Posted on 18 April 2016 - 09:15 PM

Will you let me surpass you in number of forum posts???

Posted on 18 April 2016 - 10:24 PM

It's pretty easy if you're thinking creatively. I feel the easiest way to explain this to you is by telling you to stop "thinking." Just write down whatever cones to mind and try your best to turn it into coherent thoughts. If you've got a good grasp of how English works, you should be able to do it with ease. I also suggest that you don't limit yourself to raw dictionary definitions of specific terms. Take the adjective "fructiferous" as an example; the meaning of the word is "fruit-bearing, producing fruit" according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It's a pretty limited definition, but that doesn't mean you have to be so bound to it. What can you relate "producing fruit" to? I could link to concepts like life, blossoming, coming of age, fulfilling purpose, and dawn, to name a few. But even after all that, I still feel pretty limited. The next step would be to take that adjective and turn it into an adverb, noun, or a verb. You may end up coining a new word, but I don't think that matters too much. As long as you contribute to the imagery, anything goes.

"Spinning with heartfelt contempt, Fuleai fructiferously tosses a handful of water on the bronze statue."

You can use the words however you want, but what you visualize is what matters. You're free to extrapolate and guess what scene that sentence is supposed to paint.

Of course, you can't do any of this in an analytical essay you're supposed to hand in for 10th grade European History. It's more suitable for situations where the bolts binding the rules have been lazily pushed in. This is the sort of stuff I'd do for my creative writing assignments or my daily forum escapades.

To put it short, don't restrict yourself. Don't let the classical rules order your creativity around.

Posted on 18 April 2016 - 10:47 PM

Honestly speaking? I haven't had many great experiences with them. I hate to generalize, but something's honestly fishy up there with the UHC friends. I used to think the kit staff team was incompetent, but when UHC-only hosts started applying for kitpvp mod, I realized I'd been living in a bubble the whole time. The UHC people loved to spam chats with garbage all the time and had polar bear memes flying around in skype chats and staff forums practically whenever I logged on. A lot of the UHC people were also pretty boring: I'd once asked a few of the new kit converts to entertain me, but I got nothing particularly entertaining in response. I eventually tracked down some random new trial to "tell me something interesting," and got "something interesting" in response. I'd rather pears than apples, you know? Perhaps I'm merely some revisionist tainted by my earlier irritability and intolerance, but I know disliked the UHC group as a whole and still do because of that. There was a sense of carefreeness with that side if the staff team, and I felt (and still feel) like it contradicted the idea of being a professional staff member. Please do keep in mind that this is nothing personal towards you! This is all just the product of bad experience after bad experience with people who probably aren't even staff anymore. In any case, I'm no longer in a position where I can tell people what to do and how they should act.

I guess it's nice in a way, though. As negative as what I say is, I might grow to appreciate it if I went back to it today. There was always this weird sense of permanent happiness and innocence radiating from that area, and I didn't quite like that clashing with my seriousness and extreme professionalism. That sort of robotic happiness isn't for me, though. I rely far too much on self-expression and self-excellence to become an LOL spamming drone. I'm kind of jealous, but I'm not at the same time.

Posted on 18 April 2016 - 10:55 PM

I used to have a pack that you might find lying around on the internet somewhere, but I'd grown to dislike it over time. Too laggy for my laptop and all that. I started using ginie's edit of Eum3's faithful after a while and never felt compelled to switch it back ever again, so I suppose that could be my favorite. There were lots of nice packs back in the day that I used to use fairly regularly, though. Apache's RedPearls pack was pretty nice, and I was pretty fond of ginie's AlreadyCrafted, too. There was some other pack of ginie's that I used as a reference for my bow, and that went on to become a pretty popular texture. I love that bow to this day, and I'm glad so many people ended up using it.

Posted on 18 April 2016 - 11:03 PM

I've read them all, and I still love them. They're not great literarily but the plot's very imaginative and easy to follow. I'm not too fond of how the media and following has kind of forced its own perception and visualization of the HP world on me, and I feel like the surreal image I had of the books has been dwindled and replaced with those dark and depressing scenes from the movies. Perhaps if I reread them, I'll get some of that back. It's been quite a while since I last picked up a Harry Potter book—the last one I'd read was Order of the Phoenix back in third grade, eight years ago. Whew, time really flies, doesn't it?

Posted on 19 April 2016 - 07:40 AM

the polar bear meme spamming is so accurate

Posted on 19 April 2016 - 10:28 PM

Namesake. My family's ancestral roots trace back to the ancient rulers of Trees and Octopuses. The name deal was sealed with the forbidden marriage, but I can't talk about that. Confidentiality issue, you see?

Posted on 20 April 2016 - 12:28 AM

I always found it fun to draw Canada and Finland, but I think China wins. Indonesia, Russia, and France are a few honorable mentions. Ukraine isn't too bad either, but it's a little too plain looking to me and doesn't stand out as an especially great country shape.


Verrrrry glad you asked this question. I'll first tell you that I've never used vulgar swear words and I don't plan to anytime soon. I think swearing itself is a negative thing overall, but it's really only reflective of personality in the end. What swearing does is add intensity to our lines, and we generally use them when we want to add more passion to what we say. Now, I love passion, and I love expression. But even so, I think swearing's an easy way out. I consider myself to be very passionate and intense when speaking, but I've never really used inappropriate language to color my speech; instead, I'd look for other ways to add intensity.

"I like swearing."
"I love swearing."
"I love swearing!"
"Haha, I love swearing!"
"Yes! Swearing! I looooove to swear!"
"Isn't swearing just the /greatest/ part of language?"
"Ah, swearing! I love swearing so much that I think I would kill myself if there were no alternative…and there can't be one! The fact that something so taboo can be so accessible is unreal—it's like the forbidden fruit!"

It's not very difficult, and this is only a very simple example. Swearing has a bad connotation in society, and I care too much about others' sensitivities to swear. I've never had any reason to swear in private conversations either, because I don't require using the easy way to passion. There are people who aren't as good at conveying their emotion without swearing, and I understand why they would need to do so. It's almost counter-poetic in a way, taking a string of thoughts and condensing it into one general word or phrase that carries little personal meaning.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with swearing, but overusing swear words or using them in an inappropriate fashion is something I look down on. The overuse of swear words actually undermines the idea of using vulgarity to express passion. Say I decide to swear today. The impact would be, in theory, far greater than randomguy123, because I've never sworn—obviously, I would have to be especially passionate about something to do so. randomguy123, who has been swearing on an hourly basis for his entire life, will not create such an impact with his swearing, especially with those he is well-acquainted with. There is also the use of swear words to insult others, and there's also the use of swear words in the presene of a sensitive audience. I do not like either of these, because I feel like it's infringing on others' personal "bubbles," and I should have no right to break them. Others feel differently, obviously, but it's awfully stale at the same time. We've all heard of insulting through swearing, but doesn't that feel kind of generic to you? I don't like insulting people in general, but using swear words to insult people makes your words sound less personal yet more passionate. It desensitizes people and it removes the meaning of what you're trying to say. If you want to insult people using swear words, you should probably only use it as a modifier. But I think insulting people in an unironic or nonhumorous fashion is a waste of time and a waste of energy that could be directed at something else. Instead of working yourself up being negative, why not ignore it and satiate yourself with positivity?

I think that swearing is okay, yes, when it's used to express passion in situations where people are incapable of expressing it or do not feel like expressing it in any other way. When directed at a person, I like it less. I don't like directing anger or frustration at anyone, and if I do have something negative to say and absolutely feel the urge to say it, I try to avoid plainly insulting people. But when that's combined with swearing, it's simply distasteful and frankly kinda boring.


Yes! Of course, you should feel totally free. I love your questions because they give me opportunities to think about things that I generally skip over. I hadn't ever thought about country shapes until you asked that question, and I'm still thinking about it, wondering if there's been a particular shape that I've really liked and forgotten.

Posted on 20 April 2016 - 06:46 AM

Automatically Deleted

Posted on 20 April 2016 - 06:56 AM

yes i'm going in order be patient strawberry jam

Posted on 20 April 2016 - 07:11 AM

will you ever answer MY question?

Posted on 20 April 2016 - 07:32 AM

When a person has a strong belief or an idea of something that they have developed over the course of several years, that they base their behavior on
And when that idea is challenged by a close friend or family, how should that person react? What do you believe the generic response would be?

If you can challenge a 'foundational' block of a person's personality, whether it be a mentality or not, and you argue its invalidity, how would they respond?

Now, imagine if that idea had been enforced over several years by experience any by friends such as yourself. The person may not know it, but the idea/belief has a tremendous impact on their life. You are one of the people who have always enforced that idea, hence why you guys are good friends. How would they respond?

Posted on 21 April 2016 - 03:25 AM

You know… atleast I can understand what he is saying… most 12 year olds cant.

Posted on 21 April 2016 - 03:11 PM

No you don't… He doesn't even understand half of what he says

Posted on 21 April 2016 - 03:14 PM

Can you respect ignorance?

Is your respect valid if the thing you claim to respect you know little to nothing about?

Posted on 21 April 2016 - 03:27 PM

He's pretty much right

Posted on 21 April 2016 - 08:12 PM

I'll be here until the day I get forum banned… hopefully. I've always enjoyed hanging out on these forums because I get to talk about practically whatever I want on here. What I love about this place is that there's so little moderation and most threads are fated to be derailed by small conversations within them. Conversation here keeps moving and digressing, but traditional forums tend to refer back to the topic at hand. It's practically impossible to return to the original topic maybe four to five pages into threads, but I think that's what I love about Badlion's forum.

Last edited on 21 April 2016 - 08:30 PM by frogmike

Just a quick observation I have made, pal

I feel like on the forums you create characters, and your posts develop those characters. Each character has a role, and depending on the outcome you need, you manifest that character. These characters might not have actual names or even recognition, but they still remain a character simply by their defined characteristics, behaviors and roles
think about it pal.

That's why my post above declares that you don't know what you're saying most of the time; you're saying what you believe the character would say. That's not entirely the same as understanding

Posted on 22 April 2016 - 11:21 PM

How exciting! Let me go wash my face quickly, and I’ll be back to answer these questions of yours. I think I’ve got a lot to say, so I’m going to think a bit about how I want to present my thoughts.


I often find that opinions on specific concepts are often best started with a definition. “Weeaboo” is definitely no exception, considering that there is a lot of controversy simply with the meaning of the term itself and I believe it’s best if we work with a proper understanding of what it means to be a weeaboo.

By definition, a weeaboo is something close to a japanophile beyond help. Common symptoms of being a weeaboo are obsessive anime viewing, the belief that Japanese culture is superior to their own, owning a katana, cosplaying often, lazily studying Japanese, and proclaiming oneself to be an “otaku.”

That’s a pretty specific term, and it doesn’t really cover a lot of people who are often called for being weebs. I, for example, have watched around 250 anime shows, have an iTunes library with around 30% of its music originating from Japan, and can read and write Japanese to an intermediate extent. And yet, I can’t call myself a weeaboo; I don’t have much love for Japan’s actual culture—I’m simply an avid consumer of Japanese media.

I won’t, however, deny the fact that I used to be a weeaboo. Looking back, I could say that the two biggest symptoms I had were the following: picking out stuff simply because it was Japanese, and feeling a chill down my spine whenever I heard someone mention Japan. I think that’s how you’ll know you’re a weeaboo; when you like and affiliate yourself with something so much that you feel an involuntary urge to do something somehow related to Japanese “culture.” I’m certainly past whatever that was, though I still like a lot of Japanese stuff. I do remember cleaning out my iTunes library a year or so ago, deleting anything that was sub-par or poorly produced; to put it short, I’d gotten rid of a lot of my old 128kbps YouTube to mp3 rips of Touhou doujin songs, which took up maybe 70% of my library back then. If I like something now, I don’t care much about where it came from; even though I have around 350-400 albums from Japan now, it’s not because it’s Japanese, but because it’s good content. Seishun Ponytail sucks, but Shèna Ringo is one of my favourite artists.

It’s interesting to think about what causes that sort of behaviour, though. I think it has a lot to do with the idea of being a teenager and trying to “find yourself.” It’s probably got a lot to do with the rebelliousness teens feel during adolescence—I could only imagine it stems from hatred and sickness of one’s own culture and norms. I mainly did it to fit in with whatever fad I foxed myself to be involved with, and I give it my own elitist touch by disassociating myself with anime and instead getting gore involved with old Japanese games I used to play, such as Touhou and Seihou.

I’ve been talking a lot about myself, but the reason I do so is because there are people out there who would still consider me a weeaboo. The term ‘weeaboo’ is far too specific to really cover what I am—the avid consumer of Japanese media I’d mentioned earlier. I don’t think there really needs to be a term to cover what I am, because I think there’s no sense of “obsession” here or any form of self-identification with the Japanese. I’m simply not a weeaboo anymore, and that’s that. Sure, I may still watch lots of anime and I do read books by Japanese authors, but I also watch everyday cartoon shows, read American literature, listen to music from all over the globe, and I enjoy all of that as much as I enjoy my Japanese stuff.

My continual liking of Japanese stuff, however, may fit me into a weeaboo stereotype today. To many people, the fact that I can read/write/speak Japanese, have watched lots of anime, and have listened to a lot of Japanese music undermines the fact that I don’t have an anime YouTube avatar, don’t have a kana-compatible IGN, don’t post about anime unless I can have an actual discussion, and don’t give priority to Japanese anything simply because of its country of origin. I hate that I sound like I’m justifying myself, but all I’m saying is that the term weeaboo is a little bit too narrow to classify people, and people often misuse the term to describe people who simply like Japanese stuff.

Although, I think I’ve been describing a japanophile more than a “weeaboo” all this time. I think the key difference between the two is that a weeb is specifically anime/manga obsessed, whereas a japanophile may take interest in the food, dramas, rakugo, or something else entirely. Those people who’ve got anime usernames and avatars are likely to be weeaboos simply because they love their favourite (and probably pretty bad) anime a bit too much. I don’t think the love for Japan is the same as for a standard japanophile; weeaboos may be less understanding of Japanese culture as a whole and their love for Japan is simply a byproduct of extreme love for their favourite show. We see this kind of obsession everywhere, even in non-Japanese media and culture, but anime/manga is notoriously known to trigger this type of behaviour often.

I think the term is definitely derogatory, but there are a lot of people out there who take pride in what they do and openly call themselves weeaboos—I’ve got a lot of respect for people like that. I’m totally cool with people having their own weeaboo subculture, and I see no problem with it. I know for a fact I wasn’t one of these people, and I often said that I only really loved Touhou when interrogated about my behaviour. But I think love for Japan can be justifiable to some extent, and that there’s certainly some rationality behind being a weeaboo or a japanophile.

In the end, there are lots of different types of people, and if certain traits combine, you might fit into a definition you didn’t want to be a part of. I dislike umbrella terms, and I dislike generalising. It’s the reason I wouldn’t advocate for some term that groups the weeaboo with the avid consumer of Japanese media; I simply have no love for stereotyping and prejudice. Everyone’s different, and we all do different things in our own different ways.

I’m really tired, and I don’t remember much of what I’ve been typing. I’m sure there are lots of jumps here and there and the flow and the argument is probably all over the place. I do, however, think you should have a good grasp of what I think of the thing as a whole despite all that. If there’s anything you’d ever want clarification on, do ask and I’ll give you priority over the other questions, because I really don’t know how I went from defining a weeaboo to comparing the term to “japanophile” to appreciating the differences in people.



That’s a loaded question, mister. I want to write a big long answer for this one, too, so I’m gonna see if I can do that. I spent about two hours writing up the first question and I have a reason to believe that this question will take about the same amount of time—I’ve got to go to sleep soon or I’ll miss the 7:00 alarm, you know? I can’t promise a big long answer for this one, but I’ll try my best. I have a lot to say, and I may come back to answer this question tomorrow if I’m unsatisfied with what I’m about to write.

I’m going to adapt an essay I had written many months ago that addressed political correctness. A few days ago, a friend of mine handed me an opinionated article that he had written for the school newspaper, asking that I read over it and provide my thoughts. The article addressed “political correctness,” a controversial term generally defined as agreement with the idea that people should be careful to avoid the expression of ideas that could potentially offend particular groups of people. My friend vehemently disagrees with this idea, describing it as “trading freedom of speech for a sense of emotional security.” He believes that the movement advocating for political correctness—and social justice as a whole—is pushing the boundaries too far and should be curbed. The overall argument he presents is understandable and convincing, but by confusing free speech with examples of hate speech as well as not acknowledging the diversity of sensitivity among people, he himself pushes the boundaries too far. However, something that both advocates for political correctness and anti-politically correct people such as my friend skip over is the existence of communities within our current society, each with shared beliefs and shared tolerance for political correctness; as long as one sticks to participating in communities that they feel comfortable in, there is no need to argue for an overall change to society.

I use the term “community” to describe a set of people that share a common characteristic and are willing to identify with; some examples of communities in this sense would be the body of students in a certain school, the regular viewers of a certain TV show, or active participants on an internet forum. Different communities of different backgrounds, values, and goals will have varying amounts of tolerance for offensive material. Tolerance for political correctness can be applied as a factor to differentiate communities and to cater to particular audiences within broader communities.

My friend recently brought up an example of what they viewed as a problem with political correctness: a situation where a sports commentator struggled to describe two competing athletes in a mixed martial arts match without mentioning race, as the athletes wore the same coloured shorts. While one can blame political correctness for the poor distinction, another can argue that this is the fault of commentators’ inability to commentate with euphemistic terminology. These commentators belong to a privatised broadcasting company, and the company can choose the content they wish to display. Hence, the content that they broadcast will attract a certain audience; this is the audience that any privatised company would ideally strive to maintain and expand. In the context of my friend’s scenario, this means that the television channel chose to broadcast a sports event with an audience conscious to political correctness in mind.

These conflicts, while seemingly microscopic, extend far beyond that of common media and can be applied to larger scales with the same principle in mind. Everyday social life is a particular example; everyone has a different set of values, beliefs and opinions, but they may find themselves in certain groups where they feel comfortable sharing a certain mindset or ideology. This is why schools like my own have small cliques within a large community—to find comfort within smaller social circles in a diverse area with many different opinions and values. This concept can be scaled to that of our country today; one can apply the clique concept to a community, as interpreted earlier, with some form of shared ideology.

Both, the movement promoting political correctness and the movement working against political correctness, seek a balance in society where they can draw lines and deem something as “acceptable” or “unacceptable.” Ambiguity in the definition of political correctness is perhaps the biggest cause for the massive amount of discussion advocating for either side of the argument. The definition itself is clouded with vagueness, some simplifying it to “being nice to others” and others calling it a violation of free speech. In the end, the definition and extent depends on the individual’s beliefs and values. This individual may find people who agree and find his or her place in select communities, interacting with said community with its accepted tolerance of political incorrectness.

The real conflict arises when communities with different stances on political correctness interact and express a conflict of interest, more so in reference to political discussion. Advocators for politically correct people may find discomfort in an environment with blunt discussion; likewise, the opposing movement may feel censored, being forced to conform to an environment with euphemistic discussion. There is no designated solution to this problem, as the conflict is subjective depending on the extent of the disagreement between the two communities and the environment in which they are discussing the situation. While best to avoid a confrontation altogether, a possible solution may simply be having a civil, constructive argument in which points are exchanged in an understanding fashion with respect to the other’s beliefs. As this requires tolerance for a toned-down discussion and tolerance for the questioning of values, such a discussion may be difficult to achieve on the topic of political correctness.

This conflict is also applicable to a single larger community with multiple different opinions and ways of expressing said opinions—especially in a community that shares a characteristic unrelated to politics or speech. However, for this case, there is a far simpler solution: balkanisation. A community can be split to form multiple smaller communities with different particular values in mind. This does not mean that communities should be cut down to appeal to niche interests and cut out a majority of discussion; otherwise, the result would be similar to small groups of close friends—groups far too small to discuss a shared ideology. Communities should only be split when a major problem begins to interfere with the discussion of the shared characteristic that the community is founded upon. Tolerance for political correctness or incorrectness is one of many reasons why a community would consider such an option, and it has proven to work.

Both sides of the argument have valid points, but they both rely on the world acting as a hive-mind. The world cannot ever completely adapt to a particular belief or a shared way of thinking, and there will always be an opposing argument. The debate regarding political correctness tends to look at the world in a very collective manner, grouping a country as a single body and arguing for one side or the other for the sake of an entire population. Both sides strive to make the world a better place, but neither side believes the world will get better through maintaining it—that’s what makes it so different from my own views.

What I’m getting at here is that there’s no really no problem with because there are separate communities that cater to different ideas and mannerisms. A liberal New York City may probably have women walking braless on the streets in a couple of years, but North Carolina’s currently establishing bathroom laws to shut out the gender identity craze that hatched out of post-modernist philosophies. It’s different everywhere we go, and I don’t think any of this can be necessarily attributed to a generation. That’s reductionist thinking; take first-wave feminism in the late 19th-century, for example. That’s probably equivalent of third-wave feminism today—even though we see them as totally different now, they’re contextually both extreme forms of left-wing ideology. Lincoln announcing the Emancipation Proclamation was a liberal move, too; he was obviously going to still be racist, because that was an established ideology that even most left-wing ideologues hadn’t quite begun to reject back then. We’re slaves to the timeframe—our thinking is limited to what we have and what we’ve seen.

Posted on 22 April 2016 - 11:41 PM

only after i finished reading the whole thing did i realize how long that was