a nation have now elected the candidate most eager to demonize Muslims, and realistically, no matter how peacefully most American Muslims behave, as they always have done, they will be smothered beneath Trump's hateful rhetoric. More and more of them will realize that they don't have a say in whether or not they're the enemy, and I imagine some of them will take that to heart and get fed up with the constant abuse. If those who are supposed to be your allies only hurt you perhaps it's time to find new allies. And, just like that, I fear we'll see people who only wanted peace take up arms against us. The hatred will deepen and deepen on both sides, as we've seen throughout history a hundred times before, and more and more, we'll buy into Trump's self-fulfilling proclamation - and, correspondingly, ISIS will grow stronger, too. If that happens, I won't be able to just blame those who turn to terrorism. Those who refuse to learn from history will bear a part - perhaps the larger part - of the responsibility. By the way, Trump may want to be an isolationist, but the world is watching, and it won't just ignore what it sees. If we start passing laws that are openly hostile towards Muslims, how will the world's large Muslim population react? What about predominantly Islamic nations that we currently have peaceful relationships with? Will they be willing to take that insult? I don't think so... and though open war may not be likely, Trump may serve as the heart that pumps angry blood into ISIS' forces from all over the world. I have been in a very jaded state of mind lately, so perhaps I'm being overly alarmist, but judging by the things the Trump camp is saying, I think we're practically begging for a lot more bloodshed.

@Chase You can't put all Americans first. If it were that easy, Trump's "everything will be great" rhetoric would translate to reality. Rich, poor, white, non-white, Christian, Muslim, atheist, millennial, elderly, gay, straight, immigrant, and a thousand other demographics - no matter which policies you choose, someone is going to come out ahead of the rest. Even if we had leaders who wanted to do right by everyone - which we're about to emphatically not - every choice they made would erase another future before it could breathe. Not everyone can have everything. But this nation is supposed to be one broad enough to encompass that entire myriad of groups, not merely those among the majority. Regardless of numbers, there should be some semblance of parity. You speak as if trying to protect minorities is what led to Clinton's downfall - not her corruption, nor how similar her policies were to Obama's, nor the appeal of someone who says what he thinks. But when I asked you what white, straight men wanted, you told me about things like job security and protection from terrorists, things we all want. Those desires and the desire to treat all Americans equally are utterly compatible. In this case, it would be easy enough for Trump to prioritize us all like you say he should. But he won't. We all knew he wouldn't. He isn't even in the White House yet, and we're already hearing talk of creating one of the most discriminatory pieces of legislation in modern American history. So I'll ask it again, this time a bit differently. Why Trump? What need is he fulfilling for this allegedly marginalized majority that Kasich, Bush, Rubio, or another of the more moderate Republican candidates couldn't? They wanted job security. They wanted to defeat ISIS. They wanted all the things you claimed white people were seeking, yet one by one, they were defeated by Trump. That suggests there's something different about Trump that made him more appealing. What do you think that was? I fear it was his willingness to blindly label entire groups as the enemy. In this case, illegal immigrants and Muslims are the two groups with the most to fear. And I think your silent majority wants them to be afraid. @FairFamily I'm pretty sure a statement like "Men can't be raped" wouldn't hold up in court. If what you're looking for is for no one to ever say anything bad about your group you're going to be disappointed. Ignorant people will be ignorant. But what I'm talking about is equality under the law. Certainly there are particular experiences that might prove stigmatizing, but if those who are suffering come together to make a stand in such great numbers, they will absolutely be heard. Will they be labeled oppressors in this vague scenario? Maybe. Groups are labeled all sorts of things all the time. You can't stop it without removing free speech. Nonetheless, large groups that come together in protest are always at least heard, if not helped. The media sees to that. Anything for a story.

The government can normalize certain behaviors and discourage others, shaping the public perception over time. Just look at the past week. Hate crimes are up. Trump will be president. The message was heard. The government can also make sure everyone is protected equally under the law. I guess the disagreement between Belgium and I is that I believe each person should have an equal opportunity and Begium believes each demographic should have an equal outcome. (Or, at least, each gender.)

"Ignorance in general is the bigger problem at the federal level." I'm not entirely certain what this means. One would hope presidents and senators are not ignorant about the issues. I fear that religion influenced bigotry is the actual culprit in the case persecution against of the LGBTQ community and that fear itself is to be blamed for the recent focus on Muslims. And with Trump and Pence in power, it's just going to get worse. Ugh, I should just stop posting in these topics again. I already suck enough at distracting myself from the things that depress me.

@FairFamily The fact that Belgium has some weird election system really isn't an argument against the sort of equality I'm asking for. I would like people to be considered for such positions without regard for sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc etc. It does seem to make some sense that people who are being oppressed would have more time spent on addressing that oppression than the "non-oppressed" people, as you put it. And if somehow things go too far, the majority will always be able to pull plenty of attention to their problems if they actually speak up. That said, removing their "right" to oppress people isn't oppressing them. I tend to have trouble taking anti-PC advocates seriously because the conversation seems to always go like this: Anti-PC advocate: <Insert incredibly rude statement about some group here> followed by "I have the right to say that because of free speech." Me: Your opinion is horrible and so are you for holding it. Anti-PC advocate: What!? You can't say that! There's no way I can respect that sort of double standard. @Chase Well, I understand that many people do go a bit far when presented with those who have more privilege. I've actually had to chide people who are politically on my own side for having a harsher reaction to white male Trump voters than, say, Caitlyn Jenner. =p I have plenty of online "friends" (I use the word with some cynicism these days) who are white, male, straight, etc., and while it's easy to get bitter over being dealt the poorer hand, I wouldn't blame them or accuse them just for being lucky. The ironic thing for some of them is that by voting Trump they do become the oppressors. x.x As for the rest of the things you say white people want, those are just generalizations that may or may not be true for the majority. Some feel the police get too much blame for recent incidents, and police as a whole almost certainly do. At the same time, there are racial attitudes, held by police officers and many other people, that ought to be challenged, and that, if left unchecked, can lead to, for example, black people being over represented as victims of police violence. Both of those things can be - and, I think, are - true at once. By the way, I am a white person, too, you know. I think Trump will play right into ISIS' hands by confirming the "us vs them" rhetoric they thrive on. (I've heard they're considering a Muslim Registration Act.... I hope that's not true,.. it sounds awfully familiar...) I support universal healthcare. And I understand that that higher taxes can be necessary to accommodate the needs of the less fortunate. (And, by the way, my family would experience a larger tax hike than most.) So while some white people certain want those things, I see no reason to believe a large majority of white people favor the Republican model of achieving the obvious goals like "defeating ISIS" over the Democratic one. Ultimately, everything we're saying is highly speculative. I don't see that we have any data. My point is just that the proposed goals don't conflict with equal rights for everyone. By opposing equal rights, one draws extra lines that actually make it more difficult for people to get what they want. Consider a pro-life Muslim who feels forced to vote Hillary because Trump would demonize them and their family. By ignoring inequality, one only guarantees that the lines will deepen. One prolongs all the problems by refusing to stand up for some of the most basic principles this country is supposed to stand for, and we all lose.

So... what do white, straight guys want? Apparently, it's something Trump is offering. A wall? Lower taxes? A ban on abortion? I'm not hearing any of those requests overwhelmingly from white males; it seems like they are pretty divided on those issues. It's almost as if the group is not some monolith, as if their desires aren't uniform across the entire group. Minorities are like that, too. We don't all have the same positions on these issues. But one thing that oppressed people do almost uniformly seem to want is to stop being oppressed. If only we could achieve that goal, maybe we could talk about the other issues without having to worry about who's in what group. The problem with the silent majority is that it's silent. How do we help them when they won't tell us what they need? And you don't know that Trump won the election based on this matter, you're just assuming it. It's entirely possible that a less corrupt candidate with policies identical to Hillary's might have beaten Trump.

I've never really understood how minorities standing up for their rights is supposed to be neglecting white guys. It's not like we're saying "give us all your stuff." I obviously can't speak for others, but I just would like it if people would stop defining and persecuting me over the circumstances of my birth. Pass protective legislation. Unless you like discriminating against people for such things, it should barely even affect you. But, apparently, treating minorities like shit has become somehow inextricably tied to conservative politics. And, election after election, most of the conservatives who don't look down on us in effect say "not my problem" and vote for whatever bigot gets put on the Republican ticket. It would only take one mass refusal to accept discriminatory behavior to send the necessary message, I think. I was hoping it would happen this year but, extreme pessimist though I am, it seems even I thought too highly of people. So, instead, we got the opposite message. It's okay for the president to be a sexist and a racist. It's fine that the vice president is an open homophobe who is on record for supporting legislation that would allow for the torture of gay children. And that message is being heard. That's why we're seeing more hate crimes. Of course Trump condemned it on TV. He had to. The violent bigots won't see that as a legitimate denouncement of their behavior, they'll see it as coerced. And, meanwhile, despite empty assurances to the contrary, I and many others am being not just told but shown that we don't matter. So "what's next" for me is probably death, staying home forever, or Canada, and I find myself caring less and less every day what's next for the rest of you. Indifference is a two way street. If anything, I think it's high time this country be given an ample taste of humility, and maybe Trump is just the man to provide it. I've never been more ashamed to be an American.

The cynic in me (i,e, 98% of my conscious mind) figured that taking a salary might just mess with his tax loopholes, but that's another wonderfully disturbing way to look at it. Ultimately, though, it's all just symbolic. Trump doesn't need the money whether we give it to him or not, and refusing it doesn't actually grant him any extra power. Just a narcissist being narcissistic.