Exclusive Insanity

I saw this on Facebook recent - a graphic with only the above question on it. 'Like' for yes, 'Comment' for no.

I'm too chickenshit to response directly to the friend who posted it (he's someone I work with who I do not know very well), so I will do so here.

Short answer: no. I cannot believe this question is even being asked any more. Not because I hate Christianity, or hate Christians. Religion is important to them, and I can respect that. However, this is a problematic request for a few reasons.

Canada is a multi-cultural country. This means that we have people of various races, with various beliefs, living as citizens here and raising their children. Many of them are not Christian, and will raise their children under a different religion (or under no religion). Having a Christian prayer in school will give those children the impression that 'this is the NORMAL religion and mine is weird or different'. Also, I am certain that the families in question consider their religion as important as Christians consider theirs. Privileging one over the other as if to say 'this one is BETTER' is not right (at the very least, we shouldn't put this attitude in the heads of impressionable children).

For the record, stating that 'well, it's OUR country, not theirs, they should adapt to our culture or GTFO' is so wrong that I don't even want to address it. However, even if it were true, the Christian religion is not a part of the Canadian culture.

I know that Christianity is the majority religion and that it's become sort of second nature for many Christians to normalize it as a part of (everyone's) every day life. But religion really isn't something that should be broadcast far and wide in everyone's faces as if we all were a part of it (or should be a part of it). The forced normalization of the Christian religion - it being in your face whether you like it or not, being pushed as something we all need to adopt - is the reason why there is why so many people have such a negative attitude towards the religion in general (well, that and the prejudices). It comes across as smugly self-righteous and rigidly controlling.

In reality, religion is a personal thing, and each person has the right to his/her own belief system. It's fine to be open about it, but to push it onto others as the 'normal' or 'right' thing is obnoxious.

So... yeah, no thanks. Keep it out of the public school system, okay?

Okay. Consider I don't live in the States, sharing this is probably the only thing I can do - although I'm not sure how many people actually don't know about it yet.

http://vimeo.com/31100268

This is massively disturbing to me on any number of levels. Worst case scenario, this is looking like the road to mass censorship. I may be overreacting, but... whoa. If I'm not, this is freaky.

Think about how many things on the Internet there are that reference some form of entertainment. It's... basically everything I enjoy doing on the 'net at all.

This is backwards thinking regardless of how you look at it.

So if anyone was wondering whether or not LJ had decided to stop being sneaky and making dumb mistakes, you can stop wondering now.

More digging through old Avatar discussion posts... I found a rant against Katara's character. Now, Katara isn't my favorite character, but she's at least as well-developed as any of the others, and she is actually pretty neat. The story went out of its way to provide her with the opportunity to learn healing specifically so that she could reject it and learn to fight instead. She may not exactly be a revolutionary female protagonist, but at least she has a believably flawed personality, a strong will, and a desire to fight and protect those she loves that is as strong as any male character's.

The person who posted the rant is one step above "KATARA SUCKS OMG" (and it's a very small step). The main point of the rant: Katara is a "poorly written, blob of cliche" while all the male characters are wonderfully developed. If the OP posted this without expecting any dissention, then I believe they are a moron. Personally, I think they were looking for wank. Several commenters agree with me.

In any case, the rant can be found here: http://community.livejournal.com/avatar_fans/437135.html

It quickly turns to wank, and was even featured on Fandom Wank, but there were some great comments coming from people responding to the rant that I wholly agree with and would like to quote here. They all make the same basic point, but I couldn't resist quoting all of them.

"This kind of rant is what irritates me. Not so much because I, personally, love Katara, but because this just shows that no matter how well written or how well rounded a female character is, they are always always heavily (and mostly unfairly) criticized."

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/avatar_fans/437135.html?thread=6935439#t6935439

"I get tired of reading posts like these-- I see them in every fandom, from Naruto to Gundam Wing. Usually comming from female fans who display this bizarre venom against the main female character. If the main female is smart or capable or strong, she's a Mary Sue. If she's got character flaws or actually acts her age sometimes, she's stupid or insane."

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/avatar_fans/437135.html?thread=6948495#t6948495

"I hate seeing this kind of rant on fandom communities - where female characters are mercilessly bashed for traits that a male character would be considered as having a lot of character depth."

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/avatar_fans/437135.html?thread=6963343#t6963343

This isn't exactly new or anything (female fans have been bashing female characters since fandom existed), but I felt like it was a good opportunity to post something about it.

I've noticed it in shipping more than anything. To use an Avatar example: the majority of Zuko/Katara fans hate Mai (Zuko's canon love interest) with a freakin' unholy passion. And why, you ask? Because she loves Zuko. Holy hot damn, if that's a crime, you're ALL guilty, bitches!

I've also noticed that, although there is some hatred of Aang (Katara's canon love interest), he's typically treated with more respect. Is it because there's Toph available to shove him off on while Mai has no one (at least not for strictly het shippers)? Possible, but I think it's more related to this tendency of females to hate hate HATE the woman who "steals" the man away from her. It's kind of sad.

I am honestly baffled by the Internet sometimes. Someone makes a post in the Digimon community asking what people like about Ken's character. Why does this turn into wank?

Well, apparently the original poster is an otakukin (if you don't know what this is, I'll leave it to you to look it up). This IN NO WAY came up in the original post, but god knows how many people jumped all over her for it because... um... because she made a completely unrelated post with an on-topic discussion question?

Seriously, people, what the hell? Yeah, the whole idea of 'otakukin' is completely batshit crazy, but she DIDN'T MENTION IT. Grow. The. Fuck. Up.

The whole thing even managed to make Fandom Wank, where the majority of posters there seem to think it's grudge wank. I'm inclined to agree.

I followed a link provided by nighteevee to a very long fandom history of someone called MsScribe. She was a well-known person in the Harry Potter fandom... I knew absolutely nothing about that fandom going into this, but really, you didn't have to. If you know the basics of any fandom, this is definitely an interesting read. It amazes me the lengths people will go to for attention - any kind of attention.

Anyway, if you find this sort of fandom drama interesting, the page is here.

In other news, Cody is playing through Tales of the Abyss from the beginning again, and I'm going to read the strategy guide and help him along. We're going to see if we can beat the anime to the end!

We'll see how that goes.

On recent LJ events...

Thoughts?

Edit: More

Apparently it's not only fandom journals that are being targeted here. Journals designed as help and support for survivors of child abuse were also deleted with no warning, and for no good reason. Thus far, no one is admitting to the error. LJ blames these "Warriors of Innocense" and they blame LJ.

I'd say they're all idiots. Even all the "Warriors of Innocense" did was complain that LJ was hosting 'content containing pedoplia and incest' on their site, all you've done by stirring up this fuss is alert the real predators and make it harder for more intelligent and better organized groups to catch them. Even if all LJ did was delete the journals that the "Warriors of Innocense" pointed out, they didn't bother to check and see exactly what was on those journals, and that's ridiculous.

It reminds me of the big fanfiction.net mess years ago, only worse. A huge portion of the journals deleted were completely innocent. Lolita fashion communities? RPG villain journals? Support groups for survivors?

That blows me away. And the worst part is that LJ is not willing to admit that they've made a mistake in deleting the journals. How can you justify that? Seriously.