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"it's 2024 antisemitism isn't a problem anymore you just want to be oppressed."

here's a non-exhaustive list of antisemitic incidents, attacks, and pogroms during my lifetime. if you're not jewish, i am guilting you into reading this entire list. i really do not care if it takes forever or makes you feel bad. read it.

1993

state farm settles a $30mil lawsuit after it was revealed that state farm kept a list of prominent jewish lawyers referred to within state farm as "the jewish lawyers list" where any claims made by those attorneys were automatically forwarded to state farm's fraud unit, purely on the basis of the attorney's jewish identity. state farm employees testified confirming the list had been used to discriminate against ethnic minorities.

1994

four days after the cave of patriarchs massacre, a man shot at a van full of jewish students, killing one and injuring three others. he is reported to have shouted "kill the jews" as revenge for the cave of patriarchs massacre.

a white supremacist fired ten rounds at a synagogue in eugene, oregon.

a jewish community center in buenos aires, argentina was bombed, killing 85 people and injuring 300.

1995

a japanese magazine ran an article that stated "the 'holocaust' is a fabrication. there were no execution gas chambers in auschwitz or in any other concentration camp. today, what are displaced as 'gas chambers' at the remaints of the auschwitz camp in poland are a post-war fabrication by the polish communist regime or by the soviet union, which controlled the country. not once, neither at auschwitz nor in any territory controlled by the germans during the second world war, was there 'mass murder of jews' in 'gas chambers'."

1996

in turkey, an islamic preacher distributed thousands of copies of a book called "the holocaust lie."

1997

jean-marie le pen was convicted and fined for remarks minimizing the holocaust, and then accused the president of france of being "on the payroll of jewish organizations, and particularly of b'nai b'rith."

1998

osama bin laden stated that israel's ultimate goal was to annex the arabian peninsula and the middle east and enslave its peoples. he claimed that the us state department and department of defense were controlled by jews for the sole purpose of serving israel's goals. he also claimed that israeli jews controlled the governments of the us and uk, directing them to kill as many muslims as they could.

1999

iran arrested 13 iranian jews, accusing them of being spies for israel, including a 16 year old boy. ten of them were sentenced to 4-13 years in prison, and eventually when they were freed they left iran for israel.

a man was arrested in paris for attacking a bartender because he "believed she was jewish."

several synagogues in sacramento were set on fire by a group of eight or nine men.

a man shot and killed one person and injured five at a jewish community center in los angeles.

2000

a man broke into a jewish woman's house, shot and killed her, then set her house on fire. he then drove to the synagogue where she was a member and fired into the windows of the synagogue, then exited his car and spray-painted two red swastikas on the building. he drove to another synagogue where he shot and shattered the synagogue's glass windows.

on yom kippur, two molotov cocktails were thrown at a synagogue.

a synagogue in syracuse, new york was set on fire by a man who reportedly yelled "i did this for you, god!"

a sukkah was destroyed at a synagogue in st. paul, minnesota.

a synagogue in harrisburg, pennsylvania was set on fire before yom kippur.

during the 2000 presidential election, lee alcorn, president of the dallas naacp branch, criticized al gore's selection of senator joe lieberman for his vice-presidential candidate because lieberman was jewish. alcorn said "if we get a jew person, then what i'm wondering is, i mean, what is this movement for, you know? does it have anything to do with the failed peace talks?" ... "so i think we need to be very suspicious of any kind of partnerships between the jews at that kind of level because we know that their interest primarily has to do with money and these kinds of things."

2001

in belgium, the vice president of one of the country's largest parties gave an interview on dutch tv where he cast doubt over the number of jews murdered by the nazis during the holocaust. in the same interview he questioned the scale of the nazis' use of gas chambers and the authenticity of anne frank's diary.

2002

osama bin laden stated in a letter that jews controlled the civilian media outlets, politics, and economic institutions of the united states.

a synagogue was set on fire in toronto, ontario, canada.

men rammed two cars through the courtyard gates of a synagogue in lyon, france, then rammed one of the cars into the prayer hall before setting the vehicles on fire. eyewitnesses reported seeing between 12 and 15 attackers. this was the first of a series of attacks on jewish targets in france in a single week - which coincided with passover - including at least five other synagogues.

a synagogue in marseille, france was burned to the ground.

a synagogue in strasbourg was set on fire.

a synagogue in paris was firebombed.

"richard nixon tapes" were declassified, which confirmed that billy graham, a famous evangelist and civil rights advocate, had agreed with nixon that jews controll the american media, calling it a "stranglehold."

a synagogue in tunisia was bombed, killing 20 and injuring 30.

a gunman opened fire at the airline ticket counter of el al, israel's national airline, at the la international airport. two people were killed and four were injured. federal investigators concluded that the gunman had hoped to influence us government policy in favor of palestinians and that the incident was a terror attack.

in an interview for a french magazine, a french actor, comedian, and activist dieudonne m'bala m'bala described "the jews" as "a sect, a fraud, which is the worst of all because it was the first."

white supremacists planned to bomb a series of institutions and people associated with the black and jewish communities. targets included the united states holocaust museum, the new england holocaust memorial, and steven spielberg.

2003

terrorists attempted to bomb a jewish cemetery, and succeeded in bombing a jewish community center and jewish-owned italian restaurant in morocco. 45 people in total were killed.

a molotov cocktail was thrown through the windows of a synagogue in los angeles, california.

the prime minister of malaysia drew a standing ovation for his speech. an excerpt: "[muslims] are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. the nazis killed 6 million jews out of 12 million. but today the jews rule this world by proxy. they get others to fight and die for them. they invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong so they may enjoy equal rights with others. with these they have now gained control over the most powerful countries. and they, this tiny community, have become a world power."

two synagogues in turkey were bombed, killing 55 and injuring over 750.

2004

romania officially denied the holocaust occurred on its territory up until 2004.

the film 'the passion of the christ' was released, causing backlash against the jewish community for protesting the antisemitic tones of the movie.

a jewish school library was firebombed in montreal, quebec, canada.

jewish cemeteries were defaced with swastikas and a funeral home set on fire in wellington new zealand.

2005

m'bala claimed during a press conference that the central council of french jews was a "mafia" that had "total control over french policy exercise", called the commemoration of the holocaust "memorial pornography" and claimed that the "zionists of the centre national de la cinematographie" which "control french cinema" prevented him from making a film about the slave trade.

the muslim brotherhood leader denounced what he called "the myth of the holocaust" in defending iranian president's denial of the holocaust.

a polish radio station during the polish election promoted antisemitic views, including denial of the jedwabne pogrom. their support of right-wing conservative law and justice party is considered a major factor in their electoral victory.

a group of 15 members of the state duma of russia demanded that judaism and jewish orgqanizations be banned from the country. 500 prominent russians demanded that the state prosecutor investigate ancient jewish texts as "anti-russian" and ban judaism.

islamic extremists planned to bomb a number of synagogues and an israeli consulate in california.

iranian president denied the holocaust during a speech in zahedan. "they have invented a myth that jews were massacred and palce this above god, religions and the prophets." he suggested that if the holocaust had occurred, that it was the responsibility of europeans to offer up territory to the jews.

2006

a man stabbed nine people at a synagogue in russia.

the iranian state-sponsored "international conference to review the global vision of the holocaust" opened, with its focus being to question the facts of the holocaust. the iranian foreign ministry spokesperson stated "the holocaust is not a sacred issue that one can't touch. i have visited the nazi camps in eastern europe. i think it is exaggerated."

mel gibson was arrested for a dui, and reportedly yelled at the police officer, "fucking jews... the jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. are you a jew?"

m'bala was fined for defamation after calling a prominent jewish tv presenter a "secret donor of the child-murdering israeli army."

ilan halimi, a french moroccan jew, was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. he was dumped on the side of the road, 80% of his body covered in burns, and died from his injuries on his way to the hospital. the kisnappers thought halimi was wealthy because he came from a jewish family, and the gang confessed that they believed all jews to be rich which motivated them to target several jews. the halimi family reports being told that if they could not raise the money for the ransom then they should get it from the jewish community.

a man targeted the jewish federation of seattle when the organization showed up in search results after he typed the phrase "something jewish" into a search engine. he forced his way through the building's security door with several guns, a knife, and ammunition, taking a 14 year old girl as a hostage. he is reported to have said "i'm only doing this for a statement" and "i'm a muslim american; i'm angry at israel" before the shooting spree began. he then took a pregnant woman hostage, saying "now since you don't know how to... listen, now you're the hostage, and i don't give a fuck if i kill you or your baby." the woman reported him stating "that he was a muslim, and this was his personal statement against jews and the bush administration for giving money to jews, and for us jews for giving money to israel, about hozbollah, the war in iraq, and he wanted to talk to cnn."

2007

holocaust survivor elie wiesel was attacked by a holocaust denier in san francisco.

jewish professor elizabeth midlarsky had a swastika spray painted on her office door.

2008 - gaza war

a leading member of hamas made a statement that israelis "have legitimized the murder of their own children by killing the children of palestine... they have legitimized the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people."

a belgian jewish magazine received a dozen death threats on its website, including a threat to carry out a suicide attack to "avenge the suffering of the palestinians."

protestors in indonesia shut down the country's only synagogue, threatening to drive out the country's jews. they stated that "if israel refuses to stop its attacks and oppression of the palestinian people, we don't need to defend [the synagogue's' presence here." the synagogue has been shuttered since.

a man sent a letter threatening to bo b the ida crown jewish academy in chicago. the letter said that explosives would be set off around the school unless violence in gaza stopped by january 15 2009.

south african deputy foreign minister was quoted saying "[jews] in fact control [america], no matter which government comes into power, whether republican or democratic, whether barack obama or george bush... the control of america, just like the control of most western countries, is in the hands of jewish money and if jewish money controls their country then you cannot expect anything else." she later claimed she "conflated zionist pressure with jewish influence."

antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas, appeared all over turkey. a sign was put up at the door of a civic group's office saying "jews cannot enter, dogs can." anti-jewish articles began appearing in turkish newspapers, and there were several hundred documented examples of antisemitic messages. as a result, turkish jewish immigration to israel increased.

in yemen, jews experienced verbal and physical harassment. jewish children were injured, one seriously, when muslim students threw stones at them. anti-israel protestors also attacked several jewish homes, smashing windows and pelting them with rocks, and injuring at least one jewish residence. a yemeni jewish family was extricated from yemen to israel after suffering continuous antisemitic attacks and death threats. a grenade was also thrown into the courtyard of the family's home in raydah.

a molotov cocktail was thrown. at a synagogue in brussels. rocks and other objects were thrown at a jewish school. a jewish home was the subject of arson. afterwards, hundreds of protestors tried to march toward the jewish neighborhood but were held off by police.

a man opened fire on three israeli cosmetics salesmen and two customers in a shopping mall. the shooting, which followed a period of harassment against the cosmetic stand, resulted in two israelis being hit by the shots. the perpatrator explained that he was motivated by the middle east situation.

sixty-six antisemitic incidents were reported in france, home to europe's largest muslim and jewish populations. numerous synagogues were attacked with petrol bombs and damaged in various towns. a car was rammed into the gates of a synagogue in toulouse and set on fire. a petrol bomb was thrown at a synagogue which set fire to an adjacent jewish restaurant. offensive graffiti was also sprayed on synagogues throughout the country. in paris, a rabbi's car was torched, a. jewish student was attacked and stabbed four times, and a 15-year old girl was assaulted by a gang.

a jewish community in germany was daubed and later stoned, and the central council of jews in german reported a significant increase in the number of hate mails and death threats during the conflict.

synagogues in multiple cities in greece were vandalized and suffered arson attacks. in athens, the walls of a jewish cemetery were sprayed with antisemitic graffiti "jews israelites murderers." neo-nazi slogans like "ax and fire to the jewish dogs" were used at anti-israel protests. a monument commemorating the murder of greek jews was vandalized with slogans like "greece - palestine no jew will remain." a seminar at the jewish museum of thessaloniki was cancelled after receiving threats, and the leftist parliamentary party of coalition of the radical left declined to attend the greek national day of remembrance of holocaust heroes and martyrs because of the attendance of the israeli ambassador. in ioannina the local jewish cemetery was vandalized with several tombs broken. the corfu synagogue was vandalized with graffiti such as "shit on israel" "jews nazis" and "murderers." the shoah memorial was also vandalized with graffiti regarding gaza. in larisa both grouns from the extreme right and extreme left targeted the local community. leftist and palestinian demonstrators attempted to vandalize the synagogue during a march, while later the same day groups linked to neo-nazi groups vandalized the shoah monyment and organized protests in front of the synagogue asking for the expulsion of jews from larisa. jews were attacked as "christ killers" and "smelling of blood" "they are the worst thing of the 20th century" and an eminent member of the greek orthodox church spoke of "zionist monsters with sharp claws" and "jews puhished for killing christ" and being "god killers."

italian trade union flaica-cub issued a call to boycott jewish-owned shops in rome in protest at the israeli offensive. it was condemned as antisemitic and reminiscent of the italian race laws under fascism in the 1930s.

a molotov cocktail was thrown at a jewish owned building in amsterdam following an attempted arson of a jewish institution in arnhem. a synagogue and jewish owned building were targeted by stoning. at an anti-israel demonstration in utrecht, some demonstrators shouted "hamass, hamas, jews to the gas."

during the 2009 oslo riots, the largest anti-jewish riots in norwegian history, muslim youth attacked the israeli embassy and yelled anti-jewish slogans in arabic, including "death to the jews" "kill the jews" and "slaughter the jews." in one incident, young men beat a 73 year old man who was carrying an israeli flag while shouting "bloody jew - get him!" they only stopped attacking him when they realized he was not jewish.

a jewish burial chapel in sweden was the target of an arson attack and a jewish centor was set on fire twice in three days.

there were approximately 225 recorded antisemitic incidents in the uk during the war. synagogues were firebombed, jews received verbal and digital abuse, and a gang tried to force their way into jewish restaurants and shops, specifically focusing on the london jewish family centre. a jewish motorist was also dragged from his car and assaulted. antisemitic graffiti with slogans including "kill jews" "jews are scumbags" and "jihad 4 israel" were sprayed in jewish areas across london and manchester.

a molotov cocktail was thrown at a tample in chicago, and in lincolnwood a synagogue's glass doors were shattered by a brick and "free palestine" and "death to israel" were spraypainted on the building. a jewish preschool in california was graffitied with swastikas and antisemitic messages.

argentinian jews wearing kippot were physically attacked on public buses and jewish cemetaries were defaced. a gang attacked argentinian jews near the israeli embassy in buenos aires.

in bolivia, vandals removed a star of david from a monument from the plaza israel and started spraypainting "plaza palestina" on jewish murals.

during shabbat, the caracas synagogue, venezuela's oldest synagogue, was defaced with "property of islam", and an armed gang of 15 unidentified people broke in and the security guards were bound and gagged while the gang destroyed the offices and the repository where the holy books were stored. they daubed the walls with antisemitic and anti-israel graffiti that called for jews to be expelled from the country, and also stole a database that listed jews who lived in venezuela.

2008 - cont

the harvard crimson school paper ran a paid holocaust denial ad.

a chabad house in mumbai was taken over by two attackers and several residents were held hostage. a rabbi and his wife, who was six months pregnant, were murdered with four other hostages in the house by the attackers. according to radio transmissions, the attackers "would be told by their handlers in pakistan that the lives of jews were worth 50 times those of non jews." injuries on some of the bodies indicated that they may have been tortured.

2009

hamas refused to allow palestinian children to learn about the holocaust, which it called "a lie invented by the zionists" and referred to holocaust education as a "war crime."

an irish journalist claimed "there was no holocaust... and six million jews were not murdered by the third reich. these two statements of mine are irrefutable truths."

tapes were released in which billy graham is heard in conversation with richard nixon referring to jews as "the synagogue of satan."

four men were arrested in new york in connection with a plot to blow up two synagogues in the bronx.

a neo nazi entered the united states holocaust memorial museum in washington dc and shot and fatally wounded a security officer.

2010

the last surviving romaniote synagogue in greece was targeted for an arson attack.

a synagogue in cairo, egypt was bombed.

a synagogue in sweden was attacked with explosives.

2011

six jewish institutions were attacked by vandals in montreal, including four synagogues and a school.

j.z. knight stated "fuck god's chosen people! i think they have earned enough cash to have paid their way out of the goddamned gas chambers by now."

the manhattan terrorism plot to bomb various targets in manhattan, including a synagogue.

2012

a man killed four jews, including three children, outside a school in toulouse, france.

a synagogue in sweden was attacked with an explosive decide, shattering a window.

2013

alice walker expressed appreciation for the works of antisemitic conspiracy theorist david icke. she said that icke's book "human race get off your knees" would be her choice if she could have only one book. the book promotes the theory that the earth is ruled by shapeshifting reptilian humanoids and "rothschild zionists."

louis farrakhan delivered an antisemitic speech, referring to jews as "satanic jews" and "the synagogue of satan", controlling america's government and other sectors, reportedly saying that president obama "surrounded himself with satan... members of the jewish community." farrakhan also said that the jewish people "have mastered the civilization now, but they've mastered it in evil... who's the owner of hollywood that creates images and makes the people think that what is created on screen is the way we should live? that's satan... satan has devoured so much of humanity. ... the people that own hollywood are the same people that control your press, the same people that control your media, the same people who are the publishers, the same people who are the distributors, the same synagogue of satan, and they put you before the world in this disgraceful manner. ... jesus was the last hope for the jewish people but they rejected him. they are now in control of the media and the airwaves, gaining access to the 'sacred territory' which is in the minds of the people."

the supreme leader of iran grand ayatollah ali khamenei questioned the validity of the holocaust, saying "the holocaust is an event whose reality is uncertain and if it has happened, it's uncertain how it has happened."

2014

kkk leader killed three non jewish people at a jewish community center and jewish retirement home in kansas, the day before passover.

residents of a village in spain called "castrillo matajudios" ("jew-killer camp") since 1627 voted to change the name of the village.

2015

four jews were killed when a gunman attacked a kosher supermarket in paris where the gunman held 15 other hostages and demanded that the kouachi brothers not be harmed.

iran organized the international holocaust cartoon competition, a competition in which artists were encouraged to submit cartoons on the theme of holocaust denial.

louis farrakhan accused jews of involvement in sept 11 attacks.

swastikas were spraypainted on a jewish fraternity at uc davis on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of auschwitz.

a french settlement named "la mort aux juifs" or "death to jews" finally changed its name after a denied attempt in 1992.

a synagogue in copenhagen was taken by a gunman during a bat mitzvah celebration where one jewish man on security duty was killed.

stanford university student senate candidate molly horwitz was asked by a student group how being jewish would affect her decision-making.

two synagogues and a jewish neighborhood in san antonio, texas were vandalized with antisemitic graffiti.

2016

natasha waldorf of alameda was subjected to two boys sending her text messages that included antisemitic slurs, two other students joked about the holocaust and when she confronted them they told her that "hitler should have finished the job."

the campus chapter of students for justice in palestine at the university of california irvine was sanctioned because they disrupted a program hosted by a jewish campus group and intimidated jewish students.

2017

alice walker published a poem on her blog titled "it is our (frightful) duty to study the talmud", recommending that the reader should start with youtube to learn about the evils of the talmud.

a huge wave of threats, including bomb threats, were made against jewish community centers and other institutions in the united states around the high holy days.

sarah halimi was murdered in paris.

the chicago dyke march organizers singled out and approached a group of women carrying jewish pride flags and began to question them on their political stance in regards to zionism and israel, and then expelled them from the event. the organizers attributed the reasoning to the star of david on the flag as a "zionist expression." the organization's twitter account also used the phrase "zio tears" in a now deleted tweet. "zio" is a slur originated by david duke.

the new england holocaust memorial was smashed with a rock.

in ukraine, the space of synagogues holocaust memorial display was vandalized by neo nazis.

the chairpersons of the chicago slutwalk wrote, "we still stand behind dyke march chicago's decision to remove the zionist contingent from their event, and we won't allow zionist displays at ours." the organizers made the following declaration about the star of david: "its connections to the oppression enacted by israel is too strong for it to be neutral."

a jewish cemetery in missouri was vandalized.

the unite the right rally took place in charlottesville, virginia, where white nationalists chanted slogans like "blood and soil" "jews will not replace us" "the goyim know" "the jewish media is going down."

a synagogue in sweden was firebombed.

2018

trayon white, an american politician, posted a video to his official facebook page showing snow flurries following, and alluding to the rothschild family conspiring to manipulate the weather.

an israeli man wearing a yarmulke was attacked in berlin; the attacker reportedly beat him with a belt and shouted "yehudi" ("jew")

tamika mallory, an american activist and one of the organizers of the womens march, attended an antisemitic speech by louis farrakhan, a figure she had previously refused to denounce. during the three hour speech, farrakhan claimed that "the powerful jews are my enemy" "the jews have control over agencies of those angencies of government" like the fbi, thta jews are "the mother and father of apartheid" and that jews are responsible for "degenerate behavior in hollywood turning men into women and women into men."

a republican candidate for senate in california openly called for a united states "free from jews."

11 people were murdered at the tree of life synagogue. on social media, several people made the claim that they "should not be mourned if they were zionists."

2019

belgium outlawed kosher slaughter.

rep ilhan omar tweeted an allegation that american support for israel was rooted in money spent by pro israel lobbying organizations.

several mps quit the labor party under jeremy corbyn citing "culture of extreme antisemitism and intolerance."

a subway poster in brooklyn with a picture of ruth bader ginsburg was valdalized with the writing "die jew bitch" and a swastika.

multiple violent attacks occured in brooklyn.

a synagogue in turkey is attacked with a molotov cocktail.

one person was killed and three were injured during a shooting at a passover seder in california.

a synagogue was attacked by a lone shooter in germany.

a kosher grocery store in jersey city, new jersey was attacked and five people were killed.

jersey city mayor steve fullop said a trustee of the jersey city board of education should resign in the wake of her comment after the above shooting about "jew brutes" that according to her have "threatened, intimidated, and harassed" black residents. the trustee asked whether the public is "brave enough" to listen to the shooters' message, and said the local rabbis were selling body parts. she remained on the board until 2022.

a jewish elder was killed and four others were injured at the home of a hasidic rabbi during hanukkah in new york.

2020

the tomb of esther and mordechai in iran was subjected to an arson attack.

the jewish center at the unitersity of delaware was subjected to an arson attack.

six igbo synagogues in nigeria were razed by soldiers, and at least 50 people were killed.

a synagogue in portland was subjected to an arson attack.

2021

george washington university's chapter of tau kappa epsilon fraternity reported that their house was broken into and vandalized, and their sefer torah destroyed.

2022

four hostages were taken at a synagogue in colleyville, texas. the attacker believed that the rabbi could call another rabbi in new york and secure the release of aafia siddiqui, a pakistani operative imprisoned for attempted murder and other crimes. siddiqui tried to dismiss her lawyers on the grounds that they were jewish. she said the case against her was a jewish conspiracy theory, demanded that no jews be allowed on the jury, and that all prospective jurors be dna tested and excluded from the jury at her trial if they had "zionist or israeli" dna. she wrote a letter to president obama, asserting, "study the history of the jews. they have always back-stabbed everyone who has taken pity on them and make the fatal error of giving them shelter... and it is this cruel, ungrateful back-stabbing of the jews that has caused them to be mercilessly expelled from wherever they gain strength. this is why 'holocausts' keep happening to them repeatedly! if they would only learn to be grateful and change their behavior!"

kanye west states that he "likes hitler" and is a "nazi." he still occasionally goes on an antisemitic twitter bender.

2023-2024 - current war

in october, an egyptian police officer shot and killed two israeli tourists and an egyptial tour guide in alexandria.

a jewish man walking to synagogue in johannesburg was accosted by a male jogger screaming antisemitic insults at him. the jogger then assaulted the man, knocked him over, and kicked and punched him while he lay on the ground.

a jewish cricket player was stripped of the captaincy by cricket south africa, claimed to have been a measure to reduce protests at the world cup.

a synagogue in tunisia was severely damaged during anti-israel riots with hundreds of people filmed setting fire to the building.

in armenia, unknown assailants set fire to a synagogue in yerevan and disseminated the arson attack on social media.

the associated press noted a rise in antisemitism on chinese social media. an israeli employee of the israeli embasee in beijing was stabbed and injured on october 13.

a 16 year old in australia was arrested after planning to attack a synagogue in vienna.

gravestones in belgium were damaged and many stars of david were stolen from a cemetery. only the jewish section was vandalized.

danish police arrested at least four operatives who were planning attacks on jewish or israeli targets in denmark.

in paris, stars of david were painted on multipe spots on several building fronts in a southern district. similar tags appeared over the weekend in other suburbs. antisemitic chants were filmed on the paris metro, "fuck the jews and fuck your mother, long live palestine. we are nazis and proud of it." a woman in lyon was stabbed and a swastika was graffitied on her home.

overall, french jews have noted a huge increase in antisemitism, with a surge of 1200% since october 7.

in berlin, the houses of several jews were marked with a star of david. two molotov cocktails were thrown at a synagogue.

israeli students in riga, latvia reported receiving hate texts and threats from other students.

lectures on the holocaust at utrecht university of applied sciences in the netherlands were postponed indefinitely.

a norwegian medical student at a rally in warsaw was pictured holding a poster of the flag of israel in a trash can alongside the text "keep the world clean." far right polish lawmaker grzegorz braun used a fire extinguisher on a lit menorah and removed it from the wall during a hanukkah celebration, saying "there can be no pace for the acts of this racist, tribal, wild talmudic cult."

residents of dagestan gathered near the flamingo hotel after reports that refugees from israel were being accomodated there. the protesters demanded that all hotel residents come to the windows to look at them. when the guests did not do this, stones were thrown into the building. the residents demanded to check the basements and let them into the hotel. police arrived and allowed protestors to check the hotel to make sure it was "jew free", and after this a message was posted outside the hotel that jews were prohibited from entering.

an antisemitic ralley was held in cherkessk, demanding the "eviction of ethnic jews."

a local jewish religious national-cultural community center under construction was set on fire in nalchik with the attackers writing "death to the yahuds" on the wall.

a mob stormed the uytash airport in dagestan after the arrival of a red wings flight from tel aviv. messages spread on telegram that a direct flight from israel was arriving, with calls to come to the airport and prevent the plane from landing. dozens of protestors stormed the airport and reached the runway, some of whom managed to climb up onto the plane's wings. 20 people were injured, two of whom were seriously injured. there are reports from passengers of rioters checking cars going to and from the airport for jews.

a synagogue in melillah, a spanish enclave in north africa, was attacked by a mob chanting "murderous israel" while waving palestinian flags.

pro palestinian demonstrators burned an israeli flag and chanted "bomb israel" outside a synagogue in. sweden.

i have to break up the sections because tumblr apparently has a character limit.

multiple cases of antisemitism were reported by students at concordia university with jewish students facing verbal and physical threats from both other students and faculty members. footage of a professor yanise arab shouting at jewish concordia students to "go back to poland, sharmuta (whore)" went viral alongside another video of a student using the slur "kike."

two jewish schools in montreal were targeted with gunfire overnight, and one was struck with gunfire a second time a few days later.

a jewish community center in montreal was attacked with a molotov cocktail.

jewish students and teachers of the peel district school board reported antisemitism and violent threats, including a teacher posting "jews are the problem" in a private facebook group.

a sukkah at caltech was vandalized with anti-israel graffiti. a man threw rocks through the glass doors of a synagogue and cafe in fresno, the second with a note reading "all jewish businesses will be targeted."

at columbia university, a woman assaulted an israeli man with a stick after he confronted her for ripping down posters with pictures and information abuot kidnapped israelis.

a man was arrested for sending threatening emails to a. synagogue in charlotte, north carolina.

a man in new york's grand central terminal punched a woman in the face and told her it was because she was jewish.

seven members of "white lives matter" california held a demonstration, holding up signs reading "no more wars for i$rael."

professor russell rickford spoke at a rally, saying he had found hamas's attack "exhilarating."

the illinois comptroller's office fired one of its lawyers, sarah chowdhurt, over antisemitic remarks she made on the instagram of another lawyer who is jewish.

a building next to a jewish fraternity at upenn was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti reading "the jews r nazis."

a man broke into a jewish family's home in los angeles, yelling "free palestine" and "kill jews."

threats against the jewish community at cornell university were posted online, threatening to shoot rape, and murder jewish students and encouraging violence against them.

paul kessler, an elderly jewish man, was killed at a rally after being struck in the head by a megaphone by a pro palestine protester, causing him to fall.

a woman was arrested after ramming her car into a black hebrew israelite school in indiana, mistakenly believing it to be an "israel school."

a man fired two rounds from a shotgun into the air outside a synagogue in albany and made threatening statements. he is alleged to have said "free palestine" at some point during the attack.

a game between the girls' varsity teams from the leffell school and roosevelt high school early college studies in yonkers was stopped when roosevelt students began to hurl antisemitic slurs at leffell students, with one yelling "i support hamas, you fucking jew", and during the third quarter became aggressive and violent during the play resulting in injuries of leffell's players.

participants in a pro-palestine rally in sydney changed "gas the jews", and several individuals in melbourne made death threats against jews, one group harassing a rabbi and his son, and another asking where to find jews, saying they were "hunting for jews."

a man in new south wales threatened to kill four jewish teenagers in a car with an israeli flag draped on it.

neo nazis marched in melbourne, displaying a banner reading "expose jewish power" and distributing neo nazi literature.

a sydney jewish man was verbally abused for wearing a kippah.

pro palestine graffiti was spray painted on the fence of a synagogue in auckland, and an unsuccessful attempt was made to set the property on fire. google maps had mistakenly listed the property as the local israeli consulate.

new zealand jews report a surge in antisemitic threats.

in new zealand, one child was physically assaulted and another had a swastika and a star of david drawn side by side on their school shirt. children were greeted by their peers with nazi salutes, being called "dirty jews", being told "jews control the world", and jokes about jews being gassed, and the blood libel claim that jews "chop off babies heads."

the us and israeli embassies in buenos aires received bomb threats via email, including one which said "jews we are going. tokill you all."

three people were arrested under suspicion of planning an attack on the maccabiah games.

brazilian authorities arrested two suspects in a. hezbollah backed terror plot to attack synagogues and other jewish targets in the country.

a column on the israeli embassy on colombia was vandalized with a swastika, start of david, and the word "terror" in hebrew.

if you made it to the bottom of this list and actually read everything, reblog with the tag "heard." that's really it. i just want to know that people hear us begging for people to speak up.

[thatsmzbitchtoyou]

Run, pretty girl, run Chapter 6

Summary:  Even with the safeguards put in place after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., the remaining Avengers find themselves on the run after the American government falls into disarray.  The code word is sent, and they’re officially fugitives.  Bucky makes a run for the safe house set up for emergencies like this where the Avengers are told to meet up, but on the way saves the pregnant agent turned payroll specialist that he was partnered with.  Will they make it before she goes into labor?  Or at all?

Warnings: violence, pregnancy, childbirth, death of minor character, language, eventual smut

“Бегать”: run “Подтвердить” : confirmed “Enkosi”: thank you “Дома”: home “Добро пожаловать”: welcome

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Once they got back to the Avengers compound Y/N kept good on her threat and retired.  She had had enough, and losing her baby was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Fury made sure that a hefty restitution was paid to her as a last ditch effort of goodwill.  Bucky followed her lead, though his retirement was much more of a headache, being an enhanced person who was on the main team of the Avengers.  As he finally finished his outgoing paperwork and he and Y/N got paid out on their pensions, he booked flights and got things in place for them.  

“You all packed, pretty girl?” he asked a few weeks later.

“Yep.  Though I wish you’d tell me where we’re going,” Y/N said, giving him a hesitant look.

“Don’t worry about it, Mamas,” he reassured her, kissing her cheek.  “You’re gonna love it.”

A few hours later they were on a plane, graciously provided by Stark Industries from Pepper.  Y/N relaxed against the large seat, her eyes fluttering shut as Bucky held her hand.  She had stopped bleeding from after childbirth, and her body was finally feeling better after all they’d gone through.  They hadn’t done anything more than kissing, which Bucky was fine with.  He was inexperienced after 70 some years under Hydra, and as much as he wanted her, he knew it would take time and healing before either of them might be ready.  That being said, as they got further and further away from the Avengers, the more relaxed and flirty she seemed.

On their descent Y/N became more jittery, trying to look out the window and see where they were.  “Uh uh, no peeking,” Bucky admonished her, taking her chin between his metal fingers and making her look at him.  He winked at her when she met his gaze and she bashfully smiled, blushing and looking away.  

“Come on, Buck, the suspense is killing me,” she whined.  

“Soon, Mamas, soon,” he murmured, grabbing her hand and kissing the back of it.

They landed and Bucky blindfolded her before they walked off, leading her carefully to an awaiting car that was quickly loaded with their luggage.  As the driver took them to their destination she never let go of his hand, squeezing it tightly in anticipation.  The car stopped and Bucky helped her out while the driver unloaded their bags and promptly drove off.

“Okay, it’s driving me nuts, where are we?” Y/N demanded.

Bucky chuckled as he started untying the blindfold.  “You,” he paused, kissing her ear and she gasped, “me,” he kissed her neck, “and a cocktail in Monaco,” he finished, kissing her shoulder and pulling the blindfold off.  Y/N blinked rapidly as she got used to the sun in her eyes, then looked up and gasped again.  They stood in front of a French villa that faced the neighboring sea.  The sun was setting, creating a rainbow collage that made the white walls of the villa look like they were glowing.  The borders of the house were covered in flower gardens and walking paths that circled around the back.  She looked around in shock and turned to face him.  “Well, technically Nice, France,” he said.  “But we’re taking a boat tour of Monaco tomorrow.”

Y/N squealed and jumped into his arms, hugging him tight around the neck.  “This is amazing, Bucky,” she said reverently as she pulled away and looked at him.  “We made it,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against his forehead.

“We made it,” he agreed, leaning in and kissing her lightly.  He led her inside and they took a tour of the house and grounds, watching the last bit of sunset before going inside and getting unpacked and settled for the night.  As he lay down in the bed of the main bedroom he sighed loudly, Y/N smiling at him as she exited the adjoining bathroom.  “I’m so tired,” he breathed.  “Long flights really take it out of me now.  My age is catching up with me,” he smirked at her.

Y/N huffed a laugh.  “Well, if it’s any consolation, you look incredible for 107,” she teased, laying down next to him, propped up on her elbow.

Bucky laughed, turning to face her.  “Oh really?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Oh yes,” she said, reaching out and tracing the tip of her finger down his nose.  “You live up to your name, hot stuff.”

Bucky blushed and fought an oncoming smile.  “Big words from the prettiest girl,” he retorted.

Y/N rolled her eyes.  “I don’t know about prettiest,” she said.

Bucky scoffed.  “You are,” he said earnestly.  He took her hand and started kissing it all over the back of her hand to her knuckles to her fingers.  “My pretty girl,” he mumbled into her palm.  He started kissing up her wrist to her arm, continuing to pepper featherlight kisses up to her shoulder and into the crook of her neck, making her lay back as he hovered over her, his metal hand gripping her hip.  Y/N sighed as he worshiped her skin, her fingers gripping the blankets beneath her.

As he sucked on a sensitive spot he found weeks earlier near her ear she moaned.  “God, Bucky…” she breathed.

He smiled against her jaw.  “Yes?” he asked.

She reached up and ran her fingers through his hair, tugging at the strands and making him inhale sharply.  “I’m still waiting on that cocktail,” she murmured in a teasing tone.

Bucky laughed into her neck as she shook with laughter under him.  “Whatever my pretty girl wants,” he murmured, nipping at her earlobe, making her squeal.  “Though I can’t promise I’ll be any good at it.”

“Have you never made a cocktail before?” Y/N asked, looking at him in surprise.

Bucky grimaced.  “Uh….no?” 

She rolled her eyes and pushed him off of her.  “Okay, let’s go,” she grunted as she stood up from the bed and headed out the room.

Bucky quickly followed her out to the kitchen where a bar was nearby facing the view of the ocean.  Y/N walked behind the bar and started rummaging through the small drink fridge, pulling out different bottles.  She pulled out two glasses from the wall and loaded some ice into them before turning back to the bottles.  “Have you ever had an Aperol Spritz?” she asked.

“No,” he said, watching her intently.

Y/N smirked as she started showing him what to do.  Bucky loved watching her hands confidently grabbing the bottles and pouring them, adding the bitters and mixing everything together.  She finished with a slice of an orange in each glass then handed it to him.  “You, me, and a cocktail in Monaco,” she said, holding up her glass.

Bucky smiled.  “Saluti,” he said, clinking his glass against hers.  Y/N smiled and sipped her drink while he took his first drink.  He hummed as the taste slipped across his tongue, his eyes narrowing at the drink.  “Wow, that’s…that’s really nice,” he said.

“Right?” she said, her smile widening.

“You’re really good at this,” he said.  “Where did you learn to make drinks?”

“Well I wouldn’t say an Aperol Spritz is hard,” she scoffed.  “But, funny story, I was undercover for a while before being partnered up with you,” she said, putting her drink down and lifting herself up onto the counter of the bar to sit.  “I was gathering intel on a nationalist group that was trying to partner with the Flag Smashers after the Blip,” she continued, taking another sip.  “Thankfully, people like Karli Morgenthau were at least sensible enough to not want to associate with racists,” she cocked an eyebrow at him.  Bucky huffed, nodding as he remembered Karli and the Flag Smashers that he and Sam fought with a few years ago.  “I worked as a bartender in the bar the nationalists met at,” she said.  “Had to blend in.  Most of the drinks were easy, but for the odd cocktail every once in a while I had to look like I knew what I was doing, so I was trained in making drinks.”

“How did that mission end?” he asked.

“Oh, I just gave over intel and washed my hands of it when it was over,” Y/N said, downing the rest of the drink.  “I heard that it was a quick clean up.”

“Good,” Bucky smirked.  “What were you doing until we got partnered up?”

“Small missions,” she shrugged.  “That’s unfortunately how I met Tim.”  Bucky’s mouth tightened at the mention of the disappearing baby daddy.  Y/N looked down, her hands gripping the counter.  She was quiet for a moment, and Bucky quickly downed his drink before stepping toward her and between her legs.  He ran his hands from her wrists to her shoulders then up to her neck, his fingers under her jaw making her lift her head up to look at him.  She looked sad as she gazed up at him.  “I thought he loved me, you know?” she whispered.  Bucky nodded.  “He was really intimidated by me working with the Avengers,” she continued, a small lopsided smile breaking through.  “Especially working with you.”

Bucky scoffed.  “Really?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she nodded.  “He didn’t like how well we partnered together.”  

Bucky couldn’t help but smile widely.  “How insecure,” he murmured, his thumbs tracing along her jaw.

“Though I guess he wasn’t wrong,” she ventured, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Why do you say that?” he asked, leaning forward and rubbing his nose along her nose.

“Because we’re here,” Y/N whispered, her hands leaving the counter to reach forward and grip his shirt.  “And he’s not.”

Bucky kissed the tip of her nose and started rubbing his nose and lips across different parts of her face.  “Do you remember how after he left, I was so angry,” he muttered, slotting his hips between hers and against the counter further, “and I disappeared for a few hours?”  Y/N nodded, her hands moving up from his stomach to his chest.  “He never made it out of the state,” he said, a bitter tone to his voice as he tilted her head and his lips skimmed along her cheek to her earlobe, continuing what he was doing earlier.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“You don’t wanna know,” he whispered, then licked her neck up to her ear, and she squirmed and moaned into his ear.  “You like that, Mamas?” he said.  “You like that I would do anything for you?  That I would kill for you?  That I’ve wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you?”  Her breath stuttered at that revelation.  “That even though I had a hard time trusting people, I knew I could trust you…with my life, my love, my heart?  That I’ve loved you since our first mission together, and you patched me up so tenderly?”

Y/N sniffled and he pulled back.  Her face was a look of desire, but there were tears streaming out the sides of her eyes.  “Yes,” she groaned.  “Yes, I like that.”

Bucky bit back a shit-eating grin.  “What do you want, pretty girl?”

“You,” she sighed.  “I want you.  All over me.  All around me.  Please, love,” she begged, which made Bucky’s brow furrow and his jaw tighten.  “I love you,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down.  

Just before their lips met he groaned.  “I love you,” he murmured, then kissed her hard.  

Y/N damn near climbed him like a tree, pushing herself up off the counter and into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist as one of her hands gripped the hair at the back of his head and tugged while licking along his lower lip.  Bucky whimpered as he turned and carried her back to the bedroom, his fingers digging into her hips.  When he finally got back to the bed he set her on it without breaking apart, sliding her up the bed until he was able to start to thrust against her hips, dry humping into her as his hands slid up her sides, pausing near her breasts.  

“Please, Buck,” she said, removing her hands from him and reaching down to start pulling her shirt off.

Bucky gasped as she revealed herself to him.  He had seen her breasts from their awkward mastitis encounter before, but getting to see them in this way was completely different.  “So pretty, Mamas,” he moaned before dipping his head down and licking at her nipple.  Her back arched, pushing her breast up into his mouth, and he sucked at her nipple fervently as his fingers played with the other one.  Y/N took off his shirt next, hastily pulling it up and over his head and flinging it across the room.  Her hands then massaged over him from his shoulders, down his arms and across his chest.  As he switched his mouth to her other nipple she lifted her head up and started kissing along the wound that connected his metal arm to his body.  It made him shudder, releasing her nipple as he gasped against her skin.  

“Fuck, Y/N,” he breathed.  “So sweet to me.”  His fingers traveled down to her hips, pulling at the hem of her shorts and underwear and looking up at her.  She nodded and he pulled them off down her legs.  She was already wet, her pussy glistening as he stared down at her.  “Goddamn,” he muttered.  “Can I taste you, Mamas?  Please?”

“Yes, please,” she replied, spreading her legs further apart.  

Bucky smiled and positioned himself to lay down between her legs.  He hooked her thighs around his arms as he kissed her inner thighs up to the crease between her leg and her pussy lips.  He gave her a broad-tongue lick up her slit, making her gasp loudly.  Bucky hadn’t done this in a very long time, but he followed his instincts and did what felt good, watching her reactions and noting what made her squirm more.  Her fingers grasped his hair, holding his head against her as he ate her out with desperation.  Y/N’s legs began to shake as he sucked hard on her clit before releasing it with a loud slurping sound.  As he gazed up at her he noticed the scar near her navel where the doctors had removed her baby.  He moved his head up and kissed it tenderly.  She stiffened at his actions, her fingers relaxing in his hair and scratching his scalp gently.  He kissed along the entire scar before kissing back down to her clit.  Y/N looked down at him, the tears returning at his tenderness.  He returned to licking her clit, this time not as desperate or frenzied, but more intentional and purposeful.  Within moments she threw her head back and moaned as she came, her hips jerking against his face as he helped her ride through her first orgasm.  “Good girl,” he said, licking up her cum.  

Bucky lifted himself back up and moved to hover over her, dipping his head down and kissing her.  Y/N moaned at the taste of herself on his lips, her hands reaching down to start pushing his pants down.  Bucky pulled away and watched her eagerly slip her fingers past the top of his boxers and dip down to grip his cock.  He lightly gasped at how her hand felt wrapped around him, his hips jerking against her.  “You gonna make me feel good, hot stuff?” she teased, giving him a wry smile.  

Bucky nodded, his mouth agape as she gave his cock lazy pumps with her hand.  He quickly slipped his pants and boxers off then reached for something in his pants pocket.  “Let’s be sensible about this,” he muttered, pulling out a condom.  He opened it and rolled it on himself as Y/N stared down at his cock.  “Even though I’d love for you to have my babies,” he teased back as he settled between her legs again.

Y/N looked shocked at his words, but a small smile lit up her face.  “You wanna have babies…with me?” she asked.

“Of course I do,” Bucky said incredulously.  He gripped his cock in his metal hand and slowly rubbed it between her lower lips, coating himself in her cum, making her shiver.  “I want it all with you.”  He aimed himself at her entrance and slowly started to push in.  She moaned at the stretch he gave her, her hands gripping onto his shoulders.  He kept going until he was fully seated inside her, his hips fully flushed with her hips.  He sighed heavily as she enveloped him, her grip loosening on his shoulders and her hands smoothing down his arms.  “I want you to be my girlfriend,” he said, leaning down to kiss her cheek as he gave her time to adjust to him.  “I want to make you my wife,” he continued, kissing her other cheek.  Y/N hummed as he kissed the tip of her nose.  “I want you to have my babies,” he smiled.  “I want to live the rest of my life with you.  All I want is you, pretty girl,” he smiled, kissing her lips.  

Y/N wrapped her legs around his hips, squirming against him.  “I’m all yours, Bucky,” she said.  “All I want is you.”

Bucky couldn’t stop smiling.  He pulled his hips back and then thrust back into her.  Y/N’s mouth dropped open in a silent moan.  “Mine,” he moaned as he continued to slowly thrust back and forth.  

Y/N’s hands moved back up his arms, shoulders, along his neck until she was cupping his face.  She brought him close to her face and rubbed her nose along his.  “Mine,” she said.

They both smiled at each other as Bucky kissed her again, his hips never stopping.  His pace picked up speed as he dug an arm under her neck to hold her closer, his kisses moving from her mouth to her neck, nibbling along her throat to her ear.  Y/N’s nails scratched down his back, making him snap his hips harder into her and she moaned loudly.  “Fuck yes!” she yelped.  “Do that again!”

Bucky huffed a laugh against her cheek.  “You like it hard, Mamas?” he asked, giving her another snap.  Y/N squeaked, her eyes shut tight and nodded frantically.  

“Yeah…please Buck…hard and fast…just keep calling me that,” she said, opening her eyes and looking down between them where they met.

“Oh really?” he teased, pulling out until only the tip of his cock was inside her.  She looked up at him in annoyance, her hips wriggling to try to make him push back in.  “You like being called my pretty girl?” he asked.  Y/N nodded, her face scrunching up with desire.  “Or do you like Mamas better?” he asked, giving her a quick snap of his hips.  

She shrieked, her fingers scratching him harder.  “Shit!  Bucky please…”

“Answer me, Y/N,” he instructed, nipping at her lower lip and sucking on it.

Y/N was nearly shaking beneath him.  “Mamas,” she whispered, licking at his mouth that was still holding her lip.  

Bucky smirked as he released her lip.  “I knew it,” he chuckled.  He braced his knees more on the bed then started pounding into her at a frenzied pace.  Y/N gasped, her head wrenching back against the bed.  Her breaths and moans came out faster and more high pitched, her arms wrapping around his back.  Bucky kept himself close to her, wanting to feel her skin against his as much as possible.  “I’m close, Mamas…fuck,” he groaned.  “You gonna cum for me again?”  Y/N nodded, biting her lip as she looked up at him.  “Shit, you can’t look at me like that,” he moaned, closing his eyes.  

Y/N’s fingers scratched up his back again then around his sides to his chest, up his neck and then tangled into his hair, scratching his scalp.  “Let me see those pretty eyes, hot stuff,” she murmured, her voice coming out airy and seductive.  Bucky opened his eyes, his breathing getting heavier as he looked down at her.  His hips started to roll against hers, and it made her eyes slightly roll as she swallowed harshly.  “I love you,” she breathed, then kissed him like she’d never kissed him before.

Bucky whimpered, his metal hand sneaking between them and his middle finger flicking her clit fast.  “I love you,” he mumbled against her lips.  Y/N whimpered, then her orgasm crashed over her.  She stiffened, her legs locking behind him, her fingers ripping at his hair as she came with a muffled scream against his lips.  Bucky grunted as her pussy clamped down on him, and within two more rolls of his hips he was cumming, a long, deep groan reverberating in his chest.  

They panted against each other as they came down from their highs, Bucky dropping his head into the crook of her neck, lazily kissing her collarbone.  “Goddamn, Mamas,” he mumbled.  Y/N giggled, her legs starting to relax and release him.  “You’re so good,” he continued.  “Feel so good…god I love you…”

Y/N softly ran her fingers through his hair as he lifted his head to look at her.  She had a lazy smile on her face, her eyelids half drooped as she breathed deeply and looked up at him.  “Heya hot stuff,” she muttered.

Bucky smiled.  “Hey pretty girl,” he said.  

Y/N sighed.  “Thank you,” she breathed.

“For what?” he asked.

“For this,” she replied, cupping his face in her hands.  “For taking me here.  For doing all you could to keep me and Grant safe.  For being my partner, my best friend,” she said, her thumbs swiping across his cheeks.  “For loving me.  Thank you for everything.”

Bucky shook his head with a small smile.  “And I’d do it a million times over,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose.  “Anything for you, Mamas.”

@vioplay19 @mrsnikstan @scott-loki-barnes @tufflepuff23 @itsmytimetoodream

[athanasius-symposium-of-writings]

A Night In Nice

Chapter One

Based on this ask and made into a separate post due to being two parts

Rated Explicit (for later on)

Ao3

Chapter Two

When you asked him to run away with you, you meant it wholeheartedly. If he didn't want to stay, you weren't going to force him to stay. You only want him to escape this place and start anew.

No one has ever looked out for him, maybe his father but that felt obligated rather than willing. Yet, on that fateful day, when the voice in his mind killed every miner and nearly killed him too, he took you up on that offer.

Now here he is in France, specifically in a town called Nice, with a woman he finds himself in love with. Unbelievable given his past, he thought he could never love anything outside of his greed and freedom. Yet, here he is fiddling with an engagement ring he saved up for.

Crazy. God, if this a dream and he laying dying in that damn cave then let him stay there slowly dying rather than wake up from this dream.

He quickly hides the ring in his pants when he hears you enter the house.

The home has a common layout, simple decorations, and a few personal touches, cozy and ours as you told him.

Norton works for an old man at his farm helping out and such. Good pay and no digging for coal. You work at the local bakery with a farmer's daughter.

“You're home early!” Cheerful and smiling brightly, Everything okay?” Going to the kitchen to set down the bag of bread in your arms.

“Uh, yeah,” Assisting you and looking at the bread now on the table, “Free bread day or something?”

“Heh, no! I made these for us! I know you like toasted bread for breakfast so…” You show him the misshapen bread, “I tried.”

You are… Kind to put it mildly.

When you first met him, it was after a brawl in which a few of the older miners jumped him for a single damn coin he got from payroll. He lost his coin, sure, but he made every single last one of them earn it. He was badly hurt and was carried into the infirmary with another guy.

At the time, you were the only female and a nurse on that mining site. The doctor left after not being paid, so technically you were the nurse and the head doctor. It wasn't easy for you, that is for sure given half these guys were scum.

Still, you did your job. With a smile too, for those deserving.

You fixed his nose, patched up his cuts, gave him something for the pain, and even got him something other than bread and turning milk. Soup for the soul, you called it, something you made because the chef there was a joke. It was mostly vegetables but it was something.

He was cold to you back then even when he was often your patient because of all the fighting. Norton didn't want friends, didn't care about anyone but himself, and he certainly didn't care to have some woman being nice to him. Bad enough you touched him when doing checkups and patching him up.

However, as much as he was an asshole, he wasn't fucking like these others. He ain't no saint but wasn't one to think just because you are the only woman there, means you are for the picking. He recalls that tussle (the man was drunk so it wasn't much of a fight), how grateful you were.

So grateful you baked him something as a thank you, a treat that was too sweet for him. He still ate it even though he complained about the sweetness.

You were, are, the brightest light in his life.

And it was dark… Becoming darker when the voice in his head started getting louder and louder.

The darkness nearly swallowed him whole.

Until you found him buried alive and willing to die.

God, he swears, the tears from your eyes seemed to never stop as you called out to him. Never did want to see that again.

“Norton, try this!” Preparing your ingredients to make a special pie you learned today! A shepherd's pie that is supposedly very filling and good! You seasoned the meat the night before and after setting up, you just finished cooking the meat.

You like this. Being a housewife. Though you are not married to him, you gave him the housewife treatment. Cooking, cleaning, cuddles (more like you being his weighted blanket).

Norton felt loved, knew he was loved, yet the darkness lurks in the shadows when he is alone with his thoughts as you sleep by his side.

While he sits in the kitchen simply enjoying your presence and the way you talk about anything and everything under the sun, he is playing with the ring in his pocket.

“Oh, hm, it needs more garlic.”

“It's fine.”

“No, no, sir-no-taste-outside-of-salt-and-pepper. Trust me on this.”

He shakes his head chuckling at you.

“She will leave you like all the others.”

He frowns as the voice mocks him.

“Poor flower thinks a domestic life in some other country will save you. We both know this is temporary.”

No, he likes this life!

“Being poor? You barely could afford her a ring! If we found that gold—”

“Norton?”

“Huh?” Not aware you are in front of him, “Need something?”

“You spaced out, hun.” Reaching to touch him though he shook his head. “If you need space, dinner will be done in an hour.” You understand, you show patience.

He stands up, tall and bulky, taking your hands and placing them on his face. His eyes close as feels your warmth. A gentle ‘thank you’ slips from his lips. You tell often he has no need to thank you but he does it anyway.

Rubbing circles on his cheeks before going back to cooking, you didn't want to pull away. You never do. He leaves the kitchen and you return to your task.

The sound of the bedroom door creaking open and then closing.

The best ways he found to stay in the present are to touch the things in the house, somethings things that you have made in the past attempts of crafting, or to smell the one perfume you love. A reminder of the good things he has.

Clean shirts, new shoes, even his better breathing, the window he can open at any time to gaze out into the back of the house. The outside cats that lurk around the house (his fault truthfully he could not stand seeing the little guys starving) playing with the blanket they stole from the laundry line and you did not have the heart to take back.

It is a perfect life, a fairytale ending to a nightmare he was living, yet the voice is bitter and cruel with words that plague him when you are not in sight.

… If only that was the case completely…

Recently, you have been the topic the moment Norton decided he wants to marry you. Sure it is pretty unseemly to be living with a woman and not married to her. Sure he has not had sex with you but you gave him so much of your patience. The love you gave him so freely.

The ring he takes out of his pocket to examine weighs heavy, he is trying to think of how to bring it up— To ask you. The words simply escape him, his chest hurts and his throat closes.

Shit, this looks so easy in those plays he saw once as a kid. Broke into the theater to pickpocket some people, all to get his father some medicine.

The past.

All in the past.

The knock on the door drew away the shadows encroaching ready to ensnare him.

“Dinner is ready.”

[empirearchives]

Stéphanie Félicité, Marquise de Sillery, Comtesse de Genlis (25 January 1746 — 31 December 1830)

Madame de Genlis was a French writer who maintained a long correspondence with Napoleon and was on the government’s payroll from 1801 to 1814. There is a lot of debate about the nature of the correspondence. Some contemporaries and historians believe she was Napoleon’s spy.

Lady Morgan asked Madame de Genlis about this:

“Buonaparte,” she said, “was extremely liberal to literary people — a pension of four thousand francs, per annum, was assigned to all authors and gens-de-lettres, whose circumstances admitted of their acceptance of such a gratuity. He gave me, however, six thousand, and a suite of apartments at the Arsenal. As I had never spoken to him, never had any intercourse with him whatever, I was struck with this liberality, and asked him what he expected I should do to merit it? When the question was put to Napoleon, he replied carelessly, ‘Let Madame de Genlis write me a letter once a month.’ As no subject was dictated, I chose literature, but I always abstained from politics.”

Source: France, Lady Morgan, published 1817, p. 360

An outline of her life and career can be read in Destins de Femmes, French Women Writers, 1750-1850 by John Claiborne Isbell, (published 2023).

[historia-vitae-magistras]

How do you feel about nation jobs or finances in your universe? Like are modern Matt or Alfred on government payroll even if they don’t do anything? I know you’re mentioned that Alfred is better at managing his money than Matt, is he rich??

Sorry I’m not phrasing this very well 😅

This is somewhat esoteric even for me, but I tied their abilities with money to their economic histories.

Alfred was born looking pretty pathetic next to the Spanish possessions in Mexico and South America or even British holdings in the Caribbean but, in short order, made up a significant percentage of the ships, people, and wealth of the British Empire. He became that on what was primarily the efforts of private enterprise. Alfred grows up understanding he is valuable; he represents value, and his choices create value. He's easy to love because he's a goddamn cash cow for Arthur until the Seven Years War when Britain spent a shit ton and wanted the Yanks to pay their share, and we threw a bitch fit and declared independence.

Matt, however, has the French bitching about what a money hole he is from about 20 minutes after he comes into being. The Basque, by far, made the most money initially with their fishing and whaling in the east, following what was reasonably similar to the Viking routes into Newfoundland. The fur trade that drove French settlement faced collapse about a half dozen times in his childhood, and besides a short binge economy for Ginseng and its brief boom in China, his entire existence was just fur. Dead beavers and the black market. That's it.

While the US was building ships, growing cash crops, running a fur trade economy, engaging in fishing, rope making, pitch collection, barrel making and everything and anything else, in the Caribbean, they had 90+ control over sugar production and trade routes. Canada had 10% of the population and thus 10% of the market power. We didn't do shit except freeze, fire at the British, commit war crimes against the New Englanders, ditch the farms and run off to the west to make families with indigenous women and run furs up the rivers to the point that France tried to make it illegal for people to leave the settlements of Quebec City and Montreal without permission.

So from a relatively early point, Alfred is very smart with his investments, and he's been making his investments since the early 19th century, so there's a significant but often catastrophically destroyed habit of investing. When he was younger and incredibly newly independent, he got fleeced a few times, but he's called smart and secure, especially since the 1929 crash. It's not remarkably large amounts of money because he'll never completely trust the government, and he doesn't want to attract attention or pay massive amounts of taxes, so he's very well diversified. But he's certainly not poor. All his more expensive hobbies come from a particular office in the state department that Alfred sometimes cooperates with and sometimes doesn't, depending on how anti-establishment he and the public feel.

As for Matt, having spent a lot longer as a colonial subject, it's not that he's entirely shit with money but what he knew how to do. The heart of the empire was the financial hub and was outside his control long after even the Confederation in the 1860s. The money situation has been a nightmare since the earliest days of the French Regime using playing cards to pay people. Colonial America had some similar issues. The whole concept of the US dollar originated in the 1690 invasion of Quebec when the Massachusetts Bay Colony printed its own money to fund the expedition, but Alexander Hamilton did some flash economic magic for the US in this department in the 1790s, so it got its shit together long before Canada. Matt knows what he needs to know. He was stationed in various Canadian ports, keeping an eye on his father's investments, not his own.

So, in the modern day, Alfred reads his bank statements every month, keeps track of his subscriptions and bills, and probably has an accountant. Matt is more aware of Alfred's money habits than his own. Because he's over here just kind of vaguely wondering if his debit card will work because my man cannot make heads or tails of his economy (no, seriously, Canadian economists have no idea how Canada's own shit works. Sometimes it's pretty fascinating, there's often no real consensus like the US academic economist have.) And international investors in Canada are always freaking out because the Canadian economy is always getting its shit rocked by the US economy. It's hilarious to think of people in Matt's life frustratedly trying to figure out where and what his money's doing. If their health is tied to their economies, Matt's in pretty good shape, thanks to close ties to the US, but he's randomly dying reasonably often because the US economy's tiny little ripples will randomly tear him apart. It's pretty funny (laughs so I don't sob in the Canadian job market.)

And that's pretty fitting, considering that most Canadian economic policy is boiled down to 'hope the Americans are feeling cooperative next time NAFTA comes up for debate.'

[kp777]

By Lynn Paramore, Institute for New Economic Thinking

Common Dreams

May 15, 2024

Shameful fact: the plight of U.S. retirees is a global exception. In their pursuit of lower taxes, America’s wealthiest individuals support policies that make it extremely difficult for seniors to manage the increasing costs of healthcare, housing, and basic necessities. Not so in other rich countries like Germany, France, and Canada, where robust public pensions and healthcare systems offer retirees stability and dignity. After a lifetime of hard work, older citizens in the U.S. find their reward is merely scraping by, as savings diminish under the weight of soaring medical costs in the most expensive healthcare system in the developed world.

The solution from America’s elites? Suck it up and work longer.

An example of this mindset appeared in a New York Times op-ed by C. Eugene Steuerle of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and Glenn Kramon, a Stanford Business School lecturer. The two accused older folks of robbing economic resources from the young through Social Security and Medicare—never mind that workers fund these programs with their own lifelong payroll contributions. They paint a picture of 65-year-old Americans jauntily playing “pickleball daily” and jet-setting “far and wide,” proposing to increase the age to collect Social Security and Medicare benefits, essentially forcing future retirees to work longer. (Curiously, they overlook how this move robs young people—too young to vote—of future retirement years. This echoes 1983, when the Reagan administration and Congress pushed the Social Security age from 65 to 67, impacting Gen X before they could even vote on it).

Steuerle and Kramon prop up their plan with studies that extol the health and wellbeing perks of working into old age, adding that “each generation lives longer” and therefore, it’s a patriotic duty for the elderly to stay on the job.

Are we all really living longer? Let’s first point out that Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, noted for their research in health and economics, recently showed that many Americans are not, in fact, enjoying extended lives. As they stated in their own New York Times op-ed, those without college degrees are “scarred by death and a staggeringly shorter life span.” According to their investigation, the expected lifespan for this group has been falling since 2010. By 2021, people without college degrees were expected to live to about 75, nearly 8.5 years shorter than their college-educated counterparts.

Overall life expectancy in America dropped in 2020 and 2021, with increases in mortality across the leading causes of death and among all ages, not just due to COVID-19. In August 2022, data confirmed that Americans are dying younger across all demographics. Again, the U.S. is an outlier. It was one of two developed countries where life expectancy did not bounce back in the second year of the pandemic.

So the argument that everyone is living longer greatly stretches the truth—unless, of course, you happen to be rich: A Harvard study revealed that the wealthiest Americans enjoy a life expectancy over a decade longer than their poorest counterparts.

Could the idea that working into our seventies and beyond boosts our health and well-being hold true? Obviously, for those in physically demanding roles, such as construction or mining, prolonged work is likely to lead to a higher risk of injury, accidents, and wearing down health-wise. But what about everybody else? What if you have a desk job? Wouldn’t it be great to get out there, do something meaningful, and interact with people, too?

Perhaps it’s easy for people like Steuerle and Kramon to imagine older people working in secure, dignified positions that might offer health benefits into old age – after all, those are the types of positions they know best.

But the reality is different. Economist Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor at the New School for Social Research, focuses on the economic security of older workers and flaws in U.S. retirement systems in her new book, Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy. She calls those praising the health perks of working longer “oddballs” – those fortunate folks in cushy positions who have a lot of autonomy and purpose. Like lawmakers or tenured professors, for example.

She points out that academic researchers often base their theories about the benefits of working longer on a hypothetical person who just tacked on a few extra years in the same position, noting that researchers often make the faulty assumption that people are not only living longer, but can also easily choose to work longer, keep their jobs without facing pay cuts, and continue stacking up savings into later life.

That’s not really how it plays out in real life for most folks. Ghilarducci found that most people don’t actually get to decide when they retire, noting that “the verb ‘retire’ isn’t a verb that really belongs to the agency of the worker – it’s the employers’ choice.” Retirement often means somebody above you telling you it’s time to go. You’re ousted—laid off or pushed out because your productivity’s slipping or your skills are aging like last year’s tech. Or simply because of biases against older workers. Age discrimination is a huge issue, with two-thirds of job seekers aged 45 to 74 reporting it. In fact, people trying to find a job say they encounter significant biases as early as age 35. For the high-tech and entertainment industries, this is particularly true.

So there’s that.

There’s also the fact that continuing to work in an unfulfilling job might be hazardous to your health. The reality is, a lot of us are grinding in jobs that are stressful and insecure, and that constant stress ties into a whole host of health issues — hypertension, heart problems, messed up digestion, and a weaker immune system, not to mention it can kickstart or worsen mental health troubles like depression and anxiety.

Many are stuck in what anthropologist David Graeber memorably dubbed “bullshit jobs” — roles that feel meaningless and draining. Graeber described these jobs as a form of ‘spiritual violence,’ and found them linked to heightened anxiety, depression, and overall misery among workers. His research found strong evidence that seeing your job as useless deeply impacts your psychological well-being.

The link between job dissatisfaction and poor health has been found to be significant in study after study. Unrewarding work can demotivate people from staying active, eating well, or sleeping regularly, potentially leading to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other health issues. In contrast, retiring from such a job could free up time and energy for wellness activities, enjoyable hobbies, and a healthier lifestyle overall.

Ghilarducci points out that reward-to-effort ratios, crucial for job satisfaction, are declining due to factors like stagnant real wages. She also highlights the problem of subordination, explaining that it can be “lethal” to remain in a job where you lack control over the content or pace of your work. According to her, such factors can lead to higher morbidity and lower mortality rates.

Okay, what about social engagement? That’s crucial for seniors, right? True, but demanding or unfulfilling jobs can make it hard to find the time and energy to socialize, leading to isolation and loneliness, which are major factors in declining mental health and quality of life for the elderly.

Also, when talking about delaying retirement, we can’t ignore cognitive decline. Sure, working longer might keep your mind sharp if the job is stimulating. However, research indicates the opposite for dull jobs. Florida State University researchers found that not only can tedious work accelerate cognitive decline, leading to increased stress and reduced life satisfaction, but “dirty” work does as well. They show that jobs in unclean environments with exposure to chemicals, mold, lead, or loud noises significantly impact brain health as we age.

Even university professors can suffer the effects of dirty jobs: North Carolina State University has recently come under fire for knowingly keeping faculty and staff working for decades in a building contaminated with PCBs, resulting in dire health consequences, including nearly 200 cases of cancer among those exposed.

Finally, it’s not a coincidence that those talking about raising the age for Social Security and Medicare are usually white men. They would suffer less from it than women, especially women of color. Women typically outlive men but earn less over their lifetimes, which already means smaller Social Security checks. It’s even tougher for Black women who often earn way less than their white peers and are more likely to have unstable jobs with skimpy benefits. Plus, women frequently take breaks from their careers for caregiving, shaving off years of paid work and further slicing their Social Security benefits. Pushing the retirement age higher forces women, especially Black women, to either toil longer in poor-quality jobs or retire without enough funds, making them more vulnerable to poverty and health problems as they get older.

Ghilarducci observes that for women in low-paying jobs with little control and agency, “working longer can really hasten their death, and the flip side of that is that retirement for these women really helps them.”

Bottom line: The whole “work longer, live healthier” spiel doesn’t fly for most. In the U.S., the well-off might be milking the joys of extended careers, but lower-income folks, particularly women and people of color, often endure the slog of thankless jobs that negatively impact their health and well-being. Elites shout from their comfortable positions that we need to push retirement further back as if it’s the magic fix to all economic woes. But when such people fantasize about happy seniors thriving at work, they’re missing the harsh reality many face—painful, boring, insecure jobs that speed death.

The myth that we’re all living longer and healthier is just that—a myth belied by life expectancy stats showing not everyone’s in the same boat. What America desperately needs is a beefed-up, fair Social Security and Medicare system that serves all Americans, not just the ones who can afford to retire without a worry. No one should be stuck choosing between a crappy job and retiring into penury.

Yet Republicans are on the warpath against Social Security and Medicare. Senator Mike Lee has explicitly stated his goal to completely eliminate Social Security, aiming to “pull it up by the roots, and get rid of it.” His fellow Republicans are enthusiastically getting the ball rolling: House Republicans have released a new proposal to weaken Social Security by raising the retirement age. For his part, former and possible future president Donald Trump indicates a willingness to consider cuts to Medicare and Social Security, despite previously criticizing his primary rivals on the issue, who were almost wall to wall demanding drastic cutbacks.

Democratic lawmakers typically show more support for Social Security and Medicare in public, though their track record has not fully alleviated concerns about the present and future vulnerability of these programs. In his recent State of the Union speech, President Biden advocated for the expansion and enhancement of Social Security and Medicare, declaring that “If anyone here tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age, I will stop them!” But it’s important to keep in mind that he supported raising the retirement age during the 1980s and again in 2005.

Polling shows that voters, whether Democrats or Republicans, do not want to cut these programs. Actually, they want to expand Social Security and Medicare. That’s because those who face the realities of daily life understand that working endlessly is a cruel and unreasonable – not to mention unhealthy — expectation that no society should endorse. The idea that America can’t afford to do this is outlandish when the evidence is so clear that American billionaires pay historically low tax rates that are now lower than those for ordinary workers. What America can’t afford is the super-wealthy and their paid representatives working the rest of us to death.

[la-pheacienne]

So tomorrow I will have to talk to an entire class of law students about the systematic ban on protests supporting Palestinians by the french authorities. And I have to talk about this for an hour and a half, without getting political somehow, and in a context where lecturers lose their jobs here for speaking out. And I will have to formulate legal-only arguments instead of just saying that the reason of the ban on these protests actually is that this country is allying with a colonizing terrorist entity because first of all it's consistent with France's past as a colonizer, secondly because France is literally on US payroll and thirdly because the common belief here is that arabs are the scum of the earth. And somehow I have to talk about this issue without saying all that. Wish me luck my career in uni is about to be over

[my-mt-heart]

To the anon talking about sources and asking why you’re the “laughing stock”:

From everything (My-)MT has said about Melissa’s “break” and the sh*t that’s gone down bts and about the SO, like the title and what Mel wants for Caryl, if she prefers friendship, her source isn’t on the payroll. Her sources have to be working for Mel or Mt wouldn’t know what happened in GA and in France or what Mel’s opinions are. That’s what makes sense also because MT works in tv. Actors have agents and managers and assistants and others who work for them and MT could know one or more of them.

That’s the real reason why some fans are sh*tting on her. She works in Hollywood which is bad enough on its own to get people jealous and she has connections outside random crew while filming. Everybody who wants fandom clout has to hate that and how popular her blog is. We turn to My-MT because she’s levelheaded and hasn’t leveraged her personal circumstances for more fandom influence. She’s proven her worth. People build themselves up by tearing others down so it doesn’t surprise me that MT is a target. This fandom is so toxic.

I'm kind of hijacking your ask just to say that I appreciate having the space to go beyond the scope of what we see onscreen or online and to talk about things that get very complicated sometimes, not things that can be attributed to my state of mind i.e. positivity vs negativity. I can't share hard evidence of anything, which I think many people take issue with, but I share what I learn from the connections I've made hoping that it leads to more support for Melissa and for ourselves as fans so we can all have the show of our dreams. Not everything's straightforward and not everything's set in stone. Letting AMC know what we're thinking and feeling helps them see what's working, what's not working, what changes need to be made, and what strategies need to be taken for us to invest in their shows.

[archivist-crow]

On this day:

CONNECTED

On September 14, 1966, two British sisters visiting New York City for the first time queued up at the airport for over an hour to get a taxi. Amazingly, as they got in the cab, their driver, a complete stranger, asked them about their actor cousin, Guy Middleton, who had performed in New York thirty years earlier. The cabbie used to take him to and from the theater nightly. The girls had spoken to Middleton two days earlier as they were leaving London, and he had asked them to say hello to New York for him; he had many good friends there.

In September, 1891, Dr. Amie Guinard, a surgeon in Paris, France, awoke with a stabbing toothache and decided to get up to finish a paper he was writing on the surgical treatment of stomach cancer. In the morning he went to the dentist down the street, whom he had met once, six months earlier. When Guinard entered the clinic, the surprised dentist told Guinard that he had spent all the previous night dreaming of him. Guinard hoped they were pleasant dreams, but no; the dentist had dreamed that he had cancer of the stomach and that Guinard was going to operate.

In 1967, Constable Peter Moscardi of Essex, U.K., gave his phone number to a friend. But he had accidentally got a number wrong and was unable to get in touch with the friend to change it. Nights later, Moscardi was in the industrial park and noticed a factory door open and a light on inside. As he entered, the telephone rang, and Moscardi answered it. It was his friend calling the wrong number to speak with Moscardi.

In 1992, in Dover, England, a woman, looking at a staff list, mistakenly called her coworker by dialing his payroll identification number instead of his home phone number. He answered, shocked that she had found him; he had been shopping, and the number she had mistakenly dialed turned out to be the number of the payphone he happened to be standing by at that moment.

Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009

[anticomedygarden]

tragic

-

Heroes Lost to The End

This past Halloween saw the end of what could only be described as a reign of terror: the radical blood supremacist known as Voldemort was found dead in the home of James and Lily Potter. Unfortunately, this victory came at the cost of the heroes themselves as well as their one year old son, Harry James, a tragic loss indeed. 

The Potters are well known for having thrice defied Voldemort and his Death Eaters, but after a year of hiding, the wizarding world seems to have gone into a state of shock as we are all left with the question, what now? 

Sirius threw down the newspaper, unable to read any more of the Ministry’s bullshit. As if Voldemort didn’t end up with half the Ministry on his payroll. As if the Ministry made any move to stop Voldemort in the first place. 

“Anything good in there?” Remus asked over his tea. 

Sirius shook his head. “Lies and slander.”

“Only the best from our government.”

“Ex-government,” Sirius reminded his husband and was happy to see Remus’ eyes gleam. Thank god for that. 

Just then, James walked in rubbing his groggy eyes. “Morning, lads.” 

“Morning,” Sirius and Remus said in tandem. 

“What’s the Ministry got to say today?”

Sirius waved a hand. “You three are dead and miraculously killed Voldemort. They’re now left to pick up the pieces single-handedly.”

James nodded and busied himself with finding a cup and starting his tea. “So the usual, then.” 

Sirius nodded minutely, attention already slipping back to his tea and slowly awakening state. Each day the six of them had been at the Black Estate on the southern coast of France, Marlene and Dorcas mailed them a newspaper, and it was always the same. James, Lily, and Harry were dead but so was Voldemort. 

It was nice to know their plan had worked, but still. It had been a week. They should have moved on to actual rebuilding by now. 

“Where’s the-” Sirius gestured vaguely, “-rest of you?”

“Lily’s asleep, and Reg is with Harry who is also finally asleep,” James answered tiredly. He must’ve been up with Harry all night. “You think you guys are up for another beach day?” he said hopefully. 

“How are you still so obsessed with the beach?” Remus said with an exasperated sigh. “We’ve been every day this week.” 

“I swear to Merlin, there’s sand in my-”

“I have the child,” Regulus warned as he stepped into the kitchen, Harry clutched in his arms. James immediately brightened at the sight. 

“Hey, darling,” he said and passed a mug of tea to his boyfriend. “Lils still asleep?”

Regulus murmured an answer, and Sirius looked back at his husband. “I’m so glad we came here.” He reached over the table to grab Remus’ hand. 

The tawny haired man smiled. “Me, too.”

Because Sirius would take a million beach days if it meant his family was alive and happy. 

-

word count: 495

@wolfstarmicrofic

[mercanstalks]

The Future of HR and Payroll: How Outsourcing is Revolutionizing the Industry

The hr & payroll outsourcing have undergone significant changes in recent years, driven by advances in technology, changes in regulations, and shifts in the way businesses operate. One of the most significant trends in these industries is the growing use of PEO in France, which is revolutionizing the way that businesses manage their HR and payroll functions. In this article, we will explore the future of HR and payroll outsourcing, with a focus on how it is transforming the industry in France.

The Benefits of HR and Payroll Outsourcing

Outsourcing HR and payroll functions can offer numerous benefits to businesses of all sizes. Some of the key advantages of outsourcing include:

Reduced costs: Outsourcing can be more cost-effective than hiring in-house staff to manage HR and payroll functions.

Improved accuracy: Professional HR and payroll providers have the expertise to ensure that payroll calculations and tax filings are accurate and compliant with local regulations.

Increased efficiency: Outsourcing can free up time and resources for businesses to focus on core operations and strategic initiatives.

Access to expertise: HR and payroll outsourcing providers have the experience and knowledge to help businesses navigate complex regulations and stay up-to-date with industry trends.

1. Technology and Automation

Advances in technology have made it easier than ever for businesses to outsource their HR and payroll functions. Cloud-based software and automated systems have streamlined processes and reduced the need for manual data entry, making it faster and easier to manage payroll and HR tasks.

As technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more innovation in the HR and payroll outsourcing industry. For example, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning could help providers identify patterns and trends in HR and payroll data, providing insights that can help businesses make more informed decisions.

2. Globalization and Compliance

The rise of globalization has created new challenges for businesses when it comes to managing HR and payroll functions. As businesses expand into new markets, they must navigate local regulations and compliance requirements, which can be complex and time-consuming.

This is where PEOs and EORs come in. These organizations specialize in helping businesses navigate the legal and regulatory requirements of different countries, making it easier for businesses to expand into new markets while remaining compliant with local laws and regulations.

3. Customization and Personalization

Another trend in the HR and payroll outsourcing industry is the growing demand for customization and personalization. Businesses are looking for providers that can offer tailored solutions that meet their specific needs and preferences.

Providers that offer personalized service and support, such as dedicated account managers and customized reporting, are in high demand. This trend is likely to continue as businesses seek to differentiate themselves from their competitors and gain a competitive edge.

4. Data Security and Privacy

Data security and privacy are becoming increasingly important concerns for businesses in all industries. This is especially true for HR and payroll providers, who are responsible for managing sensitive employee data.

To address these concerns, HR and payroll providers are investing in robust data security measures, such as encryption, multi-factor authentication, and regular security audits. Providers that can demonstrate a strong commitment to data security and privacy are likely to be in high demand in the future.

Conclusion

Overall, the future of HR and payroll outsourcing looks bright, with numerous opportunities for growth and innovation. Businesses that are looking to outsource their HR and payroll functions should look for providers that offer a range of services, including payroll processing, tax filing, benefits administration, and compliance management. They should also look for providers that are up-to-date with the latest technologies and trends, and that can provide personalized service and support.

In France, businesses that are looking to expand internationally may benefit from working with PEOs and EORs that offer Payroll in France management services. These organizations can provide valuable support when it comes to setting up and managing payroll systems in France,

[romanteasighs]

HOLY SHIT I REALIZED I NEVER POSTED MY NEW OCS HERE!! Buckle up and get ready for a bunch of biblical bullshit, here's my Hellverse OCs!

The gist of the Hellverse is that Heaven and Hell are at war, and a human man by the name of John L'amour gets caught up in it when he causes an angel to sin and thus become a demon.

Warning for mentons of Age Gap but otherwise not much else! (A VERY LONG OC LOREDUMP)

John L'amour | Kohaku Nori | Mori Tetsuya

The main protags of Hellverse, and a rather interesting love triangle. John, a hopeless romantic who failed in all matters of love... until he happened to meet his Guardian Angel and fall for him. During a night of drunken mistakes, he presumes the Angel to be all in his mind... and convinces him to sin.

Such a thing strips Kohaku of his innocence and leaves him a demon, to which John regrets and vows to make amends for. Going to hell to rescue Kohaku, he's allowed to come and go as he pleases so long as he joins the war for Hell. He agrees, and Kohaku has long since forgiven him... as he couldn't imagine a world without John, and was happy to cast Heaven away if it meant being with him.

Tetsuya on the other hand met John in a different happenstance. It was when Tetsuya first moved to France, where the story takes place, and struggled with speaking French in a marketplace. John happened to run into him and helped him out, earning him the thanks of Tetsuya's parents and brother, who offered him dinner as thanks.

Accepting, he was also offered the job of tutor to Tetsuya... though Tetsuya may have other intentions in mind when taking his oral exams...

First up, we have Lucifer. The morningstar. The one cast down from heaven for daring to want to be as loved as mankind. Upon being cast down from Heaven by Michael, he found himself in what would become Hell... surrounded by six others. Demons. His brothers.

A proud, confident king who remains vengeful towards Heaven and one day will conquer it. By any means.

Beelzebub, Prince of Envy. The one in charge of bringing souls to hell, acting as the grim reaper and beacon of his deadly sin. As second oldest in Hell, he's envious of Lucifer and suffers from a mighty inferiority complex.

He can reap souls through his smoke, and even 'tag' houses of the living for later death.

Satan, Prince of Wrath. A stern, short tempered Prince who acts as Hell's resident war strategist and general. He commands his army with a (literal) iron fist, caring not for anything but the art of war. He is as single minded on the war for Heaven as Lucifer, but perhaps more so.

He is often considered beautiful, but compliments and vanity do nothing for him.

Abaddon, Prince of Sloth. The one that guards the Gates of Hell, thus sapping all his energy and leaving him exhausted and tired. Rarely moves unless absolutely needed. A pacifist who wants the war to be over and done with, though fights alongside his brothers as he is extremely loyal. Will see goals through.

Mammon, Prince of Greed. Runs the Greed Ring of Hell like Wall Street on steroids. Every demon under his payroll is efficient or is struck from existence. Perfection is demanded at all times. He indulges in the finer things in life and those fine things alone, luxury being his top priority. A serial workaholic. Speaks with a German accent.

Belphegor, Prince of Gluttony. A kind and enthusiastic cook who runs his ring of Hell like a restaurant, always hungry and always eager to share the delights of food with everyone. Feeds the other rings of Hell and is always out to try new foods. Sweet, not a fighter, though he is known to help butcher as well. Speaks with a French Accent. Very singleminded towards cooking.

Asmodeus, Prince of Lust. The youngest prince and the most bubbly. Full of passion and love, always seeing the best out of any situation. His ring is akin to a large burlesque parlor, providing entertainment and relaxation for the others. He has a fondness for Mammon, always wishing to help him relax and take a break... to no avail.

A victim of hopeless romance and puppy love more than not, but absolutely revels in intimacy. Sees sex as but one ultimate way to connect two or more souls together.

AND WE CAN'T FORGET MICHAEL, THE ONE TO CAST DOWN LUCIFER!

Though sworn to Heaven with undying loyalty, he has a... fondness... for Lucifer. Not that he'd admit it. Heaven's word comes first and foremost, even if Lucifer's sin tempts him. That's the point of sin, and the point of remaining virtuous...

[theworldisyonces]

French hive is hilarious. Here’s some advertisement that they created for “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé”, in France. Put them on the payroll Parkwood. 💅🏽😂🤣😩

🎥: evvanange / tiktok

[houseofbrat]

“King Charles is not a housing association for distant relatives”

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/king-charles-plan-slimmed-down-monarchy-frogmore-cottage-harry-meghan-b1069700.html

And so it begins…the changes to course correct a bloated operation. Ready for the KC3 haters who were calling him weak the other day to start calling him cruel 🍿

The news came as the King’s visit to France was delayed after extensive rioting on Thursday night. Senior figures have told the Standard that after the period of transition following the coronation, the King, assisted by Queen Camilla, will move to tackle inefficiencies in what is being viewed as a largely overstaffed and outdated system.

Vice-Admiral Sir Tony Johnstone-Burt, Master of the Household, and the Keeper of the Privy Purse Sir Michael Stevens, responsible for finance, will execute the shake-up of what is described as a “top-heavy royal household”. Camilla has been overseeing the fine detail of the King’s plan to ensure that after the coronation the royal household will be run the “Clarence House way”.

One senior figure said: “It is not about cuts, it is about getting the best value for money from those on the payroll. Sometimes less is more.”

Another source added: “The King is not some sort of housing association for distant relatives.” Harry and Meghan were given use of Frogmore Cottage, a five-bedroom mansion on the Windsor estate in 2018, by the late Queen.

[...]

However, the couple’s loss of the cottage, their only British home, is said to be just the “tip of the iceberg”.

It is understood Charles is keen to reduce the number of royals with a financial dependence on the crown, especially if they do not have an active role to play. He wants funds from the Duchy of Lancaster, the portfolio of land, property and assets held in trust for the King, and the sovereign grant that covers the cost of royal travel on official engagements, to be spent more effectively. He also wants to pay his staff competitive salaries and pensions so that he gets the best people for the jobs.

“There will be staff cutbacks. That has already started. The buzz phrase is ‘value for money,’” said the source.

Several members of the extended royal family have enjoyed subsidised palace accommodation, with some having apartments that are being used by their children as “London pads”.

The source said: “Over time, that is going to change. Properties will be let at commercial rates going forward and to people outside the family. Where it is in a palace environment they will of course be security vetted.”

Privately, the King’s senior staff have made it clear to members of the extended family that if they cannot afford where they are living, they should “cut their cloth”. “A lot of practices that have evolved during the last reign will be changing. The King is not heartless or reckless, but if the family members are not part of the core family and not working for the crown, it is fair for them to house themselves and fund themselves,” a senior figure said.

[...]

One insider said: “The staffing has been on the top-heavy side. That has built up over time, with advisers to advisers and so on. That’s all going to stop. The boss wants effective people in effective positions doing effective jobs being paid appropriately.” The senior source added: “Much of what was in place doesn’t make economic sense and will be changed during the new reign.”

Yup. This is about what I expected.

People forget that Charles turned the Duchy of Cornwall into the behemoth it is now. It was struggling and in debt when he took it over from his mother.

[scotianostra]

On September 14th 1507 Edinburgh merchants were granted exclusive privilege of running a printing press.

Another one with dates that differ by a day or so, but all agree it was mid September 1507 thatJames IV granted a Royal Patent authorising Scotland’s first printing press.

You will no doubt be surprised that the printing press with moveable types wasn’t invented by a Scotsman. However, Scots have certainly made good use of the technology since it was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, around 1439. It was a good fifty years after Gutenberg’s monopoly was revoked before a press found its way to Scotland. By the arbitrary Incunabulum date of 1500, when around a thousand printing presses were in operation throughout Western Europe and had produced anything between eight and twenty million books, Scotland still lacked a press of its own. Nevertheless, the Scots hadn’t been idle bystanders as many were educated in France and elsewhere and brought back printed books from the Continent. That’s not to say that Scotds had not made use of this new invention, Some sought out the printing press on the continent and had books published there. It should come as no surprise either that in France some Scots were also employed in the new profession of printing and it was one such Scot who had served his apprenticeship as a printer in France, Androw Myllar that brought the art back to his native country.

Myllar was an Edinburgh bookseller who imported books from England and France, where he learned the printer’s craft in Rouen. When he arrived back in Scotland in 1507, Myllar gained the financial backing of Walter Chepman, a wealthy Edinburgh merchant trader and a man who appears to have had the ear of the King, James IV. Chepman also seems to have gained a lot of the credit for Scotland’s first printed books, but then, he was the money man.

When Myllar went into partnership with Chepman, the two men established Scotland’s first printing press, the building was in Edinburgh’s Cowgate, the building is long gone but the pic shows a plaque marking where it stood. Scotland’s first printed books are known as ‘The Chepman & Myllar Prints’, the earliest of which is dated the 4th of April, 1508, which was an edition of John Lydgate’s ‘The Complaint of the Black Knight’.

Sometimes when searching through sources for my posts I find out other little snippets that connect to other posts, like in the article “Printing Comes to Scotland” which you can read on the link below, I learned that there was an account of The Battle of Flodden made on an early printing press, it is titled “The trewe encountre or Batyle don betwene Englande and Scotland” and while it may have been printed in London, it does give an insight into early bias in print. In the pamphlet it claimed that around 10,000 Scots were put to the sword at Flodden, this figure is used a lot but most historians discount the amount now, but the bias is not in that number, the pamphlet claims that the Earl of Surrey lost only a few hundred at the battle. Now I hark back to previous posts about how good the English are at keeping records, most recently in my post regarding Sir William Wallace’s murder, well records of the payroll show that Surrey, the English commander, lost two-fifths of his own retinue, even with these figures available, Wikipedia, which I look at every day, still states that English losses were a mere 1,500 of their 26,000 army, you do the maths, yes it was a massive defeat for the Scots, but it was a bloody hard fought battle with large casualties on both sides.

Pics are the plaque on the Cowgate, the second an early example of Myllar’s work, the windmill is apparently a pun on his surname.