For all you self-proclaimed "individualists"

"Only?"
Shut the fuck up with the guilty savior routine.

Ah, so it DOES make a difference where you got it?

Or just purchase it outright and satisfy all obligation to anyone for it, forever.

Your every quark screams that shit. Who do you think you're fooling?

Go back to feudal Japan as a rice picking peasant, and tell me how that goes.

Me, directly. Not a foot in the door for some six degrees of Kevin Bacon horse shit.

It's more a hand holding the door open for you vs the door actively being slammed on the foot for others, but sure, whatever lets you sleep.

To be free of Kevin Bacon, you'd literally have to Thanos everyone.

The article, which either you didn't read or didn't understand (sorry, there's no really nice way to put it) makes it clear that there are people in the martial arts world proudly adopting the word "Ronin" for their schools. This is a giant red flag for anyone who knows Japanese culture that you are calling yourself a "loser" school. There is similar baggage attached to the word "Ninja" which is one of the many reasons the author chose not to put that label on his system, even though it was adopted and adapted from the teachers of the ninja combat schools. The ninja were samurai who had been defeated, but chose to establish new communities in places nobody else wanted. In the case of the word "Ronin" proudly proclaiming yourself as such speaks of either profound ignorance or...something even uglier. The article also points out that the folly of proclaiming oneself as totally independent and self-sufficient. The Unabomber came pretty close to that, but since the vast majority of even the most hard-core "individualists" like modern comforts made possible by communitarian associations the only conclusions we can draw about them are that they are totally lacking in self-awareness and/or working very hard at fooling themselves.

Working on it.

No. I read it. Thanks for carefully considering what I said, though.

The word “ninja” was being used incorrectly since the 70s and even as a child I knew it was incorrect.

Did I cry and yell because someone was using a word incorrectly? No.

Why the sudden shift to OMG THIS WORD MEANS SOMETHING?

Also, give me a current day ronin if not Ahsoka Tanno.

That's the biggest thing. It's an extension of the "fuck you I've got mine" philosophy. 100% freedom, 0% responsibility, all the benefits of living in a society without contributing anything in return.


There's also the whole angle where this attitude mainly benefits the predator class. Convincing everyone they're in this alone makes it so much easier to divide and conquer them one at a time.

I think Ahsoka is more of the wandering monk than disgraced/defeated warrior turned to.. unseemly activities. Her involvement with Luke's academy also kind of puts her into ninja territory (using Mike's specificities).

Bounty hunters like Migs might count?


otherwise the whole thing basically sounds like cultural appropriation gone doh. Like when someone gets a kanji tattooed that translates to "limp lilly" or anything else that gets lost in translation to embarrassing result.

as to the rest, well... human nature that we disdain the posturing of blowhards?

Also see otaku.

Anyway, since @Uncle Albert and his cock wobble do not have the mental abilities of a dead roach when combined, there is a legitimate reasoning for Ronin as a literary character archetype.

Ronin, as a character type, takes into account the negative meaning of the term to contrast the protagonist who is one of the extremely small percentage of "ronin" to have good personal ethics and a moral compass. They protagonist has lost their group for some reason. For some reason they were disgraced and find themselves alone and despised or distrusted by most people because of their rep. Sometimes it is the character who choses exile because of their past misdeeds and their guilt over them. These Ronin are often redeemed through the plot because they find a desperate person or town to protect.

This is a legitimate fantasy character type even though this sort of Ronin would almost never be found in the real world because they would never survive, and the Ronin of fantasy story telling often has crazy skills that allow them to take out an army. See someone like Blade, John Wick, or many characters from martial arts movies.

As for UA he just wishes he could take on an army, but he wisely cowers in fear from the Pink Haired girls. Despite the trope of Pink haired anime girls being crazy and powerful, most are just nice girls who like different hair colors and probably won't pull a large object from their pussy of holding and concuss you for being a toxic male creep.

curious-in this sword scenario, who is setting the price?
You don't strike me as someone who'll pay in advance, which beggars the question are you gonna just pay the "sticker" or haggle with the actual creator who likely paid "market value" for the means and materials- not too mention the years developing the skillset- and take money out of their (and only their) pocket? Pull a six fingered man on a custom after they've made the investment, maybe?

Now I know you're gonna get all huffy about that... but speaking as someone who's worked for commission before, you present as the type who does exactly this sort of unilateral changing of terms to "take the small loss or a total loss".

Cultural appropriation isn’t just behaving and/or pretending to be of another ethnicity. Cultural appropriation is when a dominant culture downplays and ‘demonizes’ another culture, then profits from stereotypes of that culture.

As for disliking “posturing blowhards”, well … we ll posture about something. Just because one dislikes the way another person does so, does not dismiss the posturing the disliker.

Obviously the seller sets the price and I take it or leave it.

And I fucking DETEST haggling. Which means I mostly hate car salesmen, too.

No, but those pretentions are a component. The misuse of "ronin" certainly qualifies.

I'm not sure the negativity implied by demonization is necessary... quite the contrary, exclusion and monetization is more than enough.

The image suggests you think the indigenous people in what is now the US were not dehumanized and labeled "savages".

how?

I mean, the caption is pretty clear about pointing out willful ignorance of native genocide AND the aforementioned commercial exploitation of their imagery.

Care to explain where the denialism on my part is?

Then I misunderstood your purpose in posting it in response to my post.

Fair enough...
I think the only point of contention was "demonization" as in my observations, cultural appropriation more often takes the form of romanticism. In the image used (taken by a friend who was on the barricades at Standing Rock and who is the son in law of the HC of the Wet'suweton First Nation, BTW) we're seeing exactly that... the use of distinctly native imagery in the war bonnet accompanied by a not so subtle expectation to ignore colonial history.