Flame Warriors ~ View topic

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

OK, 19 new warriors and 1 new weapon.

Amnesiac

Amnesiac functions in two main ways: claiming not to remember ever having said what she said, and claiming to have never seen a crucial post from another poster. If another warrior has anything unwholesome to say about her past posting, Amnesiac will claim helplessly not to recall having written an offending message of the type described. When Archivist is battling her and produces the incriminating post, Amnesiac will argue that it is out of context or that if she can't even remember it it is so far in the past that it should be dropped. Should a warrior who is fighting her make a post with conclusive proof of his side and refer to that post, she will swear she never read such a post. This technique works only on folder and email message fora. Her opponent may then recapitulate the thesis of his post, but Amnesiac will either say she still disremembers or ignore the recap. Her opponent will then go to the last resort of reposting the original argument, and when he asks later why she did not respond to the repost, she will asseverate that she has never seen his repost. By now Amnesiac's credibility in the eeys of the forum is completely shot, but she remains smug in her iron guarding from being surely vanquished. Amnesiac is one of the few warriors beyond the reach of ownage, forever keeping herself from having to admit defeat.

Big Monkey

Big Monkey exists only to ape the other participants in the discussion forum. On a psychic forum, for instance, he may fret, "I think my aura's turning green, then pink, then burgundy with yellow polka dots. Can you please help me?" On a dream interpretation forum, he'll ask, "I had a dream that everyone on this site was having a party, and they were sitting around drinking beer, when all of a sudden a big purple dragon named Larry fell out of the sky and squashed them all. What does it mean?" On a teen board, he will post excessively angsty reflections on the course of his day to caricature the other participants' style. Although monkey-do is monkey-see, the other users can humor him by throwing him a diversionary banana, and thereby gain a new friend and convert to their forum.

Broken Record

Broken Record advances her little factoids again and again. Other netizens have lost count of the number of times she has brought up that her daughter likes to listen to the Backstreet Boys, or that she was born the year Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, or that she once ran into her twin sister while visiting a Wendy's in Detroit. Broken Record's ramblings resemble a perpetual montage of cut-and-paste jobs from old posts. She may be suffering amnesia, as if another warrior complains about her repetitious blatherings, she will claim not to recall the first, second, third or fourth time she mentioned whatever. Occasionally Archivist will revive a matching post she made earlier just to embarrass her. Although annoying enough to be killfiled, Broken Record is quite harmless.

Cocktail

Like Grenade, Cocktail is a weapon rather than an actual warrior. This weapon is detonated under rather benign circumstances, but can soon turn the forum into flames. Cocktail is initially deployed not to bash another forum member, nor to deflect attention Grenade-style from a topic in a battle, nor to get a well-needed rant out of one's system, but simply to make conversation. Cocktail will be introduced when, in a moment of forum boredom, one partygoer will entertain the forum by saying, "Hey! Why don't we have a debate about abortion?" The circle will then start a debate all in fun, but Cocktail can have blurring, sickening side effects as the disagreements soon evolve into aspersions of cretinism, dramatically shocked cries of "How could you write that?" and accusations of being treasonous, murderous, un-American or Hitlerian. Although almost all warrior types are trained in handling it, Debate Club, Lonely Guy and Troller have a particular proclivity for using Cocktail. Smart Admins will outlaw the use, sale or manufacture of Cocktails in their forum.

Curtain-closer

Curtain-closer wants to close the curtains on the theater that is Internet flame warring. A sort of wet blanket to flame wars, she cannot stand self-righteous flaming, black-and-white ultimatums, ipsedixitistic declarations, moralistic grandstanding, narcissistic e-screaming, easy Nazi/Hitler comparisons, antiauthoritarian slogans, preachy citation of the Bible, Constitution or Martin Niemöller, or emo self-pity threads. Curtain-closer often finds herself throat-to-throat with histrionic-tongued warriors like Acne, Artful Dodger, Deacon, Klaxon, Rebel Without a Clue and Yippie. Often rather than attack the substance of a post, she will criticize its melodramatic form. While experienced warriors know that her demands of "Tone down the rhetoric!" are just a stall made out of hope that her opponent will self-destruct, the more unawares can get sidetracked with arguments about the style of their posts.

Debate Club

Debate Club is just itching to debate, and she's sure to pull you and everyone else into it. Debate Club will research her topic just to increase the experience of Internet debate, and mull over the pros or the cons (whichever side she's chosen) of the subject. Battling for the joy of battling, she will pick a side -- any side -- and give it her all to make a case for it. She will gleefully point out her opponent's logical fallacies, and identify them by their Latin names. Her ability to stay in the battle ring even while being crushed rivals that of Palooka. As her battle goes on, Debate Club will become increasingly annoying and peculiarly defensive of her side, but tell her opponent that it's his opinion and he has a right to it. Often the battle will culminate in Debate Club admitting that she doesn't really believe in what she was arguing, and explaining that she just likes the experience of forensics.

Epicophobe

Remember that kid in your class who screamed when the teacher handed out copies of War and Peace? He's matured into Epicophobe and found himself onto a forum near you. Epicophobe cannot stand responses that run into 300 words or more, but the longer, the worse. Epicophobe's complaints about "scroll fatigue" are just a rationalization of his own laziness. Epicophobe's talking, nay, outright bragging about how he didn't read a long post fails to win him any respect from the forum, but the less serious members such as Evil Clown and Jerk can come to his defense. Much like Grunter, he can blow warriors like Philosopier or Profundus Maximus up with fury after all the effort they put into their post goes to waste because he refuses to read it. Kung-fu Master is immune to Epicophobe attacks and can save the day for Epicophobe's opponents.

Gerrymander

Gerrymander insists upon setting down the ground rules for the battle, and draws the lines so that he wins and you lose. You know, SHOUTING hurts your argument, you must spell every word correctly (which I can do and you can't), you can't win if you call me a Nazi, citing material from magazines X, Y and Z hurts your credibility, and you can only win on days of the week beginning with T.

The Grey Menace

Always prone to see the grey where there is none, the Grey Menace is lurking in the background to effectively create a forum without opinions. He will typically make the case that these are subtle, complex issues that require a fuzzily defined meditation and introspection to fully comprehend. Any time anyone states that anybody is wrong, the Grey Menace will jump in to lecture that there are two (or more) sides to every controversy, and will not get off her back until she recants her opinion that so-and-so is wrong. Resolute in his mission to convince others that with every conflict there is no one side in the right, the Grey Menace ultimately finds himself defending Klansmen, Islamic terrorists and Holocaust apologists. Occasionally he will descend into battle with another warrior, and despite his spurning his opponent's belief that everyone is either in agreement with her or in the wrong, the Grey Menace will argue his side to the death, without noticing the contradiction. The Grey Menace can be an annoying, insidiously powerful warrior.

Hitler Youth

15 going on 50, Hitler Youth is outspoken in his opposition to youth emancipation and to cultural freedom in general. He stalwartly defends rules on the forum and in society at large, standing up for authority, tradition, taboos and, in general, the status quo. He glorifies current laws and vilifies civil disobedience. He will find allies in Netiquette Nazi, and, à la Uncle Tom, in Life Experience. Hitler Youth believes that arguing that he is not mature enough to drink a margarita or stay out after his town's designated curfew hour will impress older forum members, and, paradoxically, paint him with an aura of maturity. He will never make a passing reference to Blink-182, Hot Topic, raves, freak dancing, sideways baseball caps, MySpace, slitting your wrists or other trends of the young without reassuring the forum members that he is not fond of these. Hitler Youth is abhorred with a biting passion by Acne, liberal Ideologue, Rebel Without a Clue and of course Yippie (whom he accuses of not being grown-up). CAUTION: Enfant Provocateur will sometimes pose as Hitler Youth just to get a rise out of people.

Life Experience

To gain the upper hand in battle, Life Experience uses her age as a trump card. She claims as an adult to have that elusive thing that her youthful opponents lack, and will therefore know more than they do about the issue at hand. Her logic is that she has been around longer, seen a lot, had hard knocks, raised children and had to become responsible by paying bills, and therefore her views are informed and rigit and her opponents' views uninformed and wrong. Although Life Experience of course pulls her warrior cards atop the table in debates over youth rights issues like the voting age, school uniforms, parental authority and underage drinking, she will make a divine invocation of the sequence of numbers in her birthdate in fighting over any issue where a generation gap fuels the divide, such as drug legalization, anti-globalization, animal rights, intellectual property, profanity in rock and rap, corporations making their employees wear suits and ties, protestors' rights or whether the War on Iraq was an oil war. One of her favorite claims is "You'll agree with me when you're older". Toxic Granny will call her "whippersnapper", but she never takes the hint. Even the most determined high school and college students find themselves unable to scale the steep mountain when battling Life Experience's exclusionism, and if they are Tireless Rebutters they may find themselves at the verge of self-destructing, or becoming Filibuster by attacking her technique again and again. However, once a middle-class 55-year-old who takes the same side as the kids comes along, Life Experience's proverbial jig is up.

The Lone Ranter

One clear morning, the Lone Ranter will join the forum and immediately start a new thread with a long post. Perhaps the assertions in his post will be questionable, or maybe the connection and causality of thoughts will be schizophrenic, or possibly the writing style will be something to make Strunk & White balk, but the Lone Ranter will seem proud of his output. Warriors ranging from Issues to Philosopher will jump in to respond with rebuttals, agreements and elaborations, but the Lone Ranter will never write back. Sometimes the post is his only one, but sometimes as the days pass he will post more of his ruminations, all without ever acknowledging the existence of the other warriors and their replies. Eventually the Lone Ranter will exhaust his topics of discussion, and in his barely noted absence he will leave only a silver bullet behind.

Martian

Big band music is coming miraculously back into fashion? The Baby Boomers sided with the Establishment in the 1960s? Ishtar is widely considered one of the greatest movies ever made? Most bookstores won't let you browse at their books without buying them? Punk died out in the 1980s? With his understanding of Earth and its culture and history, Martian leaves you wondering what color the sky is in his world. It is unclear whether he has been on LSD and psilocybin all his adult life, or is suffering from schizophrenia, or has spent all his life in an extreme backwoods area, or is indeed, like a Man in Black, a visitor from another planet trying dodgily to fit in. Source-staller will demand a source for his statements, as she always does, but this time she has a point. Martian's detachment from anything we know makes him beyond the reach of conventional fighting tactics, but if warriors can dig up facts to prove his schema of the world wrong, Martian will vanish from the forum to take a trip back to where he can see Phobos and Deimos with the naked eye.

Mirrors

Mirrors use their ideological partnership to build a fortress of collective identity. Each member of a group of Mirrors is in such borg-like agreement with the others that they appear interchangeable to the outsider. There is seldom any dissent or difference of opinion among the Mirrors, and when there is, they are all too willing to let it aside to fight a common enemy. A classic Mirrors maneuver is to set the opponent up by each making unpalatable statements that discombobulate the opposition. If they are battling a pro-choicer, for instance, Joe may say, "You want to take babies from their mothers and crush their heads!", Larry may threaten, "You will burn in Hell, baby-killer!", Josh may msue, "Mmmmm . . . roast fetus smothered in gravy . . .", Mark may ask, "So how many babies have YOU aborted today?" and Frank may add, "The next time someone bombs an abortion clinic, I hope you're inside!" The Mirrors will NEVER call one another on their statements, no matter how out of line they are. However, they will cautiously avoid explicitly expressing agreement with the others' posts. Then, when raised to a state of rage by Frank, their pro-choice nemesis mixes up her opponents and cans him with, "Well, what can I expect when you're such a disgusting person you think I want to take babies from their mothers and crush their heads?", Frank will bounce back with, "*I* never said that! Stop accusing me of saying things I never said! You clearly have a chip on your shoulder," etc. These crafty attacks of discreditation make Mirrors a group of foes not to be meddled with.

Paycheck

Fiscally responsible and hard-working but not socially conscious, Paycheck voices the built-up frustration of the working man. He will often vent by grousing openly about his squalid working conditions and the long hours he endures to make ends meet. This allows him to get some air off, but also serves as a mechanism to make himself look more grounded than his opponent. He is irked by battles or Grenades packed with such topics as social norms, the evils of authority and hierarchism, civil disobedience, presidential misconduct, animal rights, Israel vs. Palestine or saving the mountain gorillas -- if it doesn't pay the bills, he doesn't want to hear about it. This tendency gets him on Issues' bad side. Paycheck has a dyed-in-the-wool loathing for academics, bohemians, nouveaux riches, the old rich, upper-middle-class college kids, overpaid celebrities and multimillionaire athletes. In contempt of these people, on and off the message board, Paycheck will often declare that they are not living in "the real world". Android will point out that the world these individuals inhabit is just as physically existent as Paycheck's, but Paycheck won't have it. He is greatly feared by Weenie.

Polysemist

One of the accidents of the evolution of the English language has been its multitude of meanings for the same word, so that "fly" can mean an insect of the order Diptera, slang for cool, or something you don't want to be caught with open. Polysemist uses this phenomenon in battle every chance he gets. By his willful misinterpretations and reinterpretations, he believes he will be able to snappily discredit the opponent. If, for example, on an Islamic forum, someone curious as to whether he is a Sunni or Shi'ite asks him exactly what sect he belongs to, Polysemist will rebuff with "I don't belong to any sect. This isn't a cult forum, dear." Should an opponent, thinking him odd, say that something about him is "queer", Polysemist will stand up to aver his heterosexuality and attempt to win the battle with threats of a libel suit for insinuating that he was gay. Although other warriors will quickly jump to correct Polysemist's interpretations, his disingenuous snap-backs give him a few cheap shots and the temporary visage of an upper hand.

Scavenger

Scavenger scrounges around for dead conversations in the vast desert of the forum. Once a thread that has had no signs of life for days has been found, he can thoroughly eviscerate the other participants by advancing a killer argument in the thread. Due to the decay of the thread, no one else except perhaps Tireless Rebutter, Necromancer or Archivist will take an interest in leashing a counterattack. Having the last word, Scavenger declares himself the victor. Glory is evanescent, though, as the thread desiccates after a few days and Scavenger must circle the skies for other carrion.

Source-staller

Source-staller specializes in defensive attacks to prolong the battle. Once another warrior makes his case, she will roll up like a pillbug and demand academic, peer-reviewed, published sources for the facts that underlie his argument. There is no aspect of human nature so universally known, no meme of pop psychology so widespread, no social generalization so obvious, that Source-staller will not demand a source for it. Source-staller loves so much to put off her defeat that she will even insist upon citations for facts that are not crucial or even relevant to the argument. She may occasionally try an offensive attack, but most of the time she can be seen curled up in her shell. If no references can be found, she will, much like Nitpick, gloat that her opponent was unable to substantiate his claim. If her opponent DOES supply a source, she will inevitably opine that there is no way the data-gatherers could know for sure they were right, is there?

Yippie

Yippie doesn't trust anyone over 30, and he's not the least bit shy about expressing this attitude online. He is always ready to throw a pie in the face of the Establishment, which he vituperates for its "government schools", and never misses an opportunity to poison the well of older posters. Yippie will often post rants accusing Baby Boomers of hypocrisy and excoriating their generation for its metamorphosis from ganja-smoking Flower Children who lambasted Nixon to greedy Reaganites and Bushites in suits who trade civil liberties for security. He will wax prodigious on the importance of lowering the voting age, abolishing gulag schools and protecting students' rights, but never credit the generation who had these ideas first before the Bittersweet Generation took the mantle. Yippie is mortal enemies with Life Experience, and the two will fight each other to the death. Should other warriors stab him into battle, he will knock them over the head with the Teen-age Liberation Handbook, Mike Males and Robert Epstein. Some warriors, especially Therapist, will speculate on the roots of Yippie's hostility towards adults; it could be gestapo parents, or it could be an incident in which he was suspended without due process, or it could be an arrest after a long interrogation kick-started by youth profiling.

Zoanthrope

Zoanthrope enjoys acting out the part of some member of the animal kingdom, and flavors as many of her statements as possible with the role-playing of her favorite bird or beast. Once you brush whiskers with someone whose username is "Kit-E-Kat", for instance, you will soon find her fantasizing over hot "tomcats" and socializing with other forum members by throwing them some "catnip". At night in her time zone, she will excuse herself by saying she has to "put the kittens to bed". Users should be cautious of doing anything to irk her when she announces she is in "a hissy mood", and if another warrior should do battle with her, Kit-E-Kat will wryly warn him, "Cats have sharp claws". Zoanthropes come in all species, orders and phyla -- dogs, goats, horses, monkeys, anteaters, frogs, flamingoes, sharks, snails, praying mantises -- but they all keep their assumed bestial role, tongue-in-cheek, through even the most serious discussion and most charring flame wars. CAUTION: Some Zoanthropes may in fact be mentally ill, and seriously believe themselves to walk on four legs instead of two. Prudent warriors should avoid getting too deeply invested in battle with these nutcases.

I'm seeing a lot of familiar faces in these siggestions, though I like what I see...
I especially like Cocktail, due to the difference of its introduction to a forum, in that a grenade appears without warning, while a cocktail is introduced under friendly circumstances...
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Good luck trying to get other people into yours.

I'll have a better look at this when I have the chance in the next couple of days.

A number suggested are original, and even those that have similarities with previous suggestions, do seem to (at this point) capture the warrior well.

All the same - nice.
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The important thing is knowing who owns the fence

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

Edit: How rude of me. Welcome to the forum! You have some excellent suggestions, but some are covered. Sorry for my earlier hastiness, but I was multitasking. I am also making cookies.

I did promise to have a better look, but totally forgot about the weekend arriving. (oh bugger, too late to do anything tonight, but I'm going to have to get offline as the next couple of days are / should be busy)

iritus has pretty much gone through it.

(It would have taken me a good deal of time to try and think my way though the list at the moment. My memory of the various things has waned of late, though I'm hopeful that all will improve in the next few weeks. )

I love the Epicophobe suggestion.

Big monkey reminds me of Clown (Inferred via Evil Clown)

A Broken Record type was discussed somewhere I thought, something like Repeter but ...

The Grey Menace is a type of Fence Sitter. I've talked about this type, but not as a Suggestion. I can hardly remember the one listed in the Crypt, but it was a very limited version from memory- ie it sucked or I wasn't happy with the definition. Fence Sitting takes many forms.
(Yes, yes, I should go through and pull out and refine, if required, notable suggestions from the crypt.)

Scavenger is similar to Last Word (hey I'm not sure what the exact suggestion tittle is), but this type with a specific purpose to feast on dead threads. I think something similar was talked about at length, a result of A_B being fairly persistent.

Source-staller is new I think in todays sense. The net used to be, (as I remember it,) pretty formal and serious, and yeah, you were expected to be able to site sources if something was claimed as fact and not merely an opinion. Thesedays it could be seen as a form of Dodging though, though that is not their intent at all.
Hey!! that reminded me of something somewhat similar - twits I call an Unqualified Skeptic (this isn't in any of the suggestions yet, or have I just forgotten?)
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The important thing is knowing who owns the fence

The Voice of Reason Joined: 31 Jan 2005 Posts: 1368

Scavenger seems like a specific necromancer type to me.
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I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by NOT BUYING ANY.

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

going to have to get off in a few minutes so just a quick responce.

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

I think Xer of Evil would be Evil Clown.

Can you think of any 4Ters who match my warrior types (besides the Big Monkeys)?

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

Why didn't the umlauted character in "Martin Niemöller" post correctly?

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

My IQ is 403 Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 69

None of these exist, there is no such thing.
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My IQ is 403 Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 69

These come no where near existing. As such there are no similar personalities either.
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Bring me back to the index

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24

Anything you have to add, Pervert?

Clueless Newb Joined: 19 Sep 2007 Posts: 24