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5 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Thud!': Pa... · 0 replies · +13 points

Yeah, this exactly. It would be a shame for Nobby to lose Tawnee but... she's a person. She deserves to make educated choices about her own life. It's maybe not so nice for Nobby - but his happiness doesn't supercede Tawnee's ability to make clear decisions about her future.

5 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'A Hat Full... · 3 replies · +34 points

To me, part of the point of this sequence is to turn the fantasy of revenge on bullies on it's head and point out that... well. Annagramma is a teenage girl too. She's not a nice girl, she's not a pleasant girl, but she's not a monster. I've seen people compare her to Carcer in terms of badness and it's just... kind of disproportionate. She's just a shitty person. Revenge on bullies is one thing - but there's a limit to what's right, what's acceptable, and it's easy to forget that when you're a victim of bullying.

5 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Monstrous ... · 2 replies · +37 points

I'm cis, but queer, so I'm trying to be careful with what I'm saying here.

I feel like the emphasis on 'is Jackrum a trans man or not' is kind of... reductive? It's putting an emphasis on our modern understanding of gender identity rather than the context that he (and maybe even people that Pratchett might have actually known) would have lived in. (And it's super binary-focused as well, to boot.)

I have a cousin that's first generation Canadian with British parents who's around the age Pratchett would be if he hadn't passed, and he doesn't really identify with any of the terms most people my age would use. He might identify differently if he was twenty and in today's culture - but instead he uses she/her pronouns in drag or when referring to the identity he's built for that side of himself, and he/him pronouns otherwise. He's considered himself part of trans culture his whole life, but he wouldn't call himself trans.

I just feel like... there's a huge tapestry of identity out there which includes older parts of our community, and I'd be interested in hearing what their reading of Jackrum is.

13 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Meet Some of the Peopl... · 2 replies · 0 points

So...you disagree with the idea that Islam could possibly be a basically peaceful religion, I think it is, considering that 1.5 billion violent people would have done more cohesive damage by now.

Being silent doesn't help you learn, it doesn't help you grow, and it doesn't let people work together for greater understanding.

And seriously...it's rude to constantly call someone stupid. I might just be Canadian that way, but I don't appreciate it, and I'm asking you to stop. Feel free to prove me wrong, or say that a specific thing I have said is foolish, but stop calling me ignorant.

13 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Meet Some of the Peopl... · 1 reply · 0 points

With the same stories, figures, monotheistic beliefs, creation myth, it's...clearly related to the other two religions. They're an Abrahamic faith, like Judaism, and Christianity. They're clearly very closely related.

13 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Meet Some of the Peopl... · 1 reply · +1 points

That, I would support. If people were asking that the Islamic Centre be put off until an investigation into finances and possible links to terrorist groups, that would be one thing. But that's not what most people are saying, and that's causing the backlash.

13 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Meet Some of the Peopl... · 1 reply · +1 points

Isaac is Jacob/Israel's dad. Isaac's brother was named Ishmael, and is believed to be the father of the muslim people. Descendents of Jacob are also descended from Isaac. And Abraham. I thought I didn't have to explain that, since you are obviously well-studied in religious texts.

Who are you, exactly? You get to hear about repressed reports, unrecorded nationalities, and all sorts of things. It's almost like these things are rumours, paranoia, or things that weren't hidden. (A quick google showed a Norwegian site that said that the majority of rapes in Norway are immigrants not from the west.)

In England there's a lot of problems with a variety of immigrant cultures, especially the younger members of those communities. So a wide term seems more likely to be an umbrella statement to me.

Why have there been no mass killings of 'infidels' in North America? Or Europe? There's lots of Islamic believers in both continents, are there not? Those terribly violent people.

13 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Meet Some of the Peopl... · 3 replies · 0 points

...No. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism. Islam is an offshoot of Christianity. All three are Judeo-Christian religions.

13 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Meet Some of the Peopl... · 4 replies · +2 points

I...more passed it off as the fault of my youth and distinterest in politics until my later teen years. Seriously, I completely acknowledged that I said something stupid and ignorant, and apologized for it. Continuing to call me ignorant's a bit rude, innit?

13 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Meet Some of the Peopl... · 3 replies · +1 points

...Those who wage war against Allah=being uppity? Oh, I hadn't realized. I suppose that makes...no sense whatsoever. Do you really think that the line of reasoning goes that the descendents of Isaac are to be pacifists, but the descendents of Ishmael get to carve out people's intestines?

Most people who follow Islam are not violent. Malcolm X converted...and then stopped being so radical. I've known muslims who have never even been overly snippy with me. There is an odd lack of constant news stories about the atrocities commited by muslims in the west, despite a fairly high population. And the odd stories about honour killings get a lot of news...but they're fairly isolated incidents.

Radicals are, again, in every religion. Islam, Christianity, athiesm, scientology all have their radical elements. But none of them commonly preach violence in this day and age.

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