#jewish russian chosen

[koushirouizumi]

Hanukkah this year, 2024, in comparison, Actually will be on December 25th, beginning at sundown; but it will also last until January 2nd, at sundown!! (So, if you want to place a similar fic around 2024, where they will all be gathered at 'similar' timeframes, this year would be a good year for that timeline-wise.) {However, January 7th specifically will be on a Sunday, which is too late for Shabbat, as Shabbat ends at sundown on Saturdays.} You can still place a Shabbat meal around the 5th~6th though!

For future dates, you can check this link too! Please always check Hebrew calender dates first (and double-check to be sure!!) before attempting to write a Jewish holiday or Jewish character into any of your fic/worldbuilding universes, in order to portray us with genuine respect!!

Since Russians celebrate Christmas on January 7th, I always assumed one of the Russian Digidestined was Jewish and that dinner we saw the main three having was a Shabbat dinner, or maybe one of them had the others over for a quaint little Hanukkah dinner post Digimon crisis.

(Kenta note: According to my spellcheck Shabbat is spelled wrong, but since I don’t know otherwise, I’m leaving it as is.)

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Nearly as soon as the Bolsheviks took power, they began to execute anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries, most of whom had fought alongside the Bolsheviks in the Revolution. They also purged elements of their own party deemed "anti-Soviet" or "counter-revolutionary." This state repression was well documented by the Soviet government, but here we have chosen to use journals and letters of those affected. Lithuanian-American Jewish anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman describe the Bolshevik betrayal: The systematic man-hunt of anarchists [...] with the result that every prison and jail in Soviet Russia filled with our comrades, fully coincided in time and spirit with Lenin's speech at the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party. On that occasion Lenin announced that the most merciless war must be declared against what he termed "the petty bourgeois anarchist elements" which, according to him, are developing even within the Communist Party [...] On the very day that Lenin made the above statement, numbers of anarchists were arrested all over the country, without the least cause or explanation. The conditions of their imprisonment are exceptionally vile and brutal. (Boni, 253)

[a-very-tired-jew]

We have to talk about Leftist Antisemitism

One of the things I have been grappling with since Oct 7th is the rise of antisemitism in Leftist spaces. Often we find ourselves falling into the same old position of blaming the Right for these issues. However, over the past few decades minority voices have pointed out that the Left has issues with bigotry in its own way. For myself, and likely many other Jews, growing up in Leftist spaces I heard antisemitic jokes and lines all the time. However, they were never the overt hate fueled rhetoric I would hear from the Right. Conspiracies were relegated to "The Rothschilds control the world" rather than "The Jews control the world." Regardless of how you feel about the rich, the Rothschilds are a dog whistle for Jews. Hell, my own family members would say this same line because the majority of us are on the Left. So obviously we take a position regarding the ultra rich. However, this Rothschilds line isn't the only dog whistle. Often there were jokes at your expense from outside your in-group. Common refrains that *insert Jewish dog whistle* couldn't be trusted due to *insert conspiracy coded in Leftist language*. That's the issue... The antisemitism on the Left is coded in a language that makes it more subtle than overt rightwing antisemitism. But how did we get here? It definitely predates Oct 7th. We can partly lay blame at this at the feet of something that feels like an old and tired trope at this point: Russia. In particular, the good ole USSR. You see, dear reader, regardless of how you describe your sociopolitical and economics leanings, and regardless of whether or not you reject USSR style Communism, their style and impact still influence you and the rest of the world. As Leftists we often stand opposed to many aspects of Western capitalist ideals, which in turn exposes us to many of the anti-Western writings, philosophies, beliefs, etc... The issue is that the USSR has a very sordid history with antisemitism. Some of you may be saying "but wait! There were Jewish Bolsheviks! Stalin even supported Israel!", don't you worry. We'll get there. While there may have been Jewish Bolsheviks and members of the party post revolution, it does not change the policies and actions that preceded and followed. Robert Weinberg, Dara Horn, David Nirenberg, and other historians have all written extensively at some point or another about this very issue. I highly recommend Dara Horn's latest piece for the Atlantic "Why The Most Educated People in America Fall for Antisemitic Lies". She briefly covers this topic. If you can't access it, well here we go. Zionism as a concept had already been around for a few decades by the time the Communist Revolution occurred, having been solidified by the Dreyfuss Affair in the late 1800s. Zionism is/was also considered Jewish nationalism. While a Jew could be a Russian Jew, German Jew, or any other "nation" Jew, they were still considered an other and thus they could never truly be a nationalist for that country. Only for Israel/Zion. As such, Jews in the USSR were not trusted as it was argued they could not be truly devoted to the Party. Jews were then labeled as Zionists. Zionism was considered anti-Communist, and racist due to the Party purposefully putting out that the "chosen people" line meant that Jews were supremacists and believed themselves to be better than others (The chosen people line actually refers to us choosing to adhere to certain laws). As such, Zionist activities were shut down as they were an act of treason and betrayal. This means that synagogues, shuls, business, and more were shut down as a means to disrupt the "Jewish conspirators". It did not matter that Jews were involved in the revolution, if you were Jewish you were an other and could not be trusted. pt 1.

[secular-jew]

This commentary entitled “Europe Died in Auschwitz” was authored by Sebastián Vivar Rodriguez and first published on November 21, 2004, by the Spanish website Gentiuno, and then later, published in a Spanish newspaper. But no one by that name has been found to exist, so the author's name is likely a pseudonym.

""I walked down the streets in Barcelona and suddenly discovered a terrible truth: Europe died in Auschwitz.

We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a group of people who represented culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people, who made great contributions to the world, and thus changed the world.

The contribution of today's Jewish people is felt in all areas of life: medicine, technology, international trade, science, the arts, and above all, as the conscience of the world.

Look at any donors' board at any symphony, art museum, theater, art gallery, science center, etc. You will see many Jewish surnames. These are the people who were burned. Of the 6,000,000 who died, how many would have grown up to be gifted musicians, doctors, artists, philanthropists?

And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the diseases of racism and bigotry, Europe opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.

They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.

And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.

Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population, which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving in to it.

It is now approximately seventy years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, twenty million Russians, ten million Christians, and nineteen-hundred Catholic priests who were murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on, and humiliated.

Now, more than ever--with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth'--it is imperative to make sure the world "never forgets."

This is intended to reach 400 million people. Be a link in the memorial chain, and help distribute this around the world.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some MUSLIM in the United States?

Take a minute to forward, reboot, and pass it along. We must wake up the world before it's too late. ""

[traumaticemphaticfantastic]

I have delved into the art of “Memes” today, something that I do not normally do but a medium that I believe best suits today’s conundrum.

Today I present to you a really quite peculiar kind of phenomenon that I haven’t seen talked about very much, something that I have come to call “Jewish-deadnaming” or “Jew-naming” which is a kind of really odd tactic employed by certain members of the far-right against Jewish people that I’ve noticed bares a most striking similarity to the trans concept of “Dead-naming” wherein a far-right figure or otherwise ignorant individual will use the birth name of an otherwise passing individual as a sort of “Gotcha” that reveals said individual’s perceived inferiority.

In this meme I use the historical figure I have seen this tactic applied to the most, the Bolshevik and (ex)Soviet leader Leon Trotsky, or as his birth name reads, Lev Davidovich Bronstein as an example. The right-wing (Especially on the internet) really love to bring up Trotsky’s birth name, when you read their comments and posts there’s almost always a kind heir of smug superiority, as if they’re revealing some kind of “Big secret.” This I can only imagine, is most likely due to Trotsky not only being Jewish, but also being connected to the Bolshevik army and in-turn the communists, which plays very well into the Neo-Nazi conspiracy of “Cultural Marxism” which directly evolved from the “Cultural Bolshevism” conspiracy coined by the original Nazis proper. And the fact that Trotsky changed his name to a more Russian “Less Jewish/ethnic minority-sounding” one (Which I may add has been done by many people, not Just Jews, throughout history with a variety of languages and reasons) could and has been interpreted by antisemites to be a nefarious way of “Hiding in plain sight” and so spreading around Trotsky’s birth name becomes a sort of “Honourable” thing to do in the minds of the far-right, as a sort of means of “Exposing” the Jew for who he really is and in-turn exposing a “Larger conspiracy.”

As a trans girl myself I really can’t help but notice just how similar this is to deadnaming, in that the process of “Jew-naming” is done with a sort of venom that you don’t really see as often as say, referring to Lenin as “Vladimir Ulyanov” for historical purposes, most of the time when I’ve seen people going out of their way to Jew-name Trotsky, it’s very explicitly to denote his Jewishness that would otherwise be “Hiding” behind his Russified chosen name. And of course, Jews changing their names historically to “Fit in” better with the society they wish to be a part of goes beyond Trotsky, and maybe you have seen other examples of this? But for me, I see it the most with Trotsky, I’m thinking for the reasons stated above.

Sorry this one is a bit of a dark one today folks, if I can tell you a secret: This whole Jew-naming thing doesn’t particularly bother me personally too much, I find it to be more of a chronically-online curiosity than anything else, there’s definitely things that bother more than this these days haha. But, I wanted to share my observations with you all anyhow, as I do find it all quite batty.

But anyways, that will be all for today, be well!

[unhonestlymirror]

Ukrainians don't like Israel's representative because she's russian who performed in occupied Crimea and is supported by rashists like Kirokorov. Everyone else doesn't like Eden Golan because she's Jewish. :/

I was wondering at first why Israel chose a russian representative, since russia isn't even hiding the fact anymore that it finances Hamas, but seeing how many people literally want to kill her for being Jewish, how many participants behave antisemitic, I am happy that Israel hasn't chosen a Ukrainian singer. Thank god we don't have to watch a Ukrainian being harassed for being Ukrainian AND Jewish.

[chamotate]

klaus please

YAYAYAY THE DUMB FUCKING NAZI anyway i will not be defending him, but there are obviously reasons for why he became... him..

theres a lot of lore for him so this will probably be very rambly and make little sense, but then again it is also late.

Klaus from a very young age was quite neglected. His mother went out drinking a lot, trying to cope with the death of his father, so Klaus had to grow up fast. And what better way to grow up!!! the goddamn hj!!!! (sarcasm obviously) Obviously at this point it was not a big thing, as it was before moustache man came into power, but Klaus' first lessons were hate. So he grew up hating. A lot.

He would spit at people who he deemed "undesirable" in the streets. Like genuinely. He spat a lot. Obviously at this point, he was punished very frequently for it. Doesn't mean he stopped though.

1933, the moustache man is in power (im terrified of what is and isnt allowed on tumblr), Klaus is OVERJOYED. This boy has read his little book cover to cover and probably knew it by heart. His mother couldn't care less. As long as he was out the house and not bothering her. Klaus had no idea how to care for himself however. He relied on Erik's family to feed him, as at this point he was VERY malnourished.

The HJ was... unfortunately... very good for Klaus. He learnt to stand up for himself, how to fight, etc. But at what cost?

Erik was more left leaning than Klaus. Sure he "believed" what he was told, but that didn't mean he followed it. He would befriend Jews, kiss boys (without Klaus' knowledge of course), but Klaus did know of his "weird sleeptalking". Erik seemed to spill all his secrets this way, but was always able to brush it off as a weird dream, so Klaus thought nothing of it.

Erik had deep feelings for Klaus. Hate, love, lust, who knows? Passion would be the best word. He was passionate, but unsure in what way. Sometimes he would give Klaus small pecks during their hugs, just to see what would happen, if he would ever notice. And when he did... holy shit... it was hell on Earth. Klaus started screaming, hitting, almost beating him to death, before realising... that was his ONLY friend. Would he really kill his only friend over something like that? Surely he was just confused. That must've been it.

Ever since that day, Klaus would try "convert" Erik, back to "normal". Erik gave up, he lost all interest in Klaus, so he said he was cured. Klaus felt like he was the chosen one. He was a narcissist, especially because he was the "ideal". White, blonde, blue-eyed, Aryan.

At the age of 15, he killed for the first time. He saw a young Jewish boy while on a walk with Erik and immediately beat him to the ground, he meant to step on his chest to threaten him and laugh about it later, but he missed and snapped his neck. He's not been the same since. He knew it was right (in his eyes), but he couldn't help but feel guilt. He felt like a fake. He had nightmares every night, replaying the sound of that kid's neck snapping.

1935, 4 years before the war, a poet (Sergei) stumbles upon Klaus studying under a tree. Little did Klaus know he was talking to his worst nightmare. A Russian. Communist. Gay. Jew. He lived on in ignorant bliss, a new friend, he looked funny, he SOUNDED funny, but he was probably just paranoid with propaganda, right?

Meanwhile, he's dating Ida, still paranoid that Erik will try date him or something, he decided he better keep himself taken. He takes her on dates, he even got himself a job to buy her gifts and earn her love. She doesn't feel much for him, but she enjoys the company, so she sticks around.

1939, Klaus is pissed the fuck off. He realises the truth about Sergei from Ida (who Sergei trusted way more than any other German) and he wants to kill him. As soon as possible. The next time Sergei went for a visit to Germany, Klaus grabbed his dagger, ready and eyes burning with hate, before Sergei dropped to his knees infront of him and started crying. LITERALLY CRYING TO A NAZI???? Klaus assumes Sergei is a self hating Jew or something along those lines and decides to tolerate him a little longer, hoping to use him as an ally.

Ida starts to develop stronger feelings for Klaus as she sees him "care" for Sergei. THERE IS A MASSIVE MISUNDERSTANDING HERE. Sergei believes Klaus heard the news about Sergei's loss and was comforting him, Klaus believes Sergei hates his own identity and wants his validation and Ida thinks Klaus has become a better person and they are finally bonding.

Not long after, Klaus and Ida marry.

Sergei is somewhat upset at this BUT THATS A STORY FOR A DIFFERENT TIME!!!! THIS IS ABOUT KLAUS!!!

Klaus finds out a few months later that Sergei was crying about his dead fiance this whole time and goes back to hating him, buuuutttt.... he has other ideas this time. He manipulates Sergei, abuses him, uses him, whatever he feels like. He makes Sergei feel guilt for existing.

1942, Klaus and Ida have their first child Heike(at this point she's like 2 but this is a key date and a key thing), who from FUCKING BIRTH is taught this propaganda. Klaus plans to make his children into his own sort of minions almost.

Sergei, however, whenever he gets the chance, he tries to teach the kid to be a good person. Even though he knows it won't do anything.

Klaus is still a fucking monster. He gets off on the fact that he can make Sergei do anything. Because Sergei knows, one wrong move, the Gestapo will be involved. He's given up on making Sergei "useful" and now just humiliates him and uses him for entertainment. (DUDE FUCKING KYS LEAVE MY BOY ALONE.)

anyway yada yada he continues the same shit. he never gets sent to war bc hes a loser and that makes him feel not valued. (good)

1945. The war is over. Klaus is SOBBING. FULL ON CRYING. His beloved moustache man is gone. He burns any documents that relate him to the regime and hides his uniforms (which he only ever takes out afterwards to see his kids wearing them). He's proven innocent (the ugly bastard) and goes back to indoctrinating his kids (who he now has two of)

He still believes in all the values and tells Ida that their kids need to bring back the glory of Germany. She doesn't fully agree, but she also doesn't understand much politics and lets him do all the political business.

Sergei has cut him off at this point and Klaus is very bitter.

1959, The last time Klaus and Sergei ever meet. Sergei shoots a bullet right through his Nazi skull and leaves. Simple. No witnesses.

:3

that bit would be further explained with Sergei's perspective but from Klaus' lore perspective, there is no clear reason.

most of his lore relies on Sergei + Ida so this was difficult but i accepted the challenge and it was a fun ride

[bobemajses]

"Queen Esther" beauty pageant in Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine, 1928

Just before the Purim holiday of 1926, Baruch Agadati, an infamous cultural figure in Tel Aviv, came up with a new idea to upgrade his yearly masquerade ball – a beauty pageant! A ‘Queen Esther’ would be chosen, who will be the queen of the Purim ball and the queen of the Purim procession that will take place in the streets of Tel Aviv. For several years, a a new queen was chosen each year from a different Jewish community – there was a Bukharan Queen Esther, a Russian Queen Esther and a Yemeni Queen Esther. Of course, not everyone fell in love with the idea of a beauty pageant. Many of the objections were religious, from those who saw the competition as an indecent, secular practice. Other protests came from intellectuals who saw the competition as no less than an attack on the morals of Jewish society. Eventually, the pressure worked and the competition was banned in 1930.

[redgoldsparks]

October Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Finna by Nino Cipri, read by Amanda Dolan

Ava is having a rough time: three days ago she and Jules broke up, and since then she's been avoiding them at their horrible mutual job at LitenVärld, a dystopian Ikea. Then a customer goes missing in a wormhole in spacetime, and Ava and Jules are chosen to try and retrieve the missing grandma. Very short, very fun. Written by a nonbinary author. Gave this a re-listen as an audiobook because there is a sequel now :D

Defekta by Nino Cipri read by Ramon De Ocampo 

This novella takes place in the same LitenVärld store that Ava and Jules worked at in book one in this series, but follows Derek, the store's most loyal and dedicated employee. He lives in a shipping container in the store's parking lot, and has no friends and no life outside his time at the store. In fact, he doesn't even have any memories from before he started working at the store... or any explanation for why the store seems to make sense to him, and even speak to him, in a way it doesn't to any of his co-workers. Then something even more shocking than an wormhole occurs in the store: the furniture starts waking up and coming to life. Derek's entire worldview and sense of self are completely upturned. Unfortunately this story didn't capture me as strongly as book one; despite being a novella it felt oddly slow. I was rooting for Derek and the wayward furniture by the end, but the structure of the story was not as strong or streamlined as Finna. I do still want to keep reading Nino Cipri because I love the way they effortlessly include nonbinary characters in their sci-fi and I want a third installment that returns to Ava and Jules!

Princess Floralinda and the Forty Story Tower read by Moira Quirk 

A four hour fantasy novella read by the talented and wonderful Moira Quirk, who also reads the Locked Tomb audiobooks. This original fairy tale features Floralinda, a princess captured by a witch and imprisoned in a tower full of monsters. When all of the princes who try to rescue her fail Floralinda has to to take up arms against the monsters herself. I was entertained throughout my whole time listening to this story, but it didn't have a particularly strong emotional impact. I would mostly recommend it to Tamsyn Muir completionists; though it was published in the same year as Harrow it feels like an earlier work. I kind of wanted the ending to be either more hopeful or more horrible.

My Aunt is a Monster by Reimena Yee 

Safia is blind, but she was raised by booksellers who read her stories of adventures and the wide world. After her parents tragically die in a fire, Safia is adopted by a distant relative, a reclusive aunt who used to be the world's most famous adventurer. A curse ended her traveling career, but a rival adventurer and the discovery of an ancient city might pull the whole family back into the world. This book was sillier than I expected, but I still greatly enjoyed the art style and the magical whimsy.

Thistlefoot by GemmaRose Nethercott read by January LaVoy 

Isaac and Bellatine Yaga grew up on the road with their parents' traveling puppet show, but neither has a good relationship with their parents as adults. Isaac ran away as a teen and has lived as a train-hopping actor and scam artist into his early twenties. Bellatine moved across the country to study woodworking in New England were she is trying desperately to live a normal life despite her power to bring inanimate objects to life. Her power, and Isaac's shapeshifting ability, are inheritances of a generational trauma from a history they barely know. But then another inheritance arrives for them in New York: a house on chicken legs, built by a Russian Jewish ancestor who survived the pogroms of the 1920s and the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. To Isaac, the house is an opportunity. To Bellatine, it is a home. But it comes with a curse: a shadow man follows the house to America, wanting to finish the destruction he started. I loved this story, woven through with Jewish folklore and American folk songs, a road trip story, a story of facing and accepting family history and how far its shadow falls into the present. I image this book gets compted with American Gods by Neil Gaimen and The Golem and the Jinni by Helen Wecker but it is very much its own book with its own lyrical tone. And its queer! Highly recommend.

The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu 

This queer, modern retelling of Hamlet is set in a scientific lab and contained mostly within a tense 12 hours. Hayden Lichfield finds his father's cooling body in Elsinore labs within the first few pages; he immediately calls on the sentient AI system, Horatio, who controls the security cameras and many other aspects of the building. Horatio reports a 1.5 hour gap in the video logs. Hayden and his father, Dr Lichfield, were working on formula to reverse death. Hayden's immediate assumption is that the killer was after his father's research. The lab goes into lockdown and Hayden is trapped inside with his uncle Charles, lab technician Gabriel Rasmussen, Hayden's ex and research intern Felicia Xia, and her father Paul Xia, head of security. Unless they find an intruder, one of them is the murderer. I enjoyed how deftly this novel kept me guessing even when following a plot I know well. I was genuinely unsure how many, or who, of the people trapped in Elsinore would survive the night. I was also into the unashamed queerness of an AI in love with a human, and the ways in which that love could and could not be reciprocated.

The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson read by MacLeod Andrews

This book does an unbelievably thorough job of recounting one of the most devastating recent thefts from a modern museum. In 2009, an American student studying at London's Royal Academy of Music broke into the Tring museum, which contains thousands of natural history specimens including birds collected by Charles Darwin and his contemporary Alfred Russel Wallace. Darwin and Wallace both independently formulated the theory of natural selection and survival of the fittest in the same decade, by observing and collecting birds on remote islands during the height of the British Empire. They both believed in the importance of preserving these birds for future science. At the same time, the colonial empire had developed a huge appetite for exotic and colorful feathers for Victorian hats, the cabinets of curiosities and natural history specimens which were in vogue in the upper class, and for another aristocrat's hobby: tying salmon flies. These appetites nearly drove many bird species to extinction. Modern day lovers of the Victorian art of salmon fly tying now comb the internet for feathers from these rare birds, desperate to get their hands on materials mentioned in Victorian books. The majority of these feathers are now semi-illegal to possess or sell. It was this obsession that drove 20 year old Edwin Rist to break a window at the Tring and escape with nearly 300 stolen bird skins. There followed a long detective investigation into how he'd done it and what happened with the feathers afterwards. I enjoyed the audiobook and was impressed by the persistence of the author, who pursued this story for half a decade.

Asylum by Greg Means and Kazimir Lee 

A short but rich story about platonic adult friends who bond through a competitive fantasy card game, but end up supporting each other through all kinds of life transitions both joyful and heartbreaking. Allen and Zekia are both single, both wish they were dating or partnered, but instead they're sharing hotel rooms at geeky conventions, setting up mutual friends, attending weddings and funerals, babysitting other people's kids, and most of all playing the card game Asylum. Zekia, a Black lesbian, struggles with her self-worth, feeling unlovable and too socially awkward to date. Allen, a straight cis man, take a more philosophical view of his situation, appreciating the good things he has in life, including his many strong friendships. The black and white art is simple, clear, and effective. I read it all in one sitting!

Sincerely, Harriet by Sarah Winifred Searle

This is a very quiet and soft story of a girl struggling with an invisible chronic illness, and the resulting isolation and loneliness. Harriet and her parents recently moved to Chicago (to be closer to hospitals and specialists) and she doesn't know anyone in her neighborhood yet except the older woman, Pearl, who lives on a lower floor. Harriet misses friends she made at a summer camp and sends them postcards, lying about her new busy and fun social life. Pearl lends Harriet a series classic of books to try and gently nudge the girl out of her shell. But Harriet struggles to focus on them, instead wondering about a possible ghost living in the attic. There are other emotional struggles hinted at, but they are very subtle and a lot is left to the reader's imagination. The line art is very careful and lovely.

[maibluemen]

ok while i'm working on which meta stuff i want to have on this blog, i do want to make a somewhat? detailed post on some name headcanons i have. so. some countries whose names i either tweak or change from the ones suggested by himaruya (arguably, there are no canon names. alfred is really the only one you could argue for lol)

🇷🇺 - ivan ivanovich morozov

hima doesn't give patronymics to the countries that would use them. ivanovich comes from ivan being very young and asked what his full name is, and the only male name he could think of was his own lol so he just stuck with it. and yes both sisters have teased him for this. morozov is derived from the russian word for "frost," which i find fitting; i wanted to find a non-jewish surname for him because i don't headcanon him as jewish and. of all the non-jewish countries to have a jewish surname.....well. no judgement on people who use braginsky and i doubt himaruya meant any harm or anything but yeah that's why i use a different surname for him lol

🇱🇹 - tolvydas jonas laurinaitis

shoutout to @hinotorihime who i believe was one of the first, if not the first person in the fandom to suggest tolys being a more accurate translation of トーリス (since japanese doesn’t distinguish between R/L sounds like indo-european languages do, and english doesn’t distinguish between I/Y the way lithuanian does, and tolys being an EXCEEDINGLY uncommon name, i don’t think “toris” is an unreasonable translation to have made after the game of language telephone from lithuanian->japanese-> english lol. トーリス would be directly transliterated like “to risu” for those unfamiliar with katakana. it’s worth noting that pixiv translates his character tag as “tolys”). uhh the source he gave me is a website that no longer exists and wasn't archived unfortunately, but "tolvydas" means something like "far seer" and tolys is a shortened form of it jonas is the name he added when he was finally baptized, and it's in reference to john the baptist anyway, here is an old post where she explains some name meanings!

🇪🇪 - eduard tamm

look i know eduard isn't really used in estonia but the guy simply gives off eduard vibes to me, sorry tamm, aside from being the most common surname, means "oak"

🇱🇻 - raivis bērziņš

bērziņš is, again, the most common surname and means "birch"

ed and raivis having the most common surnames in their countries i swear isn't me being lazy, i like the idea of all 3 baltics having tree names (laurinaitis referring to "laurel")

🇵🇱 - feliks mieczysław kazimierz łukasiewicz

who let the poles be catholic so. feliks has only been a name used in poland since around the 1800s? iirc, it was specifically brought over because of a fascination with french names but i might be wrong lol (and ultimately the origins of the name are latin, so variants of it are pretty old anyway). anyway. i've decided that his first name used to be mieczysław and he changed it around the time of the napoleonic wars to feliks, but kept the old name. kazimierz was chosen at his baptism and refers to st casimir, one of the many patron saints of poland (there's literally a wikipedia article dedicated to them all lol)

🐥 - gilbert maria beilschmidt

mary was just a hugely important aspect of gil's history as a knight (and the specific orders he represented also). he hasn't been catholic in centuries but he keeps maria in his legal name because that's his mom, guys

N. 🇮🇹 - felice luca veneziano

veneziano and romano being surnames (meaning "venetian" and "roman" respectively) i decided to just...assign the italy bros their uh. titles? as surnames. apparently siblings having separate surnames isn't unheard of for the nations lol, anyway. i thought it would be more fitting as i also headcanon that there's at least 20 italies (corresponding with each modern-day region though the actual history gets a bit messier, like my tuscany oc is more properly my florence oc.....that's another post, tho) and vene and romano represent. well. veneto (but originally venice) and lazio (but originally the city of rome...though i have yet to decide when he started representing rome because he's not an Ancient....anyway.....) felice being the italian variant of "felix" luca is a baptismal name referring to st luke, who is a patron of (amongst other things) artists

S. 🇮🇹 - lovino francesco romano

heh so lovino is in the category of not really a real name but i like it and have never really felt drawn to another name instead francesco refers to st francis of assisi who is hugely popular. well, in general. and is a patron of italy. i need to workshop some more headcanons about romano and religion because of....reasons lol, but this is definitely a name he took on relatively recently.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

more from khanuckle's buddy lepartidelamort, who apparently is a writer for the daily stormer. https://www.tumblr.com/lepartidelamort/765534523171700736/i-need-to-go-back-through-the-basics?source=share

"Jewish culture is totally satanic and bizarre, and fixated on abuse."

This man either copied a Kampfesque manifesto from Andrew Anglin or this is Anglin's tumblr

both options are equally pathetic

good for us he reasons like a holocaust denier which is not at all

Briefly, Jews

off to a bad start

Jews are a monolith

Jews do not work or serve in the military

Umm sir most Jews were fucking Merchants and traders that is a job. Also I wonder how my great grandfather ended up in Auswitz as a Russian (he was a prisoner of war and he was sent there instead of being shot upon discovery of him being Jewish based on Nazi protocol) but I'm sure Anglin thinks the holocaust is fake.

"Jews are nervous wrecks". This is actually an America only canard as Europeans think we're always lying and really good at acting, while in Arab countries we're seen as either rude and uncaring.

Jewish behavior is all genetic (he says the same for black and brown people) but his enlightened white ass evolved above such things and will use his higher evolved senses to genocide the rest of them. So evolved so enlightened/s

"Chosen people"/ "Jewish supremacy" I have debunked this before, it's projection on Nazis part

"why don't they assimilate yet?" AWWW is the white American man sad America took his culture when his immigrant ancestors assimilated? Is the white American Jealous he has no "white culture'" so he hastily creates one from scratch?

"Jewish culture is weird, creepy and focused on abuse" Andy stop projecting what your fabricated "white culture" is like on us

"Deicide" + "Jews are parasites". Man this guy is good at sneaking dogwhistles into text. He probably has more practice and editors than the average hamasnik

Ok you lost the plot if Jews are genetic and can't control themselves then why do you believe that a Jewish man marrying a christian woman and converting will stop him from being Jewish? At least the Nazis were mostly consistent in their illogic.

Man has to backtrack and contradict his theories because his conclusion neccesarily it calls for a second holocaust so he goes for a conclusion that doesn't follow his theories to not sound like a full on Nazi

also

classy

(I cut out the incel rant about women being only in it for the money and the sex but it was bad I promise)

Does that means that you think Jews are obssessed with sex and gain power through marriage?

I'm not strawmanning here, I truly think this incel nazi believes in 'evil Jewish hypergamy?

That's enough nazi shit for one day

[c0lony-c0llapse]

I made an account just for this lol. I'm coming out of a place of genuine curiosity and wanting a convo with these questions btw.

What exactly are some of these changes you want "leaders" to make regarding the hive? It seems to be a big focus of this account but I'm still unsure what the goal is. (Besides getting the hive taken down, I'm sure it'll be back up again soon)

What do you mean by boycotting the hive? What would this look like? How does this play out?

What are a couple examples of this identity discourse? I'm not on the gaehive often so I'm not sure what this is referring to and wanna know more. Hell, what are some examples of corruption as a whole in the hive?

Sry for the yappingggggggg

Some platforms:

One rule for TW's instead of TW lists (do unto others rule)

Focus more on taking breaks and not relying on GAEHIVE for mental health services.

More training requirements for managers.

Make manager positions temporary (1-2 years) with re-election options.

Managers chosen by curators.

Managers cannot have identity discourse preferences in their bios.

Events / time periods / promote going outside, doing hobbies, giving euphoria to others, etc.

Boycotting means picking a day and having many people don't comment on the GAEHIVE, and asking curators how they feel at the end of the day. Boycotting shows managers that GAEHIVIANS can and will leave, and shows curators that there is more to life than spending time on the GAEHIVE.

Common identity discourse topics:

"endogenic" DID

Lesboys/turigirls, also known as he/him lesbians or she/her gays

M-spec lesbians, bi lesbians, pan lesbians, et cetera

Political parties + beliefs

Religions

Paraphilia/age regression/objectum

"Neurodivergent" disorders, what counts and what does not

The word "Latinx", for some reason.

Pro/antishipping

If nonbinary people are transgender

"Transfem AFABS" or "Transmasc AMABS"

AXAB / what counts as intersexuality

What counts as a disability/what counts as ableism

Tonetags. Can you use them? "If you use them with me I will scream at you because my profile says no tonetags! In Russian! 80 lines down my bio"

What TWs are necessary for what people

DNI's and their effectiveness, can managers have them?

Radqueer, transrace, transage, transabled, transgroomed

And more. (I am sure commenters will have more options)

Those are simply the ones off the top of my head.

I have heard experiences from people that say they saw people be harassed (or were harassed) for having conservative political beliefs, not understanding neopronouns, replying to comments, and even identifying as Jewish.

Ask anyone about corruption in the hive. Ask if it is a popularity contest and they will agree. Only popular people get euphoria, or sympathy, or replies, or advice. Ask people who were in crisis if they got advice or if they were silenced. Ask if managers elected their friends and not the best candidates. It is obvious.

Thanks for creating a Tumblr account for me, anon! Hope this answers your questions. >>

[haggishlyhagging]

Mollie Steimer (1897-1980) … emigrated with her family from the Ukraine in 1912. One of six children, she described her life in a New York ghetto as typical of "most poor Jewish immigrants." Her father was a laborer, her mother took in boarders, and she worked in various factories. Her formal schooling having been limited by her poverty, Steimer, like Ganz and numerous others, received her education in the radical youth groups where literature and philosophy received almost as much attention as ideas for the creation of the new world. Inspired by Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread, she joined the anarchist group Freedom in 1917.

She could not have chosen a more unpropitious time to become an anarchist. The United States, having recently entered World War I, was increasingly intolerant of radicals. In August 1918, when Steimer and six of her comrades distributed leaflets supporting the Bolshevik Revolution and denouncing the Allied intervention in Russia, they were arrested for violation of the espionage act. While Marie Ganz had been sentenced to sixty days for brandishing a pistol in the offices of John D. Rockefeller, Mollie Steimer was sentenced to fifteen years for proclaiming: "The tyrants of the world fight each other until they see a common enemy—WORKING CLASS ENLIGHTENMENT. As soon as they find a common enemy they combine to crush it." One of her indicted comrades, who had not engaged in the leaflet distribution, was acquitted; one turned state's evidence and received a light sentence; a third died in prison as a result of injuries inflicted by interrogating officers; and the remaining three were given twenty-year sentences.

After the Supreme Court refused to overturn the decision of the lower courts, Steimer began her prison sentence. Refusing to participate in a pardon campaign that was initiated on behalf of her and the others, she explained to her lawyer that "aside from the fact that I am against petitioning a government official, I consider it against my principles to ask for the release of four individuals while thousands of other political prisoners are languishing in the U.S. jails." Despite her disapproval of the attempts to gain her release, Steimer and the others were removed from prison and deported to the Soviet Union in late 1921. At first welcomed by Soviet officials, Steimer soon earned the enmity of the Russian government. As an anarchist she had few illusions about her status among the Communists. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman had already fled Russia at the time of her arrival, and Steimer understood that dissenters paid stiff penalties. Nevertheless, animated by her principles and by the support of the Russian dissidents who had managed to stay out of prison, she continued her anarchist activities. While in Russia she had met and grown to love Senya Fleshin, an anarcho-syndicalist active in the movement to free Russian political prisoners, many of whom were anarchists. She and Fleshin were jailed, beaten, and tortured; whenever out of prison they remained under constant police surveillance. In 1923 the Soviet Union deported both of them.

For the next two decades Steimer and Fleshin endured ill health, privation, and government persecution. During the twenties they lived in France and Germany. Having the misfortune to be German residents when Hitler came to power, they fled to France again in the 1930s. While living this rootless existence, they witnessed the crumbling of what had remained of the international anarchist movement, and the devastation of their remaining hopes for the vindication of anarchist principles when Franco triumphed in the Spanish Civil War. On the heels of that defeat came World War II and the German occupation of France. Steimer was arrested in May 1940 and sent to a concentration camp at Gurs; Fleshin had escaped detention. Steimer remained in the camp for six months, after which she escaped to the unoccupied part of France. From there she and Fleshin fled to Mexico, where she lived until her death.

It is difficult not to be overwhelmed by Mollie Steimer's fidelity to principle throughout decades of persecution. Whether such constancy is a virtue or a flaw may be argued; nevertheless, despite an almost identical sociocultural background to Marie Ganz, Steimer was inspired by intellectual, social, and psychological forces that profoundly distinguished her from the more changeable Ganz. Steimer's conversion to anarchism derived less from an emotional response to a crisis situation than from her acceptance of the basic tenets of anarchist ideology. As a disciple of Kropotkin, Steimer possessed an intellectual and moral vision of the future. Ganz, on the other hand, consistently disclaimed a constructive image, insisting that destruction of the old order was her only object. Further, Steimer's prison experiences hardened her against democratic society. Although Justice Holmes, in his dissent against the conviction of Steimer and the others, argued that "the defendants were deprived of their rights under the United States Constitution," the majority of the Supreme Court thought otherwise, and Steimer remained convinced that constitutional safeguards of freedom were a sham. Finally—and this is a much more elusive argument—having endured imprisonment, torture, and exile for a cause, not once but three times, Steimer may have chosen simply not to question anarchist ideology in her later years. Whatever her reasons, she did not abandon her faith in anarchism. In her eighth decade she wrote: "I hold fast to my convictions, being certain that only in a society where no human being will rule over another, can there be true freedom. "

-Margaret S. Marsh, Anarchist Women, 1870-1920

[todaysjewishholiday]

23 Menachem Av 5784 (26-27 August 2024)

The 23rd of Av is the yahrzeit of the philosopher and activist Simone Weil, whose life and death reveal a great deal about the specific cultural milieu of secular Jews in Europe between the world wars. Weil’s Jewishness is complicated by her secular upbringing and her complex engagement with Christianity near the end of her life, but it is her Jewishness in particular that I intend to explore here.

Weil’s father was an Alsatian Jew, whose surname was a product of the wave of Jewish assimilation into French national identity following Napoleon’s emancipation of French Jews. Offered full citizenship rights but still subject to significant interpersonal antisemitism for any recognizable markers of Jewish identity, some French Jews traded clearly Jewish names for newly chosen ones— some of which were still able to signal Jewish identity to other Jews. Weil was one such name, selected by certain French Levi’s as an anagram (W being pronounced in both French and German as V is pronounced in English). Weil’s mother was a Russian Jew whose family had immigrated to Belgium to escape the cycle of pogroms which followed Czar Alexander II’s assassination. Her father accrued significant wealth as an import-export magnate, a large part of which he left to his daughter. Weil’s paternal grandparents were both religiously devout, and deeply distressed by their son’s turn to agnosticism and a secular identity (and particularly his abandonment of kashrus). Her maternal grandparents were less intently religious, but her maternal grandfather was not only fluent in Hebrew but composed Hebrew language poetry, and his widow lived with the Weil family until her death. Both Simone’s parents were deeply intelligent and well educated. Salomea (or Selma, as she preferred to be known) Weil had also wished to be a medical doctor but had been dissuaded by her father, so she settled for marrying a doctor instead. She poured all of her intensity into ensuring the best possible education for her children, Simone and André. The entire family were bibliophiles, and to provide intellectual stimulation to their children Salomea and Bernard Weil also introduced games such as speaking only in rhyming couplets or conducting dinner conversation in one of the family’s several other shared languages. They regularly discussed current events and political theory in the home and Simone became an avowed leftist activist at an early age. Like her husband, Salomea eschewed all Jewish religious practice, but their home life and general cultural outlook will be familiar to many within the Ashkenazi diaspora.

Bernard and Selma’s secularism was also of a distinctly Jewish variety. A significant portion of European Jewry in the fifty eighth century of the Hebrew calendar were deeply attached to the concept of secular culture specifically as an alternative to Christian hegemony, and an escape route from the persistent and violent antisemitism that was such a consistent aspect of Jewish life in Christian Europe. The brutally violent antisemitism of the modern secular governments of Europe, both fascist and communist, had yet to destroy Jewish hopes in secularism as an antidote to prejudice. And the rationalism of European secularism also appealed significantly to Jewish communities that emphasized scholarly pursuits and valued logical reasoning. And the emancipation of Jews which had been a fruit of enlightenment ideals in Christian nations gave Jews the newfound possibility of assimilation into the cultural mainstream without conversion to Christianity. Haskalah and the Reform movement both developed during this period of hopefulness of greater inclusion, and while many Jews, like Simone Weil’s parents, decided to jettison religion entirely, theirs was often a particularly culturally Jewish expression of secularism. This was the mold from which Simone’s childhood was cast. Weil’s parents had experienced antisemitism firsthand throughout their early years and were determined to shield their children from it, and who like many of their secular Jewish contemporaries made the pursuit of knowledge and of progressive social reform its own kind of sacred duty.

Simone’s own early dedication to activism is revealed in an anecdote from her childhood, where after striking up conversations with workers at the resort where her family was vacationing and learning more about their wages and the conditions in which they worked, attempted to persuade them to unionize. She determined early on to devote herself entirely to the cause of a more just world, and did so with a relentlessness that led her college classmates in philosophy to dub her “the categorical imperative in skirts” (It is worth noting that she was the sole female student in her cohort at the time). Weil was deeply impatient with the abstract inquiries of other philosophers, forcefully declaring that “one thing alone mattered in the world today: the revolution that would feed all people on earth” to Simone de Beauvoir. When the latter replied that meaning mattered more than material comfort, Weil retorted “It’s easy to see you’ve never gone hungry.”

Hunger was something that Weil herself knew well. Despite her affluent and indulgent upbringing, she lived a rigorous life of extreme self-denial driven by the belief that she did not deserve to be comfortable while others were suffering. As a young child during the First World War, she refused all sweets after hearing of the deprivations of troops on the front. As Weil grew, she also regularly refused other food, due to a mixture of sensory issues, fears about germs, and moral scrupulosity about the injustice of eating well while others starved. This last trait— of being certain that she ought not to have any comfort which was denied to others— made all social injustices deeply personal matters for Simone. She never learned the art of looking away from other’s suffering that enables a sense of complacency about the state of society, nor did she ever attempt to persuade herself that others deserved their misery.

During her university years, Weil, who had first identified herself as a Bolshevik at the age of 10, persuaded her parents to host Leon Trotsky briefly early in his exile from the Soviet Union. Reportedly, the budding moral philosopher was one of the few people able to silence the revolutionary firebrand in a debate.

Simone’s childhood acts of labor solidarity were also only the first signs of things to come. While many college students enjoyed theorizing about the sufferings of the working class, Weil participated regularly in union demonstrations and preferred the company of striking workers to that of her fellow students. This continued for the rest of her life, and led to the most targeted antisemitic pushback she was to personally experience, as her committed labor activism and extreme commitment to social egalitarianism were interpreted by the conservative press as proof of their theory of Jewish Bolshevism, with educated radical Jews stirring up a laboring class that in the eyes of conservatives clearly would otherwise be perfectly accepting of miserable conditions and pay. Weil eventually became convinced that solidarity with the working class was not sufficient, and that to truly understand the struggle she should become a laborer. To this end she quit her post as an instructor and worked backbreaking shifts on an automobile assembly line, which persuaded her that the physically and mentally draining conditions of modern labor were the greatest obstacle to revolutionary action. The same convictions about direct action and self sacrifice led her to join an anarchist faction in the Spanish Civil War, though her poor eyesight and lack of physical coordination made her more of a liability than an asset in combat. A severe injury in a cookfire accident led to her departure from Spain for medical recovery, and her unit was nearly entirely massacred a month after her departure.

It was in the aftermath of her horrendous and personally devastating experiences in Spain, wracked with survivor’s guilt and a a persistently frustrated desire to sacrifice her own life for a worthy cause, that Weil’s parents took her on holiday in the Italian village of Assisi in an attempt to bouy her spirits, and she wandered into the basilica, where the Catholic Saint Francis had renounced all earthly possessions, and offered up a prayer for the first time in her life. It seems that that root of Weil’s interest in Christianity was the way its most praised figures and its founder and central figure practiced and promoted the exact kind of unrelenting self denial and self abnegation that she herself sought. Another observation of hers, upon seeing a peasant religious procession in Portugal, is telling: “the conviction was suddenly borne in upon me that Christianity is pre-eminently the religion of slaves, that slaves cannot help belonging to it, and I among others.” While at description of Christianity as a religion of slaves was popular among European secularists of all backgrounds, there is a particularly Jewish tradition of associating Christianity with bondage in contrast to Judaism’s emphasis on collective liberation. But Weil, who was certain that she herself should suffer so long as anybody was suffering, also could not conceive of herself as free. Her association with Christian mysticism is thus extremely complicated by her secular Jewish upbringing and personal relationship with suffering and self sacrifice. Weil’s personal flirtation with Christianity continued for the rest of her life, but she repeatedly refused baptism, pointing out the Christian refusal of salvation to atheists and Jews as central to her refusal. She described herself as somebody who loved Jesus but had no love for the church— and it seems entirely obvious why a European Jew on the brink of the Shoah, as deeply aware as she was of the history of European antisemitism and the numerous strands of Christianity at that very moment making their peace with the rise of fascism would be unwilling to reconcile herself to a tradition and community that was not willing to reconcile itself to her without insisting on her erasure through conversion. Weil could be tolerable to Christians only as an ex-Jew, and despite her lack of a religious Jewish upbringing or identity that was farther than she would go. She was willing to sacrifice her life, but not her sense of self or solidarity with her family and all the imperiled Jews of Europe.

Simone did in the end give up her life for her beliefs, though not in any of the heroic ways she had dreamed of. She took her parents to safety in America prior to the Nazi invasion of Germany, fully aware that they too would refuse to leave if doing so meant abandoning their daughter to death. But she did so for their security, wishing herself to be back in France, again heartbroken at the thought that she should have any comfort or safety which was denied to others. She returned to Britain and threw herself energetically into aiding the war effort, serving as a translator for British forces working to aid the French Resistance. Her poor health however kept her from being able to do as she wished and be a radio operative parachuted behind enemy lines. Distraught, she reduced her food intake further and further, convinced that many people were no doubt starving in France under the Nazi occupation. Her associates were convinced that she was overestimating the severity of rationing within France but Simone’s conviction that orders suffered more greatly than she and that she should do all she could to suffer with them was unshakeable. She died on the 23rd of Av 5703 from a heart attack brought upon by starvation.

[ya-world-challenge]

Hello!

I was wondering if you had any good recommendations for books containing disability/disabled characters? Fiction or non fiction. I'm trying to put together a little disability literature resource, and I've occasionally seen you share some books on it. I thought your blog would be an excellent place to come to for some more global ones!

Thank you, and I hope your reading is going well!

Oh wow, I haven't been making many lists lately so I'm not searching out books as much as I used to. But here are some more global/non-US ones that I know of/have gathered from various lists ( I haven't read all of these but most are on my TBR if I haven't.) I'd love to see your resource when you're finished!

A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman (India) A girl must relearn to dance with her new prosthetic.

One for All by Lillie Lainoff  (France) In 17th-century France a girl with POTS/chronic dizziness wants to become a Musketeer.

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf (Malaysia) A girl with OCD must survive riots in 1960s Malaysia to find her mother.

Black Bird, Blue Road by Sofiya Pasternack (medieval Khazaria) A Jewish girl defies angels to find her twin a cure for his leprosy.

The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (fantasy N. Africa/Arabia-ish series) A girl with clubfoot teams up with a thief to tackle child trafficking.

The Library of the Dead by TL Huchu (Scotland, diverse heritages, series) Magical mysteries with a wisecracking wheelchair-user secondary character.

I Am Not Alone by Francisco X. Stork (Mexican-American) Contemporary novel about an undocumented boy developing schizophrenia.

Scar of the Bamboo Leaf by Sieni A.M (Samoa) A girl with a limp finds a relationship with a delinquent newcomer boy.

Noor by Nnedi Okorafor (Nigeria) A woman with cybernetic enhancements due to disability finds herself on the run.

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor (Nigeria) A girl with albinism discovers that she has magical powers.

On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis (Netherlands) An autistic girl worries about being chosen for a survival group before an apocalypse.

Love from A to Z by S.K. Ali (Qatar) Romance where the love interest has multiple sclerosis

Torch by Lyn Miller-Lachmann (Czechoslovakia) 3 teens try to escape communism, including an autistic boy whose father threatens institutionalization.

Beasts of Prey by Ayana Gray (pan-African fantasy series) One of the main characters has OCD.

Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe (Lithuania) A bipolar teen and her estranged father search for their heritage in Lithuania.

Long Macchiatos and Monsters by Alison Evans (Australia) Short romance with 2 disabled trans people.

Russian Doll by Cristelle Comby (Swiss author, set in London) Series of mysteries with a duo of private detectives, 1 of whom is blind.

Crazy by Benjamin Lebert (Germany) Autobiographical coming-of-age, the MC has partial paralysis

[heavenboy09]

Happy Heavenly Birthday 🎂 ✨ 💓 To A Very Young Russian👱‍♂️ 🇷🇺 & Jewish✡ Born Inspiring & Brilliant Likeable Actor Who Was Gone Too Soon 🥺😭

Yelchin was born on March 11, 1989, in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. His parents, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, were pair figure skaters who were stars of the Leningrad Ice Ballet for 15 years. His family is Jewish, and were subjected to religious and political oppression in the Soviet Union. Yelchin said that his grandparents "suffered in ways [he] can't even begin to understand under Stalin".

Yelchin's family left for the United States in September 1989, when Anton was six months old, and were thereafter granted refugee status from the Department of State. His mother worked as a figure skating choreographer and his father as a figure skating coach, having been Sasha Cohen's first trainer. Yelchin's uncle is the children's author and painter Eugene Yelchin. In an article published in the Los Angeles Times in December 1989, Yelchin's mother stated, "A woman came up, saw Anton, and said, 'He's beautiful. He will be actor.'"

He was an American actor. Born in the Soviet Union to a Russian Jewish family, he immigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of 6 months. He began his career as a child actor, appearing as the lead of the mystery drama film Hearts in Atlantis (2001) and a series regular on the Showtime comedy-drama Huff (2004–2006). In 2006, he starred in Alpha Dog with Bruce Willis, Justin Timberlake, and Emile Hirsch. Yelchin landed higher-profile film roles in 2009, portraying Lieutenant Pavel Chekov in the Star Trek reboot and Kyle Reese in Terminator Salvation. He reprised his role as Chekov in the sequels Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Star Trek Beyond (2016).

Yelchin frequently worked on independent and lower-profile films, headlining the romantic drama Like Crazy (2011), the 2011 remake of Fright Night, the supernatural thriller Odd Thomas (2013), the romance 5 to 7 (2014), the horror comedy Burying the Ex (2014), the neo-noir The Driftless Area (2015), and the horror thriller Green Room (2015). As a voice actor, he voiced Clumsy Smurf in the live-action Smurfs films (2011–2013) and lead role James "Jim" Lake Jr. on the Netflix animated series Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia (2016–2018).

He maintained an active career until his accidental death in 2016 when he was fatally injured by his SUV.

He was 27 Years Old

Today Would Be His 35th Birthday 🎂 💕

Please Wish This Young & Incredible Russian👱‍♂️ 🇷🇺 & Jewish ✡ Born Actor A Very Happy Birthday 🎂 In Heaven ☁️

WE ALL LOVE HIM

WE SEEN HIM ON THE BIG SCREEN IN SPACE, THE FINAL FRONTIER & IN A  APOCALYPTIC FUTURE RUN BY MACHINES & HE WAS A HIGH SCHOOL 🏫 KID CHOSEN TO BECOME A KNIGHT FOR TROLLS IN A DREAMWORKS ANIMATED TV SERIES 📺  BEFORE HIS UNTIMELY PASSING 🥺

& WE MISS HIM ALL VERY MUCH 😢

THE 1 & ALWAYS

MR. ANTON VIKTOROVICH YELCHIN AKA ANTON YELCHIN👱‍♂️🇷🇺✡ AKA PAVEL CHEKOV OF STAR TREK 🌟 🚀👨‍🚀🌌🌠 (2009) & YOUNG KYLE REESE OF TERMINATOR SALVATION 🤖

HAPPY 35TH BIRTHDAY 🎂 IN HEAVEN ☁️🥺😭😇

WE LOVE YOU & WE MISS YOU ALWAYS. UNTIL NEXT TIME. REST IN PEACE ✌ 🙏 😔. ANTON 👱‍♂️🇷🇺✡ 

#AntonYelchin #StarTrekTrilogy #TerminatorSalavtion #OddThomas #TrollHuntersTalesOfArcadia