Ayala's art(and junk)

I've never seen an orthodox character in a movie, or book, or tv show, outside of the very niche genre produced BY us, FOR us.

"But what about Unorthodox--" No. That's about someone who used to be frum. That's a completely separate thing.

Do you have any idea how much that would have meant to as me a kid? To see or read about even ONE character in mainstream media who was like me? To know that someone even knew people like me existed?? And accepted it??? It would have meant the world.

And so, to the authors and screenwriters and character designers and podcasters and animators and EVERYONE working in the entertainment industry, I say:

Give me Chaya's and Perel's and Basya's and Devorah's. Baruch's and Chaim's and Avi's and Tzvi's.

Give me girls wearing long-sleeved shirts and skirts that go past the knees.

Give me boys with yarmulkes and tzitzit.

Give me characters saying "Do you wanna come over for shabbos/yuntif?"

Or, "hang on, I need to go daven shachris."

Or, "Is it Kosher?"

Give me bubbes and shuls and cholent and tehillim.

Give me explicitly orthodox representation.

And if you won't do it for me, then do it for all the others who feel invisible.

We're in the theaters and the bookstores and spread across all the internet, and we see you.

I grew up Orthodox. I went to private religious schools. The people I knew personally almost all had Hebrew names, including me and both of my siblings.

But the characters I wrote didn't, because nobody did in any of the books I read or the TV shows I watched or the movies I saw, and little me wanted to write like a real writer. And that meant English names.

Coming to understand this as an adult was painful. It still is. I don't know if I'll ever be over it.

I also grew up Orthodox, going to all-girls Orthodox schools, in an entirely Orthodox community. Nearly everyone I interacted with on a day-to-day basis was an Orthodox Jew.

But I never, NEVER, wrote Orthodox characters, and I still haven't. I had that same mentality - I wanted to write something real. Writing an orthodox character like myself would have been weird and cringey, and I wanted to write something like the media I was consuming.

I never realized this was something I had to unlearn until this very moment. Even now, when I write Jewish characters, they're almost never orthodox, even though I myself am orthodox. I'll write secular jewish characters occasionally, because they just feel like they fit into the story better.

but that's probably only because I've never SEEN an orthodox character in a story like the ones I write. Of course it doesn't feel right. I have nothing to base it off of.

This is also probably why the book Spinning Silver felt like such a revelation, to the point where I'm still thinking about that story months later. It affected me so much because I had never read anything like that before. This mentality has been affecting me for my whole life, and I didn't even consciously realize it.

✨️DAY 2 - WARMTH✨️

Enjoying the warmth of the sun in each other arms✨️🥹❤️✨️ Ever since Katara found her own 'personal heater', she barely rely on other sources of heat✨️🤭✨️

Now, the way this goes is that I have everyone show up around 4:30pm. People show up, it's a big crowd, it's pretty warm out because the sun is still up and the mingling is great. People eat, share food, the kids run around in the trees and check out the lake, and we all just generally enjoy ourselves and catch up. Then the sun starts to go down.

People start getting under the pavilion, it starts getting a little chilly, and maybe those with really young kids start to pack up and say good-bye. This is usually when I light up the fire in the pavilion's fireplace and people will begin gathering around there. I let the grill burn down and sit down with everyone as everything gets a bit more mellow. Maybe we make s'mores or have cookies or something but this is usually were you start having more people say their good-byes and head out. That's how it goes for the next couple of hours, little dribbles of people winding up and heading on home until it's 9:30 at night and there's just a few people left in the pavilion in the woods sitting around a little fireplace quietly talking.

You know what? That's the best time at these things. Some years we'll be out there until almost midnight, just chatting quietly and staring into the coals. You learn things about people then, you hear interesting things, and you just feel closer.

So what does this have to do with fandom and moving on? Well, I see it like this. The show is still on, that's the early part of the day. Plenty of people around, lots of activity where art gets made, headcanons and meta fly fast and furious, and tons of fic gets written. Then the show ends, people are still creating but a few peel away, they have other things they have to do or just aren't interested in sticking around. Slowly but surely it goes until it's just a few people left.

That's when the interesting things really start coming out. You still have the other stuff but you start to get off the wall headcanons and wild meta, you get odd art, you get fic the person finally decided to write, and it's good. And hey, every once in a while, someone shows up late and you grab some food out of the cooler for them and warm up a burger for them over the coals while others grab a chair for them and you get them up to speed on the conversation and maybe show them some pictures from earlier in the night and they get to have some of that glow from earlier even if they missed the original.

Also language is female

So

When I taught second grade, one of the options for students who had finished their work was to write a letter to the president. I would send all of the letters in a big envelope at the end of every month.

Watching my students get more and more frustrated with him (and concerned about his wellbeing) was not the result I'd hoped for when I came up with the idea, but it was kind of hilarious.

See, Obama had a standard packet with information and activities about his dog he'd send in response to letters from very young citizens...and of course his office sent one back to our class every single time we sent mail.

So eventually all of the letters looked something like this: