Cam's Corner of the World

I'm wet and it's raining insanely. Thanks, weathergods. I so enjoy biking home into a wall of water, crafted by a combination of strong wind and strong rain.

Of course, I was in a slightly annoyed mood from working too much and also working with a colleague who randomly declared her belief that crop circles were made by aliens using balls of energy in the middle of a discussion of what to teach kids at middle school.

Um, yeah. Probably not what you should teach the kids, being that there is zilch documented evidece for said belief and a lot of documentations for many of them being made by humans.

I am very happy with sign-ups at girlsavesboyfic though. Very, very happy. There is going to be so much awesome fic! I am still trying to decide what I should sign up with - I am half tempted to do a Gwen-saves-Arthur for Merlin, playing with tropes from Norwegian fairytales.

Meanwhile, here is a weird smushing of things I like: Jack Davenport is voicing a World of Warcraft machinima movie called Death Knight Love Story. (He's specifically voicing the Death Knight hero, as far as I can tell.)

That's a really weird collision of seperate interests of mine. Also Brain Blessed is voicing the Lich King. Oh my.

In the news:
- Australia has a hung Parliament.
- Arabic becomes compulsory in Israeli schools.
- An unusual one-man protest in Spain.
- Did the CIA feed a French town LSD?
- What it means to be a Muslim in the US today.
- The Norwegian oil fund excludes three new companies (two Israeli, one Malaysian after advice from the Council on Ethics.

Can anyone recommend something akin to YouTube for uploading and showing off videos?

Still sorting out ficathon stuff - no worries, it will come to pass - just have that real life thing to balance too. Also, trying out new guild in WoW. Eek.

Speaking of WoW, if a player complains that the Maelstrom zone is not "epic" enough, what do you do? If you're Blizzard, you do this. Make it home to Epicus Maximus , a level 90 elite shark, who is being ridden by an elite rare devilsaur named riding a rocket and manning (dinosauring?) a laser beam, being ridden by an undead mage playing guitar named . You can see it captured here on YouTube.

I want that shark as a mount. Also I want Cataclysm, NOW.

In the news:

Venice gets its first female gondolier. Yeah, that took a while.

A bear cub with its head stuck in a jar is freed. Aww.

Obama backs plan to build a mosque near Ground Zero. (More about the controversy here.) Which I agree with, for several reasons. One, Islam ≠ Al-Qaeda. Anyone who claims differently, I'd say Fred Phelps and ilk (or similar hateful shits from the religion in question) then represents them. Two, if freedom is supposed to be some US bragging right, it must actually be freedom for people of different faiths too. Not just freedom for people you agree with - that's not freedom at all. Three, it's not actually on Ground Zero itself and dubbing it "Ground Zero mosque" is trying to make it sound more controversial and drum up an instinctively emotional response.

Meanwhile in Norway, I was charmed by the idiot logic in this story, where two boys in their twenties were wanting munchies during the middle of the night. Sadly, they both were too drunk to drive and knew so. Therefore, they decided to drive the lawnmower to the local night-open petrol station. Of course, the police had by then gotten reports of drunk driving on a lawnmower and was there to pick them up. Seriously, if you're too drunk to drive by own admittance, why would a lawnmower suddenly make you sober?

the ❝that's my favorite!❞ meme
A FANFICTION PRAISE MEME

And are you all ready for a new autumn/spring?

If you could have me write a fic specifically for you, what would it be like? Fandom, characters/pairing, genre, plot elements, kinks... what's your ideal fic from me?

Mostly for fun, but maybe also to see if I can manage to write one or more of them.

Sick in summer really sucks. On the bright side, I am not missing any great weather - rain, rain, rain.

Still dragging my body out of bed to get StarCraft II at midnight, though. Oh yes.

Right. Tomorrow I am off to glorious, hot Italy and if you want a card from there and haven't already left your address in a screened comment here, you better do it fast.

I am working down my To Do list before leaving, which includes exciting things like fill up my iPod, pay bills due during my away, clean out anything that might rot and cry about missing the Netherlands - Brazil match.

I will check e-mail from time to time while away, so you can reach me there if it's something very important.

Meanwhile, "The Last Airbender" sure is getting bad, bad reviews. Ouch! But as the movie hadn't endeared itself to me with how the casting went down (to put in mildly), I can't make myself feel bad if you paid me.

Meanwhile, here is shirtless!thoughtful!Jack Davenport, as I was challenged to post.

( Behind a cut )

There is a side debate that sometimes comes up when debates about racism is being had in fandom, and it's this - do racism in an American context apply for the rest of the world, and should non-Americans be expected to know it and spot it?

I am a bit torn, I must admit. I am a non-American and I do not like the US being held as the standard for the rest of the world. On the other hand, non-Americans digest a lot of American media and can unknowingly help perpetuate something that hurts people. That's not okay.

I guess I am wanting a bit of understanding that non-Americans can miss out on a lot of American context (because while we do get subjected to some American culture, we are not living it - we are watching it from afar, and shallowly at that) and a bit of willingness from non-Americans to not just dismiss expressions of American racism as 'not our problem!' Fandom is a subculture that bridges many nations - if a fellow fan is being hurt by racism, is it okay to say nothing just because it takes a form you're not familiar with? Is it okay to let it happen again?

The US is not the standard of the world. But us non-Americans, we can certainly hold ourselves to a decency standard. If we learn something is hurtful, we can at the very least try not to perpetuate it further. Maybe we can't be the first to spot racism in an American setting, but we can at least help denounce it. We can realise racism might take unfamiliar forms - but it still has harm as its core. Hell, it might increase sentitivity and help us fight racism in our cultural context, where we have no bloody excuses not to.

Racism is not okay. It is not okay in the US, it is not okay in Norway, it is not okay in Japan, it is not okay in South Africa. That it takes different forms does not make any more okay in any of its disguises - it just makes it harder to fight.

That got me thinking a bit about part two to this, though. Non-American racism. Racism takes certain forms in the US. In other places, it can take different forms. Certain things can be similar, but others might not be.

I got a comment some time ago when I was having a discussion in someone else's LJ about racism, in which I was talking about trying to be careful in never dismissing something as not racist in an American setting, because it's not my culture and there is so much context I am missing. I went on to add racism in Norway takes different forms I am more familiar with, but those wouldn't always be akin to racism in the US, just as racist expressions in the US might not be akin to racist expressions in Norway.

(For instance, I did not know watermelons had been used in a lot of racist imagery in the US, and thus was rather confused about a racist joke some American idiot did with an image of the White House with rows of planted watermelons outside. I was very kindly pointed to resources to read up on it, so now I know. But I always worry I might miss similar things and thus not spot them as racist.)

The comment expressed interest in reading about racism in Norway and the forms it takes, if I should ever write that up. I guess I am wondering, would others be interested too? It would be from a white perspective, though I would try to use as many sources as I could from Norwegian PoC perspectives. It would include some history, some politics, some examples from the multicultural school I've been working at this year and attempts to explain certain cultural particulars in Norway.

Maybe it can help illustrate how blatant racism usually takes the same forms, but the less obvious kind is oh so very good at easing itself into different cultural expressions. At least, that is a pet theory I hold.

So, would you want to read a post about that?

In two weeks I am off to Italy to hang with falena and poke around Tuscany. If you want a card from there, leave your address in a comment to this post. All comments are screened, so only I will see.

Mmm. Holidays.

Meanwhile, World Cup is awesome fun.

Yes, I am alive.

Just stuff and life and the WoW guild I belong to ending and various vaguely depressing stuff and yeah, life. It's all made me moody.

Meanwhile, fandom has truckered on and SPN fandom has had a bit of a car wreck.

It all starts when an author writes a SPN RPS fic set in post-earthquake Haiti - and apparently started on it pretty much instantly after the earthquake.

Can you count the ways in which this is a bad idea? I sure can count several.

1) TOO SOON TOO SOON TOO SOON
2) It's a Jared/Jensen story, and thus the setting of Haiti becomes more of a backdrop and the earthquake a prop for a romance.
3) The main characters are white, while Haiti's population is not. The potential to go wrong with this is already high, especially given point 2.
4) Using Haiti as the setting, but changing the facts of it as the author pleases, making it even more of a convenient prop that can be changed at will.
5) Using actual images of earthquake victims in the artwork for the fic.
6) Romance in the face of tragedy can be comforting if it is in spite of it, just as compassion and hope and life going on in spite of tragedies can be. It shows human will to survive and live on. Implying a tragedy as a good thing because it helped bring about a romance? People affected by the tragedy (and plenty of others) might not take too kindly to that.
7) Calling it the best idea ever beforehand and claiming to have done a 'decent job of it' when first confronted with the story maybe having a few issues.
8) Writing it racist starts a whole other list of bad.

On point 8, I point you to some of the quotes from the fic. Now, I am whitey mcpale-viking of the cold north and I am no expert on racism. But that to me reeks of a certain racism - the kind that many will say isn't intended as malicious or even intended at all, but is deeply seated in society. The sort that makes a lot of us non-PoC quite defensive, because it is uncomfortable to consider yourself racist and hey, it wasn't intentional, right?

That can be right. But that doesn't make it okay. That isn't a get out of jail free card. That isn't a defence. That isn't absolution. And if it's treated as an excuse, it will never change, either.

So don't use it as one. And FFS, don't name a big black cat after a big black character that walks and talks magical negro trope. That's just... Aiai.

This post has a summary of some of the troubling aspects, it's being discussed at Unfunny Business and the author has made an apology of sorts. Don't know if this will be the end of it.

And in the real world, Haiti is still suffering from the effects of the earthquake. It is still possible to donate. Google lists some options, and you can check your aid organisation of choice as well.

ETA: Oh excellent, she isn't the only one to have done this. *facepalm*

So Doctor Who fandom is having a discussion about like and dislike of female characters again, as sparked by this post on why someone dislikes Amy. It has sparked some posts on feminism and love for Amy for not being normal and probably lots of posts I haven't read.

Four things have struck me.

Point 1) The compassion argument. In a few of the comments, Amy gets slammed for being having a lack of compassion and 'not caring less'. Among other things cited is not approaching strangers (to her) being unhappy on several occasions. And you know, that gets my back up a bit, because that is not in itself lack of compassion.

I am frequently uncomfortable approaching someone I don't know well or don't know at all if I see they are unhappy. This is not because I don't feel for them. This is because I was raised in a culture where you don't 'push yourself' on others. Where you don't approach strangers in the assumption they'll be your friend. Where you don't assume you have the right to know their worries. Where you're afraid others will take it as pity, not compassion. In other cultures, they might not have those concerns. Hell, I know many don't. But I have them.

I am not Rose. I'm not instantly warm to all I meet. I don't befriend instantly. It doesn't make me feel less compassion for their misfortunes. Nor am I Amy, or Donna, or Martha. I have my own way of caring. Holding me up to them as if one of us must be the right way and one the wrong, instead of just different ways, is doing a huge disservice on many levels.

I guess my point is that not everyone expresses their emotions, compassion or even distress in the same way. Don't hold everyone to your choice of standard.

Which brings me to point 2) Women have no obligation to hold to your standard to be feminists. That's the thing about us females - we're all different. We're all women. Don't we want a world that doesn't dictate how we have to be to qualify as 'proper' women?

Amy doesn't have to have Rose's display of compassion to fit into feminism. Donna doesn't have to have Martha's weapon-blazing bravery. Rose doesn't have to have Donna's insight. Martha doesn't have to have Amy's feist. In fact, I'd like to make a case that the more varied female characters we get, the better for feminism it damn well will be.

Point 3) Starting a post with any variation of "I'm not bashing, but..." is in most cases gonna merrily roll down that path. It's like "I'm not sexist, but...", "I'm not racist, but...", "I'm not blaming the victim, but..." and "I'm not an asshole, but..." If you feel you have to defend yourself with that but, you're already aware that's what it sounds like.

And yes, sometimes it bloody well is exactly what it sounds like.

Bonus point 4), recycled from many previous rants. If course you can dislike characters. Female ones too! Tastes vary and sometimes, a character can just be too far removed for you to connect with it. Or there is one or more character traits that just bother you too much. That's okay! It happens!

But if you're slamming a female character for traits you love a male one for, if female characters are always the target of your dislike, if you use certain words to describe your dislike every time - well, maybe it's not the character(s) you're really disliking.

First off: Awww, Germany. Also, spotted this secret over at fandomsecrets - Eurosong, now also a reason for people to change country?

Opinions on telly.

( Spoilers for Doctor Who's Cold Blood )

Next time: Van Gogh! Probably more forehead!porn. More omnious signs without a doubt.

( Spoilers for FlashForward's final episode )

I also sadly subjected myself to some glimpses of reality show "The Hills" on YouTube and am now horrifed beyond belief what some people do to their bodies and their dignity. WTF, truly.

Best go to bed now.

This week has madly busy real life wise, and so will most of next one be too. Um, yay?

But this coming week is Eurosong week, my friends. That's right. Two nights of semi-finals, one Saturday of finals. WTF costumes! Hideous songs! European voting shenanigans! Snark! Mockery! Wind machine! And it is all happening here, in little Norway.

I will of course be covering a lot of this traditional European bonding session through bad music, as usual. Are you ready for Eurosong?

( This past week meanwhile, Norway has managed to have a transgender debate in the media )

In this week's TV stuff:
- Watched FlashForward's first part of the finale. Am reserving judgement until next week for how it turns out, but ( Minor spoilers for the lastest episode )
- Have not watched Doctor Who because it is a two-parter and I'm not having more cliffhangers in my life. Evil things. I shall watch both parts next week.
- Watched Americans-with-Norwegian-ancestry try to ski on Svalbard in the reality show "Alt for Norge" and laughed like a loon. But it is kinda charming how much love they have for Norway, despite never having been before. It does make me want to write "Cam's Guide to Sucessful Relocation to Norway (With Special Notes for Americans)", though.
- Watched the season finale of CSI. I miss my old CSI. I like Ray's character, but man, I miss the old team dynamic a lot. I think I'd enjoy the show more if it was all new people, and not some of the old to remind me of classic CSI.
- Okay, I like the British Strictly Come Dancing, but not so much the host. I feel like I'm probably commiting some sort of UK no-no by admitting so, because he's probably some big beloved dude, right?
- BBC's list of bizarre endings for TV shows is a hoot. Kidnapped by aliens? It was all a snowglobe? Ahahaha.

And how are you all?