#jewish alec

[mariacallous]

Lithuania’s Jews and Yiddishists around the world are mourning the passing of Fania Brantsovsky, the last surviving member of the Jewish underground in the Vilna ghetto and a keeper of the flame of the city’s once glorious Yiddish past, who died at the age of 102 on Sunday in Vilnius.

Brantsovsky escaped the ghetto in 1942 and fought against the Nazis and their local collaborators in the Rudninkai forest with a group of Jewish partisans under the command of Abba Kovner. 

In the years after the war, she became a lifelong advocate for the memory of Lithuanian Jewry and their Yiddish language, serving as the librarian and beloved teacher at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute and an ambassador to visitors she brought to view the landmarks, many vanished, of a city that had once been known as the “Jerusalem of Europe” for its rich Jewish culture. 

It was a role that brought her world-wide acclaim and eventually local hostility, when Lithuanian nationalists began to equate her Soviet liberators with the Nazis, and tried to discredit partisans like her who had once considered the Russians their allies.

For all these roles, Brantsovsky was hailed by Yiddishists around the world who consider her death the end of an era.

“She lived so long that she came from a completely different universe than ours, like out of a history book,” Alec “Leyzer” Burko, a Warsaw-based Yiddish teacher, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“We’ve lost the last exemplar of interwar Yiddish Vilna, someone who could impart the spirit of the Yiddishist movement of interwar Vilna and its secular circles. We lost our last active veteran of the Vilna ghetto and the Jewish partisans,” said Dovid Katz, an American-born Yiddishist and co-founder of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute.

“And on a personal level,” he added, “we’ve lost a dear friend whose warmth, enthusiasm, encouragement, and desire to help, show and teach was a huge inspiration.”

Brantsovsky was born Feige Jocheles in 1922, in the then-Lithuanian capital of Kaunas but her family moved to Vilnius, then a part of Poland, when she was just five years old. 

As a young girl, she was active in the rich Jewish life of Vilnius. At the time, Vilnius was home to more than 60,000 Jews and boasted over 100 synagogues, the largest of which had seating for more than 2,000. With a Jewish community that had been flourishing when Napoleon passed through the city in the 18th century, Vilnius was more than just a religious center. It was home to a rich cultural and political scene, all in the Yiddish language. 

While she hailed from a secular family, which Brantsovsky noted kept neither kosher nor Shabbat, she completed her entire traditional education in Yiddish-speaking schools, and as a teenager was active in Jewish political youth movements

That world was shattered in 1941, when Vilnius fell under the control of the Germans and Brantsovsky, along with Vilnius’s tens of thousands of other Jews, were herded into the cramped conditions of the Vilna ghetto. 

From the first days of the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, they began taking Jews from Vilnius to be killed in the nearby Ponar forest. Over 100,000 people would be killed there, including 70,000 Lithuanian Jews and 8,000 Roma, making it the second-largest mass grave in Europe after Babyn Yar in Ukraine.  

“Our life was more of existence, really,” Brantsovsky once described the ghetto in an interview with Centropa, a European Holocaust memorial organization. Every day was a struggle for survival, and one slip-up or turn of fate could mean starvation, or deportation to Ponar.

Brantsovsky recalled hearing of a resistance movement forming in the ghetto and quickly requested to join. 

“The underground organization of the ghetto united all parties and trends such as communists, revisionists, Bund etc. Their common goal was to fight against fascists,” she told Centropa. 

That group would be remembered as the United Partizan Organization, or by its Yiddish initials, FPO. 

The FPO had considered instigating an uprising in the ghetto, as would later take place in Warsaw. After the capture and execution of it’s leader Yitzhak Wittenberg by the Gestapo, the movement’s leadership decided instead to take its fighters out of the ghetto and into the nearby forests where Soviet-backed partisans were harrying the rear and supply lines of the German army. 

Brantsovsky bid farewell to her family and was smuggled out of the ghetto on Sept. 23, 1943. She would later learn that on the same night, the Germans began their final liquidation of the ghetto, killing most of its inhabitants. None of her family would survive the Holocaust.

In the Rudninkai forest, which has been immortalized in partisan literature under its Yiddish name, Der Rudnitzker Vald, she joined up with a partisan unit composed of Jews under the command of Abba Kovner, known as the Nokmim or Avengers.  

In the forest she trained with weapons and explosives and took part in military operations against the Nazi occupation. 

“We blasted trains and placed explosives in the enemy’s equipment. We shot and killed them,” she told Centropa. “Yes, I did, I killed them and did so with ease. I knew that my dear ones were dead and I took my revenge for them and thousands of others with each and every shot.”

In the forest, she also met her future husband Mikhail Brantsovsky. Nearly a year after fleeing the ghetto, Fania returned, rifle in hand, as the Soviet Red Army captured the city. 

Less than a month after returning she and Mikhail married. 

“We were intoxicated by the victory, our youth and love,” she recalled. 

After the war, her commander Abba Kovner would gain fame as one of Israel’s poet laureates, and infamy for an aborted plot to kill 6 million Germans in vengeance for the Holocaust. 

Brantsovsky took part in none of that: She stayed in Vilnius where she and Mikhail built a life together and had two children. 

In the years after the war, it quickly became clear to Brantsovsky that the world of her youth had been lost. 

“There were hardly any Jews left in Vilnius. When I saw older Jews, or they looked old to me considering how young I was, I felt like kneeling before them to kiss their hands.” she once recalled. 

Fania quickly went to work, helping to document what had been lost, and assisted Soviet Jewish writers Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman in the “Black Book of Soviet Jewry,” a 500-page document that recorded the Nazis’ crimes in the occupied regions of the Soviet Union. 

While it was first published in the USSR by Der Emes, the Yiddish-language arm of Pravda, the book would later be suppressed as the Soviet policy towards the Holocaust shifted to present the genocide as solely an atrocity against Soviet citizens, not one that specifically targeted Jews.  

Though Mikhail and Fania had been present and honored in Moscow’s Red Square during the victory parades of 1945, their enthusiasm towards the Soviet regime dulled after experiencing the antisemitism of Stalin’s later years. 

Mikhail passed away in 1985, and Fania retired from her job as a teacher in 1990 just before Lithuania gained its independence. 

In retirement, Fania found a new purpose: In an independent Lithuania, there was renewed interest in recording Vilnius’s Jewish past and studying the Yiddish language of its Jews. 

In the early 1990s, Fania and a group of other survivors, including another former partisan, Rachel Margolis, worked to establish a Holocaust museum in Vilnius known as the Green House. 

In 2001, Katz, a professor of Yiddish who had previously worked at Oxford, relocated to Vilnius and established a Yiddish institute at Vilnius University. 

“When I founded the Vilnius Yiddish Institute in 2001 my first executive act was to hire Fania as librarian and that choice was a success from day one,” Katz told JTA.

Fania, who worked as a teacher much of her adult life, originally trained to do so in Yiddish for students in the city’s Jewish school system. The Nazis shattered that future, but decades later, the Vilnius Yiddish Institute represented a return to her roots. 

“She understood that she was the carrier of so much of the living Yiddish culture of the interwar period, especially its secular Yiddishist incarnation,” Katz explained.  

The Institute lasted for 17 years, until it ultimately closed down in 2018. Every year it ran a summer program attended by students from around the world, and Fania became a fixture of the experience, telling students about the city of her youth, the experience of the ghetto and bringing them out to the remains of her partisan camp in the Rudninkai forest well into her nineties. 

She is remembered fondly by nearly everyone who passed through.

“I feel really blessed to have had an opportunity to work with her,” Indre Joffyte, who helped run the program, told JTA. “Fania’s energy, determination and passion in everything she did was an inspiration to everyone around her. I will always remember her caring nature, our girly conversations, her preparedness to help, and her inner youth despite her age and tragic life experiences.”

In independent Lithuania, Fania became a prominent figure in its Jewish community as well as in diplomatic circles, guiding visiting leaders on tours of the former ghetto and Ponar where so many of her relatives were killed.

But the increased attention also invited trouble. 

In the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, a nationalist narrative arose in the Baltic states that equated the actions of the Soviets with the Nazis.  

Known as the “double genocide” theory, it has been largely rejected by Jewish and western Holocaust institutions, but has become the standard presented in Lithuania and the other Baltic states. 

It resulted in a smear campaign directed against Brantsovsky and other surviving Jewish partisans, such as Margolis and Yitzhak Arad who was the director of Yad Vashem from 1972 to 1993. 

For fighting in units allied with the Soviets, they were accused of being war criminals on the same level as Lithuanians who collaborated with the Nazis. 

“I agree completely with all the anti-Communist pronouncements. What I disagree with is, of course, the equalization of the people who committed the genocide at Auschwitz and the people who liberated Auschwitz. They’re simply not the same.” said Katz.  “As much as one should hate the Stalinist Soviet Union between 1941 and 1945, we were in the American-Anglo-Soviet alliance, and the Soviet Union was the only force fighting Hitler in Eastern Europe. So of course, Fania’s partisan union was aligned with the Soviet partisans in the forest who were fighting.”

For Brantsovsky, the issue came to head in 2008, when Lithuania’s chief prosecutor publicly demanded that she be questioned over her alleged connections to a massacre of Lithuanian civilians during the war. 

Katz believes that the demand was in retaliation for increased pressure from the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other Jewish institutions for Lithuania to investigate its own wartime collaborators.

The charges were dropped that same year, but the incident had a notable effect on Brantsovsky, resulting in her receding somewhat from public life in Lithuania. 

She didn’t stop teaching Yiddish, however, and was active in working with students and guiding tours until her 99th year, when she had a fall on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With her passing, another thread connecting Eastern Europe’s Jewish past and rich Yiddish culture has been severed. 

“She was one of the last witnesses of prewar Jewish life in Vilna, a proud graduate of its Yiddish school system where everything from chemistry to Latin and Shakespeare was studied in the Jewish community’s native language,” Jordan Kutzik, a former deputy Yiddish editor at The Forward, said in a memorial post on Facebook.

“After nearly her entire family and cultural milieu were murdered and then her native language suppressed for 50 years, she wasn’t wasting any time in helping to document her city’s history and encouraging others to explore it.”

[hotvintagepoll]

Gert Fröbe (Those Marvelous Men in Their Flying Machines, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)—if you only know my man gert from his role in goldfinger, you're in for a surprise when you see him in comedy roles! he truly shines in them bringing a silliness that plays off his big size and cartoonish use of his own accent. he also helped hide a jewish family in wwii which i think is very cool of him (he was a nazi earlier in life but renounced it)

Alec Guinness (The Ladykillers)— If you only know him from playing wise old mentors or serious spies, then you don't know just how scrungly this man could be. Just watch him being a criminal mastermind telling his landlady that his gang of thieves is a string quintet. So much scrungle.

This is round 1 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Gert Frobe:

Alec Guinness:

[aleswiftgron]

For the people who keep making weird tiktoks about how Cassie like incest bc she's used the trope

(first of all, have you really read all the books right?? Because it never seems like she's using it in a romanticizing it way, but in a way of showing a power abuse and violence)

I just want to say that she's CAREFUL AS FUCK when picking the couple right

Because thanks to TLH we kind of have an idea about the family tree.

The Blackthorns and Jace's Herondale line, are related, Tessa being their great great grandma i think??, Also the Lightwoods are there too

She really said: i'm not going to stay here and be acused of SHIT,

Alec, is paired with a 400 y/o indonesian warlock, safe✅

Julian and Emma's line are not intertwined, safe✅

The Fairchilds never mixed with the main families, so Jace and Clary, safe✅

Mark, he is half faerie, so he mixes with a faerie prince, and a mexican girl, he really said, not in LA, safe✅

Simon's a jewish mundane, Isabelle a Lightwood, safe✅

Diana and Gywn (the hunter), safe✅

Aline Penhallow, and Helen Blackthorn, Aline is not really one of the mains, safe✅

As for new possible couples:

Kit and Ty, Blackthorn and Herondale, yes, buuuuuut, its the LOST Herondale line😌, safe✅

Dru and Ash, well he is a prince of faerie and son os Sebastian Morgenstern/Fairchild, safe✅

She really brought back Jem from the (practically/mentally gone inmortal state) dead, Jem and Tessa, safe✅

I mean practically everyone is mostly related, the Blackthorns and Jace have the same great great grandma, and Jace and Emma are kinda related because of Cordelia, and the Lightwoods were cousins with the Herondales in TLH sooo she really thought about it

[fortunelowtier]

I still 100% unironically wholeheartedly believe that this scuffed ass reality tv show from 2007 where CBS stranded 40 children in the middle of the NM desert a la Lord of the Flies is one of the most genuinely fascinating pieces of TV I've ever watched just because of how ABSURD it is on every level

-Their society is a bizarre Communism/Democracy hybrid whose entire economy is based on the barter system

-There is a set class system everyone is sorted into against their will who each get paid more or less money depending on how high or low they are on the ladder, and at the end of each episode they must compete in competitions to decide who gets to be at the top, with the "strongest" being able to get the esteemed title of "upper class"

-Every time they would complete a challenge, at the very end they were given a choice of 2 things that could be added to the town, to which the leaders of the teams would vote on which to get (For example, in one episode they had to choose between fresh produce or 50 pizzas). One of these things was letters from the children's parents, implying that the adults on site were receiving the mail from these kid's parents and deliberately withholding it from them

-In one episode the district leaders of each of the 4 teams (the classes) go out and find a chest full of buffalo nickels (the town's currency), they bring the chest to the town and naturally, this creates unprecedented inflation near instantly, as there's now a mass amount of currency that suddenly appeared in the economy

-Their entire society existed in relative stability until the moment religion was introduced in the form of various religious texts (Bibles, the Quran, etc), after which the town immediately started to go to shit. The Jewish kids and Christian kids were at each other's throats about which religion was """better""" (because they're children who had religion forced upon them at a young age before they were able to think for themselves but that's an entire can of worms I won't open), while the 1 (one) Hindu kid was trying to keep the peace

-At one point the kids start to crave meat, as their food up to that point was mostly canned goods and various produce, so one of the """eldest""" members of the group, (I say """eldest""" because he was still only like 14 or 15) who had worked as a butchers apprentice, took one of their chickens and lead the kids into the desert to where he then taught them how to decapitate, pluck, drain, and cook a chicken.

-One of the kids later did a Reddit AMA about his experience on the show, where he then disclosed various things that happened outside of the camera such as, but not limited to: Oil burns, a kid drinking bleach, scorpions, venomous snakes, an outbreak of herpes, the lack of showers, the lack of multiple toilets (up until I believe a few weeks in they only had one outhouse), etc etc etc

-The parents of these kids allegedly had to sign a 22 page waiver that was basically CBS going "If ur kids get hurt you can't sue us", specifically noting "acts of god" in the contract of things that they weren't to be held accountable for

-At the end of every week, the 4 leaders got together to choose which person would receive that week's "gold star", a star made out of 20,000 USD of solid gold (around 30k after adjusting for inflation), an unfathomable amount of money to give to kids who likely had no concept as to how much money 20 grand was

-The town used for Bonanza City is actually a ghost town/film set located just 20 miles from Santa Fe used as a filming location for movies like A Million Ways to Die In the West (2014) and The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981). The reason I bring this up is because it's the same film set in which 14 years later, Alec Baldwin would accidentally discharge a firearm on the set of Rust, resulting in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins

To anyone asking where to watch this, I genuinely don't know. All of the 13 episodes used to be available on YouTube by someone who re-uploaded them in 2010, but the channel was terminated last year. I've heard that there are a few Google Drive folders floating around that have the raw MP4 files and you could watch them that way but you'd probably have to go digging for it

[alexanderlightweight]

Hi! I saw your post about putting xianxia element into your shadowhunters fic, and I want to ask how would you incorporate eastern fantasy, especially those from earlier dynasties in China, into a Christianity-centric Clave narrative 👀

(Also I’m giggling at the possibility that most of the Downworld population in China probably predates the creation of the Nephilim.)

i love questions!! so thank you and this took a little bit to type out but I hope it makes sense!

Shadowhunter mythology lore  spiral here we go!!!

Okay so, love shadowhunters don’t adore some of the concepts and thoughts that are the basis of it. Especially because shadowhunter institutes are global. The idea of shadowhunters mass converting people to their cause, i dont fuck with it.  The idea of jonathan shadowhunter going on a cultural journey as an ambassador to adopt people into his cause without acting like a jedi and going ‘no ties to your former world’ when they’re about to try and protect the mundane lives they came from, that i am okay with.

My idea in the main shadowhunter world that then trails off (and can become a variety of verses) is that i tend to ignore ‘God’ or ‘gods’ that aren’t greater demon applicable. In fact i consider some of them to be gods in their own right, while the show used the term ‘royalty’ i think it meant something else and interpreted it to be a bit more than what the show used 

If gods beyond these greater beings do exist, they just aren’t really currently interested in being involved or they just don’t give a fuck because it’s not their problem. Like shadowhunters are raziel’s and maybe certain gods give specific shadowhunters who worship/follow them help but not shadowhunters as a whole.

So at the base, pantheons can overlap and since Raziel can be adopted as a sire/patriach/ancestor that creates a common point (Raziel is like the patriarch of a clan and Jonathan Shadowhunter the first sect leader who based it on his ascended ancestors legacy). And you don’t have to be related to co me under those teachings and there are often various branches.  Like sword arts, poisons, healing, tracking etc, well shadowhunters also have that even in canon so the overlap actually works a lot better than originally thought

Because it's stupid to erase the cultural religious identity of the people from different countries simply because they were charged with a mission and compatible but there can be different religions and views in the same culture. Because shadohwunters aren’t actually a religious society but a warrior one who honor/worship raziel with the same zeal that other cultures do their ancestors/family gods but they don’t seem to worship ‘god’ as a whole and they also don’t treat raziel as a god, but again as their cherished/honored/revered ancestor/patriarch. Which i kind of already write into everything, especially stuff that has like an actual legacy soul tether with every nephilim soul and their angelic sire.

Also while Idris is the political power, the Institutes are the actual powerhouses. I haven’t gone super into it but in my mind, Alec definitely at one point did like rotations across the globe at different Institutes to learn from them.  Even in just regular au’s of mine, because that’s what would help him grow the most imo. The Clave can clutch their pearls and yeah a lot of shadowhunter families eventually retire to pass in their family lands in Idris but besides the claves stagnate rules i feel like Idris would actually be fairly multicultural with a variety of different homes in the traditional and preferred styles of the people who live there because why wouldn’t they want to be in comfort and they probably built those houses or their ancestors did.

Also shadowhunter culture goes against so many modern concepts of biblical principles that it's pretty funny tbh. Shadowhunter culture is very old testament bible not new (and Cassie Claire is Jewish). So shadowhunter’s would have been influenced by more successful warrior cultures if they actually wanted to survive and flourish. Especially when it came to hunting/PVP/swordplay etc. being super strong and having runes (that you dont know how to use) wont automatically let you win. You need techniques that can create a foundation to creating styles

(Oh man, so many downworlders predate shadowhunters its not even funny (because then you have to consider how many elders of the downworld got murdered by shadowhunters) but especially in East Asia where the dynasties were firmly founded and flourishing, downworlders would probably have pretty settled and sophisticated structures in the underlayers of mundane society and probably even in the some of the upper echelons just because) 

I hope this makes sense i kinda just rambled on at one point but uh

tldr: Raziel is basically ancestral work/the patriarch of shadowhunters and i think shadowhunters can worship as they’re called to and please and follow paths based on nature/legacy/lineage/talents and respect the legacy of mundane cultural traditions while also making them their own. and still be Shadowhunters. Daoist/Taoist/Muslim/Jewish/Pagan it's up to everyone individually to deal with their faith and their calling as a shadowhunter

~lumine

*i'm not planning to write it out specifically in a fic but the social/structural hierarchy of Shadowhunters/clave is also a bit different in my world building and definitely not the exact same as the show or the books because way too many people are in power without like, actual field knowledge in the media

[yourfaveisqueerandreligious]

alec hardison from leverage is jewish (canon) and pansexual (headcanon)

submitted by anon

[nicejewishcharactershowdown]

REMINDER -- NICE in Nice Jewish Character Showdown is not an evaluation of personality, but in quality of representation! Who do you see yourself in more?

[disventurecamptakes]

realized I never sent in my ideas for the Disventure Camp characters’ last names… so here:

My last names for the cast + my headcanons: (i’ll be leaving some out bc i like their last name or their last name is strictly canon as in they’re called their last name basically every single episode)

Aiden Cadena ; i hc him as half latino half white

Ally Glitch

Alec Mustafa ; i hc him as half black half japanese half turkish

Connor Manfred ; i hc him as jewish/white

Ashley McGrawl

Dan Evans

Ellie Han ; i hc her as half asian half white

Drew Leblanc

Gabby Kowalska

Fiore Lombardi ; i hc her as a quarter asian 3/4s italian/white

Hunter Wang ; i hc him as half asian half white

Jake Sun ; I hc him as asian

Jeon Yul ; i hc him a quarter latino 3/4s asian

Karol Jones ; i hc her half black half white

Kai Cortez ; i hc him half latino half black half indigenous half asian

Maggy O’Connor

Lill Chow ; i hc her as half asian half white

Nick Burton — Idk if they still had Milton for Nick’s but if they did, Milton works for me too

Miriam Fletcher

Riya Varma

Oliver Navarro-Phan ; i hc him as half latino half asian half black

Tess Kurosawa ; I hc her as a quarter asian 3/4s white

Rosa Maria Hernandez

Tom Noi ; i hc him as half asian half white

Will Hemingway — last name just struck something in me. a polite & jumpy guy needs a polite last name

i WILL say that I think Derek Johnson is half asian half latino + Trevor McGregor is half asian half black

+ Kristal Mclean is 3/4s latina and a quarter asian bc I hc Chris Mclean as half white and half asian👍🏼

U don’t need to agree w my headcanons or last names, but i thought i would give my take on this💜

.

[bookishjules]

you made the owie situation so much worse because max 100% would have chosen izzy as his suggenes 😭 i’m reading qoaad right now and i miss sizzy so much. cassie really missed the mark by not having them be more involved in the plot and politics, especially because simon had his whole downworlder and shadowhunter equality advocate arc in tftsa. not that i’m saying they didn’t have any opinions on the cohort, i just wish simon and isabelle had more vocal moments in the book and it’s council meetings, especially considering that simon is jewish!!! and the registery hits very very close to home if you get what i mean. i’m surprise that simon didn’t have a moment during a council meeting or any scene where he mentioned how close the actions the cohort wanted were to nazis. izzy was kinda just a babysitter for most of the times she was mentioned, i miss her badassery BUT i do understand that this book is from emma and the blackthorns’ povs and they’re closer to clace and malec… let’s hope simon works more with the new academy and we see him and izzy be mentors to dru (izzy trainer era would be elite)

okay i'm so glad someone else saw my vision... even if it hurts. i just can't help but imagine that in the universe where max lives, he gets closer to izzy into his teen years. i think izzy would spend more time with him when she's trying not to think about simon, bc both of her other brothers are in happy committed relationships, and then after the events of tfsa, he would get closer with simon through her bc of comics and anime etcetc and that would pull them tighter. plus, izzy isn't protective older brother like alec, and she isn't idolized like jace. she's a lot more .. accessible i guess is what i'm saying. as a sibling. she also ends up having a lot less responsibility than jace and alec, as you said, so it makes sense for him to go to her when he needs someone to talk to, or to her and simon's place when he needs a comfortable place to relax. ... anyway i have a lot more thoughts on this but it is not the point of this ask at all lol

i am also reading qoaad rn!! and i know exactly what you mean. i've thought similarly with simon. like he blazed through the sa in a very political manner, and yet we don't see him speaking up against the wrongs being committed here? and with something of this magnitude, and with his perspective.. there's no way he wouldn't feel a responsibility to speak up, especially now that they're all adult shadowhunters and are able to sit in on those meetings and have the voice they didn't always have access to as teens.

so basically yes i fully agree with everything you said <3 and i also really really really hope for more sizzy involvement in twp. i may have my hopes up too high (i.e. they exist), but just the knowledge that there will be a scene with simon at the pandemonium feels like it could imply a tilt in that direction. and i really think it's only fair o7

plus i mean.. not to go back to the max thing. but IF all of what i said above did happen, there's a world where sizzy would be more familiar with ty and dru bc they bracket max's age and would likely have ended up being friends, just by the nature of how involved clary is with emma, and emma potentially expressing worry about the kids not having friends their age etcetc you see where i'm going. so it just feels.. right. yk?

[e-b-reads]

Books of the Month: Feb 2025

I see I bookended February with different Barbara Hambly books! I feel like I'm still in a good sweet spot, where I am actually reading a good amount because I am finding things I want to read, but also I'm not trying to speed through anything: some books I actually purposefully force myself to savor so they take longer. Here's some of the books that occupied my brain the most in February (and a little on why):

Swordspoint (Ellen Kushner): I thought I was rereading this except nothing except the vibes were familiar; then I reached the end and looked up sequels and found it's actually the sequel to this that I once found in the library and read (many years ago). I do like the vibes though. Sort of medieval/renaissance fantasy world (don't get mad at the author for mixing those, get mad at me, I'm not going back to tease it out right now) except there is no magic, but there is (are?) a lot of duels with swords. It's suggested that other societies don't rely on these duels and professional swordsmen the way this particular unnamed city does, so it's fascinating (particularly as someone who enjoys fighting with swords) to think about what it would be like to be immersed in the culture where swords and duels are so important, and where dying might be worth it as long as the fight beforehand is good enough. (Also it's a casually queer book from the 1980s, and I love Richard and Alec.)

The Withdrawing Room (Charlotte MacLeod): This is second in a mystery series (Kelling & Bittersohn series) and I'm finding it delightful. Set in Boston (and surrounding area) contemporaneously with when they were written in the 1980s, these feel at times more old fashioned because Sarah Kelling is part of a large, eccentric, old money clan of Kellings, and they've retained habits from other decades. I enjoyed the first book well enough, but where this series really shines is in the delightful, odd, eccentric (there's no better word for it! but they're not all Kellings) cast of side characters, and they really start getting introduced in book 2. The second main character of the series, Max Bittersohn, is an art expert and part of a large Jewish family who are a little less front-and-center than the Kellings (so far). I've been using these books as lighter-hearted palate cleansers in between heavier ones. Speaking of...

All Mortal Flesh (Julia Spencer-Fleming): I'm going to be annoying and not actually say much about this book except it's book 5 in a series that I also mentioned last month (the Rev. Clare Fergusson & Russ Van Alstyne series) and it was a doozy! This is a much angstier mystery series than the above but I'm really enjoying - it's hitting a lot of spots in my id or something. This book in particular is so sad (I knew it would be from the blurb) and also has about four different twists (that I thought were well done). Not the only one from this series I read in Feb, but probably the one that took the most brain space just from all the emotions involved.

The Ladies of Mandrigyn (Barbara Hambly): Surprise, I read another Barbara Hambly book in the middle of the month, from a totally different series! I will give you plot points for this one, because I feel like her fantasy plots are always a little refreshing: 40-something mercenary leader Sun Wolf gets kidnapped by a band of ladies from the town of Mandrigyn because all their menfolk have been sent to the mines by an evil wizard, and they need him to train them to fight so they can get the men back. In the meantime (mild spoiler) Sun Wolf discovers that maybe he is a wizard too. A couple interesting things: one is that I love how the plotline of like "oh these things I could sort of always do were magic that I must learn to control?" is given not to some YA protag starting out in the world but a jaded mercenary. Also interesting stuff about women and society; Mandrigyn was a very patriarchal city-state, and this is rapidly changing. In a "can the women learn to fight?" sort of plot I'm always wary of bioessentialism, but I don't personally feel that it was there. There's a certain amount of differences between women and men remarked on, but even Sun Wolf recognizes that surely at least some of this is due to the society these women lived in. (Meanwhile, Starhawk, Sun Wolf's second-in-command who also happens to be a woman, is tracking him down to try to un-kidnap him.)

[cailorthesailor]

Headcanon of ihnmaims survivors cause I'm bored <3

Gorrister:

Mexican and British

Have Glynis necklace

Have few anger issues

Have alot guilt

Very good at cooking

BI-CURIOUS

Used to be guitarist

Love karaoke with Glynis in past

Mommy issues

conscientious objector plus truck driver

Would wear the heels for fun

If he in the scary games, he the leader (and probably screaming

Have playlist song of Mitski and Bruno Mars

Benny:

American and Filipino

Lavender marriage with Manya

Cannibalism

GAYYYYYY

Daddy boy

Have Manya earrings

Commando squad fighting plus scientists

Use to have anger issues

Wanting to wearing corsets

If he also in scary games, he the brave one to do any puzzles and screams-

Have a playlist song of Alex-g and Alec Benjamin

Ellen

American and Malaysian

Miscarriage

Motherless and fatherless

Grandparents girl

Business women plus electric engineers

Few playlists songs of Mitski and Marina And The Diamond

If she also in scary games, she the one who love to prank others

GIRLBOSS!!!!

BISEXUAL and Demisexual

Love wearing suit

Victims of yellow man(WE ALL HATE THAT BITC-)

Does to south african college then Georgian college and then finally goes to British universities

Ted

American

Mama boy

Probably neglected by his father

Groomed victim

Paranoid most fo the times

Probably paranoid

BISEXUAL

Having alot of breakdowns

If he in the scary games, he be the one who screaming

Have playlist songs of Bruno Mars and TV girl

Missed his mother soo much

Nimdok

German

Mama boy

GAAAAAYYYY and AROOOAAAACEEEE!!!!

lying him friends of not being Jewish to not get killed

Victim of Mengele manipulation

Father figure

Mengel friend(?)

Malewife

Anxious

Scientists (Nasi)

Seeing four survivors as his childs

If he in scary games, he the first one to die

Didnt gave any playlist song (sadly)

[spencereliotwinchester]

THERES A PART TWO?!?!

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Leverage Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, Original Female Character/Original Female Character Characters: Alec Hardison, Parker (Leverage), Eliot Spencer (Leverage), Original Female Character(s) Additional Tags: Post-Leverage Season/Series 05, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Not Leverage: Redemption Compliant, POV Alternating, Jewish Alec Hardison, Jewish Holidays, Rosh HaShana | Jewish New Year, Pesach | Passover, Holiday Traditions, Coparenting, Teenagers, lovingly embarassing parents, Meeting the Parents, Parker (Leverage) is still autistic, Domestic Fluff Series: Part 2 of the Megan AU Summary:

“Anyway, why are you asking about Passover?” Hardison asked. “Not that I don’t appreciate the interest, but-“ Megan was blushing. And Parker wasn’t the only one who noticed. Eliot and Hardison stared at her too. “Lexi is Jewish,” she said finally. “Who?” Parker asked. “Lexi, you know, you met her. That one time,” she said, slowing down her words and raising the pitch. Significant but embarrassing information. “You broke down her door.”

Parker, Eliot, and Megan celebrate the Jewish holidays with Hardison. And Megan decides that Pesach is a good time for her parents to properly meet her new girlfriend.

I’ve been working on this follow-up to my “Eliot has a teenage daughter AU” literally since I finished the original, but with my amazing @fandomtrumpshate beta and Jewish sensitivity reader, I have finally finished it! So happy very belated Pesach from me and Alec Hardison!

[hockstetters-overbite]

Intro Post

So ya wanna learn more about me? Well lucky for you this post is just for that!

About me: This'll just be a rundown if you want a paragraph instead of a more script-like about me! My name's Alec and I'm 18! I'm Jewish! My hobbies include drawing, playing video games, writing and just posting about my hyperfixations here! I have bipolar as well as being on the autism spectrum and I don't read social cues that well sometimes so I do appreciate tone indicators sometimes but i'm not pushy about it! I'm just happy to be here in the community to share my headcanons, art and ramblings about the IT novel and movies! I've met a lot of sweet and pleasant people on here so I look forward to staying here!

This section is a more compact script version of my about me!

Name: Alec

Pronouns: Any pronouns work

Age:18

Hobbies: Drawing, playing video games, writing and posting on here

What do I post on here: Mostly posts about IT headcanons and my OCs and sometimes irl things, but most reblogs and posts are IT related

Notes: I will be busy up until late May since I am still a Junior in highschool and get very busy sometimes but I try to update as much as I possibly can! In the summer I also get busy with the llama club that I'm a part of so I get a little busy in spurts around the year! I'll usually never go on hiatus without saying at least something unless it's something majorly important!

Other concerns?: I do have some mental illnesses which is why i sporadically pop in and out sometimes, sometimes i may overreact or not quite get what someone is saying. This has thankfully never happened yet since I try to keep myself as contained as possible since starting trouble with people over something small isn't worth the exhausted time.

If anyone has anymore questions or concerns I'll do a Q&A in my asks!

I truly look forward to staying in this fandom and posting on here! Can't wait for some more shenanigans to ensue!

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

taylor is a bisexual jewish trans woman. brian is a trans man who overcompensates by performing toxic masculinity. alec is bisexual but also traumagenically aspec. lisa is transfem and aroace. aisha is bisexual and nonbinary. rachel is butch and bisexual but aromantic and she has no strong ties to the concept of gender. wildbow is a coward for failing to recognize these basic facts of the universe

[yulsbabymama]

Disventure Camp Headcanons Part 1

AIDEN

Half Argentinian Half French Canadian

Had a huge TOP phase in middle school

Only child

Super good singer but hates hearing his voice

ALEC

Afro-Turkish and Japanese

Diagnosed w Autism when he was a child

Smokes

Started drinking shortly after he got married; relapsed after his separation w his ex

Has an older sister by 7 years

ALLY

Transgirl; came out to her grandfather and he was the only supporter she had

Definitely had obsessive love disorder when meeting Hunter the first time

Super fucking bad at dancing

Likes K-pop (Fromis_9, Stray Kids, Billlie, P1harmony, Enhypen, Stayc, aespa, ITZY)

ASHLEY

Country music defender

will actually die on the Country Music hill

like she's from Texas but she's FROM TEXAS ykwim

Transgirl; realized she was a girl at a young age and transitioned w a supporting family

Would probably roll her eyes at u if u assume she loved AppleJack when she was younger

I mean, she did

but not as much as ppl assume

CONNOR

Jewish

Despite having a booming business, he still doesn't understand technology

but he WAS a boss at programming his MySpace page

"programming is my passion" college dude

Nickelback liker

I'm so sorry

DAN

He and his sister shared a bedroom until she moved out

Actually convinced her to come back home bc he missed her

like

crying on his knees

"PLEASE COME HOME IT'S SO MISERABLE WITHOUT U THERE I MISS U"

blasting a radio to her favorite songs

did i mention he loves his sister

Pokemon kid

Oh, he's also autistic

DEREK

Half Filipino and half Columbian

Transguy; was an unhappy "girl" growing up and would refuse to listen to anyone who didn't call "her" by Derek

Facebook user

only to troll, tho

He tried trolling on Twitter too but Trevor had to pry the phone out of his hands

Secretly likes Trevor

and by secretly I mean he angry-cried while writing drafted emails of his confession

Barely cries or anything like that, emotionally, but angry-crying is his #1 basically

Is not a registered gun owner

DREW

Other than the notebook, he has a communication device

Adopted

Video games hurt his eyes

so do mobile games

Honestly i think he just needs glasses

likes dogs :)

ELLIE

Half Irish and Half Singaporean

Transgirl; came out in her last year of junior high

Middle child w two sisters

While struggling w her identity, she was a Pick Me girl to fit in #sad!

she ended up giving up on fitting in #gogirl

Malay's her first language

Mom passed when she was little

tolerates cats

FIORE

3/4th Italian 1/4th Chinese

hates horror movies

not bc she's scared of them or anything

she just thinks they suck

forced into a ton of shit to become normal

girlscouts, ballet, soccer, etc

she hated everything

but she can make a good cookie deal

GABBY

Has an unhealthy obsession w watching drag shows

she doesn't understand any of the lingo

she just thinks the outfits r pretty

LPS kid

also watches too much animal documentaries

will actually sit down and say "im bored, time to watch a 6 hour doc on cheetahs"

she just cray cray like that #loveher

unhealthy addiction to stickers

GRETT

Transgirl #slay

was a Toddlers & Tiaras kid

passenger princess

forces Yul to drive her places

they have almost broken up 5 times bc of this

she also genuinely forgot to tell him she was #trans

u should've seen the look on his face

when

..

yeah

#hedidnotcare

that's ooc but idc

she's bi :3

HUNTER

Half Chinese Half White

Dad left after his youngest sister was born

Lived in China until he was 8

He has autism

Christian btw

like pslam bunch-of-numbers in his bio

can quickly change languages like that

will talk to u in english then will answer his phone in cantonese

texts like a millennial

:/ sorry

smokes

the killers, staind, blink-182, and r.e.m fan

plays the guitar

JAKE

Half Korean Half Japanese

cannot speak those languages fluently, tho

sorry

he and his brother wrestled a lot

his brother would always win

anyways he was a theater kid

but quit bc of some drama

haha. get it ?

one of those gays who cries to mitski & ricky montgomery

but only listens to them when he needs to cry

which is often

JAMES

has been in cringe compilations before

imagine if i just ended this w just that hc

would that be funny

anyways

one of those middle schoolers who was violently supportive of the lgbtq+

like everyone knew he liked boys

except him

loves his younger sister

like a lot

they r bffies

will call her in the middle of the night randomly

"i just posted a new tiktok, go like it."

JENSEN

genuinely have nothing for him

like

can i just say he's dreamed of men shirtless before and end it at that

um so yeah