Silence is not the Answer

Over the last few months, political issues have exploded all over social media as well as news and comedy media.  While I certainly have problems with the bias of the information as it is presented, I prefer information that I am forced to read through very carefully over complete silence.

I have seen an alarmingly high number of people on social media who completely are ignoring the issues we face as a world, and even worse, are refusing to even talk about them.  This does nothing but maintain the status quo, for the loud fanatics who perpetrate problems in the world, have no problem speaking out.

Silence is exactly what trouble makers in the world want.  When we are willing to discuss and then question society, we are able to make a difference.  Due to bystander effect, one action can have a far greater impact on the world than it seems.

There are many stories told of the great tragedy known as the Holocaust, but one story that is rarely told due to the men and women who do not want us to question the world also control our upbringings, is the story of World War II Bulgaria.

There is an incredible story that happened here, one that modern day Bulgaria needs to remember as Antisemitism once again grips the country.  This story shows what is capable if just one person stands up for their beliefs and is equally vocal to the ravenous people who called for the genocide of an entire nation.

Bulgaria was conquered by the Nazis during the war, and like in all the nations the conquered, they called for Bulgaria to send all the Jews in the country to the death camps in their final solution. Unlike in every other country where most people remained silent out of fear of being harmed or helping save their friends from the shadows, one man, who happened to work for the King, but still one man, said no, stood up to his king, knowing that the statements he made would cause him to be executed and told the King of Bulgaria, that every Jew that he killed would be another part of his leadership being destroyed until he would have nothing left but shame.

Rather than kill the man, the King listened, and when he listened, so did the rest of the country.  As a unified front, the entire nation of Bulgaria stood between the Nazis and the destruction of the native Jews, calling in the streets that the Jews were also Bulgarians.  The Nazis did not have the ability to kill every single Bulgarian due to their resolve being called into question in the face of bravery.  Not a single Jew was killed in that country by the Nazis.

Stories like these about standing up for what we believe need to be shared.  By remaining silent, all we do is perpetrate the problems that make our world a difficult place to live.  In the wise words of George Carlin: "When we are able to talk about controversial issues at the dinner table, there will be change"

Do not perpetrate the issues in the world by refusing to talk about them.  This will only make these problems worse.  Silence in the face of problems is nothing more than acceptance for these same problems.

Vaccines

I know I am super late to the party on this issue, but I want to offer my perspective on this one.  Being on the spectrum makes this a very important issue to me.

Lately, Vaccines have become a major issue in politics in case you were not aware.  There are people claiming that Vaccines cause Autism (and other mental illnesses apparently) and they are using these claims as justifications to not get them for their children out of fear.

Besides the fact that all the claims to back up this science were labeled as false science and the man who is the cause of most of these ideas is in jail for malpractice, there are plenty who believe in his pseudoscience, and they are putting the world at risk.

I think it is relevant here to explain how viruses work so that you may be able to understand why there is now a measles outbreak when such a thing has not happened in many years.  Vaccines are a weakened form of a virus that allow your body to fight it off and become immune to it.  The problem is that Vaccines like the virus they are helping you fight off are required to be oddly specific.  This is because Viruses rapidly evolve and change their makeup and sometimes even what the virus attacks.

To make it easy to understand, lets say Virus A attacks cell B in the body and is colored blue.  The body becomes immune to Virus A due to encountering it.  But one day, a new strain of Virus A appears that is the color red and now our body has no immunity to it.  Effectively, as our bodies perceive it, this is a new sickness even though almost nothing has changed.

That is why it is so important to get Vaccines.  They keep the most modern form of a virus in check, but only so long as no one manages to catch the virus without the vaccine, giving it time to mutate.  Given enough time and the vaccine will no longer work for anyone because the virus will be a different one.

That is the issue with this anti-vaxxers.  Their fear of Autism, which I will get to in a moment, is allowing the entire world to be put at risk from viruses like Measles that should have been permanently eradicated.  If nothing else, these people are a special kind of selfish that they would harm the entire world over pseudoscience.

But now, to the other issue at hand.  Why wold these people foolish put the world at risk in fear of Autism?  It seems a foolish notion.  After all Autism is a gift with many of the most prominent scientists and innovators of our time being on the spectrum .  What possibly could be at work to hide this information from the public at the expense of the public.  And really at their expense since people are dying because of ignorance.

Oh right, I know a group capable of such greed selfishness and disregard for human life for the sake of money.  Autism Speaks

Yep that's right, as if you needed a new reason to hate them, this wonderful "charity" group is to blame for the vaccine issues too.  I will be using this as a perfect lead in to a future post where I really will go at it about Autism Speaks.  But remember my friends when dealing with anti-vaxxers, it is best just to walk away for it is impossible to educate brainwashed fools.

Vaccines do not create Autism, but Autism creates Vaccines

Crossroads

Every so often a day appears in your life that has the ability to change it drastically, either for better or worse.  Today is one of those days today.  The most important interview of my life looms and the chance of me to cast of the shackles that have been keeping me down potentially is in sight.

I cannot let the fear of failure stop me from success today.  I was plagued by nightmares all night that played on my greatest fears.  I have spent all morning either praying, hoping, or fearing for the events that will soon unfold.

Fear does not have to be counterproductive though.  As a very powerful, and in fact dominant, human emotion, attempting to fight the feeling can result in loss of energy.  Instead we must use that energy to better ourselves.

Today I stand at a crossroads for better or for worse.  We all have known that feeling at some point in our lives.  I fear for today for if it goes well, it will change my life forever.  The fear is of course that I will fail, and thus have my opportunity crushed.  I cannot forget that good may come as so many have done before me.  So today I need to be brave. Its not the end of the world if I lose, but its the beginning of a new one if I succeed.

"The World Fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss.  Watch for that moment... and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap.  It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly"- Flemeth

Questioning Video Game Hype and Hatred

As should be obvious by this post (if not by some of my other blog posts preceding this one) I play quite a bit of my leisure time (and sometimes not so leisure time as well) playing video games.  My latest project is setting up multiple endings in a series of games called Dragon Age so that when I finally play the critically acclaimed Dragon Age Inquisition, I will have the endings from the previous two games that I so desire to influence what happens in the newest game.

To this end, I am currently playing through Dragon Age 2 and unlike its prequel and sequel, this game is excessively hated by the fan base.  Until recently, I considered myself part of this hatedom.  As I had played Dragon Age 2 right when it was released and hated it at the time, I figured the fan base had made a correct assessment.

However, now I am playing through the game again, and am left wondering why I hated the game so much the first time.  Clearly, there are some issues with the game.  The game is clearly unfinished due to Executive Meddling. Many of the Dungeons look the same.  The game feels confined  Most importantly, romance is much more limited than it was in Origins.

Some of these complaints seem silly now that I look and see that many other games that are much more liked that suffer from the same problems.  Mass Effect 1 for example has limited romance and its cookie cutter dungeons are far more obvious than the ones in Dragon Age 2.  You can even make the argument that the identical buildings in Dragon Age 2 are an act of brilliance since the entire game takes place in a City, cookie cutter buildings actually make sense.  Having identical buildings by different factions on different planets though, that's a bit of a stretch.

And now I am going to highlight what I like about Dragon Age 2 and probably get hated for doing so.  While the romance is much more limited, the characters you get to romance are far more interesting than in Origins.

Dragon Age Origins has in my opinion, four interesting characters.  While Morrigan is without a doubt my favorite Lady of Black Magic in all of fiction and Yashel from my own book The End of Utopia was heavily inspired by her (As Evesta was heavily inspired by Flemeth) That leaves just heroic "Betty" Bard Assassin Leiliana, Adorkable Alistair, and the Dog.  Wynn, Ohgren, Sten, and Zevran all fall into stereotypes that have been overdone too much for me to really enjoy and Logain, the thought of him makes me want to go Molag Bal on his ass and kill him and then resurrect him so I can kill him again. (for those of you who don't play video games and are not getting the references you may want to Google these characters I am referencing)

Meanwhile in Dragon Age 2, I find all the characters at least amusing, if not just amazing.  For example, while people claim that Pirate Captain, Prostitute, and Snarky Isabella has also been overdone, I call to question any time in fiction where this kind of character is female?

Ten seconds up?  I have nothing and I doubt you do either.  That's the point.

You also have characters like Anders who seem to be really really hated by the fan base.  I can't figure out why though.  I would much rather bring him everywhere than Wynn in Origins.

Anyway, before I go off on a long tangent about the things I like in Dragon Age 2, I just want to caution you all about hype and hatred.  The first time I played Dragon Age 2, I fell for the hatred train and thus my feelings on the game were made up before I even played it.

On the other end, how many of us think that Star Wars the Old Republic or Destiny are among the greatest games ever made?

Ten Seconds are up and I hear nothing.

Wanderlust

In my last post, I touched upon one of my other greatest desires in the world.  While my love have trains has been a part of me since infancy, this fascination led to another as I gained age and experience.

Wanderlust is defined as the need to see new places.  For me, this was an end result of my fascination trains which in turn lead to a fascination with maps and directions.  It is one thing to see a place on a map, and quite another to see it in person.

Being that I am tied down with jobs that greatly limit my free time, as well as trying to get another part of a novel ready for you all, my chances at freely exploring the world are vastly limited.  That has not completely stopped me though.  When I drive around Orlando, I do what I can to pick new routes to my destination assuming I have any time to spare.

A GPS tells its user the fastest way to get from point A to point B, but by actually looking at the maps instead of just obeying, the directions, one is able to find all routes between the two points.  That is what I do when I feel my needs of exploration kick in.

Of course there is only so much to explore in the Orlando area and soon I will exhaust what I can see forcing me to go explore further south and north and east and west.  By then, I hope to have my income under control so that I can give into one of my older childish dreams.

There is a vast world out there, and I intend to see it all.  I cannot be an author writing about wondrous places till I have seen all the wonders of our Earth.

My fascination with Trains

I like to feel that I am a person well versed on  our culture with a great deal of interests.  this is to further my goal of being a multifaceted person with a host of talents.  Despite this aspiration, I must give credit where it is due, to passions that as far as my life are concerned have been a part of it for a majority of my time on this planet.

Trains have been an obsession of mine since day one basically.  In my infancy, my parents lived in a small apartment in Glenview, Illinois that stood next to train tracks that serviced freight trains for Union Pacific.

As an infant, my parents likely feared that the noise from the trains would scare their infant son, but that could not have been further from what occurred.  Instead, hilarity ensued as the little infant smiled and giggled as the trains would go by shaking the apartment.

This love of trains did not vanish as i became a toddler and an older child.  Such was my love of railroads that my grandparents used train rides as bonding experiences with me.  My dad and I would regularly make train trips into Chicago.  Indeed, at times I feel like it was more than fate that such a lover of trains happened to have been born in the United States Capital of Railroads.

That fascination does not end today. Now as a resident of Orlando, I was active in the push for the Sunrail to become a reality and rode the trains multiple times in its opening month as well as ensuring myself a chance to ride the trains on the very first day of opening and become a part of a new legacy in  the city.

Since Sunrail has opened, I have ensured that at least once a week I ride the train if for no other reason than as a means of a joyride, though usually, I ride the train from Maitland near my house into downtown Orlando where I make use of the public library and art exhibits to ensure that I keep cranking out quality writing for my readers.

Into the future, I aspire to ride Amtrak around the United States, for that is a journey that I have yet to undertake.  In fact I have yet to even ride Amtrak, but it is certainly on my to do list.

Trains have clearly had a large impact on my life, for my obsession with maps and possibly my wanderlust itself have been born from it.  Perhaps the largest legacy of railroads to me though is the fact that trains play an active role in my novels.

Part two of The End of Utopia features trains as a form of transportation and in fact almost an entire chapters worth of writing takes place in the cabin of one.

I continue to ride the rails for they make me happy just by being in their presence, and hopefully they do m ore for you than anger you as you drive for your morning commute.

On Blogging

Welcome to the most redundant post on my blog.  Today, I am gonna blog, about blogging.  This sounds just as silly as it seems, but hear me out.  You may learn something, even from this.

Blogging is a very special way of expressing myself.  When I write novels, I am free to write the story however I want, create whatever characters I want and even create whatever magic and to a lesser degree, pseudoscience I want.  There however are rules I am forced to follow.  Once I establish the way a story is going to go, going a completely different direction is a way

Blogging is very different.  With a page such as this, I am free to write about what is on my mind at this very moment.  It is a special and quite liberating feeling of freedom.

While as I write books, I constantly have to look at the future, a blog is much more about the present. At times, we need to focus on the now instead of on our futures.  We cannot only look forward, least we miss the now.  I intend to focus a bit more on the now.

While this blog post was a quickie, I am glad to get these feelings out.  And I will be blogging far more frequently :)

The Dangers of Double Standards

The phrase double standards is one that gets tossed around frequently and aggressively.  I have also noticed, with increased urgency, that understanding this phrase is key to understanding the inner workings of thew world and the dangers that many groups such as Jews and Autistics face today.

The most common way this phrase tends to be used is in regards to Women's Rights.  Now that this first of many elephants in the room has been named, I will attempt to explain the real double standards and not the ones that the world is forcing us to believe.

Women's Rights has double standards for both Women AND Men, despite what both sexists and Neo feminists would have you believe.  On one hand, Women are underemployed, do have a tougher time getting jobs and due to years of oppression, do have parts of the deck stacked against them.

On the other hand, there are parts of the movement that while empowering women, have taken men down many pegs.  Neo Feminism barfs out constantly that all men are pigs who are always lusting for sex.  They also make the claim that a man will always rape when they can.  Forgetting the fact that none of these statements have any factual basis, or the fact that Neo Feminists by making these statements sound just as rabid as how they claim all men are, this double standard has deadly consequences.

First off, due to how the female body works, for about a week of every month, women are by far, the hornier sex if only because its their bodies natural reaction when a new egg is ready to be fertilized.  Men tend to have the sex drive relatively constant with spikes when they encounter a female (or male) that they are attracted to.  This is due to the fact that the male body does not have a cycle like women do.

The far more deadly double standard is the idea that only men rape and that they always want to rape. This simple statement has allowed a multitude of problems to happen to men who find themselves in exceptionally abusive relationships.  Men have no protection if they do get raped do to this idea. They go to the police and other authorities and are turned away and laughed at causing these rape cases to go unreported.  The fear of not telling ones about this issue us the reason why it appears that sexual assault is on the rise.  It is staying constant, but its getting reported far more now.

I could probably dedicate an entire blog post to my feud against Neo Feminism, but this is not the only double standard issue I wish to address today.  Lets talk about the larger Elephant in the room, and the reason for my choice of symbol should be apparent for anyone versed in American Politics.

If you want to discuss double standards, look no further than the American Political system.  It goes like this:  Whichever party is currently in power is claimed by their always louder opposition that this political group is the most corrupt in the history of America and that they will doom the nation.  This has been the rhetoric of both parties for quite a long time (since Andrew Jackson vs Henry Cl--  I mean John Quincy Adams)

The danger of today though is that we are in a world wide war, even if the world doesn't want to believe it.  Terrorism has torn down borders and has changed the way we conduct battles, but what has not changed with the time is our highly polarized political system.  And of course, being that the Democrats control the white house and Republicans control congress and possibly the supreme court, double standards abound.

There are far too many examples to cont on this issue, so I will bring up the one I care about most: The Congressional meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel.

As many of you know, I am staunch supporter of Israel and believe that this is an area where our current President, who I voted for, has really made a mess of things.  Even more so, his treating with Iran, is opening a larger can of worms that needs to be shut fast.  This puts me in an odd situation with this issue and that is why it is posted in this double standard writing.

On one hand, I have to agree with Bibi.  America must not treat with Iran and we should do nothing except increase sanctions against them until they drop their Anti Israel Rhetoric forever.  But, and this is a huge HUGE but, the method in which Bibi gained audience with Congress and bypassed the president, is not something that is acceptable.  Its points to one of the double standards at large.

The GOP has been touting around for the last six years or so that they are the party of the constitution and that the president is evil because he ignores it.  But right here, congress decided to ignore one of the most important rules to further their own agenda.  It says in no uncertain terms that should congress treat with the leader of a foreign nation, even one who is an ally of the United States, it is an act of treason of the highest order and punishable by death.  I might add that treason is the GOP's favorite comment to use against the President.

This double standard to this issue directly is having even more major problems as it causes the left to hate the Jews causing us to have to depend on the right, the party that killed 6 million Jews.  Yes History is repeating itself, along with the double standards that allowed the Nazi's to rise to power.

Do not be fooled by these games.  Learn for yourself the truth and it may set you free.  It may also make you a target by those who are brainwashed, but at least I warned you about that first.

What Mistreating Retail Workers Says about You

Today I will divert from my usual more goofy posts to write something a little bit darker and closer to home.

I have worked retail almost my entire working life.  It is a miserable experience fraught with having to deal with most of the worst that humanity has to offer and unlike everything we are taught growing up about how the best way to defeat bullies is either to ignore them or stand up to them, neither of the above are possible in this job profession.

You cannot ignore a bully when they are the customer.  You are forced to listen to their every need, even if that need is making you feel awful because they have nothing better to do.  If their needs is venting extra stress with their own life, guess how little say you have in defending yourself?

Even worse is the idea of standing up to a bully when they are the customer.  Standing up to a customer, no matter how outrageous their demand, no matter how horrible they are treating you, is a quick way to lose a job.  For many people in retail myself included, we are just one paycheck away from poverty.  We have no choice in the matter and the choice we have to make here is obvious.

Whenever I complain to friends and family about the horrible work conditions, their generic response is to find a job.  Finding a job is like a full time job of its own and when all your energy is being expended by a source that is required for you to survive, how likely do you suppose is possible to muster up energy to do anything else?

A mini show I once watched really summed up the way that retail workers are treated and also more revealing, shows much about these bullies who mistreat them.

Retail workers are seen as the refuse of society.  One tends to associate minimum wage workers with failure.  They are seen as a waste of space in society.  In some countries, they are even considered part of the group of unspeakables.  In these places, low wage workers are ignored by everyone else to the point that they almost don't exist at all.

Instead of going the way of many movies that already beat to death the idea of how much society needs retail workers to function, instead I will talk more about the people who tend to mistreat them instead.

Going back to the example of the mini show I watched, while the low end workers are ignored and pick up the slack (and trash) of the rest of the world, the people who mistreat them the most, are only at most two steps on the economic ladder than their victims.  Most are actually only one step above.
The poor mostly just exist as a tool for the wealthy to hang as a constant threat to slightly more successful people that if they don't keep working for the top, they will become part of the bottom.  It is quite amusing thus, that the people only a few steps from being victims themselves are the ones who victimize their under payed, highly improvised workers.

That should serve as a warning to these people instead of allow them to continue their cycle of misery.  There is another part to this puzzle that is what keeps me working and putting up with their torment.  This ladder of elevation does not have one line up.  I have noticed quite obviously in the difference between the retail workers intelligence and the customers own.  (I will let you take a guess which is higher of the two) that the bullies will stay where they are forever, while many of the retail workers will skip up to higher points of economic success.

So to all my fellow slaves in the retail industry, do not let these bullies bring you down, for you were born smarter and better than them.  The customer may be right for the time being, but soon, you will achieve your potential and leave them down below and reveal who the real waste of space is.

How Pseudo Legendaries Life stage is Similar to a Person with Autism

So this type of post about Autistic development could be long drawn out and boring.  I could use all sots of scientific explanations. Instead I'm gonna have some fun with this post.  Lets compare life to Pokemon evolution shall we?

At a young age, there are all sorts of people, but most of them start the same:  In their first stage. There are a rare few who start out stronger right off the bat, the same is true in Pokemon.  But both in real life and in the games, many of those with a strong start either do not change into anything else later, or require quite a bit of work to create a change.

Most of the time, people are in stage one for a brief period of their lives.  They evolve into a stronger stage as they gain more experience.  Sometimes they evolve twice if the amount of growth needed occurs.

Most Pokemon, like most human have a natural curve where stage one is weak stage two is mediocre and stage three is incredible.  Some start out very very weak and become incredible in just one change.  Like Magikarp evolving into Gyarados, these changes can be drastic  The change can be so significant that we don't even recognize the original person at all.

But while most people have their work come at them in an even pace, people with any form of Autism tend to have greater difficulty and mature much slower than their peers.  In Pokemon there is a comparable group and the reasoning behind their name of Pseudo-Legendary will be discussed later.

These Pokemon require far more experience to level than any other group of Pokemon and evolve at a much higher level than everything else baring a few outliers just like rare people in the world who take a long time to change just once and are set.

I will be using a specific example of a Pokemon that both really gets the point across of the struggle of an autistic through life as well as it happens to be one of my favorites in the game.

Here we have the adorable Deino.  Like all first stage Pokemon and people it has potential but it really cannot do much in its current form.  Deino also has the extra handicap of being blind in the game making his interactions with others significantly more difficult just as an autistic has difficulty doing the same.  As a result, this Pokemon tends to lash out at anything that comes near it as it is unable to determine friend from foe just as a young Autistic discovers around puberty where they have not changed as drastically as their peers just yet.

The frustrations finally reach a point as many of our peers accomplish seemingly much more than we do and finally we are granted our own upgrade.  Though much later compared to our peers, we finally evolve from the adorable critter above into this:

Zweilous is the second form and although his stats are much higher than Deino's he only gets to compete with his peers for a little while, for just as Autsitcs reach their second stage, most of their peers reach their third soon after.  Once again the Autistic is outdone.  

Now after lamenting on this gut punch, the Autistic's self doubts will begin to eat at them just like Zweilous' two heads do not like each other.  Also unfortunately, the Pokemon is still blind on both its heads.  The cycle of not knowing friend from foe continues as the aggression level rises.  

Now completely outclassed by their peers, Autistics tend to do one of two things at this point.  Either they withdraw and cut off from the world which denies them ever from reaching their final and true form or they look ahead and realize that although there is a light at the end of the tunnel, we quickly realize that the skill set we have is not the one we will eventually need.  In the case of the Pokemon Zweilous and its final form have drastically different stats which change how the Pokemon functions. We are forced to choose between helping ourselves now and crippling ourselves later or crippling ourselves now for the sake of later success.

But those of us who keep fighting far beyond the point where we should have stopped, are rewarded with our third form. (And one I do not feel I have quite reached yet, but am quite close to)

Finally we reach the final form:  Hydreigon.  Now we finally have eyes and can see.  We have wings which represent the freedom we have been denied for so long.  Now a little bit about the Pokemon and the title of Pseudo-Legendary tie in.

The Psudo-Legendaries are a group of (7 at the time of this post) Exceptionally Powerful Pokemon with in game stats on par with entities of legendary Pokemon (which are created purposely overpowered).  They all have three forms that evolve at very high levels.  Now like this Pokemon, once an Autistic reaches their full potential, their weakest points will be better than some others strongest points.  

The different ways this Pokemon can be used in unparalleled in battling just as a person with Autism has so many different talents they are able to make use of once they get out of the darkness that keeps them held back.  

Just as this Pokemon must always be considered when a team is being built, a successful Autistic is always noted by the world for their accomplishments.

I hope those of you on the spectrum that read this will continue to pursue your dreams as I continue to do so, because we all know how rewarding that third stage is once we reach it.

How Judaism has influenced the entire Fantasy/Science Fiction Genre

As an avid lover of the Fantasy/Science Fiction Genre as well as a published author of said genre, I always am seeking to understand what makes the fantastic elements the way they are.  There are some stereotypes that it seems that authors rarely if ever cross lest they get flamed by all the haters who refuse to acknowledge that their work does the creature or fantastic element justice at all. (and in some cases such as a certain very popular Vampire Book, their hatred is justified.)

As I have done plenty of research on myths for the sake of my own writing, I have found it quite amusing that many of the elements that define fantasy especially, come from my own faith of Judaism and so I will spend this post informing you of some of them in hopes that you will go take a look for yourself and learn something.

I'll start with a monster that anyone who has read any of my fiction knows I have an almost creepy infatuation with: The Succubus.  The Demon of the Night as it is known in Judaism, they are the offspring of the Monster Lilith who is debated to either been Adam's first wife, or not in the Torah at all depending on who you ask.

What matters is the legend behind this monster.  They are said to enter a home at night.  Kill all the children they find, strangle the mother in her sleep and then shape-shift into the wife of the now widower and childless father and rape him in his sleep before killing him as well.  A Mezuzah, the scroll with the Shema, a vital prayer in Judaism is the way to keep them out of the home,

Most fantasy that makes use of the Succubus tends to have them kill via sex or acts of compassion and love and keeps with the theme of shape-shifting and being exceptionally beautiful although the original version of the Demon was hideous to behold which is why it would shape-shift.

The Succubus helped inspire a multitude of other monsters that kill via charm and guile not limited to the Vampire, The Sirens (although this myth came about not too long after the Jewish myths) Mermaids, Erinys and other beings like them.  Each one has a slightly different feel to them, but they all come from the same source.  (although, some can argue that the Succubus was only half the inspiration for these other monsters and I will give its counterpart, the Lamia a reference as well.)

It doesn't stop there though.  The Golem is another myth right out of Judaism.  Golems are non living creations who are given life by words, usually the Shema in Judaism.  Bringing life from stone or metal may be familiar as Golems have become quite common in fiction as of late, but some of the most famous stories such as "Frankenstein" (which I would like to point out is a Jewish sounding name) are based of the legends of the Golem, bringing life to that which has none.

Even Pokemon of all things has gotten into the fun with this one.  The Regi Trio in Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald and their remakes as well as Regigigas added in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum are a direct homage to the Jewish Golem.

Of course I saved my favorite and the most interesting influence for last as this is the one that had the most influence on fantasy.  If the Succubus is my favorite of the evil inclined monsters in fantasy, then it is also interesting that my favorite of the good aligned races also happens to have Jewish influences.  Although it was not originally created by my people, the way that this type of creature exists exactly the same in every single form of fiction is indicative of Judaism's influence.

I speak of the Dwarves of course.  In every single story they are in just about they have the following characteristics: Males with Long Beards, Strong Traditions, Loving to drink dance and sing at every meal, A love of gold and wealth, friendly to strangers but give their full trust sparingly, letting the hungry in to eat, a mind capable of vast inventions and things that change the world, and are constantly trying to reclaim a homeland that was stolen from them.  I basically just hit almost every Jewish Stereotype out there.  There are way more but I may write a future blog post on just how Tolkien s Dwarves have transformed into a race that constantly eludes to the Jewish people at large.

As a Fantasy and Science Fiction Writer, it pleases me to no end to see that my religious faith and my writing do not need to be mutually exclusive.  As I continue to write more stories with biblical elements, I will likely write more posts like this one to explain some of the research I find.