#mollyencrypted

I have something of an eternal crossover WIP that I'm extremely fond of that interprets the events and characters of a film I love (for the purposes of this ask, A) as occuring in setting B. The awkward thing I have run into is that B disproves Literally All Religions, and two of the major characters of A are widely considered by the fandom to be non-practicing Jewish (one due to unreliable Word of God, one due to coding). The majority of sympathetic characters in this WIP, regardless of background, view the entities inhabiting the setting as dangerous natural phenomena rather than gods (since they lack sapience or agency), and a running theme is that all the things that make humanity what it is (including culture, art, history, etcetera) are absolutely NOT pointless, since they're what bind us together and give us hope and the drive to continue in the face of adversity (that said, this is not a story about religion). Is there anything else I can do to mitigate possible unpleasantness?

Jewish-coded characters from Fandom A in a Fandom B crossover fic where Fandom B disproves all religions

It is difficult to address this without knowing the fandoms, especially because I don’t understand how a setup can disprove literally all religions, but I’ll take a stab at it: I guess don’t look too closely at it? Don’t write the maybe-Jewish characters as overtly Jewish and hopefully that will prevent anything too depressing or alienating from occurring to Jewish readers of your fic.

--Shira 

With the information given, I'm not really bothered too much. I typically don't enjoy stories that make Judaism explicitly false, but with that aspect of one of the originals not being the focus of your fic, and that culture/religion is not considered pointless, I'm not especially offended. If you spend more time on this fic, or if it grows beyond what you have planned already, you might consider tweaking the premise of the Literally All Religions are Disproven work, and making it more friendly to Jewish (and other) readers of yours. 

Shira gave a good option: to not write anything into your work that makes the coding more concrete, and I suggest that if that's not the direction you end up taking, put in a little time to showing positive interactions with Jewish practice for your characters, to make the value of their Judaism explicit. 

I have vague memories of seeing a Jekyll & Hyde on stage and my general reaction was "well that happened"

from @eadrey-the-iptscray

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Actually all thirteen of them should be sort of enjoying their various hobbies vicariously through Optimus. He's trying a lot of new things, which helps keep his mind off the break-up and ensures he's taking at least some time off work.

absolutely! he never quite managed to get enough time to write them down and he refuses to let that knowledge be lost to time 🤭

he's horrified when optimus tells him he's never had prepared high grade before. most of the former miners haven't actually. when they saved enough to afford it, they preferred to get whatever was stronger to make it last a bit more.

alchemist thinks this is a travesty and should be remedied immediately.

vector thinks it's a bad idea to show a group of young adults with lots of unaddressed trauma and about to go into a war how good getting drunk af can taste.

they compromise and optimus gets the recipes heavily modified so they're way less intoxicating than the originals. everyone, including OP, is mildly upset at the baby proofing but. they are very tasty drinks. so they're kinda just like

AND YES. THAT'S THE VIBE.

it is partially because they're bored out of their minds half the time, as there's only so much they can do for optimus throughout the day so whenever they get the chance to have some fun they will take it. but it's also to give optimus a 'valid' reason to take a break and have fun.

i think OP would have a hard time letting himself do something that isn't work, because... well, there's so much he has to do, so many duties he has to fulfill and he would hate to make someone else take responsibility for something that was his to deal with. look what happened last time he did that.

but if his siblings can frame it as something he's doing for them, then it's easier for him to justify stopping for the day. it's easier to pick silly hobbies without feeling guilty if it's something that makes his siblings happy.

this does cause him to pick up stuff that's way too old for someone his age. like. these guys have been alive almost since the creation of their world, you better believe some of them have ancient hobbies that are not in fashion anymore. he's learning the cybertronian equivalent of weaving with a 13th century loom lmao

He is not, however, especially associated with *raising them*. Poor Prima and Optimus, having to do everything in this damn house.

SCREAMING now I've got the mental image of Solus and Quintus dumping a bunch of protoforms on Prima and Optimus with no warning whatsoever before skedaddling out of there to go make more interesting stuff aksjdkasfa

also it would be so fun if different Primes were associated with different stages of development! like if for example liege with his silver tongue was in charge of the 'learn to speak' stage and that's why kids just say whatever comes to their mind regardless of it's true or not. or if amalgamous was associated with the 'learn how to transform for the first time' stage.

prima gets the 'keep them alive and teach them not to lick the floor' stage. yay. he loves it. (like for real he loves it very much he's so fucking stressed all the time and wouldn't trade it for the world)

from @mollyencrypted

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