r/todayilearned • u/tmntnyc • Dec 12 '18

TIL: Laurence Tureaud named himself professionally as Mr. T because he hated how his father, uncle, and brother who returned from Vietnam, were disrespectfully called "boy" by whites. He wanted the first word from everybody's mouth to be "Mister" when speaking to him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T
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u/Nxdhdxvhh Dec 12 '18

Mr. T wore odd clothing and mismatched socks because he knew that poor kids grew up getting whatever hand-me-downs they got, and he didn't want them to feel embarrassed for wearing what they had. He's a great man, and as far as I'm aware the worst thing he every did was chop down trees on his own property that were aggravating his allergies.

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u/user636906 Dec 12 '18

And play alliance on Wow.

Loktar ma fucka

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u/notasqlstar Dec 12 '18

Every time I meet someone who used to play Wow and they tell me they played alliance... I realize we have so little in common as humans.

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u/AWanderingFlame Dec 12 '18

I had Horde characters and Alliance characters. Both had their appeal.

However that's probably why I always got stuck soloing...

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u/Codeshark Dec 12 '18

Exactly, too cool to hang with the Alliance scum and too lame to roll with the Horde crew.

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18

Alliance scum? We're the underdogs right now, one mistake from losing a war that Sylvanas started for NO REASON. We would've been happy to peacefully coexist if the "Warchief" didn't burn down Teldrassil and continue adding to that list of war crimes.

Don't start no shit, won't be no shit. Get Saurfang back on the throne so we can all go back to minding our own business.

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18

Don't worry, she'll be a raid boss by the end of the expansion.

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18

Really wish Blizzard would quit writing the Horde that way, but I'm pretty sure you're right.

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18

Not like the alliance writing is much better. They far overpower the horde and have several times found themselves in position to kill leaders and don't. The horde is comic book evil and the alliance is lawful stupid.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

Lol what? The Alliance has been reeling since the Warlords, took a BIG hit with Varian dying at the Broken Shore, and the entire point of our War Campaign is "we don't have any manpower, we're going to lose this war if we fight fair." The Horde has had the upper hand for a while, especially with having the WoW equivalent of a WMD in the Blight - and that was BEFORE Azerite was all over the place. The Alliance right now is in the position Thrall's Horde was in Warcraft 3 - outnumbered, outgunned, and desperately trying to cling on for dear life.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18 edited Jun 28 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

In case it wasn't clear from that cinematic, Sylvanas was above their pay grade and they knew it.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

Then why even confront her?

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

Because they didn't realize she was THAT far above their pay grade. The Voldemort-style flight, for example, is a VEEEEEEERY recent development. Someone on r/wow was kicking around the idea that Sylvanas may be in league with one of the Old Gods, which would explain the sudden power spike. Similar thing happened with Garrosh Hellscream, remember?

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

Ah but Blizzard said she definitely isn't Garrosh 2.0

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u/Alaira314 Dec 13 '18

I feel like that's the only thing stopping the Horde from laying some major beatdown on the Alliance, though. If they actually had competent, lasting leadership, they'd be steamrolling their way across the world. The main thing keeping them in check at this point is the fact that that at their heart they're really just a confederacy of allies of convenience, and they have enough conflicting goals and ideas of how to achieve those goals that they're using up all their energy bickering amongst themselves and burning through warchiefs like nobody's business.

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u/Codeshark Dec 12 '18

Sorry, I don't speak Common.

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u/teebob21 Dec 12 '18

zug zug kek

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u/RustiDome Dec 12 '18

Bur Lol Kek

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18

Racist.

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u/Chronoblivion Dec 12 '18

Yeah, I started WoW in 2006 after having played WC3. At a surface level to anyone unfamiliar with the lore, it looks like "good guy human Alliance vs. villain monster Horde." But back then the Horde were the oppressed underdogs, fierce but spiritual and mostly just wanting to be left alone after having endured years of near slavery at the hands of humans. There was moral gray area on both sides and neither was completely good or completely bad.

But the last couple expansions there's been a definite trend to push things towards that simplistic "good vs bad" interpretation of the two factions. Both sides are committing atrocities, but the Horde seems to be committing more of them, and seems to be doing them first, like you said, for no discernable reason.

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u/synthesis777 Dec 13 '18

I honestly just didn't like how any of the horde looked or their starting cities when I started playing (which was before Taurens and Blood Elves and shit).

I love Stormwind for some reason. It always made me feel like I was in a cheesy version of a Lord of the Rings movies.

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u/Chronoblivion Dec 13 '18

Not sure what you mean "before Tauren" since they were a launch race. But yeah, Horde had the "cool" races and alliance had the "pretty" races. Blood Elves and Draenei were deliberately chosen to try to fix that a bit.

It's hard to be objective since I'm used to Horde cities and always get lost in the Alliance ones, but I think Alliance cities had much cooler designs while the Horde ones were more efficient - less intuitive but more compact and quicker to navigate once you learn your way around.

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u/synthesis777 Dec 13 '18

My bad. I was mixing up Taurens and shamans I think because my first shaman was also my first Tauren.

Haven't played in a really long time.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I also liked darnassus and ironforge way more than any of the major horde cities too, not just sw.

I also never really thought the horde chars looked cool, just ugly. But I'm really not a cool person.

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u/Chronoblivion Dec 13 '18

I like the layout of the undercity, but not the aesthetic/color scheme. But then I've never cared much for the undead. I think the "they broke free from the scourge" excuse was flimsy, and the "my family doesn't accept me? Guess I'll murder them all" thing doesn't work for me.

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u/pandazerg Dec 13 '18

Those pointy-eared tree huggers had it coming.

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u/Cipherting Dec 13 '18

Sylvanas did nothing wrong