#because we have a lot in common

[screamingfromuz]

Listen. LISTEN, the longer I spend in the academic world, I am more convinced that describing Judaism and Jews as a religion/ethnic grope/ethnoreligion is unhelpful outside of Academic circles.

The best way to explain Judaism is using the tribe model. A lot of times Judaism is a community first and a religion second, i.e., your level of religiousness is rarely a thing that alienate you from the community.

Think of other tribes, like the Sámi, Aboriginal Australians, Māori, Yurok, Inuit ect. Each have their own unique religion, but we do not think of them as a religious group, because the tribal identity is more important, and the religion is considered part of the culture, not the opposite.

IMORTANT SIDENOTE: I am aware that many of those tribes, and other tribes have a big chunk of Christians in them, usually more Christians than those who follow the indigenous religion of the tribe. BUT for the sake of discussion, I am equating Judaism to the section that does follow the indigenous religion of the tribe.

So, despite the fact that the religious structures of Judaism is very integral to Judaism, it is partly because of the community based focus of Judaism. The most basic example is the Minyan, the fact that prayer is preferred to be done in a group. Or the fact that the Sader is meant to be a celebrated in a group. and so on.

SO, ethnoreligion is a great academic term, but for outside that world? A tribe is a much better term to explain Judaism.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Cite your sources.

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[demaparbat-hp]

Oh, Lala...

[lazylittledragon]

askdfhfjdj thank you to everyone sending me photos of their pets to make me feel better it is much appreciated

i’m about as fine as i can be considering my beloved partner of almost 2 years just left me via text but i have a v good support system so i’ll probably be ok

[turtleblogatlast]

Things I make for myself when insomnia kicks in

Just a chart about what I wanna change up and keep consistent in my art - I mainly wanna draw Raph with a tail because he deserves one, it fits too well. Donnie gets a long tail too because I didn’t realize how dino-like he looks until I gave him one, and now it’s a must for me haha.

[13eyond13]

love it when a character that's hard to read intuitively for you has like a dedicated fandom interpreter who can just glance at their blank face in a panel and then give you a 3k word essay on their innermost thoughts & desires & fears and neatly tie it back into the themes & whatnot as if it's the most obvious thing in the world

[blue-eli]

Ink October day 11: Firebreak

A strip of land that has been cleared, plowed, or planted with fire-resistant vegetation to prevent a fire from spreading.

[corviiids]

light yagami i like you so much and that is my personal problem

[saessenach]

If I had a nickel for every time I got obsessed with a ship between a protagonist who wants to save the world from evil, but unknowingly becomes the mirror and guiding light of a demigod in disguise (who is responsible for the aforementioned evil, and the state of the decaying world as it is AND is trying to remake it, for better or for worse), I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot BUT ISN'T IT FUNNY that it happened twice?

[feroluce]

Thinking tonight about Caelus, and the nature of his loss and his grief after the Everything that went down in Penacony during 2.0.

Because Acheron, Black Swan, and Misha kind of knew of Firefly, they at least met her, but they didn't like really know her, and Caelus never even got the chance to introduce her to the rest of the Astral Express Crew. The only person who would have talked to her much was Sparkle, who is. Probably not really someone Caelus is interested in grieving with skznmsks

Anyway, all this to say, I like thinking about how alone poor Caelus is in his grief, because he was the only one who knew Firefly. He's the only one really mourning her. There's no one to talk about her with. There's no stories to trade or memories to reminisce with anyone over. It's not as though he knew her for long, but still. No one else knew her at all.

And I love the thought of all of this coming bubbling up, hot and acidic and bitter, during a conversation with Sampo, who Caelus just so happens to run into in the Golden Hour. Poor Sampo is kinda blindsided, he knew shit was going down in Penacony, but yeesh. And he just. Isn't quite sure what to say about it all, because he's never really encountered this before. His feelings about the Masked Fools are...a mixed bag, but he's been a part of them for a very long time, and when you're with a close organization like that, it's hard to feel alone, in grief or otherwise.

So Sampo sits there on their little bench that the two of them have occupied, and he thinks of his old friend April, how she'd died in his arms cackling and spitting her own blood after a heist gone wrong, and how after he'd dragged himself back to the World's End Tavern they'd all held a Fool's Funeral- which is basically just a big party where everyone gets really really drunk and reminisces and toasts the dead and celebrates their life.

He still thinks about her a lot, and he remembers how the time he'd most keenly felt her absence was on Jarilo-VI, the one place where he couldn't talk about her because he couldn't say anything to give himself away as an alien. The Fools still tell stories about her every time he goes back to the Tavern. His first toast of the night is always in her name. Even now, all these years after she'd died, Sampo is still learning new things about her. He's never had to grieve her alone.

Caelus doesn't have any of that.

He might never have that. As they speak, Caelus has no proof that Firefly was even her real name, or if she dreamt with her true appearance. He might not ever find out who she even was.

And just imagining that kind of loneliness hollows out a strange little pit, right behind his sternum, deep between his ribs.

So Sampo claps Caelus' shoulder and offers him a deal. Come find him outside of the dream. He knows a guy who can get them a lot of beer for really cheap-

("Is that guy you and your five finger discounts?" "Whatever do you mean, dear friend, I don't even know the meaning of the phrase, hehee.")

-and they can hole up in a bar or a hotel room or something, and get completely shitcanned. Tell him all about Firefly, tell him everything, and he'll tell Caelus about April and everyone else he's ever lost. Sampo will carry Caelus' memories of Firefly with him, and at least this way, Caelus will be a little less alone in remembering her. And the next time they cross paths, Sampo will be the one to bring her up, and to tell her stories, and Caelus can get to be the one listening. He won't have to be the only person to talk about her anymore.

Caelus rolls his eyes when Sampo avoids another remark about sticky fingers, but...ok, yeah. That sounds good. Nice, even. Thank you. Caelus bumps his shoulder against Sampo's. Sampo bumps back.

(They find each other again the next day, and true to their word, get themselves completely and utterly shitcanned. Caelus talks more than Sampo has ever heard him; every minute detail, every word choice, Firefly's every odd little mannerism and habit. Because Caelus wants to make sure this will outlive him, that even if the Stellaron dwelling within him finally burns him to a crisp and he really does up and kick the bucket, or even, godforbid, if he forgets, he wants to make sure someone remembers her. She deserved that.)

((And it takes quite a while, after that. Caelus doesn't see Sampo again until after everything has settled down. On his last day in Penacony, he finds the guy slinking out of a seedy back alley and all but runs right into him. Sampo happily leads him to some dive bar in an even seedier back alley that Caelus has never even heard of, and Sampo raises his glass. "To Firefly! Who sounds like she probably would have hated me at first, but I would have liked to have met her anyway."

And Caelus stares at him, almost looking startled, long enough that Sampo worries that he's read him wrong and brought this up too soon. He's halfway into planning how to talk himself out of this situation when Caelus finally throws back his head back and laughs, tells him that yeah, Firefly would have politely called him out on every lie he told, and all their conversations would take twice as long with the way Sampo is so full of shit.

And he can see it, the same way he watches and sees through everyone, that Caelus' eyes have a tightness to them, his knuckles are nearly white around the handle of his mug. But he smiles. He hits his glass against Sampo's far too hard and throws it back and gets foam everywhere like he does every time they drink because the guy's about as elegant as a raging bull, but those things don't lessen the genuineness of his smile.

The grief is there, but so is the elation, and those emotions aren't a sliding scale between one or the other. It is all of both and both at once, and that's what contents Sampo enough to throw his own mug back when Caelus makes a toast of his own, "to April!!".))

[scoobydoodean]

1.08 Bugs

[derrygirlstrash]

Not to start shit, if you know me you know I'm a "ship and let ship" kinda gal and saying this I truly have no problem with James/Orla as a ship it harms no one and plenty of people like it, I like people having fun... that said...

I have never understood the common argument that James/Erin as a ship makes no sense and James/Orla should have been the ship instead. Often one of the arguments is that James/Erin wasn't set up while James/Orla was and I'm sorry... what? James/Erin have at least one ship heavy episode each season as well as plenty of background moments and several significant moments in Erin's Diary.

Even if you ignore all the background moments of the two holding hands, being inside each others personal space, the times where they're clearly matching and whatnot. There is at LEAST the implication that Erin would ignore her supposed crush for James, that she cares what he thinks, that Erin is James's type, that they're aligned in creative values and match each others energies, that Erin thinks he's handsome, that James thinks she's beautiful, that she can't imagine her life without him, etc.

James/Orla have some touchy moments... that's kinda all they have as far as romantic coding and I don't see how those two hugging in the Season 2 finale is somehow more significant than what setup James/Erin have throughout all the seasons.

Honestly, while I can see Orla liking James - you could build a case for it and convince me even though I see Orla as ace/aro in my own personal headcanons... no one has ever been able to give me a convincing argument for James liking Orla back. It kinda feels like you have to ignore that he never has a reason to fancy Orla back and just project onto him that.

Which, again, go off if that's your bag I think their friendship is fun and I could see making a ship out of it, but the common argument is that the SHOW makes a better case for James/Orla and like, no? No it really doesn't? It's just not main girl/main boy and some people really don't like that trope or Erin as a main and I think that if you say the show didn't set up James/Erin well and you argue the show would have been better with James/Orla based on what's in the show, you just might not like Erin very much?

I've also never been able to make sense of the argument that James/Erin is somehow the trope that 'guys and girls can't just be friends' like, is that not also James/Orla? Y'know, besides that Orla isn't a girl. They do use she/her during the show time period though and some people who argue this think Orla is a girl, they just think they're not THE girl. So somehow it's better even though it's the same thing.

Basically what I'm saying is that shipping is fun and we all oughta do it. Every ship besides the obvious ones is potentially fun and I'm down for it, but there is one ship the show was setting up and we all know what that ship was and I think it would be better if we all were honest about it.

PS: "James was gay the whole time!" Truthers, if you made it through this post somehow I'd like to offer a compromise: James Maguire is the most bisexual coded male character in media history we can all win here.

[rubiatinctorum]

I get where people are coming from when they say Diaspro in Winx lost the plot for the sake of being turned into a minor villain and that's all once Valtor enabled her to do what she did in S3, but I feel like that was a reasonable narrative choice. It's only a love potion at that point (while I could go on all day about the ethics of love potions, of course, a later season has her straight up trying to do direct murder). She's a noble, guards will do her dirty work, and I understand that she would feel like getting revenge on Bloom while getting back together with Sky. She was promised a position — romantic AND political — she nearly had and then it was taken from under her by a random fairy who wasn't even "supposed" to be in the running. I don't think what she did was nice, but it makes sense for the story and for her character for her to want to reclaim her position in the way she did. Sky's love was an accessory, in part, to her political ascension, and thus he is again rendered accessory and accomplice by the love spell. And, sending guards after threats seems to be the thing to do in the magical universe if you're a disgruntled noble, so it's probably not unfamiliar for Diaspro to have seen occur before or want to do. It's not a uniquely rotten response any more than Radius' behaviour towards the monster (who, he didn't know it, was Stella). If we fault her for this action rather than only the intention behind it, we need to examine how the worlds in Winx Club deal with threats to their monarchs in general, which sounds interesting but I frankly don't have time for tonight. Diaspro did wrong, but she didn't do uniquely wrong there, and Eraklyon has the punitive security structures in place to have enabled that.

Diaspro's later appearances seem to flatten her motives and the symbolism behind why her relationship with Sky was important and what she does about it (who cares what Diaspro's political aims are and how her status might reflect how she deals with problems, the audience needs to see Bloom thrown into fire I guess), but I feel like seasons 4-8 weren't really that good anyway, so I can't even claim this as a fault of the writers doing Diaspro specifically wrong instead of them just doing the whole show wrong at that point. It might be related, and it might be a coincidence, but a lot of the writing choices seemed to become more flat to me right around when the art shifted to that lifeless godawful Flash simulacrum of S1-3's art.

Also like... idk but if some long-haired hottie wizard in a sick coat and contemplative eyeshadow told me he could help me get my promised chance at both romantic and political success back, I'd at least hear him out, yknow, see what he had to say (<- don't trust me I simp for Valtor)

[monstermoviedean]

hey do you think next time i'm stuck in another pearl-clutching hysteria fest about how cell phones are ruining The Children i should tell them cell phone bans are the technological equivalent of abstinence-only sex education

[skretri]

I just wanted to draw them as if they hadn't seen each other in soooooo long

(ocs belong to @ghostly-tart !!!:3)

[please-dont-pet-the-okapi]

Thinking about the whole complaint that so many characters these days are too self-aware about their mental health, or use modern therapy-language in an unrealistically casual way.

I think part of this is we've forgotten that it's possible to write about characters (to use our modern language) healing from trauma without using therapy language to describe their experiences.

But the thing is, people have been writing about mental health for thousands of years. Thomas Hoccleve describes himself having what we would call a mental breakdown. Margery Kempe's book of visions opens with her going through post-partum depression. But the language they use is different because of when they lived.

So in light of that, I think it's important to consider what language your character would realistically use.