#just typical Jewish humor for you!

[omeryotam4]

If Einstein was alive he would leave America now. Why do I assume that? Based on these points:

1. We see Jewish students and professors being denied entry to universities, exactly like Germany in the 1930s. One of the main reasons he left Germany was due to his academic career being affected by these bans on Jews.

2. Left Germany when antisemitism rose. We are now experiencing the biggest surge in antisemitism in America since the holocaust, and as opposed to the 1930s in the US, this time it's led by the mainstream and not fringe political cells.

3. Albert Einstein was a zionist. He supported his people's aspirations to reestablish their homeland in their ancestral land, and donated to the cause. He was even offered the position of the first president of Israel, but refused. He left his library to the Hebrew University after his death, and you can even go over his books in the University if you want, it's still there!

4. Jews are already leaving the American academy, and Israeli academy came out with a statement today that any Jewish person in academy is welcome to join and will receive support in any way needed to fit in and find a similar position. When you're denied education in one place but welcomed at another, you tend to choose those who want you, like the US has welcomed academic refugees from European universities in the 1930s.

I think it's safe to say that he wouldn't be happy with the direction the USA is taking. Just be careful, because last time Jews left a place due to antisemitism, they invented the atomic bomb. When Jewish minds come together, they achieve great things, and you don't want those minds to leave your country...

[gemsofgreece]

Hi! I was wondering if you could tell us about naming conventions when it comes to surnames in Greece? Are there certain type of names associated with a particular place or region? What are the meanings of some of the most common surnames? :)

Hello, yes, Greek surnames are a mix of conventions and messiness! There are too many things that could be said but a summary could be:

Greek surnames are gendered, which means that they have different endings depending on whether the bearer is a man or a woman. This is something that is not acknowledged to Greeks who live abroad where the family name remains unchanged. Take the Greek American actress Nia Vardalos for example. In truth, her father and / or brothers are Vardalos. She is actually Vardalou or she would be, if she lived in Greece. But most foreign states don't acknowledge such in-family name changes.

Greek surname endings typically follow the grammatical endings of standard nouns. The ending also depends on whether the surname follows the nominative or genitive grammatical case (as some surnames indicate a quality - nominative - whereas others indicate ancestry - genitive).

In Ancient Greece, there were no real surnames. The first name was followed by the father's name. The first surnames that could indicate a characteristic or a quality start appearing in Byzantine times. This was continued through Ottoman era. Nowadays, Greek surnames combine all this and can indicate origin from a certain ancestor, usually male but rarely also female, nickname, profession, quality, origin from a region, some personality trait, an appearance trait and anything else you can imagine. It's not unusual AT ALL for surnames to be humorous, ironic or downright offensive and families just learned to live with them!

Some endings are more common in certain areas than others. For example, a masculine surname ending in -akis is from Crete island. -idis or -adis appears in Pontic Greek surnames. -udis or -udas are from Macedonia and Thrace. -akos is from Mani. -atos is from Cephalonia island. -elis is from Limnos and Lesvos islands and the coastal areas of Asia Minor. -usis is from Chios island. The very famous -poulos is more often from the Peloponnese. More on this one later. Some Greeks have a surname ending in -oglu. This is a turkish ending, meaning "child-of". It indicates these Greeks had ancestors who came from Turkey during the population exchange in 1922.

There are also some endings that themselves indicate that the meaning of the surname is that of regional origin. Such common endings are: -ótis, -iótis, -ítis, -ianos, -inós, -éos. A villain in a famous Greek series was called Ares Patrinós. His surname meant some ancestor of his was from the city of Patras.

Some surnames have roots that appear to not have an obvious meaning. This is a consequence of the multi-ethnic and especially multi-lingual character of the Ottoman empire. Greek surnames that have roots that are not etymologically Greek might have especially Turkish or Latin but also Vlach, Arvanite, Slavic, Armenian or Jewish etymology instead. This could indicate that the ancestor had mixed ethnicity / descent or that this ancestor was active in some field or social group where that language was prominent in the empire as there were such lingual functional and class distinctions. There are also surprising etymologies that are of Medieval / Byzantine Greek origin, which have fallen out of regular use as standard words and therefore the surname's meaning isn't clear instantly. All surnames though, even those with non-Greek etymologies are Greek-fied which means that they get the Greek grammar endings and are inflected according to the Greek grammar. The only exception is the surnames ending in -oglu, which is probably because they end in an -ou- sound just like many grammatically Greek surnames, so there was no need to be modified too much.

The most common Greek surname ending you will ever hear is -poulos for men and -poulou for women. -poulos indicate being somebody's child. I.e a famous retired officer we have is called Katerinopoulos, which means "Katerina's child". So here we also see the relatively unusual "origin from a female ancestor" indication. I don't know if he has a daughter or a sister, but if so, they are called Katerinopoulou. Please note that even though the surname means "a woman's child" it is not only bore by the true child of that woman. The surname continued beyond the child and was bore intact by the child's descendants as well. So they are all Katerina's descedants, even if they are not direct children. A cute thing to add is that -poulos does not exactly mean a human child! It literally refers to a hatchling, a baby bird. So, if we are really precise about it, Katerina gave birth to a boy that became known around town as "Katerina's little bird". And then the nickname stuck and became his surname. And pouli means bird in general. It derives from the Ancient Greek πωλος (polos) through the Koine Greek πουλλος (poullos) and has a common PIE root with the Latin pullus. They all mean that; small young animal, usually bird!

The most common surname root you will ever hear has any of these in: papa-, pappa-, papado- . These can be both in the beginning of the surname (i.e Papandreou) or the end (i.e Protopappa). Papa- and all its forms indicate descent from an ancestor who was a priest (as Orthodox priests get married and typically produce A LOT of offspring). So, for example, Papandreou, which is also the surname of a very prominent political family in Greece, means "of Father Andreas". They clearly had an ancestor in the family who was a priest named Andreas (παπά-Ανδρέας / Papa-Andreas). The -ou ending is the genitive case showing origin, possession. When the surname is in the genitive case, it usually doesn't change between men and women as there is no gender changes in saying "of Father Andreas". So both men and women in this family are called Papandreou.

Given all this information, can you tell which is the ultimate most common surname in Greek? Well, of course it's ΠΑΠΑΔΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ (Papadopoulos, or Papadopoulou for women). Which means the "priest's wife's child little bird¨!!! There you go!!!!

Now have a caprice!

[tma-fanfic-archivist]

Transgender archives *stares at you*

Statement of The Fanfiction Archivist, regarding @thecatspasta's request for Trans Archives fics.

Statement beings.

These three works are 3 of my personal favorites. This is a niche genre, but a plentiful one nonetheless.

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)

Relationship: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker

Characters: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Sasha James Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives) Martin Blackwood

Additional Tags: Trans Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Nonbinary Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Trans Martin Blackwood Trans Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives) Trans Sasha James The Archives Are Transgender trans author nonbinary author

my summary: Jon comes out as NB to the archives, and the discussion that follows

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Multi

Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)

Relationships: Sasha James/Tim Stoker Martin Blackwood/Sasha James/Tim Stoker Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker jonmartimsasha is endgame but sasha/tim is established and the tim/martin pining is Very Obvious Other Relationship Tags to Be Added Sasha James & Tim Stoker Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Tim Stoker Martin Blackwood & Sasha James Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Sasha James/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist

Characters: Sasha James Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives) Martin Blackwood Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist

Additional Tags: Polyamorous Magnus Archives Ensemble POV Sasha James Trans Sasha James Trans Martin Blackwood Trans Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives) Trans Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Nonbinary Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Polyamorous Martin Blackwood/Sasha James/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Has ADHD Tim Stoker Has ADHD (The Magnus Archives) Martin Blackwood Has ADHD Autistic Sahsa James Neurodivergent Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Bisexual Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives) Canon Bisexual Character Canon Asexual Character Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives) season one Canon Compliant Day At The Beach Fluff Fluff and Angst Fluff and Humor Light Angst Mild Hurt/Comfort Beach Episode martin and tim are both jewish thats the law no spoilers for anything s2 onwards Near Death Experiences Miscommunication Misunderstandings Confessions Ice Cream gay ass homo idiot fools

my summary: literally what it says on the tin. Sasha hosts a beach trip for the Archives to take their mind off of Prentiss. it goes just as well as one can expect.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Multi

Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)

Relationship: Martin Blackwood/Sasha James/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker

Characters: Martin Blackwood Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist

Sasha James Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives) Gerard Keay

Additional Tags: Getting Together oh what did ben call it plot mandated hand holding Canon-Typical The Lonely Content (The Magnus Archives) theyre all trans also AND neurodivergent although that doesnt rlly come up they are in my heart yknow

Friends to Lovers au in which they work for gertrude as a funky little statement follow up team Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence they them sasha He/Him and They/Them Pronouns for Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist he/she/they tim he him martin

my summary: Gertrude is Not Dead and they all work for Gertrude. oh, and theyre all in love and WONT TELL EACH OTHER

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope these help!

Statement ends.

[mask131]

I have been seeing a lot of people recently on Tumblr go 0_o upon the wave of antisemitism that is flooding Europe, the USA and the Internet recently. The reason they are shocked by this, however, is not because of the antisemitism itself... But because they see it comes from "the left". And this turns out to be a shock for them, because they have a hard time understanding how people on the "left-wing" of the political spectrum could end up being VERY antisemitic, as antisemitism was - even before the Nazi party was created - typically associated to the extreme-right and to the right-wing part of the political spectrum.

Except that... when you have been paying attentions to little details and some history lessons, it comes to no surprise at all. The extreme-left (because we have to say things as they are, the current wave of antisemitism is partially born from the extreme-left) is basically the twin of the extreme-right. And I am not just speaking of the fact antisemitism exists as a principle beyond any political party and any religion (antisemitism has been carried on throughout History by the left, the right, by apolitics, by Christians, by Muslims, by basically everyone that is not Jewish).

There was a French comedy movie that is talked about a lot - because it is a movie that never got to be made. It is a movie called "Le Crocodile", "The Crocodile". One of the reasons this unmade movie is so famous is because it was planned to be the "final" movie of Louis de Funès, considered to this day one of the greatest French actors and a monument of French humor. Louis de Funès' archetypal character, his "type-casting", was as a greedy, tyrannical, wrathful and petty, but ultimately ridiculous and sympathetic, middle-management type of guy, an ambitious, vain and cowardly person in a position of power that abused of it, but ultimately ended up either humbled by the story/events/other characters, or had his good side come out in the end. He was an antisemitic factory owner who ended up learning how to love and appreciate the Jewish community ; he was a tyrannical maestro who ended up forced to work for the Resistance during World War II ; he was a scheming, pollution-endorsing mayor who ended up forced to abandon everything because he was bested by his wife ; he was an abusive and criminal minister that kept knowing disgrace after disgrace, and ended up doing heroic deeds but just because the villains of the story were preventing him from doing his own political conspiracy... And "Le Crocodile" was supposed to be the culmination of these specific roles, as de Funès was to play a dictator losing his power during a revolution.

Inspired by Charlie Chaplin's own take on dictatorship, this movie was supposed to depict Louis de Funès as a Pinochet-caricature, "Crochet", an extreme-right dictator in an imaginary country. After a series of adventures, the dictator ended up overthrown by a rival and sent to prison. But his cunning and scheming knowing no bounds, he ended up going back to power... by shifting to the left-wing of the political spectrum, joining with left-oriented political activist, overthrowing his replacement, destroying his own old extreme-right government, to replace it by a new, left-revolutionnary government... That quickly became an extreme-left dictatorship led, once again by Crochet. And this was supposed to be the final, bitter joke of the movie: the beginning and ending of the story were supposed to be identical, because despite the political goals and vocabulary having changed, the dictatorship Crochet had rebuilt in the extreme-left was in all identical to his extreme-right dictatorship.

The movie was never made, unfortunately, due to Louis de Funès passing before shooting could begin. But the same message can be found in the classics of a fiction genre that is much more well-known by English audience: dystopia. What defined the "classical" dystopias, born during the height of the Cold War? From George Orwell's "1984" to Harlan Ellison "I have no mouth and I must scream", there is always this recurring motif of "You had various super-powers with opposing ideologies that waged war against each other... and yet now, we can't actually distinguish these opposite powers from one another, because they are doing the exact same thing and their ideologies end up reaching the same goals and the same points." This was a reaction to the dead-end of the Cold War, where the extremes of the Americanized, capitalist, "Western" block and of the Sovietized, communist "Eastern" block matched each other, resulting in the two looking identical in the eyes of many countries and people stuck in the middle of the two... But the lesson can be applied to any other situation, because it contains one core, fundamental truth people seem to have forgotten about today. Any extreme is bad ; and any good thing, taken to an extreme, will be horrible.

Take Christianity! A religion built on love and peace, and giving your food to the poor and offering the other cheek when you are slapped and forgiving those that betray you... And we ended up with the fucking Inquisition, and the witch hunts, and the religious wars, and many more atrocities, all in the name of "love and peace".

I digress here but honestly I want to get all of this out while I can, so that I have no more to say.

So yes, the "left" as people learned to know it today is based on good principles. (I personally hate reducing things to the "left" or the "right" when it comes to social matter, because for example defending people's right to have their own sexual orientation respected and recognized is not a political question, it is a human question... But since Tumblr users are still in shock unable to understand why the "left could be bad", and since we are facing extreme-left movements, I'll stick to this binary system for now). Yes, the left is the "side of the people" that works on helping the masses against the elite ; yes the left is the side of the "minorities" against "oppresors", yes the left has fought for excellent and needed things like feminism and acceptance and anti-racism... All good principles. And all principles that are turned into tools of hatred and oppression by the extreme-left.

I don't think I need to explain why the extreme-right is bad - in general people on Tumblr are very aware of it, and history has proven us what happens when the extreme-right rises up. Racism, discrimination, xenophobia, homophobia, religious fanaticism... All things typical of the extreme-right, no need to go further. But a lot of people seem to have a hard time wrapping their head around the system and the processes that lead to the "left" becoming the "extreme-left", and why the extreme-left can end up mirroring the extreme-right.

But the answer is very simple. It is this logic as old as time of "reverse bullying". When the bullied decided to take their revenge on the bully by bullying it in return, the bullied becomes the bully, and it does not solve anything since it just reverses the situation. Or more generally speaking: when the defense, love and acceptance of a minority/victim/side becomes hatred and rejection of the majority/bully/other side, there is an open gateway for BAD things. And the wave of antisemitism currently going on is a perfect representation of that.

I personally strongly disliked the extreme-left long before the whole Hamas-Israel situation. I hated the extreme-left because, especially in France, the extreme-left had the worst possible thing when it came to anti-intellectualism. Extreme-left politicians and activists have explicitely spoken against or attacked things such as higher education or any kind of school beyond high school, as well as things such as classical literature or old books. There is this "populist" idea behind the extreme-left, that, as "men/women of the people", as the "voice of the masses", they need to opposite, shit on and destroy anything seen or deemed as an "elite". But the "elite" isn't just your old rich white guy, oh no! The elite also means stuff seen as the intellectual elite. For example, classics of literature. Authors of older generations. And if you wonder how bad it can be: when during the last presidential elections the candidate for the extreme-left was not elected, its young supporters went to the university of the Sorbonne and trashed it. They destroyed computers, destroyed rare books within the university's library, they destroyed the papers and works of the students and teachers in there... Because they were angry at their candidate not being elected. And an university as old and as famous as the Sorbonne, THE French university, was thus seen as the "enemy" and as a symbol of what opposed the access of their candidate to the presidential position. And the result was... destroying books. Yes, bookburners can be as much from the right as from the left. Quite literaly some times.

There was this very hilarious but very very sad thing that happened in French Canada some years ago... There was this group of Canadians (white and Christians if I recall well) that wanted to show an open support and public excuses for how the Catholic Church, how the Canadian government and how white settlers treated the people of the First Nations and the discrimination they had to face. Nice, isn't it? The intention is good, public manifestations recognizing this dark side of the history is good, doing events to move forward is good, right? Except... we are talking about French-Canadians here. French-Canadian-Christians, who are... really something. So what did they do, to show their support to the First Nations? Give back some of their land? Remove some of the horrible laws against them? Recognize them more rights? NO! THEY BURNED BOOKS! Sounds like a joke? It is not. To show their support, what they did was take various comic-books and children books from the early-to-mid 20th century with representations of Native-Americans considered "offensive", and they burned them in a great bonfire. They literaly did... book-burning. To fight colonization and racism. A perfect example of how fucked up and warped it can all be.

This incident above is just one of the many incidents that I have collected across the years and that illustrated what I called the "bad woke". Now... when designating those ridiculous and dangerous excesses, I hate to just say "woke". Because the root of the "woke" ideas are good! Good and positive things: defend trans-people, defend gay people, encourage diversity and body-positivity and fight against racism and religious discrimination. These things are good! And too many people who are just homophobic, transphobic, racist or any other of fucked up jerk use "woke" as an insult and as a derogatory term for just being a normal uman being. So I do not like using "woke" alone to designate the fucked-up extremes the polar opposite side can ledn itself to. But... I have to recognize that there is a bad, extreme and toxic form of "wokeness", and until I can find a better term to designate this phenomenon, I will use the term "bad woke". And the process, the thought-system, the workings of the "bad woke" are the exact sames behind the extreme-left, and the sames that led to this wave of antisemitism drowning the Internet.

I evoked an incident that took place in France again years ago, which was more of an unthought, stupid mistake than an actual malicious intent, but showed how a slight twist can turn "good" from "bad". A "safe place" had been created somewhere, for women and trans people to be able to gather without any presence of men or non-trans people. So far so good, but the twist of the story is that when creating this space the rules for it were too summarized and too-shortened up, and so the creators of the space said this and plastered this on the walls: "Only women and trans people allowed. No men allowed." Do you see the logical problem? What about trans men? Trans men literaly didn't know what to do, since "trans" people were accepted and this space was built for them... and yet "men" as a whole were forbidden. Meaning if a trans man entered the space, they had to somehow not be recognized as a man, but as rather something closer to a woman?

This truly was just a stupid mistake by people who had not thought about it - but it actually shows the process by which defending one minority or an oppressed group can end up harming or hunting another minority/oppressed group. We are all aware of what happened when feminists and the feminism fight to defend women or provide them equal rights, ended up drifting into transphobia and hate on trans women for not being "real women". It is all a messy bag of snakes.

And so, what is the link to the antisemitism today? What does all this proves when it comes to the extreme-left and the Jews? Well, easy.

Why is the extreme-left antisemitic? Because one of the core of the extreme-left is, as I said, to fight against the "elite". Be it a social, cultural, ethnic or political elite, the "left" defined itself mostly as "the mass against the elite, the many against the few". This is mixed with the left fighting against racism, and also fighting against things such as colonization. Again, all very good things. But let's place ourselves in the mind of an antisemitic extreme-leftist. What happens? Why would I come after the Jews, who themselves are known to be an oppressed and discriminated against minority, in both ethnic and religious terms? Why would the extreme-left decide to make a prey out of the people the extreme-right was known to hunt?

Because they are seen as the "elite". We know that extreme-left groups feed into the same antisemitic delusions and conspiracy theories that the Jews are the secret elite controlling the world. Even if they are not hardcore conspiracists, the extreme-left movements have several Jewish stereotypes widespread among them - to take France, just a recent study showed that a lot of people who identified on the left-wing also recognized that Jews were wealthier than regular French people, that they had too much presence in finances, and too much presence in media. The extreme-left searches for a form of elite to fight against and shit upon and hate with all of its might - and when the antisemitic cliches present the Jews as this elite, as some sort of secret powerful cabal controlling the finances and the media and being wealthy and friends with politicians, the extreme-left will latch onto these ideas as if truth, because they hate any form of elite, no matter if the elite actually exists or not. It is no surprise that the same conspiracy cliches about "satanic cults murdering babies and drinking human blood" are used for both the Jews (supposedly the shadow elite) and the actual rich and wealthy, white WASPs family of the USA. Same conspiracy theory, different people.

Of course, the Hamas-Israel war has been what sparked the fire. Because Israel is seen as a colonizer, the Jews as a whole are identifying with other colonizing countries and historical colonizing empires. Because Israel currently has a right-wing/extreme-right government, the Jews are a whole are seen as being from the extreme-right. Because of the retaliation against the Hamas attacks upon Gaza are just a massive unleashing of destruction causing massive deaths and a humanitarian crisis, Jews are a whole are seen as being genocide-endorcers. With people even going as far as to say they became as bad as Nazis or worse, or that they are causing a new Holocaust - the Jewish history being literaly returned against them. Everything that surrounds the Hamas-Israel war needs a post of its own because we have EVERYTHING all at once. We have people who refuse to understand a conflict is not black and white, and that in this war there is no good guy or bad guy, just people suffering on both sides and a lot of deaths and horrors on both sides. We have people who generalize Israel as being somehow the embodiment of all the Jews in the world, and consider Jews from Africa or Europe or America to be responsible for Israel's actions - and who disguise antisemitism as "anti-zionism". We have people who, in their effort to paint Israel as the sole villain, will literaly treat the Hamas as heroes, and ignore for example the fact that they are a terrorist organization, that they actually attacked Israel in terrorist attacks (people even deny the Hamas attacks even happened, the same way you have negationists of the Holocaust), or that they are using the people of Gaza as meat-shield for Israel attacks, or that they have extremely fanatical and racist ideologies based on a genocide of Jews as a whole and the destruction of the USA. And the list goes on and on and this is such a mess...

But here is the thing... The Hamas attacks on Israel and Israel's retaliation were just the spark. Meaning there was fuel before that. And I already started explaining why. The extreme-left had strong latent antisemitic feelings which were widespread, but since not openly hostile or aggressive were not much spotted. (Unlike for example fanatical extreme-right Christians which are very loud and open about their hatred of Jews and parade Jewish caricatures around on signs). And while I evoked before the warped belief that the Jews are somehow an "elite", hence the discrimination, there is another factor that must be taken nto account... What I call the "pick-and-choose your minority" game.

To take for example extreme-left groups in France - but I think it works in other countries too. They are very open about defending minorities and people of color, and they have been strongly standing by the side of black people and Arab people and Muslim people and people from African descent. So far, so good... But the thing is that when you are careful, you see that they do nothing about or never speak about other minorities. For example the Jews, but also Asian people. Not a word, not a peep. And we know there is discrimination in France against them - we already have studies that proved that in universities (which, surprise, are mostly left-leaning) a "common" antisemitism was very widespread, not physical, but taking the form of discriminatory joke, the common use of slurs and other verbal abuse. But we also had a wave of discrimination against people of Asian ethnicites (mostly people of Chinese culture or descent, but given the perpetrators were racist I doubt they'd make a difference between China, Japan or Korea). There was a wave some years ago of brutal street-agressions and mugging and theft targeting Chinese women and Chinese elders (or Chinese-looking people). And the thieves and muggers, once caught, gave the same excuse antisemitic thieves gave: "Everybody knows they have money."

But the thing is that while extreme-left groups are very vocal and very violent when it comes to islamophobia or racism against black people... they are very quiet and discreet when it comes to antisemitic or discrimination against Asian people. (Or at least they were, because since their antisemitism was revealed, they have been very vocal about Jewish people on media, to defend themselves). And this little phenomenon, that mostly went unnoticed and unanalyzed by media, reflects a larger concept that was found everywhere - and in fact very present on the Internet - and that imbues the extreme-left. And this perverse concept is "Some minorities are real minorities. Others are not. Some people are real POCs. Others are not."

To be clear: many people consider that Jews or Asians are not supposed to be minorities, couldn't be oppressed and shouldn't be defended as much as "actual" people of colors or "true" minorities". Because, in their words, these ethnicities are "too white", or "too close to white people". They are "model minorities", they were "integrated", they are seen as coming from either "powerful" nations ranked the same as former colonialist powers (Japan, China), either from "sheltered" and "untouchable" areas (the massive Jewish acceptance and defense after WWII). And the result of these considerations is that the extreme-left treat these groups as just "shades of White people", and they get conflated with things such as "those racist WASPs folks" or "the dominant all-white Christian xenophobes". And then all the stereotypes are thrown at them - the Jews, just like Asians, have supposedly too much influence on politics, too much presence in media, they are naturally wealthier than regular people, they are naturally less discriminated and less hated than others... And in turn, the extreme-left decides "We will not speak of them. We will not fight for them or stand up for them because they do not need it, because they are too close to the elite, because they are too close to our enemies. We'll focus on more "important" people."

And thus, from the noble cause of defending oppressed and discriminated minorities that knew a long history of racism and persecution... we go perpetuating the discrimination and erasure of OTHER minorities and ethnicities that had a long history of racism and persecution. It is... like some sort of perverse "discrimination contest" where people somehow "deserve" to be defend against discriminations and others do not? Some sort of fucked-up ethnic hierarchy that in the end is literaly no different from the same ethnic hierarchies racists of the extreme-right put in place to justify their hatred.

And if the slightest event produces a spark strong enough to set the fuel ablaze... the extreme-left goes from ignoring and passive discrimination to active discrimination. As we can see today by the left of extreme-left antisemitism.

I don't think I have anything else to say? This post is very long, but I got to say everything I had to say, and I am quite glad I did. I wrote it all in one go, so there might be typos, but I do not think I can sum up my words anymore than that.

[justfuckingnougat]

Passover 5784, 2. Self-Hating Jew

Disclaimer: This is part of a series of posts on the topic of Israel and Palestine. You are welcome to engage with or share the thoughts expressed herein, however they are ultimately my own personal thoughts and lived experiences and not the word of an expert on this, or really any matter. I speak as a Jew, but neither I nor anyone else can speak on behalf of all Jews. All pictures used as headers are my own, taken in Israel in 2015.

I first heard the term “Self-Hating Jew” in an episode of the Simpsons, when the character Krusty the Clown is rejected by the Jewish community because he never became Bar Mitzvah, the Jewish coming of age ceremony, typically performed at the age of 13. When Bart and Lisa ask Krusty what’s wrong, he replies “I thought I was a self-hating Jew, but it turns out I'm just a plain old anti-Semite!”. (Incidentally, that episode first aired in 2003, the year I became Bar Mitzvah). After asking about his use of the term, I came to learn it wasn’t just some neologism but a known trope. As I came to understand it, the Self-Hating Jew trope is typically a white middle-class type, politically liberal and fully integrated into Anglo-Saxon Protestant society. He, of course, hates and is ashamed of his heritage which he hides as much as he can and is definitely dating a non-Jew because he doesn’t want to pass anything on to his children. I never thought too much about it, Jewish humor is typically self-deprecating and there are Yiddish terms for all manner of fools already (e.x. shlemiel, shlimazl, schmuck), what was one more to the roster? It wasn’t until I was older that I began to realize the term was actually quite harmful, politically charged, and ultimately Zionist.

A brief history: the precursor to the term Self-Hating Jew comes primarily from Jewish infighting, likely started by but not limited to the development of Reform Judaism in 19th century Germany. Theodor Herzl, sometimes considered the father of Zionism used the term “Jewish Anti-Semitism” to slander his political opponents, though the other side would soon also adopt this weapon. (That’s a picture of Theodor in the accompanying picture, by the way, on display at Independence Hall in Tel Aviv where the founders officially declared Israel a state). The Zionist faction would ultimately win that polemic arms race, and the spread of the term in America was calculated and intentional. To quote Noam Chomsky, “The American Jewish community [was advised] that they had two tasks to perform. One task was to show that criticism of the policy, what he called anti-Zionism—that means actually criticisms of the policy of the state of Israel—were anti-Semitism. That's the first task. Second task, if the criticism was made by Jews, their task was to show that it's neurotic self-hatred, needs psychiatric treatment.” You may have caught the political nature of the term when I was detailing the trope earlier: the Self-Hating Jew is always a liberal, leftist, progressive, or whichever faction the Jewish Right most fears and hates at the time. To use language that may confuse anyone older than me reading this and (hopefully) delight those younger, the Self-Hating Jew most definitely got blue hair and pronouns.

I was recently introduced to this quote by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, a Jewish historian and Rabbi; in context, Yerushalmi is criticizing a fictional Zionist character “[He] has a past, only with an intermission of almost two millennia. It grinds to a halt with the fall of Masada in the second century and resumes again with the return to Zion in the late nineteenth.” I gravitated to this quote because, to me, it summarizes so much of my conflict with Zionist thought, even outside of Palestinian oppression, and the bitter irony of the entire Self-Hating Jew polemic. While I do not believe there is any meaningful body of Jews defined by self-hatred, I do think there is a group within Jews that most hates others and seeks to stamp them out. If you read the works of early Zionists, up to and including works of Israels first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, they are full of the sentiment of shame and hatred for the Diaspora Jew. Not of specific individuals, most of them were, of course, Diaspora Jews, but of the concept. They are shamed and embarrassed by what they perceive as a history of pain in which their once proud warrior ancestors are made to serve and scrape. Yiddish, the majority (but far from only) language of European Jews for the better part of a millennia was banned from public use in Israel, a policy enforced with violence, all in the name of ending one identity in favor of a shiny new Nationalism, one that speaks Hebrew and are the direct descendants of the kingdoms of David and Solomon. Pride in Diaspora culture, thus, presents in itself a threat to the Israeli national myth.

The popular French comic Asterix and Obelix follows the antics of two Gaulish heroes, normally going up against and besting the invading Romans. Readers worldwide have delighted in the comic for over 60 years now. But there is a cruel truth underlying the cartoonish antics: the Romans win. Not only did the Romans conquer the Gauls, they subjugated them so thoroughly that they wiped out everything but their genetic inheritance. Once the dominant cultures of Europe, the Gauls and their Continental Celtic sisters, their languages, religions, cultures, ways of dressing and eating, all barely make it into written history outside of the writings of their colonizers. This may all seem a non sequitur, but I bring this up to make the point of how remarkable it is that there exist Jews today at all. Genocide, the destruction of the Temple (at the time the center of Jewish religion), exile, and competition with the quickly growing Christians made for a perfect storm that could have easily ended Jewish identity. And yet it did not. They persisted. For almost two thousand years since we have created art and music, weaving new languages and ways of living, all while keeping the Torah and arguing, arguing, arguing over what it all means. All without force of military might or empirical control.

I am incredibly proud of that history. A history not of warriors and empires, but of teachers and philosophers, artists, musicians, even magicians, of tricksters and golems, vulnerable yet indomitable. You can be labeled a Self-Hating Jew for standing apart from our cultures youngest and most extreme branch (Zionism) while they stand there and play at Maccabees. I had originally intended this to be more of a structured critique and/or exposé of the military cult aspect of Zionism and the dangers of weaponizing antisemitism, but ultimately other thoughts got the better of me. I guess Ill have to talk about that in another post. For now, I feel I need to end this while I still have some semblance of a theme. If you were looking for some kind of conclusion, I can only offer this: Jews are and will continue to be so much more than Israel. Israel is a country, nothing more or less, and despite its posturing it is not the continuation of a 3000-year-old Iron Age kingdom. Modern Zionism is deplorable in what it has done to the Palestinians, but even in their absence I do not believe in its call. I do not need a military and a state to be whole. They cannot grant nor deny me what I have always had, what my ancestors never lost even in the darkest parts of our history. I am not an Israeli; I am a Jew.

[gayjameswilson]

What's your opinion on this?

https://www.tumblr.com/ghostbxnes/713978249720496128

As somebody who has been watching south park since I was like 10 I think this is… pretty stupid. south park did not make kids/teens racist or antisemitic or homophobic — to say that south park itself made it funny to be hateful is giving south park way more power than it actually has.

south park does not, in any way, encourage any of those things. Cartman, who is basically responsible for most of the bigotry in the show, is never encouraged for these things. When he mocks Kyle for being Jewish, Kyle always defends himself or even kicks cartman’s ass for it. Cartman doesn’t get away with it. he’s never rewarded for it. Wendy even kicks his ass as well. Cartman isn’t powerful — he reels off bigoted things, but the moment he’s challenged, he usually ends up losing. He’s clearly not a role model. He’s weak and annoying and he’s funny for being so pathetic. anybody who idolizes cartman was probably already a bigot/asshole to begin with — it’s pretty ridiculous to say that cartman is responsible for all the bigoted kids these days, because anybody who can understand satire and adult media should understand that cartman is not to be idolized. Cartman didn’t teach kids/teens to be hateful. Here’s even a piece from an article talking about this:

Satire is your responsibility to understand. If you don’t understand it, you shouldn’t be watching it because you’ll take it the wrong way like the people in that post. South park is not written to brainlessly hateful. Yes, they pick on everyone, (and I mean everyone. White cishet men are constantly mocked), but a lot of it is just written to be funny. If groups I am a part of like gay people weren’t picked on I’d be more offended, because I realize it’s humor and not serious and I’m not that sensitive. Take tweek and craig — Matt and Trey (the writers) noticed how many fans shipped them and made the two into what is probably the healthiest relationship on the show in a frankly hilarious episode about yaoi. (Matt and Trey even have a fan art wall! They’re clearly fond of their fans and actually listen to them). Take jimmy, too. He’s honestly wonderful disability representation and isn’t treated any different from the other boys. So to say Matt and Trey are homophobic or antisemitic or racist or ableist or anything like that is ridiculous.

While a lot of south park’s humor is just silly and teasing, they do downright mock groups and people. But most of the things they genuinely paint in a bad light are actual bigots and harmful ideologies, like scientology, a lot of right-wing politicians, and racist rednecks. And Barbara Streisand. And many more. There’s an obvious difference in south park between goofy jokes meant to make you laugh and commentary on politics (hidden behind fart jokes). Matt and Trey are centrists, so they obviously aren’t biased. They just target things they think are idiotic — which they’re typically right about. They have made mistakes, though, which I won’t deny. But take manbearpig — it was a metaphor for global warming, and was initially just a creature south park version al gore made up. But Matt and Trey realized their mistake, and later made an episode where the manbearpig is in fact real and begins to kill people. That also should show you that south park doesn’t make people “lazy” or “uncaring” or however else those people in that post put it. The manbearpig (global warming) kills people. If that doesn’t make you want to prevent it then that is your fault. That goes for other issues south park has brought up, too. South park presents the issues of the world in a negative light — if you’re uncaring about them, that’s on you.

So, south park is a satire, and it’s your responsibility to understand it. If you think that the things cartman says or does is okay, or you think that the show is trying to make him correct, that’s a you thing.

[psychotrenny]

The other terrible way that people approach "Conspiracy Theories" is when they treat the ridiculous ones as nothing but harmless nonsense while ignoring the genuinely harmful ideology they contain or relate to. Like a lot of them are incredibly bigoted, either implicitly or explicitly depending on what version you hear. One of the most frequent and prominent forms of Bigotry within those sorts of "conspiracy circles" is antisemitism but it is far from the only one; there's also plenty of misogyny, homo/transphobia and racism against any number of marginalised peoples, alongside general reactionary beliefs about society. Often the funny or absurd elements of these theories serve to further the reactionary aspects. If you start talking openly about how the world is run by a secret Jewish Cabal then you'll face serious pushback and scare most people away pretty quickly*. But replace "Jews" with "Aliens Lizards" and the general public becomes a lot more tolerant of it. Many people will just laugh about it without serious consideration (while possibly spreading it further as a "funny joke"), while a few might be more sympathetic to that line of thinking and gradually open themselves to more explicit expressions of fascism. And fellow fascists will be encouraged by knowing that they have another ally out there, one smart enough to "hide their power level"

Meanwhile plenty of absurd conspiracy theories might not directly contain any awful ideologies but are frequently a product of such beliefs and so can typically be found alongside them. Like not every Flat Earther is a Christofascist, but a lot of them are (believing heliocentrism to be a Satanic plot to discredit the Bible and lead humanity into Atheism and sin) and many non-fash Flat Eathers are still happy to associate with them. And as they say, if someone's at the table with 9 Fascists then you functionally have a table with 10 Fascists

The point is that no matter how humorously ridiculous some belief is, if a lot of people choose to hold it then they do so for a reason. A reason deeper then "they are random idiots with dumb brains". Said deeper reason is usually pretty fucking awful which is why, no matter how funny it may be, you have to treat this sort of thing as more than a lighthearted joke. The beliefs themselves can be easily dismissed, but the people who hold them and the motivations behind them are no laughing matter

*not to imply that bigotry isn't widespread in society, just that most people shy away from supporting or expressing the most naked forms

I really do hate the way people use the phrase "Conspiracy Theory" to refer to everything from "Supernatural Bullshit" to "Technically Possible but all the actual evidence is against it" to "We know for sure that this happened like we have declassified documents and decades of testimony from dozens of people and..."

Like it's just such an actively counterproductive conflation of different phenomenon that mostly serves to discredit actual investigation into the activities of those in power. Because sure, it's stupid to act as though the world is primarily driven by the hidden schemes of the powerful. But it's just as stupid to act as though powerful individuals and institutions don't ever get together and enact hidden schemes. Even though these sorts of entities invariably engage in many more equally bad (if not worse) activities in the open, for certain programmes the maintenance of some sort of secrecy does have worthwhile advantages. The fact of the matter is that high level conspiracies happen and they happen for a reason. Along with all the conspiracy "theories" out there, you'll find plenty of conspiracy facts

And sure, broader structural forces are much much more important than any individual project could be. State and Corporate conspiracies generally serve the ultimate purpose of maintaining or accelerating processes that were happening openly and/or "naturally" (i.e. without large scale co-ordinated planning) anyway. But these sorts of plots are still worth talking about not only because of their direct impacts (the greatest of which can change the fate of entire small countries) but also because of the ways they reflect and reinforce the overarching structures that produced them. At the very least, you shouldn't dismiss them out of hand because you think "A powerful entity did something and tried to keep it a secret" is a claim made only by people who've been watching too much X-Files

[eddieydewr]

Hi! This may be a bit of a rant but there is something I really wanna share with someone so I hope you don't mind.

I have a friend who I knew 'cause we were in the same club at uni. He's very eloquent and smart, so I really respect him (but mostly from afar 'cause I was shy lol). And then I saw him post about ST season 4, and about Will in particular so I mustered up my courage and messaged him "hey have u seen the parallels between Will and Vecna?". And we started talking about other ST-related stuff. We even ranted a lot about vol 2 after watching that lol. We also talked about books and TV shows and overall, I was glad ST helped me make more friends.

When the free Palestine movement became popular last year, I was not surprised when I saw him post about Gaza or Rafah 'cause well... he's just like a typical queer, chronically online, twitter user lol (both complimentary and derogatory, sometimes I find his humor funny, sometimes I just wanna roll my eyes). We have never talked about this topic and honestly I really don't feel like. I just simply carry on sharing posts and stories about discrimination against Jewish and Israeli people and anti-Hamas stuff.

And then recently I saw him posting overtly anti-Israel things, like "u think this is hot now, wait til you go to hell for supporting Israel". Not gonna lie, I chuckled when I saw that 'cause first of all, I am an atheist so whatever man I don't believe in hell anyway. Second, I don't know what other non-Jewish people who support Israel (as in 'its existence is legitimate and the people there deserve peace', not the government itself) may feel about hell, but as far as I'm concerned, Jewish people don't seem to put that much weight on the concept of hell and heaven, right?. So like "bro you should have choose something else more menacing than that lol"

Now I can scroll through that post but what irks me the most is what he chose to share today.

https://x.com/redstreamnet/status/1841561550378651724

I find it so freaking ironic how after everything that has happened in Iran recently (and how many Iranians have spoken out against the Islamic republic), this is the first Iran-related thing he posted about. Like I'm so close to just forward to him a video of Iranians celebrating the death of Nasrallah or comments/posts of Iranians thanking Israel for it, or overall just people between these two countries wishing each other peace and freedom. I'm not sure if I can call what I'm feeling "anger" 'cause it's not exactly strong as when I see people deny October 7. But there is surely a sense of resignation.

I don't see those pro-pal people as bad or evil. I actually believe that most of them have good intentions, but to me, they are too caught up in their self-righteousness and black-and-white views to acknowledge the grey area of this whole mess.

I saw you own up to your own hypocrisy a few days ago and ngl I admire you for that lol. I only think of humans as "paradoxical by nature" so a person saying conflicting stuff is normal to me. But it's annoying as hell when someone doesn't think they are capable of hypocrisy or double standards.

Anyways, have a great day. Thank you for reading all this. Sorry it's kinda long. Being concise is not my strong suit lol.

hey anon, let’s hug. if you want?

i rly don’t have much to offer bc my brain is currently mush, you probably just wanted to vent and that’s ok. i just didn’t want to leave you on read. 💚

look, i’m using jquinn even though he annoys me atm but i just couldn’t resist, lmao. like yeah, #me.

[ithisatanytime]

DRESDEN ER

 in other less interesting news i watch a six hour long iceberg style video about columbine, bringing me up to speed with every single woman on this fucking website, i was just never all that fascinated by the story, even though embarrassingly the documentary bowling for columbine is probably more than a little responsible for my several years long stint as a leftist. i wanted to watch it because i assumed it would be fairly in depth and i wanted to see if any information presented would challenge my view on the shootings, which basically boil down to, there was a lot of over the top bullying at columbine but ultimately both shooters were just ethnically canaanite and acting on their natural satan given impulse to kill. klebold is the only one of the two shooters with confirmed jewish ancestery which he diminishes by saying hes only a quarter jewish on from his mothers side, but not only is this not how it works, its just not true, his mother is obviously more than half jewish but even if she were, if that half is her mothers side that makes her fully jewish as well as dylan, but its all beside the point because his father is among the most obviously jewish men i have ever layed eyes upon just look him up yourself if you think im embelleshing, not only that but klebold himself has strong jewish features that only typically manifest with high so called jew admixture. the other shooter doesnt have any confirmed jewish heritage whatsoever, but hes made fun of for his looks by other students frequently, even though if you just look at a picture of him a flattering one he appears at times quite handsome, so whats different about his looks what makes him stand out at all? he was mocked for being short, he has a fleshy upper lip, and a characteristically ratlike face, these are extremely jewish features on an otherwise pure white nordic looking person. there is some hubbub made about them being nazis, but even in their own tapes eric will mention that they like hitler, and klebold responds with “but im jewish” and jokingly eric harris acts surprised to this klebold adds “only a quarter!” its all played for laughs but a lot of people intentionally or otherwise ignore the clearly humorous nature of this exchange and pretend as though its to be taken literally that eric didnt know klebold was jewish despite mountains of evidence showing eric knew and they were obviously just joking. the two also frequently wore the communist hammer and sickle, and the only real nazi stuff in the entire six hour deep dive was them shouting things like “we like hitler” and “heil hitler” clearly they were just trying to be edgy though. but lets pretend they actually read mein kampf and believed in fascism or volk or whatever, they clearly didnt but lets just pretend, who fucking cares? i already wrote about this exact phenomena where these so called jews, who are alien to us inside, will have all kinds of different political views from both sides of the aisles, far leftist, authoritarian, far right, far left, but ultimately no matter how eloquently they describe the percieved political problems the solution is always the same, kill a bunch of random people! the right wing unabomber, the left wing tranny who recently shot up that christian school, in fact ive said before that if you look into the ancestory of most of these so called white (or even nonwhite in the case of elliot rodgers and a few others) you will find they were not white at all but so called jews. all the manifestos political or social posturing and philosophizing are just window dressing at best, for justifying what ulitmately they feel like they need to do, which is strike out randomly and violently. the phenomena of mass shootings arent nearly as murky a thing to understand as the media would have you believe, they are practical and racially motivated if even only on a subconscious level. here is a parable to try to illustrate whats going on.

  imagine there is a group of east asians who look ALMOST exactly like the chinese, with a few minor differences that a trained eye would eventually be able to pick up on with practice. lets call these people “wapanese” now suppose these wapanese while outwardly similar to the chinese were inwardly very different in temperament, more sexually forward and pervers, more inclined to violence, had their own religion and were very insular keeping to themselves and doing everything to remian a distinct racially and culturally pure people among the much larger and almost physically indistinguishable japanese population. suppose after centuries of the wapanese living among the chinese, you have wapanese kids in chinese schools who dont even KNOW that they are wapanese because culturally they were more or less raised chinese. but they arent chinese and those differences in temperament arent cultural but genetic in origin, so as much as these wapanese kids want to fit in, they just cant, and whats more they dont want to fit in, as perverse as the wapanese seem to the comparably reserved and cool chinese, the chinese seem boring and uptight to the wapanese, there are essential intrinsic differences in these two peoples that make creating meaningful relationships next to impossible for the wapanese living isolated amongst the much bigger chinese population. he might start to feel insane, why is he so different? is there something wrong with me? but these differences again are genetic he has no hope of changing really, eventually he starts to despise “Everyone” and come up with all kinds of gibberish as to why hes special and better and deserving of life while all his peers who reject him are actually in the wrong and deserve to die. when in reality neither party is in the wrong, the wapanese is just unknowingly completley cut off from his literal family (race is literally just family, there isnt a speck of metaphor in that statment it literally is just family they are synonymous) in tribal times, or any times really but well pretend this is just strictly relevant to tribal times because its less controversial, it would behoove a man in that situation to kill the rival tribe that hes surrounded by if hes at all able, and maybe take their women for his own. its not even madness that spurs these shootings, but cold hard evolutionary truth, tribalism. now the so called jews are a special murderous people in their own right and the wapanese metaphor really doesnt cover that but you get the picture, imagine being the only woman in a world full of men, only women arent a thing in this world so no one knows what to make of you, you are just a weird incomplete man, how isolating that would be, how that isolation would eventually turn to rage and hatred. its about being funedmentally different from your peers to the point you cant even begin to relate. 

 i also want to point out that eric was made fun of for being short, while dylan was made fun of for being tall... what gives? no one bullied ryan hemsworth for being tall im sure so why dylan? its because he wasnt just tall, he had an ugly rat like face and his arms and torso were in bad porportion to one another, remember what i said about so called jews varying from dwarves to giants and that ultimately what sets them apart isnt so much extreme height or lack thereof but a body (skeleton really) that is in some way in proportional disharmony. we were made in the image of our father, and our father is beautiful, they were made not in the image of their father, but in mockery of ours.

[ao3feed-newsies]

one shot ain't worth a bad mugshot

by, gho (boffy) by gho (boffy) Les begins to drift off, the grief and anger of the day leaving his body to form a heavy, numbing blanket of exhaustion over his mind and body. The quiet tones and David and Sarah are white noise to Les’s sleep, and he’s not quite sure why they sound so hushed, so angry, so secretive, but he’s not going to give it much thought right now. “You can’t just shoot people, Dave, that’s not how this works.” Or, he wasn’t until right then. (Let it be known that Les Jacobs is far from stupid, and that there are quite a few things that the newsies don’t know about the Jacobs family.) Words: 3677, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Newsies - All Media Types Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Gen Characters: Les Jacobs, David Jacobs, Sarah Jacobs (Newsies), Jack Kelly (Newsies), The Newsies (Newsies) Relationships: David Jacobs & Sarah Jacobs, David Jacobs & Les Jacobs, David Jacobs & Les Jacobs & Sarah Jacobs, Implied David Jacobs/Jack Kelly Additional Tags: Character Study, Non-Graphic Violence, Gun Violence, ←characters consider gun violence but it is not actually done, Family Bonding, Sibling Bonding, Missing Scene, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Allusions to period-typical homophobia, Allusions to antisemitism, Allusions to Classism, ←i promise it's a lot lighter than it sounds, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, POV Les Jacobs, Les jacobs-centric, David Jacobs-centric, Badass Sarah Jacobs (Newsies), Badass David Jacobs, Gay David Jacobs, Jewish Jacobs Family (Newsies), Not Beta Read, One Shot read : https://ift.tt/CIG9VBL - August 20, 2023 at 02:09PM

[themovieblogonline]

Eddie Murphy is Funny AF in You People

You People is the new Netflix romantic comedy starring Jonah Hill, Eddie Murphy, Laren London, and Nia Long. The movie is co-written by both Joah Hill and director Kenya Barris the creator of Black-ish. You People tells the story of a Jewish white man and a black Muslim woman who fall in love. the biggest draw in this movie is the social and cultural clashes with the in-laws that lead to some funny AF moments in the movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCMHc-IFAB0 You People Netflix Review I really enjoy you people and I'm going I definitely recommend catching this when you have the time. Here's what I liked: THE GOOD I came into this movie for Eddie and Eddie Delivers. Sure, Jonah Hill's Ezra makes me laugh but I came here for Eddie. Eddie plays Akbar Mohammed the father of Lauren London's Amira Mohammed. I get a different style of comedy from Eddie than I expect but I still really like it. Akbar goes out of his way to make the engagement to his daughter difficult for Jonah Hill's Ezra.  Eddie is matched by his counterpart in Julia Louis Dreyfus who plays Ezra's mother Shelley Cohen. Shelley nails the typical tone-deaf mom perfectly and is hilarious in her performance. Thank you Netflix for providing this SNL reunion I didn't know I needed. Ezra Miller and Lauren London are the focus of the love story in You People and are surprisingly cute together. They're meeting is adorable with Ezra mistaking Amira's car for his Uber and giving her a scare. The montage of their dating life is adorable and I actually believe them as a couple while watching. The crap hits the fan when Ezra wants to marry Amira and decides to ask her parents' permission. Nia Long flexes her comedic range and is able to shine alongside Eddie and Jonah in Rosco's Chicken and Waffles. I really like the absurdity of the moment as it's a creative way to highlight Akbar's polar opposite personality. My favorite parts of You People are when Amira and Ezra's families interact. The humor in these moments can get dark, and sometimes cringe, but they often deliver some funny moments. David Duchovny delivers a super duper dry humor love-it-or-hate-it performance. I won't ruin it but he has a moment in the movie with Lauren London's Amira that had me chuckling. The littering of guest stars for family members makes for some fun moments and adds spontaneity to an already surprising movie. THE BAD Some of the situational humor feels forced or just feel unrealistic. Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy are paired together in some of the funniest scenes in the movie but also some of the worst. There's a scene in which Akbar brings Ezra to play basketball in a black neighborhood.  It's a love-it-or-hate-it scene and I just don't like it. I also don't like the barbershop scene even though I understand the intent. There's also a random joke later about storming the capital that's also a miss. This movie suffers from a lot of missed opportunities. There are times when You People will build momentum and tease leaning into some potentially funny moments but shies away at the last second. These moments happen throughout the movie when You People feels like it's on the verge of greatness but holds back. Even the ending of the movie shies away from leaning into some of the subjects and wraps things up neatly seemingly from out of nowhere. OVERALL You People is a very enjoyable movie and is entertaining from beginning to end. I feel like I came into this movie for Eddie and but I left with a family. This movie does a great job of walking the line and bringing humor to sensitive topics. I can see this movie played for a lot of families of couples in similar circumstances and I will absolutely recommend this to any that I know. Read the full article

[aarongoldenwrites]

During the Jewish holiday of Passover, there’s a tradition of taking a piece of matzah, breaking it in half and hiding half of it, and then having the kids look for it. This hidden piece of matzah is called the Afikomen. It’s a typically harmless bit of fun that helps break up an hours-long dinner service, but I’m just imagining how wrong it would go at stately Wayne Manor. 

It starts with Bruce, at 9 years old, asking Alfred to really try and hide the Afikomen. Alfred humors young Bruce but Bruce gets irritable and demands Alfred do a better job. So Alfred does, and by age 11 Bruce keeps trying (and failing!) to find where Alfred has hidden the damn thing. He starts trailing Alfred through the day, trying to figure out where or how Alfred is hiding the Afikomen, but he never figures it out: Alfred always has to show him where it is, and Bruce spends weeks puzzling out how Alfred must have hidden it (Alfred never reveals his secrets).  

When Bruce goes to high school and then college the tradition sort of falls by the wayside. They have the Kanes over for the Seder, and Bruce invites Harleen Quinzel over once in college when she can’t get home to her family, but by-and-large it turns into a sober affair. 

And then Dick Grayson comes home with Bruce and everything changes. 

Dick didn’t grow up Jewish - in his mind, this is some sort of training exercise, and he never really stops believing that. Alfred starts hiding the Afikomen again and says he’ll keep using the same spot until someone finds it. Dick never does. He eventually ropes Barbara into the game and she can’t find it, either. It drives both of them nuts.  

Eventually, after Dick’s gone and become Nightwing, he asks Jason if Bruce has him doing the annual matzah hunt, and Jason demands to do the thing Dick did. 

Jason literally tears through the walls looking for the Afikomen. He dies the first time without finding it. Bruce doesn’t think to ask Alfred where it was hidden, but he does catch Alfred putting the Afikomen away. 

Tim transitions in the house and is settling in when Dick mentions the Afikomen thing to him, and Tim is curious as to why Bruce hasn’t had him do the thing during the long tedious dinner. He brings over Steph one year and the two of them spend a lovely evening sleuthing through the house, unable to find wherever Alfred has hidden the Afikomen. 

They go to Bruce for hints and Bruce just shrugs (he still does not know where or how Alfred is hiding the Afikomen this time). 

This goes on for years.  

Babs brings Cass and Steph into the game. Cass silently stalks the hallways, her eyes narrowed as she stares into a darkness that offers no answers. Damien follows her and then Steph and then Tim, figuring one of them must know something. None of them do. Dick jumps from railing to chandelier and back again, finding nothing. Jason is still putting holes in the walls, mostly to annoy Bruce. Tim is using drones and they give him no answers.  

Selina, once she’s brought in, spends an evening searching but pretending not to and then, later, corners Bruce. 

“Bat,” she says, “You don’t actually know where Alfred put it, do you?” 

“Cat,” he answers, “You will not tell that to anyone else.” 

He adds a please about a minute later. She nods; they already keep all one another’s darkest secrets. 

Kate thinks this is all hilarious and gleefully says that if they can’t do next year in Jerusalem, Wayne Manor will do (she wouldn’t dream of robbing Bruce of this). They can’t go to Jerusalem without the Afikomen. 

Damien thinks she’s serious and redoubles his efforts, but still: nothing. 

(For those wondering: Bruce runs a pretty decent service and always brings out the good wine. He growls his way through Dayneu. The Specter pops in to drink the cup set aside for Eliyahu.) 

When Thomas Wayne switches realities into this one, he finds out that the Afikomen is a thing and challenges Bruce to find it. 

“The real Batman would know where the Afikomen is,” he says. 

“Uh-huh,” says Bruce. 

“The real Batman would be able to solve such a simple mystery.” 

“You’ve found it, then?”

“Obviously, son. I am better than you in every way.” 

“Neat,” Bruce says, looking his not-father in the eye. “Where is it?” 

And Bruce can see, for just a moment, the hours that Thomas has spent scouring the house. He can see the evenings spent tracking Alfred’s patterns, threatening Alfred with torture, pleading with Alfred to tell him where the Afikomen is, and Bruce knows. 

It is the first time Bruce feels a kinship with this man. 

“You can’t find it either.” 

Thomas screams in fury. 

The first year Alfred is dead, Bruce and his kids hold the Seder at the Kane residence. Joseph is terrible at leading, however, and Kate leads a chorus of “Next year in Wayne Manor!” 

About half way through the Seder, the kids all start to get up. 

“Where are you going?” Bruce asks. 

“It’s out there, father,” Damien says. 

“We have to find it,” Jason growls.  

Selina waits a moment, then stands and pulls Bruce out of his chair, the kids all looking at him expectantly. 

Bruce nods. 

“Okay,” Bruce says, “We’ll take a half-hour and see if we can find where dad left it.” Nobody mentions that Bruce called Alfred ‘dad.’ They just get to searching. 

And for one night a year, the Bat Family get together and searches for something they will never find, and that mystery brings them closer together.   

[uselessheretic]

your taika post (very good) reminded me about this post https://wistfulrat.tumblr.com/post/680353231794323456/anyway-just-ensuring-the-masses-thats-not

ive seen so many people say taika's comedy is "queer humour" or even "gen z humour" and like,,, no lmao what you like about his work is his Māori and broader Kiwi sense of humour + perspective. like he's not fucking ""appropriating"" queer culture for all the reasons you mentioned but also whoever's saying that is just so very unfamiliar with non-usamerican humour and so ready to claim any comedy they view as "quirky" or unique as [queer humour] bc of it!

(not to say that he isnt also doing a lot of great queer rep and supporting the community etc etc i just think people outside of his oceania audience are so unlikely to even recognise what's typical of Māori and/or Kiwi humour)

lmaooo the idea of calling his work gen z humor is killing me like man's about to be 47. it's so weird watching people get up in arms about his jokes because it's like.... maybe u just don't get it and are boring because american humor is often boring. esp wild that people are trying to make him problematic for his humor because he really really isn't mean spirited. like he doesn't really rely on making fun of others for his jokes and when it comes to stuff he says in interviews i'm pretty sure he leans on the funny arrogant attitude as a way of poking fun at himself.

like people are mad about him saying he's angry stranger things used kate bush! when the context was him being like "i love stranger things and i love kate bush and wanted to use her music, so now i'm like an grumpy old man yelling about kids these days" which is a joke that makes fun of himself more than anything?

also funny because he's talked about polynesian and indigenous humor too (also jewish humor!) and how it informs his career! and that in to be able to laugh after having to face so much tragedy, and the way he used this to open people up to new ideas. it's just so :(

also i hate white gay people saying he uses "queer humor" bc white gay people are not funny full stop

[ameliora-j]

Oh boy some of this are so funny. Typical hater narrative.  It's been like 1 year and ya'll haven't done your research yet. Just say you hate him and go. Unlucky for you, Im bored and i did the research for you.  It's gonna be long so theres a chance you might not read it, so stay ignorant if you will. I got time to waste anyway.

basically he is transphobic -people are saying this because he just liked and unliked a tweet at the heat of JKRs twitter rant. The tweet he liked is not even transphobic. It was JKRs reply to someone and can easily be mistaken as just a sarcastic reply if you don't look at the whole thread and don't know what's going on. (I bet some people calling him transphobic doesnt even know this.) It could've been easily a mistake or a misunderstanding on his part. But no, people nowadays loves the mob mentality and would just assume the worst on anyone. He couldve just said it was a mistake, but people are already crucifying him and saying he just unliked it because "he's being called out", so what's the point of rectifying? We all know nothing is enough to the haters and social media crussaders. His good deeds before this overlooked because of one stupid mistake. He has called out a transphobic restaurant before in his instagram story, actual trans that actually met him have come forward on twitter saying he's nothing but sweet, respectful and even asked and used their proffered pronoun.

he body and slut shamed his ex girlfriend - said ex girlfriend was just with him days before he sang it on live and they're cool and great friends. Said song was written like 20 years ago. Now that wasnt an excuse to slut shame and body shame someone, why is he being singled out regarding this kind of songs? Taylor Swift's Better Than Revenge anyone? (It's just whats at the top of my head. But hey! Im swiftie!) There's a bunch of song with the same theme, let's also call them out and cancel them. Btw, Tom has a newer song that empowers women titled " Fairies and Feathers" but we're gonna ignore that because we all care about his mistakes and bad side here.

he's obsessed with the pureblood role he played which has roots in anti semitism - this is just reaching haha! Say you're just annoyed with him loving the character that he played for 10 years of his life. Let's also cancel all people that loves draco Malfoy. Fyi, his long time ex girlfriend and current girlfriend came from jewish families. In case haters are reaching more that he's anti semitic too. I've seen a couple of those.

he duets/replies to a bunch of sexual tiktoks made by minors - i've seen all his tiktoks since the birth of it and have not seen something like this. Or is this about the lip biting thing. Lol, that's a self-deprecating humor at best.

and i'm nearly positive that there's more but this is all that i can think of rn - hey i can think for you! He's obsessed with Emma watson, even though they're probably besties in real life. He encourages tiktok to sexualize him even though he doesn't have control on what people would react to him. He agrees with JKR because he called her a genius even though he meant for creating the potter world. Oh there's more i know ya'll can make a lot more reasons to hate him.

i’m not arguing with you over tom felton… get well soon babe!

[tcm]

Shelley Winters: An Extraordinary Actress By Susan King

When Shelley Winters died at 85 in 2006, much was made of the fact that the two-time Oscar-winner went from a va-va-va voom sex symbol to a matronly character actress. In fact, the Los Angeles Times obit stated she was a “blond bombshell of the 1940s who evolved into a character actress best remembered for her roles as victims, shrew and matrons.”

But truth be told, Winters was always a character actress. However, when she began in the acting in Hollywood in the 1940s, the studio system typecast actresses and actors on appearance. In fact, she once noted she often played the “the bad blonde bimbo usually going up against the sweet brunette.” In fact, before she got her big movie break as a tart waitress who is murdered by Ronald Colman in A DOUBLE LIFE (’47), she was playing the comedic character part of Ado Annie on Broadway in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma!.  And speaking of A DOUBLE LIFE, Winters brought a depth to the character that other ingenues of the era wouldn’t have had the ability to play.

“She was a serious actress,” said Diane Baker, who made her film debut opposite Winters in George Stevens’ acclaimed THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (’59) for which Winters received her first supporting actress Oscar as Mrs. Van Daan. And it was her role as the zaftig middle-age Van Daan that was her watershed film – the movie in which she segued from glam roles and moved into the forefront of the character actresses. “I believe Shelley exemplified what it was to be a Method actress,” Baker added.

Winters initially had to work hard to convince Hollywood she was a serious actress. Oscar-nominated Sally Kirkland, who knew and worked with Winters from 1962-2006, recalled the lengths she went to convince director George Stevens that she was more than a sex symbol in order to play the dowdy pregnant Alice Tripp, who is murdered by her boyfriend (Montgomery Clift) in A PLACE IN THE SUN (’51).

“When George Stevens made an appointment to meet her at the Hollywood Athletic Club, she made her hair brown. She’s flattened her chest, got a dowdy coat. She sits there for an hour because he doesn’t recognize her. Winters went to these ‘extremes’ because she’s smart enough to know she can not be a blonde bombshell. He agrees to test her and then hires her. She gets her Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Of course, that relationship with Monty Clift was profound to her.”

She also excelled in the gothic thriller THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (’55), the only film directed by Oscar-winning actor Charles Laughton. “I don’t know whether this is a well-known fact, but she felt Charles Laughton really taught her acting,” said Kirkland.” In fact, before she made NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, Winters had taken a Shakespeare acting class with the British actor. “He took her under his wing,” noted Kirkland. “During my entire time with her from 1962 until she died, she would talk about Charles Laughton. From her point of view, he was her mentor.”

Winters also respected Lee Strasberg, with whom she studied at the Actors Studio in New York and later became a well-respected teacher there. “She loved Lee Strasberg,” said Kirkland. “I loved Lee Strasberg. I studied with him from ’64 on.” (Winters got Kirkland into the Actors Studios.) But Kirkland noted that Strasberg was “a very hard man to have a relationship with. He was very closed off in the sense of communications other than when he was critiquing. I think Charles Laughton had a really personal relationship with her. She had him on such a pedestal. She said he taught her more than anybody.”

After THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, Winters left Hollywood for the Actors Studio and soon was appearing on Broadway in A Hatful of Rain with Ben Gazzara and Anthony Franciosa, who would become her third husband. Winters played the pregnant wife of a Korean vet struggling with heroin addiction.

“I was a teenager and saw it on Broadway,” said Kirkland. “It just blew my mind. I said, ‘I have to do that. I have to do what Shelley’s doing.’ Unbelievable impact on me.” Winters also impacted Baker. “While we were on DIARY, if something happened, she didn’t stop the scene,” Baker explained. “One time, something happened to the chair when she was in a scene. The chair went down the stairs. She didn’t say cut or stop acting. She went down the stairs to bring the chair back up and kept going.” Baker recalled that Winters wasn’t “Hollywood” in any way. She had a table at the Silver Spoon on Santa Monica Blvd. Just a normal simple little lunch table where she sat and had people visiting. She used to have her little group of people who were friends who would chat and talk.”

Stevens treated Winters with sensitivity and understanding, Baker noted. “He went along with her creative needs. I think that’s why he brought her onto DIARY, because she was the combination of nerves, humor and at the same time tragedy. She would pull it off.’

“I think she was just a mensch,” added Baker. She was more than a mensch to Kirkland. “I studied with her. I was her assistant. I taught her all her lines in LOLITA (‘62), A PATCH OF BLUE (’65), THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (‘72). I basically did everything she needed help with. She always wanted a young actress, kind of a protégé; I always wanted a stage mom. My mom was fashion editor for Life at the time and didn’t have time to be a typical mom.“

When Kirkland was working with Winters as the actress preparing for A PATCH OF BLUE, for which Winters won her second Oscar for playing the harridan bigoted mother of a young blind woman, she gave Kirkland a gold friendship ring. “It said, ‘To Sally from Shelley. I love you.’”

Winters had to gain nearly 40 pounds for her final Oscar-nominated role in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE for her sweet performance as a former competitive swimmer. She never was able to lose the weight. Though the quality of her films was a mixed bag until her death, Winters still gave some great performances especially in Pau Mazursky’s NEXT STOP, GREENWICH VILLAGE (‘76), in which she plays the ultimate Jewish mother.

“Paul Mazursky was her friend,” said Kirkland. “Paul was an actor/director/writer at the Actors Studio. He would come over to the house when I was there, and he would talk about the project.” Kirkland said Winters would use music to get her into character and emotional scenes. “She loved opera,” Kirkland noted. “She would put on something like La Traviata and that would always make her cry. Paul, brilliant that he is, kept it in the movie, kept her Method acting exercise in the movie. So, when you see NEXT STOP GREENWICH VILLAGE and you hear opera, you’ll know that was one of the secrets of Shelley Winters’ acting was always to have opera playing.”

[we-are-inevitable]

Is spot in the small town au?

yes!!

okay so i'm just gonna list everyone and give a little rundown of their place in the au!

this is REALLY long, but please feel free to ask me about any of them !!! i love them so much!! please !! so, here it goes:

SMALL TOWN AU CHARACTER LIST:

Jack Kelly:

17 or 18, depending on when it takes place

Birthday: July 3rd

Jack is involved in the rodeo circuit. He primarily participates in barrel racing, though he also participated in steer riding- basically the junior equivalent of bull riding for 7-13 year olds.

He has two horses, Dolly (10) and Cash (6). Dolly is his pride and joy and is the horse he trains with most often. She's also his main rodeo horse. Cash is ,, just kind of there, but he's a fun time and Jack works with him as well, though Cash isn't as experienced in the rodeo circuit. He's more of a recreational horse.

Jack is also a student, entering his senior year. (All fics that have been uploaded take place in the summer between junior and senior year.)

He's bisexual (though it's a long process for him to be able to admit it, to himself and to anyone else).

He lives on a farm on the outskirts of town with his father, Daniel, a harsh and unsupportive man who rarely shows up to any of Jack’s events. The farm is fairly large and successful; they raise cattle for stock shows and have had a long partnership with the butcher in town. Jack also raises hens on his own and sells the eggs as a side hustle for some extra cash because, like, why not?

side note: his chickens are his 'ladies'

Jack has an interest in art, the history of the 'wild west', and politics. He hopes to go to university and major in either Studio Arts or Graphic Design, but he's scared that he will have to stay home on the farm.

David Jacobs:

18

Birthday: May 11th

David is everyone's favorite city boy. He was born and raised in Manhattan, though his family relocates to a small, rural town in the American southwest because of a job opportunity for David’s father.

Naturally, David has no clue what to think. He goes from being an out-and-proud gay teenager to being shoved back into the closet, and he doesn't come out to anyone until at least two months after they arrive in town.

He’s Jewish, and is actually a polyglot; he can speak English, Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, French, and Spanish. All of the Jacobs kids can speak Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish- just because it’s kind of a family thing? David’s grandparents don’t speak much English, and Esther and Mayer wanted their children to be multilingual.

David is also a student going into his senior year. He's very active in extracurriculars; he takes all AP classes, he does public speaking, he enjoys volunteer work, etc. His resumé is extensive and impressive.

He meets Jack because Les, ever the inquisitive child, saw an ad for the rodeo and basically begged to go. Since Esther and Mayer were busy, and Sarah already had work, David volunteered to take him.

This is where they meet Jack, and David falls head over heels for the boy.

Anyway, David doesn’t exactly *like* living in a small town like this, but the people he meets are more genuine than anyone he’s ever met in the city.

When he goes to university, he wants to major in English Education, with a double-minor in Creative Writing and Comparative Literature. But there’s something about this little town that makes him want to stay close and not go to a huge university across the country.

Katherine Pulitzer:

17

Birthday: January 30th

Katherine is a barrel racer, just like Jack. She’s actually one of the best around; she’s beat Jack more times than he can count, and has the most wins under her belt- more than anyone in their group.

She’s whip smart, too. She takes AP classes, she’s taking concurrent college courses- she’s basically the golden child.

Her horse is named Shakespeare. I will not budge on this.

She loves reading, obviously; she has, like, three bookshelves in her bedroom alone.

She actually doesn’t look like a typical Southern girl. Unless she’s barrel racing or training with Shakespeare- when she wears jeans, a button up, and boots- she wears skirts and heels and has very extravagant makeup; she doesn’t like taking herself too seriously.

She’s going to college for Journalism, and hopes to be a reporter for a big news station. Her father isn’t particularly fond of this decision, mainly because he wants her to stay in town for the rest of her life and run the town newspaper, but Katherine has bigger aspirations.

Charlie “Crutchie” Morris

17

Birthday: August 12

Though Crutchie isn’t directly involved with the rodeos, he’s a huge helper- mainly because he’s the one who takes care of everyone’s horses.

Not really, but kind of. His family owns the veterinary clinic in town, so he often goes with his parents on farm calls, and basically works for them. Everything he knows about animals has been learned from a lifetime of living behind the vet clinic, spending lunch hours watching surgeries, and going to different farms every weekend.

He’s best friends with Jack Kelly. They actually met because of the clinic; Crutchie would often come to the Kelly’s farm with his mother whenever they went to check on the horses or the cattle.

He does a few different sports, both through the school and through different leagues in the surrounding areas.

He's going to major in Animal Science in university, then go to vet school! He hopes to expand his family's clinic.

Antonio "Racer" Higgins

17

Birthday: February 14th

This boy. Thiiiiis boy. He's one hell of a fun time. He throws the best bonfires, he knows all the line dances, and he's the life of the party wherever he goes.

But he's also really fucking intelligent. Like, 32 on the ACT intelligent. He could go to any school he wants to go to, and he's going to major in Animal Science like Crutchie- but he's actually planning on participating in the collegiate rodeo circuit, and hopes to go professional after college.

He's a snarky little smart-ass, but he's one of the most genuine people. He tells it like it is, because being honest is more important than saving feelings.

But he's also a complete softie! He gives really good hugs and is one of the most affectionate people in the group.

Albert DaSilva:

18

Birthday: October 30th

Albert is a senior like the rest of them, and he's one of the only ones- like Crutchie- not directly involved in the rodeos.

He's always there, though! He loves the atmosphere and likes supporting his friends!!

Albert works at his Uncle's auto shop. He's really handy and loves it. He loves cars, loves working with his hands, and loves the technical side of things.

Whenever Jack needs help with his truck, an ancient Dodge Dakota, Albert is right there. He also works on trailers and stuff!

Albert is also really into welding. He's been welding with his Uncle since he was, like, 13, and he's going to go to a technical school instead of college so he can get his welding certification.

Sean "Spot" Conlon

18

Birthday: December 10th

Spot is involved with the rodeo! He doesn't barrel race, though; he does saddle bronc and bull riding.

He also used to do calf roping when he was younger.

He's one of the most intense guys around. He loves rodeo and loves the community; he's serious about it, and- like Race- he hopes to go professional as an adult. He's also, of course, looking to be involved on the collegiate level.

But he also knows how to have fun. He likes bonfires and likes getting together with his friends, and he has the best sense of humor; he makes the funniest, quickest jokes and no one ever expects it from him.

I've talked about this before, but Spot isn't the best at having heart to hearts. He's very business-minded, but his love language is gift giving! He's just,, not very conventional at it.

He gives random gifts like sticks and rocks, but everyone loves it anyway. He's good. He's a good guy.

And that's that !! There are a few more background characters, of course, but these are the mains. I hope you guys enjoy this !!