#and the actor is jewish so that was always a plus

[brittlebutch]

Shoutout to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Holiday Special for giving us outright canonical Jewish Bill S. Preston Esq. <3

[simptasia]

antisemitic trekkies have a staggering amount of gall

[iskander-tm]

"Ummm making a fictional character supporter of Palestine is insane, are you stupid 🤓" like no? Maybe they are stupid and there's definitely something wrong with them, not you. Yes Spock is Jewish coded and played by a Jewish actor but what does that have to do with anything? Should you male him like, support the genocide? I don't think so...

Also again, at the end of the day he is a fictional character.

Yep! also people always made fictional character oppose whatever the batshit evil there are at the time, like superman literally beat hitler a couple of times in the comics

Plus Spock literally did fough fucking nazis in the series itself

PLUSSSS if my little fanart will make people help palestinians, then why not make this little fanart?

[ichooseyoupikajew]

It makes me happy to hear that some people are interested in the Jewish Zine.

Obviously, it's still early and details are always prone to change, but main desires are the following:

Zine will be available in print and digital form. Digital may be cheaper and more convenient, but I like the permanence of a physical copy. Digital can be too ephemeral - not to mention, sites can easily be hacked or manipulated by trolls or bad actors, which I'd like to avoid if I can. Plus, if we have extra copies, maybe I could donate them to local teen Jewish organizations. Which means that, yeah, unfortunately, the work can't be any spicier than PG-13 (sorry!)

The Zine will be Zionist-friendly. This is a big one and I imagine it will be the most contentious issue. But the reason why I wanted to make this zine was because it annoyed me how gentiles would take Jewish characters and draw fanart of them saying things like "From the river to the sea..." I want this zine to be a reclamation of our work and our participation in fandom. Our fictional characters aren't there to be your 'good Jews' either.

This will be a Zine for Jews, by Jews. Analysis, headcanons, fanfic, fanart, gen, shippy, etc - whatever you want. So long as the material has Jewish themes, it's all good.

I'm still figuring things out and seeing who will work on a team with me. I do not have Zine experience, personally, but I have friends who do and I want to make something really special. Something that says "We are here and we matter."

A lot of us have been facing antisemitism in fandom spaces. A lot of us have been feeling alienated from places that we used to enjoy participating in. That's why I want this Zine to be multi-fandom, so we can all celebrate our work and support each other.

[neverwritewhatyouknow]

Because of all the hate I’ve been getting recently as I defend my ethnicity’s and religion’s right for representation in media, specifically the movie Red, White & Royal Blue, I did something I never do.

I went to temple.

I’m not religious. I’m culturally Jewish and really only do the high holy days, Passover, and Hanukkah. The latter two mostly just for the food.

I went for a sign that what I was doing was good. That I shouldn’t give up, even though, you know I get death threats (I don’t post them anymore) and people who actively hate me.

During the service, the Rabbi told us about the daughters of Zelophehad, and how they asked Moses for land that was rightfully their father’s. Since society at that time didn’t give land to women, Moses went to God and asked what to do. God was like “Yeah, give ‘em the land and let’s rewrite the rules on who gets land.” And they basically rewrote the system because of what they wanted.

My Rabbi then said, the daughters did it for almost a selfish reason, they wanted what was supposed to be theirs. But the selfishness was for the good of many, since they could use the land for more. Plus, their ask changed things for everyone. Their passion for the land, and their bravery to challenge the system, meant that the land they had could be used for power and change. It brought about more equality.

The Rabbi then asked us what we were passionate about. LGBTQ+ rights? Fighting against SCOTUS unjust rulings? Student loans? What do we have in our personal lives that we can be selfish about that would change the lives of many, just by us challenging the system in place?

For me, I’m selfish because I want Amazon Prime and the RWRB production (crew and cast) to apologize for erasing Nora’s Jewishness from the movie. I’m selfish because I want my representation, because I’ve earned it. I’ve watched so many things that had no Jewish characters. Or ones where there were, but no Jewish actors playing them. I’m selfish because I wanna see myself represented.

But my selfishness, and the challenge to the system I take on, is for the good of many. An apology from RWRB would show that it’s not okay to erase Jewish characters just because you want to. Would show that Jews deserve good roles. That we’re more than stereotypes. That Jewish actors are necessary. That Jews are more than a religion. That all ethnicities and minorities, no matter what, deserve representation. Yeah, I’m fighting for Jews, but I’m also fighting for equal and accurate rep all around. Ethnicity cannot be erased for anyone.

I went looking for a sign, and I got one. Unlike the dog in the burning room who says “It’s fine,” I’m in the room and saying it’s not. Because there’s things that have to change. And apparently Jewish women have always been the ones to bring about change for the good of many.

Red, White & Royal Blue needs to own up to their Jew-erasure and the silencing of voices who called them out on it.

[nicejewishcharactershowdown]

NJCS 2024 Round One Eliminated Contestants (Part 1/2)

Toby Ziegler Status: Canon Jew Oh, Toby. I just can’t quit nominating you. Eagle eyed voters might remember his round one defeat last time he competed back in 2022, where he went up against Bucky Barnes. What do we think, folks? Would Josh Lyman make a better Aaron Sorkin-verse nominee? Or is my favorite turn of the millennium political escapism drama just not cut out for the high-stakes world of Tumblr tournaments? If you haven’t had a chance to watch The West Wing before, do yourselves a favor and watch it. Still bitter it’s not on Netflix anymore, but what can you do.

Han Solo Status: Transitive Jew Fun fact, Harrison Ford is Jewish! I love this one quote he said at an interview for Inside the Actor’s Studio a few decades back, “as a man, I’ve always felt Irish, as an actor I’ve always felt Jewish.” There’s something so cathartic about knowing a Jewish man gets to beat up Nazis in Indiana Jones. So why Han Solo? I’ll leave that up to you, dear readers, to deliberate. Note to self: watch Frisco Kid.

Richie Lipschitz Status: Coded Jew Riiiiiichie………. He’s not canon, but with a last name like Lipschitz, it would have to be proven otherwise. Go Nighthawks!

Ella of Frell Status: Coded Jew She questions authority. She longs for her freedom from a restrictive system. And she’s written by a Jewish woman (Gail Carson Levine!) What’s not to love about Jewish Ella? And there’s something so Jewish about the movie… maybe it’s the musical numbers. And while Anne Hathaway isn’t Jewish (and has played Jews in the past, like in Armageddon Time, making her one of the subjects of the Jewface debate in Hollywood right now), the coding inherent in any story written by a Jewish author is enough to validate any Jewish reading of this story, in print or on screen.

Professor Hershel Layton Status: Practically Canon Jew HERSHEL!!! I mean, how could he NOT be Jewish with a name like that?

Barney Guttman Status: Canon Jew So canonically Jewish that it’s practically screamed from the mountaintops! I absolutely adore this quote from Hamish Steele, the creator of the series. “… I actually think a lot of Zack’s mannerisms and personality influenced Barney. And when I just filled out the role in the comics, it just made sense to make him Jewish — in each version of the show, the characters become more like real people and more set in the real world. … All of the representation on the show, it never came from box-ticking. The show is set in the real world. It’s disingenuous not to represent the real world by representing all the people.” Plus, his last name is Guttman. Guttman!

Grace Adler Status: Canon Jew Check out this interview Kveller did with Debra Messing! There’s some great details about the Judaism of Will & Grace at the top, but the whole thing is worth a read.

Lexi Howard Status: Canon Jew Played by Maude Apatow, Lexi would already qualify based on the transitive property. And that’s where it would be left, that is, if not for a short conversation featured in the season two premiere, where she talks to Fez at the New Years Party. Here’s an excerpt:

When I first heard this exchange (while watching a YouTuber react to the episode), I grinned so hard. Doesn’t hurt either that Euphoria is based on an Israeli program of the same name. Which I’m realizing I reeeeeally should try and stream.

[flut-flut]

TAG YOUR IT!

Respond with your favorite thing about your top three fandoms, and any OC's you have for them!

DOES THIS MEAN LIKE: THE MEDIA ITSELF OR THE FANDOM SPECIFICALLY I Will answer both I guess LMFAO

Unfortunately I don't really make OCs for others' original content so I can't answer that part! All my OCs are for rping in my own little universes I make with my friends lmfaO

Jak and Daxter: My absolute favorite thing about these games is the aesthetics of it, and the way the characters are placed in the world. It introduces so many interesting dynamics and the plot of the second game especially there are so many political story lines and the world feels connected in a way that I just really enjoy - that said I wish they did MORE with it, but I like how it was introduced for the most part.

My favorite thing about the fandom is despite not having any new content for around 20 years now lmfao people still play around with the characters, have fun with the universe and there's quite a bit of good fan content out there!

Subnautica: This game is so fucking cool honestly, I love how it's set up, I love the world, the lore is hinted at so well and you get to piece things together yourself, I really fucking love that. I've heard of a Jak and Daxter to Subnautica fan pipeline and that is definitely true for me lmfao they are very similar and Subnautica was the first game I played that scratched that Jak and Daxter itch honestly. Plus I love the premise in general, just wish there was more plot!

As far as the fandom, the modding is fucking amazing augh I can't understand how people can just make whole ass mods like they have for this game. I can't even figure out how to download the program that runs mods right let alone make them myself LMFAO

Columbo: This show is just fucking jadfhdfhadfh so good. The aesthetics, the plots, the writing, the music, it's all fucking great, there isn't an episode I don't like. I love that it was really one of the first shows (if not the first one) to have upper class people be the criminals instead of poor people, and Columbo specifically is a great character. Just some guy doing some job, love that so much.

For the fandom, I love how much people admire Peter Falk (the actor for Columbo as well as one of the main writers). He was a really cool and interesting person, reading his autobiography was a great read and yeah idk. I think it's cool that a disabled Jewish actor made it so big and was as successful as he was in creating and acting in that show. Seeing art of him always makes me smile.

Thank you for the ask :)

[markcampbells]

002 | Give me a character & I will tell you: Spock

I also got this from an anon so I'm assuming everyone's like we know how she feels about McKirk, what about Spock?? 😂

How I feel about this character: Okay, so… it is not the character, it is the fanbase. Spock is awesome! All three actors do an absolutely fantastic job! But the fanbase is kind of… too much for me. I'm not speaking so much about the intense love for him as I am talking about projecting things onto him that have very little to do with the writers' initial intent and then getting angry when canonical portrayals don't match up. Like, people will absolutely INSIST that Spock is gay and then get angry when he's paired with women in new incarnations, despite the fact that (a) bisexual+ people exist, so him being with a woman does not automatically make him straight, and (b) Spock was never intended to be anything but heterosexual anyway. I won't deny that SNW in particular has made some choices where I understand the frustration--I absolutely understand why Jewish fans are upset by the bacon scene--but I think the preciousness over Spock and his fanon is what puts people like me off him a bit. He's a great character, excellently portrayed, but I could really do without the people who can't recognize where their fanon ends and canon begins.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: I understand the love for Spirk! But of the triumvirate and its satellite ships, it's kind of the least interesting to me. I like how Spock/Uhura works as a companion ship to McKirk! And I think SNW is doing really cool stuff with Spock/Christine and the idea that a young Spock would explore emotionality that way (especially after seeing his parents' marriage).

My non-romantic OTP for this character: The triumvirate, of course! Particularly in Star Trek V, I love the warmth and camaraderie of the camping scenes. I also really love his familial dynamics with Amanda and Michael (Sarek is… complicated…), and when it comes to Pike, the SNW S1 finale actually made me cry with how it portrayed their relationship and its impact on both of them.

My unpopular opinion about this character: I kinda accidentally got into that earlier, didn't I. Oops. I think something that strikes me about Spock and how I relate to fanon is I actually see him more as aro/ace, but I understand how complicated that gets as a headcanon because it might imply that aro/ace people are unemotional, etc. I sort of see him as a keen observer of relationship dynamics (in McKirk fics, I always appreciate a Spock who understands they're romantically involved but keeps quiet out of discretion), but someone who doesn't necessarily desire a romantic relationship for himself.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I totally understand why the subsequent AOS movies past the first one used him sparingly--having him in the first movie at all is a base to bridge the universes on--but I would find more knowledge of what Spock did to rebuild Vulcan society and how he adjusted to a new universe fascinating!

my OTP: Secondary to McKirk, I really do see the appeal of Spones! I think they're an awesome ship and I want to write more for their dynamic (thus far I've written a friendship fic I'm still really proud of). I love both the silly memes people make about them as well as the serious meta people do about why these characters work as a pairing and their relationship to each other.

my cross over ship: I don't think about crossover ships that much! Although now that I'm thinking about it, I would find him having some sort of relationship with Garak fascinating. Garak lies and eludes constantly, and Spock is held to not lie but actually does, and I think they could play off each other in an interesting way. Plus Garak is so lively and jovial whereas Spock is more serious but also has a dry wit I think Garak would love.

a headcanon fact: In my fic I linked above, I tried to build more on the idea of Spock having a dyslexia-like condition that Discovery established. I thought it was pretty cool that Discovery gave a character who's well-known for his intellect a learning disability! I like the idea that it gives him a lot of empathy for those in similar situations and that he's able to use his past struggles to help those on ship crews or in academic settings who need it.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

Egon and sleep

The Ghostbusters and Holidays (what do they celebrate?)

@moonbeamelf @amalthea9 @bixiebeet @spengnitzed

01º In the original movie and the animated series The Real Ghostbusters, he was shown sleeping in the same room in the Firehouse with the other Ghostbusters, each in their bed, while dealing with the fact that a call for help would wake them up more early then they wished.

While the IDW Publishing Comics, there is a recurring joke that he can be so focused on his work in the lab that if he sleeps, nobody ever has seen it.

Considering how much sugar snacks he eats in the first movie, no wonder if he had more dificulty to sleep compared to his friend. Janine likely introduced him to enjoying calming teas like linden to help him calm down.

I can imagine that when Noemi is born, Egon join her during nap times holding her like a teddy bear.

(like in this picture of his original actor, Harold Ramis, with his them baby daughter Violet)

02º In the Real Ghostbusters episode XMas Marks the Spot, which was a retelling of Charles Dinkens A Christmas Carol, Peter acts less excited about Christmas because as a child, his father was working in a get rich quickly scheme during that season and so never spend it with his family.

On their way back to the Firehouse, the Ghostbusters cross a time and space travelling portal and end in 19th century England, where they mistakenly bust the Three Christmas Ghosts. This makes Ebenezer Scrooge unnable to learn the moral lesson the Ghosts were meant to teach him, and he writes a book called "Christmas, Humbug", wich becomes so popular that turns all people in present time into a bunch of scrooges. To fix that, Egon has to enter the Containment Unit to rescue the newly imprisoned thrio, while Peter, Ray and Winston travel back in time to play the role of the Three Christmas Ghosts.

Peter plays the role of the Ghost of Christmas Past:

Winston plays the role of the Ghost of Christmas Present:

And Ray plays the role of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come:

They save a literary classic and people's love for Christmas, and Peter gains an apreciation for the holliday.

Besides that, Peter has the vibe of liking hollidays that are the perfect excuse to get drunk: Fourth of July (the US Independence Day, when people make barbecues and picnics and release fireworks), Mardi Grass (american Carnaval), Saint Patrick's Day and Oktoberfest.

Ray was raised catholic acording to the video game, so he probably has an emotional connection with Catholic Hollidays like Christmas, Lent, Easter and Corpus Christ, and also, considering his passion for spooky stories, really enjoys Halloween.

Winston is a devout baptist christian and may have deep toughts on patriotism due to his time in the Military, so his favorite hollidays may be the Fourth of July, Flag Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, and he may have relatives whom he visits to celebrate the African-American holliday of Kwanzaa.

Egon is frequently headcanoned as jewish, so he probably has more affinity to the jewish hollidays of Passover, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana, and will frequently remind non jewish people that Hannukah is not "jewish Christmas" and is in fact a minor holliday in the jewish calendar.

Janine seems likely to have come from a mixed faith family, half-Jewish, half-Christian, and XMas Marks the Spot tells that she loves Christmas, so she probably celebrate the hollidays from both faiths. Besides loving the same three main jewish hollidays that Egon does, you can always count on her to make a beautifull sukkah for Sukkot, and she loves dressing up as Queen Esther and make hamantashen for Purim. Plus, she thanks your kindness in giving her a Valentine's Day present (after all Janine is a big romantic).

[solittles]

get to know me game

tagged my twin @jirving & fellow mcnulty appreciator @psyduc 🩷 thank u !

do you make your bed? almost never, it only happens spontaneously once every blue moon.

what's your job? currently unemployed, but i am a swedish sign language and deafblind interpreter so. as soon as someone wants me, that's what i'll be doing.

if you could, would you go back to school? oh fuck yeah, i would!! i wanna do a bachelor's in gender studies and also become a writing interpreter. plus, so many other things: literature, jewish studies, educate myself within the interpretation field!

can you parallel park? i can only drive a lawn mover so. no.

do you think aliens are real? what is the definition of "aliens" here? other creatures capable of our definition of life in the universe? yes.

can you drive a manual car? i can drive a lawn mover only.

guilty pleasure? don't have any because guilt is not something i will apply to things that make me happy. i have a lot of general guilt though!

tattoos? lmao yeah, 30+ and counting. my newest ones are the silhouettes of my cats uwu

favourite colour? a cold and light blue grey

favourite type of music? calm and quiet indie pop or pop punk

do you like puzzles? yes! but i never know what to do with them once i'm finished... :--(

any phobias? scalpels! it's not a phobia but i'm very scared of actors in character, especially if they interact with someone in the audience.

childhood sport? soccer, but i quit when they split it up into gendered teams to play cups and such. also aikido.

do you talk to yourself? very rarely, but it happens.

tea or coffee? neither, but if i have to, tea.

what was the first thing you wanted to be when you grew up? a baker! because i always got up so early in the mornings as a kid uwu

what movies do you adore? brokeback mountain, captain america: the winter soldier, ten things i hate about you and this is england!

tagging: no-one !

[cescalr]

Appearances: Harry Potter Ensemble - Pt 1.

So. As someone who writes a lot of fanfic, I don't always decide to borrow directly from the source material for the appearances of the characters. I'll admit that my canon compliance for that can be tangential at best; mostly down to hair and eye colour, whilst everything else is different. This can lead to some confusion in my fics, because my worst sin in this regard that i'm inconsistent in how I portray them. I have multiple fcs and sims of characters, and I sort of just swap between them at whim. So this is a masterpost list of all the different appearances each portrayal of the HP ensemble cast I use. I'll also try and say which fics I pictured as which faces, because why not.

Let's get started, shall we?

Harry Potter. [+ James Potter, because they're meant to be almost identical.]

First, we'll go with documenting the protagonist.

For a canon-compliant Harry, I made this artbreeder a while ago;

Lord above that's ginormous. Anyway. I'm not, like, 100% happy with this, but here it is.

As may be a fairly obvious choice, my main fc for Harry is Darren Criss. He does a great job fitting the visual aspect of Harry, and an even better job of him being identical to his father; Darren Criss makes a perfect James Potter. All you need to do is watch AVP to know that one.

And, as a sidenote; Look at them <3 this is the golden trio, right here!! Sure, Ron's a bit off, not tall enough, nose not long enough, but he works really well for the role, so I don't care.

But he does a pretty good broody harry, too, so I tend to think Darren Criss when I think Harry James Potter.

Again; for a slightly more book compliant Harry (aka; a wholly white Harry) there's a young Peter Capaldi. In these pics specifically, lol.

James Potter by Michelle-Winer on DeviantArt <- there's also this depiction of James as the actor for Will Graham from Hannibal, which works pretty damn well for both James and Harry.

Unfortunately, people don't credit as often as they should on Pinterest; (1) Pinterest this is a very good James, and if anyone happens to know who drew it, that's really necessary to know. He looks just like my James sim, fr. Took the image right from my brain.

He looks a little less like his dad and more like his mum here, which is Incorrect, but I still like these sims.

Ron Weasley.

Next up on the list is Ron.

I made this artbreeder a while ago. I think this is basically perfect, and looks exactly like how I think of him, except the nose is too short.

The blog is gone, but this art by xia-hainex has always been my favourite Ron fanart.

I'm very picky about Ron's face. I don't have an actor fc for him.

But I do have a sim :). You can see the influence, lol.

Hermione Granger.

Hermione has the most fcs out of the Golden Trio. 5 in total. First, her more canon-compliant artbreeder;

Next; those five fcs.

First up; a duo of fcs - one for her younger years, and one for that version's older years. Ella Eyre + Stevvi Alexander.

Of course, as shown above, there's always Bonne Gruesen, who played her in AVP. Which, as you can see, was an image that held a lot of mix dominance in the artbreeder (which I did through combining various images of these five women, plus some general tweaks.)

Nathalie Emmanuel is a version where Hermione kept the buck teeth :D. Would mostly be used in muggle AUs.

But this ^ really does look like book 7 Hermione during the horcrux hunt, don't you think?

Grace Byers is a bit glamorous for Hermione, I'll admit. Sometimes I use her for her mother, instead.

Elarica Johnson is the final fc option for HG, very similar to Nathalie Emmanuel. If I were to give HG a sister, she'd probably end up with Elarica whilst Hermione keeps Nathalie. Also an option for her mother, I suppose.

Because I should mention this; I often use Hayley Law for Mrs. [heacanon name: Eudora] Granger. I haven't actually got an fc for her dad, but the one consistent thing about him is that he's Jewish, but he can be european or african or middle eastern or whatever, I don't care about that part. (Same, really, for Mrs. Granger. The one prerequisite I suppose is that they not match; my Hermione is biracial, and has the specific complication of passing as (depending on the person guessing) either ethnically White British or solely Ashkenazi Jewish, even if her father is not that. Most people miss the black half of her ancestry if they never meet her parents. And, to note, thanks to the schools she was sent to and the care her family took, Hermione has never experienced explicit racism towards herself, and her first personal exposure to prejudice is the whole Muggleborn mistreatment thing. It hits her pretty hard :(.)

[And, to note; I know that my Hermione's ancestry does not match the ancestry of the FCs, and that the situation regarding... all that doesn't really work with some of them, but I'm also not really happy with any one of these, particularly. Hermione's always been the one I find hardest to cast, because my thoughts are so specific but not... exactly refined.]

This is my sim of her, which of course matches what's in my head better than any fc ever realistically could. She's also pretty close to the artbreeder, just, you know, better. Because it's not ai generated. (I tend to use artbreeder as a visual aid when creating the base ideas for things, nothing more.)

Her mum and dad, for reference.

And that's the GT, so. Onto the next part! [For those wondering; I will keep hitting the image limit, doing this, so need to move on once I do.]

[age-of-moonknight]

hi! hope you're doing well. i got a question for you about the what if with marc's funeral, if that's okay, and please let me know if i'm missing the mark or overstepping in any way. as a jewish guy, seeing a non-jewish funeral kinda felt bad to me. like marc was already buried, no one who loved him or knew him participated in the burial, and yes the heroes wore their gear instead of traditional mourning clothing, but putting a star of david on the tombstone felt like an afterthought. marlene's 'may your memory be a blessing' was nice, seeing gena and the kids and crawly was like yes those are his people! but overall idk the setup and eulogy wasn't working for me. tldr my question is, what's your take on marc's funeral?

Hey! Thanks for stopping by! I guess before I say anything I should preface this by mentioning that I’m honestly just some dude on the internet and I really shouldn’t be considered an authority on anything. I’ve just read an unfortunately large number of comics and while I do dedicate a lot of time to learning as much as I can about anything, I definitely shouldn’t be considered an expert on matters as richly complex and integral to people’s very identities as religion or culture. In other words, I definitely appreciate you starting this conversation, but I really can’t offer anything more than a personal opinion that everyone should just take with a grain of salt.

But!!! thank you for sending this message, because, yeah, I realize that sometimes I can get so swept up in any writer even acknowledging that Marc is Jewish that I forget that, “oh yeah, this could be better and we should be well past the age where we had to hope for even the barest crumbs of representation.”

Accordingly, I fully see where you’re coming from and you’re probably right in that there was more the writer could have done. Even as I write that though, I can already hear the long list of excuses that could be made by devil’s advocates about why Marc’s funeral in What If…? Dark: Moon Knight was presented as it was. Most probably could be pretty easily refuted by anyone that wants better from the comic industry, but, hey, that’s comics: they thrive on intense, impassioned reader discussion and can somehow be ahead of their time in terms of cultural sensitivity AND painfully slow in breaking out of some really poor ways of depicting cultures, races, and religions.

[Putting in a read more because this got a little long (sorry all, mea culpa)]

But yeah, some of those excuses I can imagine include, first among them, space limitations. The creators had one page to depict the funeral in the single issue allotted to telling Marlene’s story of becoming Luminary. People could easily say something offhand and questionable like, “oh yeah, Marc’s mom sat shiva, but it all happened off panel,” but that explanation always feels a little cheap to me, as I know for fact that comic artists can get very creative with how they format a page to include critical information, but, eh, there it is.

Some people in these situations sometimes bring up the point that authors that share a background with the characters they depict can approach matters with a good understanding of what’s appropriate/significant. I can see the validity of that approach, but from the (admittedly brief) research I did, I haven’t found any conclusive statements on the writer’s background at least and I personally would rather not make any assumptions/speculations. (Again, that’s strictly a personal thing, because in my line of work, I come across a lot of bad actors who, from their perspective, “““accuse””” people of being certain races or ethnic backgrounds and I am,,,,very tired). Plus, that’s not necessarily a cure all, at least that’s what I’ve gathered from the heated debates on Bemis’ Moon Knight run that I still stumble upon on occasion.

The next thing that comes to mind, well, I don’t want to sound like I’m entirely absolving the creators since, sure, they probably could have done more, but I’m so used to grappling with the bad hands comic books deal me, that sometimes I propose what I guess could be referred to as Watsonian interpretations??? Like, yeah, this was ultimately written like this because creators are flawed, but I cope by trying to puzzle out in-universe explanations. In this case, I see this as potentially being some sort of hazy, not quite well constructed, reflection of Marc’s complex relationship with his background that characterized his adult life. Elias Spector, who frequently represents Marc’s connection to his past and how he wrestles with really complex questions of religion and identity, is dead by this point of time in both of Marc’s established origins, and while I am sure the organizers of Marc’s funeral, like Marlene and Frenchie, fully and deeply loved him, I’m just not sure if Marc ever communicated to them what they should specifically do for his funeral (fully traditional or as small/nondescript as possible if he even thought he deserved/would get a funeral), as enigmatic and….not always forthcoming in discussing such matters Marc circa Marc Spector: Moon Knight was, so they did their best.

But gosh, even as I write that out, that’s such a load of copium. I’ll admit that my fondness for the comic book genre results in me desperately trying to hammer something worthwhile out of sometimes (or frequently????) mediocre material, so thanks again for sharing your thoughts! You are well and away within your rights to not be satisfied with how the matter was handled and I know I thoroughly appreciate your critical eye. Arguably, it is only by such a capacity for critique that the industry will ever shake off some of its worst aspects that still haunt it and evolve into something really consistently worthwhile.

[forgiveness-in-the-misery]

I want to make a more coherent criticism of South Park’s heavily boomer coded Pandering special.

For starters I don’t think Matt or Trey understand what AI is since the b plot somehow was about how dumb people are thinking AI is stealing our jobs when it is only a computer. They either don’t know what AI is or something else entirely I am missing as a 31 year old who hasn’t enjoyed the show since I was like 12 and stopped watching after their aged poorly even when it came out trans episode.

They could have used the weird sexist/racist Disney plot to actually point out that Disney notoriously is trying to use AI to replace writers and animators and actors. AI being used to replicate a persons voice and their physical identity is the problem. Not a handyman.

The main plot annoys me because it feels dated. Insanely dated. They’re bitching about the Star Wars trilogy. The one that ended years ago. The one with a female protagonist yet it still all mostly came down to people only focusing on Adam Driver and the movies ending with them being second cousins who are dating each other. I assume South Park is old man yelling at clouds about the nonwhite secondary characters in those movies? The ones who were stalked and constantly harassed for “ruining” Star Wars by just barely being there?

It’s confusing. Also there is something unintentionally hilarious to me about how I actually enjoyed the scenes in the “pandering” verse. The women were funny and I loved seeing diverse designs but what I really hate is they made diverse background and lead characters as a joke. You’re supposed to roll your eyes seeing a woman with vitiligo and a plus sized women, you’re supposed to laugh because a cop is now a trans woman who isn’t “passing”.

Having the “make her a gay woman” comment be a jab at disney is mind boggling to me. Disney notoriously is terrified of homosexuality to the point they buried a movie because one of the characters was a gay teen who ask a boy on a date. Disney would never make Bambi gay or Ariel or any leading character gay. Also most Disney films have female protags since Disney has always aimed for a little girl audience so I don’t understand why Trey and Matt are throwing a tantrum.

I think one thing about South Park that stands out more and more to me is their weird specific form of hate towards women. They have a history of mocking celebrities which in itself is fine….but women they go after differently. If a woman is jewish they go hard on that aspect of her, if she is average weight they draw her to be 600 pounds, if she’s black she’s loud and obnoxious, if she is comfortable in her sexuality she’s dumb and a whore.

Where men are concerned they tend to go after being gay. Which is wild to me. R Kelly? He’s totes gay. Kanye West? Totes gay. Which is wild because with male celebrities they hate they can attack anything else especially yknow something relevant. Michael Jackson the show never made up its mind on what they thought of him and mocking him soon after his death felt like Matt and Trey just immediately began writing that episode as the death was reported on cnn.

The show and its relationship to being gay or being trans is still icky. Seeing the show in 2023 vs back in the 90s it feels both parts the same but also strictly hateful but in a confused grandpa way.

I think South Park and Family Guy and The Simpsons are great examples on why nobody in animation should strive to just make a show go on forever.

[machineheraldandy]

I don’t really do my version of league viktor often but here it is!

The final art piece isn’t by me it’s by a moot on Twitter by the name. Bunnysloth (go follow them)

Also the colour of the skin is all off as I’m still trying to figure out how exactly I want viktors colours for everything to be😭

Headcanons/etc on appearances

Viktor to me in league of legends is an immigrant dude that lives in Zaun, but his parents moved when he was barley born so he sees Zaun as primarily his only home. His mother being from Ionian and his father I’m unsure (you’ll understand why soon)

I see him as heavily mixed (hence the darker skin) being based off of Korean/Czech/Aboriginal Australian- this is partly because of the fact I hate the Russian villain stereotype and as in arcane the voice actor said he was going for a Czech accent instead of Russian. other than that korean as I can’t remember why (headcanon happened a while back) and Aboriginal Australian because I’m from Australia and aboriginals really don’t get enough Rep

Viktors father is the one that is czech/Aboriginal(which I will now call First Nations) and is also Jewish, which is a very popular headcanons for viktors family!! Very popular. while his mother is the Korean one, from Ionian.

Korean people can have darker skin but viktors dark skin is meant to come from the First Nation side of his family. (Also extra note, based off of noongar people)

For hair also meant to be more from the fathers side, but moles and such from his mothers side! Same with the yellow eyes. The yellow eyes I decided to keep just as a real part of him instead of some goldish brown. In his after evolution form his eyes are at real so therefore can be either similar to his real eyes before evolution or just replaced with entirely yellow balls which is really to match his mask.

Also some may notice but I have a head canon for hearing aids! This is just a personal head canon as a bit of deafness runs in my family and plus viktor is always inventing things so probably has a bit of damage

He is meant to be trans but I…forgot to draw the top surgery scars…

Anyways little headcanon over, please don’t growl at me in the comments for having a different viktor headcanon. He’s my autistic special interest and he’s been combined with a lot of hyperfixations,,,

[landonkirbyappreciation]

Genuinely wondering, is Landon supposed to be native American on his mum's side? The surname Chelon, according to tvd wiki, is of Cherokee origin and means "beautiful lake". But Seylah is a feminine name of Hebrew origin. It has an alternate spelling of Selah. The actress, Ayelet Zurer is Jewish and from Israel. And as we know, Aria Shahghasemi was born in the US to Iranian parents. It seems the writers just made as mess, cause they clearly couldn't care less about their male lead of color.

Oh I didn’t know that about Seylah’s last name, I always just thought Landon was Middle Eastern since Aria is plus the casting choice for Seylah. Maybe it could be possible, if Chelon was Seylah’s father’s last name, maybe he was Native American? But maybe because of Seylah’s name, she was from Israel and that came from her mother’s side? Idk, they couldn’t even tell us where Seylah was from, like she had an accent but I guess none of that mattered to the writers. Yeah everything about Landon’s background was a mess. It’s like they got two Middle Eastern actors but they didn’t wanna do anything more than that. So one actor is Iranian and one is Israeli, and apparently Seylah’s character could have some Native American background as well, so what is Landon specifically? And what about where the rest of his DNA came from? We will never know... It’s true they really couldn’t have cared less about anything having to do with Landon. They casted a poc as their male lead yet didn’t care to make any effort for him beyond that. And instead mistreated him almost the entire show and didn’t even treat him like the male lead in the end.

[neverwritewhatyouknow]

I’ve been wanting to make this post for a while now, but I decided to make it my last RWRB related post. It’s clear the production will never give a statement about why they changed Nora’s character from Jewish to not, and there’s other shows and movies and productions I need to focus on. But before I switch gears, this needs to be said.

I was wrong about something and I need to just make it very clear how sorry I am to Rachel Hilson for involving her in the discourse around the movie to the degree that I did.

When I first started this blog the day the cast was revealed (over a year ago), I had no more information than anyone else. The only thing I knew about Nora that she was a Jewish character (along with everything else obvi) (book) and that Rachel was rumored to be Jewish (TikTok). In my quest to point out the antisemitism in Hollywood (a very true thing), I allowed logical thinking to guide me down an incorrect path.

That path was thinking that since Nora was Jewish in the book that of course she had to be in the movie too. It wasn’t an insane assumption, since the two options were A: A non-Jewish actress playing a Jewish role, or B: totally erasing Nora’s ethnicity. For some reason, the second option felt impossible for the longest time because to me Nora being Jewish was a part of who she was and for a good chunk of time I didn’t consider that they could separate it, plus the first happens literally sooooo much (especially on Amazon) that I was certain it was happening again.

But I was wrong. Nora’s canon Jewishness was erased very early on in the adaption and Rachel was at fault for none of it. She did an amazing job (like I knew she would), but I need to apologize for what I’ve posted. In my attempt to call out Hollywood for once again casting a non-Jewish actress for a Jewish role, as they do all the time, Rachel got caught in the cross fire and that’s not fair to her. It’s the fault of the movie’s creative team, not her. I always knew that, but I’m human, I make mistakes, and I own up to them when I do. I let the emotional impact of seeing Jewish roles played by non-Jewish actors again and again influence my posting here, and while nothing I said was incorrect regarding Hollywood’s constant erasure of Jews and even the erasure of Nora’s own Jewishness, I was wrong to loop Rachel into that the way I did. I wanted to settle the rumors that she was Jewish, and I did that, but I wish I had known that Nora was just not going to be Jewish period from the start. I should’ve focused more on option B for this movie and not A, but how was I to know when it all started? Regardless, I’m going to be going through my account this weekend and deleting anything that’s directly tied to Rachel, but it’ll take a few days.

So, to Rachel: I doubt you have tumblr, you’re an extremely busy actress and this place is a time wasting hellhole, but I know you or your team knows this account exists. If you see this or hear about this, I want you to know that I really am sorry. You don’t have to forgive me, but you deserve an apology. To anyone connected to Rachel who also feels as though they were caught up in this too, I also apologize to any and all of you.

I don’t use Instagram anymore, but I know Rachel does. If anyone DMs her this apology post, this is the disclaimer that the sender didn’t write this. She’s owed an apology and I just hope she sees it somehow.

Was my calling out of RWRB’s Jew-erasure wrong? No. Was the way I did it wrong? Yeah. I focused on the wrong things based off prior knowledge and assumptions. Truly my only regret is involving Rachel, I wish I hadn’t done that. At the time it all made sense, but even then I should’ve had the restraint and waited until I knew more. So anyway, I’m sorry about that. Hopefully Rachel will someday, somehow, someway hear about my apology and understand that I was upset about the circumstances in this movie and how often it always happens, and that she just honestly was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And for that, I’m immensely sorry.

This is my last RWRB post. Unless something crazy happens. So keep following me if you wanna hear more about antisemitism and Jew-erasure in Hollywood, but I think I’ve exhausted all the things I can say. Thanks to anyone who’s supported me calling out the movie about their erasure, what they did wasn’t okay, but I’m ready to move on unless they say anything else about it.