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ineffablecrisp · 4 months

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Soviet!Ice Headcanons

I've decided to do a little follow up, hope you enjoy!

Born as Toma Efimovich Kazansky in Odessa, Ukraine

His favorite food is his babushka's borscht and likes to drink more kvass than he should on a daily basis

He and his family left the Soviet Union in 1973, when he was 14 years old

Settled in New York, since it has a large Jewish population

Because of the Soviet Union's disapproval of religions (especially Judaism) he wasn't able to have a proper Bar Mitzvah, so his family quickly joined a shul so he could have one

Being Jewish in America was a strange experience for him- everyone knew how to read the funny looking words in the siddur but he couldn't, since he never learned Hebrew before coming to America. Even amongst Jews he still felt like he didn't fit in because of his background

And also being a Soviet immigrant made him stick out like a sore thumb among his classmates, who were suspicious of the new kid with the funny accent and last name. Over time, he learned how to speak English without an accent so he wouldn't be bullied

Many people have called him slurs. Over time, he figured it's best not to show any emotion. This is one of the reasons why his callsign became Iceman

The other one being that because he speaks Russian, people assume him to be incredibly stoic and completely void of any emotions

Few people know he speaks Russian. Only Slider does, and later, Maverick. Most people who meet him immediately notice the Jewish last name but don't realize right away that he speaks a different language

Preferred to hide his Jewish practices from pretty much everybody. He still observed, but only in private. The only two people he truly felt comfortable enough to open up about this were Slider and Maverick

(not so much Soviet but more Jewish, he and Mav get married under a chuppah much later in the future)

#jewish tom kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #ron slider kerner #top gun 1986 #top gun maverick #might add onto this headcanon in the future #made ice's family come from odessa because that's where my family is from and it's a cool city #it also has a very rich jewish culture #icemav #aaaaaaaaaah can't believe i nearly forgot that tag #also based on this post i think it's safe to say that i did in fact want soviet immigrant tom kazansky

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rotzaprachim · 8 months

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you’re thinking about how easily massive numbers of the wildly antisemitic tankies would have been pulled into the actual political tenets of (esp early to mid 20th century) armed Zionism and you’re laughing?????

#This folks is why analysis of ideology and the structures of an ideology is important #Rather than just random ass ethnic signposting #A lot of people see Zionism as something suspicious and jewy that had to do with Jews - I don’t like them #But the reality of Zionism as an initially distinctly leftist branch of political ideology that sought to liberate an oppressed people #With that tiny niggly wiggly issue of the fact people might #Already have lived on that land???? Ohhhh boy #All these cottage core back to the land the world would be better if I could reject modernity and return to the ancient ways of Farming #Society is broken it cannot be fixed the only option is to found a New Tough society that will fix all our previous problems #And we’ll get round to it in heavily armed leftist commune farming settlements #Which we will defend with violence because any violence in the name of an oppressed people is justified and our legitimacy comes from the #Rifle!!!#The only reason you see this ideology as inherently removed and bizarre is antisemitism and the only reason you see yourself removed from i #Also antisemitism!!!#You would have done numbers in ahdut ha-avoda you would have called Ben gurion abbaleh/#Remember: a bunch of the people who got sucked into this of ideology weren’t the *rich Republican aipac Jews*!*’ your head #They were broke often very secular Jewish leftists working dead end gig economy jobs in farms and sweatshops for whom the idea of a Brave #New World with a. Brave new culture was very appealing and liberating #It offered something new to the broken.#It’s important to talk about this stuff to talk about how it can be undone #But also. The world is not divided into the Oppressed and the Unoppressed #Your political ideology does not stop you from hurting others #No political ideology even anti capitalism or leftism is innately pure- all can harm others #No ethnic and cultural identity no matter how oppressed is free from the potential to subjugate others #No identity or ideology is greater than the right of other people to live freely #Cycles of oppression and the pyramid structure of many empires result in oppressed people harming other oppressed people #Many many goyim think that they’re removed from the logic of Zionism because they aren’t Jews because it’s something wierd and jewy #But I see a lot of the most destructive logics parroted by leftists every day

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queenwille · 2 months

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are you pro-israel/anti-palestine?

hi, first, i appreciate you asking very politely and not assuming things.

i’ll say i’m a zionist, which isn’t an offensive word. i believe in the right of the jewish people for self determination in the form of a jewish state in the land of israel, the promised land of the jewish people.

i find calling israel, the only jewish state in a sea of muslim/christian states, an “ethostate” and mocking the jews for feeling the need in one, as very antisemitic rude and offensive. that goes without mentioning how ignorant and rude it is to claim all jews are white europeans. literally cancelling the whole rich history of the jewish people in the arab countries (which they were mostly chased out of as well).

the need to live within your given or chosen community is such a natural thing, even animals do it. for some reason, when it comes to israel and the jews, it’s wrong. before anyone starts, please let me remind you that within this very large jewish community, there are 2.5 million arabs (mostly muslim, some christian). they share equal rights, a citizenship and an israeli ID/passport. yes, even the sister of the top hamas man (who was arrested this week for having documents and money linked to hamas, a terror organization).

that being said, i am in no shape or form, nor never was i, anti palestine. i think it’s just not as simple as some people who joined the hot trend across the world see it. the state of palestine was never established for many reasons that don’t involve the jewish people. i do mean this when i say i do wish the palestinian people a safe and established land, but it’s simply not that easy. it really isn’t no israel=yes palestine. they have so many other needs other than demolishing the land of israel. their inner conflicts are very much alive to this day (google fatah/hamas conflict), their lack of actual support from neighboring countries and other reasons they have there. they’re really not at a good starting point, but no one ever talks of that. it’s just easier to masturbate to the idea that protesting in favor of demolishing israel and sending +-7,000,000 jews to fuck knows where will be enough.

let me make it clear, the fact that civilians are being killed and hurt breaks my heart. i say this knowing fully well that many took part in the oct7 massacre. generations, on both sides, being brought up with nothing but hate and fear of each other boiled up to this disaster. which is why i find the whole western pro pal movement, spreading fake news and hate and deepening the conflict, as not just offensive, but also very dangerous. for both sides (+diaspora jews). calling hamas freedom fighters and not the terror organization that they are is as dangerous to the palestinians as as it is dangerous to israelis/jews. they are given actual legitimacy for actions that are considered extremist and terror on an international level. yes, they do hide in UN protected facilities, using inocentes as human shields. and when we say the west is next, it’s not just a spicy slogan, it’s not really about the jews, but the western culture.

i am very angry of the way the hostages are being ignored or bluntly canceled (ripping off their posters everywhere). it’s hypocritical and very upsetting. i will also mention that i seriously don’t appreciate using the jewish holocaust and appropriating it’s terms and the well known generational jewish trauma and mocking it.

lastly, i would like to mention that a lot of what’s happening right now around the world just proves the need in a jewish state. being close with an army that’s main goal is protecting its people literally feels safer for jews even under missiles and terror attacks. let me inform you that the main reason that israeli casualties are lower, is the invention of the Iron Dome, operated by the IDF. It has saved thousands of civilian lives since it’s first use. no, it wasn’t hamas’ more humane ways or idk what i read. israel literally spends every last dime to keep it’s people safe, while hamas won’t even let the palestinian people have a safe hospital. instead of mocking our worries and constant feeling of being persecuted and in danger, to the point that a jewish state feels like a life or death matter, maybe try to think what you can do to change that. saying we’re delusional or closing mouths when we claim for antisemitism isn’t helping, and it sure isn’t what’s currently happening in the world and social media.

again, thanks for asking. i have so much more to say and that’s before actually going into current antisemitism or even into october 7th, i just think i’ll stop here for now. i hope this somewhat answers your question.

#ask #anon #israel #also treating many commonly used hebrew words linked to jewish culture #as sweat words or in a mocking way #DONT GET ME STARTED #jumblr #*swear lol

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writingwithcolor · 1 year

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Hello! I am currently developing a villain oc for a universe where superpowers are a normal part of human history and happen regular citizens, written primarily from the perspective of the villains. However, after doing some research, I worry that I may have accidentally made the main villain as an antisemetic character, specifically which dealing with blood libel.

The main villain is an older woman who’s main goal is to stay young in an attempt to live forever, as well as grow extremely rich. Her power allows her to drain the life force of others which kills them and also in turn makes her stronger and younger. She also mainly commits large-scale heists and has gathered herself quite the pool of wealth. To aid her in her plan to become as rich as possible, she had begun to target very young children with powerful abilities and trained them to become near-perfect killing machines.

Now, I feel like it is important to note that:

- She does not harm the children, especially not with her power

- She does not consume blood

- None of her physical features are Jewish-Coded

But even so, I worry that, with the combination of her targeting children, having a near-obsession with wealth, and her power being the ability to drain people of their life energy, that it may come across as antisemetic, which is in no way my intention. Do you have any advice on what I can do to fix this, or is it okay as it is?

Is my villain protagonist playing into blood libel tropes?

Thank you for catching this! You are spot on, all three of those characteristics (stealing children, hoarding wealth and draining others of life) are antisemitic tropes, especially when used together. I’m also getting strong Mother Gothel vibes from this, so you might want to research what Jewish people have said about that character for more insight.

An easy fix is to deliberately and explicitly distance this character from Judaism, probably by having her be part of another religion (though not a real-life marginalised religion or one that could be read as similar to Judaism, please!).

It would also help to have some actually Jewish characters who play positive roles. As a villain, she could even be hostile to these characters to create even more distance.

Good luck and thanks again for spotting this in time!

Shoshi

Agreeing with Shoshi here--in the past, when a villainous character has been in danger of reinforcing antisemitic tropes, I’ve also advised having that character specifically and overtly practice Christianity albeit perhaps in a warped way; specifically Christianity because Christianity originated and perpetuates the blood libel trope in the first place. If you’re writing in a world without real-world religions, avoiding associating this character with an in-universe marginalized religion or ethnic group (or more to the point, specifying her membership in a dominant religious or ethnic group) may serve the same purpose.

Likewise, if you’re writing in a world with real-world religions, having heroic Jewish characters directly opposing her and citing Jewish values as their motivation does a lot to negate any assumption that you intended your villain to be a statement in support of antisemitism. If you’re writing in a world without real-world religions, I’m going to link you to this ask as a caveat:

Jewish characters in a universe with author-created fictional pantheons

But if there is a marginalized religion or ethnic group in your story that does echo Jewish ideas or is overtly Jewish-coded, having heroes with a strong connection with this culture may serve.

Meir

#antisemitism #Jewish #Blood libel #Villains #Jewish tropes #Jewish stereotypes #asks

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alexa-santi-author · 2 years

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Why the "Regency Era" is a fantasy realm

I've seen some interesting discussions back and forth about making historical fiction and particularly historical romance more inclusive, and I do think that there's some merit to the argument that merely inserting BIPOC as part of the ruling class erases many of the historic struggles people went through in terms of both class and race.

However, there's something that people don't seem to realize when it comes to the Regency Era: it's a fantasy realm that was primarily created by a single author.

Just as J.R.R. Tolkien published his Lord of the Rings books and created a world that would loom over the fantasy genre for decades to come, Georgette Heyer created the Regency Era in a way that I think people looking at the romance genre from the outside don't really understand.

Heyer wrote several historical romances and mystery novels prior to 1935, but it was with Regency Buck that she introduced her version of the Regency Era, a version that has actually been far more influential in popular culture than that of Jane Austen. (Most of the Austen adaptations pull more from Heyer than people realize, especially in terms of manners.) Heyer's world is all polite society heroes with a stiff upper lip and perhaps a tinge of rakishness, spirited yet virginal heroines, and a cast of supporting characters that range from younger brothers to elderly aunts.

There are very few hints that anyone outside the aristocracy is of any consequence, or even knows how to behave themselves, even when the middle-class daughter of a rich "Cit" marries an impoverished aristocrat in A Civil Contract. Sex exists, but only behind firmly closed doors and, for the heroines, only after marriage.

And what about the minorities that we know lived in Great Britain during the Regency Era? Not just the racial minorities that included Black citizens and former slaves as well as Indian immigrants, but also religious minorities? They pretty much don't exist in Heyer's world, apart from a few anti-Semitic stereotypes of rapacious Jewish moneylenders that make modern readers cringe when they stumble across an unbowdlerized edition. There are a few jokes and whispers about "unmanly" men, but that's about it for LGBTQIA+ representation as well.

Given what we now know about the Regency Era -- and we know a lot more than Heyer did when she was writing almost a hundred years ago -- we know that her view of Regency society was as artificial as Tolkien's world. Despite her use of historical sources, her romance novels are set in a fantasy world that melds the fashions and historical events of the Regency with the Victorian morals and mores that Heyer herself was raised with. The Regency Era was the late Georgian Era and was far more vulgar and free-wheeling than Heyer was willing to admit. She left out the people who didn't fit into her vision of the Regency, which showed an Anglo-Saxon ruling class that deserved to rule because of their natural superiority.

So my opinion about TV shows and films like Bridgerton and Mr. Malcolm's List that show an inclusive aristocracy in the Regency Era is ... well, it's all fantasy anyway, isn't it? Why not make the fantasy inclusive since the whole era is Heyer's illusion dressed up with a few historical details?

And if you want to try and argue that Heyer was historically accurate about everything, be prepared: I have sources that Heyer either ignored or did not have available to her. Look up Benjamin Silliman's 1803 journal of his trip to Great Britain sometime.

#mr malcolm’s list #historical romance #regency romance #historical romantic fiction #romance genre #diverse romance #bridgerton #georgette heyer

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sygneth · 1 year

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I had this idea for a while now but I didn't really have time to go shoot photos, so finally I just digged through my old photos and found something I could use.

Postcards from Revachol vol. 1

The technique is digital painting on photos (photos are mine as well), don't worry I didn't paint all that

The thoughts behind this project (or a deep and thorough analysis of Revacholian [suppposed] architecture and urbanistic, long):

Ever since I played the game I have been thinking of how Revachol reminds me of my birth city (where I have been living for past 25 years) and I couldn't really get why. But then I started to think. And oh boy, not in a long time was I this happy to be an actual architect.

I know we have never seen any of Revachol besides Martinaise but what we know is that Revachol have been founded around 380 years ago. If the cultural/architectural periods in Elysium are comparable to what happened in our world, that would mean the city's beggings were in something baroque-ish, and it's golden age was probably at the turn of baroque and classicism. What is important is that Revachol is not a medieval city. There is no old downtown with a city wall and narrow, curvy streets. Baroque and classicist cities were all about good planning, composition, wide streets, representative buildings in strategic places, and later also good functional layout and generally being a good-to-live place. We know the city must have been a great, rich place, very representative, as it was said to be the capital of the world. It was a monarchy until the communist revolution some years ago, before the events from the game. What this pattern reminds me of, is actually the history of Saint Petersburg. Also a baroque/clacissist city, also a capital, also got through a communist revolution.

We also know that Revachol, or at least it's parts were based on a mashup of Paris and Tallin (the latter I don't know much about, unfortunately) with some 90's post-communist CEE climate sprinkled on top. Paris has been re-built at some point of its history (around 1850), the streets have been widened, the city structure got more organised, the facades of the buildings gained a characteristic style (there was an actual law how they should all look but it didn't work very well honestly, but still gave the city a more consistent style)

Okay. That was about St. Petersburg, Paris and Tallin. Where is my city in all this mess?

Let me explain.

My own city isn't one of those cities with old boulevards and medieval centers. It was a small city until 1820, when somebody noticed its potential and started to build factories. With the factories, there came workers and with the workers, a need for places to live in. The city developed quickly, but at that time the cities didn't really grow in an uncontrolled manner, it had to be planned. And those plans were mostly inspired by Paris and Saint Petersburg. The tenement houses in my city were practically copied from those one in Paris and the whole urbanistic design of the city was based on the urbanist laws in St. Petersburg. So now you can see why that was important.

Another thing is that both Revachol and my city are cities of immigrants. My own city at some point was said to be "a city of four cultures", are there was a similar number of Jewish, German, Polish, and Russian inhabitants. People came here to work in the factories from all over the country (or rather what have been the area of our country before the annexation, as there was no country of Poland in the XIX century) and they stayed, started families, and started to be from here.

And then, after WWII my country fell behind the iron curtain. In the communist times there have also been major architectural changes in here. Some of the buildings in city center were knocked out, some typical socialist architecture started to appear. In the pretty much city center there is a high-rise residential area of concrete blocks that are 20-something floors high. And looking at those blocks in the distance here really, like really reminded me of this part of my own city. And here we come to another point of this ridiculously long essay, but I guess that is the last of the important ones.

There are no modern-looking skyscrapers in Revachol. Taking the technological level of development on Elysium seems similar to the ~90s in our world, there should be technologies to build high. The thing is, there is either no money for that or no need (or both). I know this is a general tendency of European cities (Paris, Stockholm or Amsterdam doesn't have any modern American-style skyscrapers too), but this was something I noticed about my own city a long time ago before I even considered studying architecture. The highest buildings are those high-rise multi-families, churches, and chimneys. In Revachol we see the chimneys of the power plant as the most prominent thing in the city panorama.

One more thing is the socio-economical aspect of my city. The golden age of the city passed with the XXth century. The city was poor, neglected, and dirty, the city center was a place where people were actually scared to go in the night. There still are parts of the city where I would rather not go after dark. Times have changed, but the renewal of the city takes time, and what we still have, are tones of half-empty tenements, with closed or barely-alive little shops on the ground floors, tired people, and a lot of graffiti everywhere. And especially hearing of Jamrock, I just couldn't take the visions of familiar places I walked myself thousands of times off my head.

(The last one teeny-tiny detail. Unimportant. But if anybody got here, I have to mention it. Remember how I mentioned the industrial character of my city? It was actually mostly the fabric industry.

And we know Precinct 41 has its seat in the old silk factory. That's all. That's all I had to say).

Even though Łódź is not nearly as big as Revachol, I feel like there are particles of her. They are hidden under the roofs of tenement houses, in the abandoned shops, in the smoke of the cigarettes of strangers at bus stops. They are not easy to find and most people will pass by not even noticing. But if you know where to look, maybe they will let you find them.

Or maybe she will find you.

#dear god i wanted to make a simple note on how the idea grew in my head #and I wrote an actuall architectural essay with a moral #why am I like this #i literally spent two hours writing this #i need to get a life #fanart #fanart?#disco elysium #disco elysium fanart #photography #photo edit #art #my art #postcards from revachol #artists on tumblr #revachol #disco talking

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yellowocaballero · 1 year

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I love how your Bruce is traditional but it is also like a mix of different types of traditional. Like he comes across as both "Rich white old money type" traditional AND "member of a marginalized minority group who take great pride in their identity to cope with years of ostracization and going "the world wanted me dead for my culture and religion so i might as well die loud and proud instead of conforming to their unachievable ideals" " traditional

Thank you for this ask, I really love it! I have a shitton to say on this topic, including a lot of worldbuilding decisions on Gotham cultures, immigrant spaces, segregation, how it ended up like 1920s-1930s NYC/Chicago mixed with my own city, Jason "Foil" Todd's Inferiority Complex, but that would make this depressingly long. Long time readers would know that I have, like, really complex and discrete religion headcanons for everybody I write. It's important.

Any decent Batman Story (TM) is about Gotham. It has to be a huge presence. It's like writing Dick Tracy without Chicago, or Cheers without Boston. When he's written well, Batman is a reflection of Gotham, and they metaphorically represent each other.

Most Batman writers get this, so there's always a lot of historical worldbuilding and everything. But I'm a community health person, and I grew up in the inner area of my own very large city, and creating a Gotham that feels real and rich is more complicated than the Court of Owls stuff. For me, cities are the intersection of culture, community, history, oppression/SES/war etc, and the modern day to day lives of people. When I want to make a rich city that was relevant and important to the story, I wanted to focus on immigrants and cultural minorities. You know - the people who create the cities lol. I decided on a history that involved the idea that Jewish families were the oldest in Gotham, and that they were one of the people to help create it and influence its culture.

I read a Daniel Handler quote just now that said "there is something naturally Jewish about unending misery". What is more Batman, Bruce, and Gotham than that, lol. The Jewish diaspora experience - the traditional history just as you outlined it in your ask - is baked into Gotham, it's the foundation. Gotham is a city of unending misery, but it's a city that stands tall. It takes a thousand hits and always gets back up again. People within it experience unending poverty and suffering, but they stand together. Just fucking refuse to die, as a whole. What's more Jewish than that! What is more Batman than that! Gotham should always be allegorical for Batman and Bruce, and through Gotham existing in that traditional Jewish experience, I think that's where you got the impression of Bruce as very traditional too.

Tim and the Drakes are the modern reflection of this. I was extremely explicit that Tim is alone in the world because of the Holocaust. I talk a lot in the story about how war and violence destroy children's lives, and that stretches back to the 1940s. About how war and violence creates violent children, which is what Tim became. His acting out was from the trauma of seeing his family slaughtered in front of him, and like a lot of people he used his religion to justify it.

There's a reason why the very first moment when Tim and Bruce actually connect as a family is when they find kinship and understanding through their shared backgrounds and values. They both saw their families slaughtered, they're both alone in the world - but they found each other, and they'll keep living.

OK BELIEVE IT OR NOT THAT'S THE SHORT VERSION. Seriously, though, I'm not. Uh. Actually fucking Jewish. This is like the fourth time I've talked out of my ass about this. I'm actually really interested in reading about the actual Jewish themes in Batman, because from what little I know they HAVE to be there. Any smart people out there who know about it, or who can link something written about it?

#tw holocaust #my asks #my writing #fwiw I think of Bruce as an atheist and Tim as pretty religious #I always write Bruce as really alienated from his Jewish heritage/culture #and his relationship with Tim (or jason in rr) reconnecting him with that #in nw that generational trauma is also why tim's parents weren't great parents.#heartbreaking! 25 years ago your mom was a survivor!#sucks.#i think i accidentally started thinking of tim as religious #because of that one time i wrote him as having come back from the dead after killing himself #and like anybody would get into god after that. and it stuck a bit for me #new story covid puppy Tim makes like an extremely smug point to call judaism dumb #kid has stuff going on.#hm I think I may have very persistent themes of returning to religion and religious heritage as a method of healing #not gonna psychoanalyze that! bye!#i feel like a fucking fanfic writer conservative for all i talk about masculinity and jesus

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luminalunii97 · 1 year

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Racism of the Islamic Republic regime

Something that has been neglected in topics of protests in Iran is racism. It is often left out of discussions by those of us in or outside of Iran who weren't the direct victims of these antihuman crimes. There's a huge difference between human rights violations in central Persian cities and border non-Persian ones. Persians and other ethnic groups who live in central areas are the targets of enough antihuman acts by this regime that shows the terrorist face of them, just imagine how everything is ×100 worse in non-central areas. Here are some examples:

Arabs in the south: it is estimated that more than 2 million Arabs live in iran. This ethnic minority is severely oppressed and violated. The regime has been capturing and executing Arabs and Arab activists with no clear reason other than being criminal dictators themselves, like how they've been violating and killing Kurds and Balochs in the past 4 decades. Many Arab families have been forcefully moved and pushed to corners, literally in a geographic sense. Racism exist in the Iranian populations like any other country and nation in the world. But it is promoted and supported by the regime. Jina revolution has brought this issue to attention and social activists are doing anti racist activism now, something that wasn't addressed enough before.

Kurds in the west: people of Kurd never accepted the authority of this regime and fought their forces with all their might. Many Kurds citizens and Kurd activists have been the victims of government murder or long imprisonments simply for being freedom fighters. Also, kurds are denied many legal and social rights in Iran, for example not getting hired by governmental organizations, unless they sell their souls to the regime. Because of this many highly educated Kurds can't find a job and they're forced into doing unrelated or illegal labor that often gets them killed. To understand the severity of this issue I recommend you read this article "koolbars new slaves" thoroughly.

Balochs in the east: people of Baloch are victims of the IR regime's racism towards our neighbors, Afghans and Pakistanis. The regime refuses to provide ID papers for Balochs with the excuse that they might be Afghan and not Iranian. The Balochistan province is kept extremely underdeveloped by the regime to the point that many people don't have drinking water there. Kurd and Arab cities are also kept underdeveloped even though most of those areas are rich with natural resources that could easily be used for development. Since many Baloch people are denied id papers they have no legal rights and the regime often gets away with whatever human rights violations, like executions, r*pe, and torture, they do there. Other than the issue of legal rights, the islamic republic had been very successful in isolating Balochistan and keeping the rest of the world including the rest of Iran of knowing who Balochs are and what is really going on in that region. Jina revolution has also brought the issues in Balochistan to attention.

Aside from these intentional neglects, the language and culture of these ethnicities are under attack by the regime.

Other ethnic groups in Iran face discrimination to different degrees by IR. One thing that plays a great role in the level of racism by the regime is religion. Sunni Muslims are very hated and suppressed by the Islamic Republic here. Therefore kurd cities with a majority of Sunni Muslim population face a worse fate than the majority of shia cities. The regime also spreads a lot of hate towards sunni Muslims by accusing them of fanaticism and animosity which used to work on the old shia religious population. Kurds, Balochs, Arab and Turkmens in Iran have the majority sunni Muslim population. They are also the most repressed. Apart from sunni Muslims, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Baha'i and christian believers face discrimination in different ways by the regime.

The only way a war against big criminal bullies like the Islamic Republic can be won is by coming together and unite as people regardless of race, religion, sexuality and gender. Something that seemed not possible 2 years ago but Jîna revolution showed us that it is very much a possibility. We still have a lot of work to do but people took the first step in unity and solidarity. I recommend you read the article below twice to see the dept of what's going on in Iran and why the Islamic Republic overthrow and this revolution is vital to many marginalized people:

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thegraphitepencils · 2 months

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i dont know much about Judaism, and i'd love to hear anything you have to say ^^

Hii sorry this is late, we have been packing to move tomorrow !! so we got busy lol

It’s hard to distill everything I love about Judaism into one post, but I’m gonna do my best to give the broad strokes.

Judaism isn’t just a religion, or just a culture. It’s both and it’s beyond. It’s a rich history, a touchstone for a people that have been dispersed and oppressed all over the world and still manage to stay resilient and connected. Jewish community varies so heavily all around the world, European Jews and African Jews and Middle Eastern Jews and Asian Jews etc, so many gorgeous unique traditions. Yet they have the same core, a thread of the same history. You feel like you’re cousins with someone on the other side of the planet who doesn’t share your native language. You connect through sharing food and joy and sorrow and holy days and ancient prayers and the ancestors who first said them. If your nuclear family is shit, then you still have a family in every other Jew around the world.

And converts are part of that family too! It’s said that all Jewish souls, including future ones, were present at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, and that includes converts. Converts are to be treated as if they were always Jewish as soon as they convert, and you can feel a familiarity in them as soon as they begin their study. It’s very hard to convert, there is so much to learn and it can take years, and converts are revered for that dedication.

Judaism is a culture focused on education, critical thinking, charity, respect, peace, community, kinship. Even in the most stringent orthodox communities, communities with strict gender roles, I know I’ll be safe as a queer trans person even if they don’t fully understand my identity. They may possibly disagree with me (but they may not! there are many queer & ally Orthodox Jews!) but they’ll definitely keep me safe, which is something I can’t honestly say about wider leftist spaces.

It’s a genuine miracle that Judaism has lasted thousands of years after countless genocides and forced fleeing. So many cultures with similar stories to ours have been completely wiped out. But through a mix of tradition and adaptability in equal parts, a dedication to observe our tradition no matter the circumstances, this culture has prevailed and always will. Everyone who tried to kill us for good has failed and always will. There’s something so invigorating and empowering about that, as horrible as all the tragedy has been and continues to be.

Speed round of some Judaism fun facts!

- The Hebrew calendar is based on the lunar cycle, instead of solar like secular time. Currently it’s the year 5784, and the 6th day of Nisan. (Or maybe 7th by now?? Our days also begin at sundown!)

- Our most significant holidays, the High Holy Days, happen in the September-October range

- Virtually any commandment is permitted to be broken if following it could endanger someone’s health. Preservation of human life is beyond all other law. This is known as pikuach nefesh, “to save a soul.”

- The phrase “chosen people” gets misunderstood by gentiles a lot. We like to say we were “chosen to do the dishes.” We get the hard work of following a bunch of commandments gentiles don’t have to, in order to be so dedicated to doing good that we inspire the whole world to do good in their own way. It’s important to note that there is no concept of eternal damnation in Judaism, and there is no consequence for not being Jewish! We don’t proselytize, we don’t see our religion as “the correct one.”

And some recommendations for you!

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (co-founder of ao3!) is a Jewish fantasy novel, mixing multiple classic fairytales with dangerous fae creatures in a Slavic inspired setting. It’s gritty and dark yet so full of warmth and love, with some of the best female characters I’ve encountered in any media. It has so many little bits of Jewish culture sprinkled throughout that makes me giddy to see. And it also has THE best representation of the shape of antisemitism, how it operates and feels to experience. I cannot sing its praises enough.

Karov by Batya Levine is an album we’ve been listening to a lot this past week. Batya is a queer Ashkenazi musician inspired by historic Jewish music, and their stuff is absolutely beautiful. I’m a big fan of these lyrics from them: “we are good, we are flawed, we are the breath of an imperfect G-d.”

Thank you sm for sending an ask, I hope you enjoyed my ramblings!! -Riley

#jumblr

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drumlincountry · 9 days

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in the og script patrick's character description says he's jewish 🤷🏻‍♀️ and zweig is a culturally jewish last name anyway

all this to say i think it's meant to contrast art's WASPiness. art has a superrr american name, classic easy to market good old money american (which helps his pro career). Patrick being catholic would contrast this pretty interestingly as well tho given the catholic - protestant dynamic.

but with either interpretation, Patrick's first and last name's etymology cement him and his outsider status in the world of tennis, despite his family's wealth since tennis is considered a WASPy game. but he's still a rich white man at the end of the day and is able to float around the pro circuit aimlessly without having to try. unlike Tashi who is seen as the true successor to women's tennis and was able to get there all on her own, no pretenses. she's a low/middle class Black woman and not some rich tennis boarding school kid (like art and patrick). culture, class, and race are just barely explored in this film but it's all very interesting

anon I am kissing you on the mouth, if you're into that kind of thing!!!

I am fascinated by the class aspects of the film but as u say they are lightly touched on & for myself I don't know USA class markers except thru media so I probably miss a lot.

The way class/race/gender plays into Tashi's story is soOooo!!!! Tennis was something she succeeded at in spite of the ways ppl look down on her. It's in her first lines in the film - her competitor was a racist bitch and a sore loser! She's aware how her race influences how ppl treat her on the court and she is not afraid to speak on it.

Typing it now, I wonder if that was a bit of a test for the boys. Like "you seem interested in me. Can you be normal about me experiencing racism? Can you be normal about me being angry about it?" All that as a teenager!

Tennis was a way to force people to see her not just as an equal, but in the sport, as a better. She's better than all of them! She's the best. And then she loses that. Ugh this adds so much more to the "you're not a member of my fan club?" Scene.

Patrick can be both Jewish and irish American! I vote we explore that one. There's so much to say about the conditional nature of the white privilege Jewish ppl can have in the global north - I usually leave that to my Jewish friends to explore but I Have Heard About It! The actor has Jewish & irish heritage fwiw.

Also fascinated with Patrick's relationship with his generational wealth. Like, clearly he has it. Ppl reference it. But he has eschewed it to pursue tennis. His family have decided he can be a rich man or he can be a tennis player (third option=getting a different job. Unexplored). He has made the choice that results in sleeping in his car and not EATING between competitions.

Like that seems like dramatics of a man who has never known true precarity. and yeah partially! But also, have you heard of financial abuse? I had friends in college studying degrees they didn't want for careers they hated the idea of. Because generational wealth meant they didn't qualify for financial support from the state. Leaving them dependent on parents who can withdraw their support at any time if they do something which looks Bad for the Family. The capacity for abuse in these situations is staggering. And yeah, he could get a "real" job. He'd have an easier time doing that than ppl without his class background. But the man would literally rather starve. And he is.

I would love to know what u think of Art's class background! I feel its least explicitly explored of the 3. I saw someone saying he didn't come from money at all and I thought That's Not Right I Saw His Grandmother's Ring. But I really can't say beyond that

#Seriously anon this is exactly the convo I wanted when I posted that....this is some Good Fucking Food #Challengers #challengers 2024 #Me Fein #Film

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gold-snek-hoe · 11 months

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*Deep inhale*

So

Here's why YOU should read The Hollow Kingdom (and why it's cool if it's not your cup of tea)

1. Clare B. Dunkle is a sweetheart and trans-friendly! I've personally spoken to her via email and she made me cry, she's so nice.

2. Are you tired of goblins that are all little green one-note Jewish stereotypes? Tired of goblins that are evil, meant only to be killed? What if, instead, there's a fascinating and rich lore to them, and they're portrayed sympathetically (though by no means morally black and white, more on that later). Goblins in The Hollow Kingdom are diverse and they extravagant fashion. You want goblincore? Here's your goblincore.

3. Morally nuanced characters. Even the most vile of people can have some sympathetic qualities, and the even the kindest character can do something awful. Even my faves have made me seethe.

4. There's a catboy. Seylin my beloved. He carries the brain cell through the third book.

5. Maybe this one's just me projecting, but I think the Goblin King Marak is so, so autistic coded. He's honest, sometimes brutally. He doesn't understand a lot of human customs. He takes things literally. He has a strong sense of justice. He can be pretty emotionally dysregulated.

6. He's also a huge, sassy bitch and kind of an idiot, but that's just a personal preference.

7. Themes of misconception and villianization of other cultures/groups and finding common ground.

8. Fellow monsterfuckers, stop sleeping on this goldmine of simp material. There's even a sad emo elf dude in the third book. Not to my taste, but I'm sure there's plenty of people who would love him.

TW below for mentions of kidnapping:

NOW, there are very questionable relationship dynamics in these books, which I totally get might be a deal breaker. There's a lot of kidnapping women, huge age gaps, and a general lack of consent, though no explicit r*pe, thankfully. It's all still gross, and there's no situation in which kidnapping your wife is morally acceptable. Part of the reason I self-ship with the goblin King is because I'm an enthusiastically consenting party, unlike his canonical wife Kate. So yeah. You're so valid if this isn't cool.

I also understand that Goblins have an unfortunate historical link to antisemitism, which might make people turn off from the idea of them in fiction entirely. That is also valid. I personally think goblins *can* be handled well, going back to my earlier selling point. It's sad that a lack of antisemitic rhetoric is a selling point, but this is the world we live in, and I'll take what I can get. I still understand if you're not interested.

But if none of this turns you off, I'd highly recommend this series. No piece of fiction is perfect, but there's a lot of good here, and I think Tumblr could get a good deal of Fandom milage out of it if y'all gave it a look.

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cherrybombfangirlwrites · 1 year

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The City is Ours ; a WIP Intro

(New and Improved Re-Introduction!)

Genre and Setting

low urban sci-fi, superheroes, dark sci-fi ; set in big city somewhere northern on a US coast, I'm cautiously giving the city the placeholder name Henderson, modern times

Playlist

POV

third person limited, multiple characters (about 5-6)

Status and Length

First Drafts, roughly 2k ; 5 book series, no idea what the wordcount will be yet, maybe 100k per book?

Tropes and Themes

chaotic teenage superheros, domesticity in between the action, 2012-13 Avengers Tower fic vibes, found family but they're all dumbasses, villain arcs and redemption arcs galore, reluctant villians, superhero team but they're all lower middle class, POC disabled Jewish and Muslim and queer representation, "don't die or i'll kill you", heroes and villains and the chaos that ensues ; are you the hero or the villain, what's the difference between good and evil (is it who's telling the story?), forgiveness and redemption, saving the world vs saving yourself and your family, exploring morality

Warnings and Rating

guns, potential depictions of torture, superhero genre typical violence, blood, depictions of discrimination and bigotry (towards super-powered people mostly), trauma and mental health issues including possible depictions of panic attacks, and a whole fuck ton of angst ; Teen and Up

Main Characters

Nickelle Takahashi (she/her)

Team Leader, Superhero Name: The Icicle

Ice Powers

Japanese American, AroAce, lead singer in a local rock band

the leader who puts way too much pressure on herself, and who will do everything for the people she loves

Asher Romero-Cruz (he/him)

Team Dad, Superhero Name: The Flashlight

Light and Shadow Powers

Gay, Christian, Latino American, LEGO and Star Wars nerd

the Dad Friend of the team who is always looks out for everyone. Has a civilian boyfriend

Gabriella Wilson (she/her)

Team Cheerleader/Suit Designer

No Powers

CisHet, White with long blond hair, very talented sewer and fashion designer

the blonde bimbo who is super supportive of everyone and will be your wing woman ride or die

Kylee Trimble (she/they)

Youngest Teammate, Superhero Name: Now-Ya-See-Her-Girl

Speed and Invisibility Powers

Redhead with pale skin and freckles, Nearsided with Glasses, Nonspeaking Autistic, PanAce, Artist

the artist who is afraid of opening up and being her authentic self around others

Bryson Barns (he/him)

Team Medic, Superhero Name: The Healer

Healing Powers

Black, token straight that's on thin ice, Diabetic (Type 2)

the very tired healer who can heal all physical injuries, but he can't heal himself or mental injuries and struggles with accepting that

"V" Talić (they/them)

Team Cool Big Sibling, Superhero Name: Morph

Shapeshifting Powers

Muslim, Nonbinary Lesbian, Bosnian American, Soccer Jock

Impulsive and reckless, the one who always has crazy ideas for getting out of sticky situations. Struggles with fitting in with their culture/family while also being themselves

Jason Richens (he/him)

Team Asshole, Superhero Name: Hotshot

Fire Powers

CisHet (and an asshole about it)

Thinks he's special because his dad is rich, his character only exists to be bashed

Chase Silverstone (he/they)

Team Hacker and Tech Expert, Superhero Name: TechGuy

No Powers

PanAro, Jewish, Romani American, Bipolar Disorder and OCD, Anxiety and Depression

The team techie who struggles with asking for help and dealing with his mental health issues and taking care of himself

Antagonists

Black Hole - Main Antagonist of Book 1. Alien from Pluto, trying to take over earth as a last ditch extra credit project for his AP Government class. Can absorb any attack and reflect it back

Miss Recluse - Recruited by Black Hole. Has the human sized body of a Brown Recluse spider and the head of a human and poisonous fangs. Can do everything a spider does, and is a bit of a drama queen. Besties with The Magician

The Magician - A sorcerer from the dark ages who accidentally transported himself to the future with no way back. Uses a lot of dark magic that includes illusions- favorite spell to use is blue fire that is immune to water and can burn through metal and stone. Dr. Strange meets Dr. Faciler.

Mr. Cyanide - Recruited by Black Hole, eventually becomes a solo high level threat villain, main antagonist of book 2. Mad scientist with a deadly knack for chemistry. Only cares whether his experiments work, couldn't care less if they hurt or kill people.

Boss Lady - a Mafia boss who is colossally tall and wide, and incredibly strong. Big stronk woman who is working with/for the Snow Queen (her loyalties or questionable). Does have standards but also tortures people for the fun of it so....?

Blood Debt - Loner (mainly) vigilante who rides around on a motorcycle and kills anyone who he sees fit is deserving of dying, or whoever he gets paid to kill. Does jobs for the Snow Queen, and under the mask he is someone one of the heroes is very close with...

Nightmare - a small time, low threat villain that doesn't actually hurt anyone. Her powers put people to sleep and she takes their energy from them. A freshman/sophomore college student with an engineering major. More of an anti-hero vigilante if you squint.

The Snow Queen - The big bad for the last three books. Only an urban legend/rumor until the last two books. Has ice powers that can control tech and people. No one knows her identity and she is holed up in her lair most of the time, sending minions/Boss Lady or Blood Debt to do anything outside the lair. She is someone all of the heroes know very well :)

Plot

A bunch of rookie teenage superheroes and their journey to becoming the heroes and protectors of their city, and eventually the world, and most importantly- a family. With all of the chore rotations, late night grocery runs, fights for the shower, and everything else that happens along with the action. Full of full scale super powered fights, betrayals and confrontations, cool tech and superpowers, and everything we love about the superhero genre.

Book 1 - The Initiation

Book 2 - The Hunter or Hunted

Book 3 - The Shadows

Book 4 - The Snow Queen

Book 5 - The Forsaken

(all the titles are placeholder titles for now)

Extra Stuff

Chase is a caffeine addict and not only can, but has on multiple occasions mixed coffee and energy drinks

Kylee uses sign language or a text to speech app to communicate, or if she has neither goes old school and writes things down

the city is based on a combination of Chicago and Gotham City

Nickelle has two younger siblings, a brother and a sister who are inseparable, 8 and 5 years old

Nickelle also has a huge extended family that's more traditional and she has to tone down her punk look for family gatherings

Asher's boyfriend is Damian. Damian finds out about his partner's double superhero life when Asher saves him in the mask, and like a dumbass, Asher forgets to turn on his voice modifier and Damian recognizes his voice immediately

Damian is also a Chekhov's Civilian and becomes a vital part of the plot

Nightmare and V have a little enemies to lovers romance that's mostly in the background is is really just there for comedy

The Magician gets a redemption arc and becomes the Hero Team's weird morally gray uncle

Kylee has a brother who is in the US Navy. He is one of the few people that she is comfortable being fully unmaksed around at the beginning of the books, and he is deployed during the events of the books.

Bryson has a weird relationship with his dad, who raised him all by himself and is a full time EMT. Bryson really wants to tell his dad about his double superhero life because it's driving a wedge between him and his dad, but it's not safe and Bryson's not sure how his dad will react

And finally, some memes for your viewing pleasure:

~~~

The City is Ours Taglist: @friendlyneighborhood-writer @jessica-writes22 @rose-bookblood @yejidoesthings @space-writes

General Taglist: @enchanted-lightning-aes @thatprolificauthor @wip-nook @writeblrsupport

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mariacallous · 6 months

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When Liebman’s Delicatessen opened on 235th Street in 1953, the Bronx was still sometimes called “the Jewish Borough.” More than half a million Jews lived between Mott Haven and Riverdale, and according to the 70-year-old deli’s website, they were served by 100 kosher delis. Today, Liebman’s is the last one standing.

“I ask myself a lot: ‘why are we the one that survived?’” Yuval Dekel, who has owned the deli for 20 years, told The Nosher. “Certainly because we’re in Riverdale, which is still a Jewish community.”

He surveys the restaurant, where nearly all 60 blue naugahyde seats are occupied by neighborhood regulars over 60, noshing on pastrami to the strains of ‘50s jukebox hits. “We’re a deli that has regular New York City resident customers. We’re not a tourist destination.”

Dekel, one of the youngest people in the room, took a circuitous route to becoming a deli man. Born in Haifa in 1978, he arrived in the Bronx two years later with his father, who immigrated with hopes of becoming an entrepreneur. A business broker helped the family find Liebman’s, which had foundered under a string of owners after Joseph Liebman sold it in the late ‘50s.

Though Dekel’s father (also named Joseph) was of Romanian descent, he knew little about the Ashkenazi foodways of New York. “I don’t even think he knew about delis,” Dekel said. “In Israel, there’s no deli culture.” Joseph Dekel added Israeli dishes like falafel and hummus to the menu, but took pains to preserve the deli classics, too.

For his part, Yuval Dekel was a metalhead. He was the drummer for Irate, a well-loved New York City thrash band, touring up and down the East Coast, throughout Europe and Japan, and playing at iconic downtown clubs like CBGB in the ‘90s.

“It was pretty hardcore,” Dekel laughs. “Very serious moshing going on. Quite a different environment from this.”

But during his entire stint as a metal drummer, Dekel also supported himself by working as a baker at Amy’s Bread and the original U.S. location of Le Pain Quotidien, developing a serious commitment to artisanal foods. When his father died in 2002 and Dekel took over Liebman’s, his first priority was the quality. He wanted to make sure that every dish on the menu, from sandwiches to stews, got its due.

“One thing that differentiates us from — let’s say Katz’s — is we pay a lot of attention to not just the pastrami,” Dekel said. “Don’t get me wrong, I spent years figuring out how to make our own. But there’s this whole other side to us, which is basically a full-service kosher diner.”

Liebman’s excels in the kinds of homey dishes that tend to be afterthoughts for the best-known pastrami pushers. Stuffed cabbage, stewed in a sweet-and-sour sauce and piled with melting onions and plump raisins, falls apart at the slightest pressure from a fork. On Fridays, Dekel serves cholent, the slow-cooked Shabbat stew.

That’s not to say the deli classics can be missed. Dekel began curing his own pastrami several years ago, after the number of high-quality suppliers had dwindled. The deli slices it thin so that slivers of the smoked meat’s dark crust are evenly interspersed on a sandwich. On the Liebman’s Favorite platter, pastrami is piled high on an open-faced slice of rye, accompanied by fries — thick-cut, pleasantly greasy shards of potato — and kishke (stuffed derma) slathered with brown gravy. It’s an unbelievably hefty plate of food that reminds you the object of a Jewish deli is excess.

Daintier deli classics abound. Liebman’s tender matzah balls float in a rich broth slicked with beads of schmaltz. Hebrew National franks sizzle and blister on a foil-lined griddle in the front window, ready to be garnished with sinus-clearing brown mustard, sauerkraut, coleslaw or — a Liebman’s favorite — a scoop of potato salad. Old timers pick at artfully arranged cold cut platters of sliced tongue, corned beef and kosher salami.

Homemade knishes are of the circular variety, bearing little resemblance to the squared-off “Coney Island” knishes provisioned by wholesalers to hot dog carts across the city. Like all knishes, they are dense starch-delivery systems. But a Liebman’s knish is well-seasoned, and its crust is flaky and pastry-like.

With all of his attention focused on food, Dekel says he struggled with the business side of the operation originally. But a loyal base of customers helped him through his mistakes, and the deli has hit its stride again, getting attention from critics and influencers, and even making an appearance on “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” in 2014. Dekel is planning to open a Westchester County location this year, marking the first expansion of Liebman’s in its seven-decade history.

It seems only right that Liebman’s should be the last deli in the Bronx. A mid-century time capsule, it was reinvigorated by Israeli cooking and by Dekel’s do-it-yourself spirit.

“In some cases, being the last one standing doesn’t mean you were the best,” he says. “But I happen to think that we deserve it.”

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homomenhommes · 6 months

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 24

1632 – Baruch Spinoza, the Dutch philosopher was born on this date (d. 1677). One of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, he laid the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism. By virtue of his magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, Spinoza is also considered one of Western philosophy's definitive ethicists. He was raised and educated in the Orthodox Jewish fashion, also studying Latin and was thoroughly familiar with European humanism.

What exactly is it that caused him to be excommunicated from the synagogue when he was only 24 years old? Many scholars have speculated that the horror Spinoza inspired in the Jewish community may have come not only from his espousal of advanced economic theories, but from his espousal, as well, of Greek love among impressionable students in the liberal circle where he taught. A Dutch physician, J. Roderpoort, wrote at The Hague in 1897: "Spinoza excites the youth to respect women not at all and to give themselves to debauchery." Was Spinoza merely teaching the Greek and Roman classics, with their inevitable passages on pederasty? What were Roderpoort's motives for discrediting the Jewish philosopher? Was Spinoza, in fact a pederast? It's all open to speculation.

1930 – Albert Wolsky is an American costume designer. He has worked both on stage shows as well as for film, and has received two Academy Awards, for his work on the films All That Jazz and Bugsy.

Wolsky was born in Paris, France, but during World War II, he and the rest of his family fled to the United States to escape the German occupation. After graduating from the City College of New York, he served in the army from 1953–56, spending most of his enlistment in Japan. Once he returned to the United States, he began working in his father's travel agency. However, he decided to change careers and took an assistant's job with notable costume maker Helene Pons.

Wolsky became a well-regarded costume designer, working both on Broadway and in the motion picture industry.

His longtime partner was actor James Mitchell.

1940 – Arthur Tress, American photographer, born. The uncompromising, poetic imagery of American photographer Arthur Tress is the stuff of dreams, called forth from the artist's reckoning with the world and his place in it.

A New Yorker, he began his photographic career at age twelve, making snapshots of dilapidated mansions and Coney Island decay. An introverted child of divorce, Tress moved between two worlds--his lower-class mother's neighborhoods and his nouveau riche, remarried father's more prosperous one, observing and eventually photographing both milieus.

As he recalls, from a very young age he was already aware that his sexuality was different from most of his classmates and he was drawn to subject matter that was similarly marginalized and different.

During his studies at Bard College, Tress explored painting and filmmaking but was ultimately committed to still photography. Although he worked in a documentary style, from the beginning his imagery was characterized by a surrealist sensibility.

After graduation Tress traveled the world, in part financed by his father and also supporting himself by making ethnographic and documentary images. During his travels he became increasingly influenced by his experience of other cultures, particularly in matters of spirituality and consciousness.

Tress's first book, The Dream Collector (1972), was an attempt to visualize children's dreams, often featuring children whom Tress had interviewed as models. His second book, Shadow: A Novel in Photographs (1975), showed "portraits" of the photographer's shadow and explored the idea that the shadow literally and metaphorically represented one's dark side.

Theater of the Mind (1976), which included an essay by his friend and mentor, gay photographer Duane Michals, explored adult fantasies and marked the introduction in Tress's work of overtly erotic imagery. As Tress explained, he sought to make "photographs [that] attempt to make explicit . . . sexual passions and ironies."

"Superman Fantasy"

Around 1972 Tress consciously began to include what he called "the more intimate spheres of a gay sexuality and homoerotic fantasy life." Facing Up (1977-1980), alternately titled Phallic Phantasy, was Tress's first explicitly conscious exploration of his sexuality in which he exclusively photographed male nudes.

"Groom with White Arabian"

Many of these images were included in Tress's homoerotic homage, Male of the Species: Four Decades of Photography of Arthur Tress (1999), which culls imagery from Tress's forty-year career of exploring the male body and sexuality. The sensual photographs, sequenced in a loose narrative of experience from youth to death, matter-of-factly infuse male sexuality with humor and irony.

In contrast, Tress's obsessive constructions made and photographed for the Hospital series (1984-1987) are a garish, nightmarish reckoning with health-related issues and death in the era of AIDS.

1954 – James Lecesne is an American actor, author, screenwriter, and LGBT rights activist best known for his screenplay of the Academy-award winning short film Trevor. He has written several books including Absolute Brightness and Virgin Territory, and is also active in the entertainment industry as an actor and producer.

Lecesne wrote the 1995 short film Trevor, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. He based the screenplay for Trevor on a character from his one-man show Word of Mouth. Also in 1995, Word of Mouth won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. Word of Mouth was directed by Eve Ensler.

In 1998, on the night Ellen DeGeneres hosted the television debut of Trevor on HBO, Lecesne co-founded and launched The Trevor Project as the first nationwide 24-hour crisis intervention lifeline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth, including phone, in-person and online life-affirming resources such as Trevor Lifeline, TrevorChat, TrevorSpace, Ask Trevor and Trevor Education Workshops. The Trevor Project has been supported by a wide variety of celebrities, including Daniel Radcliffe, Neil Patrick Harris, James Marsden, Kim Kardashian, George Takei, and Anderson Cooper.

1984 – Wolf Hudson is a Dominican American film director, street dancer and pornographic actor of heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual films.

Hudson started his adult film career in 2006 at age 22 in New York when he was cast by Michael Lucas in the Lucas Entertainment project Michael Lucas' Auditions Vol. 22. He moved to San Francisco in early 2007 to focus on his career in the pornographic film industry full-time and to work for gay pornographic film studio Factory Videos.

In August 2008, he co-starred in the GayVN Award-winning bisexual film Shifting Gears , directed by Chi Chi LaRue. The film stirred up controversy when the term "Straight-for-pay" (a play on word for Gay-for-pay) was coined to reference performer Blake Riley's first encounter with a woman (Shy Love) and liking it. Riley received most of the criticism, but so did Hudson and LaRue.

Hudson appeared in the third season of the Canadian TV show Webdreams , which followed Jet Set Men directors Chris Steele and Chad Donovan.

Hudson turned down an offer to appear on a January 22, 2009, episode of The Tyra Banks Show concerning Gay-for-pay performers. He expressed his reservations about appearing because of how the show could twist things around to make the guys look bad.

Hudson identifies himself as heterosexual, even going as far as to call himself a "sexualist" instead of gay-for-pay. He is quoted as saying, "I am not conventional. I am not fully straight because I do gay porn, but I'm not bi because I don't date men in my personal life. I define myself as a 'sexualist'. I think Chi Chi LaRue came up with that term and it works for me."

1991 – Freddie Mercury, lead singer for Queen, died of complications from AIDS. It was only the day before that he acknowledged that he had the disease. He left most of his estate to a former girlfriend, Mary Austen, who cared for him during his final months

2015 – The Vietnamese National Assembly passes a law that allows those who have undergone sex reassignment surgery to register under their preferred sex. However, sex reassignment surgery is illegal in Vietnam. The law comes into effect in 2017.

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mask131 · 7 months

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On the one hand I am monstrously sad to be living in a time when the extreme-right and the extreme-left coexist as threats. On the other hand, I am kind of glad, because it allows me to see the exact workings of each of the extremes, and despise them both as much.

I mean, for the extreme-right it is very obvious why they're bad, ever since World War II we know what we're getting. But the extreme-left? It could be a bit harder to see, especially since the left defends the "good" principles like defending minorities, fighting against oppresors, equality for everyone, diversity everywhere... And yet we now have the extreme-left right in our face, showing how it can take those good principles and twist them, abandoning the "equality" and "diversiy" part for hypocritical ersatz.

The most revealing example - which was discussed about and evoked as a threat LONG BEFORE the whole Israel-Hamas conflict reignited itself - is how the extreme-left is known as antisemitic. You start thinking "Heck, why? It makes no sense! The extreme-left defends racial and religious minorities, and the Jews are known as one of the most persecuted and hated minorities in the world's history, so the left couldn't possibly be against them!".

But here's the twist... The left is against the "elite". Real or imaginary. The left is like a Robin Hood defending "the poor, the weak, the helpless", and will as such attack those that look wealthy or seem powerful, even when they're not. Comes in nice Lady Antisemitism, and the extreme-left starts shouting the same conspiracy theory and insane beliefs that the extreme-right used to shout. "There's too much Jews in the finances and the politics" ; "Jews are wealthier than regular folks, everybody knows that!", "Everybody knows the Jews control the media". And so, the extreme-left turns the persecuted minority into yet another elite of wealth and power who secretly controls the media - and decides they are an enemy to be taken down. Resulting in the exteme-left becoming a twin of the extreme-right.

This "We fight against the elite" mindset can explain a lot of what is wrong and awful with the extreme-left, and a lot of its dangers. For example how they actually "pick-and-choose" the minorities they want to defend and that are "worth" taking care of. I already talked about Jewish people, but there's a reason why the extreme-left keeps talking about Black people and Arab people... but almost never talks of Asian minorities and ethnicities. Because they're "too white", because they're "not persecuted enough", because they're too "well-implanted" or come from "too rich, too powerful, too Western countries". And as such, in this same blind and warped, out of reality logic, the extreme-left considers them to be too, part of the "elite" and thus rejects them as a "valid" minority.

And this dangerous anti-elite movement doesn't just have racist repercusions, but also terrible cultural ones. Everybody points out the anti-intellectualism of the extreme-left, but as a literature student who went to a university, I have to support this: yes, the extreme-left has a problem with traditional culture, classic literature, and simply higher-education that isn't about one of their personal topics. They deem that studying Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome for example is a proof of being colonialist, or that by being interested in any classical European author you are inherently racist. Again, it comes from a good and positive logic such as "One should be interested in many cultures, just not their own" or "It isn't because someone is uneducated that they are not a worthy person". But this is twisted into: "Since our candidate was not elected, we will attack the symbol of this hateful elite that obviously rigged the election - like universities, and we will especially destroy precious and rare books from ancient times, or degrade treasured pieces of art, to show that our rightful leaders have been denied their throne". From "You don't need to have an education to be worth something and a good person", we went to "You don't need an education, period. Culture is useless".

Again, the appeal to the masses that believe themselves to be the mass when in fact they are more of a minority. Fucking demagogues who rely on the "blind and mindless mob" to get in power - that's a technique found equally in both extreme-right and extreme-left, and the recent decade has proven us that. When a extreme politician is not elected by a vote, their supporters will start rebelling and rioting and shouting angrily the election is rigged, because "they" are the majority, "they" are the voice of te people, and as such it is impossible for them not to win... And in this blind senseless anger they refuse to admit that, simply, maybe they didn't win the vote because they are not the "majority" they like to think themselves as, but just a loud minority, or a mass of people not as big as the mass of people opposing them.

To return to the extreme-left, I can even extend the topic to genders! This was denounced heavily by the mockeries of the "wokism" movement and its ridiculus excesses, but I will forever recall this incident where someone tried to create a social and working group exclusively for women and "trans people" from which all men were banned - before realizing the problem that, by banning all men, they also banned trans men, and created the paradox of, by accepting trans people denying them any masculinity. It was at the time shared as a ridiculous story to be mocked at, but honestly it was very revealing of the entire warped "goodness" the extreme-left puts into place, and it shows how, as the saying goes, "Hell is paved with good intentions".

The right wants to maintain traditions, a culture, offer peace and security - leading to an extreme-right of xenophobe and racist fascists.

The left wants to put down the elite and care about minorities and open itself to diversity - it becomes an extreme-left of antisemitism, transphobia and book-burners.

I always knew all extremes were bad, but now I actually see in real time how good principles and ideas are warped up into dictatorial and hateful behaviors, and as I said before, it makes me both sad and glad. Sad for the monsters we will have to fight, but glad that I know how the monsters came to be and what their anatomy is.

#my random rant of the day #extreme left #extreme right #political extremes #antisemitism #transphobia #anti-intellectualism #well i guess it is called anti intellectualism?#i need to check if I didn't miscall it #that's always a problem when jumping between languages

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will-o-the-witch · 2 years

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Hello. I'm sorry if this is an awkwardly worded question. I am not sure how to ask and also I am going through a time of it emotionally right now. I've been a pagan for around a decade now, but I am repeatedly being met with the suggestion that my family might have been Jews who were coerced into converting to Catholicism. These suggestions have been made by Jewish friends of mine over the years when I've talked about my Yiddish speaking family and how the language died out in our family. I've recently learned from my mother that a woman who had been my grandmother for several years due to a relatioship believed very firmly that we were Jewish given what had been learned about our family from my mother. As a result, I lived several years of my life being taught things about holidays and the like by said woman as though I were Jewish. But that I just didn't know how to do things due to family history. It was very homely and nice, but due to a breakup I fell out of contact with said family. It was very homely though and I've direly missed that environment and culture since then. This along with the general timeframe of my family's fleeing Ukraine and what I've been told about why we fled Ukraine has gotten me wanting to at least do some research on the matter. I'm not really sure how to research though or what to research really. Nor am I entirely sure what it is that I want to learn beyond that I just want to learn. Something. Which is probably very vague. At the very least I've known that we spoke Yiddish for years and have always felt very sad I did not know it or much about the culture the language is from. And I would like to at least learn more about that to honor my long dead great grandmother and great great grandmother. And possibly learn at least something more about them, if not in specific then at least in spirit. But given the whole being a Gaelic polytheist for a decade thing I feel very awkward about researching things. A convert friend of mine who brought up a while back that my family situation sounds like a case of coerced conversion has suggested a book for me which is nice but reading said book is making things even more difficult and confusing. I apologize that this is a bit long and rambling and likely confusing but do you have any advice? Things to read, people to talk to? I suppose the short of it is that I'm finding out I might be Jewish and I'm not sure what to do about that and that at the very least I would like to learn more to respect my now dead Yiddish speaking family members and also that one particular grandma.

Hey there! Sorry I didn't get to this sooner.

I'm not sure what to suggest as far as researching personal family history, since I struggle with that myself. Mine just cuts off behind a paywall and language barrier, and it's extremely likely the specific community they lived in doesn't exist anymore, if it's even discoverable. I think learning about the general history of the area is good, though. :)

If you wanted, Duolingo does have Yiddish now so that could be a nice way to connect and also learn a new language in the process! The announcement picture for it still gives me Feelings

(Plus there's a rich history of Jewish theatre and literature, which is very neat.)

Sorry I can't be of much more help than that! But hopefully that's useful ^^

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