#anyways i need to see more visible jews in this fandom

[intern-seraph]

REASONS WHY A JEWISH MC MAKES SHALL WE DATE? OBEY ME! 10x FUNNIER (along with some notes on general jewish ideas relating to the game's themes and setting) (note: i am not an expert on judaism. i am a jew. and i looked at a lot of sources trying to piece shit together bc this is an ancient culture characterized by scholarly debate over interpretations of texts so there's very little that everyone agrees on):

judaism does not have a concrete idea of the afterlife. we especially don't have Hell (or at least, not a hell that anyone actually, like, agrees exists? the mentions i have found of something similar to heaven and hell are typically in the context of what will happen upon the resurrection of the dead?? it's really complicated but point being is that nobody fucking agrees and i doubt any jews believe in the Christian Hell. cause we are not diet christians!)

i should be allowed to wrestle with raphael in nightbringer it's culturally significant

the seven deadly sins? yeah that's a firmly christian concept. we have demons (although whether or not these demons are actual creatures or just metaphorical? it's debatable.) but all of this seven sins nonsense is not our style. demons honestly don't really take up a ton of our folklore either (they're mostly interpreted as metaphors). imagine mc at the start of the game getting introduced to the brothers as the Demonic Avatars of Sin and being just like. "wow that's wild. anyways,"

we do not have original sin in judaism. not even a scrap. in fact if you repent and/or try to make amends for your sins you're good. there's a lot of potential there for writing right? please i am BEGGING for some fics that address sin in a way that's not overwhelmingly christian i can't keep doing this shit

bathroom demon

"hey lucifer do you think [bizarre devildom food] is kosher"

solomon is there??? like, king solomon????? i'm pretty sure solomon obey me is supposed to be king solomon judaism?????? he has a pact with asmodeus which is consistent with the lore surrounding him but like what's up with that anyways??? what's with the nightbringer solomon lore drop?????? hELP???????

"oh my rabbi is gonna have a FIELD DAY with this"

[gryficowa]

You know what pisses me off? Two extremes, i.e. those appearing among Poles and Jews (USA or Israel)

In short, Poles recognize that all Poles were heroes when Jews recognize that all Poles cooperated with the Nazis and saved them for "Money" (I mean, I know that Poles are idiots, but don't exaggerate, even for money you risk shooting yourself and the whole family is irrational… And then I remember what people could do for money, WTF)

Can't we do the same thing we do in fandoms? You mean, not accepting that everyone is the same? It reminds me a bit of an attack on the furry fandom, which is a large fandom and a small percentage of degenerates make the entire fandom look like it does to people, yes, a small percentage in the largest fandom is a lot, I know, that it's strange to compare Poles to furries, but it's just hard for me to present it differently so that it makes sense

We must remember that Poles were also victims of the Nazis and trying to deny it looks like looking for an "Ideal" victim (that is, a pure victim who has never done anything wrong… Yes, this is a problem visible in fandoms, and this can be transferred to the real world, because Contrary to appearances, such a view of victims is common, let's assume that several Jews were pedophiles, would this mean that the Jewish genocide was good? Well, fuck it wasn't, a lot of rotters never argue about genocide, many people, including fucking children, there is no such thing as a pure victim, there are no people who have never done something bad, anyway, we also forget about the Germans who were killed by the Nazis, and they show that that the victims didn't have to be just people from innocent origins, people are individuals, not whole groups, it's like pinkwashing towards LGBT+ people, which is supposed to explain why Israel murders civilians… It's just this level of thinking and it's disgusting)

So yes, two extremes piss me off, one believes that Poles were pure victims (Ignoring the rotten Poles who did bad things for their own benefit), and the other believes that Poles were evil incarnate (while ignoring all the victims of the Nazis)

Seriously, we don't know if every Jew was pure without guilt, but I guess there are no people without any guilt and even with their guilt they don't deserve genocide, because rotten individuals should never explain genocide, yes, there were bad Jews, but that doesn't argue what what the Nazis did, there were bad Poles, but this does not justify the genocide of Poles that took place

Today we see the Palestinian genocide, which is argued on the grounds that since individuals are evil, civilians deserve to be murdered too, which is disgusting on many levels (Or the "Both sides are guilty" argument, do I need to explain that this is the same thing as did I mention? Israel was the oppressor and the Palestinians were not their only victims, there were Yemeni Jews who were persecuted and had their children stolen, although let's be honest, victims defending themselves against their torturers which is respectable is always wrong…

If you believe that a few scoundrels are an argument for genocide, or you erase a group of people as victims because of their ethnicity and the fact that there were bad people in this group, then forgive me, but you are pro-genocide, so do not whitewash people, each of us has bad traits and that's ok, because the most important thing is to become a better person and develop, and bad things teach us and develop us, even our mistakes should not be an argument that our death was good, no, it was not, there is no pure sacrifice, such has never existed, only in fiction, we are human, many victims often do bad things , because he is trying to cope with the trauma, it is not an excuse for many things, but it is an explanation, and by throwing victims into the wrong pile, you cause more harm than help

Poles were victims of the Nazis like the Jews, none of us were pure victims, each of us did something bad, there are bad people among the victims, but they should not be used as an argument that genocide is ok, no, it never is

No matter how many bad things each of us has done, he does not deserve to die, much less people who are innocent of what we do, no one should have to pay for something that is not their fault, yes, we can try not to be like that, but we should understand that we are human, we should not exclude victims for that they have reactions to trauma and don't know how to deal with it, it's 2024, that the world is not black and white

It's easy for us to think that there is only good and evil, but what about the people in between? Will excluding them change the world for the better, or maybe it will cause more harm than good? Why should a torturer benefit from the fact that his victim is not clean? Why do we blame the victims and we explain the perpetrators at every step? This is my problem with the attitude of Poles and Jews (from the USA and Israel) towards what happened during and after the war, it is always black and white, but what about the German victims of the Nazis? Weren't they victims because of their origins?

What about German Jews? They were Germans and Jews, does that mean their genocide was ok? Because Nazis were mostly Germans (But not every German was a Nazi), what about this situation? Did the German victims of the Nazis deserve this? German Jews existed, but what about Polish Jews? If Poles were with the Nazis according to this logic, so shouldn't Polish Jews also be perceived this way? They were born in the land, they had Polish citizenship, i.e. they were Poles, but of a different faith than Christian. I have a question, whether according to this logic they also deserved it? If we start thinking, it turns out that the Nazis were good people… And that doesn't look good, because they were bad people, they murdered civilians, that's what I'm talking about, that there is no pure victim, if we consider the origin as evil, it means that all the victims of the Nazis were not victims… Then what were they? Yep, that causes a problem

If you were born in Poland, you were a Pole, even if you were a Jew, the law of blood and land applies here, but also the language, if you spoke pure Polish you were a Pole, so yes, according to this logic, many immigrants who had Polish Jewish ancestors would be Poles, as if they lived here today, so they would also be responsible for "Sending" Jews to the Holocaust? What? Polish Jews sent other Jews? See how stupid this sounds?

Yes, Poles were victims, but I was referring to a certain Jew from the USA who started accusing me of sending Jews to the Holocaust (No, I don't have such a person from my mother's family, and I don't care about my father's family, so I don't really recognize them), so yes, imagine if he accused someone from his family who was a victim of the holocaust, or he had relatives in his family who were Jews, because remember, Poles are mixed races, Poland is a mixed country, not pure like the USA, there is no pure Pole, and many Poles have Jewish DNA (curiosity)

So if we consider the place of birth as crucial, then it will seriously turn out that the Nazis were right, which is a fucked up way of thinking and associated with nationalists these days, seriously, you forget that Poland is a country of minorities and various groups, there is no pure Pole , there are Poles with Jewish DNA, but they are not Judaists, so yes, this is the problem that pisses me off, there is no pure sacrifice, and since you were born in Poland, you were Polish, so you are saying that Jews from Poland collaborated with the Nazis in killing Jews, which sounds like something from an adult cartoon meant to piss people off...

But okay, back to Poles, what annoys me is that they say some values ​​and then raise their hand like Nazis… Poles are fucked up, the trauma is too strong, nothing works… Okay, I don't know what to write next, but I'll just… Poles piss me off and I've written about it many times (I'm Kashubian), it's just weird when you hear them talking bad about Hitler, and then they show their "Christian" love for minorities, so yes, the right wing has fucked up this country and it sucks

My favorite is a drama when a movie (Historically based like "The Pianist") causes Poland to burn, because apparently all Poles were heroes or something, as I mentioned, it was more "Complicated", so yes, there are dramas in Poland, either when something offends religious feelings or shows that the world is not black and white

And by the way, Polish war films are a sick joke, bare tits and sex scenes, because the creators clearly have no faith in their product, so they have to do something to make the typical creep in the cinema salivate at such views…

Do you want to watch a historical or war film? You have cheap porn that you don't want to watch because you're a fucking aroace

So yes, I don't recommend Polish war and historical films if you don't want to watch cheap porn, and many films praise the war anyway, so drama (My battery is dying)

[idk-my-aesthetic]

Ok the whole thing w/ clogging up ao3 tags is stupid for multiple reasons, like how it fucks with screen readers for one, but the MAJOR issue is that having too many tags isn’t actually a problem w/ ao3

Like seriously guys? There is a lot to criticize. And I say this as someone who heavily relied on fandom spaces to get me through some really really hard times and still loves ao3. I can say I love what it does for fandom while also acknowledging there’s some seriously fucked up shit going on both behind the scenes and with ppl who use the site. It’s literally like saying “I love tumblr but I acknowledge there are literal nazis on here and as a Jew/human with a working brain I hate them and that they’ve been here so long”

Like. I get u think ur sticking it to the man or whatever. And idk I partially agree bc. There’s so much nasty shit and some technically illegal shit that I don’t want to even mention! But ur not even wasting the moderators time or anything ur just being obnoxious and then everyone starts discoursing on tumblr and I’m legitimately tired of it. I don’t wanna see ppl defending gross stuff and I’m tired of talking about the ppl who do defend gross stuff bc I don’t wanna remember that they exist bc I have shit to do irl and not enough space in my brain for them

So. Idk ima propose at least a temporary solution before I have to hear one more argument for or against censorship bc y’all seriously don’t understand how to have a nuanced conversation

How about instead of asking AO3 to take down gross fics (which may or may not be morally correct but will 100% reopen a very over done conversation) instead we ask for some specific plausible things

1) when you use ao3 explicit and unrated fics are automatically filtered out. They do this on ff.net. Yes it may be like 2 extra clicks for ppl who wanna read explicit stuff but ppl who don’t are going to do that anyway, and it protects the people who don’t know to do that and don’t want to read graphic tags. Most importantly it requires consent to browse explicit fics. Yeah you need to give consent to read explicit stuff, but you can look through the incredibly graphic tags/summaries without consenting to anything. It’s literally the default. Which is both upsetting to ppl who don’t wanna see that and also maybe a bit of a legal loophole they should close up

2) a “suggest tags” feature. This would be moderated by authors not ao3 staff. Basically ppl can like..... idk entire a series of tags and you can choose if you want to add them or not. The person submitting them has an option to be anonymous or not. Obviously the author doesn’t have to add every random tag and it might be annoying but it would help with making sure triggers got tagged. It would be helpful if it didn’t let you suggest tags that were already suggested/on the fic but I’m not too picky. Like I said the point of this is to make sure ppl can block stuff properly, and it honestly might also help authors with visibility bc like. Obviously you know the tags you use but you don’t know what tags other ppl look for. Again maybe it may be obnoxious with ppl having a lot of tags but people already have a lot of tags

3) a dispute rating button. Now before someone bitches at me that the ao3 moderators don’t have time to go through disputes- I know I already took that into consideration. Basically the idea is when you dispute the rating the site will ask you what rating you think it should be and anonymously log it. So if someone rated something M but you think it should be an E the site will log that and send a message to the author. The author has a choice if they actually want to listen to ppl and change the rating or not. They don’t actually have to listen to the ppl disputing the rating. Unless they get a certain amount of disputes. I was thinking maybe like 50 or so?* So if 50 ppl say “hey this really needs to have a different rating” then and only then would the moderators take a look at the fic. And the moderators would then figure out what the rating should be.

(*idk if 50 is the right #. I was thinking it should maybe work on like a percentage of your hits in the fic?)

3.5) have a sexual content marker. This is marked as 3.5 bc i feel like this idea if implemented would be misused. But yeah in theory you could just have a sexual content marker that could be clicked by the OP and then automatically filtered. Again you could use the system from #3 but again I feel like ppl would missuse it.

Anyway yeah. I wanted to give some viable solutions ppl on both sides might actually agree with. Like I get not wanting to make concessions with gross ppl, but it’s a lot faster so I’m ok with doing it for now while the rest of y’all continue to debate or w/e

Final note- please for the love of g-d learn how ratings work. Ask someone else’s opinion if you have too. I have seen so many explicit fics marked as mature or teen it’s a legitimate problem. I’ll give a quick rundown of what each rating means but pls guys

General- g- basically go by what you’d see in a Disney cartoon

Teen- pg/pg 13 - there are swears there’s violence, sex may be mentioned, you might call someone sexy or smthn idc, but no one is shown having sex or or discussing/thinking about it in detail

Mature- R - injuries/gore may be described with more detail. Uhh there could be some heavy making out and the characters might talk about sex or feeling sexually attracted to someone. But actual sex is not shown!! If you have to mention or refer to someone’s genetalia in any sexual way you should probably move it up to an E. Even if ur characters are fully clothed the entire time. Also If you’re talking about kinks outside of a quick joke or reference you should probably move it up to an E.

Explicit- NC 17- sexually explicit content. (You can put non-sexual violent stuff under here but most ppl leave it under mature)

TLDR/oversimplification(for the ratings) -

General: nothing sexual

Teen: implied sex

Mature: refrenced sex

Explicit: shown sex

General tldr:

Some criticisms of Ao3 are valid and needed, and some are just stupid and infuriating (specifically talking about the tag thing stop it’s annoying and ableist). There is constant arguments and drama surrounding those criticisms, and I decided to offer some solutions that actually have a chance at getting implemented, even if I would prefer a different option.

[qqueenofhades]

So, it’s Friday evening, and it turns out I have more thoughts about things that happened this week. I almost never do Discourse on this blog, on whatever subject, but sometimes even your friendly local depressed historian gotta say things. If you’re not in the mood for a long-ass meta-y text post, just keep on scrolling, no hard feelings.

In the wake of the Notre Dame fire, which obviously a lot of us were upset about, and profoundly relieved that it did not end up being completely catastrophic, the usual spate of posts began to pop up, alleging that people only cared about Notre Dame because of the loss to Western/European/Christian history, that nobody had been this upset about the National Museum of Brazil or the outbreak of arson at three black churches in Louisiana in the same week, and so on. I don’t blame anyone for making those posts, because I know they cared about those issues and wanted to ensure that their importance was communicated, especially when something major like Notre Dame was getting all the airtime. However, I couldn’t help but notice how that followed the same pattern as all Woke Tumblr Discourse (tm). An event happens, people express reactions to it, and are then attacked or indirectly shamed for not expressing reactions to another event. Or there’s the usual cycle of “nobody will care about this because it’s not happening in America”-style posts, or passive-aggressive insinuations that “you don’t care if you don’t reblog this.” And -- I say this with the greatest kindness possible, because I know, I know you guys care -- it’s... not helpful.

The culture of Tumblr and other left-wing sections of social media often rests on enacting performative wokeness, on showing that you care about the most Progressive (tm) issues, or that you have thoroughly scrutinized your fandom tastes or political beliefs for anything Problematic and/or can prove yourself to an imagined moral standard (and there have been some great metas written on how this essentially replicates conservative evangelical purity culture, with the goalposts switched). This is why we keep having to circulate (and doubtless will have to do so with increasing frequency) those posts reminding the left not to eat its young and flame all prospective Democratic challengers to Trump in 2020 to a crisp before the right wing, which is only too happy to let us do the work of sabotaging ourselves, even gets a chance. This is also why you see the posts responding to said angry “nobody cares about this!” posts, in which people mention the fact that not visibly reacting to all the (vast and terrible) injustice in the world does not mean they don’t care. The world is a big place. So is the internet. I can guarantee you that people do care, and just because you didn’t see immediate evidence and response to it when you opened up your Tumblr dash is not proof of a collective nefarious conspiracy.

Take me, for example. I am a thirty-ish academic and historian who considers myself well-informed and literate in current events. I read national and international news every day to find out what’s going on (because I live in England, the answer is Brexit, and the status is Failed). And yet, there are plenty of things that I only hear about for the first time on Tumblr, often attached to one of those “nobody cares about this!” posts. And you know what? I do care. I care a lot. And I’m guessing that most other people do as well, because no matter how it may feel, the majority of individuals are fundamentally decent people with basic empathy for others, even if our whole system is a nightmare. But the urge to demand why nobody is Discoursing about this issue (again, among a vast and exhausting sea of them) needs to take a few fundamental things into account. 

First, the American media (as a large portion of readers are relying on) simply does not report this stuff. Look at what’s happening in that godforsaken country right now; does it really seem like the kind of place that’s eager to tell you about Brazilian museum fires or black-church arson? I’m someone who makes a conscious effort to read the news no matter how depressed it makes me, and I still miss tons of stuff, because it’s not there. The Western media reported on Notre Dame, people knew about it, and were upset. But when those of them who did not know about the National Museum of Brazil learned about it, they were also upset. We can definitively say now that the National Museum was a bigger and more irreplaceable tragedy in terms of what burned. But we were also apparently 15-30 minutes away from losing all of Notre Dame. You can be upset about both these things. You can express empathy for the history lost in both cases. There is not a greater moral value attached, and you’re not racist for caring about Notre Dame if you heard about it first (unless you’re only upset about Notre Dame for reasons related to race or perceived cultural superiority and are peddling vile conspiracy theories about Jews and Muslims intentionally burning it down, in which case you are a racist). Almost everyone who learned about the National Museum fire was just as horrified.

2019 is a hard and monstrously unfair and tremendously difficult place to live. The internet has made exposure to both all the information and no real information at all simultaneously possible. Not everyone can display active engagement and empathy with every tragedy everywhere. People have jobs, lives, kids, work, school, other commitments, mental and physical health to look after and even when they read the damn news, there’s no guarantee whatsoever the news is going to report it. If they haven’t made the conscious effort to search out every scrap of terribleness that exists in this hellworld, they.... really should not be shamed for that. If they don’t care even after they learn, that’s another debate. But again, in my experience, most people do. But if they are first exposed to it by someone claiming they won’t care, that makes them less likely to engage with it, and to want to enact meaningful change. Firing wittily sarcastic takedowns at easy targets on echo-chamber liberal Twitter is one thing. We all enjoy a good roast and venting our frustration at times. But as a long-term engagement strategy, it’s going to actively backfire.

I talk a lot about being a teacher, and my experiences with my students, but it’s relevant again, so here goes. The kids in my classes come in believing some pretty strange things, or they flat out don’t have a clue even about what I consider basic historical knowledge. If my reaction was to shame them for not knowing, when they have expressly come to me to learn better, I’m pretty sure I’d be a bad teacher. My strategy, whenever a student can actually be nudged to answer a question, is to pick out whatever correct thing they said. Even if the rest of the answer is wrong and we need to work through it, I start by highlighting the part of it that was right, and to build their confidence that I’m not just going to tear them down when they respond. Freshmen are scared of not knowing things and to be made to look like an idiot, so I try to assure them that I’m not going to do that and I will constructively engage with their contribution and treat it seriously. You can then move to dealing with the other parts of it that may not be right, or even Mmm Whatcha Say side-eye. It is a long and often frustrating process and sometimes after reading their essays, you wonder how much of an impression you made. But if you actually want to get people to care about things, you can’t mistake Ultimate Wokeness or Look How Progressive/Anti-establishment/Enlightened I Personally Am for the simple requirement of being a decent person. You can have the greatest and most necessary beliefs or value systems in the world, but if your response to people is to lash out at them even before they begin the conversation, you’re setting yourself back. And I know that’s not really what you want to do.

This should not be interpreted as some wishy-washy “everyone just needs to be nice to each other!!!” kindergarten-playground-rule. I frankly think the whole system could use a good nefarious dismantle, and you sure as hell don’t get there by mistaking insipid moral equivalence for necessary action. But accepting the existence of people different from you, and considering how you want to engage with them, and understanding that issues are complicated and people are flawed, is a fundamental part of being a mature adult (and this has nothing to do with chronological age; there are 15-year-olds who are plenty more mature adults than 50-year-olds). I honestly do love the desperate desire to make people care, and that, for the most part, is why people who identify as liberal or left-wing do so, because they want to (and they do) care. But it’s also why they can be bad at winning elections and getting into meaningful positions to enact this change. The right wing stays on message and sticks together. Even if they absolutely hated Trump, plenty of Republicans held their noses and voted for him anyway. The left did not do that. The greatest virtue of liberal thought, i.e. its determination to include multiple perspectives, has increasingly reduced it to smaller and smaller camps where only the purest survive, like some kind of ideological Hunger Games. It might be great for making yourself look good to your hall of mirrors, but.... not so good for actually doing something long-term.

Once again, this is not to blame anyone for being upset and worried about things, for wanting people to know about them, and so forth. But I am gently-but-firmly suggesting, in my capacity as old, salty, queer spinster academic aunt, that perhaps you consider how you start the conversation. Once again, it’s my experience that most people want to know and want to care, but there are countless factors that mean not every bad thing in the world will be acknowledged everywhere by everyone at all times. You can care about different things for different reasons. That is okay. You can care about something because you have a personal connection to it. That is also okay. You can not care about something because you just don’t have the capacity and are emotionally exhausted and there’s so much shit in this world that you have to compartmentalize and set boundaries. That is also okay.

For example, I was obviously very upset about Notre Dame, and still am, though I’m relieved it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Am I happy it’s going to be restored? Yes. Am I unbelievably angry that a half-dozen of the elite uber-rich could just suddenly throw billions of euros at it for its restoration, when it had to struggle for years to get funding for crucial renovations? Yes. Do I feel as if that if the vaults have suddenly been opened to restore one major European Christian landmark, it’s incredibly heartbreaking that that level of instant capital just won’t be addressed to actual endemic, long-term issues like global warming and social inequality and the Flint water crisis and whatever else, and that this is a sad and troubling message for our society in many ways? Yes.  All of these things exist together. And I imagine most people feel the same way.

In short: I realize this is the internet, and therefore just is not designed to do that, but maybe we can give each other a little bit more of the benefit of the doubt, and think about how we would like to educate and engage those we come in contact with, whether virtually or in reality. We can do it wherever and whoever we are, with anyone that we meet, and I wonder what it would be like if we did.