#anyone else have this situation?

[jewishconvertthings]

Posting this here because I have no idea where else to post it, but sometimes I have this weird ambivalence about how I process my experiences and feelings that led me to realizing that I'm Jewish and coming home.

To be clear: my point of connection is (in terms of tangible, concrete, provable connections) strictly religious. I don't know 3/4 of my ancestry for a number of reasons (adoption, divorce, estrangement, etc.), but what I do know is (ironically) my matrilineal line, which is primarily German protestant. My adoptive patrilineal side is Danish. No known Jewish ancestry or Jewish relatives.

So I have no idea how to talk about the experiences I had growing up that in hindsight show that I have always had a Jewish soul in search of my people. My relentless questions directed at my Christian leadership that they could not answer and did not understand, but that was, in its own way, a form of love. The fact that my given name is a biblical name very common to born Jews and between that and certain physical features, people throughout my childhood asked me if I was Jewish to my confusion and fear (but also weirdly pride.) This feeling of belonging nowhere and diaspora and huntedness that never made any sense until I began to assimilate into Jewish culture. The fact that in learning history, I always identified with the Jews fleeing persecution rather than the usual childhood imagining that you would be the hero going against your own people; that you would be one of the few "good ones." This, despite my known blood heritage being literally from the people doing the persecution. (And to clarify, this was not just an empathy reaction to any/all historical victims; just Jews.) And so then when I finally did find my people, when I finally stopped fighting this deep sense of connection and approached the community to convert, all of these things both made more and less sense. I leaned into the religious and spiritual side of it because that, at least, parses for other people. But there's this other layer; a layer that feels much more like my transition than something that makes sense as a rational part of my spiritual life.

And I never know how to talk about it. Because it's all very loaded, and I never want to talk over people whose families actually *do* have this known history, who know names and sometimes faces of people they lost or never got to meet. Who have whole phantom limbs of a family tree that never came to be. Whose names are the only memorial possible for their ancestors. That is all brutally real and tangible, and so I end up never talking about my deep but utterly intangible connection because it always feels disrespectful, even if it is part of a separate conversation.

I don't know. I don't have any answers for this. But as always, with Tisha b'Av coming up, I am thinking about it. Trying to understand it. Trying, and mostly failing, to put words to it.

I learned recently, that there is a strong mystical tradition of Jewish souls being reincarnated and living new lives, sometimes in very different circumstances (different minhag, location, era, gender, etc.) I'm not sure I believe that literally. But it certainly makes sense to me as someone who grew up in the shadow of searching for my people, even if I ultimately found them.

[ducktracy]

there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Parallel Lines and Brothers.

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[izzystizzys]

There is a scratch mark on the floor of the Council chambers that Mace has never noticed before. Not a deep one, mind, quite shallow. This matters because it’s making the white-hot pulse of agony stabbing through his eyeballs ebb momentarily. Then, he chances a glance upwards at the fidgeting Knight in front of them, and it returns in full force.

Huh, he’s never seen Oppo Rancisis’ face turn that colour before.

“Hmm”, Master Yoda hums, deep and scratchy. His expression is unreadable even to Mace beyond a baseline gremlinness, and the force with which he grips the edges of his seat is making his bones creak. Master of the Order you should become, they said. Follow the calling of the Force, you should. A fulfilling purpose, it will be. Mace is going to hunt the little goblin for sport when this is all over, and he’s going to laugh the whole time.

“Show us the livestream again, could you, Knight Parvo?” Yoda asks. Mace bursts a capillary, he’s pretty sure, and so does poor Knight Parvo, whose orange Mon Cala skin tips all the way into blood red with stress. “Most unusual, this is.”

“Absolutely not!”, Ki Adi intervenes before Mace has to, thank the Force for little mercies. Plo Koon’s tusks tremble slightly with either suppressed laughter or abject horror, maybe both, and Stass Allie has her head in her hands. “The holo stills should be enough”, Ki Adi proceeds to add, and Mace has to reconsider all feelings of grace he just felt towards his fellow Councillor.

He never wants to watch Yoda zoom in on someone’s abs again. Or Depa raise her eyebrows at the curve of thighs bent over the dripping front of a speeder.

“Speeder Wash For Our Troops”, his former padawan reads out loud from a still of what has to be hundreds of the things gathered in the public senate parking lot. “Fund Our Boys And Get A Wet Seeing-To!” The series of images features dozens of Coruscant Guard troopers in various stages of unkitted, gleaming and shining with soap suds and water. The fact that the whole thing is also massive shatterpoint after massive shatterpoint is, quite frankly, insulting.

“Well hello- oh dear”, Obi-Wan’s blue form crackles to life in his chair, followed by several sounds of choking that are definitely not him. Good, Mace thinks acidly. If he has to deal with this, then so does kriffing Skywalker. “I’m sorry, why am I looking at Commander Thorn using a washrag like a lasso on top of a speeder?”

“Oh, the Guard’s little fundraising project”, Bail Organa says, as he steps into the Council chambers. Normally, Mace likes the man well enough. Now, he just smiles and adds on, “I’ve already donated, in mine and Breha’s name. Remotely, of course.”

“The Guard’s fundraising speeder wash?”, Obi-Wan repeats, edges of his holo form flickering with what Mace suspects is Skywalker very unsubtly trying to edge in. Force, but the man really is horrible at any and all stealth, like kissing his secret wife in an open arena in front of his Master. “And they are fundraising for…?”

“GAR budget allocations have to come from somewhere”, Organa shrugs. “And with the tide of public opinion turning, they’ve been tending towards cuts. The Guard feels them more keenly than any other sector - they’ve been reduced from half to quarter rations, and medical supplies have not made more than a token appearance in the last draft. The Chancellor has cancelled three consecutive meetings on the matter, and thus it was agreed that a more hands-on approach was needed. Any surplus will go into the Army fund.”

“Surely it can’t be that dire”, Oppo protests, a slightly less concerning shade of purple now. Senator Organa shrugs again, jostling the smattering of cracks slowly building around his person in a way that makes Mace wince quietly. “It’s all publicly available data, Masters.”

It really can be that dire, as it turns out. And quarter rations is only scratching the surface of how dire, considering the Guard has apparently never had access to bacta in all their posting, and also includes requisitioning forms available to the Senate for reconditionings and decommissionings, two words Mace has only heard Ponds whispers amidst shuddering in the early days of the war before Shaak Ti went off and just about tore some throats out over it.

“Alright”, he concedes, rubbing at his temples. “Fair enough, we have failed to tackle a massive blind spot in the Guard’s well being. There is no Jedi assigned to Coruscant, and that’s an oversight on our behalf. But how in the everloving kriff did this get past the Chancellor and Commander Fox?!”

Who have both signed, black on white. Bail Organa smiles cryptically. “Well, if you scroll a bit past that one image, up to the industrial speeder in the back - Commander Fox is currently having credits stuffed into his codpiece in the back, I believe.”

“HE’S WHAT IN THE WHAT NOW”, Commander Cody screeches through the speaker of Obi-Wan’s holo image, and Mace has to summon every bit of Jedi-serenity he possesses in his body to keep from dropkicking a cackling Yoda through the chamber windows.

[tinystepsforward]

Okay, so this is a wild hypothetical and begging baseless speculation... but would Matt getting the boot be better for Tumblr specifically? Have unintentional knock-ons? (And thanks for all your commentary and updates!)

this is absolutely a wild hypothetical! the answer is, perhaps predictably, that it depends on who replaces him.

automattic as a whole is rotten from the top down. one of the board members is a perfect example of this: the very first female general in the US military. #girlboss, right? matt was very excited about bringing her onboard.

matt is on the board. toni, who i believe is the interim ceo and know very little about, is on the board. i would assume that any replacement ceo would be less likely to start a complete PR trashfire, but that doesn't mean that they're not still going to be making cynical, profit-based decisions.

in this economy it's very unlikely that tumblr will be staffed well enough or given enough agency to create actual lasting change for the better. but we'd at least have a ceo who isn't prone to using superadmin tools to fuck individual people over when trying to win arguments, i guess? which is not a structural win in any way, it just removes one particular volatile factor.

[edwinisms]

it’s actually so wild to me that this fairly quirky YA type show gave both of its main characters deaths that can, in one way or another, solidly be considered hate crimes. they were both flat out murdered as a result of being A) gay and effeminate or B) brown (south asian, specifically) and you could argue whether or not those kids thought of it that way in the moment or whatever but the bottom line is that they would not have been in the situations that killed them if they weren’t of their respective minorities. like legitimately that is a ballsy choice for this kind of netflix show, let alone for the two Main Characters, and i respect it big time

[firehose118]

thinking about how tommy is uniquely positioned to help eddie in s8

under the watchful eye of catholicism, eddie would have been raised to believe in the nuclear family. this is the schema of family eddie has been trying to impose on himself and chris, at least in part because he feels like it's his fault that chris doesn't have a mother. he feels like their family is incomplete without a mother

whether eddie is actually straight or not, it's clear that he's chafing within the confines of this unexamined, prescribed, idealistic kind of heterosexuality. ryan guzman has said as much: eddie is trying to force the kinds of relationships with women that he feels like he's supposed to have, rather than ones that would actually make him happy

tommy spent decades in the closet; hiding both from himself and from the outside world. he had to come to terms with the reality of his desires and with the fact that he was not sexually or romantically attracted to women, no matter how hard he tried to force himself to be

tommy had to accept that the life that he grew up believing he would have—the one that he was told over and over again was the only acceptable way for him to live—was not a life that could ever make him happy. he is not what he thought he was supposed to be, but there's nothing wrong with that

now it's eddie's turn to learn this. he is trying with increasingly disastrous results to recreate 1:1 what he and chris had with shannon without remembering that it fell apart the first time—without allowing himself to remember how miserable he and shannon both were. eddie thinks he can force these relationships to work because he's done it before and he was happy. but he didn't, and he wasn't

maybe eddie is gay. maybe he's bi, maybe he's ace. maybe he really is straight and he just has a lot more work to do to disentangle his ideas of romantic partner and mother of my child from each other—to see a relationship as a partnership for himself rather than as payment for a debt he feels he owes to his son

eddie needs to stop getting into relationships based on guilt—based on obligation and what he thinks is the right or even the only thing to do—and start figuring out what he actually wants out of a relationship for himself

regardless of what, exactly, the writers decide eddie's core denial is going to be, tommy is the most qualified person to help him through it right now. tommy has been there. tommy knows how hard it is to date a woman who is perfectly lovely on paper and to just not be able to love her the way she deserves—because of him

tommy knows what it's like to feel broken because of this. and tommy knows what it's like to fight his way to the understanding that he is not

there was nothing wrong with tommy: he was just trying to force himself to be someone he is not because that's what was expected of him

there is nothing wrong with eddie: he is just trying to force himself to be someone he is not because he thinks that's what is expected of him

tommy can help eddie get there

[hydrachea]

Genshin fans: So the archons are going to be only 2 men to 5 women? That's kind of uneven...

Mihoyo: Sorry, it is what it is.

Mihoyo in 4.2, giving Neuvillette his authority over Hydro back and straight-up destroying the very concept of the Hydro archon: SIKE.

[mamawasatesttube]

i think martha kent should get to threaten rex leech with a shotgun tbh

[fungh0u1]

the start of a beautiful friendship <3 (my most canon innacurate as someonw who hasnt finished naruto piece of fanart yet? (no spoilers guyss. <3))

[queenvhagar]

Another failure of HOTD in my opinion is making Otto look like some exceptionally skeevy and plotting man for... acting like any reasonable man in-universe would and in fact did act?

Like HOTD wants you to think this war is entirely the fault of Otto and his poisoning of Alicent's mind to turn away from Rhaenyra, as if Rhaenyra didn't push Alicent away herself after years of Alicent seeking reconciliation...

The truth is that whoever Viserys married and had sons with then THAT family would be at conflict with Rhaenyra as the first female named heir. The moment Viserys had any trueborn son and failed to make him heir was the moment that war and violence was all but guaranteed. Due to traditions of Andal law dating back thousands of years and most recently reaffirmed in the Great Council, sons come before daughters and males come before females, with the only exception being daughters come before uncles, which is why Rhaenyra was named in the first place, but once she had a brother, the strength of her claim faltered. The only way she could ever rule unchallenged would be to eliminate the threats of the claims of any trueborn sons her father had.

THIS is the truth that Otto told Alicent and that she told her children, and it's not something that Otto just made up out of nowhere to manipulate people. No matter who Viserys married and had sons with, this is what they would face.

And it would not matter how Rhaenyra felt about it or how hard any of her brothers tried to "cleave to her and pray for mercy." Short of marrying them, she would have to exile or kill them, or anyone who disagreed with her rule would push for their arguably stronger claim instead of hers and make war in their name.

It would make no difference if that wife was a Hightower, or a Velaryon, or a Lannister, or a Baratheon. They would face this same crisis. And you can bet that those houses and families wouldn't just leave their daughter and her sons out to dry and let them be killed. They sure as hell would maneuver to try to get to a position of power where they could avoid that fate. And that's exactly what Otto and Alicent did.

We can talk about how Otto sent Alicent wearing her mother's dress to the king to comfort him in his grief, but we shouldn't at the same time ignore Corlys and Rhaenys sending their even younger daughter all dressed up to talk with the king and try to convince him to marry her (and even instruct her to say that she would make him happy and give him children). The reality is most families wanted and tried to get their blood on the throne. Otto is not some especially evil creep for wanting this - all men who had a daughter of marrying age (or almost) in this situation were trying to put them before the king, and the king chose Alicent. We should be critiquing this system that existed where men put their young daughters before older men to be married off to a successful family in the hopes of giving them better prospects in life and their family more prestige. But instead the show and the majority of fans want to focus on one individual man and ignore everything else. Because the Greens are the designated villains and the Blacks are heroes who can't do any wrong, when Otto wants his blood on the throne it's scheming and manipulative, but when Corlys wants his blood on the throne, it's viewed as him wanting to preserve his legacy and honor his family.

Once again, it was Viserys who is the one to blame for starting the war. He chose to remarry and have more children. He chose to not change the succession once he had sons while also choosing not to change succession law to guarantee his daughter would have no issue inheriting. His inaction and indecision caused this unavoidable conflict, and the blame for the war is on his head.

[gazumirei]

the pressure fandom right now

[lunarharp]

more phoenix wright situations

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

There is a platonic explanation for all this. Right?

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[basilbots]

Hmm I think the sams fandom has a little problem recognizing that how much you care for someone and how much you hurt someone are not directly linked. You can hurt people you care about, it doesn't make the hurt Better or more okay, but it's possible and can be messy and grey rather than black and white. Moon lashing out at his living family doesn't mean he cares about them any less, Ruin going through with his plan doesn't mean he's randomly lying about liking Solar, SF didn't pull the idea that Eclipse cared in his own messed up way out of nowhere even though Eclipse was their #1 problem, etc etc

[wonder-worker]

Thinking about Elizabeth Woodville as a gothic heroine is making me go insane. She entered the story by overturning existing social structures, provoking both ire and fascination. She married into a dynasty doomed to eat itself alive. She was repeatedly associated with the supernatural, both in terms of love and death. Her life was shaped entirely by uncanny repetitions - two marriages, two widowhoods, two depositions, two flights to sanctuary, two ultimate reclamations, all paralleling and ricocheting off each other. Her plight after 1483 exposed the true rot at the heart of the monarchy - the trappings of royalty pulled away to reveal nothing, a never-ending cycle of betrayal and war, the price of power being the (literal) blood of children. She lived past the end of her family name, she lived past the end of her myth. She ended her life in a deeply anomalous position, half-in and half-out of royal society. She was both a haunting tragedy and the ultimate survivor who was finally free.