#angst about the Jew hate

[bsof-maarav]

...בסוף מערב

Sometimes it feels like the west is made entirely of edge.

A non-Jewish woman told me that she was getting into lighting candles for Shabbat lately. I was afraid to say anything except, "Oh." Then she enthusiastically volunteered that it's because she's been getting very involved in "doing stuff against Israel," and that made her want to do "Jewish things."

The ghoulishness of it made me feel incoherent. This exchange happened awhile ago and it still feels like an existential asthma attack whenever it comes to mind, which is more often than I would like.

There is the unvarnished hate that nakedly says it wants you dead so that you're out of the way--that kind of hate says you have no value. And then there is this hate which says it values "you"--which means it wants to loot everything from you, everything, no matter how intimate, no matter how much it is something you can't take by force without killing it--it wants every part of you, wants to eat and wear it all. To eat you. To wear you. To make something "better" out of you, something more digestible, more to their liking.

I once read a memoir by a Jewish woman who accompanied her mother back to the German town where the mother had grown up. It was her mother's first time being back in that place since the Shoah. She was one of the only surviving members of her family, because they were able to send her away. Her daughter wrote about how this man from the town--a man who had appointed himself their "champion" and tour guide--showed them his "museum" that turned out to be full of objects looted from Jewish homes. Her mother noticed a kitchen implement, maybe a butter churn, some ordinary object that had belonged to her family, that she had once used. This man took it for his "museum" and showed it to them proudly.

[magnetothemagnificent]

My full thoughts on 'You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah':

So first off, going into it, I didn't think I would like it. I don't really watch the tween-angst genre of movies, and the promotional material for the movie made it look like it was just gonna be a movie about Jews having an extravagant and expensive party, which is obviously problematic.

But the movie.....it blew me away. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Things I loved:

-The typical Jewish stereotypes you see in every movie about Jews weren't present. I really expected Adam Sandler's character to be another nebbish pushover Jewish dad stereotype, but he wasn't. He was goofy and soft but also he was strong and passionate about Judaism and his family. When he got really, truly angry at Stacy, I almost cheered. Of course all the characters in the movie are on the upper middle class end, but upon reflection, that's just the genre of movies. There's a genre of tween and teen movies about extravagant birthday parties where the characters live in a world free from poverty, and well, it's nice to have a movie in that genre for ourselves. It's escapism.

-The characters all loved Judaism and being Jewish. Jewish religious practice and belief wasn't treated as a joke or an afterthought. The kids would actually look forward to Hebrew school, and Hebrew school wasn't depicted as boring and stuffy. The religious aspect of a Bat Mitzvah was front and center- it drove the whole story, from Stacy practicing her Maftir (not "Haftarah" as the movie got wrong) as she comes up with her worst mistake, to Stacy working on her Mitzvah project.

-Because the majority of the story occured at the characters' homes and in Hebrew School and Temple, antisemitism wasn't a player in the story, and I liked that. We have so many movies about Jewish pain and suffering, and it's nice to have a light-hearted movie. It doesn't pretend antisemitism doesn't exist, but it's just not relevant to the story.

-Even though it was a movie about a tween girl and all her struggles and insecurities, she was never once insecure about her Jewish features. They could have very easily slipped into the old "Jewish girl hates her nose" but it didn't. And I hope that if Sunny Sandler gets serious about acting as she grows up, she won't feel pressured to get a nose job like so many other Jewish young women do.

-It doesn't pander to goyim and take time to explain every single Jewish word and reference like Hallmark Hanukkah specials do. It's a movie made by Jews for Jews, and it doesn't edit itself to be more palatable to goyim. And I loved that.

Some critiques:

-My biggest criticism is the portrayal of Jewish tween boys. I get that the movie is from Stacy's POV, so as a tween girl she might see all boys her age as gross and as assholes, but I find it problematic that all the Jewish boys were depicted as nasty, while the only boy depicted as nice and polite was not Jewish. I think it plays into stereotypes of Jewish boys and sends a harmful message.

-I loved Rabbi Rebecca, but I think that at times her character went from endearingly awkward to just gross and inappropriate, such as when she talked about her yeast infection in front of her students. I think just a bit of editorial tweaking would have been beneficial for her character.

Overall rating: 9/10, would definitely recommend it to my Jewish friends. Goyim, you might enjoy it, but it really isn't made for you so you might be lost at times. Just accept you're not the target audience.

[themattress]

“Remember, kids, if you’ve got a racist grandparent who espouses negative views toward an entire group of people, then you’d better listen to them because they’re right! Some entire groups of people are just collectively evil and can never be trusted!” - Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken

If there’s no discourse about this now, then I suspect there will be soon once more people see or hear about this movie because good lord. For those who don’t get it, the context is that in the film the main character Ruby discovers that she’s actually kraken royalty and this of course creates generational angst between her and her mother and grandmother because everything’s gotta have generational angst in it these days. She is told by her grandmother that mermaids, the long-time enemies of the krakens, are all evil and untrustworthy sirens who manipulate people and seek domination over humans. Ruby also befriends a mermaid named Chelsea, who specifically calls attention to this feud between the two species and specifically says that she wants to put a stop to it with Ruby’s help. And so Ruby naturally says “screw your bigotry, Grandma; I’m standing by my friend even if she’s a mermaid”.

......Which leads to the inevitable third act “reveal” that Chelsea was actually manipulating Ruby the whole time in order to acquire a source of power, doesn’t actually desire peace between the species, and just wants to assert domination over humans as is her kind’s wont. 

Look, if the bullshit about krakens and mermaids was not present in the movie, then despite what a hackneyed obvious “twist villain” scenario this is I still would have accepted it because it would just be an isolated incident between two individuals. Without the species feud, you could just freely respect Ruby for having such an open heart and positive nature, and freely hate Chelsea for remorselessly taking advantage of that for her own self-serving agenda.

But because this occurs against this specific backdrop, the movie is flat-out saying that racism is justified and that the teen protagonist should’ve listened to her racist grandmother! All mermaids ARE evil, untrustworthy sirens who manipulate people and seek domination over humans, and Ruby was a total dumbass to dare to believe otherwise about Chelsea!

Imagine if in The Little Mermaid, Ariel is exposed as a mermaid, Prince Eric immediately reacts with disgust before he and his followers harpoon her to death before cooking and eating her bottom half. Guess King Triton was right, all humans are heartless barbarians!  

Or imagine if in Luca, the townspeople accept all of the sea monsters at the end, only for the sea monsters to murder them all in their sleep and lay waste to the town. Guess all those fearful superstitions about sea monsters were accurate and should have been listened to!

Or imagine if in Zootopia....oh heck, do I even need to give this example?

If you think I’m overreacting here, then just swap everything said about mermaids in the movie and replace “mermaid” with “Jew”. Chelsea’s Jewish now. Ruby has the audacity to believe that her Jewish friend isn’t some heinous caricature made of her people, only to learn that actually that caricature is spot-on, so from now on she will never trust a Jew again and will accept her position defending humanity against the evil Jews. Sounds fucking horrible when I put it that way, doesn’t it? I recently said that it’s a good thing that kids have recently been getting more stories calling out how wrong prejudice is, so to see a movie aimed at kids that is actively justifying and encouraging prejudice is mind-blowing in the worst way possible. Who the Hell signed off on this? Did nobody stop to consider the unfortunate implications? Did they think making Chelsea a caricature of a pretty, popular, two-faced Mean Girl justified applying that characterization to her entire species? Or was this Jeffrey Katzenburg being a petty bitch (again) over the fact that The Little Mermaid was being remade without him and he just wanted to stick it to Disney? Whatever the case, I’d recommend giving this movie a pass.

[fitzrove]

Rambling about Hass in Elisabeth for a REALLY long time. TL;DR - yeah, it is necessary as a song...

Because of the costumes and staging people often just see it as "the antisemitism song", which it is, strongly, but I think sometimes the wider context presented therein is ignored. Really, the song shows how antisemitism and hatred are fuelling and entangled with other movements!!

The nationalists in that song come from various groups and social classes, and identify as their enemies:

Socialists

Pacifists

Jewish writers

Jewish women

"Those who are not like us"

Crown prince Rudolf (because of his - historically strong - friendships and other positive associations with Jews)

The Habsburgs as a whole

Elisabeth and her Heinrich Heine (= a Jewish poet) monument project (which also attracted such strong criticism from German nationalists [Austrian Germans who were nationalists, not "Germans" in the modern sense] historically)

Hungary

The "barons" - so the nobility

The "slavic state"

The ongoing "betrayal of the people"

And to contrast, they identify as good:

Strength ("the strong wins, the weak fails", and also "strong leaders") and "purity"

"Unity"

Glory/splendour ("pracht")

Christian values

"Unified Germany", an alliance with Prussia and even an Anschluss (the joining of Austria and other "ethnically German" [so-called] lands to the German Reich. Hmm does anyone remember who also strove for and eventually implemented this... /s)

The conservative Wilhelm II as emperor (again, they want to join Austria into the German Reich)

So like. There is a glorification of all things "German" and of conservative values (religion) and reactionary power politics ("weakness" was and is by similar groups now considered to be a major flaw of liberalism and a liberal world order - in the song, pacifism and socialism are also connected to it), as exemplified by Wilhelm II's Germany specifically. To contrast, racial enemies ("non-Germans") threatening "racial purity" must be eliminated, with violence if necessary. And the Habsburg monarchy, being a multinational empire, is described as immoral and weak because of it being multinational (and the position of Slavs and Hungarians in politics and imperial administration).

The themes of "betraying the people" (Volksverrat) are especially interesting because the enemies of the nationalists as listed in the song, Jewish women, pacifists and socialists, were also the people blamed for German defeat in WW1 (the "stab in the back" at the home front myth). It's overall 19th and 20th century anti-establishment fascist imagery.

Ajdkkf I don't think I'm clearly making my argument but the song's key functions are:

To dispel the myth of the late 19th century being "the good old days", the glory days of Austria before the world wars somehow magically came to happen and ruined it. In fact, the songs shows that the developments leading to the world wars stem from politics and mass movements of hatred that developed alongside and gave power to & drew power from nationalism in the 19th century

To show the audience exactly what Rudolf is talking about in "Die Schatten werden Länger (reprise)". What is the "evil that is developing"? It's not Rudolf's personal petty wish for more power, or his angst about not being emperor yet, or some generic amorphous disdain for how FJ is reigning; it's not the lack of Hungarian independence either, for god's sake. I will die on this hill, if you cut Hass or replace it with conspiracy or whatever you can cut Rudolf as well, Elisabeth as a show is (in my opinion) a good portrayal of him precisely because it depicts him as a political thinker (in contrast to many depictions and post-Mayerling accounts which diminish that and just talk about Mayerling and his "immorality" - a talking point devised by the nationalists and antisemitists who hated him lol, liberal politics were connected to lack of morality) and someone who, unlike most of his contemporaries, saw that antisemitism, emphasis on "power" and realist power politics, exclusionary/hateful rhetoric and excess nationalism would lead to ruin. AND Hass also shows that he was hated by the German nationalists for this! As was his mother, for her sympathy to Heine...

To connect genuine popular dissatisfaction (from Milch - Hass is a reprise of Milch in terms of rhythm and the call-and-response structure where Lucheni talks to the crowd) with inequality, the lack of democracy and the excesses of royalty... to the rise and presentation of fascism as a "solution"

To show that 19th century nationalism was, in many ways, exclusionary, antisemitic, racist and "war-mongering", and that this rhetoric is old - not somehow magically appearing for WW2 and then disappearing again - and will time and again rise... and that it's everyone's responsibility to recognise it for what it is when it happens, if we are to have a reasonable, decent world to live in.

The framing of Hass sometimes confuses people I will never recover from that one post cancelling Elisabeth das musical for being antisemitic because Hass exists ajiddfkdllfgl what's next, it's pro-suicide and homophobic because a character technically dies from being gay? but to me it's rather clear that it's unsympathetic lol, with the whole doomsday atmosphere (no music, just footsteps/marching and drums and screaming, it's meant to be threatening), the way the ensemble harshly criticises the most sympathetically portrayed characters we have seen so far (Elisabeth and Rudolf) for things that seem petty and harmless (having Jewish friends), and the extremely direct comparison drawn to N*zism (to indicate what such a movement would develop to) in many stagings. I don't know how to say this but somehow I've always assumed that "H*tler and n*zism = evil" is EXTREMELY common knowledge and it mystifies me when people like. Think it should have been stated more clearly in the show. Like, the show is working off the assumption that you know what it is and that it's bad because of the millions and millions of people they killed............. this is EXTREMELY common knowledge in Europe, not least in Germany and Austria lol.

So um yeah akwkldlf, sorry for the ramble, I just feel like the song can be poorly understood and criticised on shaky ground sometimes. I mean, I am not Jewish and not equipped to talk about whether it's triggering or traumatising to watch especially with lived or family experience of antisemitic violence... But I think for non-Jewish people there is a huge responsibility to be aware and vigilant of antisemitism, historically and in the present, and sometimes it needs to be hammered home for people to understand...

By that last point I also somewhat mean... I think you don't "get" to be triggered by it if you're not Jewish but perhaps otherwise affected by politics of hatred. Of course I'm not emotions police lol, but many Jewish people have intergenerational trauma AND have to live with extremely similar antisemitic rhetoric and culture to this day, so there I understand criticisms - and there is also a discussion to be had about how and to what extent it is ok to use and display Jewish suffering as a device to educate non-Jewish people.

But anyway, to my original point. This is something I've seen people say and I just... if you're queer and it makes you uncomfortable to see Hass because modern n*zis hate you and it's traumatic, I mean, it's valid to feel uncomfortable and you can choose not to watch it personally to avoid being triggered, but you don't get to call for it to be erased from the show for "problematic content" or for "escapism" or to make you feel better. It is there because the destruction of the 19th century world, and Rudolf's and Elisabeth's suffering, is intrinsically tied to the rise of such hateful politics and without that being shown there is no show. You don't get to make it something it's not, this show is not ONLY an epic gothic romance with imaginary boyfriend, it's a commentary on past, present and future politics in that it shows the dangers of conservatism, antisemitism, racism and illiberalism. Calling for or supporting censorship, or state emphasis on militarism/"destroying the enemy", or advocating hatred, violence or oppression against any group based on ethnicity, religion, race, political views, etc. are all political stances held by and propagated by various people today in various political contexts. And you are not immune to antisemitism or reactionary nationalism if you're queer or whatever, so you have the constant responsibility to think critically about your worldview and your politics!!

[noirgasmweetheart]

Hotel Berlin (1945)

This might be the most underrated War Era movie I've seen yet.

Both the theatrical trailer and the DVD cover advertise it as a corny exploitation movie. It's nothing of the sort. It's as sincerely written and acted as "Casablanca," with far more direct references to the Jewish people, and specific concentration camps.

I legitimately ordered the DVD just to see Peter Lorre as a disheveled angst-ridden scruff-muffin; I had no idea the character was going to be so compelling, or the rest of the movie equally so. Several other characters also exploded beyond the old clichés I was expecting. The movie appears to be building towards a predictable, cheesy love story, but...doesn't. Another character who at first appears one of the most despicable opportunists in the movie...isn't. And the movie's nuanced look at an indoctrinated population being carpet-bombed while their tyrannical, antisemetic leaders flee to save their own skins is uh...timely, to say the least.

I'm sure it helped that I watched this movie during a rainstorm at night, which is the way to watch it. The timeliness of a story about

Spoilers Below!

Faye Emerson deserved that top billing.

According to IMDB, Andrea King was originally to be billed as the film's female lead, with Faye Emerson billed as a supporting character. When Emerson married the son of President Roosevelt, she was given top billing over King, to capitalize on her new fame. I find that ironic, given that by the end of the movie, Faye's character Tilly has, against all odds, proven to be the film's true heroine.

Introduced as a materialistic Nazi informer, dating SS officers and betraying a hiding resistance fighter just to get herself some new shoes, Tilly's reality turns upside-down when she learns that the lover she thought she'd lost is still alive. After an emotional breakdown over what her despair let her become, she defends her boyfriend's mother against a Nazi officer, and delivers the most powerful speech in the movie. It is her character who finally mentions the Jews out loud, after an entire movie and an entire genre dancing around the subject.

I've recorded the scene from the DVD and uploaded it to YouTube:

"Go on shoot me, arrest me, have me killed, I don't care! Why should I. I loved Max Baruch and you sent him to a concentration camp! You hung a sign around my neck saying I loved a Jew! And you paraded me down the street. They'll hang something around your neck someday, and it won't be a sign!"

Corny Romance is Just a Red Herring

My stance that Emersen deserved that top billing in no way negates Andrea King's marvelous performance as the film's faux female lead. Though we are warned right from the start that her character, movie star Lisa Dorn, is a Nazi and a master manipulator, the film plays her as the straightforward love interest for much of the film: helping the hero partially out of the hope that he'll save her in return, seemingly building a genuine admiration for his heroism...then completely subverts expectations by revealing her to be exactly what she she was introduced as: a Nazi collaborator out to save her own skin.

I was genuinely afraid at the end that the hero would find himself unable to shoot her, and we'd see her tearfully declare her love for him, and end with him forgiving her. Not so. She argues pathetically, trying to excuse her betrayal and convince Richter that she loves him, and he doesn't fall for it. Richter sees Sam Spade's "I'll be waiting for you," and raises him two gunshots.

Peter Lorre like we've never seen him before

Okay, maybe we have seen Peter angsting around and wobbling drunkenly a few times before. But this was the first time I saw him directly address the issues that so closely affected him (and his costars of course) in real life.

Peter Lorre died before talk about the Holocaust really became mainstream. But the emotion behind the lines he delivers as the self-hating German professor speaks volumes. The gleeful smile he wears in his first scene, while saying that the bombing is only what the Germans deserve; his bitter sarcasm about the achievements of German science in the concentration camps, and wondering where all the "good Germans" are now; his breakdown when Richter tells him of a mutual friend's murder at Dachau. Much like his frantic escape attempt in "Casablanca," Peter likely didn't have to fish too hard to dig up the needed emotions for these scenes.

This is also the closest I've ever come to seeing Peter cry.

Other PL fans have lamented that his role was too small. I agree that I'd have loved to see a hell of a lot more of Koenig, but it's not like many of the other characters had much more screen time, which all the different storylines running at once. Aside from maybe Helmut Dantine and Andrea King, most of the important characters probably only have a handful of scenes tops.

Edit: That said, knowing he had scenes indicating how he joined the resistance that were cut is very frustrating.

But the fact that Peter's character not only lives to the end as one of the heroes, but gets to read President Roosevelt's uplifting speech to the German people, definitely counts for something.

That speech packed a powerful punch for me, at a time when I sometimes need reminding that indoctrinated civilians in war zones are still individuals, and can't be lumped with their dogmatic leaders. I don't doubt for a minute that President Biden took inspiration from Roosevelt for how to address the Palestinian people in regards to stopping Hamas.

The Fugitive

I suppose I should also mention the film's lead: Helmut Dantine as Martin Richter, the German anti-Nazi resistance fighter who escaped Dachau Concentration Camp. Helmut Dantine played Jan, the Bulgarian husband in "Casablanca." The controlled desperation with which he gambled at Rick's roulette wheel as Jan serves well for his fugitive resistance fighter in this movie. The fact that Dantine was actually imprisoned at Rosserlaende Concentration Camp for his anti-Nazi political activism at age 19 no doubt also helped him in the role.

My only complaint is the makeup and costuming department failing to help him look the part. While Paul Henreid got a scar and a white streak of hair for Victor Laszlo, Dantine is done up to look like a particularly slick, clean movie star, standing out in a cast of disheveled and weary looking people. One could interpret this as a symbolic way of singling him out as the hero, but I found it distracting. I am not throwing shade on Dantine's acting abilities or natural looks, just how the people in charge had him presented.

I'm unsure how to close this review.

It's getting late and I have some more clips to upload, and cake to eat. "Hotel Berlin" is up there with "Casablanca" on my personal list of unironically great old movies. Professor Koenig is on my list favorite Peter Lorre characters, and I have a handful of new favorite actors.

I'll just finish by saying that this guy in the barrette looks noticeably like Robert Picardo, if maybe a "stretched out" version thereof. Voyager's EMH hanging out with a holo-Peter Lorre in one of Tom Paris's noir programs is something I never knew I needed.

[majesticwren]

fallingforyou (MJF x OFC)

following this post this concept is now a fic, sorry not sorry. I'm struggling trust me. (help me)

Trigger Warning/s: slow burn, childhood friends to lovers, depiction of toxic relationships, intimacy and commitment problems, childhood traumas, jealousy, possessiveness, hints of physical and verbal abuse, bullying, hints of anti-semitism, everyone is a walking red flag, angst, fluff, smut.

Masterlist Playlist

Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

Chapter 1.

Seventeen Years Ago

At only eleven, Stella wasn’t a stranger to walking herself home from school and she already knew what it meant to pick the safest route and be weary of dangerous-looking alleys.

It happened often that she would decide to walk home alone after school. She liked the time she could spend alone, lost in her own thoughts, experiencing the world being no one.

It wasn’t because she despised the bus – well, she did a bit, just like any unpopular, weird kid who would be picked on. Nor it was because of her parents’ neglect. Actually, she had her own personal car and a designated driver taking her to and from school every day. But the fact was simple, she didn’t like that privilege, nor anything about the life she had and the way she was brought up.

Plus, running away gave her an adrenaline rush like no other and she was already addicted to it even when she was so young, and because she was so young, she didn’t care about the consequences.

It was then, in a late September afternoon, as she walked across the main street, that she felt something was out of place.

Just around the corner, into an alley that led to the back of one of the known quirky shops on one side and a bakery on the other, in the heart of town, she saw an abandoned, ripped-open blue backpack. A couple of books and a few sheets of paper were scattered all over the black, dirty pavement.

She could have kept walking. She should have, so it had been taught to her, to be detached and doubtful of anything she didn’t know or understand. She could so clearly hear her mother’s words echo in her mind.

But her curiosity won over her better judgement.

She looked around, to make sure nothing suspicious was happening anywhere else and then, once her surroundings were clear, she moved on tiptoes, as quiet as a cat, getting through the alley.

Inspecting the crime scene, she noticed a couple of broken pencils and ripped pieces of paper bearing the notes of what looked so clearly the messy handwriting of a young boy. And then she heard the noises. Suffocated sobs of one were overpowered by the aggressive groans and laughter of a group, mixed with other noises that sounded like feet dragging on the tarmac and irregular thuds.

Turning slowly to face the end of the alley, her curiosity won over her once more. Her heart was pounding in her chest and the familiar fizz of adrenaline burning through her veins made it impossible for her to backtrack.

Stella lowered herself and, siding a bin, she peaked into the small, deserted area in the back of the shop. There was a group of boys, they seemed older than her and they were kicking something. At first, she thought it was a garbage bag, only after she realised it was another boy.

“Look how the Jew cries,” laughed one of the boys, kicking the one curled up on the ground even harder, “he sure squeals like a pig.” His friends laughed cruelly following his example, calling the boy a pig. No one seemed willing to stop any time soon.

Stella was witnessing something horrendous and scary. Something dark and hateful that she would have never thought of knowing, and yet, even despite being shaking in her boots, she didn’t let her fear make her become indifferent.

She was only eleven and yet she knew already to be a fighter.

She stood up straight, her hand closing around a wooden plank left in the corner by a broken crate. Now branding a weapon, she charged the boys. She felt unafraid and free.

Stella hit the biggest one in the back once, “Stupid nazis,” she hissed in pure spite, not at all comprehending the full meaning of her own words. She hit the boy twice, and then she quickly turned towards the one who tried to stop her and hit him in the stomach.

As the group broke off their assault on the young boy, she stepped over him in a protective pose, ready to attack the moment one of the others got too close to her again.

“The Jew has a girlfriend!” They tried to scorn them, laughing like idiots would to a joke that didn’t make sense nor was funny.

“I will make you bleed,” she hissed, pointing her weapon towards them. Not that she knew what it meant but she had seen it in the movies.

That made them backtrack.

The biggest, clearly the leader of the group, pointed a finger at her. “You’ll regret crossing me. You better hope we won’t find you alone. And you, Jew,” he spat on the ground, “we won’t forget this,” he mocked the oink noise of a pig, “We’ll get you.”

She didn’t lower her weapon or her proud gaze until the group of bullies ran off.

Once alone, she finally moved, looking down. The boy on the ground stayed curled up in a ball, shaking but quiet. Her heart ached. “Hey,” even despite the soft tone of her voice, he still flinched. Stella didn’t let that persuade her to try her best to help the boy, “They’ve left, you are safe now.”

“S-safe?” He finally mumbled, “You must be joking.” He laughed nervously, “They’ll come back.” He got up from the ground doing his best to brush the dirt off his clothes. His hands were shaky. “Tomorrow they’ll catch me and they’ll hurt me more. They’ll hang me to a pole.”

“Better not be alone then.” She still smiled at him, offering him a friendly hand.

She meant it. A promise that would be true from that day onwards, even when both the kids couldn’t know the consequences of their choices made that day.

“I’m Stella.”

“Maxwell.”

Present Day

Stella sat on a bench in Central Park, just by the Bow Bridge. Her gaze crossed the dark lake and over, to the colourful spectacle of the yellow and orange leaves burning bright for her on the other side of the bridge in that grey day.

There was truly nothing like New York in the Fall and she loved to soak it up entirely. The weather getting crisp and the scenery changing. Thrifting clothes, buying used books, and abusing an insane amount of pumpkin spice lattes, candles, sweet cakes, and anything that went with that flavour made her happy. Watching warm and fuzzy old rom-coms, cosying up on the sofa. It was like the line of one of her favourites “Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies”. And Halloween. Was there truly anything else to say? Fall was her favourite season and there was nowhere in the entire world where it could be any prettier.

Her attention had drifted away for a while, as she enjoyed her time alone.

Stella scrunched the paper napkin she held in her hands and threw it in the salad box she just finished and then, she took one last coffee sip before starting to gather her things. However a moment before getting up from the bench, she was distracted by her phone ringing.

“Hello?” She answered distractedly.

“You should really post that selfie you just sent me on Instagram.”

A soft, warm smile spread on her lips as soon as she recognised that familiar voice. “Shall I now, Friedman?” Stella leaned back against the bench, immediately dropping all her plans only to chat with him. “And you called me just to say that?”

“Well, I texted, but you weren’t replying.”

“You are making it sound like a crime, Maxwell.” She chuckled, shaking her head.

“It is a crime! Post it. You look like that nineties hottie that did shit loads of romantic comedies. It’s a crime not sharing it.”

“You gotta be more specific here. C’mon, I want to get the entire compliment,”

“Ok, hold on,” he was quiet for a moment, before gasping victorious. “Meg Ryan! There she is. You look like her.”

Stella gasped, “I was just thinking about her a moment ago!”

“See?”

“I don’t look like Meg Ryan! You are ridiculous!” She giggled shaking her head.

“I say you do. I know a thing or two about hot babes.”

Stella rolled her eyes, gently shaking her head. “Thank you, you know what? I’ll take it, I need it today.”

“Oh yeah? Bad day?”

“Not yet. I’m going to get on my way to drive down to Long Island in a minute.”

“Meeting your sister, right?”

“Yeah-” Stella released a soft, tired sigh. “Don’t get me wrong I want to see Jenna, it’s just-”

“Yeah,” somehow the gentleness of his tone made it sound like he was so much closer to her, instead of on the other line of a phone call. Oh, how she wished it. “Family time. I understand.”

“What about you?” She wondered trying to distract herself. She surely didn’t want to think about her family. “How’s Philly? What are you doing?”

“Just arrived. I’m going to get myself all pretty for my interview.”

Stella smiled, “That won’t take long then.”

“Oh, stop it. You know how I get with compliments,” he chuckled. “By the way, I like the new haircut, it suits you.”

Stella smiled, trying to hide her cheeks blushing as if Max stood right in front of her. “Yeah, you think?”

“Do I ever lie?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, fair enough,” he paused, “But I’m not lying to you.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, to the more pressing matter, how is it that you’re all alone? Weren’t you supposed to meet that loser?”

“Max please, play nice.” And yet, even despite her best efforts, the spite in his voice still made her heart flatter. She didn’t want to, but a selfish smile popped on her lips.

Max never liked any of her partners, and she dreaded the moment that it would change.

She was, in fact, supposed to meet for a quick lunch date with the new guy she had been seeing for the past few weeks, but it turned out he was late. Shame that she got to enjoy having some time to herself. Which, Stella thought, suited her better than the alternative.

She liked being alone. When she was alone, she felt free.

Maybe she should have started to consider the idea of being on her own for a while since her dating life was just miserable. She wondered why she did that to herself. It was always her fault, it’s not like she could be upset at her luck or the heavens, she was quite literally the problem. She would meet someone new, date for a few weeks, and quickly realise she wasn’t interested enough – or she would choose a guy who was as far as possible from her type on purpose, and it would always consequentially end up badly.

“Greg’s late,” she explained, “but I don’t mind.”

“Well, I do. I don’t like to know you’re alone.”

“Max, I’m ok, I promise.”

“That lack of disappointment and annoyance surprises me. You should be kicking off and complaining when it’s me that makes you wait-”

“You never do.”

“But, if I did, I wouldn’t hear the end of it,” he paused shortly, and she could picture him so well, in front of her, trying to read through her words, “You didn’t want to see him, did you?”

She huffed, there was nothing she could hide from him, ever. Unless it was something Max didn’t want to see. “Not entirely.” She cleared her voice, “we argued.”

“Again?”

“Yeah.” It wasn’t news even if they started dating only a few weeks ago. It already happened enough times she knew there was nothing much to salvage in that situationship. And yet, it wasn’t time to break up with him.

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.” There weren’t words that could explain in detail how Greg just wasn’t the man for her. And the fact that she knew it was the problem. Yet she chose to stick with him because she liked to argue. It made her feel something. But not about Greg.

A tranquil silence fell between her and Max as they both just took a moment to enjoy each other company. It was easy to imagine he was sitting just next to her with an arm stretched over her shoulders enjoying the same view she was seeing.

“Stella!”

She gasped and her fantasy shattered as soon as she recognised being called from a short distance. Turning slowly, she saw Greg approaching her and a sad sigh left her chest. She didn’t want to spend time with him. Not really. She wanted to spend some time with the man on the other side of the phone. Though as soon as she realised the kind of thought she just had, Stella stuffed it away, deep inside her chest. “Hold on, Max.” She pushed out a smile. “Hi!”

“I am so sorry! I tried to get here as soon as I could.”

“It’s ok, don’t worry so much.”

“I do! You ate alone. Sorry.”

“Yeah, and,” she got up on her feet, “I will need to make a move in a minute.” Stella held her phone to her ear hooking it up with her shoulder and, although she freed her hands only to grab the trash she left behind on the bench, Greg took it as a hint to get close to her and steal an awkward kiss from her.

Nothing. She felt absolutely nothing as their lips brushed. Trapped between the soft grasp of his hands, as he tried desperately to get on an intimate level with her, Stella was just frozen.

He was an attractive enough guy, just not for her.

Greg’s charm did nothing to her. The way he smiled didn’t make her heart flatter. His scent didn’t drive her insane. She barely wanted to have his attention on her. And she found most of the things he had to say uninteresting. They had almost nothing in common. He often judged her interests, and she didn’t even care if he did it in a mean way or not. It didn’t matter. It was better that way. That’s the way she liked her relationships to be, so she could always be in control and keep people as far away as possible.

If there was nothing to like, she wouldn’t risk falling for them, right?

He was exactly the kind of guy her family would have approved of. And in all honesty, she didn’t even know what twisted thought process got her to the decision of giving him a chance when she was aware to hated everything about him just as much as she hated everything about her family and the world they both so clearly came from. Still, incidentally, that was the reason she didn’t let go. Her sister’s wedding was in a week, and she wanted to show up accompanied by someone she could have rubbed proudly in her parents' faces.

She wanted to think Greg didn’t deserve to be used like that and she knew she was supposed to feel horrible – but part of her wasn’t sure he was entirely a good guy. He was a bit of an ass at times. And he didn’t like Maxwell, so her guilt wasn’t at all scratched by her selfishness.

As to confirm her thoughts, Greg softly brushed his fingers on the edges of her freshly cut nineties-style bob. “I know it’s late to say it now, but you should definitely grow your hair back. This does nothing for you.”

Again, he could have told her the sky was grey and her reaction would have been the same.

The annoyed huff that came from the other side of the line, though, did make her feel something. “Prick.” Maxwell hissed. “I swear to God, I’ll fuck him up.” A small shiver crossed her back, as she realised Max was listening and probably wasn’t too happy about any of it.

“Sorry, one second,” she raised a hand in front of Greg’s face as if she was hinting at him to hold and then she took her phone back into her other hand, “Hey, Max, sorry babes, I need to go, Greg is here.”

“Sure thing, kitten. Call me later?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“You look hot. Don’t listen to him.”

“I won’t. Bye?”

“Bye, baby. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

As she hung up, the small smile she had printed on her lips was immediately wiped off by Greg’s expression. “Max?”

“Yeah,” she frowned investigating his crossed expression. “Why?”

“Didn’t you literally see him this morning?”

A sad sigh left her chest. She did, they met for breakfast just before his departure and her hair appointment, and she already missed him so much.

“I did. Is that a problem?”

“I don’t like that guy.”

Stella rolled her eyes. “Get over it, Greg.”

As she turned to grab her stuff, Greg grabbed her arm, giving her a strong pull so she would look back at him, “I don’t like that you call another man babe, or that you say you love him.”

Guess how he would lose his mind if only he knew about everything else she shared with Max.

“You are hurting me,” she glared at him, pulling herself off his clutch without much success. Her eyes became dangerous as she lifted her chin proudly. “And I do love him.” It was very important for her to specify it. As if it wasn’t already well known how important Maxwell was to her.

Greg’s expression suddenly became harder than ever. He too sent her a dangerous look, shaking his head. “I do not like sharing. If we go official, you will drop him.”

It was an order.

Funny how the longer she dated him the more similarities she found between him and her family. They too never liked Maxwell, not that anyone ever managed to separate them.

Stella stood there for a moment, at first, she seemed to take his words seriously, but then a soft chuckle crossed her lips, and then it became a full-fledged burst of laughter in his face.

Her behaviour seemed to anger Greg even further, but she ignored it. Stella gave him a strong push, freeing herself from his grasp and, not even giving it too much importance, she proceeded to grab her bag and approached the trashcan so she could throw away the empty containers of her lunch.

“Ok, let’s clear two things,” she began, “first, Maxwell is my family, so I’ll drop you before I could ever drop him. You better get acquainted with it because he will always be part of my life.” She smiled dangerously, “Second, I don’t have time for your jealousy right now. Gotta go to be a bridesmaid.”

Before she could move, Greg grabbed her again, this time his hands clutched around both her shoulders as he squeezed her. “I don’t like your attitude.”

“And I don’t like yours,” Stella knew she was challenging him, and clearly Greg didn’t like to be crossed. But she still did it. She was too proud to worry about the consequences.

One of his hands moved to her throat, where he clutched her strongly enough to take her breath away.

Just then Stella got scared.

"When you'll be mine, I won't let him be between us." He made her lift her face to look at him, "I will train you. You will learn."

“Let me go.” She hissed, but Greg was deaf to her words. When his hold on her became tighter, causing her to start choking, pure adrenaline lashed through her veins, bringing her to act out of pure instinct.

She raised a hand to his face and gave him a strong push. Just when her nails pierced through his skin, Greg finally moved, letting her go.

"You little whore," he began, but by then she had already turned and was walking away, fastening her pace.

"Goodbye, Greg."

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — In synagogues, schools and ordinary streets across Europe, Jews are voicing a similar refrain: They live in a different world from the one they knew before Oct. 7.

That’s not only because Hamas’ attacks in southern Israel killed the most Jewish civilians in one day since the Holocaust. Across Europe, the rate of antisemitic incidents has fueled an atmosphere of fear and motivated some to conceal their Jewish identity.

European governments have made it a point to protect their countries’ Jews from antisemitism in recent decades. The fruits of those efforts are seen in the increased security at Jewish institutions across the continent and the continued public statements by Western leaders meant to call out and condemn hatred against Jews.

But there is a new wrinkle to that arc: a clear, tortured confusion in European governments and police departments about how to distinguish between anger against Israel and antisemitism, between the right to assemble at pro-Palestinian rallies and the crime of hate speech. The debate was punctuated on Monday by the firing of British Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who made a series of divisive remarks about pro-Palestinian demonstrators last week.

A new era?

Over a month into the bloody aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israeli towns and Israel’s bombardment and siege of the Gaza Strip, antisemitism is soaring far from the scene of the conflict.

France has registered over 1,000 antisemitic acts since Oct. 7, exceeding in weeks the number recorded over the past year, according to Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. The Community Security Trust, a group that tracks antisemitism in Britain, has reported 1,205 incidents in that time frame — the highest total in a 35-day period since it began recording offenses in 1984. And in Germany, the federal agency RIAS verified 202 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7-15, up 240% from the same week last year.

The incidents run the gamut: Assaults, threats to Jews and Jewish businesses, damage to Jewish property, hate mail and online abuse.

On Nov. 4, a Jewish woman in Lyon was stabbed in the stomach at her home, while a swastika was found graffitied on her door. French prosecutors have also opened a probe into a viral video that showed a group of youths chanting on the Paris metro: “Fuck the Jews and fuck your mother, long live Palestine, we are Nazis and proud of it.”

Meanwhile, Berlin police are investigating two Molotov cocktails thrown at the Kahal Adass Jisroel synagogue, along with multiple Stars of David marked on apartment buildings. The Oct. 27 cover of the German magazine Der Spiegel, one of the most widely circulated news magazines in Europe, read “Wir Haben Angst” (“We are scared”). One of the four German Jews pictured on the cover is 90-year-old Holocaust survivor Ivar Buterfas-Frankenthal.

Marina Chernivsky is the founder and director of OFEK, a Berlin counseling center that specializes in antisemitic violence and discrimination. The group has struggled to manage a 12-fold increase in requests for psychological counseling since Oct. 7, she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. In just three weeks, OFEK received 390 requests; its previous record was 370 in an entire year.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Chernivsky. “It’s just one indicator of the situation now, because it’s a very high barrier to decide to call an institution and tell the story and also ask for support. It’s not easy and many people do not do it.”

London police received reports of 657 antisemitic and 230 Islamophobic incidents between Oct.1 and Nov. 1, a significant jump in both categories. On Nov. 2, staff at London’s Wiener Holocaust Library — the world’s oldest Holocaust library and research center — found graffiti that read “Gaza” across their building’s sign.

In Italy’s capital, four Holocaust memorial plaques were found blackened with a torch and spray paint last week. The bronze blocks, called “pietre d’inciampo” or “stumbling stones” in Rome, are embedded on the sidewalk in front of apartment buildings where Jews were rounded up from the Nazi-occupied city and sent to Auschwitz in 1944. They show the names of the Jews who lived there and the dates when they were born, deported and murdered.

Milan officials are also investigating dozens of antisemitic incidents, including death threats graffitied in a hospital, a bakery and a nightclub. At a recent Milan rally, some protestors chanted, “Open the borders so we can kill the Zionists.”

Spain and Portugal have seen their share of synagogue graffiti, too. In Melilla, a Spanish enclave on the North African coast, a group of protestors gathered in front of a synagogue and burned an Israeli flag.

In the Netherlands, the number of antisemitic incidents reported to a leading Dutch-Jewish watchdog is up 818% from the monthly average of the past three years. This figure only includes interpersonal incidents, such as threats, verbal and physical abuse and direct messages, not general antisemitic statements on social media.

“We see lots of incidents at schools, where Jewish or Israeli kids are being attacked because of what’s going on in Israel and Gaza,” CIDI director Naomi Mestrum told JTA. “One kid was threatened with a knife and hit with a bottle, while the other kids were swearing, ‘kankerjood’ — in Dutch, that means ‘cancer Jew.’”

The Dutch Jewish Weekly changed its delivery packaging from transparent plastic to an anonymous white envelope after Oct. 7, according to editor-in-chief Esther Voet, because subscribers were anxious about their neighbors finding out they were Jewish. Their requests follow a pattern of fear among Jews taking measures to hide their identity in Europe, from removing or camouflaging their mezuzahs to taking off their kippahs in public and avoiding speaking Hebrew on the street. One Syrian Jewish refugee in the Netherlands told JTA he no longer sleeps in his own apartment after his window was defaced with a swastika.

Although antisemitism typically flares in Europe when there is fighting in Israel and the Palestinian territories, tracking groups in France, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands all report that European Jews are living in a new landscape.

“We’ve never seen this before, both this increase in numbers and the threatening types of incidents,” CIDI researcher and policy advisor Hans Wallage told JTA. “I also hear from the Jewish community that they’ve never experienced this before, and they’re very afraid and anxious for the future.”

The free speech debate

In the face of this crescendo, European governments have been conflicted over how to crack down on antisemitism without inhibiting free speech.

In France, Darmanin attempted to impose a blanket ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, declaring them “likely to generate disturbances to public order.” Vincent Brengarth, a lawyer for the Palestine Action Committee, called this order a “serious attack on freedom of expression.” The ban has since been overturned by France’s top administrative court, although local authorities can still block protests on a case-by-case basis.

London’s Metropolitan police have been open about their difficulty in determining which protest chants are lawful and which could incite violence. In a bulletin on Oct. 20, they discussed the popular chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which has various interpretations. Some activists say it means that Palestinians should be free of Israeli occupation, with rights and dignity equal to Israelis. Critics, including Israeli leaders and Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League, say the chant calls for a Palestinian entity that has eliminated Jews and Israelis between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

“While we can envisage scenarios where chanting these words could be unlawful, such as outside a synagogue or Jewish school, or directly at a Jewish person or group intended to intimidate, it is likely that its use in a wider protest setting… would not be an offense and would not result in arrests,” said the Metropolitan police.

Meanwhile, the British government is divided. Ahead of a massive pro-Palestinian rally in London on Saturday, Suella Braverman wrote an op-ed calling the protestors “hate marchers” and accusing the police of being overly lenient with them. In a letter to senior police officers last month, the former home secretary argued that waving a Palestinian flag and chanting “From the river to the sea” should both be considered as possible criminal offenses.

Britain’s Labour party, just a few years removed from a longstanding antisemitism scandal, is similarly divided. Party leader Keir Starmer has shown a zero-tolerance policy for anything he sees as approaching hate speech against Jews. Labour parliament member Andy McDonald was suspended, pending an investigation, after the party alleged that he made “deeply offensive” comments at a rally on Oct. 29. He said in the speech: “We will not rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea, can live in peaceful liberty.”

Although Germany’s constitution protects freedom of expression, opinion and assembly, various local authorities have imposed bans on pro-Palestinian protests — including Hamburg, the second-largest city. In some places, resistance to these orders has led to clashes between protestors and riot police. Berlin’s education senator Katharina Guenther-Wuensch has allowed schools to ban the keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, along with the phrase “Free Palestine.”

Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, has said he believes that protest bans are “definitely justified” to prevent “anti-Israel, aggressive and antisemitic” actions.

But some vocal opponents of the protest bans are Jews. In an open letter published in the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung and the New York-based magazine N+1, over 100 Jewish artists, writers and scholars in Germany said the suppression of pro-Palestinian rallies did not make them feel safer.

The group noted the surge in violent intimidation against German Jews and expressed fear that “the atmosphere in Germany has become more dangerous — for Jews and Muslims alike — than at any time in the nation’s recent history.” However, they denounced bans on nonviolent protest, saying these restrictions often come with brutality to immigrants and minorities and can escalate instead of preventing violence.

“As Jews, we reject this pretext for racist violence and express full solidarity with our Arab, Muslim, and particularly our Palestinian neighbors,” said the letter. “What frightens us is the prevailing atmosphere of racism and xenophobia in Germany, hand in hand with a constraining and paternalistic philo-Semitism. We reject in particular the conflation of anti-Semitism and any criticism of the state of Israel.”

[lazaruspiss]

the batman page is all snippets from i think old forums (1992-2007), which is interesting! but not really a source. i remember seeing a comic page once possibly years ago where bruce says that hes a catholic turned atheist but cant for the life of me figure out where that would be from.

screenshotting any comic names i find bc uh. sunken cost fallacy or something. nothing to do with any lapsed catholic angst. totally.

also when was batman scottish. like this is an absolute first im hearing about this.

and this is an interesting bit. unrelated to religion but interesting nonetheless.

this one i just think is funny. also i know jewish bruce is popular bc smth smth his mom may have technically been jewish. only provable via maternal cousin but like. right. you could technically argue for it technically being accidentally canon. i have 2 things to say on it (but i will preface with im not jewish myself, so like. dont take me as a source or anything)

1) the amount of random moments and quotes that allude to christianity and/or atheism are both more present and go back further

2) catholicism (and the rest of america) is patriarchal. catholic dad means those kids are raised at least some kind of christian in most cases

(and a bonus third point. really? i get wanting rep, but bruce? why would you want him of all people.)

(wait. wait bonus forth point. what is with the people bringing up kate being jewish, not so that they can talk about her being jewish, but instead so that they can talk about bruce potentially being jewish. like whats up with that.)

oh and as far as i know both catholics and jews do circumcision. so the one thing we do know is that hes cut lol

holy shit is it fun reading a bunch of comic book nerds arguing with each other about religion. ive just barely hit the halfway point.

i feel like ive seen similar conversations happen throughout bruces comic appearances. cant really die on any hill until i actually read the books though.

"the majority of people from [place] are [religion]" is NOT a source forum user "commish"

the sites notes correcting the forum users are so funny

not posting screenshots but oh my god the debate about whether theres more gay rep than christian rep in DC in 2006.

oh and theres the explicit antisemitism. im almost surprised it took until 2006 for people to start talking about how they hate minorities.

they added a note just to bring up this guys icon i know it

wait no that sounds adorable. wheres my angel bat daughter helping the homeless and pounding down on bad guys. auhg. i finally find a batgirl story i might be interested in and its just a scrapped concept. sob. "a little bit old testament" why is that cute...... everyone shut up im caring about cass for the first time rn

[trivalentlinks]

so i've seen multiple people discussing (or asking neil gaiman) about a jewish reading/retelling of good omens etc, and i saw neil answer that it would be really difficult and you'd have to change the story pretty much completely

and i just want to say: please, please check out the (complete, free) web novel Unsong, by Scott Alexander (slatestarcodex / astralcodexten / @slatestarscratchpad and @aaronsmithtumbler on tumblr (the latter is an RP blog for an Unsong character))

(There is a (complete, free) audiobook version here.)

it's a jewish-punk story that is, well, not like good omens (because nothing is really like good omens, and nothing is really like unsong), but it's a jewish-punk apocalypse story in the same way good omens is a christian-punk apocalypse story

(i've heard it more specifically called 'kabbalah-punk'; it's set in a universe where the torah and the talmud and the spirit of the kabbalah are all literally true)

but also it's so good. it's written by a jewish psychiatrist and therapist with an amazing way with words; he's an atheist jew (i think?) but the book is full of a lot of love for jewish culture

Some features:

-- a lot of neurodiversity, very kindly written (the author is a psychiatrist whom i initially followed largely because of how empathetic his writing is; this is definitely a doctor who listens to his patients)

-- i am neurotypical and not jewish, but most followers of the slatestarcodex blog (and many of my irl friends) were neurodivergent and jewish, and everyone loved this book (also, i have always low-key wished i were jewish, and this book certainly contributed to that)

-- some damn good humour. the jokes range from silly puns that make you groan but eventually admire the sheer sincerity of it, to fish-out-of-water antics (lots of fish out-of-water during the apocalypse) that are laugh-out-loud funny, to some incredibly clever and insightful moments; it's delightful

-- there's a huge cast with many, many different viewpoints on everything, whose stories are brilliantly, intricately interwoven

-- beautiful philosophy about stories, the purpose of stories, who tells them, etc

minor spoilers below cut (don't read beyond here if i've already convinced you to read the book, possibly read this if you're on the fence):

-- at a pivotal moment, the world is saved by a very autistic angel, in a way that was related to his autism (but NOT in the savant syndrome sense). it is incredibly badass

-- has the most satisfying answer to the theodicy question (why is there so much suffering if G-d is omnipotent and good) that i've ever seen

-- some of the characters have views that seem abhorrent. one of them is clearly a peter thiel stand-in who's trying to invent a way for the ultra-wealthy to buy their way into heaven during the apocalypse (in the same way real-life peter thiel is trying to invent ways for the ultra-wealthy to live forever) and yet, and yet, by the end of it, i was empathizing with every single one of their viewpoints, even fictionalized peter thiel

(and not because of some tragic backstory/events! this is a story that has you empathizing with villains, not by tugging at the heartstrings with overwrought angst, but by letting you actually understand them)

(also if the characters feel a little hard-to-like at first, please stick it out for a few chapters, i promise they get more loveable; for me this is part of the appeal--initially being like 'wow, i hate this character' and then eventually liking them, not because they've changed, but because you've gotten to know them)

-- also, for those who are into polyamory: basically all the main characters end up in a polycule and literally save the world with the power of polyamory, so there is that

[aporia-nsfw]

I have a lot of emotions here that are hard to unpack.

Hanania feels very relatable to me. I went through some pretty dark times before I started my transition.

I have done a ton of learning and reflection in the last few months. I think I have a basic grasp on authoritarianism.

Aggression is often driven by a need for status and deep insecurity and shame. But I am not fully sure what drives the "mirror-morality" you talk about.

I think some of mirror-morality is a need to protect? Because in the past I have been made to feel unsafe for being seen I can become afraid when others are in a similar situation. I can become very scared when others are laughing, crying or otherwise being vulnerable.

Some of mirror-morality is simple envy. But some fear must prevent people from reaching for things they are envious of. Often I see my feelings as feeling isolated and empty instead of seeing my feelings as desiring love, validation and to be understood. I suppose opportunities for love are also opportunities for hate. I guess this kind of anxiety is a trauma thing.

I think some of mirror-morality is a need for catharsis and emotional release. The ugly has a kind of beauty all its own in cutting through the fog. Self-harm is often deeply misunderstood and I think stems from very positive energies. I think self-harm often comes from a repressed need for change and transformation.

I also think much of what we think of as sadism is really a kind of "masochism-by-proxy." You see masochism-by-proxy in Mother Theresa types. I never hurt anyone like that. But in the past I used to walk around the Downtown Eastside a lot and wallow in negative feelings. It was cruel of me to treat substance users, the houseless and others as background props in my teenage angst.

I think people who do evil things exist. But I think this kind of mirror-morality speaks more to a beautiful inner life. I wish there were books written from this kind of perspective.

Part of the problem with mirror-morality is that play is not easy. For everyone, becoming yourself is a life long process. A more playful, more intimate community is hard work. I don't know how to accommodate and adapt to mirror-morality. I find people ignore the hard task of figuring out how to live with bad people or they see bad people as only a problem or an object. Finding how to live and live well will always be very difficult. Unfortunately, some kids just don't play well with others.

I think many people don't really get the sort of person who sees a young couple walking in the street holding hands and thinks "nuclear bomb, sex destruction." Some of the misunderstanding may be people refusing to see these kinds of tendencies in themselves and their family and friends. These tendencies are often only harmless intrusive thoughts and only have the power people allow them to have.

I think people often say that hate is really a kind of love but don't understand the full implications of the idea. Hate can seem inexhaustible because hate often stems from misunderstood love. I am not really sure what I mean exactly. There's a kind of feeling I just have trouble communicating here.

Yeah so I babbled a lot but basically just read Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians, maybe Jean Paul-Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew and I guess Bell Hooks' The Will to Change. I have a ton of other recommendations but that is a start.

Murderers have always angered me less than people who don’t want to execute them, with the worst being family members who call for those who killed their loved ones to get a second chance. To be evil is bad, but weakness is what is truly unforgivable.

Richard hanania is interesting for the way he suffers from a sort of normative inverted spectrum. What is good he perceives as evil, what is evil good, what is beautiful ugly, and what is nauseating sublime. All in precisely the same degree as the original, just with the sign flipped

[girlschasinggirls]

i hate israel and their genocidal asses, bt im not wasting energy angsting about a war btwn ppl who would call me goy vs kufar whore. likewise while i think it's asinine germany and others are banning pro palestine gatherings and slogans i can't be arsed to feel it's 'evil racist profiling' when the majority of 'protesters' are nonpalestinian muslims who simply seethingly hate jews and have no direct stake in the conflict. i wish the judeo-muslim war could annihilate both sides jointly tbh.

the lack of empathy and humanity you people have towards a literal ethnic cleansing and occupation we can see happening right before our eyes is bewildering to me

[queenshelby]

The Judge’s Daughter (Part One)

Featuring: Tommy Shelby x Virgin!Reader

Words: 8,700

 Warning: Angst, Blood, Gore, Mention of Suicide, Mention of Miscarriage, Drugs, Racism, Smut

Tag List:

@lilymurphy03  @deefigs @theflamecrystal  @chrisevanshoeee  @desperate-and-broken  @weepingstudentfishhorse  @captivatedbycillianmurphy  @fookingshelby  @livinginfantaxy  @rosey1981  @atomicsoulcollecto  @peakyboyslover  @nerdy4itall  @elenavampire21  @hanster1998  @mariapaiva13  @fairypitou  @harry-is-my-sunflower  @zozeebo  @lauren-raines-x

………

 Challenging Times

In early 1930, times were hard. The Wall Street crash in 1929 caused many men to lose their fortune. Your family had also lost money on the stock exchange. A lot of money.

Your father was a wealthy judge and now, he was just a judge. Your family home had to be sold and your father moved into a medium sized apartment in London with one of his maids.

Since your mother had passed away in 1920, your father had often sought comfort in his employees. There was one maid in particular who was of interest to him. Her name was Catherine and she was 10 years your father’s junior.

You accepted his relationship with her but soon felt uncomfortable to live with them in the London Apartment.

But your father wasn’t the only family member who lost his fortune in the stock market crash. Your brother had also lost a lot of money. So much money that he could not repay his gambling debt to one of London’s most notorious criminals.

As a result, your brother committed suicide. His mental health had always been troubled ever since he’s been to France, fighting for England in the First World War. Your brother was much older than you and it was almost a miracle when your mother fell pregnant again and gave birth to you after three miscarriages.

Your brother adored you and protected you whenever necessary. He was kind hearted but, unfortunately, got himself involved with the wrong people on several occasions which is when he began gambling.  

Following your brother’s death, your father struck a deal with the man to whom the gambling debt was owed, releasing three of his gang members from prison.

The debt was forgiven and you inherited your brother’s small cottage north of London.  Regardless of your father’s actions, he began to despise criminals who involved themselves in illegal gambling activities. Your father was known to be particularly harsh when it came to offences of this kind.

He once told you a story about a man who used to be a prominent criminal who made his fortune through race fixing and illegal gambling activities. That man was now a member of parliament and your father despised him.

Being Jewish, your father’s hate for this man increased even more when he became the deputy leader of the British Union of Fascists.

The man’s name was Thomas Shelby and you met him once at a gala organised by the socialist party in Westminster. He was a smart man but he was also extremely rude and insulted your father at the gala following a dispute they had earlier in the day.

Your father threatened him and told him that, one day, he will ensure his downfall. It was your father’s mission and it was dangerous.

With that threat in mind and heated political events unfolding around the country, your father asked you to move to the countryside. Take up your brother’s cottage and lay low until things were taking a turn.

It took you quite some time to build up the courage to move into the house where your brother took his own life. But, you eventually did, taking up your brother’s work at the property while attending nursing school every second week.

The cottage was free standing but behind a larger house owned by wealthy Londoners. Their wealth seemed to have been unaffected by the stock market crash and, just as your brother did, you attended their yards and animals on the small farm in exchange for a wage and free food from the produce.

You also spent some time renovating the cottage which was rather dated.

The cottage had two bedrooms, one of which you converted entirely to a studio for your paintings. You enjoyed painting and you were quite good at it.

The other bedroom you redecorated with your own furniture.

The downstairs area consisted out of a small living room with a fire place and a small kitchen and bathroom.

It wasn’t much, but it was a place you could call your own. It was home.

Initially following your move, you would travel to London occasionally to visit your father and his mistress. You wondered when he would finally propose to her. She had been waiting for years.

When you visited, you would often sit in one of his open hearings. You were quite interested in the political and legal situation in the country especially following recent events.  

Notably, it has been six weeks since the assassination attempt on Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists.

Being Jewish yourself, you, just like your father, despised fascism.

The event at which the assassination attempt occurred was visited by many Jews, protesting against the establishment of the party and their obscure ideas. Despite your father’s instructions not to get involved, you were one of the protestors on the day and, although not openly, you have been associating yourself with the communists.

Your newfound friend Jesse Eden had since led several more protests you attended. Being only 20 years young, you believed that you could make a difference and convince people that their support for fascism was wrong and immoral.

The problem was that your father was at the centre of it all.

Following the assassination attempt on Oswald Mosley, two Jews were arrested and appeared in your father’s court. The prosecution didn’t have enough evidence for a conviction and the men walked free.

No one really knew who was behind the assassination attempt. There were no witnesses and everyone who may have witnessed the attack had since been found dead.

Regardless of this, for some reason, the leaders of the British Union of Fascists seem to have believed that a Jewish man by the name of Alfie Solomons was behind the attack. But there was one little problem, Alfie Solomon was dead. Or wasn’t he?

The men that were arrested used to work for Alfie Solomons and took the fall until your father set them free for lack of evidence.

A week after this decision, a Jewish owned factory was bombed. The factory was owned by the men who were set free by your father and a company owned by a Trust.

Ten men were killed and, following some arrests, it became evident that Jimmy McCavern was behind the attack.

Jimmy McCavern was the leader of the Billy Boys and, over the course of another week, your father was able to make a connection through some documents admitted to evidence between Jimmy McCavern, Alfie Solomons and a man named Thomas Shelby who was the deputy leader of the British Union of Fascists.

An arrest warrant was issued against Jimmy McCavern and Thomas Shelby by the London police following your father’s advice to them. Since, apparently, Alfie Solomons was dead, no arrest warrant could be made against him.

Thomas Shelby was the first member of parliament who was subject to such warrant and your father may have just, like this, gotten himself a lot of enemies.

The men he had against him now were not only the Billy Boys but also the Peaky Blinders and it was too dangerous for you to continue to visit him in London.

Unfortunately, little did you know that the danger was about to lurk just in front of your doorstep.

An Unexpected Visit

It was a Wednesday evening at 8pm that you heard a rather loud knock on the front door of your cottage.

You didn’t expect anyone and approached the door with your loaded gun. It’s not that you had ever shot a gun, but you bought yourself one two days ago just in case you needed it.

‘Who is it?’ you asked from behind the closed door.

‘It’s Jesse Eden’ you’ve heard from behind the door and you immediately recognised Jesse’s voice.

You put the gun aside and unlocked the door.

To your surprise, Jesse wasn’t alone and your chin dropped as you saw the man standing right in front of you. You remembered him. He was the man who stood beside Oswald Mosley during his speech in Birmingham and you had met him before at a gala at Westminster.

His name was Thomas Shelby.

‘I think we have met before Miss Rosenberg’ Tommy said.

‘Yes, we have Mr Shelby’ you said nervously and frightened at the same time. You immediately wondered whether Jesse was under duress by him. Why otherwise would he be here with her you wondered.

You invited them both inside after Jesse made the request to come in. She wasn’t sure whether they had been followed.

To your surprise, Jesse soon told you that she required your help. According to her, Thomas Shelby had to lay low due to the arrest warrant issued by the London police.

If Thomas Shelby was to be arrested, he may be killed in prison before a hearing could be conducted.

Accordingly, Jesse asked you to hide him at your house until the charges against him are dropped.

‘You mean until the chief of police has been bribed enough to drop the charges?’ you chuckled in response to her request.

‘I wish it would be that easy Love’ Tommy said as he looked at the pictures on your living room wall. His hands were in his pockets and he almost looked unbothered by the situation.

‘You cannot be serious Jesse. You seriously want me to hide this man at my house?’ you said in disbelieve.  

‘I am afraid I am serious Y/N’ Jesse responded.

‘Well, a fascist hiding at the house of a Jew, how ironic’ you said angrily, still unsure why Jesse was helping him.

‘I know we have gotten off on the wrong foot at the Westminster gala Miss Rosenberg, but I would greatly appreciate your help’ Tommy said, recalling his argument with your father in your presence in late 1929.

‘You think Mr Shelby?’ you chuckled. ‘You insulted my father and my entire family’ you said.

‘And for that, I apologise’ Tommy said politely but firmly.

‘Jesse, you need to explain to me why you are helping this man. I do not understand it’ you said.

‘I cannot give you more information Y/N. You just need to trust me on this, alright?’ Jesse asked almost fearfully.

‘Alright, but why me?’ you pondered.

‘Because you are the daughter of the judge hearing this matter. No one will think to look for me here, at your house’ Tommy explained.

‘Jesus’ was all you could respond with to Tommy’s comment.

‘Y/N, trust me, please. It’s for the cause’ Jesse said.

‘I find this hard to believe, but alright, he can stay’ you responded.

Not long after you agreed to house the deputy leader of the British Union of Fascists, Thomas Shelby, Jesse made her way back to Birmingham. It was a three-hour drive and she had to hurry before anyone became suspicious.

‘You will have to sleep on the lounge. Please help yourself to any food, water and drinks’ you said while you walked into another room to fetch a blanket, pillow and change of clothes for Tommy.

You still held on to your brother’s clothes which should have fitted Thomas just fine.

‘I thank you for your hospitality Miss Rosenberg and I apologise for intruding your space. I should be out of your hair within the week’ Tommy said as you came back to the living room and handed him everything he needed for his stay.

‘I am doing this for Jesse, not for you Mr Shelby. Although I do not quite understand why she is helping you’ you said just before you sat down in one of the arm chairs.

‘Let’s just say, we had a thing once, eh’ Tommy smirked.

‘I didn’t think that she would fall for a man like you’ you said.

‘A man like me, eh?’ Tommy chuckled.

‘Yes, a socialist turning to fascism. It’s rather disappointing’ you said.

‘Sometimes we do what we have to do Miss Rosenberg’ Tommy said.

‘Yes, if we didn’t, you wouldn’t be staying here, trust me’ you said before excusing yourself.

You made your way to your studio, painting and drinking wine. It was what you enjoyed most and you wanted to space from the stranger now living with you in the small cottage. A man you had literally nothing in common with and who you despised.

While you were painting, Tommy made use of your telephone and enjoyed some of your late brother’s whiskey.

It was obvious to you that he was struggling with being cooped up in your cottage and, just as your thoughts got lost in your paintings, you heard some a cracking noise near the door of your studio.

‘What are you doing?’ you asked as you noticed Tommy walking into your studio, looking through your many paintings.

‘You are talented. These paintings are extraordinary’ Tommy said.

‘Thank you, Mr Shelby’ you said with surprise. Had he really just complimented you?

His presence and closeness sent shivers down your spine. It wasn’t that you were frightened but you were clearly intimidated.

‘What are your plans, Miss Rosenberg?’ Tommy asked as he kept looking through the paintings.

‘My plans?’ you asked.

‘Your plans for the future? What are they?’ Tommy asked.

‘I am studying to become a nurse. Perhaps, one day get married and have children. The usual’ you said shyly.

‘Well, let me tell you, marriage is overrated’ Tommy chuckled before he asked how old you were.

‘I am 20’ you responded.

‘Still young with a life of opportunities ahead of you. Don’t waste them on the cause’ Tommy said.

‘Coming from a man who wastes his political career on fascism’ you said, causing Tommy to chuckle.

Your comment instantly sparked a political debate between you and Tommy which soon erupted into a heated argument.

During the argument he told you that you were too young to understand, ignorant and naïve and you were keen to throw him out of your house right then and there.

But, you bit your tongue and reminded yourself of the promise you made to Jesse.

You couldn’t stand him and his arrogance any longer and went to your bedroom, leaving him to debate about politics with himself.

Things Must Change

The next morning, you woke up early to attend the garden, ignoring Tommy as you left the house.

But, it wasn’t long until Tommy joined you in the garden. It was obvious to you that he was clearly bored.

‘What happened to the people who lived at the large house over there?’ Tommy asked as he walked outside to have a cigarette. You didn’t allow him to smoke inside the house.

‘They are in France for their annual vacation. Apparently, their fortune was unaffected by the stock market crash’ you responded.

‘Lucky them eh’ Tommy grinned as he grabbed some of the leather gardening cloves and a bucket from the side of the house.

Wearing his expensive suit and with the bucket in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth he walked over to the berry bushes where you were standing.

‘I might as well make myself useful eh’ he said jokingly as he began picking some berries.

‘Uhm yeah…but these aren’t ripe’ you giggled as you observed Tommy picking off some of the raspberries.

‘Right. Well, I usually don’t garden’ Tommy chuckled.

‘I couldn’t tell’ you laughed, causing Tommy to smile back at you.

This was the first time you noticed him smile. It was a gentle smile and it suited him.

Tommy helped you in the garden for the remainder of the day. It wasn’t like he had something else to do other than make phone calls to his brother and someone by the name of Kent.

You managed to keep your arguments to a minimum and you started to worry that you were slowly beginning to enjoy his company.

Later that evening, following dinner, you even sat down together in front of the fireplace in the living room to drink whiskey and wine and make some conversation.

‘I have been checking on your calls, contacting the directory because I wanted to make sure that I am safe with you being here. I have been told that the last call from my number was made to the Crown Investigations Office’ you said with surprise as you poured Tommy a glass of whiskey. After everything that happened in the past, you still didn’t trust him.

‘That’s correct’ Tommy said.

‘The only reason I could think of as to why you were talking to an officer of the Crown while you have an arrest warrant against you is if you were working for the Crown yourself. Otherwise, you would be mad tipping them’ you said.

‘I was just trading information that might be useful. In exchange, I am hoping for the arrest warrant against me to be dropped’ Tommy explained.

‘Mr Shelby, do you actually believe in fascism? I have not heard you speak about your party’s ideals since you’ve been here. We spoke about politics but you still seem to be a socialist at heart. So tell me, why do you follow this mad man Mosely? I am curious’ you said.

‘The thing about political parties is that they take the course into the direction in which they are steered. Much like a car. But just like with a car, if you fill it with the wrong fuel and the engine breaks down as a result, you will be going nowhere’ Tommy said as he took a drink.

‘And you are the fuel Mr Shelby?’ you asked with curiosity.

‘Yes, I am the fuel Miss Rosenberg’ he said.

‘Your intention is to undermine Mosley on behalf of the Crown. Jesse knew and this is why she helped you, isn’t it?’ you said after pondering on about what Tommy had just told you.

‘And now that you know this as well, it makes you my accomplice. I might be able to use your help Miss Rosenberg’ Tommy said.  

‘If it helps to end fascism, perhaps I am willing to give it’ you said with a smile. ‘But I am curious now Mr Shelby. Was it you who initiated the attack on Mosley?’ you asked.

‘I rather not answer Miss Rosenberg’ Tommy said.

‘I understand. Also, you can call me Y/N now that we aren’t enemies after all’ you said.

‘Alright Y/N, then I insist that you call me Tommy’ he responded.

After some more conversation you decided that it was time for you to make your way to bed. It was late and you had to get up early to attend the animals.

Nightmares

Falling asleep that night was easy. You felt much safer now despite Tommy’s presence. You knew he wasn’t going to harm you.

But just as easy as you had fallen asleep, you were woken up by a loud noise coming from the living room at 1am.

‘Tommy, are you alright?’ you asked worryingly as you walked downstairs in a haste, wearing nothing but your silk nightgown.

‘My apologies, I didn’t intend to wake you’ Tommy said as he sat on the lounge, covered in sweat.

You initially thought that he might haven gotten sick until you saw a small empty bottle on the living room table. Your brother used to have one just like it which he carried around everywhere. It contained Liquid Opium and helped him sleep. He took it every night until, one day, he stopped. The withdrawal was barely manageable and his addiction soon rebounded.

You knew what this was. You had seen it before.

‘I will make you some tea to help you sleep’ you said kindly as you observed Tommy’s struggles.

‘I don’t think that tea will help me sleep Love’ Tommy chuckled.

‘My brother used to have nightmares after France. When he returned home, my mother made this for him and he managed to get at least some sleep. It’s worth a try’ you said with a warm smile. You knew Tommy had been to France. You had spoken about it when you spoke about your brother earlier that evening.  

‘I suppose why not, eh’ Tommy said as he walked to the bathroom to clean himself off with a cold wet flannel.

After you put on the kettle, you walked to the studio and grabbed some more of your brother’s clothes.

‘These should fit you’ you said shyly as you handed Tommy a clean plain shirt and pants.

‘Thank you, Y/N’ he said as he took the clothes.

This was the first time you saw Tommy without a shirt and, despite his level of exhaustion, it was quite a sight. He certainly was a very attractive man.

After Tommy had gotten himself changed, you sat down next to him and handed him the cup of tea.

‘Do you want to talk?’ you asked.

‘It’s the middle of the night Y/N, you should get some sleep’ Tommy said.

‘It’s alright. I am not tired’ you said with a warm smile.

That night Tommy spoke with you about everything. About France and his late wife Grace who visited him in his dreams. He didn’t know why, but he felt as though he could talk to you and trust you.

At 4am, you eventually fell asleep on the lounge next to Tommy which is where you woke up the next morning covered with a warm blanket.

The fire was lid and there was a note on the coffee table as you woke.

‘Borrowed your hunting rifle, will be back by 8’ the note said.

You didn’t know how to hunt and had been telling Tommy how your brother shot bucks whenever you came to visit him at the cottage from London. You would then prepare it with veggies from the garden just the way your mother had shown you.

You thought that, perhaps, Tommy was better equipped than you when it came to hunting. You struggled enough even just to slaughter a chook from the farm and your intake of meat was clearly lacking as a result.

Attacked

With Tommy gone, you decided to attend to the horses. Grabbing your shovel and rake, you walked into the stables.

But, just as you walked inside, you could hear a loud noise from behind the barn.

You wondered whether it was Tommy and approached the back area of the property carefully. After all, he had a loaded gun and you certainly didn’t want to get shot accidently.

Just as you walked to the side of the property, you saw a strange man.

‘Hello Love’ the man said, cocking his gun.

‘Who are you and what do you want?’ you asked holding on to your rake tightly.

‘We’ve got a dispute to settle with some Jews Love. Now be a good girl and put down this rake would you’ the man said firmly.

You obliged and the man approached you slowly.

‘Now Love, we will be having a good time and then we will visit your father’ the man said just before he called for another man who was at the back of the barn.

Within an instant, the man grabbed your wrists and pushed you against the outer wall of the barn.

‘Such are pretty thing aren’t you’ the man said as he aimed to cover your mouth while moving away your skirt.

But, just when the man’s hand reached your mouth, you bit him firmly just before yelling for help.

‘You fucking bitch’ the man said as he reached for his gun.

In this moment, you heard a shot. The other man was hit, but barely and went to check out where the shot came from.

With both men distracted, you ceased the moment and pulled out the gardening scissors you were carrying in your thin jacket. Within an instant and without thinking, you rammed the scissor into the neck of the man who was still standing right there in front of you.

This was all it took for the man to fall to the ground. You couldn’t help it but scream as your hands and blouse were covered in the man’s blood.

You were besides yourself, sitting on the ground next to his dying body in shock, unable to do anything.

After what felt like an eternity, you saw Tommy approach you, making his way through the veggie patch carrying your hunting rifle and covered in blood himself.

‘Are you alright Y/N?’ he asked as he kneeled down next to you, comforting you.

‘There is another man Tommy, he walked to towards the berry field’ you said.

‘I know. He’s dead now and so is the third man who was driving them here’ Tommy said.

‘Did you kill them?’ you asked.

‘Yes, I did’ he said and, just in that moment, you threw his arms around him.

This is when you realised that he had been injured and was in agony himself.

‘Tommy, you’ve been shot’ you said with worry as you saw blood staining through his white shirt.

‘Yes’ was all he managed to say at this point as he was losing blood.

‘We will get you to a hospital’ you said in a haste.

‘No hospital Y/N. I will be taken into custody if I set foot in a public place like this until the arrest warrant has been dropped’ Tommy said.

You could see the agony on his face as he held onto the side of his chest. He was in pain. A lot of pain.

‘You are nurse, aren’t you?’ Tommy asked, breathing heavily.

‘I am a student nurse Tommy. I have not practiced on a life person’ you said worryingly.

‘Well, it’s about time then eh’ Tommy chuckled.

‘Tommy, you can’t be serious’ you said.

‘I am serious Y/N. I need you to do this, please’ Tommy said.

‘Alright, common’ you said nervously. It wasn’t like you had a choice. Tommy was bleeding a lot and his wound needed attention immediately.

With haste, you walked inside with Tommy and placed a towel over the lounge and got your first aid kit as well as a bottle of vodka from the dining room.  You then went to the bathroom quickly to get a bowl of clean water and more towels.  

While you were getting everything ready, Tommy made a phone call to his brother Arthur, giving him your address. By that point, Tommy was barely able to stand up.

As you returned from the kitchen, you helped Tommy to remove his blood-soaked clothes.

You gasped for a moment. You weren’t sure whether the blood or the sight of his naked body took away your breath.

‘You’ve got whiskey?’ Tommy asked.

‘Tommy, I don’t think it matters which alcohol I use to clean out your wound’ you said as you got everything ready on the table.

‘To drink. Trust me, I’ll need it. I am out of Opium’ he said, his breathing still laboured.

‘Yes, of course’ you said before you poured him a large glass of whiskey and handed it to him.

He drank all of it in an instant before lying down.

‘This is going to hurt’ you said as you cleaned your hands and the tweezers from your first aid kit with some of the vodka.

‘I know’ he said, taking in a deep breath.

‘You have to stay still’ you went on as you reached for his wound which was still profusely pouring blood.

‘I know’ he said again before closing his eyes and holding on to the edge of the lounge in anticipation.

As soon as you entered the wounds with your fingers and the tweezers, all that you could hear was a loud grunt.

‘Fuck’ Tommy screamed as your fingers went in deeper, retrieving the bullet from his wound. By this point, you were breathing as heavily as him.

‘I’ve got it Tommy, don’t move now’ you said as you carefully pulled the bullet out of his flesh.

Tommy took in a deep breath and, with another loud grunt, you dislodged the bullet.

It was intact and you sighed with relief while Tommy opened his eyes, looking at you in agony.

‘Now I will clean up the wound and stitch it, alright?’ you asked, causing Tommy to nod.

He let out another loud grunt as you poured some of the vodka over his wound before handing him a clean towel to apply pressure to the wound while you prepared the stitches.

His face was expressionless when you placed the stitches. You knew that the worst pain was over but, nonetheless, you were surprised by how well he had handled it.

This was when you noticed several large scars across his chest and arms. Almost too many to count.

‘You have been shot before, haven’t you?’ you asked while Tommy looked almost relaxed when you placed the sixth stitch.

‘Just a few times’ he smirked.

While you placed the last stitch, you could hear a car pull up in front of your door.

You opened the door quickly before applying a bandage around Tommy’s chest.

‘Fucking Hell Brother’ Arthur shouted as he walked into the living room with Isiah.

‘Arthur, this is Y/N’ Tommy said by way of introduction.

You quickly shook Arthur’s hand by which he was rather surprised.

‘Who the fuck did this?’ Arthur asked.

‘The Billy Boys. But they weren’t after me. They were after her’ Tommy explained.

‘Why?’ Arthur asked.

‘Because she is the daughter of the judge hearing the McCaven matter. I assume they wanted to send a message’ Tommy said.

‘Did they see you?’ Arthur asked.

‘Yes, but it doesn’t matter. They are dead’ Tommy responded.

‘Alright, what do you want us to do with the bodies? Send a message?’ Arthur asked.

‘Burry them behind the property. This never happened. They just disappeared and never made it here. By the time McCaven finds out the arrest warrants will be dropped and I can deal with the situation and Mosley’ Tommy instructed.

Arthur and Isiah attended the bodies as instructed by Tommy. You were surprised how quickly and efficiently they made the bodies disappear without any evidence whatsoever. It was clear to you that they had done this kind of thing before.

Before they left, Tommy gave Arthur a note to give to Jesse Eden and a note to give to a person named Kent.

In return Arthur gave Tommy three guns, a change of clothes and a bottle of opium.

After Arthur and Isiah had left, you made sure that Tommy was resting. After all, he had lost a lot of blood and you didn’t want him to pull a stitch.

Tender Moments

‘Do you have any more of that tea?’ Tommy asked as he held on to the bottle of opium that Arthur had given him. He starred at it, but didn’t open it.

‘Yes, sure. I will make some’ you said.

You were surprised by Tommy’s request but didn’t dare to argue.

You sat down next to him to have some tea while he placed the bottle of opium on the table in front of him.

‘Tommy, don’t’ you said.

‘Don’t what?’ he asked.

‘The opium, don’t take it’ you said.

‘Well, then put it away somewhere I cannot find it eh’ Tommy said as he handed you the bottle and you obliged with his request.

Tommy knew he would be regretting this soon, at night when his nightmares would wake him once again. It wasn’t the pain he couldn’t handle, but rather it was Grace’s visits in his dreams and dreaming about France hat destroyed him.

He was afraid of going to sleep but he needed sleep badly especially after today and so did you.

‘Are you not going to sleep?’ Tommy asked as clock struck midnight and you were still there with him talking about matters which he never talked to anyone about. He felt like he could confine in you and, despite your young age, you understood and you cared.

‘I don’t think I can. Not after what happened today. Not after what I have done’ you said as tears were building up in your eyes for the third time that evening.

‘Y/N, listen to me, alright?’ he said, caressing your face gently.

‘What you have done saved your life. These men were here to hurt you and now they can’t. You are safe now’ Tommy said as tears began to run down your cheek.

‘I killed someone Tommy’ you said in disarray.

‘You killed a bad man’ Tommy said as he used his thumbs to wipe away your tears.

‘It’s still a man Tommy’ you said before pressing your head against his chest. ‘Will the picture of him ever leave my head?’ you asked.

‘No Y/N, it won’t. But your guilt will, that I promise’ Tommy said. ‘Now, let’s get you some rest, eh?’ Tommy said.

‘Will you come with me Tommy?’ you asked nervously, knowing that your question was somewhat unusual.

‘Come with you? To bed?’ Tommy asked with surprise.

‘Yes, just to sleep by my side. I am scared Tommy’ you said.

‘I never had a woman ask me to join her in her bed simply for the purpose of sleeping, but alright, I suppose I can do that’ Tommy smirked before he followed you upstairs.

As Tommy lied down next you, bandaged up and wearing not much more than his white undergarments, you could feel something unusual. It was almost like some sort of warmth which was flowing through your chest.

‘Do you want me to turn off the light?’ Tommy asked as he got comfortable on the large white pillow, facing you and starring into your dark eyes.

‘Not yet. Perhaps we could talk for a little longer’ you said as you looked into his comforting blue eyes.

‘Alright, what you want to talk about?’ he asked and this is when you brought up his current wife Lizzie and his children.

‘What about your wife and children, where are they?’ you asked.

‘They are in Scotland, where, apparently they are safe from all this and from myself’ Tommy said with some disappointment.

‘From yourself? But they are your children’ you asked with some confusion.

‘They are, but they are indeed safer without me until I sort things out’ Tommy explained.

‘Do you miss your wife’ you asked.

‘No, I do not miss my wife. She filed for divorce six weeks ago’ Tommy said.

‘You do not seem upset about it. Why is that?’ you asked.

‘Because I know that it’s the right thing to do, to keep her safe. Our relationship was never one made of love. I never loved her the way a husband should love his wife. But, she is mother of my daughter and she cares deeply for my son. I trust her. She’s always been loyal to me and to the Company’ Tommy explained.

‘That’s nice…to have someone like this in your life’ you said.

‘It is indeed. Now you should get some rest eh’ Tommy said as he turned off the bedside lamp.

To his surprise, as soon as he turned off the light, you leaned over towards him carefully and rested your head on the uninjured side of his chest.

He let you and wrapped his arm around you, pulling you close until you drifted off to sleep.

This was the first time for Thomas Shelby since he came back from France that he shared a bed with a woman other than his wife who didn’t have any sexual interactions with. To his surprise, despite the pain after having been shot, he slept better than he had expected. In the absence of nightmares, he was well rested until, after five hours of sleep, the next morning you heard a loud bang on the door.

Taking a Turn

You walked downstairs again with your loaded gun in your hand.

‘Who is it?’ you asked as you approached the door carefully.

‘Jesse Eden’ the person said and you quickly opened the door while Tommy came walking downstairs, out of your bedroom.

‘I actually just came here to make sure you didn’t kill each other but it looks like you’ve managed to become acquainted’ Jesse giggled.

‘It’s not what it looks like’ you said as Tommy walked out of your bedroom wearing nothing but his undergarments.

‘I assume Tommy has informed you about our past relations. But, for the record, I no longer have any interest in the man, so it’s quite alright with me if it is what looks like Y/N’ Jesse laughed.

‘You are no longer interested, eh?’ Tommy said to Jesse with a cheeky smile.

‘Unless you have forgotten, you ended up marrying someone else’ Jesse said.

‘Should I give you two some privacy?’ you asked as you felt uncomfortable being caught in between their conversation about old times.

‘No Y/N, there is no need eh Jesse?’ Tommy said with a laugh.

‘No there is not. Arthur came to see me last night to give me your note. But he hadn’t said anything about you having been injured’ Jesse said.  

‘It’s alright, she’s a nurse. I got lucky’ Tommy chuckled.

‘Well, I am glad because I have information from one of my informants that will be of interest to you now that you are still alive. The Crown prosecutor was removed from the case and so was the chief of police. Apparently, it was found out that they both involved themselves with illegal prostitutes at some of your brothels’ Jesse said.

‘Now that is interesting, isn’t it?’ Tommy smirked.

‘You obviously knew and blackmailed them. The man in charge of the matter is now your friend Lawrence Staghill who, I believe, is filing for a motion to dismiss for lack of evidence in front of the judge who still owes you a lot of money. So, it looks like that everything is going to plan for you once again Thomas Shelby OBE. You should be free to leave after the next three days. The case is to be heard after the weekend’ Jesse said.

‘You hear that? Three more days and I will be out of your hair Y/N’ Tommy said.

‘I can’t wait’ you said cheekily and with a hint of sarcasm.

Jesse stayed for a little while longer before heading back to Birmingham and you made sure that, for the entire day, Tommy rested.

It was hard for Tommy to rest. It was almost like he needed to do something at all times. He wasn’t a man who could ever just sit still and, say, read a book. His mind had to busy constantly and he loved to be challenged.

For you, the day went by quickly and looking after Tommy was almost like looking after a child who refuses to listen.

Gone Too Far

‘I see you made yourself a bed on the sofa again’ you said as you noticed Tommy putting the blanket and pillow on the sofa.

‘Whilst I enjoyed our pillow talk, I figured that last night was an exception. Unless you think you might have difficulty sleeping again’ Tommy smirked.

‘I think I just might’ you said with a smile as you finished brushing your hair.

‘Alright, I will take my pillow and blanket upstairs then eh’ Tommy said.

‘Alright, see you up there’ you smiled, causing Tommy to chuckle.

This was strange indeed, but he figured that, at least, the bed was more comfortable than the lounge.

‘So, what do you want to talk about tonight, eh?’ Tommy asked as you walked into the bedroom with a glass of water and two white pills.

‘I went to the chemist today. This should prevent infection’ you said you said as you handed him the glass and the tablets.

‘Thank you’ Tommy said as you lied down next to him.

He swallowed the tablets and waited for you to say something, start a conversation of some sort.

But you didn’t. You lied there quietly, your dark eyes gazing over his half naked body.

In this moment, he didn’t know what came over him but, just as he leaned to lie on his uninjured side, he ran his hands through your hair and his eyes met yours.

‘I haven’t met anyone quite like you’ Tommy said.

‘Why is that?’ you asked.

‘I am not sure. There is something about you that intrigues me. That doesn’t happen very often’ Tommy said and, just as he did, you leaned forward and your lips met his.

His lips were soft and still tasted like whiskey.

Reluctantly at first, he returned the kiss, gently but passionately.

It was a short kiss and your tongues never touched by the time you lips drifted apart.

Once your lips separated you starred at each other, questioning in your mind what had just happened between you.

With embarrassment, you pulled away and turned around quickly.

‘Goodnight Tommy’ you said after you turned around. You turned off the night light and pulled your blanket over you tightly.

‘Goodnight Y/N’ Tommy said with a slight chuckle, still facing into your direction.

Despite the fact that Tommy had been on your mind now for days, you were surprised by your own actions and wanted to pretend that the kiss between you just moments ago didn’t happen.

You knew about his past, the killings, the illegal businesses, everything. He was a man you knew you shouldn’t get involved with. He was also still married and, at least in the eye of the public, he was a fascist.

You tried very hard to ignore the fact that he was lying next to you, half naked. The fire was lightening the room slightly and you simply couldn’t close your eyes, starring to the other end of the room.

For ten minutes you tried to lie still, but couldn’t. You fidgeted and kept starring up and then to the side again.

‘Do you want me to help you go to sleep?’ Tommy asked as he noticed your restlessness, which instantly broke the silence between you.

‘Help me go to sleep?’ you asked with some confusion and without turning around to face him. You were still to embarrassed to look at him.

‘Yes’ Tommy said as, suddenly, you could feel his body moving closer towards yours but still separated by your individual blankets.

‘What do you mean by that Tommy?’ you asked with some ignorance and, just when you did, you could feel the back of your blanket lift slightly.

Within seconds, Tommy’s fingers trailed over your bare shoulders downwards over your small breasts which were covered by nothing but your silk nightgown.

Your nipple turned hard instantly at his touch and you let out a deep sigh.

‘Tommy, I have never been with anyone before’ you said, allowing his touch but worrying about what he was intending to do to you.

‘Don’t worry Love, I am not going to fuck you. At least not in the conventional way’ Tommy chuckled as his fingers circled over your hard nipples.

You had no idea what he could possibly mean by that. Did he not find you attractive? What was he going to do to you then if not that?

‘So, you don’t want me?’ you asked curiously while small moans escaped your lips as the tips of his fingers continued to run circles over your nipples.

‘I want you alright. But I am not keen on tearing my stitches’ Tommy said as his hands began to take hold of your breasts harder.

You moaned at his touch and felt a strange and unfamiliar sensation build up in between your legs.

It wasn’t long until you felt his fingers move downwards over your stomach until they finally began teasing the top of your mound through your panties.

‘Tommy, I don’t think I will be going to sleep with you touching me like this’ you said with heavy breath.  You wondered how on earth this was actually going to help you go to sleep.

‘I hope not’ Tommy laughed quietly. ‘But once I am done with you, you will sleep very well, that I promise’ he whispered into your before biting your earlobe gently.

You took in a deep breath and moaned quietly. The feeling of his hot breath was intense.

‘So do you want me to continue?’ he whispered.

You couldn't say yes. But you also couldn't say no. Instead, all that escaped your lips was another soft moan.

‘I need to hear you say it Love. Tell me you want me to keep going’ he said.

You whimpered under his touch, your hips now rocking to meet his hand. But he held firm.

‘I...it feels really good’ was all you could manage to say.

‘And you want me to continue?’ he asked as his fingers moved a little lower, over your panties, expertly brushing over your clit.  

‘Yes Tommy, please continue’ you moaned and, just like that, Tommy slit his hand beneath your panties, running his fingers directly over your wet slit, dipping only the top of them into you gently.

He then began to rub his wet finger tips over your clit, circling around your hard nub with light pressure.

‘Oh my god Tommy’ you moaned as you never felt anything just like that.

After a minute or two, Tommy gently slid one finger into you, looking out for any cues from you to ensure that he didn’t hurt you now that he knew that you were a virgin.

You were so tight, it was almost too much to start and he could feel the resistance of your hymen within you. But he kept going, carefully and gently thrusting his finger in and out of you at a slow pace.

You moaned softly and Tommy loved pulling a reaction out of you. It was almost like it was his goal to break your normally stoic composure.

Tommy wanted to know that you were enjoying what he was doing.

He began sliding his finger in and out of you all the way slowly at first, but not long after he started to build speed.

You enjoyed the alternating feeling between emptiness and fulness inside of you and were making the most delicious noises now. Your eyes were completely closed and you were moaning louder.

Suddenly Tommy slipped a second finger inside of you just to give you a little extra jolt and you reacted better than he could have expected.

It was slightly painful at first but the mild pain soon subsided and turned into pleasure.

‘Tommy, oh god...fuck’ you moaned as you began squirming just slightly and moaning a bit louder.

As his fingers kept thrusting in and out of you, your breathing became heavier and your legs began to quiver.

His thumb soon gave extra attention to your clit while he kept up with the movement of his middle and index finger.

Your moans kept getting more frequent now and you were certainly getting wetter too as Tommy kept going faster and harder.

You couldn’t believe how good he was making you feel with his fingers but you also didn’t know what to expect when an overwhelming sensation of warmth and tingling overcame you slowly.

‘Tommy, I don’t know if this is right. It feels strange’ you moaned as your legs began to shake and you couldn’t control your movements.

You tried to squirm away as the feeling was too unfamiliar to you. But Tommy persisted, pushing his hand firmer against you and his fingers even deeper inside of you.

‘Does it feel good?’ Tommy asked, knowing already what your answer would be as he could feel your walls tightening around his fingers.

‘Yes Tommy’ you managed to let out in between moans.

‘Then its right Love’ Tommy smirked. ‘Just relax and let go eh’ Tommy whispered.

You moaned once again, louder than before, and gave into the sensation.

It was intense, so intense that you had to clench onto the sheets and, just like this your orgasm washed over you.

You were a shaking mess and Tommy kept up the speed with his fingers until your orgasm slowly began to subside.

‘Fuck, what the hell just happened?’ you said once you began to calm down and while Tommy still stroked the outside of your now soaked mound.

‘Did you never have an orgasm before?’ Tommy asked surprised and with curiosity.

‘Like this? No. Never’ you said. Of course, you pleasured yourself before but the sensation was different, way less intense than what Tommy just managed to do to you.

As Tommy removed his hand from you, you turned around, your cheeks flushed. It was almost like you were embarrassed to look at him after what had just happened.

‘Feeling relaxed now?’ Tommy asked with a grin on his face.

‘Yes…uhm…thank you’ you said shyly.

‘It’s my pleasure’ Tommy said with a smile before giving you gentle kiss. You could have spent all night just kissing him. He was good at it and his lips were full and soft.

‘You should get some sleep now, eh’ he said after your lips drifted apart and he caressed your face.

‘Is there anything I could do to return the favour?’ you asked shyly, feeling somewhat guilty about the way he made you feel with nothing in return.

‘No, not tonight Love’ Tommy said as he pulled you closer. Whilst he had the desire to be with you that night, he was still not well enough after his injury and felt as though he should give you time. You were inexperienced and this was new territory for you, possibly overwhelming. Just like this, you had awoken the soft and gentle side of Thomas Shelby and that, in itself, brought him out of his own comfort zone.

He did not know what to do or how to act. The only woman who had managed to do this to him after he’s fought in France was his late wife Grace and he was certain that he would never meet another woman like this again. A woman he would care for in the same way he cared for Grace. Having met you changed everything for him that night and he struggled with the idea to accept his fade, especially with a woman half his age and who was the daughter of the man who tried very hard to bring him down.

Thus, as you leaned your head against his chest carefully, making sure that you didn’t lean against his wound, he couldn’t help but stare at you and ponder about what had brought him to you. Perhaps it was meant to be.

‘What’s wrong Tommy?’ you asked as you began to notice his eyes being fixated on you as he ran one of his hands through your hair gently.

‘Nothing, just enjoying the moment’ he said.

‘Me too Tommy’ you responded before closing your eyes and drifting off to sleep.

Change of Heart

The next morning, when you woke up, Tommy was not by your side. His side of the bed was empty.

But, when you walked downstairs you could see him, sitting in the dining room area with a pen and paper.

You weren’t sure what he was writing and you weren’t sure how to approach him after last night.

You decided to go with a kiss and, just after you said good morning and leaned in to kiss him, Tommy pulled away.

That was unexpected and you looked at him, full of questions.

‘Last night was a mistake Y/N for which I apologise. I should not have been temped’ Tommy said.

‘A mistake? Right’ you said as you walked over to the kitchen bench to boil the kettle. Small tears were running down your eyes and you tried hard to hide them from Tommy.

You had begun to care for him and you most clearly were developing feelings for him.

‘Y/N?’ Tommy said as he noticed you being upset.

‘Tommy, please just give me some space alright’ you said as you walked into the studio with your cup of tea.

You were embarrassed and you felt weak. Yet you wanted to be strong.

Were you too naïve, failing for a man like him?

[benevolentbirdgal]

Purim: a Jewish holiday and wild ride from start to finish

So let me tell you about the absolute soap opera that is the Jewish holiday of Purim. The scene is set in ancient (appx. 4th century B.C.E.) Persia during the first Jewish Diaspora, in the city of Shushan (typically identified in secular sources as Susa, a now-abandoned ancient city in what is now Iran). I’m telling you, as a work of literature (even beyond theological implications for Jewish people), this book has everything: love, drama, royalty, intrigue, ego, plots, irony, mystery, and a strong female lead. 

[some non-slur swearing below]

Ahasuerus, party-loving king of Persia executed or exiled (translations argue) his wife Vashti, and had to find a new queen. Why did he do this, you ask? Well, it really starts with an 180-day party across his kingdom for all his subjects to celebrate the third year of his reign. After that absolute rager, party-bro KA has another one immediately after for a week, this time just for the capital city of Shushan. Vashti was having a woman’s party in her quarters, presumably living her best life, when party-bro sends his top seven yes-men to deliver a message to Vashti. This sleaze-ball wants her to appear at his party in front of everyone, wearing her crown, with the clear implication being only her crown. Vashti more or less tells him to pound sand (I mean, not the literal translation, but that’s the sentiment). 

KA’s advisors convince him that this is not only an offense against the king but also against all the men in the country (ah, the joys of ancient patriarchy and toxic af masculinity). KA writes a degree that women must respect their husbands so he has an official reason to get rid of Vashti. Vashti is soon thereafter out of the picture and the king is short a queen. Whether she was a Wise Lady With A Point Who Got Screwed Over or a Vicious Jew-Hating Adulteress Who Had It Coming has been a matter of furious debate for over two millennia (the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud vociferously disagree on her). In any case, KA regrets it pretty quick and wants a new queen. 

At the behest of his advisors (you know, since their last advice worked out soooooo well), KA had a big contest/forcible gathering of young women from around his kingdom and a Jewish woman, Hadassah, was the winner.  Hadassah was an orphan raised by her cousin Mordechai in the city of Shushan. Hadassah is more commonly known as Esther, because she changed her name to hide her identity as a Jew (at the behest of Mordechai). In any case, KA decided he liked Esther best and she became queen (it’s specifically mentioned both that he loved her most and that the palace staff liked her because she was nice to them-it’s unclear how much of an influence the latter was). 

Concurrently, a wicked man named Haman was the top advisor to the king and the king would basically rubber-stamp whatever Haman wanted. Haman was a raging Jew-hater-this will be relevant later. 

Some time into Esther’s reign as queen, Mordechai, who has taken to hanging around the gates of the palace to keep in touch with Esther, overhears a plot by two guards, Bigthan and Teresh, to kill the king. Mordechai alerts his cousin, and she tells the king. It’s recorded in the book of deeds and life keeps moving. 

Some time later, Haman decides (after a promotion to head lackey) that he wants all to bow to him as he passes. Mordechai refused to bow to Haman every single day (citing that as a Jew he bowed to no man), and that did not sit well with Haman. So despite being prime minister and presumably having more important things to do, “genocide the Jews” made it to the top of to-do list. He didn’t like them before, and Mordechai refusing to treat him like a special snowflake was something he took really, really personally (totally can’t think of any modern politicians like that, nope). He told KA, who frankly doesn’t seem to ask enough questions, that there was a people disrespecting the king and his laws throughout the land, and could he pretty-please exterminate them. As a bonus, Haman would “donate” 10,000 silver kikar to the royal treasury (modern conversion vary, but all agree this an absurd amount on money). 

KA handed him the royal seal to do so. Haman was feeling lucky I guess so he decided the best course of action was to draw lots to pick the day for the massacre. [Purim is lots in Hebrew, so that’s where the name of the holiday came from]. The message went out to all the provinces that on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, that they citizens and leaders should murder all of the Jews, young and old, man, woman, and child, rich and poor and take their possessions as spoils. 

As this wasn’t exactly a state secret, the Jews knew and were quite distressed. The planned slaughter was like a year out, but what the actual fuck were they supposed to do? If you lived in Persia at that point that, the empire was functionally your entire world, unless you were fabulously/ridiculously wealthy and well-connected. Having several months notice the other locals and your rules were going to slaughter you and take your stuff isn’t particularly useful when there’s really nowhere to go. 

In Shushan, Mordechai (who, although not explicitly in text, is in oral/Talmudic tradition a leader of the Jewish community) goes into mourning. He dresses in sackcloth and ashes, he weeps, and he fasts at the gates of the palace, as Jews throughout shushan and the kingdom are doing. Esther hears of her cousin’s mourning behavior and tries to send along nice clothes through a messenger, which he refuses. It is then that she learns of the decree. Mordechai (through the messenger) implores her to go ask the king if the Jews not getting murdered could be a thing. Esther explains that she could be killed for approaching the king unsummoned. Mordechai stresses the severity of the situation. Esther agrees to ask the king and tells Mordechai to have the Shushan Jewish community fast day and night (as opposed to just day as prior) for three days, and she and her handmaidens will fast too (no word on what the handmaidens thought of this).

On the third day, Esther bravely approached the king, asked him if she could request something. He said anything, up to half his kingdom (which implies to me that homedude, for all his flaws, was actually into her). Esther invited him to a party, where he and Haman would be the only guests. At the party she asks if she can another request. KA is open to it and she invites him to another party the next night. Party-bro king is obviously down and Haman is tickled to death at this second invitation. 

He goes home to brag to his wife, Zeresh, about the invite and also to bitch about how angsty he is Mordechai is still alive (this angst reignited by passing him on the way home). Zeresh suggests he have fifty-foot gallows built to make Mordechai an example on, with the king’s permission, ASAP. Haman orders the building of the gallows, feeling secure in the knowledge that his bestie the king will execute Mordechai on them. 

Back at the castle KA can’t sleep. He demands a bedtime story from the his records, because those will presumably put him to sleep. The story that gets read, ~coincidentally~, is of Mordechai saving KA’s life. Haman had sidled on up to the castle to speak to the king about killing Mordechai, and the king called him in. KA asks Haman, if he were to honor someone, what should he do? Haman is thinking “this is obvi about me” and tells the king that the honoree should be donned in royal clothing, and ride through the streets on a fancy horse with people someone shouting how great he is. KA is like great, love it, perf, go do that for Mordechai. Haman is not a happy camper but does the thing. After that, he goes home and tells Zeresh about it, who warns him that this is a very bad sign. 

Finally, that night is the night of Esther’s second soiree. Haman and KA attend. The latter offers to Esther anything she wants, up to half of his kingdom. Esther asks that her life, and the life of her people be spared. KA is like “whomst” and Esther revealed it was Haman. At this point Ahasuerus.exe stops working and he takes a walk to the gardens. He comes back to see Haman begging Esther for his life, and KA thinks Haman is assaulting her. Haman was seized by nearby guards.

One of the chamberlains is then like, hey, KA, coincidentally there’s these super high gallows Haman just had built. Why not take care of the problem that way? (The fact that the random nearby chamberlain was like yup, that dude, hang ‘em in the morning, probably says a lot about how Haman treated most people around him, even more than forcing all to bow to him). KA orders it be done. 

Not that Haman was around to be sad about it, but what happened next would have massively pissed him off, as his old job then went to Mordechai. Esther then implored of the king that the degree to allow the massacre of the Jews be reversed. The king couldn’t Cntrl+Z the order to murder-all-the-Jews, but he could issue an order that they could fight back. The proclamation was sent throughout the land, and the Jews were able to prepare. Since the royal decree had been amended, the governments (princes, governors, satraps) largely reformulated their plans accordingly, but plenty of Jew-haters still wanted to use the opportunity. The ability to self-defend meant that the communities weren’t massacred. In most of the kingdom, the Jews were now safe. Outside of Shushan, the fourteenth of Adar became a feast day. 

Shushan was still not safe though. Antisemites were still out and mad (and apparently had not learned from the previous day), so Esther asked the Jews of Shushan to be allowed to defend themselves once more. Her wish was granted, and the Shushan Jews were able to defend themselves once more (so Purim is celebrated a day later in walled cities). 

The story ends with the decision to write it down, and although there some debate on authorship, it is traditionally attributed to Esther herself cowriting with Mordechai. 

Nowhere in the book is God mentioned. Nowhere is there divine intervention (at least not explicitly). Just Jews sticking up for themselves, being brave in the face of mortal peril, and a metric fucktown of chutzpah. 

[motelgirl]

Nothing to Lose- Aldo Raine x Fem!Reader

Request: @inglourious-imagines

Prompts 11, 33, 40 of @inglourious-imagines list :)

I didn’t really know whether to do something angsty or not for this, but i’m not a huge fan of writing angst myself so I decided against it. Sorry it took so long but i’m finally back on it and will be posting regularly again soon. Hope you enjoy it <3 Sorry it’s so short by the way.

Y/n Y/l/n and Aldo Raine. Back in Tennessee, the two had been inseparable ever since they where children. If you saw one, you knew the other wasn’t far behind. They joined the army together, however what they didn’t know is that they would have been deployed in completely separate countries. That’s why when the news got through to Y/n that she was required for Lieutenant Raine’s group, she was more than ecstatic.

Y/n trudged through the rainy night in Paris. She had been dropped in the city just half an hour before and told the name of the hotel she was to rendezvous with the party. Now she was miserable, tired and hopelessly lost. Just when she was about to give in and continue her mission in the morning, she saw a wooden sign with the name of the hotel illuminated by a gas lamp in the distance. She grinned to herself, walking speedily towards it.

The door opened, ringing a bell above. A bald man of around forty looked up from the bar, his eyes following the girl as she smiled at him and greeted him with a simple ‘bonjour’ to which he returned, before she walked up the stairs on the hunt for room three. It wasn’t hard to find it as she heard the all too familiar voice from behind the wooden door.

“She’ll be here in a second, it’s dark out there maybe she lost her bearings,”

Y/n decided this was her cue and pushed on the unlocked door. Immediately, her eyes went towards the only two men awake, sat at the table in the middle of the room. She couldn’t conceal the huge smile on her face at the sight of her old friend. On instinct, she pulled the now standing man into a hug. He let out a light ‘oof’ noise at the unexpected contact, before smiling, rubbing the girls back. They pulled apart and Aldo looked towards the other man in the room, his hand now draped over Y/n’s shoulder.

“Y/n, this is Donny Donowitz, you might know him better as the Bear Jew. Donny, this is Y/n Y/l/n, one of the greatest fighters the Basterds will have. Guaranteed.”

The girl threw Donny one of her charming grins as he stood up and shook her hand. His eyes darted between Aldo and Y/n, before they landed on his arm on her shoulder.

“Y/n Y/l/n! The girl i’ve heard so much about. You know, ever since we met, Aldo hasn’t stopped talking about you,” he smirked, sitting back down in his seat. Y/n followed, placing herself in the spare chair around the table as Aldo sat where he previously was.

“Oh really?” She laughed quietly, trying to keep her voice down as she noticed the rest of the men around her and in the other room sleeping.

“Says you’re the best girl he ever known. I’ve never seen him even lay eyes on another girl before,” Donny continued. Judging by the empty bottle on the table, Y/n could tell Donny had a bit to drink beforehand and maybe she should take this information with a pinch of salt. However when her eyes met Aldo’s, who was glaring daggers into Donny, she realised maybe it was true.

“Anyway, we got a mission tomorrow night, but I’m sure you’ve been told. Nice to meet you Y/n, I’m off to bed,” Donny smiled at the girl who returned a slightly amused one back before watching him leave the room. She was left sat at the table with her old friend.

Standing up without a word, she slowly made her way to the balcony on the side of the building, closely followed by Aldo, who’s eyes hadn’t left her since she entered the room. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and offered it to Aldo, who accepted. The pair stood in silence on the balcony.

“I’ve missed you, you know. Life just wasn’t the same without having you around to annoy the shit out of me, I gotta say,” Aldo broke the silence. Hearing this, Y/n let out that angelic laugh that he had spent years imagining, trying to recreate in his head. Nothing compared to the real thing.

“So,” she paused, thinking of the right words to say, “what did Donny mean?” Her eyes looked at his with innocent curiosity. He watched as she flicked her cigarette butt over the side of the balcony.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. ‘The best girl he ever known’” She quoted the man. He looked at her unimpressed as she sat on the chair perched on the corner of the balcony, crossing her legs and leaning her head on her hand. “Is he lying?”

For just a moment, when he looked at her, he felt all his defences go down. He felt the way he did about her before the war, when they where still living the simple life in Tennessee. Bootlegging moonshine, running from the law and laughing their asses off most of the time. Back then, the two moved into their own tiny house in the smoky mountains when Y/n ran away from her house at seventeen. Being deployed in different countries for god knows how long may have hurt Y/n, but she didn’t know it hurt Aldo ten times more.

“Donny ain’t a liar.” The simple sentence caused a cheeky grin to make its way onto Y/n’s face. “Oh God, why you looking at me like that. I ain’t seen that smile for years,” he joked, however seeing her after all these years made him feel a way that, in the most cliche way possible, he had never felt when she wasn’t around.

“I’m never letting go of the fact you think i’m the best girl you’ve ever known,” she continued to grin up at the man. He shook his head, turning back away from her and looking out at the Parisian skyline.

“Do you ever shut up?” Y/n couldn’t see his face, but she could hear the smile as he said these words. She waltzed over to him and leaned beside him on the balcony, taking a deep breath and letting out a louder sigh than she was meant to.

“You’d hate it if I shut up I just know it,” she continued to grin at him. Her eyes tried to make contact with his but he continued to look out towards the city.

“No I wouldn’t,” he retorted. The pair where reunited, for that one half an hour slot, they felt like they did before. Unworried, bouncing off each other, joking and making fun of each other and always an underlying feeling that something was going unsaid. She was so desperate to find out what it was.

“Are you trying to start a fight or are you flirting, because to be honest I known you for all my life and I still can’t differentiate the two,” she tried her chances. She hoped deep down that he would choose the second option.

“Well let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t ever wanna start a fight with you,” he found his way around saying it directly, but truth be told he loved the girl and she loved him back. Donny could tell the moment she walked in and he was sure that the rest of the men would feel it in the morning. There was a brief silence as Y/n figured out what he meant. For what felt like the thousandth time that night, she felt that smile grow on her face.

“Well if Donny never lies. Does that mean you actually haven’t laid eyes on a girl?” She was now in extremely close proximity of the man. He didn’t need to reply for her to find out everything she needed to know. “Well, what will you do now I’m here?” Y/n needed answers to her questions, and the best way to get them was to ask directly and straight to the point. In her logic, she’d probably end up dead before the end of the war anyway so what did she have left to lose.

No words exchanged, Aldo took her face into his palms and kissed her. Softly at first, pulling apart only momentarily before she pulled him straight back in, now kissing his harder like it would be her last one ever. She had waited all her life for this moment and now it was finally here she could never let go. I’m a matter of seconds, she went from having nothing to lose to having absolutely everything.

[earnestly-endlessly]

Hi! I'm wondering if you can make a list of fics where Erik's jewish heritage isn't ignored? I just came across the fact that a lot of authors don't explore this part of him for some reason and i found it kinda upsetting so i'm wondering if you have any recs! I liked "As They Kiss, Consume" and "Who Shall be King Hereafter" by sherwoodfox, in case anyone who's reading this ask is interested in the same topic.

Hi Anon. I'm sorry for taking so long with this list but your request sent me on a wide search for fics that fit with your request. I tried to find a variety of fics where Erik's Jewish heritage is addressed. Some of them aren't necessarily cherik, but most of them are. I hope you enjoy this list.

Mistletoe, Latkes, and Long-Term Revenge Strategies – pocky_slash

Summary: Charles knows that Erik hates working at a department store in the best of times. Being Jewish in a department store during the holiday season is far from the best of times. He does what he can to help.

A Nice Boy (the Family Matters Edition) – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik's not sure whether the problem is that he doesn't want his parents to meet Charles or that he doesn't want Charles to meet his parents. Either way, he never invites Charles to brunch. Why should he? It's not like they're dating.

A Road Trip to Pennsylvania – Aainiouu

Summary: For a year Charles has nurtured the biggest and most embarrassing crush known to man towards Erik. They are friends and roommates and when Erik asks Charles to accompany him to home on Thanksgiving of course Charles goes.

In the Bleak Midwinter – keire_ke

Summary: It is not easy to find out, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, that your mother arranged a marriage for you. It is even less easy to convince her that you have no interest in the very fertile Magda, she of the wide hips and lustrous auburn hair. Fortunately, with a good friend at his side over the holiday weekend, Erik is sure he will prevail.

Speech Making – phalangine

Summary: Modern Emma AU- Charles Xavier, accomplished matchmaker and headmaster of North America’s preeminent school for mutants, intends to add another notch to his belt: setting up his friend Moira. His oldest friend, Erik, has doubts about this plan.

Charles doesn’t share them.

This is life (and everything’s all right) – pocky_slash

Summary: Edie Lehnsherr came into Charles' life long before he ever heard Erik Lehnsherr's name, and her death left a gaping hole in the lives of everyone in Charles' family. As the first Purim without her approaches, he begins to get creative in his efforts to bring everyone out of their grief. Kitchen creativity, however, is not quite his strength....

Bashert – AvengingAngel

Summary: Erik and Charles meet and fall in love. I wanted to write a story where Erik had a huge family. Pretty fluffy (for me anyways). I suck at summaries.

Note: The summary doesn’t reveal much but if you’re looking for a fic where Erik is jewish and has a large family with a heavy dose of cherik fluff and angst then this one is for you.

Math Reasons – pearl_o,  pocky_slash

Summary: "Mom says Erik always knows what he wants, it just sometimes takes him a little while to actually realize it," Ruth said.

Charles fell in love with Erik the first night they met, the first week of freshman year. Two years of friendship, adventures, arguments, hijinks, secrets, and summer visits later, Erik is starting to catch up.

Ser

It’s kind of our whole things – pearl_o, pocky_slash

Summary: After two years of best friendship, Charles and Erik thought they knew everything there was to know about each other. They're surprised, then, when their first summer as a couple reveals that they have a lot to learn about each other and themselves.

Sequel to Math Reasons

A Winter in New York – nextraordinaire

Summary: Charles and Erik have been childhood friends for as long as they can remember – Erik, living with his mother in Queens, and Charles in the big mansion in Westchester. For all, expect themselves, it was just natural progression that they'd end up together.

A series of ficlets from the same universe – can be read as separate and are out of chronological order.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside – heyjupiter

Summary: "It's just, this is my first Chanukah away from my parents. And it's--it's like 90 degrees out."

Erik Lehnsherr and Kitty Pryde celebrate a Genoshan Chanukah. It's a little different from the way it used to be in New York, but some unexpected visitors help them embrace the spirit of the holiday season.

Hold Back the Rain (front!strict mashup) – euphorbic

Summary: Charles Xavier: society darling, powerful political activist, well-known professor, and Dominant.

Erik Lehnsherr: anti-social, international motorcycle racer, and defiant submissive.

Erik is at Sepang in Malaysia for the fourteenth leg of the International World Championship. After doing poorly in qualifying, he's furious to find he has to take another VIP around the track instead of meeting Charles at the KL airport.

The Swan – waitfornight

Summary: In 1939 Erik and his sister Ruth are sent to Devonshire, England, during the Kindertransport refugee program to live with Kurt and Sharon Marko as foster children just before the start of World War II. Angry and wishing he could return home on the night of his seventeenth birthday, Erik meets a boy alone in the forest who is cursed to transform each day into a swan, only taking his true form by night.

Swan Lake AU.

The boy with the heart on his sleeve – euphorbic

Summary: Charles loses a high-stakes bet to Raven and is required to get a tattoo. However, when he makes a disparaging remark about the art form, Raven's acerbic mentor, Erik, steps in.

Or, the one where Erik and Raven are tattoo artists.

The Wurst Case Scenario – sareyen

Summary:If anyone asked why Charles, come rain, wind or shine, made the significant trek during his dismal lunch hour to dine at "Edie's Kosher Delicatessen", he would stubbornly say that it was because their pastrami on rye and potato knishes were absolutely to die for. He wasn't completely lying, because the deli's namesake, Edie Lehnsherr, made the best matzah ball soup Charles has ever had in his life. Still, Charles would rather shave his full head of hair off than admit that the real reason he would willingly walk through hail and fire to get to the corner deli was because of Erik, the insanely attractive man working the counter.

Sure, Erik has barely spoken two words to Charles other than "Hello, what can I get you?" or, after the third day in a row that Charles came to the deli, "Welcome back, what can I get you?", but Charles was more than happy to just ogle at the man from afar while devouring the juicy wurst Erik had put together with his (large and very capable) hands.

But, little does Charles know, Erik doesn't usually work the front counter. He only does it when he knows the cute blue-eyed man will be dining in.

This is life (and everything’s all right) – pocky_slash

Summary: Edie Lehnsherr came into Charles' life long before he ever heard Erik Lehnsherr's name, and her death left a gaping hole in the lives of everyone in Charles' family. As the first Purim without her approaches, he begins to get creative in his efforts to bring everyone out of their grief. Kitchen creativity, however, is not quite his strength....

c'est regarder ensemble dans la même direction – melonbutterfly

Summary: Since that day on the beach, Charles and Erik have learned to agree to disagree for the sake of living and working together. Then, for Christmas, and Charles gives Erik Hanukkah back a second time, and their relationship shifts a little further.

Terrible Hanukkah Sweaters and Other Life Challenges – professor

Summary: “Why am I here again?” Erik groans.

“I need you to lift things and glower at people over my shoulder when I tell people that it’s not ‘politically correct’ or a ‘war on Christmas’ to have a non-denominational winter holiday festival,” says Theresa Pryde.

Well, at least those are two things he’s good at.

Shrapnel – librata

Summary: It's late 1940, and tensions between the Axis and the Allies are tightening. Displaced and alone, 16-year-old German Jew Erik Lehnsherr finds himself employed as a servant by some snobby, terrible family in England whose house is far too big and whose money never seems to end. The worst part is, he isn't just mucking stables or cleaning plates–-he's tasked with tending to the whiny, disabled son named Charles, who might just drive Erik into absolute madness.

Or, the World War II fic in which Erik and Charles experience a changing world and a lot of teen angst.

Defying Expectations – Baamon5evr

Summary: Charles and Erik meet each other’s family. Neither of them gets what they expect.

table for three – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik should have known to call ahead to the Chinese restaurant--it's Christmas Eve and he lives in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, after all. But before he can go home to mourn the loss of another one of his mother's yearly traditions, he's accosted by a teenage girl with a strange proposition--that he should stay and have dinner with her and her mother, instead.

different from all other nights – metonymy

Summary: "This year we are slaves; next year we will be free." Kitty and Erik host a seder for Passover at the Xavier School.

Libertad – ariadnes_string

Summary: Erik knew the look, had seen it his whole life, even before the war.  ”You, with your height and blue eyes and straight nose, you can pass. You can be free of us. You are not marked with your difference.” If you only knew, he’d thought then. He thought the same thing now. And it was that thought, as much as anything, that made him move towards the gate.

Wash Away – sebastian2017

Summary: One quiet, lonely morning, before Yom Kippur, Erik makes his way to the sea in search of forgiveness.

After? There is No ‘After’ – Unrepentant_Marvelist

Summary: Erik knows what he is for. He has known his responsibilities as a survivor since the moment he woke under a scratchy, lice-infested blanket in the Red Army hospital. His world is painted in lucid blacks and whites (so often splashed in red) and there is no room for uncertainty or indecision... until a certain sunburned Englishman throws himself into his world.

The Children of an Idle Brain – Margo_Kim

Summary: Sometimes, when he’s lucky, Schmidt can’t hurt him. It’s like there’s a room inside of Erik’s head that’s he’s usually locked out of, that won’t open no matter if he beats himself bloody against it. On those days, he endures. But sometimes—and Erik doesn’t know why, whether it’s that the stars align or some higher power takes pity or Erik screams loud enough to earn his reward—the door opens. Erik can duck inside and slam it behind him and watches himself through the windows as Schmidt slowly, methodically tortures him to strength.

These days, this past week, there’s a boy in the room with him and he tells Erik, “That’s horrible,” like that means something.

Somehow, across the world, Erik's and Charles' minds touch when they need each other most. They can't be sure that the other boy is real. They suspect that he is not. But that doesn't mean they aren't each other's lifeline until they lose each other and then for a while longer.

Tehillim – kvikindi

Summary: Erik, in Israel, afterwards: another life he could have had. If.

I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) – childishinquiry

Summary: Erik has worn long sleeves his whole life, even before they had to wear yellow stars. Marching along his arm, in neat, black, English letters, are the words "My name's Charles Xavier."

Precious Few Years – sherwoodfox

Summary: Erik and Charles (known only to each other by the letters inscribed on their wrists) are meant to be together, soulmates, destined for the most powerful kind of love and connection a human being can experience.

But they are separated in almost every possible way- by distance, by circumstance, by language, by war. Their chances of success- of finding one another in the labyrinth of the world- are very slim. There is a reason why most people never find their soulmates.

But of course, Charles and Erik aren't ordinary children-

They have their gifts.

[ravipanikkar]

This is a list of my favorite Buddie fic, they’re in no particular order and I’ll add as I found new one. I’ll post only finished fic, the ones I’ll read over and over, with a little summary by me and a couple of tags. Hope you like them as i did! 

One shot

Live in Me, Jerusalem [AO3] by @matan4il [ AO3 | Tumblr ]

3,175 words 1/1 chapter

established Buddie | nsfw | Jewish!Buck | Catholic!Eddie

This is just a little snippet of a world in which Buck and Eddie are a couple and Buck is Jewish, with all the heaviness of the hate he received as a kid. There are 4 part of the series, each one focusing on a part of Buck and Eddie's relationship but with a strong focus on religion. This one in particular is about a specific part of Buck life as a Jew and how he opens it to Eddie. And they have sex, yes.

I love every fic by matan4il, and this one is easily my favorite.

Gentleman Callers [AO3] by lesbianettes/ @milkymarjan   [ AO3 | Tumblr ] 

10,487 words 1/1 chapter

british!Buck | nsfw | there's some plot

This one is really nsfw. Eddie's feeling pretty lonely in LA after the move and calls a sex line, where he meets Evan. Yes, here Buck as an English accent and this is a good 50% of the reasons i love this fic!

Yes, there's sex here too, mostly phone sex and I have to admit it's very well written! 

Other notable work from lesbianettes it's Curves and Edges.

Oh Captain (My Captain), Our Fearful Trip is Done [AO3] by @princessfbi  [ AO3 | Tumblr ]

22,873 words 1/1 chapter

established Buddie | hostage situation | angst and hurt 

What would happen if a band of bud guys enter the station? And then kidnap Bobby and Buck? What if Buck is so tired and sick that he can't almost stay awake? Ever wondered how the firefam would do if they have to watch Buck being hurt? Then this fic is for you!

It's extremely realistic in the most adrenalinic scenes and even in the sweet one ( I love my dad!Bobby, okay?).

I'd love to add some other works from Princessfbi but not only i can't choose, i just added more to my list! 

Frequent Flyer [AO3] by red_to_black / @redtooblack [ AO3 | Tumblr ]

13,464 words 1/1 chapter

Buck is not a firefighter | still unlucky as always | a nsfw scene but not buddie 

Buck is still trying to find his way so he changes job like every day, almost, but his bad luck keeps following him. And every time he, or someone for him, has to call 911 here comes the firefam, with Eddie. In this fic there are a lot of different scenes with Buck in needs of help, not always for himself and one time he's naked, that are amazingly thought and written, with the best firefam. 

I, Hildy is another of my favorite fic by red_to_black 

an unplanned proclamation [AO3] by autumnchills/ @lovebuck   [ AO3 | Tumblr ]

1,909 words 1/1 chapter

coming out story | loving firefam | technically not buddie

This is really easy to describe: Buck comes out to the firefam. But there's so much more! How he feels, the anxiety, the fear and the love! It feels like a rollercoaster in the best way possible. Highly recommend to every LGBTQ+ people that need something good.

This is the only fic I read from autumnchills, so as soon as I catch up I'll add something here

Multi chapters

maybe one day i'll fly next to you [AO3] by spinningincircles/ @tylerhunklin [ AO3 | Tumblr ]

35,914 words 8/8 chapters

Skating AU | nsfw 

Buck and Eddie are world famous figure skaters and they hate each other. Okay, not for long but the progression of their relationship is sweet and lovely and yes angsty but aren't we here for that?

This fic is one of my favorite AU, the firefam is so close and strong as ever, especially the Buckley siblings. I loved loved Buck and his feeling for the sport, for his own worth. Definitely a good read!

I love spinningincircles dabbles series, lots of one shot that i have yet to finish because i don't want to or i'll have to wait for more!

 Oh, well. [AO3] by @justapoet   [ AO3 | Tumblr ]

19,091 words 4/4 chapters

Poet!Buck | hospital | suicide thoughts

Buck finds a way to cope with his life and it's writing poems in his little notebook. And he is really really good at it! The poem not the coping so much 'cause we know (or should I say the good writer is justapoet technically?). But he never shows them to anyone, until Eddie and Maddie find them, all of them, especially the last one.

For Buck is like having his heart in their hands, and they are the best hands that could handle it, right? 

This fic is sweet, and hard, the poems are so heavy with all Buck feels. I loved the "And?" at the end (you'll get way) because in that single word i felt everything.

justapoet wrote only another buddie fic and it's I adjust the spring for you to follow me with your eyes which everyone should read right now! 

Series (technically not completed but readable as one shots)

White House AU [AO3] by buddiebuddie/ @buddie-buddie    [ AO3 | Tumblr ]

191,910 words 15 works (but one is like 30 chapters and going)

White House AU | no firefighters | nsfw

It’s an ongoing AU with Buck as the President of USA and Eddie as his bodyguard, and so much more! The firefam is there, Maddie and Chris too.

I love politics and this fic is the perfect mix to one of my favorite OTP ever and the White House universe. 

The Tremor 'verse [AO3] by Nibbles84/ @eddie-diaz-buckley    [ AO3 | Tumblr ]

22,365 words 6 works

Established Buddie | NavySEAL!Buck | chronic illness | nsfw 

It this AU Buck and Eddie are married, the first is an ex SEAL and the second is the firefighter, but Buck as also a chronic illness. It’s not an easy series of fic, is hard and heavy with real life problem for the both of them, but the love, the sweetness and the support they have for each other is astonishing! 

the outsider's pov, navy seal!buck au that got out of hand [AO3] by  coupe_de_foudre/ @a-beautiful-struggle-of-life   [ AO3 | Tumblr ]

8,339 words 6 works

Established Buddie | NavySEAL!Buck | external POV

This series is about a well established Buddie, even married in some, and there’s also Shannon! But it’s from an external point of view, 5 from Ana and one from Abuela. This series as everything, not much angst but I’m not complaining, from the sweetest Christopher ever to Buck and Shannon relationship. 

- other to come -