#i didn't really get into rebirth because well. mostly because this was already SO LONG honestly

[michaeljoncarter]

hi okay i just followed u and i actually would love to hear if u have recs or thoughts on the other spectrum of lantern rings bc i saw ur one post abt the red lanterns and. tbh i do not know much abt them. or any of the colors really? but u also seem like u’ve read a lot of them and i do actually want to get back into reading comics so i figured i’d ask!

i am like… weirdly invested in the emotional spectrum & all the different lantern corps as a concept and have actually been wanting to make a sort of "intro" post to all of it for a while now, so thank you for finally giving me an excuse!

not really gonna get into any of my thoughts about any of it just because if i let myself start rambling, this will spiral into a 200k word long monstrosity and never actually get answered so! recs!

the good news is 99% of this was introduced in one big saga, so it's actually pretty straightforward & easy to get into. apart from the greens, the only two that were sortakinda introduced before the whole war of light era were the star sapphires & yellow lanterns, but they were both originally pretty different to how they are now

honestly, the older version of the yellow ring doesn't really matter all that much when it comes to the current version. i'm still gonna put a couple things where it shows up, but you could definitely pick up later comics without reading them and not be lost if you'd like to skip

on the other hand, i would suggest reading at least a little about the original star sapphire before jumping into the war of light era because it builds on & references back to the older comics quite a bit

Sinestro/Yellow rings:

Green Lantern (1960) #7, #9

Green Lantern (1990) #83 - 85 for the introduction of fatality

Green Lantern (1990) #131 - 136

Star Sapphire & the Zamarons:

Green Lantern (1960) #16, #26, #41, #73 - 74

Superman #261

Green Lantern (1960) #129

Green Lantern (1960) #178 - 190 is where the predator (which will come back later) is introduced, but the fact that the predator existed pre-blackest night isn't something you need to know to understand its later iteration. it's really only ever mentioned a couple times in passing, and to be honest, this whole arc is just... really not my favorite. you can absolutely skip if you find you're not having a good time with it

Green Lantern (1960) #191 - 192

Green Lantern (1990) #83 - 85, again, for fatality

Emerald Twilight (Green Lantern (1990) #48 - 50) is also really important to read if you want to be able to understand like... anything that happens later

less importantly, i'd also suggest checking out the original ion arc (Green Lantern (1990) #143 - 150). you won't be super lost or anything if you don't, but it'll provide a little context about wtf this ion thing everybody's talking about is

and LASTLY, black lanterns were a thing before Blackest Night. Blackest Night & Brightest Day and like 99% of what's here is pretty heavily based on Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #1 - 3 & its annuals. you don't have to read that before jumping into Blackest Night (i think i'd actually recommend waiting and coming back to it later), but if you're interested, it's definitely worth checking out!

and now, with all that out of the way, we can get into the johns/tomasi era & the actual point of this post lol

pretty much every single arc here is constantly jumping between about 3-4 different books, but instead of linking to a bunch of different reading lists, i'm just gonna put all the individual issues so everything's all in one place & hopefully easier to use as a reference, if anyone wants to do that... so this is going to be an obnoxiously long post! sorry about that!

ok! first and perhaps most controversially, Green Lantern: Rebirth. the dreaded parallax retcon, but it's kind of the foundation of all of this, so it's a must-read when it comes to the whole spectrum.

again, if you only read one thing from the older comics, let it be Emerald Twilight (Green Lantern (1990) #48 - 50) because Rebirth will really not make much sense without that context

next, i'd recommend jumping ahead a little and going ahead to read hal's origin (Green Lantern (2005) #29 - 35). you can wait and read it later if you want, of course, but it's just kinda shoved in the middle of a different arc later, and i really think it makes things flow a bit better if you just get to it up front instead

the first part of the green lantern & green lantern corps titles (Green Lantern (2005) #1 - 20 & Green Lantern Corps (2006) #1 - 13) don't have all that much to do with setting up the spectrum or the other corps, so if you're eager to just get straight to that, you can skip that

but if not and you want to read everything, be sure and check out Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, which is what sets up Green Lantern Corps (2006), before jumping into it!

Green Lantern (2005) #17 - 20 is the Mystery of the Star Sapphire arc that kicks everything off. from this point on, it's pretty much non-stop arcs spanning multiple books and more tie-ins than you've ever seen in your life

it's all very fun, but it is, quite frankly, annoying as hell to read. like i said, i'm gonna be listing it all out, but i'm gonna separate everything by arc and put the names of each because most of these have been collected into TPBs or omnibuses & if you can manage to track down that version, i'd HIGHLY recommend reading it that way to save yourself some frustration

Sinestro Corps War:

Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps Special #1

Green Lantern (2005) #21

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #14

Green Lantern (2005) #22

Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Parallax #1

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #15

Green Lantern (2005) #23

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #16

Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Cyborg Superman #1

Green Lantern (2005) #24

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #17

Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Superman-Prime #1

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #18

Green Lantern (2005) #25

Tales of the Sinestro Corps: Ion #1

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #19

Green Lantern (2005) #26 - 28 and Green Lantern Corps (2006) #19 - 28 are the epilogue of the Sinestro Corps War, including the Ring Quest Arc, the introduction of the alpha lanterns, and the prologue to Rage of the Red Lanterns. also, if you want to read hal's revamped origin (Green Lantern (2005) #29 - 35) here instead, this is where it was originally placed

Rage of the Red Lanterns:

Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns

Green Lantern (2005) #36 - 38

Agent Orange & Tale of the Black Lantern:

Green Lantern (2005) #39 - 42

Green Lantern (2005) #43

Sins of the Star Sapphire & Emerald Eclipse:

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #29 - 32

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #33 - 38

BLACKEST NIGHT:

ok, this is the big one. pretty much everything that was running at the time of this event did a tie-in for it, and as such, there are a lot of issues in the full reading order that aren't super necessary to read, as all that really happens is you get to see which rings went to which characters

i'm gonna be putting the less important tie-ins in italics. you can skip them & come back later if you want

Blackest Night #0 - 1

Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #1 - 3

Green Lantern (2005) #44

Blackest Night #2

Green Lantern (2005) #45

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #39

Blackest Night: Batman #1

Blackest Night: Superman #1

Blackest Night: Titans #1

Blackest Night #3

Green Lantern (2005) #46

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #40

Blackest Night: Batman #2

Blackest Night: Superman #2

Blackest Night: Titans #2

Blackest Night #4

Green Lantern (2005) #47

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #41

Blackest Night: Batman #3

Blackest Night: Superman #3

Blackest Night: Titans #3

Blackest Night #5

Green Lantern (2005) #48

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #42

Justice League of America (2006) #39

Superman/Batman #66

Doom Patrol #4

Booster Gold (2007) #26

R.E.B.E.L.S. #10

Teen Titans (2003) #77

Adventure Comics (2009) #4

Outsiders (2009) #24

Blackest Night #6

Green Lantern (2005) #49

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #43

Blackest Night: Flash #1

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #1

Blackest Night: JSA #1

Justice League of America (2006) #40

Superman/Batman #67

Doom Patrol #5

Booster Gold (2007) #27

R.E.B.E.L.S. #11

Teen Titans (2003) #78

Adventure Comics (2009) #5

Outsiders (2009) #25

Green Lantern (2005) #50

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #44

Blackest Night: Flash #2

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #2

Blackest Night: JSA #2

The Atom and Hawkman #46

The Phantom Stranger #42

Starman #81

Power of Shazam #48

The Question #37

Catwoman #83

Weird Western Tales #71

Suicide Squad #67

Secret Six #17

Blackest Night #7

Green Lantern (2005) #51

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #45

Blackest Night: Flash #3

Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #3

Blackest Night: JSA #3

Green Arrow and Black Canary #30

Adventure Comics (2009) #7

Secret Six #18

Blackest Night #8

Green Lantern (2005) #52

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #46

Untold Tales of Blackest Night

Brightest Day:

there was a main Brightest Day book, but it's mostly just about the heroes resurrected in Blackest Night running around trying to figure out what to do now. you can read it if you want, of course, but it doesn't actually have much to do with the lantern corps, so we're ignoring it here

Green Lantern (2005) #53 - 62

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #47 - 48

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #1 - 7

Green Lantern Corps #49 - 52

War of the Green Lanterns:

Green Lantern (2005) #63 - 64

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #58

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #8

Green Lantern (2005) #65

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #59

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #9

Green Lantern (2005) #66

Green Lantern Corps (2006) #60

Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #10

Green Lantern Vol. 4 #67

War of the Green Lanterns: Aftermath #1 - 2

Sinestro & The Secret of the Indigo Tribe:

Green Lantern (2011) #1 - 6

Green Lantern (2011) #7 - 10

Red Lanterns:

Red Lanterns #1 - 12

New Guardians & the beginning of the white lantern kyle arc:

Green Lantern: New Guardians #1 - 12

Rise of the Third Army:

Green Lantern (2011) #11 - 12, Annual #1, #0

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #0

Red Lanterns #0

Green Lantern: New Guardians #0

Green Lantern (2011) #13

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #13

Green Lantern: New Guardians #13

Red Lanterns #13

Green Lantern (2011) #14

Red Lanterns #14

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #14

Green Lantern: New Guardians #14

Green Lantern (2011) #15

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #15

Red Lanterns #15

Green Lantern: New Guardians #15, Annual #1

Green Lantern (2011) #16

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #16

Green Lantern New Guardians #16

Red Lanterns #16

Green Lantern Corps (2011) Annual #1

Wrath of the First Lantern:

Green Lantern (2011) #17

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #17

Green Lantern: New Guardians #17

Red Lanterns #17

Green Lantern (2011) #18

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #18

Green Lantern: New Guardians #18

Red Lanterns #18

Green Lantern (2011) #19

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #19

Green Lantern: New Guardians #19

Red Lanterns #19

Green Lantern Vol. 5 #20

Green Lantern Corps Vol. 3 #20

Green Lantern: New Guardians #20

Red Lanterns #20

aaand this is unfortunately where things kinda start to go downhill imo--for the main green lantern book, especially. you can, of course, read everything if you want, but tbh Red Lanterns, Sinestro, and sometimes Green Lantern Corps were the only things i actually enjoyed reading & would really recommend from this point on, so i'm gonna be skipping a bit

Red Lanterns #21 - 23 is guy's red lantern coup d'etat arc, and Green Lantern Corps (2011) #21 - 23 is kinda build up to The Fatality Thing that comes in the Uprising arc, and then we get to Lights Out, which tbh i just straight up do not like, but we're gonna put it here anyway because it's important to a lot that comes later (unfortunately)

Lights Out:

Green Lantern: New Guardians #22 - 23

Green Lantern (2011) #24

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #24

Green Lantern: New Guardians #24

Red Lanterns #24

Green Lantern (2011) Annual #2

Uprising:

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #25 - 30 is kinda prologue to this, including some actually fun weirdness with von daggle & the more covert/espionage side of the glc

Green Lantern (2011) #31

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #31

Green Lantern (2011) #32

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #32

Green Lantern (2011) #33

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #33 - 34

Red Daughter of Krypton (one of my favorite arcs to come out of this whole thing <3):

Supergirl (2011) #26 - 29

Green Lantern (2011) #28

Red Lanterns #28 - 29

Supergirl (2011) #30

Red Lanterns #30

Supergirl (2011) #31

Red Lanterns #31 - 32

Supergirl (2011) #32 - 33

Red Lanterns #33, Annual #1, #34

the beginning of the long-running "sinestro trying to regain custody of his child" arc:

Sinestro #1 - 5

Godhead:

New Gods: Godhead #1

Green Lantern (2011) #35

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #35

Green Lantern: New Guardians #35

Red Lanterns #35

Sinestro #6

Green Lantern (2011) #36

Green Lantern Corps (2011) #36

Green Lantern: New Guardians #36

Red Lanterns #36

Sinestro #7

Green Lantern (2011) #37

Green Lantern Corps (Volume 3) #37

Green Lantern: New Guardians #37

Red Lanterns #37

Sinestro #8

Green Lantern Annual (2011) #3

Green Lantern Corps (2011), Green Lantern: New Guardians, and Red Lanterns all only had 3 issues left after this arc ended, and they're all... fine? i'd recommend reading them just because, y'know, why not? and then thaaat's pretty much it

after this, we're just left with the main title, which continues to be very meh imo, and Sinestro, which is actually pretty good. i'd say just stick with that, read Sinestro #9 - 23, and then join us all in Rebirth & hoping dc gets its shit together and actually does something interesting with all this again sometime soon

#ask #tiramisusam #LONG post #being a johns hater who's also super into all this is so tragic. feel like the comic book version of a class traitor #anyway!! sorry for taking like a week to answer this! and also for how messy it is lol #i didn't really get into rebirth because well. mostly because this was already SO LONG honestly #but also tbh i just don't like most of it #Green Lanterns wasn't bad (outside of how simon's characterized) #& that's pretty much the only compliment i have fr how things have been going since it started lmao #anyway umm. got kinda carried away here but hope it helps at all!

[etincelleart]

This might’ve been a while, so don't feel bad about forgetting about it, but remember that one time i told you about the significance of the Blue Butterfly?

Well, it goes something like this: "Blue butterflies symbolize spiritual transformation and growth because of the way they start as caterpillars that cannot fly and then undergo metamorphosis to become beautiful insects with delightful wings. Blue butterflies also symbolize changes, reincarnation, and the passage of time."

Now in fiction, this can be used in different ways. For example, in Persona 3, it's mainly used to symbolize the Journey of Makoto Yiki (the protagonist of the story) from an apathetic young man who secluded himself from life into a young man who found the meaning in his life & then sacrifices himself to save the world, with the Blue Butterfly being used to symbolize his passing...

However, it is also used as a way to tell a story about "inherit will" & more importantly, "finding a NEW purpose in life" through Aegis, who lost her humanity & sense of self when Makoto died, since protecting him was literally the meaning of her entire existence & got depressed when he died, cause in her eyes, she didn't have a purpose anymore... But through the events of The Answer (also known as Episode Aegis for Japanese Audiences), that changes & Aegis gets a NEW purpose, with a Blue Butterfly being once again used to sympolize that.

Now as to what it's used for Ruby, I'm not sure... Cause it only shows up a FEW times in V9 & it's mostly used as a red herring. The one place you EXPECT it to be used (ya'know, Ruby's Ascension) isn't used for some reason, which is... ODD, to put it lightly. Personally, I'd like to think that The Blue Butterfly in V9 was meant to express Ruby's roadless path & how she has to find a way to overcome her issues, but again, the way it's used doesn't really give me a lot to work with.

Sorry for the long (& VERY late response. Jesus Christ, i postponed this for far too long) ask, i just wanted to tell you some bits about the Symbolism of The Blue Butterfly & how it's used in fiction, be it inherting will, finding a new purpose, or actual rebirth (although i haven't encountered any examples of the last one, at least not LITERAL rebirth)

Thank you for these infos about what is the butterfly exactly, it's something I really liked in many stories so far and I'm glad they used it in RWBY ! I agree that for Ruby, maybe it would have been cool and a good time to put it maybe at the end, before she chooses her weapon, or when she falls to grab Crescent Rose and chooses herself. I think it would have been great, or they're maybe keeping it in store for later volumes since in the end, Ruby is just at the beginning of her journey. She just decided to choose herself and live HER life, so maybe this butterfly will come back later as a symbol of her evolution and healing, kinda like it already appeared in Volume 6 when she was talking with Maria about Silver Eyes.

I don't know a lot of things about Persona but I should really check that because it seems a super interesting universe too for these aspects-

It definitely makes me want to search for more infos :]

#rwby #butterfly #blue butterfly #change #evolution #reincarnation #ruby #ruby rose #rwby volume 9 #persona 3

[sonofshin]

I didn’t realize Yun was single-ship! Then again, I always assumed you had a Yasuo/Yone bias and that other interactions were simply flirting? Do you feel iffy because you claim to be multi-ship when your main muse isn’t, or you’re picky about ships (especially when the other person already has a ship)? Because I was about to say it’s okay to have biases/preferences as long as you’re open about them, even if they come up later in a blog’s life. Nothing wrong with changing your mind.

Yes, Yun is singleship, and yes I do have a bit of a bias because I really liked the interactinos I had with @windy-wooo. I have a slight bias towards Yone because death and rebirth are just my jam. But I'm open to almost all ships, provided the characters have good chemistry.

Yun is currently in a temporary relationship with @beast-man-bastard and @thegoldentigress. This is also canon but does not prevent anyone from trying to ship with me. This has been established with those muns as Qadira and Sett are married. Yun is just with them mostly for fun. So feel free to flirt with Yun and try to make him fall in love with your muse :D

Aphelios @monsterdemanguinha is a bit more grey area since it's semi-canon? Like they are in a relationship but not something that is very established. Schrödingers ship. But they are v cute.

Ah... hm.. how to explain the rest. My problem lies more in feeling guilty about shipping with someone else if that someone else happens to have a ship they very much enjoy. I feel like I'm stealing time and attention away from their other ship.

For example, if you have let's say Jax as a muse, and you have a ship with a Zilean you enjoy, I'd feel guilty for shipping with your Jax because I feel as if I'm ruining the Zilean ship. Even if Yun and Jax is a very healthy, interesting, natural ship that formed through interactions and we both enjoy it a lot. And you still heavily enjoy the Jax and Zilean ship and spend time on it as well. I would still end up feeling guilty.

And I was thinking about that, and given that I AM multiship on Yone, Watari, and Codei, I figured that it was even stupider of me to feel guilty about it since quite a few people have been wanting to ship with me, even with the same muses. Like three Lux ships with Watari. Each one with their own cute interactions.

I didn't mean to make anyone doubt themselves or their desire to try and woo my muses. Or try and woo other muses while shipping with me. I WANT people to drown in ships and have fun and make new interactions and stories. Like damn. That's what it's all about, right?

It was just something I had to get off my chest and tell myself, publicly, that I'm being a silly goose about it. As long as everyone is consensually having fun, then why should I try and prevent someone from shipping just because my brain made up some nonsensical rules it wants to follow? Doesn't make sense. Overruled.

Go to dumb brain jail.

#out of snow #don't mind me #just Soapie being scared about silly things #as is my want #long post #I hope this isn't too confusing #if it is just bonk me over the head on anon again

[moonlightperseus]

I was a classic girly girl as a kid so I wasn't watching any of the animated shows. I got into superheroes after watching the 2012 Avengers movie (which I still refused to watch for years) and I finally like really liked superheroes but it was a very fake, dabbling interest, and then my brother started sending me screenshots of injustice panels and now I don't shut up. 

I also primarily am a DC girlie, most Marvel I've read is either for specific Characters (Black widow, mostly) or because my eighth grade teacher lent me the comics. 

It's so annoying to have to find them, and worse when it's like random issues? So you're like "oh is this the new issue of (comic)? Well,,, it is *an* issue." And then you click on it and have to get like halfway through to know if you've read it or not. 

And some of them really are *so* long and that's so much to keep track of- I used to just have like 100 open tabs on my phone and they were all just different comics I was reading. Then I made a list just to remember what still running comics I was even reading so I'd remember to read new issues and that didn't even work. 

I loved BOP don't get me wrong! (Especially since I don't know if I already said that) but I am also the type of person who will complain about every little thing. (not all the time, and usually just inside my head, but like one thing I usually bring up with the movie is the way it's kind of weird that they like? Smashed Black Canary's two backstories together to make one? It's just a weird choice to me so I'll talk about that but it doesn't ruin the movie for me) Cass However is a big thing Im not a fan of. They didn't even make her a better character she's just lame. 

And in movies generally it's kind of annoying how studies and other movies can dictate things. I don't know if that makes sense, but how like in Marvel Spiderman was owned by someone else so he could never be in the main timeline. I understand why but it's still? Sad I guess? I don't think any of that made sense I am so sorry. 

I'm also sad that the DCEU is just non existent now. They're fumbling that ball so hard. I feel like they finally got somewhere? Like BOP was a very good movie (granted, it didn't get good reviews because women aren't allowed to exist, so I don't know how good it was for the studio's) and wonder woman was doing good. They had a lot of hype. And they just? Threw it away. Gal Gadot was loved as Diana but they threw that out. Same with Henry Cavill. They're making a mistake, I think. 

(I personally would probably consume little DCEU content anyway, because I don't like tv or movies, buy I 100% would've watched the Jurnee Smollet black canary show that was rumored to be in the works and am sad that has been thrown out) 

I've never heard of Luke Mitchell but I just googled him and that's not a bad fancast tbh. I personally am I did hard for Charlie Hunnam's fan cast though I think he's probably too rugged for Ollie. And all of that aside it still would've been really great to get any black canary or black canary and Green Arrow content. 

I bought a new comic today (Batgirl #1, rebirth) and found out I already owned it because my comic collection is such a mess since it's all from the dollarstore :(  I own the first Bombshells United, and other than that I haven't read any. I wanted it to be like, a comic I owned all of and read in person but I don't have the funds for that. 

I might use that site I appreciate that. I do the same thing but what I use is covered in bad pop ups and continuously opens new tabs I have ti be careful to delete and not open (I don't know how I still have a phone, but they almost certainly have all of my personal information). 

I don't know how comics heavy of a mood I'm in ATM (it's one of those things y'know, where you're like !! This is my main hobby!! And then you start it and you're like "I would literally rather die then do this hobby right now." ) but I will try to read the bombshells runs- I went as Bombshell Black Canary for Halloween a few years ago, so I AM a fan. And I'll try to finish secret six (do I know where I am? No. But I think it'll be worth it) 

​​​​​​​Also I'm so sorry that it took me this long I forgot I was doing this and got really distracted trying to see how likely id be to die if I broke into SeaWorld I did not mean to forget to send this 

no need to apologize on timing! i completely understand both life being busy and also being easily distracted & forgetting things. (for example, i started responding to this ask, and then very suddenly decided i needed to finish reading the batgirl 2000 run so that i could start on injustice bc my curiosity for it has been mounting, and now its almost 3am and i really should go to sleep so i might have to draft this to finish responding to hopefully tomorrow, but i’ve got a drive to do tomorrow so it may end up being a bit and now i’m going to apologize for the delay in my response and i do see the irony in that)

i have to ask, are you looking into breaking into seaworld to help the animals or more so just to see thats something you can do (no judgement either way im just genuinely very fascinated by that sentence)

okay under the cut i got ramble again

nothing wrong with being a classy girly girl! i was definitely inbetween being a tomboy and a girly girl personally. i didnt get into the superhero animated shows until i was like, 11? i didnt really have much exposure to superheroes much before finding the shows, but i got my little sibling to watch some of the shows with me

i remember watching the avengers (2012) maybe like a year or so after it came out (it was on netflix at the time) but im pretty sure i started by watching the shows (i remember being disappointed bc the wasp wasnt in the movie even tho in the show she was one of the founding members, which i believe is the same in the comics, and i really liked wasp from the show. i did enjoy the movie, but i never watched any of the sequels until endgame, which at that point i watched solely bc i was promised captain marvel and then they only gave me like 5 minutes of her.

as for marvel comics i’ve mostly read young avengers & runaways stuff. i can’t remember if i got around to any captain marvel comics but i was gifted the novelization that came out after the movie that was like an (unofficial?) prequel to it and i did enjoy reading that.

on the note of random comic issues i literally bought a like 50 pack of random comics that was like idk some kinda deal and that is most of my comic collection which is just literally random issues, i think its all dc stuff but it could be a mix of dc and marvel? i'm back at my parents now so i'll have to dig out the box to take home with me before i leave so i can go through it. another thing thats frustrating with comics is when theres like a uhh like story that spans across multiple different comic runs? like i was reading the 2000 batgirl run as previously mentioned (i have finished it now) but i did ended up just skimming a few issues bc they were a part of some bigger batfam plot that was spanning across other comics and i could not be bothered to go find the issues that that particular story continued through.

totally fair to be the person who likes to complain about every little thing, and super valid to like a movie and also have some issues with it! i can totally respect peoples hangups about the bop movie not being a perfect comic adaptation and i would agree, but to me being a perfect adaptation and being a perfect movie are not mutually exclusive and i will hold it in my heart as a perfect movie aksdjglk (its right up there with the old guard in my personal movie rankings) my problem is when people hate it for stupid reasons (i still remember seeing a post hating on the movie for how it killed black mask ((it wasn't a good enough death for him)) like this movie isn't about him!! hes a loser! the only "better" option for his death is if harley ran him over with a combine tractor bc i think that would be funny as hell. but i dont think gotham is the type of city that has a lot of combine tractors.)

yeah as far as the dceu goes i didnt have any attachment to the batman or superman films (i only watched bvs for wonder woman lajdfkjladf) but like the 1st wonder woman was really good! (didnt watch the second one bc i heard poor reviews of it ((and not just from fanboys who can't take a female centric superhero movie))), i enjoyed the aquaman movie and the 1st shazam (still need to watch the 2nd one) and obviously i loved bop. i was super excited for the batgirl film and the casting of supergirl (would LOVE to see her get a movie!!) i guess we'll just have to see where things go now. alas. i’m more of a tv show guy anyways. (not that there’s the best history for live action dc tv shows either…but they sure do. exist! and i sure have consumed a large quantity!)

yeah i’m also so mad about the BC show being thrown out i was sooo excited for it :(((

god super valid re buying a comic you already have. i lowkey wanna find out if there is a nice comic book store near where im living rn bc at the very least it could be a nice way to force myself to get out for reasons other than to go to work and to grocery stores (though idk if it’s a good idea financially but it could be a cool. occasional treat)

also SUPER valid w the not being in a heavy comic mood, it really is smth that comes n goes like the tide and it’s like a big mental investment (at least in my opinion) to delve into the comics world and sometimes there’s just not enough brain to spare! no worries/pressure on picking it back up. (but if you do, and check out bombshells, united comes after the original run so i would rec starting w the originals first!)

also :O going as bombshells bc for halloween is SO cool mad respect (i loveeeee her bombshells design. which. i love MOST of the bombshells designs but. y’know) i tried to go as black canary for halloween one year i got leather boots and a leather jacket and maybe leather pants and a blonde wig. i was aiming for an arrowverse black canary (e1 laurel lance) but i didn’t really match even that well lol. oh well.

okay i am gonna wrap up this reply bc i do feel like i could ramble literally forever and i already feel bad about the late response but i do have a question regarding injustice. as far as where to start, i looked up the reading order and there’s like the prequel (year zero?) which the article i found said you don’t have to start with or even read at all so i was wondering what your thoughts were on the best place to start/if the prequel is any good

hope you’re having a lovely day!!

#comics anon #abby replies #anon #now that i’ve finished batgirl (2000) i’m ready to start injustice #yes i am posting this at 2:30am. time is an illusion

[spicychickenyang]

MDZS Chapter 1, my translation

Happy New Year's Eve everyone :) For a little while, I've been wanting to do a lengthier translation to give you guys a better sense of my style. Here's the first piece I've finished: the prologue chapter of MDZS. Before we get started, a few notes:

- Of course, this chapter has been covered by plennnnty of translation versions already! The reason I decided to do it was because I felt that none of the ones I've read managed to convey the feel of the original Chinese, which is a mostly casual and quick read, full of breezy (yet evocative) language. The dialogue in this prologue sounded very natural as "voices of the common people", and I wanted to capture that to give English readers an idea of what it feels like to me, a native speaker.

- I don't really care to debate terminology things, "sect" vs. "clan", whether it's the Yiling "Patriarch", or what to call the "crooked path". Those topics have been covered in metas from people more meticulous than me. Mostly I just went with popular terms I liked (kudos to the translators who came before me), but just imagine that those are things I'd leave flexible for the editor to make decisions on.

- No, I'm not planning to translate the whole book, I sure as heck don't get paid enough for that 😆 But I'm open to suggestions if there are any sections you particularly want to see!

Ok let's go!

Chapter 1: Rebirth - Wei Wuxian is dead. Good Riddance!

"Wei Wuxian is dead. Good riddance!"

Not even two days after the end of the great raid on the Burial Mounds, the news had spread like wildfire across the entire cultivation world, with no less speed than the actual flames of war.

In a flash, from the households of the prominent sects to the secluded cultivators in the mountaintops, everyone was discussing the raid operation that united the four great sects in mortal alliance, and every clan large and small joining the melee.

"Well well, good riddance indeed! Which renowned hero dealt the killing blow to the Yiling Patriarch?"

"Who else could it be? His apprentice-brother, the young Jiang Sect leader Jiang Cheng of course. The four great clans - Yunmeng Jiang Sect, Lanling Jing Sect, Gusu Lan Sect, and Qinghe Nie Sect - led the charge to take out Wei Wuxian's old lair, the 'Burial Mounds', in one fell swoop. For the greater good, even his family showed him no mercy."

"I gotta say it: A good kill."

Immediately someone joined in with loud applause. "Damn right, a good kill! If it weren't for Yunmeng Jiang Sect adopting him and raising him, that Wei Ying fool would've been nothing more than a bum roaming the countryside his whole life... what more needs to be said? The former Sect Leader Jiang went 'n treated him like his own son, but how'd he end up? Defecting without remorse, making an enemy of every clan, driving Yunmeng Jiang Sect's reputation into the ground, and getting nearly the entire Jiang clan brutally killed. You wanna talk about what's called a treacherous snake? This right here!"

"Can't believe Jiang Cheng actually let that fucker run free for so long. If it was me, back when that Wei bastard defected I wouldn't have let him off with just a stab - I would've straight-up cleaned house, else he wouldn't have had the opportunity to do those depraved things later on. Against someone like that, what same-sect same-school childhood sentimentality is there to speak of."

"But that's not how I heard it went down? Didn't Wei Ying die from his dark arts backfiring, and being eaten alive by his own ghost underlings? I heard he got chomped into paste, you know."

"Hahahaha.... Now that's what I call just deserts. I've been wanting to say it for ages: he trained himself a batch of ghosts to bite folks like a pack of loose rabid dogs, only to get mauled himself in the end. Serves him right!"

"You might say that, but this raid on the Burial Mounds might not have seen success if it weren't for the young Sect Leader Jiang drafting up plans based on the Yiling Patriarch's weaknesses. Don't you all forget what Wei Wuxian had in his pocket, how back then an army of more than three thousand renowned cultivators got wiped out all in one night."

"Wasn't it five thousand?"

"Three thousand, five thousand, not much difference. I think five thousand is more likely."

"He really was depraved..."

"Since he destroyed the Yin Tiger Tally before he died, at least he built up a bit of karma for the afterlife. Otherwise if he'd left that damned thing to keep spreading evil in the world, he'd have even more sins weighing on his back."

At the mention of the words "Yin Tiger Tally", a hush fell over the crowd, as if all avoiding something taboo.

A moment later, someone lamented,

"Sigh... You know, that Wei Wuxian - back in the day he, too, was a rising star in the cultivation world, with no lack of achievements to his name. Making a name for himself at such a young age, how bright and carefree his life would've been... Just what could've led him to this step..."

With the topic changed, the sounds of discussion rose again in chatter.

"So you see, in cultivation there's no deviatin' from the righteous path. The demonic dark arts seem all limitless and empowering for a while, don't it? Heh, and where'd it land him in the end?"

A voice rang out, "Not even a full corpse to bury!"

"It's not as if the path of cultivation was entirely to blame. At the root of it all was Wei Wuxian being a person of such poor character that he incurs the wrath of man and god alike. They say every deed has its own reward, and how the wheel of karma turns..."

...

After the final nail on the coffin, a dead man receives his final judgment. The conclusions drawn were largely the same; even the occasional tiny dissenting voice was immediately buried.

Except, a shadow of a doubt still remained in everyone's minds, not so easily dismissed.

Though supposedly Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch, had died within the Burial Mounds, after the deed was done, no one was able to summon his lingering soul.

His soul - perhaps it had been swallowed at the same time when he was being devoured by ghosts, or maybe it fled the scene.

If it were the former, then of course it'd be cause for celebration to everyone under the sun. Yet, the Yiling Patriarch had the ability to move heaven and earth--at least, according to the rumors. If he wanted to refuse a soul-summoning, it was well within his power. If someday he were to reclaim his consciousness and snatch a second chance at life, it would mark the day that every cultivation clan - even the entire mortal world - would receive even more depraved payback and curses, and fall into sunless skies and bloody rains.

For that reason, after setting a hundred and twenty stone beasts upon the peak of Burial Mounds to seal the mountain, the various major clans began a series of complex seances, and at the same time tracking down instances of soul possession and seeking out paranormal occurrences across the land, leaving no stone unturned.

The first year, all was peaceful.

The second year, all was peaceful.

The third year, all was peaceful.

...

The thirteenth year, still all was peaceful.

And so, finally more and more people came to believe, maybe Wei Wuxian wasn't all that formidable; maybe his soul really had been snuffed out.

Even if he once held the heavens itself at his disposal, the day had finally come for him to be the one disposed.

No one can be worshiped on an altar forever, and legends are nothing more than legends, after all.

Check out my commentary/footnotes here!

#mdzs #translation #chinese translation #commentary on this next time

[tbonechessor]

whats ur favorite aspect of halo lore. Go

Off the top of my head, it's gotta be A.I. mostly because it's one of those things that's just really simple, but when it works, it works well.

You've got "dumb" A.i. simple, mostly a collection of subroutines. Limited self-awareness. Mostly used for basic menial administration tasks. Awesome, cool.

Then you've got "Smart" A.I. OH BOY. Personalities! Able to make complex, meaningful decisions with an idea of how those choices may affect things long-term!

And there's a pretty simple set of rules to smart A.I.

1. Their matrix are based on a dead human brain

2. After 8 years they start to break down and their processing begins to eat itself alive like some kind of internal Eldritch horror.

When Sci fi does A.I. it's either a matter of overthinking how they work or severely underthinking how it works. Most of the time it's just a segue to get to an A.I. turning EVVVIILLLL OOOOH because hubris, technology etc, etc.

Halo obviously didn't really want to go that route though. At least not at first. Thematically, the world building around A.I. is themed the same way that the rest of Halo is themed. The idea that life persists and that there are cycles (lol halo is a circle) and that A.I. are just sort of a part of that cycle. Life, death, rebirth, etc.

The fact that A.I. are based off of a dead person and that eventually they are going to die as well says alot about the value of connections. We tend to care about things that are like us and respond to us no matter how artificial they are.

And it's been said to death already I know but H5 was such a step backwards thematically in that regard. We already KNOW A.I. can turn evil. We've SEEN them be Evil for much more complex and rich reasons than what Cortana was really doing. Because Halo established right away with 343 Guilty spark in the FIRST GAME that A.i. are capable of having their own goals and desires. Sometimes that aligns with the protags goals sometimes it doesn't, but it exists somewhat outside of their inherent existence. Even if Spark was a little off his rocker, it didn't affect his goals, just his temperament and emotional management.

My second favorite Halo Lore favorite thing is ships and ship combat. Just because there is SO MUCH DETAIL in regards to how naval stuff works in Halo.

Haha Ship Go BRRRRRRR

But Fr it's really easy in sci fi to focus on ground combat to the point where the lore surrounding power scaling between units get ridiculous like in 40k (no shade, just not really my thing) and Halo has always kept that part relatively grounded and simple for the better I think. Ship combat is where things get very 3D chess (almost literally)

#Halo #TY FOR THE ASK #this was therapeutic

[thornsnfeathers]

Ambrosius & Pietro, creators of life

In Creation, we meet Ambrosius, the spirit residing in the Staff of Creation.

Despite his theatrics, he's mostly shown bored and disappointed when talking about the projects he's been tasked to create, because they were either unimaginative or already too finely tuned before even reaching him.

But neither of those descriptions fits with team RWBY's request regarding Penny, and it shows in his enthusiasm.

(Read more because this post got away from me)

He expresses fascination with the concept of someone being able to create life in an unconventional way, mentioning how he'd like to meet the one that built her (that we know to be Pietro, her dad).

Ruby uses very careful wording in her request, as he himself notices. That ends with her giving him the room to "get creative" and find a solution to what is hurting their friend.

Before all of this, it's also important to remember what he says when she started talking about how Penny was dying: "I'm going to go ahead and assume that you know it's against the rules for me to bring people back from dead, so -" and what expression he has while bringing it up.

Connecting these small pieces, we can tell something important about Ambrosius: 1) he enjoys the process of coming up with solutions for his works and 2) he himself is interested in the concept of creating life. Something that he has the ability to do but can't and it's dangled in front of him, right out of his reach.

Ambrosius mentioning Penny's creator isn't just a small nod to Pietro for us to enjoy but also a connection between the two has been made; both of them as creators of life.

In Penny's "rebirth" scene and explanation, we are told that whatever he creates himself will get destroyed the moment he makes something else. So, if we, supposedly, wanted someone back to life we'd have to have the "ingredients" ready for him to rearrange in a way that lets them keep existing even if the Staff was to be used yet again after it.

So, a body and a soul. Ready to be merged again.

For Clover we have the first one, the only body we have seen so far in the show being still intact, and we are missing the second piece. But are we really?

(Note: From this point onward it's mostly me just trying even more to put things together so this might all just turn out to be very wrong)

Clover's pin has been shown in both the intros for volume 7 and volume 8, focused on in v7ch3's AceOps battle against the Geist in the mines, after the fight in v7ch12 and in most of Qrow's scenes, starting from v7ch13 and continuing during v8. He used it to channel his semblance, something that we know is directly connected to aura.

Pietro explained to Ruby (and to us as well) how he was able to both create her AND how he was able to bring her back.

Using his own aura and her core, left unscathed after her death. Unscathed like Clover's pin was.

Another important point is what Oz says while explaining how the spirit in the Staff works: "He can build you anything but only if you can explain to him how. Like any craftsman, he'll need blueprints. Some sort of reference."

Thanks to this scene in Dark (v8ch8), we know that Penny's body is mostly similar to what human bodies are like, more or less.

This gets fuzzy real fast because I'm not sure how they would bring up the idea of using her schematics as "blueprints" for Clover's revival but it's still something that I felt like pointing out.

I'm not implying that this whole process would be easy, because otherwise Ambrosius would have probably have had the opportunity to before and he would have had to meet someone smart and/or brave enough to bend the rules just enough to make it work, but that's just another reason why Ambrosius would be thrilled to get his chance in accomplishing it.

I feel like I should write a conclusion for this somehow quite long post about Pietro and Ambrosius and I might as well use this space to include why I made this whole thing in the first place: Penny was already confirmed as a real girl by Fria passing her own Maiden powers to her, and Pietro being a reference to Geppetto to her being Pinocchio is abundantly clear. Since her personhood is brought up constantly, we didn't need the reminder.

In Creation, we have Penny creating the "body" she always wanted for herself, shaping her own aura to do so. Ambrosius is shown giving her the tools to make it by herself, with a small push from him. But this was just a step in saving her from the hacking, it actually isn't a rebirth. It's more of a temporary solution that needs to be addressed soon enough.

Clover and Penny paralleling each other isn't a first (@luckyharbinger's Staff Theory expands on it, I recommend reading it) so everything here has been built on top of that.

But where does this leave us?

In my personal opinion, it's setting up Ambrosius to have him do what Pietro himself has done in his own way: creating life. Not really from scratch, but with the right accomodations.

Pietro and Fria are Penny's Geppetto and her blue fairy, respectively; Ambrosius is Clover's Geppetto AND his blue fairy.

#Ambrosius #Pietro Polendina #Penny Polendina #Clover Ebi #rwby #rwby spoilers #staff of creation theory #rwby v8 #rwby ramblings #I also mention ch12 in the paragraph after the shot of Clover's pin but that's about it #it's just examples so people can just skip it #Clover's death tw #alright I feel like that tag is needed actually #anyway this is kind of a mess but I spent so much time on it I might as well share it- #i'm sorry lol help <3

[festivecuriosity]

[October 13, 2020]

♡ Mercury retrograde in Scorpio is happening tonight. I can already feel/see it's influence. It also doesn't help matters that my current household is primarily made up of Scorpios or Plutonian individuals (most of my roommates are "essential workers" like EMTs or caretakers). Brad (the most Scorpio of the house) has called for a rare consideration; that there be silence in the living room (communal space) when he comes home. He's never asked for that before. This feels very symbolic of Mercury Retrograde in Scorpio. A moment of silence in our otherwise very talkative household. Besides that, he's coming home right around the time MRX/Scorpio would be officially beginning.

♤ Identifying omens is part of my practice. It's one of my oldest, foundational, cornerstones of how I communicate with the Universe and my guides. When you notice something (really notice it) to the point that it stands out in your mind and you end up thinking on it all day, it is an "omen". A symbolic representation of the message the Universe is sending you. I was given an omen by the Universe yesterday as to the immediate future/Mercury RX in Scorpio. I was outside (smoking) when I saw a hawk soaring in the air, being pursued by two black crows, and navigating around their assaults. The hawk (personally) represents my spiritual vision/focus/accuracy. The two crows, I believe, represented thoughts that attack my focus. I.e. Huginn and Muninn, thought and memory. Although, Huginn and Muninn are technically ravens. Not crows. I still think the message from the Universe is to tame my PTSD/where my mind goes/stay focused on my goals instead of letting my negative thoughts pick at me.

Also kind of reminds me of the qliphothic sphere/inverted sphere of Netzach. Where the "crows" pick at the beauty of Source. Another reminder to keep my inner criticism from attacking my spiritual focus/my ability to see the beauty in my life and self.

Two other people in the household got omens on the same day as me. One person got a vulture eating roadkill on the side of the road, the other got a brown cricket. Since the vulture means rebirth and ressurection through shadow work, I think the household is going through a transitional phase (what affects one person in the house typically touches all of us). I am not certain on the brown cricket, however. Good luck? What struck me the most about it was that my roommate was trying to catch it...and it always knew when to hop away just in the nick of time.

♧ I've been rearranging/unpacking my boxes from Seattle finally. For a long time now, I've just been living out of boxes, and refusing to do much magic. I didn't even set up my altar when I got all my stuff back from [Redacted abuser]. It's taken awhile to even get myself back to directly communicating with my guides...much less the Universe/Source. Anyways, I'm finally going through my boxes, and setting up an official altar area. When I was getting into my old rock and crystal collection (I was into that stuff way back before I realized how harmful the crystal/gemstone trend is for Earth's environment), I found an old piece of Mookaite that I friend gave me. And I shit you not, the thing physically vibrated in my hand when I touched it.

I've been holding it ever since. Have totally and honestly forgotten all the exact properties of the stones I own. It's been such a long time. I was also practicing "crystal/crystal energy psychicism" when I was homeless as a means to survive the streets so...I'm pretty sure my PTSD is blocking a lot of that information out.

I guess it's time to rediscover crystals again? Not buying any new ones. Just utilizing the ones I already have to the best of my ability. I feel like it was wrong that so many of them were taken from the ground to be pretty baubles for people. I might as well make it worth something by using them to help myself/others/incorporate them into my active life so they hold meaning.

Mookaite feels very grounding and soothing already. It feels like a very receptive stone, inviting energy into it much like organic pearls do. I also notice that it has almost a dream/trance-like affect to it's grounding energy. I think maybe I'll take time to meditate with it tomorrow.

◇ Brad pretty much runs the household that I live in. Further details; I live in a BDSM polycule, Brad is one of the doms. One of Brad's relationships was very close to being homeless recently. While normally, being homeless is... [redacted PTSD disassociating moment] being non-binary and homeless during COVID-19 is even worse. So we took them in. Inevitably, we had to make some major adjustments (about space, because technically we're fitting 9 people in a 2 bedroom house). It's been a test of adaptability through chaos for everyone. One of the major areas of contention is that everything inside the house is getting moved, rearranged, or tossed. And some people (mainly [redacted name]) is absolutely 100% terrible at adapting to change, unless someone is literally dying. Also, while I get that none of this can really be helped, I'm also a bit annoyed by the sudden introduction of someone new.

But even if I'm annoyed by it, I wasn't about to say "no" when Brad told us what was going on. I'm not a monster. I was homeless too and Brad helped me get off the streets. This person, while I don't know them well enough to make a judgement, deserves the same chance that I did to get stable in an era where stability is a pipe dream.

I'm actually not the one having the hardest problem. Surprising, it's the spirit of the house that's having the hardest problem. Our house is an old 1950's model built at the corner of a crossroads. Technically the house kinda exists as a liminal space. And there's so much stuffed inside of it that theoretically anything *could exist* in the house. Sometimes weird shit pops up and then disappears. It's very similar to the Seattle house I lived in when I was with [KILL BILL SIRENS] but has less of a metaphorical underworld cave vibe and more of a Howl's Moving Castle vibe. Anyways, the house itself is having a bad time adjusting to all the change/cleaning that the new roommate is doing...because it keeps hiding and moving (specifically) all the stuff that the new roommate has. They're not a stoner. They have a decently good memory. And I know that nobody in the house would do something like that. Plus, they apparently heard disembodied laughter right after discovering something was missing. The genuis locci (house spirit) is fucking with 'em hard.

I've never seen the genius locci do this before. The worst it ever did to me was hide a really expensive Egyptian cotton pillow case once. It eventually spat it back out after cuddling with it, I imagine. Seriously; Egyptian cotton sheets. Get you some.

So after the 100× time today that the new roommate was swearing about their missing things, I suggested that maybe they need to butter up the genius locci with gifts. Kinda romance the house a bit. Give it something so that it builds a relationship with the spirits that live here. They're a (self-professed) baby witch whose background is Jewish. They mostly excel at kitchen witchery (for now) and incorporating the works and wisdom of the Torah into their life. So they weren't too certain on ritualistic offerings to a house spirit. But with some suggestions from me and listening to their own intuition, they were able to put something quick together. It's nice to see people using magic around the house and learning new skills. And to their benefit, I felt the house chill out a bit after the ritual/gift giving was done.

I have been giving the house/my guides a portion of my nightly tea every now and then. It's honestly nothing fancy but I figure small gifts count for something right?

[betsynagler]

The Four (Thousand, New) Questions

When I was growing up, I didn't really have to think too much about what it meant to be a Jewish American. A large part of that was living in New Jersey, where being a member of the tribe isn’t exactly an anomaly. In Newark, pretty much all of my friends were Jewish or Black, until I spent 2nd grade in Catholic School. You’d think that might make it weird, but even then, it wasn’t. All my new friends just had Irish and Italian names, and I got to sit in the back during mass and read, which is the dream of every second grader. And when we moved to the suburbs, things became, if anything, more Jewy. We joined Temple Israel and actually tried going to services every once in a while, and I went to Hebrew school on Saturdays. At my suburban public grade school, I learned the term “Jappy” something my friends and I called other girls that we considered spoiled, regardless of whether or not they were Jewish, and in junior high, the school bus that came from the most wealthy, Jewish neighborhood in town was sometimes referred to as “The Jew Canoe.” Who did we learn these terms from? Other Jews. We were the ones trading in the laughable stereotypes, because that’s American Jewish culture all over: we joke because we can. It’s never been in doubt in my lifetime that we belong here, to the degree that we are comfortable poking fun at ourselves, enough that while we are very aware that we aren’t and will never be the majority — and if you forget that, you always have the 30 to 60 days of Christmas to remind you — we are perfectly okay with that; and enough to feel safe in the knowledge that the past is the past, because in the Tri-State Area in the 1970s and 80s, anti-Semitism was about as real to me as Star Wars: something that existed long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away. The same thing with Nazis. Nazis were the movie villains nobody got upset about. Nobody ever said, “Why do the Nazis always have to be the bad guys?” Why? Because they were the bad guys. 

That doesn’t mean that my Jewish identity was 100% uncomplicated, mostly because I was raised to figure stuff out for myself. Mine were the kind of parents who took us to fancy restaurants and said, “Want to order the escargot? Have at it!”, perhaps not realizing that they’d end up with a seven-year-old who liked to try every appetizer on the menu but had a stomach the size of a golfball – which led to my parents gaining weight in the 70s, which led to their joining the exercise craze in the 80s...See how history happens? Being able to make my own decisions meant I could quit Hebrew school after one year (I was already a well-practiced quitter of stuff I didn't like, such as wearing dresses and learning the violin). I felt a little guilty about it, so I was definitely Jewish in that way, but one of the reasons I couldn’t get behind religious school was the fact that Judaism was supposedly my religion, but – go figure – our family was not religious. My parents don’t agree on which type of not-religious they are, since my mother describes herself as an atheist and my father calls himself an agnostic, but that’s only if you push them, since neither of them cares enough about it either way. They still identify as Jewish, and therein lay the confusion for me: Judaism is kind of an ethnic identity as well as a religion, but in a weird way, because you can convert to it, which you can’t do with, say, Slavic, and because it’s not one where we all come from one specific place, since Jews were basically driven out of everywhere. Sure, my family were all driven out of one country, Poland, but that didn’t exactly make them feel Polish. No, we were definitely Jews, just the secular kind, which is actually a thing — although I didn’t know anyone else like that in high school, the result being that in my group of friends, a mix of Jews and non-Jews, I was in my own category of Jewish, But Doesn’t Know When Any of the Holidays Are.

When I went to college on the West Coast, where I was meeting new people all the time, it was common for people tell me I didn’t “look Jewish,” which seemed to just fit right in with every other confusing part of my Jewish identity. You might think that, as a stealth Jew, I’d finally be privy to negativity about us, but that never happened. That was around the time of the rise of the religious right, and there were a lot of born-again Christians at Stanford, my freshman dorm was full of them. But while they may have believed I was going to hell, most of them still seemed happy to hang with me while we were alive – one of them even took me out for fro yo once (that’s short for “frozen yogurt,” and eating it together at Stanford in 1987 was called “dating”). If anything, being Jewish around them was an advantage, because they never tried to rebirth me the way they did other Christians, like my poor freshman roommate – I would come back to our room to find her surrounded by a group of them, looking uncomfortable, like she was getting hit on by Jesus. Mind you, I know now that my school was a liberal bubble inside the liberal bubble that was Northern California, and that protected me from a lot of things. But while we were definitely dealing with racism and sexism on campus at the time, anti-Semitism? That just wasn’t a thing.

Neither was being a Jewish person who didn’t support Israel. I didn’t know all that much about Israel growing up. I knew that it was the Jewish state, where I had once had some relatives, and that my cousins and eventually my brother — who finished Hebrew school — went to visit because they felt like it was an important way to learn about who they were. I didn’t. But when, in college, I had my first conversation with someone who’d lived in Israel about the way that Israelis felt this constant existential threat to their existence that justified their defensive posture when it came to negotiating peace with the Palestinians, even though they clearly had vast military superiority, I didn’t necessarily agree, but I got it. I understood why Israelis felt that, in a visceral, six-million-dead-just-because-they-were-like-you way that I think most non-Jews can’t. 

That was probably as much of a surprise to me as it was to anyone: that, on some level, in spite of not looking Jewish, or being able to speak Hebrew, or knowing what Sukkot was (if it wasn’t about eating or presents, it didn’t make it into the Nagler Canon of Holidays), I actually still somehow just was Jewish. And that part of my identity might never have really sunk in if I hadn’t become a New Yorker. Moving here didn’t just mean that I discovered Zabars, or that I was a bagel snob, or that I would be able to have lox at catering pretty much every day (and occasionally take some home if it was really good), although those things did indeed happen. New York was able to absorb and assimilate Jewish culture in a way that allowed it to flourish as one distinct flavor of the whole that is this city of many flavors. New York is a Jewish city – in same way that it’s also Italian, Irish, African-American, Puerto Rican, Chinese, Russian, Indian, Dominican, Pakistani, Caribbean, Mexican, and the list goes on depending on who’s arrived recently and who’s coming next. And so, from the way I relate to food, to my sense of humor, to my analytical and intellectual side, to how forthright/tactless I can be, to my overall worldview: living here enabled me to recognize that I just wouldn’t be this way if I weren’t Jewish.

Everything feels different in 2019 in so many, surreal ways, but what exactly it means to be Jewish in America is definitely a big one. I’ve felt some vulnerability and uncertainty as a woman for most of my life, as you do, but I’ve never felt that way about being a Jew until now. To the point that I can’t call myself “a Jew” any more, because suddenly, that’s an epithet. How the hell did that happen? When did we allow them to take that word away? Then there’s the realization of, Wait, we can’t make those jokes any more because there are people who actually still think that shit about us? And they’re telling other people? Fucking internet. Add to that the fault lines within the American Jewish community over Israel and the ground really starts to feel like it’s swaying under your feet. How much we should continue to support this country that seems increasingly unrecognizable to me, that is so racked by fear and sectarianism that it appears to have given up on peace and democracy, that votes for a leader who has demonstrated time and again that he is both racist and corrupt? Well, now that I’ve put it like that, okay, maybe this is something that Israel and the United States have in common right now, but that doesn’t make it any better for those of use who are trying to stay on the sane side of it all. I’m lucky that most of my family is in agreement with me on these issues, but my mother has some cousins with whom she is close that she had to ask to stop sending her political emails, because their conservative views about Israel seemed to have somehow spread to abortion and immigration, despite that fact that they live in San Francisco. Jewish Trump supporters? From the Bay Area? What the hell is the going on?! Come on, this can’t be us. When an audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition cheers when Trump says “Our country’s full. You can’t come in,” don’t they hear the eerie echos of what the American government said to the boats full of Jews they sent back to be slaughtered in the holocaust? Don’t they know that we are supposed to be sharp, and educated, and fucking liberals? Oh, wait, is “liberal” now a bad word not just among conservatives but for some on the left too, as in the “liberal elite who control everything” that they’re always talking about? But, double wait, wasn’t that just another way anti-Semites used to say “the Jews” without saying “the Jews”? But triple wait, aren’t Bernie Sanders and Glenn Greenwald Jewish? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Of course, this about when all of your older Jewish relatives shake their heads at all of this and say, “See? This is exactly the shit always happens to us. Somehow, when things go bad in the world, and people start believing crazy conspiracy shit, that always turns back on the Jews.” I never believed that before, so to see it sort of happening right before my eyes is really something. But at the same time, I’m sure as hell not going to let that make me just silo up. Yeah, there are the swastikas, and the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, and “Jews will not replace us,” but can we honestly say we have it worse than everyone else who’s under attack in this country right now? What’s the point of joining a grievance competition that just gives the people who are trying to divide the left exactly what they want? It’s how, when the new questions that confuse and divide us just keep coming — What do we say or not say about Ilhan Omar? What about the schism in the Women’s March? What about the Senate bill that would allow state and local governments to withhold contracts from those who boycott Israel that Chuck Schumer supported? — they just get us to go after each other.

Let’s not do that. Sure, maybe this is just another case of me getting older and less able to accept how the world is changing — sort of a, “Damn Nazis, get off my lawn!” type of thing – and maybe I should just go along with this new normal. But that's one thing I know is definitely not me. MoTs like to talk shit out, sometimes too much, but eh. Let’s bring that tradition of analysis and argument — and I mean the kind where you’re forthright and emotional, but you still know how to listen — to bear on the questions we’re having both on the left and in the Jewish community about how we move forward, instead of fleeing back into our fears from the past.