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brightsun-and-darkmidnight · 5 years ago

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Request. The Connection

@melodylnoelle requested something along the lines of, "Vampire or something with Loki showing off his magic and teaching them how to use it."

This was fun to do and it really helped me with creativity and motivation. I hope you like it! :)

Warnings: Blood.

Loki was assigned to help the Avengers, sort of the same punishment Thor received. Though, Loki thought it more cruel since Loki had to return to the same realm he attacked. He did not get the same chance at a clean slate that Thor did. Midgardians knew Loki well, and Thor never gave up the chance to state he was under watch. The unfairness was a raging course of thoughts, he shivered thinking about the alternative of having to go to the Jotunheim.

So Loki accepted the punishment considering the alternatives. He went on missions when he was allowed. As of recently, there have been a series of mangled bodies. Blood drained from them with a series of notorious bite marks.

Thor crossed his arms, looking over another gruesome scene of a drained body. "You really think vampires are on Midgard?"

Loki grumbled, "do you know of another creature who feasts like this and leaves those marks?"

"I mean so many."

Loki already counted three separate bites. "Vampires rarely let go once biting into their meal."

Thor growled as he invaded Loki's space. "Victim. They are victims."

Loki stood his ground as he stated, "for them it is no different from us eating Bilesnipe or any other animal."

Thor glared down at him. "Find the lair so we can end them." Thor turned and went to his dear friends.

Loki grumbled as he went to join the group, "life is just a game of kill or be killed."

-:-

Loki studied the attacks over the city and noticed a cluster that faded into the center. The victims were scattered outwards, ranging from one to three bites. Also the time line suggested when the victims were shared, the more frequent there was evidence of a feeding.

Loki pointed to the map with the clear center, a series of dots surrounding it. "Their lair should be around here."

Tony and Bruce looked closely at Loki's data.

Steve stood tall with vengeance written across his face. "How are you so sure?"

Loki rolled his eyes. Even though knowing he was technically the well educated one on the subject, their quest to kill still drove him insane. They were supposed to be heros but failed to understand how the real world works.

"Vampires do not kill near their home in hopes of not being found. Though, they often make a circle such as this one since they need to feed. Also the time line suggests there are at least three and if they feed together the attacks happen more often."

Steve nodded as he ordered, "suit up. We go tonight."

-:-

Loki was certain the lair was in an abandoned building as most vampires claimed in other realms but this one was a house. A seemingly normal Midgardian house. The lights were on and Loki saw the TV on in the window. A few shadows passed quickly by the windows before the lights shut off. The front door opened as two people walked out. One female and the other male. Loki did not miss their glances around but they were nudging the other and making loud conversations.

Following them to the outer circle they went into a discreet building that was secluded. Everyone snuck in to watch as a third member was already there. A young looking female chastised the two who were being loud.

"Jared. You need to keep a low profile. I swear if you are the reason we need to relocate again I will end you myself."

"Jeeze. Its not like anything can kill us." The male stepped towards the petite woman. "As if you could do anything."

The other female scoffed. "You know we wouldn't last without Odette. She supplies us with the food, housing, money… the internet for your stupid games."

Jared hissed at the woman.

"Enough! Vivian you know better!" Odette became a blur as she pushed Jared away from Vivian and across the room. "You are both hungry." Odette dragged an unconscious older male in a suit across the floor. "You two drink. This one is a pig."

"He sure is plump like one." Jared instantly obliged himself to the offering.

"You okay?" Vivian watched Odette nod before going to feast on the now, very conscious and screaming old male.

Steve made the stupid mistake of jumping right into the fight before all the vampires were occupied with feed. All to try to save the man. The others followed Steve's lead.

Loki watched as Odette blurred. She knocked Steve through a wall. Threw Thor into Tony and effectively knocked both of them out the window. Clint was able to hit the feasting vampires with a paralyzing electricity. With a high pitched hiss Odette quickly threw Natasha at him.

Odette's purple eyes made eye contact with Loki then she was gone.

Loki cursed the color of her eyes. The legend of vampires killed their sire had violet eyes and were among the strongest.

Loki moved to hide his neck and felt the sharp points in his hand. It stung and burned. He forced seder to his hand to heal the wound and force a shock to the vampire. She screeched as she let go and covered her mouth.

Her violet eyes glared at Loki but soon she was on the floor as gold shimmered over her body. He watched as seder reached out from her form. Although, it was oddly his seder. The feel of his seder flooding through her knocked him back as a force field exploded. He quickly put a shield around her body as she drastically lost control of herself.

Loki knelt beside her as she tried to back away.

Odette stammered as seder lashed out, "Wha-what are you?"

Loki mumbled to himself. "I guess there are not many with magic on Midgard." He spoke with purpose, "I am a sorcerer. Magic is in my blood, which you consumed. So it appears you inherited some of my magic."

Odette moved further away from Loki when he approached. Loki moved his shield to capture some of the magic emitting from her. Gently holding the sphere of seder he examined it to find it was certainly his power mixed with the natural limits of a common magic.

"You have a thousand years of knowledge coursing through you. With not a single clue how to wield this strong power.. what are you going to do? Will you learn?"

"Please. Let my siblings and I go!" Odette stuttered, "I-I will learn please-Let them go!"

"The first test to pass is to calm yourself. Be mindful of your thoughts and emotions. Everything down to your breath. Control all of them, your entire being and existence."

Odette's eyes were on the team who stood over her siblings.

Loki firmly stated. "Odette. Focus." He snapped his fingers to get her attention and a glare. "The only way I can save you and your siblings is if you succeed right now."

He watched as Odette tried to focus but she kept looking towards her supposed siblings.

Loki tried to coax her into relaxing with a soothing voice. "Focus and relax."

Odette groaned but forced her eyes closed. Her face scrunched up and the seder flowed smoother than the movements it was doing previously. Her face scrunched up more as her lips parted so she could hiss through teeth, her sharp canines on display. A beastly growl rumbled from her chest to her throat.

Her eyes shot open as she punched the cement floor, effectively cracking it. "I can't!"

The seder was back to its ragged tendrils trying desperately to lash out past Loki's shield around her.

Loki gestured towards her siblings being restrained, "for them you must. I can only help you if you can control yourself. Watch."

Once he had Odette's attention he used his hand to make a flow of calm soothing seder, swirling and swimming as he moved his hands. He pulled the sphere apart and made it move that way as well. Stretching it into a thin line then spinning it to make a cyclone in his hand. Then he let the seder return to his body.

Odette's voice was filled with wonder. "How are you…?"

Loki smiled as he played with his seder, making different patterns, shapes and signs. "Practice. Many years of practice. But if you can control, focus the seder around you to do something similar... I can help you."

The Loki watched as Odette held her hands to form a sphere just as Loki did. She was trying too hard, she was not calm and relaxed. However, it seemed to work slightly as the energy started a violent and quick moving ball of strands.

"Now relax. The strands need to smooth out, become one with the other. You are getting the hang of it… excellent. Now. Gently and slowly pull that energy into yourself."

Loki heard Thor approach but he waved a hand for him to go away, thankfully he did. He did hear the others question what was happening and Thor tried to explain how seder students were protected by their teacher. It was true and an important rule for seder wielders. Though the part about how the protection could also be extended to their family was very true.

A teacher and student was not all that was going on right now. Loki's gut feeling told him that much.

Loki watched as the seder flowed into Odette through her hands, arms and chest.

Loki kept the shield around her as he told her to open her eyes.

She looked around her, seeming to be surprised it worked. Then looked to her siblings and the team who had all eyes on her. Her eyes however went to Loki's as she stared at him with awe.

Loki whispered, "We need to get you all out of here."

Loki rose to his feet and held his hand out. She glanced to his extended hand before taking it. As Loki expected, her hand was lower than the typical Midgardian temperature. He noted to make sure she fed properly at some point and soon before she gave into the frenzied beastly blood thirst. Loki let her take her hand back as she cautiously went past the team and to her siblings.

Steve's heavy footsteps went to Loki as he barked at Loki, "what just happened? She is your student now?"

"It is more than that. But first we need to get them blood."

Steve's face contorted into anger but before anyone could say anything Loki explained his thoughts.

"Donated blood. I am sure shield can manage to get what we need."

-:-

Loki watched as the vampires greedily drank the blood bags Loki arranged for them… through the tiering explanation.

"When Odette drank my blood she also unknowingly allowed my seder into her system. Making her an extension of myself since she has a portion of my power. Furthering the need for me to protect her and teach her how to control it. On Asgard there are laws that allow her and her siblings protection and to be under my watch."

Everyone looked to Thor who nodded and confirmed, "it is true. They will be under his protection. To attempt to kill, or even harm any of them would be the same as attacking Loki himself. It is Loki's right to defend them as he would defend himself."

Loki noticed Fury point to the glass where the vampires were in the other room. "We let a war criminal have control of three vampires. To which only ONE of them threw you around like pillows at some little girl's slumber party?"

Steve crossed his arms as did Thor.

Loki spoke. "I will take them to Asgard. Midgard does not have the proper materials or resources for me to train Odette."

-:-

Loki was allowed to keep the vampires in his hall near his own room. Loki knew from his previous data on them, all 3 of them were fairly new vampires. Odette was the oldest as far as being a vampire but she had the youngest appearance of a 19 year old. Though she was turned young she held the mental maturity of an older adult. Her reasoning and deductive skills were amazing and it greatly kept Vivian and Jared in line. Vivian was turned at age 32 and Jared was turned at age 27, both of them roughly 500 years after Odette was turned.

They told Loki their stories of human memories, their turn, and as well as their sire.

Odette was the first turn. It was an accident, the sire did not drink enough of her blood during a frenzy of attacking all her friends. Odette had turned, waking up from her last slumber to see her friends all dead. The emergency responders smelt oddly appetizing and sharp pain cut her lips. Before she knew it, blood soaked her clothes and the hunger was satisfied. She was finally thinking clearly when one of the last victims blood was pouring down her throat. Although she was disgusted with what was happening, the horrifying part was she could not stop.

Then her willingness to repeatedly give into her hunger further fueled the desire to kill her sire. To end him grew stronger the loner she lived. For the revenge of her friends. He robbed her of all her humanly dreams and events. As well as for making her live off of others' life fuel.

However, Vivian and Jared were turned for the purpose of ending Odette. It did not take much to turn them both against their sire and help Odette. However, Odette was the one to drain their sire's blood thus giving Odette the dark purple eyes. Her eyes would brighten when hunger would become too much.

Loki read about the purple eyes. They were a warning to vampire hunters and all other vampires that she was strong enough, and had in fact killed her sire. Odette had become the leader of their group and also the provider for her siblings. Odette would choose who to kill and take their belongings to keep their house well taken care of besides their odd stay at home jobs.

Vivian enjoyed sewing and crocheting, bringing in some income that way. Many Asgardians helped Vivian learn the ways of making cloth for clothes and tapestries.

Jared always loved electronics and spent most of his time playing video games but did create modifications for those games. Apparently he was good enough to have a demand large enough to charge money for his creations. Loki got Jared involved in the protective shields surrounding the castle. Jared found it complicated at first but found similarities to programming.

Odette did at home work through different calling agencies. Loki found Odette skilled with words and a quick mind in influencing others.

They worked as a team, as a family. Though Odette was in charge she took their needs and wants into consideration, especially everyone's safety.

Odette would force them to relocate when they needed to due to not aging or gaining too much attention. Though Loki assured all three of them that Asgard was their home now. Loki took care of them all, even ordered blood from Midgard so they had meals that they were used too. The donors were carefully chose to prevent a situation Odette and Loki were in. It was not hard to make sure magic wasn't in the blood, most Midgardians did not possess magic.

As Loki poured his time over vampires and blood rituals in his free time, only one answer explained the connection and constant pull to Odette…

It was a rare phenomenon of seder leaving ones body and implanting itself into another. An intimate connection of knowing feelings and glimmers of prominent thoughts. Since it was Loki's own seder within Odette, it constantly called for his attention to protect her. She was literally a part of himself now.

Loki's head was held up by his hand that leaned on his desk. He closed his eyes as his fingers rubbed his temples. Only his mother knew just how serious the connection was. She noticed his need to protect Odette, and apparently he was different with her. Also something about Odette seemed to enjoy her time with him, even admitting it to his mother. Though, his cleaver mother gave him minimal details such as, "she is very wise and hard to trick into getting information out of-but I do know she enjoys your company."

Loki sighed wondering when the conversation took place. There were times when he felt Odette becoming embarrassed and his own name echoed in distant quiet thoughts. Right now he felt Odette's fear and heard the buzz of worry in her mind. Loki was already on his feet before the knock on his door.

Jared yelled Loki's name as the door burst open despite being locked. "Something is wrong with Odette! She's-she said she is tired."

Loki went to Odette's room and he found her on the bed struggling to stay awake. Vampires did not sleep so there must be an odd reason. Loki let his body's seder connect with the seder in Odette's body. He understood now.

"She has been using the seder and it is wearing thin. Her body is going into something similar to Odin's sleep in an attempt to heal itself."

Vivian questioned, "Can you do something?"

Loki thought about the situation since the bite… every time she fed on the blood bags, at least over time he did notice the connection to Odette lessened. It was his seder being flushed out of her system but his seder saw it as a threat. Odette has also been using seder in lessons on how to control and use it.

Loki glanced at the siblings. "Get out."

Jared became enraged. "What are you going to do? Are you going to save her?"

Loki looked at Odette's eyes as they were closing. "She needs to feed."

Jared screamed. "Are you kidding? We just fed an hour ago!"

Loki undid the gauntlet on his arm. "She needs more of my seder."

Odette waved her siblings away. "I understand... It is for Loki's safety. I want you far away from here so you don't risk smelling his blood. Especially as I eat straight from the source."

Vivian took Jared and they were gone with the sound of wind and a breeze that washed over Loki.

Loki smiled as he set the armor on the floor. "Thank you."

Odette sat up with Loki's help. He held her close with one arm as he offered his bare forearm.

Odette licked her lips as her bright violet eyes met his. "You know it is hard for any vampire to control themselves when another is feasting from the source…. I did not them attacking you."

Loki watched as Odette took his bare arm and locked eyes with the pulse point.

Loki waited with excitement.

She started to lean towards his arm with scared whispers. "Will you stop me again? With the jolt through my teeth?"

Loki chuckled. "If I don't you would not have a chance the next time my seder fails you."

Loki hummed in pain as her teeth pierced his skin but he watched her drink.

He watched her as she strengthened the bond between them once again.

Her emotions and the whisperings of her thoughts slowly strengthened with each gulp she took.

Admiration for his kindness. Memories of their talks and lesson sessions. The first time they met and how he saved her, Jarad and Vivian's lives. Thankful for all of the accommodations Loki made for all of him. The memories of talking to Frigga… as well as Jared and Vivian. The infatuation with Loki they all saw grow over time. Her siblings teasing her relentlessly.

He felt a stronger feeling through the connection.

Adoration. He did so much for her, even now he gave her more of himself. She couldn't even tell him what she felt about him.

Loki smiled as he pushed hair from her face. "You are beautiful. Strong. Smart. A great leader… You are kind and considerate to others."

Loki was becoming a bit tired but he let her drink as much seder she could. He noticed she was containing it well and he wanted the connection to last as long as it could.

"I love you Odette."

She felt fear of not being stopped in time. Thinking about how stupid Loki was for letting him feed off of him. Her eyes closed as she moaned onto his arm. Her fingers tightened on his arm and Loki noticed the embrace was warm. A hurricane of thoughts raged inside her mind as she fought for control.

"Just a little more. I am fine."

She groaned as she parted from him with her own free will. She glanced at his face then locked onto his lips. The want to kiss him grew and she quickly laid her lips on his.

A lewd moan left Loki's mouth as he pushed her backwards onto the bed.

She replied, "you are so stupid to trust me."

Loki grinned against her lips. "You stopped."

"Because I love you." She growled as she forced him to lay on his back. "I have wanted you to myself for such a long time. Jared and Vivian are going to wait for a while…"

Loki grinned as she started to undo his outfit. His fingers undoing her dress with ease, and it fell from her shoulders.

Loki whispered against her lips. "A long time indeed."

#request #the connection #loki #trigger warning #blood #brightsun-and-darkmidnight #request done #vampire

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thedupshadove · 5 years ago

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G-d of My Father’s

Summary: An interesting fact about Newton Pulsifer comes further to light. Newt, as usual, frets.

Author’s Note: This was sort of written to be set within @jewish-kulindadromeus “HaSofer”, but I’m over-eager, which means that only Chapter One of that fic is actually up as I write this, which means that further chapters of that fic may render this one incompatible with it, which is fine as that author is within her rights to write whatever kind of story she wants, seeing how we’re not actually working together.

“Say,” said Crowley after the sixth time Newt overheard him giving Aziraphale some Judaism 101 lesson and interjected with a helpful clarification, extra information, or his own view on things only to hastily shut himself up, “how come you know all this? I remember asking you if you were Jewish and you said no.” In fact Newt had looked at the ceiling, stammered a bit, pulled his mouth into a thin Muppety line, rubbed the back of his neck, and then said no, but Crowley hadn’t given that much thought at the time, since that was barely more awkwardness than Newt tended to display when asked to make a definitive statement on anything. “What, did an old girlfriend teach you?”

“His current girlfriend could have taught him.” said Anathema pointedly, walking into the room. “Although I suppose if that were it he’d wax fondly about boyoz instead of babka.”

“No,” Newt finally forced out after exhaling the breath he’d been holding in since Crowley had started addressing him. “No, it…it wasn’t any girlfriend. It was, er, well it’s all stuff I picked up from my father’s old synagogue.”

“Uh-huh.” said Crowley in a much-is-becoming-clear-to-me voice. “Your father’s old synagogue. Your mother, I take it, not having one.”

“Right.”

“And may I further hazard a guess that your father, family obligations aside, is not what one would call a pious man?”

“Oh, completely non-observant. And pretty well atheist too. Since well before he met my mum, mind, so don’t go blaming her.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it” Crowley deadpanned. “So, you were dragged to the synagogue sometimes, probably mostly for b’nai mitzvahs, and couldn’t help but absorb a few things. I see.” He made as if to turn back to Aziraphale.

But Newt suddenly looked distressed and a little defensive. “Well I wouldn’t say dragged.” he protested. “I mean they didn’t have to drag me. Why would they? It was something special, something wonderful. A day to be spent surrounded by relatives, plenty of whom I didn’t see very often. Getting to see some cousin have a shining moment. Good food, good music, good conversation, us kids sneaking off to go exploring or play hide-and-seek during the reception, what wasn’t to look forward to?”

“Alright, alright, I apologize.” said Crowley, seemingly a little taken aback.

But Newt seemed now to feel that not enough had been said. “And it wasn’t just b’nai mitzvahs either. I mean there were a lot of those, but there were some weddings too, and of course a few funerals. Those obviously weren’t fun, per se, but they were…good. In a way. Like, if this relative was going to die, I’d much rather that we’d all gathered and done this funeral than if we hadn’t. When I first heard that my grandfather had died I was just…numb, and it wasn’t until we were all standing around the grave and it was my turn to shovel in some dirt that I think it really hit home. And that was a good situation to have that happen in, I think. And we would go to the Seders at my aunt’s house pretty regularly.”

That made sense, Crowley reflected. If there was any one holiday that even the most secular Jew might go home for, it would be Passover, being not only very major and important but also placing such an emphasis on family and gathering and togetherness. And food and drink and storytelling and, if you do it right, laughter.

“I even…” some of Newt’s natural state of embarrassment seemed to have caught up with him again, but he soldiered on, powered by some inner spring of…something that needed to get out. “I even did the Four Questions a couple of times, until the cousins younger than me started getting old enough to take their turns doing it. But I remember my Dad teaching me how in the weeks before the holiday. Took me forever to get it right: I kept forgetting myself and using a soft ‘ch’.

“And sometimes Dad and I would just…talk about it. I mean, he didn’t keep any of the practices or rituals anymore except at family things, but I never got the impression that he, you know, really hated it now or anything. I would want to know something about what’s this holiday or why that rule or how come this is kosher but that isn’t, and he would tell me, and he never seemed to mind. Even seemed to kind of enjoy it. Not, I figure, from belief surging anew but,” Newt shrugged, “nostalgia, you know. And often that question led to other questions, and discussions, and sort of…arguments but without anger. I remember one time, after he’d got done explaining that ‘animals that walked on the ground’ had to have the right kind of hooves and the right kind of chewing habits, but any kind of bird was okay, I pointed out that perhaps our ancestors had not made a close examination of the usual behavior of the average chicken, and he,” Newt made an upward striking motion with his hand.

“He hit you?” Aziraphale gasped, shocked both at the sudden turn of the story and the fact that Newt’s tone hadn’t changed with it.

“What? No, no, no.” Newt said hastily, realizing his failure of communication. “He pantomimed dope-slapping me, but he didn’t actually make contact, and he was smiling. Smiling like he would sometimes when we had those talks. Like I was the biggest little smart-arse he’d ever met, and he loved me for it.” Newt was smiling too, now, bathed in his own nostalgic glow.

“Did he ever start one of these talks?” asked Crowley.

“Not often, no. The only times I can think of when he did were when they tried to teach us something about Judaism in school, and I’d come home and tell him about it, and it turned out school had got it wrong, or not given the whole picture.”

“So you grew up with Jewish family, going to Jewish events, celebrating (some) Jewish holidays, and getting a Jewish education at home pretty much for the asking.” Crowley clarified.

“That’s about the size of it, yeah.”

“But you’re not Jewish.”

“Well I’m not, am I?” Newt shrugged in agitation. “There’s a set of criteria, and I fall outside it.”

“Love,” said Anathema gently, “There’s been a lot of talk lately about reconsidering how strictly the matriliniality rule needs to be adhered to…”

“Yes, yes, I know about that. And it would be one thing if my immediate family really practiced Judaism regularly, or if I’d been bar mitzvahed myself, or anything like that, but we didn’t, and I wasn’t, so I’m not.”

“Well, that must be a relief then.” said Crowley, in a tone that could have pickled meat.

Newt stared at him. “What?”

“To have that escape clause.” he went on nastily. “I can understand why you would want it. Historically speaking, being Jewish has rarely been easy. Why be part of a weird minority if you don’t have to? So yes, you just go ahead and lean on that mother of yours. No one would blame you for pushing the…oddities of your heritage and past under the rug. No, don’t worry; you don’t have to be Jewish if you don’t want to be.”

Newt stood slack-jawed for a moment, then exploded. “Don’t say that, how dare you say that?” he demanded, with far more heat than it probably should have been safe to direct at a being like Crowley. “Haven’t you been listening? The times I spent…” he fumbled for words “…in Judaism have consistently been some of the happiest of my life. Laughter and connection and this…this feeling that I never got anywhere else. A feeling of warmth, of rightness. It was almost like believing in something. Not in G-d, maybe, but sometimes, even if it got more fleeting and less strong as I grew older and started to really understand the kind of half-breed hanger-on I was, sometimes, I believed that I belonged.

“And as to your veiled references to the fluctuating but ever-present antisemitism or just simple ignorance of mainstream society, trust me, I know. When I was younger it was listening to a classmate confidently explain to her friends that Jews weren’t allowed to eat leavened bread at all, ever, and not having the courage to interrupt the conversation and correct her, and more recently, it’s been these three co-workers at United Holdings who I can only assume think they’re funny. Or possibly they think that they can get away with it if they pretend to think they’re funny, which, to be fair, so far they have. But I get to listen to them gathered around the water cooler across from my cubicle making Lynch-The-Black jokes and Gas-The-Jew jokes, and they both make me angry, but the second category undeniably hits a deeper, more personal well of anger than the first.”

Here he paused. “I’m not…proud of that, by the way. It would almost certainly be better if every cruel or bigoted joke I heard hit me just as hard as the ones that make me picture my father and my aunt and my closest cousin and my new little second cousin being dispassionately yet hatefully murdered. But that’s not how my mind works. I would even hazard to say that it’s not how most people’s minds work.”

Crowley, who had withstood the storm with equanimity, leaned in closer and raised his voice a hair. “So are you Jewish or aren’t you?”

“I-DON’T-KNOW!”

“Because it seems to me that your position right now is that people who tell you that you’re Jewish are wrong, and people who tell you that you’re not Jewish…are wrong.”

“Well…maybe! Maybe they are both wrong!”

Crowley’s voice gentled a little. “Then what’s right?”

Newt sighed and deflated. “What’s right is…that I can’t say I’m Jewish. But I’m definitely not not Jewish. And sometimes I feel closer to it than other times. And sometimes I can manage to be sort of okay with this ebb-and-flow relationship, and then sometimes I want to be really Jewish so badly my teeth hurt.”

For a moment, Crowley looked distinctly like he’d just gotten exactly what he was looking for. “Then why don’t you do something about that?”

Newt blushed again. “Because…because I never know where to start. Because even if I knew enough to just jump in and start doing more, it would feel wrong of me to decide that I was allowed to do so. But trying official conversion, and having to explain my particular position to a Rabbi, always seemed to promise its own stew of awkwardness. So I’ve just…sat with this uncertainty. For years.”

Aziraphale glanced at Crowley, and an awful lot seemed to pass between them in quite a short time. “I think,” the Angel then said, “that I should quite like to have a classmate. Someone to collaborate with on homework. Someone to gang up on the teacher with, if need be.”– Crowley put his hand to his forehead in mock horror– “An extra brain to keep things interesting. If you think you can stand to bring yourself down to my level–”

“Oh, there’s loads I don’t know.” Newt interjected. “My ‘Jewish education’, such as it was, was incredibly piecemeal and haphazard, really just getting answers to questions I happened to think to ask. I’m sure that plenty of the basics will be new to me. Heck, you’re an immortal angel; you probably know a lot of things that I don’t.”

“Then we’ll make perfect complementary students, won’t we? Will you join us?”

And so, shaking almost imperceptibly, Newt sat down.

#good omens #good omens 2019 #good omens is jewish and so am i #newton pulsifer #Anthony Crowley #anathema device #Aziraphale

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informationpalace · 5 years ago

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In Jerry Stiller, the Rage of Jewish Fathers Found a Hilarious Outlet

It made me laugh every time Jerry Stiller opened his mouth on "Seinfeld." It was, in part, the shock of what happened. Stiller, who died at the age of 92 on Monday, was not thinking so much as erupting. Instantly his bristling bass changed the energy in the scene, adding ludicrous tension and anger that came off like deliriously stupid. Then there was his masterly comic pace, a rat-a-tat of old school that got straight to the point. What really resonated, however, was more intimate. I did not know any New York stand-ups like Jerry Seinfeld as a kid watching this classic sitcom, crazy copy editors like Elaine Benes or whoever the hell Cosmo Kramer was. But Frank Costanza, of Stiller, was incredibly familiar, with an immediately identifiable strength and fashion sense from my family's Florida contingent. They did not remind me of a single parent so much as they all screamed at one another at the same time, over chopped liver. Stiller had, it has to be said, an enormous career which included helping to invent improve comedy with the Compass Players in Chicago; a hit double act with his wife, Anne Meara; and memorable parental roles in everything from the movie "Hairspray" to the sitcom "The King of Queens." Yet, as often happens in memories like this, journalists prefer to concentrate on his most famous role. Just as it annoyed me that the headlines about Brian Dennehy's death focused on "Tommy Boy" and "First Blood," as opposed to his landmark leading performances in Arthur Miller's and Eugene O'Neill's plays, you might be irritated that this essay celebrates one supporting role towards the end of his career. Bellowing "Serenity now! "There is no tablespoon of Zen in it as a device for calming on his doctor's orders. Stiller was not a renter of one-trick, either. He could also find laughs in a soft tone, even taking advantage of juxtapositions. Hear him repeat: "You want a piece of me? "To Julia Louis-Dreyfus in one of the great outtakes in comedy history, making her break character. It is his quiet volume that startles, setting the roar up at first. Frank Costanza was written, more or less by mistake, as an Italian, not a Jewish. Still we Jewish people knew better. Or Jerry Stiller, at least, made sure that we did. He had been the show is Jewish head. "Seinfeld" was not an overt reference to his Jewishness but offered ample clues. Perhaps the greatest episode of Stiller is the one we hear from his mortified friend, George, played by Jason Alexander, that he created a holiday as an alternative to Christmas called Festivus. If Jewish children have a growing outsider experience, it is the peculiar isolation felt during the holidays in December when they are trapped without Christmas trees and stockings. And while Festivus has entered the popular lexicon, the episode that sounded like so many Passover Seders features a peculiar tone set by Stiller. "The Festivus tradition," he declared, "begins with the outpouring of complaints." Stiller is a master at complaint, much like so many great Jewish comics. Jeff Ross turned to him at the roast of Stiller's New York Friars Club, and said, "His Hebrew name is Yech!” There is a glorious ritual of making fun of their parents and grandparents by Jewish comics, especially the generation that immigrated to the United States. Woody Allen, Elaine May and Larry David have done it all, turning these people into caricatures shouting, neurosis givers of guilt and nabobs. From the viewpoint of young people like me, who saw something strange about these beloved family members, these jokes emerged. They had heavy accents, visions of the old world and funny sounding work. I had a grandfather selling eggs (he looked more like Seinfeld’s father than as Frank Costanza). And yet we always knew it was harder for those elders than we did. All these elements had been in the portrait of Jerry Stiller. He was silly but also proud, nervous about the dumb stuff and excited about them. His sparring with his wife, performed beautifully by Estelle Harris, with equal intensity and a far higher voice, were aggressive yet friendly battles. Father's rage can be horrific. And sitcoms have a cheap way of sanding off the surfaces. But Stiller has a consistently endearing comic rage: plucky, ineffective with hint of fire. That was absolutely critical. The younger people on the show did not cower at his temper as much as they roll their eyes. Do not forget leaving your valuable comment on this piece of writing and sharing with your near and dear ones. To keep yourself up-to-date with Information Palace, put your email in the space given below and Subscribe. Furthermore, if you yearn to know about the messages sent to Ian Wright, view our construct, ‘Ian Wright 'fighting' after Racist Messages sent to him on Social Media’. Read the full article

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pastordorry-blog · 7 years ago

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Gratitude

“Gratitude”—Passover

Exodus 12:1-14

Exodus Week 6

October 15, 2017

Last Sunday night, 16 youth and adults gathered in Wesley Hall to learn about the life of Moses. Our seminary intern, Lexi, taught us how to write Moses' name in Hebrew, we made burning bushes, and we made depictions of his life--all of which are now displayed on a bulletin board in the Gallery. If you haven't seen it yet, I hope you'll take a few minutes to check it out before heading over to the Parsonage Open House. I think our young people did a really great job.

But Moses' life was so full, we did not have time to cover every aspect of him as a leader and man of God. We have the same issue this fall as we study the book of Exodus. There is no way we can cover all the important events. I hope you don't mind, but I decided to skip over nine of the ten plagues. If you recall last week, Moses and Aaron went to see Pharaoh and demanded he let the Hebrew people go. Pharaoh asked for a sign so he could know whether to take them seriously or not. Aaron threw down his staff, and it became a snake, a trick quickly matched by Pharaoh's magicians and sorcerers. But in a show of things to come, Aaron's snake devoured all the other snakes. We know how the story is going to end: God is going to devour Pharaoh and his evil. We can fast forward through the first nine plagues of blood, frogs, lice, wild animals, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts and darkness, and get right to the climax: the killing of all the Egyptian firstborn males.

While all of the plagues sound gross, scary or both, the last one seems especially barbaric to us. Why would God kill innocent Egyptian children? This only makes even a little sense if we remember that Pharaoh thought he was god. He though he had the power over life and death. Nine plagues did not convince him otherwise. So God brought about a night of terror, one climactic night to reverse hundreds of years of increasing terror the Egyptians brought upon the Hebrews. Even after the night of terror, Pharaoh was still not convinced he was the loser. As we will see next week, Pharaoh changed his mind about freeing the Hebrews, and his army was swallowed up in the Red Sea. Without God's powerful intervention, Pharaoh would have never let the Egyptians go.

That is why, if you talk to your Jewish friends about Passover, they will tell you that one of the key features of the celebration is gratitude. Passover lasts eight days, eight days of every year set aside to give thanks to God for deliverance. Passover is celebrated with special dinners every night called seders. On the cover of your bulletin is a picture of a seder plate, and one of our neighbors here in town loaned me this seder plate to show you. Isn't it beautiful? It's beauty is quite a contrast to the symbolism behind the food it holds. Before the Passover, life was very hard for the Hebrew slaves, so they dip bitter herbs in salt water as a reminder of the bitter conditions and the salty tears they cried. They had to work making bricks, so the seder meal includes charoset, which actually tastes very good, it's a mixture of apples and cinnamon. But it is thick like mortar, a reminder of the hard work required of the Hebrews, building buildings to please a ruler who exploited them.

Another name of Passover is "the feast of unleavened bread". Moses commanded the Hebrews to prepare the Passover meal and eat it in haste. There was no time for making bread with yeast and allowing it to rise. So they baked a quick bread without yeast, which it turns out, is basically a cracker. Jewish families even today rid their homes of all leavened products for the eight days of Passover. Matzoh like this is the basic food, the bread and butter if you will, for the duration of the feast. When Jesus instituted the sacrament of communion, it was unleavened bread that he held and broke before his disciples.

The seder meal follows a liturgy, a Haggadah, which means telling. Before each course in the meal, a portion of the exodus story is told. How they were slaves in Egypt. How God intervened. How they were led through the Red Sea with the gold and wealth of the Egyptians. How God sustained them in the wilderness with manna and quail. And how eventually God led them into the Promised Land. Four different cups of wine are drunk to mark important parts of the story. We get our sacrament of communion directly from the seder meal. As Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples, it was during the seder meal that Jesus lifted up the last cup of wine and said, "This is my blood."

The elements of our communion service come directly from the Passover seder, and the meaning is also connected. The first Passover meal was a signal, that God is about to do a new and decisive thing. It was going to be so important, that before that first Passover was celebrated, the command to do this every year was given. God told them to remember this night before there was anything special about the night to remember! That same thing is true with communion. Jesus told his disciples to remember, before they had any idea what it was they would be remembering and celebrating.

Key to the remembering, for Jews during Passover, and for Christians at communion, is gratitude. We begin every communion service with a Great Thanksgiving. Usually we follow the one in our hymnal, although occasionally we use other words, but the point is always the same: to remember what God has done for us, and give thanks. We tell parts of our redemption story. We give thanks for the salvation God has given us, even before we fully receive the salvation. We are people of hope, we anticipate someday living in peace and freedom even greater than what we enjoy today. We take communion as a way of participating in that future goodness. That is why we take communion, not just with a little thanksgiving, but with a Great Thanksgiving.

This sense of gratitude has its roots in the Passover seder. Most seders include singing, not just chanting the Hebrew prayers, but singing songs for fun. One of the mot significant songs is called "Dayenu", which means, "Enough". The song has something like fifteen verses. It would have been enough if God had gotten them out of Egypt. But God also gave them plunder, gold and wealth from the Egyptians. It would have been enough if God parted the Red Sea, but God also defeated their foes. It would have been enough if God gave them manna in the wilderness. But God also gave them Torah, a Hebrew word for Scripture. Dayenu. It would have been enough. God could have just given us one or two blessings. Instead, God gave us blessing after blessing.

You don't have to be an expert in Jewish history to appreciate how much faith it must take for Jewish families and friends to gather for over three thousand years to celebrate Passover, and to praise God with songs and prayers of "dayenu". There is no group of people who have suffered persecution more than the Jews throughout human history. And yet, an essential part of the Passover celebration is giving thanks. Thanking God for liberating the Hebrew people in the past, trusting that what God does is enough, passing on to the next generation and the next, this faith that God's liberating nature has not changed. It seems like an art form to me, to be able to give thanks for what one has, while acknowledging hopes and dreams that someday things will be better. Somehow the combination of gratitude for the past and the hope for the future turns into joy for the now.

I'd like to play you a video of a contemporary Jewish a capella group, Six Thirteen, a song they wrote about Passover. While you watch the video, look for the important elements to the seder we have talked about: matzoh and wine, the Haggadah, the seder plate, gratitude, and dayenu.

Play three minutes of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhR13I6UE1c

Did you notice the phrase, ma nishtana? It means the four questions. The seder begins with the question, "Why is tonight different from all nights?" It's different, because on the nights of Passover, Jews remember the exodus, the mighty act of salvation God performed for them. But in some ways, the nights of passover are not ay different from other nights. We are always called to remember what God has done, even while we are still waiting for God to act. That is why the song, "Dayenu", enough, is sung. The world is not perfect, and we are waiting on God to do a new thing. We are waiting to become the new and complete creations God intended us and everyone else to be. But we can wait with contentment, because what we have received from God is enough. God has not forgotten us. We know God is still at work for good, even when our circumstances might be anything but.

When we celebrate communion, we give thanks for the bread the cup, "these your mighty acts of Jesus Christ." They are not only symbols of our liberation from slavery to sin and death, they become agents of salvation in this holy mystery we call the sacrament of communion. Our efforts, our obedience, our willingness to do a new thing is important. But it is God's actions that seal our fate. God has acted on our behalf. God continues to act on our behalf. Dayenu. Come to the table, and receive the "enough" God has for you today. Amen.

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