Movie Critics

In general, I think it's a good profession...when done correctly.

The general consensus of a critic is to praise movies with powerful messages and to dismiss those that do not. This is not consistent with what the American public finds appealing. For an example I am going to use the movie I just recently viewed, Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

According to many critics this movie was dull, shallow, did not make good use of 3D, etc. I cannot comment on it's use of 3D (because I did not see it in 3D), but I found the comedy fun. This is definitely a great family movie. There are a few jokes for an older audience in there that I don't think children are going to pick up on. The animation was absolutely beautiful. I found myself liking this one better than the first two.

I don't think critics realized the purpose of these movies. They are about a group of creatures who naturally would never be together (mammoth, sloth, saber-toothed tiger, and possums) working together and living together. They get into danger and have to work together to get out of it. So what if the plots were similar throughout the three movies? Ice Age is their cash cow and they'll milk it for everything it's worth. But it's not like the movies are worse than trash.

Each movie viewed needs to be viewed differently. A family movie cannot be viewed in the same light as a horror film. An animated feature cannot be viewed in the same way as a live action film. An original story cannot be viewed in the same fashion as a movie based on a television series or a book (some people like to claim that it can, there is no way to view each through completely different eyes). Critics need to realize this before commenting on these things.

My own oddities

I shouldn't have sounded so strict about the concept of otakukin without talking about my own oddities first. I'm still trying to be a little open minded about otakukin/fictionkin, but it's going to take a lot of explaining for me to fully understand it.

As for myself, I don't feel 100% human. At times I feel and react to situations in a canine manner. Let me really get into it.

When I was about 11 or so (I don't really remember how old I was. I just remember I was going into the 6th grade), I had the strangest experience ever. I was getting stressed over some work my mom made me do so I didn't forget things I had learned in the previous school year. Math is my weakest subject and I was struggling greatly on something I was working on. All of a sudden, I started growling and "clawing" at the pages. I didn't know why I was acting this way. All I knew was that it felt natural and I couldn't stop. I was well aware of what I was doing...I just couldn't stop acting that way. The whole situation scared me. I'd never felt like that before.

The experience scared me so much that I started thinking something was wrong with me. Even afterwards I still had these non-human feelings. I started looking up information on werewolves because at that age, that was the only thing I could think of to look up. I didn't know if I was being possessed or if I was going insane. The thought would come into my head though that I felt that I either should have been born as a dog or that my soul was that of a dog placed in a human body.

After doing some more searching I came across the term "lycanthropy" which is a mental disorder in which a person literally believes that they turn into a wolf. Of course I was thinking at this point that I had a mild form of this. That is until I came across the artist Goldenwolf. Now she does not believe she is a Therian, but at that time, she did and she had a lot of good information up there about therianthropy. I'm so happy I came across her site, not only because she's a wonderful artist, but because I saw that there were other people out there who felt like I did...like I do. I saw that people felt that they are wolves, horses, dogs, cats, even some that fell like insects.

But even though I felt like I was a therian, I did not fully take on the title of "therian" until about a year ago. I was still very uncertain of whether or not to call myself a therian. I felt the "mental shifts" and sometimes "phantom shifts" that other therians spoke of. I've had instances where I react to a situation on "instinct". For instance, there was one time where my brother and I were fighting and my thoughts just changed. I don't fully know how to explain it. I started acting instinctually. I was growling and trying to bite him (but I did my best to restrain myself from doing so). I've had moments where I find myself getting lost in wonderful scents and wanting to track them. Moments where I've just had to act out on my canine urges at night because I was so restless because of them. Moments where I have to fight back what feels natural to me because of the situations I'm in.

Lately I've been contemplating whether or not I want to call myself a therian. I've even been contemplating if I really am a therian. I'm looking into the idea of animal totems. Possibly my canine feelings are a result of a a dog totem trying to grab my attention. Either way, I just know that these canine feelings aren't a phase.

So why would I be so hard on the idea of otakukin/fictionkin, elf-kin, fairy-kin, etc.? For the fact that I'm a skeptic. I'm not closing my mind to the ideas, but if the ideas can be explained well enough I'll keep my mind open to anything. Therianthropy was an easy idea for me to grasp onto because from a very young age I believed in reincarnation even though it's not something taught in the Christian church. Plus I have a great love and respect for animals and feel more compassion for non-human animals than I do for humans at times.

But the main thing for me is that I've never claimed to not be human or not be the person that I am. That doesn't mean that I'm dismissing my canine side. It just means that I'm saying that here and now, I am this human girl who happens to have canine urges and tendencies. It's only when a person says "I am *insert something here*" that I really get skeptical of the idea.

Otakukin?

I'm open to the idea of otherkin seeing as I'm questioning whether or not I would classify myself as one (a therianthrope to be more specific). Whether I would label myself as such...I'm not sure. Even that is a little hard to swallow. Yes I believe in reincarnation, so the concept of therianthropy makes sense to me. Having a non-human soul placed into a human body via the process of reincarnation...it can make some sense. But fairies, dragons, elves, etc. are a little harder for me to believe. If you were to believe that there are different dimensions and that these creatures could exist, then that is possible as well. To each his own right?

But otakukin?

For people not familiar with the term "otaku" it is interpreted among anime fans to mean a person who loves/is obsessed with anime. It holds a different and more negative connotation in Japan. Otakukin are people who believe that their soul is that of an anime character. Now I thrive on being an open minded person and I took the time to look up information on otakukin and to lurk around message boards that cater to otakukin, but this is such a farfetched idea for me to grasp.

Anime characters are created by people. They can be based off of people they know (as in the case of Chihiro from Spirited Away). They can be inspired by animals (IE: Some pokemon). They can be based off of elements. They can be based off of historical figures. They can be based off of deities. Or they can be created from thin air. The thing is that they are created. To say that they could exist in other dimensions is to claim that these artists hold psychic powers to pick up on the energies of the universe and mystically created these characters.

So what happens if someone were to claim that their soul was that of Chihiro? Chihiro is based off of a real person...so by that logic you'd be claiming that you were this girl. Or what if someone were to claim they were someone from Romeo x Juliet? Say the playwright, William (who I take to be William Shakespeare). He was a real person. Let's get real farfetched. The goddess Amaterasu from Okami. Yes that's a game but I don't see any difference in the situation. To claim to be a deity is pure insanity.

Let's take this a step further. Why does being 'otakukin' have to only apply to anime characters. Let's expand it to all created characters. Say someone saw my character Sombra and read her description. They could then claim "Hey, I think I am this character". But the problem with that is I created Sombra as a representation of me. So by claiming they are Sombra, they're claiming they're me. My personality is no different than Sombra's (save the fact she's a little more confident than me). Who's to say that an animator didn't create a character to represent themselves then there's these people out there claiming that they're a fictional character.

Now if the issue is that otakukin find themselves relating to a character a lot, that's different. There are characters that I've found I relate to quite a bit. So much so that I could really empathize with the character. However I would never claim to be a fictional character. Even though I feel that I could be a dog therian (though I'm not really taking on the therian label anymore), I would never claim to be a dog. I am not a dog. I'm a human who feels and acts in a canine manner. Whether it's because I'm otherkin or because I have an animal totem trying to get my attention is unknown. It could even be because I have some sort of mild mental disorder for all I care. All I know is that I'm not going to claim to be something that I'm physically not.

If anyone can explain the idea of being a fictional character to me in a way that doesn't sound outlandish, I will definitely open my mind to the concept. But coming in and shouting at the top of your lungs that you are Pikachu or you are Goku and telling me to accept it isn't going to fly with me.

I'd be lying...

...if I said I didn't hold any ill feelings towards religion. When I say 'religion' I can only speak about Christianity because that's the religion I was brought up to 'believe'.

It's a feeling I tried my best to deny, but there's no denying it. If it seems unfair to have such ill feelings towards on religion, then it's true. It is unfair. However Christianity is the only religion I am familiar with, therefore th only religion I can speak about. Now it could be because I'm so cynical of things. I could be because of my pessimism. There are many different reasons why I've developed such strong cynical feelings towards religion so I guess I'll go through all of them.

Hypocrisy:

There is too much of this within the teaching of the church. The biggest of all being the teaching of love towards all men. However this changes meaning over time. The bible was used to justify racism, bigotry, sexism, and any and all types of prejudice (and still is being used to justify racism and sexism). How can one love everyone and claim that they love everyone when they themselves are hating certain groups of people?

The biggest group being discriminated against at this time would have to be gays and lesbians. Those who are homophobic claim that it is God's desire to have man and woman be together and that they are showing homosexuals love by 'telling' them that God hates them. A couple of problems with this idea...One, the bible states that God loves everyone. So for people to claim that God hates a group of people makes no sense. Two, judgement is a right reserved for God and God only. To make judgement on a person without knowing for sure what God is thinking is wrong and also a sin according to the bible.

Free Will:

This can be debated with me 'til the cows come home, but this is my take on the issue.

It is said that God is all seeing and all knowing. He knows what's going to happen to us in our past, present, and future. So the if I were to become very religious, the idea of free will would not make sense to me. How am I supposed to believe that the I had a choice in the decisions that I make if my life has been plotted out for me? Unless my life hasn't been plotted out for me which would mean that God isn't all knowing which according to the bible isn't true.

So the real question would be is it only free will because we don't know what's going to happen? If that's the case then yes, free will is plausible. But for many, they believe that God has plotted out a purpose for everyone. Even non Christians can believe that there is some Higher Power, energy, etc. that has plotted out lives out for us. So in a way we have free will, but it's limited only because we don't know what the future holds for us. But if out lives are plotted out in advance, we can't help what will happen to us. Our life circumstances are set already...set before we were born. Or at least that's what the bible teaches.

Marriage:

I personally can't see marriage as strictly a religious affair. One, because of the family I was raised in and two, because there's so many legal affairs that go along with marriage that it's not purely religious. How is it that an athiest man and woman can get married but a gay couple can not? If a person is an athiest they don't believe in God so they are not going to get married in a church. The church is not the only place for a couple to get married.

Then there's this idea that letting same sex couples get married will "ruin" traditional marriage. How? How is one couple getting married going to ruin your marriage? The concept of marriage has been changed believe it or not. There was a time where people of different races could not get married legally. Blacks were considered less than human and having a relationship with a black person was considered bestiality at a point in time. Now if a black and a white person get married very few people think much about it. It's not a foreign idea.

So why can't the concept of marriage be changed again?

Christians:

When I say this, I do mean actual people who follow Christian teachings. I learn about this religion from the words and actions of others. There's a lot of hypocrisy and contraditions spoken by some of them. Note I say some. Most of my friends are Christians and they are very rational minded people. When I speak of "Christians" I speak of those who yell out from street corners to repent for their sins or else they will burn in hell. Those who spend their lives pretending to show love by showing the hatred in their hearts. Those who preach love but show none. Those who close their hearts to new ideas and hold tight to old traditions for fear that God will smite them. Those who sin and continue to sin, but yell at other for sinning. That's what I mean when I speak of Christians.

I can't stand to see a person's spirit being torn to shreds by people who a so closed minded and cold hearted. By people who are hiding behind the guise of religion while just being a bigot.

(Again, when I speak of these things I'm not saying that all aspects of religion are bad. There are good parts like the parts that teach love and hope. And I'm not saying that all religious people are bad. Just those that use religion to hate on others or judge others.)

I have no real problems with people being religious. I have a problem when people do not accept the hypocrisy or the contradictions. Again, this is a subject I hope to go into further once I've really don't all the reseach I can do. For now these are just my opinions. If anyone reads this and feels sorry for me or feels hate towards me my question woule be 'Why?'. What about me do you pity? Why do you want to hate me for my opinion? And by doing so do you realize that to me you're just proving everything I just said?

And if I haven't said it enough, these are my feelings and opinions. Have a different one? Go ahead and say it in an adult manner. No personal attacks, no immature actions...just calmly state your opinion. You can do your best to persuade me to agree with you, but I highly doubt anyone would succeed.

Misanthropy

I would definitley classify myself as a misanthrope. I don't hint to it much, but I often find myself thinking about how I dislike human society (almost to the point of hatred). I don't and can't understand why some things are the way they are. Why people are so unnecessarily cruel to each other, in both death and life. Politics is a foreign concept to me. It seems so useless. Religion is also so foreign. I could do without it. Too many rules and stipulations...not enough focus on the spirituality. The hypocrisy itself is worthy of it's own blog entry.

As much as I try to understand why people do the things they do sometimes, I just can't. It's an impossible task for me. Why is it okay for people to believe in conflicting ideas? Why is it okay for non-human animals to eat meat, but somehow morally wrong for a human to eat it? Why is it okay for republicans to say something and have it go unnoticed, but if a democrat says the same thing, the republicans get upset about it? Why do people care if others aren't of the same religion as themselves? I could fill this entire entry up with questions I deem important, but that would take so long. I'd love to just ask them to people. Just go up to someone who's very religious and ask them why they would care if I got into heaven or not. Or go up to a pro-life person and ask whether they believe if the mother's life was in danger if she should give up her life for a being that may or may not live and also if they cared for the life of those who were of adult age.

For me, I'll just accept the fact that human society makes no sense and that I'll never feel okay with being a part of it.

A part of my misanthropy comes from feeling not completely human. Whether it's therianthropy or something else I'm not sure. It's something I'm still exploring. All I know is that a part of me doesn't feel 100% human so it gives me a very awkward and perhaps skewed view of humanity. Had I the chance to choose what I wanted to be born as, I definitely would not have chosen human.

But to walk around with this feeling of contempt for what I am is so strange yet normal at the same time. I'm so used to feeling terrible about humanity. But it seems the more I see of the world and how people act towards each other, the stronger that contempt grows. It's impossible at my age to ignore the politics of the world. It's impossible to ignore the hate spewed by supposed "Christians". It's impossible to ignore the bigotry out there. All I can do is deal with it.