I Think About The Fact There Is A Mosque On Top Of Our Destroyed Second Temple.

Calm reminder that the mean of all age groups' yearly expenses average is 71k-ish.

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HP-like LGBT Books (not written by a TERF)

In no particular order. These are only books I’ve read and enjoyed. There are more out there and I will add them to the list as I make my way through them.

1. The Grimoire of Grave Fates created by Hanna Alkaf & Margaret Owen and written by 18 diverse authors: several non-binary characters, a trans woman, two trans boys + some f/f and m/m. This is an incredible collaboration! The students investigate the murder of a close-minded professor at their magic school.

2. Simon Snow by Rainbow Rowell: m/m. This is the most famous one. I wouldn’t mind a TV adaptation, or even movies, but that sounds less likely.

3. A Hero at the End of the World by Erin Claiborne: m/m. This one is cute and funny. It doesn’t hurt that the cover art is gorgeous.

4. Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues by HS Valley: m/m (YA, but very sexual). Simon Snow meets Sex Education, with a fake baby assignment. Simply hilarious!

5. Three Meant To Be by MN Bennet: m/m + a trans boy and an ace girl. This is a magic school adult book, focused on a teacher, though the students are all very interesting too. I adore the magic system.

6. Gallowgate by KR Alexander: queer male protagonist (MG). This one is about learning how to hunt ghosts and has horror vibes.

7. Magic University by Cecilia Tan: m/f and m/m, as the protagonist is bisexual + some trans characters (erotica). This series is surprisingly my favourite, even though I’m very picky with erotica.

8. It Ends in Fire by Andrew Shvarts: m/f and f/f, as the protagonist is bisexual + a non-binary minor character. This takes place in a heroic fantasy setting. I love the magic system.

9. Scholars and Sorcery by Eleanor Beresford: f/f (novellas). This short series is super sweet. It’s mostly about life at the magic school.

10. Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey: f/f-ish (content warning: murder mystery about a dead queer woman). If you’re looking for something darker, go for this one.

11. [French] L'éveil des sorcières by Cordélia: lesbian major character (MG). This is another cute and funny one, with a lot of diversity. It hasn’t been translated so far, but I’ll keep you updated.

12. When the Letter Comes by Sara Fox: trans girl protagonist (short story). It’s a little sad at first, but it gets better. You can read it legally and for free here.

13. DIY by John Wiswell: queerplatonic m/nb (short story). It’s about climate change and capitalism and also has disability representation. You can read it legally and for free here.

14. My Name is Magic by Xan van Rooyen: f/nb + a major queer male character. I love that this story is inspired by Finnish folklore. There’s a strong focus on protecting nature as magic is being consumed too fast.

15. Trans Wizard Harriet Porber by Chuck Tingle: trans woman protagonist (weird erotica for a laugh). This is the biggest crack I’ve ever read, as well as the biggest F*** You to transphobia.

16. This Is How We Fly by Anna Meriano: the protagonist is questioning her gender identity + some non-binary characters and some f/f (non-magical). This is a novel about muggle quidditch, a co-ed sport where “the gender that a player identifies as is considered to be that player’s gender.”

17. Brooms written by Jasmine Walls and illustrated by Teo DuVall: some f/f + a trans woman major character (graphic novel). A group of diverse women take part in unsanctioned team broom races.

Astrid redraw:>

I've never tried to exactly redraw an image in digital before, as I did in traditional, although I think this is an oversight))

Hope you like it, I tried very hard on this, her skirt is just a pain🥲

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More Jewish sculpey projects.

Can't make a golem without a rabbi. Additionally, some pickles and gefilte fish for shabbos and a dreidel out of clay (unfortunately not good for spinning, favors gimel quite a bit)

Some books covering the Jewish roots of the comic superhero genre:

Up, Up and Oy Vey!: How Jew­ish His­to­ry, Cul­ture, and Val­ues Shaped the Com­ic Book Superhero by Rabbi Simcha Weinstein

From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books by Arie Kaplan

Superman Is Jewish?: How Comic Book Superheroes Came to Serve Truth, Justice, and the Jewish-American Way by Harry Brod

Is Superman Circumcised?: The Complete Jewish History of the World's Greatest Hero by Roy Shwatz

We Spoke Out: Comic Books and the Holocaust by Rafael Medoff (Author), Neal Adams (Author), Craig Yoe (Editor), Stan Lee (Introduction)

(please feel free to add more if you know of any!)

sorry if this is a dumb question and i understand if you don't want to answer but do you have links to posts explaining why israel isn't an apartheid state? i swear i read posts like that on your blog before but i don't know how to refind them

Israeli Arabs have legal equality with Jews. Same restaurants, same pools, same seats on the bus, same voting rights. I would favorably compare the treatment of Israeli Arabs with that of any minority group in any country on Earth.

The West Bank has a military occupation, with (pretty fast) checkpoints and no right to vote about the government running that military. Military occupations are bad and some of us have been against this particular one for decades. The anti-occupation movement hasn't gotten anywhere, they've just been stuck. Being stuck in a military occupation for X more years doesn't make it apartheid, just like being stuck in a bad marriage for X more years doesn't make you divorced. Meanwhile, the 2020 Abraham Accords showed that multiple Arab states were willing to accept this unchanging status quo and deal with Israel as it is. Those two factors - the stagnant, unchanging nature of the occupation, and the clear loss of interest in the Palestinian cause - combined to have the latest crop of awareness-raising college interns at some shifty NGOs try to force change by abracadabra'ing together a new concept of "apartheid" that exists solely for Israel. And it is working, just like "Christ-killer" and "stabbed Germany in the back" worked.

In 2010, Human Rights Watch published an extremely critical report on Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Dragged them up one wall and down the other. Yet there was no accusation of "apartheid" there. In the report, page 33, they cited a lawsuit by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel that had said it was apartheid for the West Bank military occupation authorities to ban Palestinians from driving on Highway 443 after repeated firebombings / shootings against Israelis. The Israeli High Court ruled that it was inappropriate to ban Palestinians from the road, and it re-established their equal driving access - they have had it ever since. The court also said that the accusation of apartheid behind that now-ended ban was dishonest, because the security concerns were not based on race; there were and are no "Jewish-only" roads anywhere, even when WB Palestinians were denied road access, Israeli Arabs could and did drive there. The HRW 2010 report included a long summary of that finding, without challenge. As bad as they saw Israel, they agreed it wasn't apartheid.

Then in 2020 came the Abraham Accords, so while nothing at all had changed in the administration of the West Bank, in 2021 HRW said it actually was apartheid. It really is that simple. The most famous legal convention banning apartheid specifies that it is race-based. HRW instead went with a different legal convention on apartheid, one that says it could be based on national origin if it involves discrimination among citizens of the same country.... and then they up and added their own twist to that, saying they will consider it apartheid if there is discrimination based on national origin AMONG PEOPLE WHO AREN'T CITIZENS OF THE SAME COUNTRY. In a very real sense, HRW declared Mexico is an apartheid state because Americans can't vote in its elections.

In 2022, Amnesty International followed with their own report, saying that not only was the military occupation now "apartheid," but that Israel itself had been an apartheid state ever since it was established in 1948. This moral perversion had the effect of saying Israel literally INVENTED apartheid since in May 1948 it didn't even exist in South Africa yet. It also said that Amnesty International - founded 1961 - had been looking at an apartheid the whole time but never recognized it. To make things even more dishonest, Amnesty said they "are not claiming Israeli conditions are analogous to South Africa," meaning anything that shows how Israel is different from South Africa doesn't count. They're using the South African word for the South African policy but it's actually not like South Africa at all so be quiet, neener neener no backsies.

I shouldn't have to take that seriously. Neither should anyone. Palestinians and their advocates should be ashamed to have to lean on such an obvious bad-faith lie.

Nelson Mandela, who died in 2013, never once accused Israel of apartheid, and instead repeatedly said he supported Zionism and a 2-state solution. Mandela's lawyer, still alive, says the accusation is a lie. Mansour Abbas, leader of the Arab Islamist party that joined Israel's governing coalition in 2021, says the accusation is a lie. And if people want to bandy around NGO business cards, here is the International Committee of the Red Cross in 2017:

“The Red Cross was very familiar with the regime that prevailed in South Africa during the apartheid period, and we are responding to all those who raise their claim of apartheid against Israel: No, there is no apartheid here, no regime of superiority of race, of denial of basic human rights to a group of people because of their alleged racial inferiority. There is a bloody national conflict, whose most prominent and tragic characteristic is its continuation over the years, decades-long, and there is a state of occupation. Not apartheid.”

There's a lot more you can see about the shifty terminology, unreliable sourcing, and longstanding culture of antisemitism and racism within Amnesty International. People who can cite chapter and verse of why the Salvation Army, Autism Speaks, Chik-Fil-A and Harry Potter are problematic should not be shocked.

Twitter thread by Melissa Caruso about a labyrinthine magical bookstore in Syracuse, NY. Link to the first tweet in the thread; most pictures have image descriptions! Now here are the screenshots of that thread:

And then a hero of the labyrinthine magical bookstores of the world put all the bookstores that people listed in the replies on a map! (Google Maps link)

Sketching to practice human anatomy and I used Hiccup Haddock from HTTYD movies as a reference

THE SWIMMING PIC HAS ME SOBBING 😭😭