otp: note to self @otpnotetoself - Tumblr Blog

Call me Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way.

Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money to spend at Hot Topic, and no particular relation to Gerald Way (To my regret, as he an extremely attractive individual), I thought I would travel to Hogwarts and see the magical part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find people telling me I look like Amy Lee (and if you do not know who she is, I request you quickly remove yourself from the premises); whenever it is snowing and raining and there is no sun in my soul; whenever i find myself wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, and especially whenever the preps get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from flipping my long ebony black hair with purple streaks and red tips, and methodically putting up my middle finger at them- then, I account it high time to get to Hogwarts as soon as I can.

thartwell

@if-only-angels-could-prevail

if-only-angels-could-prevail

I GASPED

sonictoaster

#so real

allofthefeelings

Sending you this cuz I know/love that you do Jewish MCU headcanons and I was thought of Jewish Peter Parker insisting that Spider-MAN was 100% accurate since he's had his bar mitzvah so technically it shouldn't matter that he still sounds like a child... Anyway I was wondering if you had other Jewish Peter Parker headcanons, you're always so good at them ❤

OH MY GOD ANON I LOVE THIS SO MUCH?

Because, like. On the one hand it’s just fun and funny and silly in the way we want Spidey to be- him being young and naive enough to take a command (like “You’re an adult in the Jewish community now” farther than it’s maybe intended.

But on the other hand, this is exactly what’s intended. Superheroes- at least, the best ones- are basically the living embodiment of “If not me, then who?” They’re trying to make the world a better place than it was. And that is the responsibility of any Jewish adult. Peter getting bit by a radioactive spider and saying “Well, shit, looks like my only option is tikkun olam” is SUCH A FUCKING RIDICULOUSLY JEWISH CHOICE.

Like- if Peter was already comfortably Spidey in Civil War, in the MCU he had to be pretty close to his Bar Mitzvah when he became Spider-man. Which means that it happened right in that time where you’re taking the idea of what b’nai mitzvot means super seriously. You’re suddenly expected to view the world as something you can fix. You’re considering what it means that you’re suddenly an adult, and that you have these new responsibilities, and how can you live up to them.

In that context, with great power comes great responsibility isn’t just about being a superhero, it’s also about being called to the bimah, and permission to read the Torah, and the ability to join a minyan. In that context, developing fucking spider powers must feel like a sign of how being a Jewish adult encompasses so much more than you could ever imagine, both in terms of pivilege and in terms of obligations.

Maybe “Spider-boy” could walk past someone who needs help, but “Spider-man” could not. In choosing that name, Peter is unequivocally embracing the power and burden of Jewish adulthood.

allofthefeelings

NO BUT GUYS.

Consider:

Peter’s congregation does not, officially, know that he’s Spider-man. It is definitely his secret identity and that has not been breached, he is VERY SECRETIVE, etc.

Except.

Except that they’re a community and they all know about the tragedy that took his parents, and then to lose his Uncle Ben (z’’l) on top of that.

When he started acting odd, they all thought it was grief, made it a point to keep an eye on him.

When he started asking questions about the morality of certain things- they took notice.

The way he disappeared some afternoons, even if there was a youth group meeting (and he used to be pretty good about attending those when he didn’t have clubs after school), and those always happened to be the same day Spidey footage showed up on YouTube.

The way he’s always offering to run errands and just happens to be able to do things faster than anyone else can.

The way Spider-man doesn’t seem to work on Shabbas unless there is something that really cannot be solved without him.

They see the Bugle articles about him and, as a community, reject them. The rabbi says it in his sermon: Spider-man is not a menace, he is a mensch.

In the pews, Peter Parker’s sigh of relief is loud, and everyone pretends not to hear it.

achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily

THIS IS BEAUTIFUL AND I LOVE YOU

allofthefeelings

#but also please consider peter debating on whether or not his powers are kosher since they came from a nonkosher animal (via @achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily)

OH SHIT

Peter asking his religious school teacher REALLY BIZARRELY POINTED QUESTIONS. Peter bringing up weird fringe Jewish theories he found on Reddit and YouTube and being like “Is this true though? IF I GOT BITTEN BY A SNAKE-” “Peter, did you get bitten by a snake? Forget religious concerns, do we need to take you to the hospital?” “DO NOT TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL”

Man, but this is actually a really interesting question! Because health and well-being takes priority over basically everything else in Jewish tradition, how does developing superpowers factor into that? Are they enhancing health and well-being, or compromising it? If it’s the former, would doing things to support superpowers be considered not just good because helping people is a mitzvah but also because it is using his body the way it was intended? By biting Peter, did the radioactive spider inadvertently perform a great service in more ways than one?

achromic-red-dreams-doze-angrily

“Do aliens count as life? Would killing them bring repercussions upon me? Hypothetically speaking.”

“Am I a bad Jew if I teamed up with a non-Jew, like a…a spider or a gentile god or a sentient raccoon or something in order to fight said aliens? Hypothetically speaking.”

“Could non-kosher animals that perform a good service for a Jew be rewarded? In what ways?”

“Is it Jewish of me to get the urge to crawl into a ceiling corner and wait for flies?”

“What if I could help people, but the way in which I helped them didn’t match up with Judaism? I could follow Jewish teachings, but then I’d be helping less people…”

allofthefeelings

I think what I love most about this is that so many of these questions have halachic precedent, some even in our world, but ESPECIALLY in the MCU.

Because you know that the second Tony Stark stepped up to that mic in 2008 and said “I am Iron Man,” Jewish scholars started EXPLODING with discussions and hypotheticals about this new world they were suddenly occupying.

Plus, by the time Pete was bitten by the spider, the Chitauri attack already happened, which means rabbis in New York were at the FOREFRONT of figuring out what the shit is going on with their world and how that intersects with Jewish custom.

I’m unclear if SHIELD being infiltrated by Hydra ended up known or if they covered at least some of it up, but if it was public knowledge, that is such a huge additional thing for Jews- that this group historically associated with the Nazis is not just still around, but infiltrating the highest aspects of government. I think that would fundamentally change how Jews approach superheroes and superpowers. In fact, I think that would be a pretty big topic in youth groups and in religious classes, both dealing with kids’ fears and figuring out how to make the ones who AREN’T scared realize how deadly serious the whole situation is. And that, in and of itself, would probably change Peter’s response to becoming Spider-man; the great responsibility of it takes on new resonance in that climate.

animatedamerican

… I need to look up that midrash or folktale or whatever it was about King David (before he was king, I’m pretty sure) asking God why He created spiders and scorpions because they seem so useless and harmful, and God doesn’t answer but before the week is out David gets his life saved by a spider and a scorpion in quick succession

because somebody needs to tell Peter that midrash at some point

#relevant to your interests i feel?

mujafruit

sleemo

“Have you met your son, Adam Driver?” 😂

greyjedireylo

THE HEADLINE AT THE BOTTOM IS THE BEST PART I’M AFLSDJFJFLJSFD

#have you seen this?#excellent

outofcontextdiscord

#cackling tbh #I may try to finish tonight bc I have caffeine to work off after my talmud class

outofcontextdiscord

#in re: abo fic

caitlynlynch

Write a best-selling romance novel and, by some mysterious magic, be told which muse from Greek mythology you most resemble.

Well… that’s uncannily accurate.

thebibliosphere

Same, erato. Though I didn’t need this thing to come at me for my entire life like it did.

DON’T ASK ME TO CHOOSE, I CAN’T DO IT

eldritch-crone-deactivated20210

#IZZY

valencing

so exodus says that aaron stretched out his hand over the waters and the frog came up and covered the land of egypt and while english translators usually render “frog” as “frogs,” today at shul the rabbi challenged us to consider whether it could in fact have been one giant frog so we spent literally forty-five minutes arguing about whether there were swarms of frogs from the beginning or rather a single monstrous godzilla frog that split into multiple frogs once people started trying to destroy it and the congregation got so worked up that even after we’d sung aleinu and were heading out of the sanctuary people were still excitedly debating the moral implications of one frog versus many so what i’m trying to say is @judaism never change

#sometimes i am so proud of our people

mala-entita

A Hufflepuff:

Also a Hufflepuff:

how hufflepuff/ravenclaw friendships go

rave: I'VE BEEN ON WIKIPEDIA FOR 9.47 HOURS, WHAT DO KNOW ABOUT RUSSIAN ASTROPHYSICISTS, LOOK AT ALL THESE IDEAS I HAVE, I'M GONNA WRITE A NOVEL BY THE END OF THE WEEK

puff: PLEASE EAT FOOD AND DON'T FORGET TO BLINK

#perplexingly reverse us tbh

how hufflepuff/ravenclaw friendships go

rave: I'VE BEEN ON WIKIPEDIA FOR 9.47 HOURS, WHAT DO KNOW ABOUT RUSSIAN ASTROPHYSICISTS, LOOK AT ALL THESE IDEAS I HAVE, I'M GONNA WRITE A NOVEL BY THE END OF THE WEEK

puff: PLEASE EAT FOOD AND DON'T FORGET TO BLINK

#somehow...reverse for us??