#same bat time same bat mitzvah

[jamesmendezhodes]

Please back IF I WERE A LICH, MAN, Lucian Kahn’s game trilogy exploring Jewish culture and struggles through humor and joy! As cultural consultant, I wrote about how liches’ relationship with orcs intentionally examines Jews’ ties to other subaltern groups.

[snapbookreviews]

Jewish Roleplaying Games 3e

Hanukkah may be over, but there's never a bad time of year to play Jewish tabletop games.

[too-deviant]

mdni 🃏

thinking about luke as your mom’s friend’s son who only comes over when your parents hang out…yk the one….anyway here’s a shitty drabble

being all awkward smiles and painful small talk for the first hour of whatever family event your parents had dragged you to this time.

indulging in more than a few cocktails that your older cousins snuck to each of you from the bar.

(the dodgy bar in the dodgy events building that had been hired out for whatever birthday party/baby shower/bat mitzvah was happening. you didn’t really care all that much, anyway.)

the liquid courage fuelling the conversation, pulling up old memories you had buried and bubbling over the giggles you shared as you drank in the corner.

getting progressively tipsy, sharing secret smirks when your mom passed a comment about how “it was as if you two had never been apart!”

luke’s hand in yours — older, mature, callused; so different from how they used to feel when you were kids, although those memories were fading, being replaced with something much more carnal. something you were less likely to share over a cocktail at a family party.

sneaking away from the crowds — easy enough, everyone was drunk.

cutting through hallways, passing the drunkards who lingered outside of the chaos. they were smoking, arguing on the phone, waiting for a cab, looking for the bathroom. you?

you were being pressed against the wall of an empty stairwell, gasping quietly at luke’s mouth on yours. his hands on your waist, then your back, your arms, the sides of your neck. everywhere he’d been thinking about touching since he knew what touching meant.

and you were the same. fingers under his blazer, dipping into his waistband for a teasing second before returning to the outside world — but he noticed. how could he not? the firm pull of your body against his was response enough, his right hand coming down to hitch your leg around his hip.

your crotches burned with desire, rubbing against each other with every small movement of your bodies. aching for more whenever you paused for just a second because you thought you could hear someone passing the bottom of the stairs a few feet below you. all they would have to do is ascend the first set, and they’d spot you there. but neither of you cared.

luke inching a hand up your dress, dipping his fingers beneath your panties and huffing into your ear when your wetness coated them after one stroke. your own hand, fiddling with his belt and making sure nobody heard the clanging of the buckle as you undid it with fervour, eagerly searching for his cock once you could stick your hand in there to your wrist comfortably.

moaning in each-other’s ears. grinding on each-other’s hands. sucking in deep gulps of air whenever you got too loud, whenever the slurring speech of an uncle you’d never met faded in, and then out of shot.

luke cumming in his underwear, your hips spitting and sputtering against his palm only moments later.

cleaning yourselves up, catching your parents at the bottom of the stairs just as they passed by in search of you. sharing a look.

in the years you’d known him, you’d never exchanged socials. you didn’t need to. you just hoped he would be at the next family function.

[fanfic-writer-and-rambler]

Kate asks her cousin an important question (also this is an interesting concept I learned about Bruce even if the comics will never bring it up):

Kate while reading a magazine: Bruce, you know our third cousin Linda?

Bruce, while looking through paperwork: The crazy one?

Kate: Yeah the one who hit her husband with her car. Her son's son is having a bat mitzvah this Friday, they invited us. You're going.

Bruce: I'm busy.

Kate: Oh, I'm sorry, what I said wasn't a question. It was a command, I'm not going alone.

Bruce: Why not?

Kate looking up from her magazine: I am a lesbian woman and cousin Linda will be there and has made it very clear that "Oh, it's just a phase, darling. You'll find the right man!"

Bruce: Why am I coming? I don't like her.

Kate: I'm bringing you so then she asks why you've adopted those kids and aren't married yet, but also dating a former bank robber. And some other things I informed her about you in the group chat.

Bruce: Oh, okay I have no say in the matter. Got it. What time are we going?

Kate: The party is at like three so we can show up at four. You bringing the kids?

Bruce sarcastically: That was a question, thank you so much for allowing me to answer that.

Kate: I can be nice like that.

Bruce: No, they aren't going. I don't even want to bring Damien to that. They aren't practicing and wouldn't like that side of the family.

Kate: I never asked, are you practicing Judaism?

Bruce: Nope.

Kate: Why, aunt Martha was Jewish, thought you'd do some fun-

Bruce: They died when I was 8 in an alley and you lose the spirit of anything when that happens!

Kate sighing: You use that excuse too much.

Bruce: My parents died!

Kate, silent for a second: And one of your sons shook hands with God, it's not a competition.

Bruce: The way Jason tells it he met Satan for some time.

Kate: Fair, are they aware you're Jewish?

Bruce: Yes, but again I'm not practicing. So it's like, yes, but no.

Kate: Oh so me. Cool.

She returns to reading.

Bruce: I enjoy the times we spend time together.

Kate: Aww, same cuzzo.

Second part

[fashionsfromhistory]

Custom Dress worn by Elaine Roebuck to her Bat Mitzvah

Christian Dior

Spring 1957

“It all started when I was twelve years old and I wanted a bat mitzvah. My father said absolutely not — girls didn’t have bat mitzvahs in those days,” Roebuck tells me. “My mother rallied for me and finally my father said OK. The next thing I knew, we were on the train to Montreal to look at my dress.”

The dress in question is a silk organdy masterpiece custom designed by Monsieur Christian Dior himself. Dior did not design for children back in ‘57, but he made an exception. “Not just anyone could go in and say ‘whip me up a dress for my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah’ – that wasn’t their business,” says Dr. Alexandra Palmer, the museum’s senior fashion curator. But that’s just what Elaine’s mother, the late Molly Roebuck, did. “She had a motto: If you’re going to do something, you better do it right,” says her daughter. “And in her mind, Dior was just right.” Likely, the exception was made on account of Dior’s relationship with Holt Renfrew, the prestigious high-end retailer with exclusive rights to his collection in Canada back when it launched.

So, with the help of her friend, buyer Betty Macpherson, Roebuck commissioned the dress in Paris. It was to be modest, but fantastical enough for such a special night. After a few months of trading sketches with Dior himself, the muslin models arrived in Montreal, where Dior’s pieces were made-to-measure for the Canadian market. “The dress was dreamlike and it made me think, or maybe even feel, like a princess,” says Roebuck. The end result was a full-skirted silk organdy cocktail dress with daffodil embroidery. As it was a one off, the fabric never appeared in Dior’s collections. “I knew the dress was special, but at the same time, I didn’t think I was different from any of my friends,” she says. (Teen Vogue)

Royal Ontario Museum (Object number: 2013.68.14.1-2)

[krookodyke]

thinking of danielle shiva baby even after all this time still makes me sick… you’re 22. you don’t know what the fuck you’re going to do in your life. sex for money feels like the only out. you miss your childhood best friend. you don’t think she gives a fuck about you. you’re the black sheep of the community. you’re bisexual. almost everyone you grew up around is older than you. you’re still a child. you’re still the same awkward 12 year-old at your bat mitzvah and that’s how everyone still sees you. you don’t know. you don’t know. you just want to make your mom proud. you don’t think you’re capable of that. your childhood best friend misses you, too. you don’t know why. she’s braver than you but not by much. she knows how to twist the knife. you’re a shitty jew. you’re a shitty person. you’re so fucking lost. your parents love you. they don’t know you. your childhood best friend loves you. she knows you and it’s terrifying. you’re still 13 in the back of your dad’s van. you’re still a kid. you love her back. you’re still a child.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Culture

There are many definitions of culture and it is used in different ways by different people.

Culture - may be defined as patterns of learned and shared behavior that are cumulative and transmitted across generations.

Patterns

There are systematic and predictable ways of behavior or thinking across members of a culture.

Emerge from adapting, sharing, and storing cultural information.

Can be both similar and different across cultures.

Example: In both Canada and India it is considered polite to bring a small gift to a host’s home. In Canada, it is more common to bring a bottle of wine and for the gift to be opened right away. In India, by contrast, it is more common to bring sweets, and often the gift is set aside to be opened later.

Sharing

Culture is the product of people sharing with one another.

Humans cooperate and share knowledge and skills with other members of their networks.

The ways they share, and the content of what they share, helps make up culture.

Example: Older adults remember a time when long-distance friendships were maintained through letters that arrived in the mail every few months. Contemporary youth culture accomplishes the same goal through the use of instant text messages on smartphones.

Learned

Behaviors, values, norms are acquired through a process known as enculturation that begins with parents and caregivers, because they are the primary influence on young children.

Caregivers teach kids, both directly and by example, about how to behave and how the world works.

They encourage children to be polite, reminding them, for instance, to say “Thank you.” They teach kids how to dress in a way that is appropriate for the culture.

Culture teaches us what behaviors and emotions are appropriate or expected in different situations.

Example: In some societies, it is considered appropriate to conceal anger. Instead of expressing their feelings outright, people purse their lips, furrow their brows, and say little. In other cultures, however, it is appropriate to express anger. In these places, people are more likely to bare their teeth, furrow their brows, point or gesture, and yell (Matsumoto, Yoo, & Chung, 2010).

Learned: Rituals

Members of a culture also engage in rituals which are used to teach people what is important.

Example 1: Young people who are interested in becoming Buddhist monks often have to endure rituals that help them shed feelings of specialness or superiority—feelings that run counter to Buddhist doctrine. To do this, they might be required to wash their teacher’s feet, scrub toilets, or perform other menial tasks.

Example 2: Similarly, many Jewish adolescents go through the process of bar and bat mitzvah. This is a ceremonial reading from scripture that requires the study of Hebrew and, when completed, signals that the youth is ready for full participation in public worship.

These examples help to illustrate the concept of enculturation.

Cumulative

Cultural knowledge is information that is “stored” and then the learning grows across generations.

We understand more about the world today than we did 200 years ago, but that doesn’t mean the culture from long ago has been erased.

Example: Members of the Haida culture, a First Nations people in British Columbia, Canada are able to profit from both ancient and modern experiences. They might employ traditional fishing practices and wisdom stories while also using modern technologies and services.

Transmission

Passing of new knowledge and traditions of culture from one generation to the next, as well as across other cultures is cultural transmission.

In everyday life, the most common way cultural norms are transmitted is within each individuals’ home life.

Each family has its own, distinct culture under the big picture of each given society and/or nation.

With every family, there are traditions that are kept alive.

The way each family acts and communicates with others and an overall view of life are passed down.

Parents teach their kids every day how to behave and act by their actions alone.

Outside of the family, culture can be transmitted at various social institutions like places of worship, schools, even shopping centers are places where enculturation happens and is transmitted.

Understanding culture as a learned pattern of thoughts and behaviors is interesting for several reasons:

It highlights the ways groups can come into conflict with one another. Members of different cultures simply learn different ways of behaving. Teenagers today interact with technologies, like a smartphone, using a different set of rules than people who are in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. Older adults might find texting in the middle of a face-to-face conversation rude while younger people often do not. These differences can sometimes become politicized and a source of tension between groups. One example of this is Muslim women who wear a hijab, or headscarf. Non-Muslims do not follow this practice, so occasional misunderstandings arise about the appropriateness of the tradition.

Understanding that culture is learned is important because it means that people can adopt an appreciation of patterns of behavior that are different than their own.

Understanding that culture is learned can be helpful in developing self-awareness. For instance, people from the United States might not even be aware of the fact that their attitudes about public nudity are influenced by their cultural learning. While women often go topless on beaches in Europe and women living a traditional tribal existence in places like the South Pacific also go topless, it is illegal for women in some of the United States to do so. These cultural norms for modesty that are reflected in government laws and policies also enter the discourse on social issues such as the appropriateness of breastfeeding in public. Understanding that your preferences are, in many cases, the products of cultural learning might empower you to revise them if doing so will lead to a better life for you or others.

Humans use culture to adapt and transform the world they live in and you should think of the word culture as a conceptual tool rather than as a uniform, static definition.

Culture changes through interactions with individuals, media, and technology, just to name a few.

Culture generally changes for one of 2 reasons:

Selective transmission or

to meet changing needs.

This means that when a village or culture is met with new challenges, for example, a loss of a food source, they must change the way they live.

It could also include forced relocation from ancestral domains due to external or internal forces.

Example: In the United States, tens of thousands Native Americans were forced to migrate from their ancestral lands to reservations established by the United States government so it could acquire lands rich with natural resources. The forced migration resulted in death, disease and many cultural changes for the Native Americans as they adjusted to new ecology and way of life.

Source More: On Psychology

[android-and-ale]

Headcanon: Vulcans are Incorrigible Matchmakers

Every unpartnered person who knows a Vulcan finds themselves living in a rom-com. The Vulcan will arrange dates, meet-cutes, entire academic conferences if you want a buffet of options. They will not rest until their single friends have partnered up. They can't help it

One of a Vulcan child's early memories is of their parents and family elders hunting for their future spouse. They're bonded at the age of 7, then watch the same process happen for all their siblings, cousins, and friends.

Their bonding is probably a lot like a bar/bat mitzvah. Whatever little kid emotions it was socially acceptable to express until then are expected to be bottled up. You are now Bonded. You have a future Spouse! You are a miniature adult.

In the fulness of time, Bonding becomes Marriage, and for those who wish it, they have children of their own. Now they're on the other side of that race. They have seven short years to find this newborn a spouse. Every baby they meet is sized up as a potential in-law.

If your kids are spread out every 7 years, which seems to be pretty common, then you are perpetually playing matchmaker right up until your youngest has their bonding.

Meanwhile, having been through Pon Farr a time or two yourself, you know exactly how dangerous it is for a Vulcan adult to be unbonded.

When you meet an unbonded adult your first thought is FIND THIS PERSON A SPOUSE, STAT! Even if that person isn't Vulcan.

They can't help themselves. It's both a biological and cultural imperative. Your Vulcan coworkers, friends, and especially bosses will not relent until you are either partnered up or you convince them you're part of a celibate religious order.

Everyone around them finds it a little endearing and a lot weird. But damn, they really are good at finding people partners who are remarkably compatible!

[matan4il]

My daily update post is a personal one today. Following International Holocaust Memorial Day, that's observed every year on Jan 27 globally thanks to Israel's initiative, today I got to guide a very special tour, with a bar mitzvah ceremony at the end, for kids evacuated from the south.

They're from a community that's the second most western one in Israel. They only have one western neighbor, Kerem Shalom, which is right on the border with Gaza. Their community is incredibly small, and was only established 12 years ago. On Oct 7, as thousands of rockets were rained down on Israel, some hit inside their tiny hometown. When terrorists were invading civilian communities and attacking people there, and burning everything, they described the sky as being black due to the smoke, and they said that breathing the air was like inhaling gun powder. When a neighboring community was attacked, some of their emergency squad went over to help, and prevented a massacre from taking place there, too. They lost 4 members of the squad, which may not sound like a lot to some, but on top of each person being an entire world, in such a small community, that carries an impact. The way they put it, there are 15 orphans in their community, all from the same street.

They were evacuated from their home on Oct 7, which means they are all internal refugees. They've been homeless since the massacre. Someone donated the money, so the community's kids who are of bar and bat mitzvah age could get this special tour and ceremony, where they each adopted the memory of one child of roughly the same age, who was murdered in the Holocaust. And we talked about the meaning of remembrance, and how do we move on, and how our Holocaust museum is a testament to the destruction brought upon the Jewish people, but also to the strength of our spirit, and how we survived, how we took care of each other even in the worst of times, how we overcame and re-built, it is a testament to the resilience of the Jewish people.

Am Yisrael Chai. That's not just a slogan. Today I felt like I had the honor to be a small part of another chapter in the story of our resilience and strength, and I wanted to share it with all of you.

Sending you much love, wherever you are! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[jewish-culture-is]

Not very religious Jewish culture is wanting to be more religious, such as picking a Hebrew name, dressing more modestly, having a bat mitzvah, observing Shabbat, keeping kosher, etc (I was raised half-Catholic & half-Jewish so I was baptized and not given a Hebrew name and didn’t get to have a bat mitzvah) yet at the same time being scared to do so because of antisemitism & also being indecisive, so having difficulty choosing my Hebrew name.

[tgammsideblog]

Libby and absent parenting

One of the most recent episodes from Season 2 ¨Like Father, Like Libby¨ explored Libby’s relationship with her father, Matias, who hasn’t seen Libby for years because ¨he has been too busy travelling to write his novel¨. Of course, it is easy to realize that this isn’t the case: Matias is an absent father and he isn’t interested in being involved in his daughter’s life. The theme of this episode is exploring Libby’s ilusion to see her father again and wishing to spend time with him, something that eventually is shattered when her expectations don’t meet with reality.

Matias is never mentioned in Season 1 by neither Libby nor Leah, Libby’s mother. When Libby talked about the people that were important to her Bat Mitzvah (Episode-Mazel Tov, Libby!), Libby never mentioned Matias once, only Leah and Molly. This already hinted how absent he was in Libby’s life, to the point he was never brought up to Molly nor Scratch.

At the start of the episode when Libby gets her Bat Mitzvah gift months after the celebration, one can tell that there are some red flags: The gift was sent several months after Libby’s Bat Mitzvah, the price of the gift is only one dollar and the plush isn’t even something a turtle, it is a frog. Molly quickly realizes that something is off from this gift but keeps it to herself since Libby is very happy to learn that Matias wants to meet her in person after years of not seeing her. Molly doesn’t know enough about Libby’s father neither to give a full opinion on him because it is something that she doesn’t ask Libby about. She still brings up to Libby that she can talk about Matias anytime, without pressuring to explain her situation and respecting her privacy.

Libby shows Leah the letter she received from her father. Leah’s very hesitant in doing such a long trip to see Matias. However, she sees that Libby is very excited about the idea of seeing him again, so, Leah decides to support Libby by taking her to the place she is supposed to meet with Matias.

Throughout the episode we see Leah’s struggle between supporting her daughter and trying to be honest with her about how Matias doesn’t really care about her. She doesn’t want to fully break Libby’s illusion since she knows that this is important for her but, at the same time, she warns Libby about not raising her expectations too high and explaining that Matias isn’t that good as she think she is.

Despite of her dislike for Matias, Leah is very considerate in not making Libby hate him. She understands that Libby is entitled to see her father and trying to reconnect with him, even he doesn’t feel the same way about Libby. Lea still warns her a few times, for her to get that maybe things aren’t going to turn out the way she wants and reassures her that she is there for her.

What is so devastating about this episode is how Libby acts very accurately like a kid with absent parent/s would. She makes up excuses why Matias hasn’t seen her all these years- he is too busy writing his novel. She genuinely wants to believe that he cares about her and, that once she meets him again, they are going to spend time together and he is going to be involved in her life. It’s a very sad situation to see, because Libby still doesn’t come to terms with the type of parent that Matias is. She wants to believe that he has changed or that he is only busy. She has a whole song sequence imagining all the things that they are both going to do together. She thinks that her parents are going to get back together.

However... there is a part of her that tells her that Matias doesn’t care about her and he is ¨gone¨. This means that she is partially aware of her father’s behaviour but, like any kid who has neglectful parents, she wants to believe that this isn’t true, that Matias is a ¨good father¨. 

Libby’s abandonment issues and the overall impact of having an absent father being explored in this episode puts some scenes from previous episodes in context. The biggest example of this is ¨Friend-Off¨ where we see Scratch and Libby’s competing over who is Molly’s ¨Best Friend¨. While Libby’s insecurities in ¨Friend-Off¨ could come from her lacking friends before meeting Molly, knowing that she has a negletful father puts her animosity and treatment towards Scratch during the episode in perspective. She is scared of losing Molly as a friend or not being good enough for her. There are moments she thinks that the curse Molly and Scratch shared made their bond closer than her with Molly.

Back to ¨Like Father, Like Libby¨, when Libby finally meets Matias, she is very happy to see him again but it doesn’t take her less than a minute to notice that he isn’t paying attention to her. She shows to him a book she wrote, something that she mentioned in multiple letters she send to him. Matias doesn’t seem to be aware of this, implying he didn’t read those said letters. He only takes a photo with Libby’s book to make himself look like a good father in social media.

Libby talks to him about all the things that they are going to do now that they are together only to be interrupted by Matias telling her that he is going to be ¨too busy¨ writing his book trilogy. This is the moment Libby’s illusion crashes and she is forced to face the fact that her father doesn’t care about her and doesn’t want to spend time with her. She quickly runs and gets into the car, crying by realizing that Matias doesn’t want to stick around.

Leah comforts Libby by telling her that she is her ¨miracle¨ and Libby thanks her mother for always being there for her. The two return home, with Libby knowing that Matias isn’t worth of her attention and she should focus instead in that people that actually care about her. She gains a lot of appreciation for Leah as well, considering how she took her time to drive two states for Libby to see Matias and how caring and supportive she is.

¨Like Father, Like Libby¨ is an episode that showed up a new side of Libby and her family. It gave more dimension to Leah who, as a single mother, had to raise Libby on her own. It also shows a good potrayal of a teen finally realizing what type of person their parent is and them having to deal with that.

[frances-baby-houseman]

Something that has been stressing me out UNBELIEVABLY, like wakes me up in the middle of the night, cannot stop thinking about it, freaking out on the regular, is that we have to join a synagogue by September. Alice HAS to start religious school-- bat mitzvah prep starts in third grade!!

For awhile we went to adam's dad's congregation in Northfield, but they had a bad cantor transition and that combined with COVID meant we fully stopped going after being pretty engaged members for 5ish years. We don't want to go back there, but where!?

We tried a VERY FANCY congregation in the fall, bc Joe's friend's family goes there and it's close to our house, but I did not get the right feeling there. They did not do the right tune for Kol Nidre! And also we learned that adam's cousin bedbugs goes there and I'm sorry I have such a complex about her, our girls are the same age and love each other which is great, cousins should love each other, but I cannot handle being in the same bat mitzvah class!! We are not hedge funge mengeaners!! So that was out. But where?!?!?!?

I was literally crying and crying about this yesterday to both Adam and my work bestie bc you're just supposed to go where your family goes!!! But adam's family abandoned us!!

And then! This morning! In my canasta group we have a side chat for the jewish girls so we can share jewish events, and one of the women texted us an event at a local temple for next week and I was like, OMG YES TELL ME MORE WE ARE SYNAGOGUE SHOPPING! And two of the other women are also, and we were like, let's do this together! so one of them gave us the rundown on everywhere, and she actually said our best bet was probably the congregation that Adam's aunt and uncle go to! They love it and I've been a few times and didn't love it, but they've since merged with another congregation and have a really good reputation. So we're going to try it out, and another temple down the street from my house that's having a yom ha atzmaut party next week.

Look at that! Look at hashem giving me a little life boat! And maybe I will join with my new friends!!

[kittenintheden]

I want to share something. I absolutely adore how you write Astarion. You capture his mirth, the absolute ridiculous stray ginger cat energy he embodies, the tragedy of his situation, and how utterly hilarious he is all at the same time. But what I love especially is how *young* you manage to write him, like this is an elf who was killed before he even reached young adulthood in Elvish culture and you capture that brilliantly in both his mannerisms, sarcastic and sometimes juvenile quips and even his body language. It's just mind-blowing and I love reading your fics due to how well you capture him.

this is such an incredibly sweet comment and thank you so much for making it T_T my heart, it is warmed.

if I may ramble for a moment!

here's my thing: based on the information available to us, it's pretty widely confirmed canon (fanon? since Larian hasn't actually confirmed to my knowledge?) that based on the translated dates on his grave marker, Astarion died at 39. which is VERY young for an elf, but still adulthood, because elves physically and mentally mature at a similar rate to humans. the "they don't reach adulthood until 100" is more cultural than physical/mental, so Astarion very much was an adult with a career and all that when he died. culturally, however, he would not have been considered fully adult by other elves.

kind of like if you had a bar/bat mitzvah at 100 instead of 13? like it's not a measure of physical/mental adulthood, it's a cultural/religious ceremony signifying the passage into adulthood. that kind of thing.

WITH THAT SAID: Astarion did die young (we think) and then was launched into a situation that severely impacted his growth and progression as a person. namely: it stopped. he's frozen in time. he had no opportunity to learn, grow, or change. he was literally prevented from doing so.

Cazador worsened and encouraged this behavior not only in Astarion but in ALL the spawn. he refers to them as children, they're considered siblings, and the journals and notes we find in the palace indicate that they frequently pranked the shit out of each other and were generally the worst versions of themselves because Cazador regularly pitted them against one another. he starves and belittles and torments them physically and mentally. no one can thrive in circumstances like that.

when we meet Astarion in game, we're meeting a severely abused soul in survival mode who's never been able to make a plan or act for himself or exist in a world that wasn't constant terror. not since he can remember, anyway. he's fully and completely trauma-brained.

SO MUCH of his behavior is rooted in that. Cazador and his staff routinely refer to Astarion as a brat, little one, child, etc. dialogue indicates that he was constantly shamed for "prattling" and being a talker. so here's a man who's in literal arrested development and any meaningful growth he could have had was cut off at the ground. and he acts it.

until he gets a chance to grow.

then he still acts like a big baby boy but, you know, one who's also beginning to think past his own nose and develop a tiny bit of empathy and consideration. if you let him lol. you don't have to.

also I have a history in writing YA and Romance if that wasn't PAINFULLY OBVIOUS LMAO.

[fanfic-writer-and-rambler]

Kate Kane makes an impromptu visit to talk to her favorite cousin, Bruce Wayne... While he's on a date with Selina Kyle. Isn't she so considerate? (excerpt for future chapter about them going to bar mitzvah):

Kate casually walks past the tables of a high end restaurant, a few patrons noticing hee unkempt attire. She makes her way to Bruce's table.

Kate: Cuzzo, you won't-

Bruce: How did you get in?

Kate: I told the guy up front I was your disgruntled mistress and I'd stab him if he stopped me from confronting you.

Kate and her cousin look at the nervous reservation man.

Bruce let's out a long sigh, covering his face with his hands.

Selina: So I'm not the other woman? Cool.

Selina takes a sip of her wine.

Kate: Love your dress, Selina. You dumping him soon?

Selina laughs.

Selina: You're not my type.

Kate: He is?

Bruce: Hey, so why are you actually here? To embarrass me? Because it's not going to work.

Kate: I have to try harder, well anyways I got a few things wrong about our cousin Linda's son's son BAR not Bat mitzvah. First, I got the name wrong, apparently the girls have a bat mitzvah.

Selina: Linda was the one who stabbed her husband with a poker from the fireplace?

Kate takes Bruce's wine glass and sips from it.

Kate: No, that was our great aunt Susanna, Linda was the one who hit her husband with a car.

Selina: After he slept with her sister?

Kate: That's the one. Wow, cuzzo she's a good listener.

Bruce has his head buried in his hands.

Bruce: She said she'd do the same to me.

Selina: I said it was on a list if you ever betray me.

Kate: I love you a little bit more every time you say something like that.

Selina: Aww thanks.

Bruce: Can you just say why you're here!

People from nearby tables stare at the three with Bruce blushing in embarrassment.

Kate: Right, okay so the BAR not bat mitzvah is going to be at that event hall that's near the lake you took Damien to for the summer, the color for the outfits are blue because Linda, crazy woman she is, demanded it and her son is terrified of her, so get a blue suit and what else... Oh Lenny will be there and he's a vocal batman truther.

Selina: Batman truther?

Bruce: They think Batman is a mystical entity and that's why he- not me- is always lurking in the night.

Selina giggles, sipping from her wine.

Bruce: It's not funny because he won't shut up about it.

Kate: It's pretty funny. Hey, Sel, you should go with us. Then cousin Linda will ask you a bunch of evasive questions about your criminal past, it's a good laugh once you realize she's... Batshit insane.

Selina: I am free-

Bruce: No, no, you are not coming. Kate leave. Thank you for the information but I need you to go!

Kate: I think I successfully embarrassed you and you're welcome. Remember in two weeks we go to synagogue. I know churches scare you because you're a baby, but at least try to step foot in this one.

Bruce blinks with contained anger not responding.

Selina: That means he'll do that.

Kate: Good and it's at 3, but we'll be arriving late. I'll take this steak from ya as well.

Kate takes the plate Bruce was in the middle of eating. He accepts it with a disgruntled look.

Kate: Oh and this-

Kate slaps her cousin against the face with enough force he falls to the ground.

Bruce: What the fuck!

Kate: I LOVED YOU, YOU BASTARD! YOU CAN HAVE HIM, HE'S BROUGHT ME NOTHING BUT GRIEF!

Selina (playing along): Yes get out of here, he's mine.

Kate: Good riddance.

Kate dramatically leaves as Bruce recovers and sits back at the table. The patrons look on with different reactions, some shocked, some disgusted with Bruce Wayne being a cheater and about two old men nodding in approval.

Selina: She is such a delight.

Bruce, groaning.

Bruce: She took my steak! Dang it.

Selina: Want my salmon, I'm full.

Bruce: I appreciate that, thank you.

First part

[ceaseless-exhauster]

I have so much joy every time I finish a tutoring session with my bat mitzvah student. Yesterday she asked me why her parents want her to do a Saturday morning service instead of a Friday evening service (we’re a Reform congregation so our Friday evening services are a lot shorter and more chill than Saturday morning ones, I’m not sure if that’s true in all streams of Judaism?)

Anyway we got to have a conversation about how a bat mitzvah is her entry into an unimaginably old and diverse community that manages to share traditions in diaspora across millennia (but in 12 year old friendly language ofc) and how yeah it’s a lot more work to learn the Saturday service blessings, but it’s actually really cool to do it this way for her “official” joining of the Jewish people because she’ll be doing many things the same way/roughly the same way the Jewish people have been doing it for *thousands of years.*

She is pumped, I am pumped, I fucking love Judaism y’all

[torchflies]

The Five Names of Ice Kazansky (Girl!Ice Orthodox Jew!Ice) + Glossary of Terms

* I was super bored at my conference and wrote this on a napkin because I was having Jewish thoughts on naming 😎 💁🤷*

—

To be a Jew is to struggle with God — it's the first thing little Hadassah Tzabarit Kazansky learns in this life. 

—

She questions for the first time at six years old as Dassy, Rabbi Kazansky’s sharp-tongued little girl and now, as his only child.

“Abba?” Dassy asks him, holding his big hand in her smaller pair as they toss handfuls of dirt into her twin brother’s grave, “Why did Feivel die?”

Rabbi Kazansky takes his only living child into his arms as he answers, “You already know, zeeskeit. He had lymphoma, he was very sick.”

“But why?” She asks again, with the unfailing trust of a child. “Why did God take him away? He was ours.”

“No,” Her father says as tears drip down his cheeks and into his beard, “Feivel was not ours, just as you are not mine. Our children are gifts, Dassy, but they are only borrowed; we raise our children to leave us. Sometimes they stay in this world to do that and sometimes they do not.” 

—

When her mother dies, she is Hadassah. 

She sits by herself at the funeral, wearing a black dress that’s too long and too loose across her chest to be comfortable. But nothing is comfortable anymore, not when her mother is lying in an aron under the earth and everyone is talking about her like she isn’t sitting ten feet away from them.

There’s dirt under her nails from yesterday, when she had climbed the biggest tree in the shul garden to put an empty bird’s nest back from where it had fallen. She had slipped on the way back down and torn a hole in her tights; Rabbi Moskowitz’s wife, Miriam, had given her an extra pair with a smile. What will we do with you, Hadassah? 

She had spent the entire morning fixing her two thick braids, pulling them so tight that the blond curls didn’t bunch out at any angle, then redoing them again when they didn’t match. It took five tries to make them look perfect. She had pinned both plaits back with one of her mother’s favorite tichels, folding it so it held back her braids instead of covering her whole head. She didn’t have any black dresses, so she was forced to tug out one of her mother’s from her closet, feeling a bit like she was stealing. 

Hadassah, my Dassy. Her mother would say. You’ve gotten so big while I’ve been away. 

Her torn ribbon flutters against her neck and she shoves it down angrily.

She doesn’t want to cry in a room of alte makhsheyfes and alter cockers that she doesn’t know. It’s silly and childish, but all she wants is for her mother to wake up and take her home. 

But dead is dead and Goldie Kazansky is very dead. 

“Hadassah, are you alright?” 

Rabbi Moskowitz sits down beside her, his brown eyes doleful and sad. He shifts until one of his knees sits curled on the bench, regarding her softly and waiting until she’s ready to speak. He does the same thing when she sits in his office every Tuesday morning to practice for her Bat Mitzvah, letting her take her time with the text until she’s ready to talk to him about it. But nothing is right anymore, it’s Tuesday morning and her mother is dead. 

She shrugs, tugging on her right braid and staring out the window, watching a little blue bird hop around in the grass. Her Rabbi doesn’t say anything, he just waits. 

“Excuse me, Lev. Can I have a minute with her?” 

Rabbi Kazansky sits down beside her, in the wreckage of the only life she's ever known.

She falls into her father’s arms with a low sob, “I don't understand!” She cries, twelve years old and distraught, “Why would God take her away too?!”

Her father says nothing, he just rocks her and sings a nigun until her tears run dry. 

—

The day she meets her best-friend, she is Ice. 

Ice Kazansky, the Ice Queen, buries Hadassah and Dassy as far down as she can reach. She smiles with nothing but a mouthful of pretty, perfect teeth as her Academy classmates call her a frigid bitch, something not to be touched, and she shows them just how desperately their performances are wanting. 

She is a flawless pilot and she is ice: cold, and unfeeling until she ends anyone who gets too close. 

“Ron Kerner,” Her fourth RIO introduces himself, all six feet and four inches of smarmy ego that she doesn't have time for. “But you can call me whatever you please, sweetheart.”

She blinks at him, glacial and unforgiving, and on their first hop together: she rolls them, hanging them inverted until he pukes. 

“You really are an icy bitch.” He moans as he spits up on the tarmac. 

Ice just smiles and turns sharply to grab her third cup of coffee from the mess, not a hair out of place, and according to her classmates — barely human. No one speaks to her as she marches past, no one reaches out. 

“I’m sorry,” Kerner tells her later, pushing his plate of bacon towards her as some kind of peace offering. She instantly shakes her head, decades of lessons kicking in before she can stop herself. He looks so damn dejected that she allows herself a moment of — something. She wavers, reaching out.

She takes his dry toast, with a soft, “I don't eat meat.” 

“Oh.” He says, dark eyes wide. “Ever?”

He's inching closer to things that she doesn't want to explain, kashrut and observance, and being an Orthodox Jewish woman but also being everything that an Orthodox Jewish woman is not. How, in her community, she would have already been married with a baby on each hip — how that was a life she had wanted so badly for so long… until she was told it was all she could ever have. 

“Ever.” She says instead, hating the lie. 

“I’ll remember that, Kazansky.” He hums with a smile that makes him softer, kinder. He has warm eyes too and honey-brown hair that curls up at the ends, her RIO with his awful callsign — Slider. 

“Ice,” She corrects, even as he goes red at the memory of his insult.

“Ice.” He says and she finds that she likes the sound of her cruel epithet in his mouth. 

—

The day she falls in love, she is the Queen. 

The little gremlin has no idea how close he is to hitting the nail on the head — she is Hadassah, but also anything but. 

“Icy!” She somehow hears over the throng and almost rolls her eyes behind her shades, recognizing that lackadaisical voice and the only person in the world who calls her Icy. 

He's a memory, an old friend, a first kiss and the first of many hefty guilt spirals at eighteen, in a world so different from the one she had grown up in. He had been three years older than her then, still was, and had seemed so much wiser than her at twenty-one. But now, at twenty-six, she knows how young they both were. 

Still, the last she heard, Loosey Goosey Bradshaw was off getting married and having a baby, not frequenting the O Club in Miramar. Her cold eyes sweep the crowd and she only narrowly finds him, waving at her from the bar — lanky and jovial as ever. She doesn't smile, but she could have. She's missed him. “Hey! C’mere, I got someone for you to meet!” 

She follows her marching orders, letting his voice wash over her as it starts being audible over the pounding pop music. 

“Here she is, the best of the best — Ice Queen Kazansky. It's how she flies, Mav: ice-cold, no mistakes and I'm just warning you now, pal. If you get bored and do something stupid, she’s got you.” 

He's bent over double, giving a life lesson to the short, stocky young man beside him. Ice has half a foot on the boy and that's being generous — he’s tiny. He smiles from ear-to-ear when he sees her though, full of lust and ignorance, and she thinks of that one film that Slider’s been making her see at the drive-ins every few weeks now: Gremlins. 

“She could have me all the time if she wants.” The little cowboy drawls and Ice ignores him completely, only to raise an eyebrow at her old friend, no wedding ring in sight.

“Hey there, Bradshaw,” She intones, flat and bored, but Nick knows her well enough to pick up on the undercurrent of amusement there. “Odd place to hang out for a married man.” 

He goes a little red at that, flushing up to his eyebrows and she steals his Budweiser to cast her eyes over the crowd again as she sips, “Slider should be around here somewhere, I think you just missed him on the way to his latest crash and burn.” 

The little guy clears his throat, for what must be at least the second time, if his uppity attitude is indicative of anything specific. 

“Goose,” He announces, all bluster and no bite with those big teeth of his. “I think the Queen’s lost that lovin’ feeling.” 

Beside her, Ice’s old friend blanches bony white. “Nope. No, Mav. She hasn't, she really hasn't.” He's making slicing motions across his neck and for a moment, she's concerned about his blood pressure and the vein twitching at his temple. “Mav,” He hisses, so low that she almost misses it, “No.” 

“Actually, Goose.” Those bottle-green eyes fan over her, assessing for some soft spot that she doesn't have. She lets him try. “I think she has.”

The little thing grabs Nick by the wrist and drags him in the direction of the jukebox. Ice merely hums and lets them go, sipping on her free drink. 

She doesn't expect the serenade, nor does she expect the way her heart bottoms out or the way her lips tremble against the cold glass of her bottle. 

You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips…

This maneuver is not recoverable and she can't eject.

Pete Mitchell is going to destroy her entire life, or maybe — he’ll give her a new one.

—

He does give her that new one, three years after they get married — Golda Helen Mitchell, named at a Zeved Habat for his mother and hers. 

— 

Glossary of terms:

Zeved Habat — naming ceremony for a baby girl

Hadassah — Hebrew name for Queen Esther

zeeskeit — Yiddish term of endearment similar to sweetheart

Kashrut — kosher dietary laws

Rabbi — a leader, both religious and otherwise, in the Jewish community and a teacher

Aron — a casket

Tichel — the head covering of a Jewish woman after marriage

Bat Mitzvah — the coming of age for a Jewish girl

Shul — synagogue, Jewish place of worship

Alte Makhsheyfe — Yiddish insult meaning old witch

Alter cocker — Yiddish insult meaning (annoying) old person