#i dont even speak my cultures language!!!!! im so disconnected from it!!!! trying to learn about it feels so disingenuous because its like

[dystopian-penguin]

thoughts on culture and social media that english-speakers might wanna read

THIS IS NOT A GUILT-TRIPPING POST IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM. i am merely sharing a point of view for the sake of exchange, i promise! 😁😉

americans and even first world english speakers have absolutely no idea how it feels to be fully bilingual and engage in international social media

from time to time you will find yourself in an (actually somewhat serious) identity and cultural crisis that will legitimately start to affect your mental health without you even noticing. it creeps up on you and you dont realize just how uttely lost you truly are until something happens and you spend some hours heavily engaging into your own culture and language and then it just clicks. suddenly you feel lighter, your mind more at peace. and it sometimes it can go on for months, even years, without you realizing where that disconfort is coming from. feels like there is a mist surrounding you very soul but you have the hardest fucking time putting your finger on it.

now to the part it might anger some (arguably immature) people from tumblr:

i had some serious body dysmorphia (had surgery since then, thank god), and i consider myself somewhat NB. as in, some days i feel like the girliest diamond-simping disney-like princess and the others i am the grimmiest most charmingly roughish of victorian era urchins. most days are close to a middle ground, of course

im only sharing this tidbit to really drive home the point i am trying to make: feeling far removed and disconnected from your culture can be psychologically compared to being forced to present your body/gender in a way that makes you unconfortable for prolongued periods of time

in this post i will try to pinpoint and explain the actual core of the issue, where (i believe, from an university level of understanding of the subject) everything stems from.

again, i am not making this post to guilty trip anyone, for the love of god. to the contrary, i wish social media was still dominated by my culture (long live Orkut lol). it is comfortable. there is nothing wrong with being in your confort zone (with some small moderation), no matter what tumblr tries to tell you. the human race has been struggling for 30k+ years to improve comfort. hell, id love to have that privilege of cultural prevalence in social media, aint gonna be hypocritical about it

i just wish native english speakers, in special those from the USA, kept in mind our way of speaking, our sentence conatruction, even the choice of slang translation we use. none of that is truly 100% "unpoluted". a lot of times we are trying our hardest to get to a close aproximation of our native language "personality".

tumblr and especially twitter could be a little more patient with it. its is damn fucking hard to master the flick of the switch to another language, let alone needing to change your whole manner of speaking because someone, somewhere, think you might be offending someone else, somewhere else

english speakers are fortunate that their native language became the world's Lingua Franca in a way that was natural. not "forced" like french way back when, or mandarin most recently. english flows. english is easy. i freaking love english my dudes, i literally majored in english translation. but when you dont have the need to learn a second language, it becomes, THROUGH NO FAULT OF YOUR OWN, natural to assume some text on the internet is being written under the same cultural and socio-econonical optics as you were raised in. ESL has become so commonplace, even more so for the last 5~10 years, that its nearly impossible to tell what country that person might actually be from.

and therein lies the problem: assumption. different people do things in different ways. there are some that are better and healtier than others (including from, yes, "third world" countries) there are some that are boarding inhumane (including from, yes, "first world" countries). but the massive majority? its simply different. if it works for you and your family and your peers, then it works. simple as that.

but on social media you only have text. how many feuds have been sparked because of the lack of intonation in text? everyone and theirs grandma's parrot has a story of miscommunication when texting. but when you add in manner of speech and cultural traits to it, it becomes a complicated issue

and then we ESL speakers overcorrect. even subconsciously, we start to shape ourselves to the native-english culture (mostly american, for the obvious reason called "sheer numbers"). but its not our actual culture. dont get me wrong, the more you can incorporate different points of view in your life the better. fuck, god knows how badly we need this in the world right now. nothing wrong with implementing it in your daily life and even your own "personal culture" and ways. hell, just see my spotify to understand how much i love punk rock, an initially political/cultural movement that doesnt even apply to my history 😂

but as i said, we are somewhat forced to overcorrect. and THAT causes more anxiety and anguish than people can possibly imagine. youre ESL reading this and think its not that bad, it cant possibly affect you that much?

allow me to demonstrate:

i cannot possibly expect an american (you will understand why i singled you out in a sec) to understand why is it that brazilians bore no ill will towards germany after the 7x1 or why is it that this last world cup in specificthe fault was actually on the coach and what were his strategy errors, or why the fault was on the players in 2014, or even WHY the players bevahed so, etc etc etc etc. soccer football simply isnt your culture. i only know of Tom Brady's existence cause of Gisele. Michael Jordan? 98% Space Jam, 2% the Air Jordan murders way back when. I have only a vague idea who Babe Ruth is, and keeping score in baseball sounds legit worse than quantum physics.

i cant expect you to answer the diference between bossa nova and samba, samba and axé, axé and pagode, pagode and samba, samba and tropicalia, tropicalia and bossa nova. and which group of people founded what, and why, and if it was for protest what they were protesting against. i cant expect you to know why the first election against bolsonaro in 2028 was worse than sophie's choice for the massive majority of us. and why the second in 2022 was another matter entirely. i cant expect you to know what the word "caiçara" means (or even that it exists!) and howcome its a different ethnicity than the ones simply 70km away, and a whole other ethnicity with the same word if used in another state

then why do all of us ESL people need to fully and nearly college-level understand the insane intricacies of american politics? why am i expected to view the mere fucking concept of police as evil incarnated, through the eyes of a country that has basically zero training of their force? why do i need to think and behave according to an apartheid-influenced race theory in my daily life, in my own country, when im not even from those ethinicities? why do i need to see gender pay gap and patriachism the exact same way, if the foundation of families (and labor law, lol) in my culture is nearly the opposite?

i belive, like, 90% of the people reading this by now will have clicked on what im getting at.

because for good or for worse, english is here to stay. no, chinese wont take over as Lingua Franca, not even in the bussiness world, and i could quite literally write a monography on the subject as to why. no, like, i actually can, i have an university degree in it. so yes international media is in english. that boat has sailed, that horse has been shot Inês agora é morta

ESL speakers obviously know that. we had to adapt to it.

but how much before "adapting" becomes "submissive"? well, i dont know the precise answer but id wage around 6~7 bus stops ago

so all i ask if that native english speakers consider that as well. we adapted, so can you. we are speaking your language, yes. we are engaging in your culture as well along with it.

but its almost 2023. isnt it time to realize that the culture of speaking english might not be only yours anymore? 😉😝

we try to stay away from everything that is widly known as offensive, obviously. most people know where The Line TM stands for most english speaking cultures. i hardly see a quid pro quo in this, but as i stated before, i dont expect people from other cultures to understand the intricacies of mine. everyone is subject to commiting a faux pas, everyone here is human ffs.

the issue is that i see native english speakers being actively but gently corrected on an honest mistake, aaaaaand then doubling down on it under the argument "this is english speaking media". or worse, an ESL person also commiting an honest mistake but then being canceled for all eternity because it didnt fit the english cultural optics.

social media is for all. english now is, like it or not, for all. we ESL folks dont mean to offend. and more: lot of faux pas are not even offensive to us at all in translation. and theres some english expressions that sound wrong to our ears but we let it slide

i think its high time we all come together to a middle ground yes? we are willing to learn, we have been for quiiiiiite a while. but maybe, juuuust maybe, not every different way of speaking in english and point of view should be considered "problematic" if it comes from a diferent cultural optic, hmmmm?

as for the culture-privation anguish i started this with? well, if you spend so much time trying to pretend to change your very principles for the sake of not being unjustly attacked by internet strangers, it will no doubt cause anxiety (to put it fucking mildly).

do a "going back home" session. take an afternoon to actively engage in music and media from your country. no social media involved. im willing to bet with the craziness thats our world, whatever language you speak shit is utterly chaos there as well. meditate on the messages of the lyrics and the plots of the series/movies/books and everything else in it. no need to go on a full monastery-like deep dive, or even to do it super frequently. it aint court-mandated therapy, relax.

but you may have gotten much more lost on that path away from your roots than you first realized. and stopping to find your way back, even if for a couple of hours, will do your mental health so much good.

as for the english speakers, just try to keep in mind the point of view i have exposed 😉

no need to agree, no need to change. hell, truthfully no need to even keep in mind if you dont want to, i suppose. but not everyone shares you issues, strenghts, and optics. not everyone has the same life story, or even history.

and remember: at the end of the day we are all the same species, sharing the same planet. we have more in common than you think 😉

#jesus fuck how do you even tag this? #probably under: things that will get ignored cause of my pitiful amount of followers 😂 #if anyone has any tagging sugestion im all ears #my stuff #my writting #just so i can find later lol

[moriaen]

when i know so much about american and english history (in part involuntarily, but also definitely of my own volition) yet very little of my own background's history? that is a bad feeling.

#i dont even speak my cultures language!!!!! im so disconnected from it!!!! trying to learn about it feels so disingenuous because its like #im looking in from the outside and not as if . this is the actual history of my parents and grandparents and- #its a shitty shitty feeling.. to grow up in a western country and just be so disconnected #not really arthurian related but this thought does cross my mind every time im learning more of medieval history. #yeah i can tell you alllll about 16th century england but what the hell [my country] was doing in the 16th century? lol i dont have a singl #e clue #its not even a problem of accessibility because it is accessible since its a major country but i literally have a breakdown every time i #try looking into [my culture] #i put it in brackets because it . it doesnt feel like my culture . #i feel like a stranger #feels bad man #okie rant over<3

[the-queer-look]

The bonds that tie

No one is ever late to finding out their sexuality. No one is ever late with coming out. Everything takes time, and for some people that takes longer than others. Cultural and social circumstances can have a huge effect on how and when we begin to understand and accept ourselves, and in some parts of the world, that can have a deeply negative impact on our sense of self worth. Nevertheless, being true to ones self leads to deeper, more positive connections with those around you.

- K

Name: Jacob

age: 32

occupation: Refugee Assistance

Location: Liverpool

Gender: Male

sexuality: Gay

My name is Jacob, Im 32 years old, Australian, from an Iraqi background, with Assyrian nationality, and I am a gay man. I like to think of myself as a very easy going guy, although a lot of people seem to misunderstand my personality and think of me as a snob, or make a point of saying how I am very quite. I think that is because I am generally a shy person, largely because of being self conscious about my accent, I’m worried about saying something wrong, or not speaking fast enough. I always need to translate what I want to say into english in my head before actually saying it. I’ve always had a love of helping people, which is why I work for a government program designed to assist refugees secure housing and establish their first initial accomodation in Australia, which I’ve been working in for the past five years. My initial degree was in IT, which I gained back in Iraq, but once I finished my degree I realised that I wasnt very passionate about coding and working with computers, I just did the degree to satisfy my parents, so I worked with a newspaper and became a journalist until I left Iraq in 2010. I lived in Istanbul for a couple of years before moving to Australia as a part of my journey as an asylum seeker. I’ve been in Australia for about 6 years.

Upon moving to Australia it was very challenging to find work as a journalist, with English being my fifth language, and the competition for journalism jobs in Australia being so high, so I began assisting people who’d gone through my own journey, first as an interpreter, and then moving into community services and case management, and I’ve now done a diploma in social housing as well, and currently completing studies in social work with the University of Western Sydney, hopefully next year.

I think I realised that I was attracted to men when I was about 14 or 15 years of age, but because back then in Iraq there wasnt any access to the internet, nor anyone that you could really come out to and talk with about it, I felt extremely abnormal. I thought that it was just me, and that I was different to everyone else, it was at a time when all of my peers had girlfriends, and thinking about getting married and stuff. I met my first girlfriend when I was 17, and fell in love for the first time when I was 21 back in ui with one of my classmates, but of course that didnt last. I always felt like I was going down the wrong path, because even though I was dating women like I “should”, I still felt attracted to guys. Eventually I got the chance to speak to people through the internet, and found out what being gay was, and realised that I wasn’t an aberration. It gave me the tools to discover who I truly am. I dated my first guy when I was 24, which was when I was able to accept it, and I’ve identified as gay since then.

I did feel very strongly that I didnt belong in the society over there, with LGBTQIA+ people not being talked about at all, and such a religious culture which openly hated gay people… Growing up in a muslim society was very challenging, as the only Catholic guy in primary and middle school, with a western name as well, it didnt make it any easier to come to terms with my sexual orientation. I was bullied quite a lot for the way I dressed and acted, for not having a girlfriend etc. And that challenge moved to my home, the struggle about how to let my family accept me, the isolation that you feel as you build up to coming out to your family… Being gay, and the youngest in the family, in a very religious, Catholic family was not the easiest.

Eventually, even after moving out with friends after graduation, I was still very close with my family and dreaded the idea of coming out to them, and the possible disconnect from those family ties. Because I couldnt think of anything worse than not being able to see my nephews and nieces, of spending time with my parents. But eventually I had to be selfish for once, and I came out to them in August 2018. It was really hard for them in the beginning, they were really shocked, but we had a serious chat a few days later. I just realised, they always knew but they kind of denied within themselves, because of them… I looked different to any other gay guy that they knew of… I didnt fit those stereotypes that they thought of. I just did my best to educate them and make them believe it. At the beginning they were saying “You’re only saying that because you dont want to get married” and all this kind of stuff. I had to give them examples of people that I’d introduced them to and tell them that they were actually past boyfriends for them to accept the fact that I’m actually a gay guy.

They were expecting, even though we live in Australia now, that coming out to everyone would get me fired, or beaten up at work. They had no idea about the anti-discrimination laws in Australia, they even asked me about whether there was any sort of gay community in Sydney. Obviously it was a bit much for them, they offered me church conversion therapies, they offered me medications, they asked me to go on a blind date with a girl that might change my mind, but obviously none of those were options. I’ve asked them to accept who I am, and if not then they can continue their lives without me in it. But it didnt actually take any longer than two weeks before they started inviting me to family gatherings again, and our relationship now is even closer than what it was before. I’m so much more comfortable being myself around them, I dont feel like I have to hide myself, and pretend to be straight anymore that I used to do before. My whole family is so much closer now and I’m very grateful.

For my fmily I’ve always been the rebel. I was the first to move out of home, even though I’m the youngest. All of my brothers were getting engaged and married and still living with my parents. I moved out when I finished my studies, and everyone was against it. There’s this stigma in middle eastern culture that a young man should not move out of his family home before he gets married, because that will ruin his reputation and morals, and will have temptation to do bad things. There’ve always been comments about the way I dress, because my fashion choices were not very accepted, I followed the western singers on TV and stuff. And when I had my first piercing, an eyebrow piercing when I was 24, my family didnt talk to me for about two weeks because they thought it was too gay… surprise! It got even worse when I got my first tattoo, my friends would say to me “you look like a homeless person” “you look like you have no morals” etc, etc. When I got my ears pierced, they started saying that “you look like a faggot” which was really harsh. But I’ve always wanted to do what represents me, not to follow a group f people or act like someone else. I want to present myself in a way that represents myself, and I have always felt free to change my looks or the way I dress.

Things have definitely changed about the way I dress and act since I came out. I feel like I’m out of my shell, especially at work, I no longer feel the need to try to blend in anymore. Luckily the diversity at my work is very broad, so looking different isn’t a big deal. So far out of nearly 50 staff, I’m the only that is openly gay, which means of course I was picked by the inclusion co-ordinator to become the LGBTQIA+ champion fo the office, so staff could approach me to ask for resources and assistance when they have clients in the LGBTQIA+ community. And now I have the pride flag on my desk and people get shocked when they see it, and I can almost see the question marks appearing over their head as they stand there. But yes, I am definitely more comfortable being myself at work, that comfort in being who I am has helped my relationship with my managers because it’s like being a bird, and you finally learn how to fly, that’s how it feels for me to be out.

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#thequeerlook #the queer look #queer #lgbt #lgbtqiaplus #lgbtqia #gay #male #man #assyrian #iraqi #iraq #immigrant #asylum #love is love #photography #portrait #portraiture #portraitphotography #interview #identity

[the-sanders-sides]

inidan american (desi) logan

a sequel to this post because people asked for more and i decided that they shall receive (and also i love writing these)

fair warning, logans a bitter kid, and this isnt as positive and happy as romans post. ive experienced two different ways of being desi, one where i lived in fully asian and indian community and didnt even think id ever feel alone, and another where i moved to a place where i havent met another desi in like 7 years of living here in a 3 hour driving radius. in romans post i played into my first experience and how at home i felt. in the second experience, the one im in right now, i am much more bitter about who i am and not really knowing anyone who gets it anymore. so i play into that A LOT in this. so keep that in mind. (and he will get happier in a future part. m planning on making this into a series)

ok so first off. his name is logan sanders. people (mostly other indians) dont believe him when he tells them. he tells them they dont know indian history. they say they do. he tells them that the british fucked around (quite literally) in india for four centuries so of course english names would stick with that precise wording

sometimes when he’s annoyed enough and doesnt want to explain this for the millionth he defends himself with this russel peters skit (watch it, it’s hilarious) because it describes his family. to a T. 

he grew up in a community with not very many asians, and knew no indians outside his family so he felt a sort of disconnect to his culture

while his grandparents and parents would teach him about indian culture, he felt so distant from it since he knew no one outside his family who was indian, and since he didnt have any siblings or any nearby cousins to hang around with

he had visited india once but he was too young to remember it properly or too remember his cousins

the closest mandir was an hour away so that also limited the amount of indian kids/people he knew

he barely knew hindi because everyone in his family spoke english, especially in public

he felt guilty over the disconnect he felt and would always try to bridge it but would never accomplish this because it he kept losing passion since he rarely saw other people like him in the real world and in the media and he didnt see the point of trying

this all changed in eight grade when he moved next door to the Kumar family in a north indian street of some south asian blocks in an asian community

when his family first moved, the Kumar family invited the Sanders over to welcome them

it turns out the Kumar’s had a son who was the same age as logan

“hi logan! im rohan kumar! but i like going by roman instead of rohan!” 

this introduction pissed logan off 

he was seething because why would this kid who got to have an indian first AND last name change his name to an english one! why didnt he see the value of his name!

he knew right away that such a difference meant they could never be friends 

“im logan sanders, but thats all youll get to know about me because i see no use associating myself with someone as... well, ignorant, as you”

roman decides to whip out one of the swears his cousins taught him and whisper shouts “who are you calling ignorant, bhenchod?” 

 it became clear to him that this was new turf, and people on this new turf must be speaking hindi. and that he was the ignorant one if he couldnt talk in hindi. he made a vow to learn it as fast as he could to make sure this roman kid wasnt better than him

but, logan grits his teeth and says “you, and i know it must be true because you were too dumb to understand me the first time”

this evidently struck a sore spot in roman because he didnt fight back but just stalked away. logan smiled slightly, happy to have won that argument

logan asks his grandpa to teach him hindi and his grandpa gets super excited

they start lessons immediately and despite barely hearing it growing up, it’s as if his brain was made for this because he picks the language up amazingly fast and in a months time, while not able to speak back yet, he can understand most casual conversation

his first diwali in basically little india is the most magical thing ever

diwali at his old home was very quiet because there wasnt anyone around to celebrate with

everyone is so happy in this new home however. everyone is dressed up and all the houses are lit up and there are diyas everywhere and he doesnt want to admit it but the kumar’s have the best rangoli on the street and it’s because of roman and he knows roman did it because sometimes he’d stare out of his bedroom window while doing homework and have a perfect view of roman delicately working on it for two weeks

(the kumar’s front porch had been covered with tarp waiting for diwali to make sure romans precious rangoli wasnt stepped on or ruined. when it’s finally let up, everywhere where there could be art, there is. it’s insane how good at colors roman is, logan thinks)

diwali morning: 

he fights his parents because he doesnt want to miss school for diwali because americans dont have a day off for it. his parents set the clocks in the house ahead to make him think he overslept so he would skip school. (logan didnt know that his parents had submitted an excused absence form for religious reasons and that the school was very understanding. he thought it would be like his old school where he wouldnteven bother trying since he wasnt christain and the school was lkinda discriminatory)

they spend the morning in mandir and it’s nice. for once he doesnt feel different from his peers because he goes to mandir and not church or synagogue. he feels at home.

diwali afternoon:

the afternoon is spent with frantic cleaning and cooking and digging around for the diya’s that were still in boxes, packed away from when they moved

logan offered to find them all to continue with a diya science experiment he started two years prior. his theory was that the diya’s were multiplying and there were more each year despite no one buying anymore

this held true, because even though he could only find half of their diya collection, it was somehow more than the entire diya collection of two years prior. 

diwali evening:

theres a big potluck and everyone in the neighborhood is out talking to each other, looking at the decorations at everyones houses, eating samosas, and playing with sparklers. 

logan feels content

he makes a new resolve to learn more about hinduism. if this is what ti was supposed to be, then he never wanted to be away from hinduism. 

he looked at the metaphors and symbolism in everything and finally understood what his dad meant he told logan that hinduism is just science written in poetry and that string theory is written in the ancient texts

middle school in this new town is so much better than middle school in his old home. why?

a. doesnt get bullied for being a nerd

b. doesnt get called gay slurs 

c. the classes are harder 

d. much less racism

e. all of the above

soon enough, logans asking his grandpa to teach him how to cook Indian food

Logan spends the day burning dosas and making lopsided rotis

(eventually he gets the hang of it, and a he'll be cooking food for an infuriating Indian boy ;) ;) psst it's roman)

Speaking of boys

Coming out isn't an option for logan

He knows that his parents arent really religious enough to really look into hinduism and see that no, gays are not bad

But they are traditional and conservative enough to be homophobic

not homophobic as in spewing hate with the westboro baptist church at a pride parade

But homophobic as in "the gays are fine as long as they don't do it in front of me" kinda thing

So Logan stays quiet

the closet kinda sucks but i mean what can he do

it’s safer inside, and he as illogical as wishing is, he wishes that people would use their brains and realize there’s nothing wrong with gay

anyway

in school logan makes his first desi friend, who was dubbed as anxiety years ago and cant seem to get rid of the nickname and now has a whole complex about his name so logan doesnt know his name

logan and anxiety meet in the school library: logan studying and anxiety hiding

people dont like anxiety

especially non-indian kids

surprise surprise it’s an old buddy called racism, but anxiety’s story is for another time

(but even though no one really likes anxiety, whenever racist shit goes down, it has to go through roman)

so logan and anxiety become fast friends

and they make fun of roman (a+ bonding)

logan claims that roman is a hypocrite for changing his name to an english one while being so immersed in indian culture

anxiety doesnt dispute this, but says he has a past with roman

a past that involved getting stuck with the name anxiety

again, another story for another time

one day, when logan and anxiety are eating lunch they see roman destroy some homophobes who throw around the word f*g and keep calling caitlyn jenner, bruce jenner

logans chest surges

he’s all like “what?? emotions?? pride at roman?? is he better than me for being so open and standing up for what he believes in??”

gay panic basically

but logan masked it well and pushed it away

the next day roman comes to school with a pride patch on his jean jacket

logan feels like he cant breathe

logan is supremely jealous of roman.

he can be gay in peace

he can pretend not to be indian in a way that benefits him

and he’s not affected by stereotypes in the same way?? like what does this kid not have

and by stereotypes i mean

roman is the complete opposite of all indian and desi stereotypes: loud, flamboyant, theatrical

logan’s personality is exactly how the stereotypes are. he’s nerdy and likes science and math and it seems like he cant escape the stereotypes. they follow him. and he feels guilty that he likes science and math and is nerdy. 

as illogical as it is, he wishes he was different from how he is

but logan later learns that there are more than just his perspective on being desi and that every desi kid growing up faces challenges about it that are different than his, causing them to experience being desi differently

and logan will accept that, in another story at another time

for now, he’s just bitter. and as illogical as it is, he wishes the world was better

and now, i shall tag some people who asked to be tagged and some other desi’s who loved this because i feel like you guys might appreciate this too. also i love u. desi famders squad up.

@sssixeyedrunt @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 @caterpiller-tea @xxxbladeangelxxx @snufflesthegrim227 @cloudchaser7 @thelowlysatsuma 

#logan sanders #logince #virgil sanders #roman sanders #desi #desi headcanons #sanders sides #mine #please love this #r #l #v

[jewishangus]

(I'm not even sure if this is the place to ask, sorry if this is a weird question haha) I'm a fanfiction writer and now that angus has been confirmed jewish I don't want to ignore that part of him in my future works. But I know literally nothing about what it means to be jewish. As a jewish fanfiction writer yourself, do you have any advice about how I could respectfully write a jewish angus?

no its a great question!!!! dont worry about asking - if anything, im super glad you’re looking to create good representation!! (and humbled that you’re here asking me? fuck)

tl;dr: being respectful really just means putting thought into your character, and treating judaism like you would any other facet of someone’s personality. most of the time, it won’t be that prominent! but if you don’t think about it, you’re going to end up writing it badly.

under the readmore, however: how to approach thinking about judaism and working it into a character.

ok first of all, if you’re not jewish and know nothing about judaism, there’s a couple of things you should get.

first: ethnicity is key.i’ll leave you to do the googling on the terms - the key to all good representation is research - but if youre european/american, you most likely adhere to a denomination (which, for the numerical majority of jews, is either orthodox, conservative, or reform), if you’re from the middle east/north africa/actual real africa/far east, or live in israel now, you’re likely not to. 

second: surprisingly, politics dont matter. tradition, however, does.you can be liberal and orthodox and conservative and reform, even though orthodox judaism is the more traditional/patriarchal in nature of the two denominations. but you’ve probably heard of if not seen fiddler on the roof - its incredibly hard to stray against what you’ve been raised when youre jewish, mostly because most of your jewish identity comes from your parents and your history! a lot of people do, especially on the political front. but even if people differ from their parents politically, they might not do so jewishly.

third: jews are a nation as well as a religion.jewish culture exists (though it’s different for people of different ethnicities), a jewish language exists, a jewish history exists (even though schools suck at teaching all of it), and jewish national sovereignty also exists and is important - hence, israel. at the same time, a jewish biblical canon exists, and jewish books of law exist, and those two have to coexist together. for some jews, both are equally important. some prioritize one over the other, and do so in different ways.

last: stereotypes are…. actually kind of important.jews love to argue. true. jewish overbearing moms exist. also true. jews control all the money in the world? actually, we joke about that a lot, but sadly that isn’t true. however, for a nation with only ~15 million people, you’ll find us in a lot of high places; we’ll attribute that mostly to our brains, though.when you’re writing stereotypes, think about them. every jewish person thinks about them differently and treats them differently. people who grew up in more of a jewish bubble tend to be more comfortable with them than those who arent.whatever you do, though, dont avoid them like the plague. a lot of them are true, and cute, and a lot of them are something id love to see in fic! as an example, take a line from one of my wips: “So, deep down, Davenport knew it wasn’t a coincidence that when he collected the seven, they all turned out to be Jewish. It’s the Jew-dar, Merle jokes sometimes, or the “you were looking for smart people, what’d you expect?” that Taako said once, but their captain’s more serious than that. He thinks it’s destiny.”

there’s two different stereotypes in there: jews are smart, and the jew-dar, which is more a pun off of the gay-dar than anything. and yet, they’re used light-heartedly, for a laugh that doesn’t poke fun! kind of in the same way angus was confirmed to be jewish.

ok, now that that’s done with, a disclaimer that i implied heavily in the last bit but is very worthy to say outright:

every jew is different! 

when you’re writing a jewish character, this is the most important thing to keep in mind. a person can’t be just jewish, they’re jewish and [insert race/ethnicity] and [insert gender] and [insert age] and [insert socio-economic status] and [insert sexuality] and i can just go on and on and on, because even the men in black hats in nyc’s diamond district have a story and other facets of their personality.

so the key to write a jewish character is not to throw everything else in the garbage - in fact do exactly the opposite. decide everything else first, and then use that to reverse-engineer their judaism.now, this is true even for people who see judaism as their salient identity, like me! even if judaism is the most important thing in their lives, it’s that along with everything else that builds character.

let’s try it with angus, shall we?

okay, so who is angus?

-he’s a boy-he’s 11-he is, for whatever reason, mostly disconnected from his birth family-he loves to learn - an academic at heart-he’s fancy - his birth family was probably rich, or at least he knows his manners.

and if you wanna do some world-building you can - how do jews in faerun deal with magic/other gods/the astral plane/etc? thats a whole other post, but it’s interesting to think about in regards to angus’s psyche.

okay, let’s do this:

we don’t know angus’s race. if he’s white, what denomination does he slide into, if any? if he’s black, he’s either ethiopian or his family converted at some point in his history or he’s an extremely rare character. either way, his generation is probably like. one of the first to integrate into modern judaism. what’s that like? 

he’s a kid. his judaism is going to change over time! how serious is he about it now? is it a source of fun for him, a source of serious learning, or a mix of both? does he make sure to follow the laws, clearing his dorm of bread on passover or fasting on yom kippur or keeping shabbat/kosher, or does he just light candles for hanukkah and eat dairy on midsummer?

where is his family, and why would they have left him? the days of ditching your kid in fear of him growing up bad have been behind us for millennia. if his family is shitty or dead, where’s the extensive community that usually backs up kids of his character? does he still have a network? does he go back and visit?

he found a new family in the bureau and the ipre - are they jewish? do they support him or just leave him be?

he is a boy genius, in most understandings of the term. does he speak hebrew? know torah trope or prayer or jewish law? or is he more of a jewish history buff? or does he like secular subjects better, struggling over yet appreciating the old text yet turning his attention to something else? judaism seriously endorses academia - is that where he got his love for it from?

if he’s fancy, is he traditional? does he wear tzizit under his clothes or was his family not that jewish when they got rich?

the answers to all of these questions are going to create the kind of jew you want angus to be!

and yet - 

you can incorporate all of this character-building into angus and end up writing him the same way as you have this whole time - it all depends on the scene you’re writing him in.

your angus could be the same except he interrupts to ask a question about a religion/custom that’s different than his own. he could be the same except fixing the tzizit under his clothes is a fidget of his. you know what? his judaism is probably only going to come up in little snippets anyway - he could be asking taako which ones are the meat forks and which are the dairy ones, or magnus could play keep-away with his kippah, or lucretia could find him in his room studying torah. or maybe it comes up in conversation? maybe someone calls him a genius and he blushes and says he kinda struggles with his hebrew homework sometimes, and then the conversation moves on as if he hadn’t mentioned judaism at all.

so what do these questions answer, exactly? whether those snippets, those pieces of judaism that work his way into his daily life, are even there to begin with. 

does it come up in conversation? does he spend his free time studying torah? does he wear a kippah or tzizit? does he care about meat and dairy forks? does he end up going on an extreme teen adventure and ask a bunch of questions or is he worried about merle preaching? 

those are up to you, and those decisions are what im working to educate on in this post.

anyways, that’s about all i got! if you wanna find out more about judaism, feel free to ask - i was trying to avoid giving you a crash course on my religion and more focusing on how to incorporate it into a character, but if the former was what you were looking for, hit me up and ill write another 1500 words for you!

hope i could help, and happy writing!

#eden talks #Anonymous #the adventure zone #taz #angus mcdonald #judaism #this is important guys #fuck thanks so much for the question anon! #im honored you thought me important enough to answer #and tried my best