#vilna writes

[vilnan]

with eternal love and devotion

fandom: dragon age

rating: mature

pairing: emmrich volkarin/rook (verena ingellvar)

word count: 1,820

A/N: i don't have any excuses tbh. contains no spoilers!

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

My sweet Verena,

It was only yesterday that I saw you last and I am already aching for you. Last night was dreadful without you at my side as I have grown accustomed to and I felt at a loss in the morning when there was no one to share my tea with. Dear Manfred thought I was feeling under the weather and brought me a piece of cake with caramel frosting. It was delicious but a poor substitute for your lovely company. He didn't say anything but I think he worries over you-- almost as much as myself.

My research is going well, though I do admit I have grown used to having a partner to share insight with. You are such an intelligent and wonderful woman and it is only one of the reasons I adore you so.

I hope this carrier finds you swiftly and safely in the streets of Nevarra City. Please send my greetings to Johanna. I know you can take care of yourself, my beloved, but be cautious and return to me in one piece.

All of this to say that I already miss you and wish for your quick return.

With eternal love and devotion,

Emmrich Volkarin

read in ao3. ♥

[fauville]

sweet dreams

fandom: the wayhaven chronicles

rating: mature

pairings: ava du mortain/female detective (vesper graves), nate sewell/female detective (charlie langford)

chapters: 5/?

A/N: I HAVE NO EXCUSE! but here is (finally, FINALLY) chapter 5 of sweet dreams. there's decriptions of death and suicide (in dreams) in this chapter as well as more creepy horror elements, so take care of yourself. 🩷

taglist: @agentnatesewell, @carriehobbs, @lalizah, @kibellah (let me know if you want to be added or removed)

summary:

Vesper sees it now out of the corner of her eye when she’s at the beach again, sitting on the sand and watching the surf and the white foam and her projections of sea gulls and fish. It's sitting on the bulwark, eyes incessantly on her.

read in ao3.

[traumaticemphaticfantastic]

This is a portrait of a Golem that I finished a little while back in June. I find that out of all the Jewish folklore creatures I’ve read about the Golem is the most prevalent and renowned, most notably because of the famous story “The Golem of Prague” which is basically THE Golem story that most of us are aware of, though, there are others. For instance, did you know that there was a Golem of Chelm? It’s true, you can find it online if you wish. And there was also a Golem of Vilna if you can believe it, you can find a translation of that story in the delightful collection “Yiddish Folktales” published by The Pantheon Fairytale and Folklore Library.

But, as I was saying, the Golem is pretty much the most well-known uniquely Jewish folk legend out there, I decided in this piece to make a shout-out to that legacy by using design motifs from possibly the most well-known Golem retelling, the German expressionist film Der Golem: wie er in die Welt kam, while I don’t particularly like how the story was retold in that film, I must say that the design of the scenery and costumes of the characters are simply delightful, I particularly enjoy the set of the Prague Ghetto and the design of the Golem himself. I do quite love German Expressionism and silent films as a whole and Der Golem is certainly a staple of both!

Another part of this Golem’s design is that its tunic is covered with Hebrew/Yiddish letters, this is a direct reference to the Golem’s more symbolic significance as a creature literally brought to life through the language of the Jewish people: that language is a powerful thing, especially to those communities who have consistently been looking down the barrel of cultural-extinction. For a much better explanation of this concept than I could ever write down here, I would like to point you to the YouTube video “The Golem and The Jewish Superhero” by Jewish video essayist Jacob Geller, a truly phenomenal and tremendously emotional look through the history of the Golem tale.

That will be all for today, may you be well, and Good Shabbos and a Shabbat Shalom to you all.

[girlactionfigure]

Ona Simaite was a Lithuanian librarian who saved Jews including many children during the German occupation, and preserved literary works from the Vilna ghetto before being arrested by the Gestapo.

Born in Akmene, Lithuania in 1894, Ona was educated in Moscow and began working at the library at Vilnius university in 1940. A book lover and intellectual, Ona was excited to be working at the oldest university in northern Europe, in a city teeming with culture. However everything changed in 1941, when the Nazis invaded Lithuania. Immediately they created a squalid ghetto and imprisoned the city’s large Jewish population. Ona was shocked and horrified when her Jewish students and colleagues suddenly disappeared. 

Without a moment of doubt, she began visiting the ghetto frequently, under the pretext of collecting library books. She was shocked at what she saw there. It was hell on earth. Residents were barely alive, many of them starving to death, while others were shot in the streets, or beaten brutally and then sent to concentration camps. Ona spent the rest of the war helping Lithuanian Jews in multiple ways. In her visits to the ghetto, she smuggled food, medicine, supplies, and small firearms. After each visit, she left with documents: letters from ghetto residents to their loved ones, literary journals describing life in the ghetto, and various other important papers.

Ona helped Jews who managed to escape or avoid the ghetto by sheltering them in her own humble apartment, and when she ran out of room she found other hiding places for them. She procured fake documents enabling them to hide their Jewish identity. Saving Jews from the Nazis became the focus of her entire life. With superhuman strength and courage, she smuggled small children out of the ghetto in her big book sack, and found homes for them with people who would keep them hidden and safe. It is unknown exactly how many this mild-mannered librarian saved, because she spoke to no one about her heroic acts. 

In 1944, Ona was arrested by officers of the Gestapo, the notorious German secret police. She was brutally tortured by the sadistic Nazis, and sentenced to death. Miraculously, right before her scheduled execution, the president of Vinius University found out about it and paid a large ransom for her life. The Nazis agreed not to kill her, but they refused to free her, and instead sent to the Dachau concentration camp, and later an internment camp in France. Ona was finally freed when the Allies liberated France in 1945. 

After the war, Ona remained in Paris, living a quiet life as a librarian, in a home full of books. She was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem in 1966, and a tree was planted in her honor. Ona died in 1970, leaving behind a trove of her own writing: letters, journals, articles, and diaries. Many of them were published in the book “Epistophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Simaite.” In 2015, Simaite Street in Vilna was named after her.

For saving an unknown number of Jews, in a multitude of ways, over four years, we honor Ona Simaite as this week’s Thursday Hero. 

[mioritic]

Yiddish writers, Warsaw, 1922

From left to right, with short biographies:

Esther (Esye) Elkin (?–?) was the wife of Mendl Elkin.

Mendl Elkin (1874–1962) was born to a family of Jewish farmers in Belarus. Though working as a dentist for six years, he was more interested in arts and culture, and would spend his spare time writing for socialist newspapers and acting in an amateur Russian-Yiddish theatre group. He spent the 1910s–1920s between Bobruisk and Siberia before moving to Vilna and founding a theatre group, as well as editing literary journals and writing poetry. He would later move to New York, where he served as Chief Librarian for YIVO.

Peretz Hirschbein (1880–1948) was born near Grodno; his father operated a water mill. He studied at a yeshiva before becoming a Hebrew teacher. In his 20s he began to write poetry and plays in both Hebrew and Yiddish, and would soon move to Odessa to stage his plays. After his theatre troupe disbanded in 1910, he spent the remainder of his life travelling, finally moving with his wife Esther Shumiatcher to Los Angeles.

Uri Zvi Grinberg (1896–1981) was a Yiddish writer before moving into Hebrew. Born into a Hasidic family in what is today Ukraine, he served in the Austro-Hungarian army. Radicalized by the November 1918 pogrom in Lwów, he spent the interwar period between Palestine and Europe. He co-founded the self-proclaimed fascist group Brit HaBirionim and later served as a Member of Knesset for Herut. He was awarded the Bialik Prize three times, as well as the Israel Prize for his contributions to literature.

Khane Kacyzne (?–?) was the wife of Alter Kacyzne. Together they had a daughter, Shulamith, who survived the Holocaust by hiding as a non-Jew. Khane was murdered at Bełżec.

Alter Kacyzne (1885–1941) was a prolific photographer and writer, born to a bricklayer and a seamstress in Vilna. He took up photography early, at age 14, by which point he had also taught himself Hebrew, Polish, German, Russian, and French (alongside his native Yiddish) and had begun to write poetry. Through the interwar period he worked as a photojournalist, travelling extensively, as well as serving as editor for several literary magazines and writing for communist newspapers. He was beaten to death by Ukrainian fascists in 1941, and his wife Khane was murdered at Bełżec extermination camp.

Esther Shumiatcher (1896–1985) was born in Grodno, though her family emigrated to Alberta, Canada in 1911. Interested in poetry and screenwriting, she worked several jobs to make money: as a waitress, in a meat-packing plant, and helping her family run a boarding house out of their home. In the 1920s she went to Warsaw and worked extensively as a poet; her poem "Albatros" gave its name to a modernist Yiddish journal. She was married to Peretz Hirschbein, whom she met while he was taken ill in Calgary and nursed back to health in her family's home. After her husband's death in 1948, she moved to New York.

From the YIVO Archives.

[landgraabbed]

hi cat! 🩷 so as you know i really enjoy your ts2 posts and lately i've gotten the itch to play it again! but last time i played ts2 i played it with only a few crappy cc clothes lol, so i have no idea what mods are essential mods to have in ts2 or where to get them, how to prevent saves from getting corrupted and how to build your own custom hood - stuff like that. so i wondered if you have any advice or if you knew any guides on where to even get started on this? 😭 thank you 🩷🩷🩷

vilna hiiiiiii!! first of all i am so sorry that this took me so long to reply! i got ill and it hit me harder than it should rip 😭 anyways, thank you so much as always for your kind words, you know i love your stuff so it really is appreciated 💖

it’s a long write-up and i reference a lot of guides and resources from the community from which i learned myself. i’m really grateful to this community for sharing these resources, truly! i tried to organize this as best and include as much as i could, but i'm sure there may be missing things or things left unclear. so if you have any questions feel free to message me!

i. installation

i personally use the sims 2 rpc launcher by lazyduchess, which is included in osab’s installation guide. i really like this guide, since it includes links to the full sims 2 collection, as well as indications to make the game work more nicely with modern hardware and software, such as modern graphics cards through graphics rules makers or the 4gb patch.

it also includes instructions for reshade installation (i personally use the rpc injection method).

ii. setting up a clean slate

whether you want to play in a premade neighborhood or a custom neighborhood, i recommend using a clean slate, meaning empty and/or clean neighborhoods. many functions of the game use hoods, and sometimes these aren’t actual physical hoods and instead add sims as townies or npcs. there are also “clean” versions of premade neighborhoods that fix/tweak oversights by maxis.

mind that if you want a brand new hood without maxis’ townies, you need to get an empty pleasantview template (N001) in your game’s installation folder, or disable it somehow by changing its name. you can still play in pleasantview as it will be stored in your documents neighborhoods folder, and you can use clean versions for that. you also need to get empty stealth hoods.

this all may sound a bit complicated, but simgaroop made a wonderful write-up here for different user cases depending on what you’d like to do in your game. the mods linked here are a boon!

as for making a brand new empty hood, i love getting custom terrains (which are sc4 files originally made in simcity 4). some of my faves are made by @/nimitwinklesims, but i also like finding them at modthesims. you don't need to create each type of subhood, but i do have at least one of each in bloom valley. in bloom valley i have two downtowns (one is magic town from sims 1 originally converted to sims 2 by @/voleste. the other is @/kattaty's remake of downtown, which will be deleted and replaced with a downtown i'll make myself to be more consistent with my other subhoods. it is incredible, and i think i will use some of their lots in my new downtown because they are great), i have two shopping districts. one is strangetown because i love those premades and townies; i never have sims visit or form relationships with them though, it's just so i see them around. the other is oakburg which uses acorn bend as a base, it works more or less as an expansion to bloom valley and it's where i play more often than not these days. then i have the vacation hood makeovers by @/plumbtales. the university hood was made from scratch by me.

when you create your own hood, you will either have to set up your own townies from scratch or source them from community shared townie hoods. for making townies from scratch, i recommend @/simper-fi’s guide (also recommend getting the mods linked here before you make a hood).

for townie hoods shared by other simmers, i recommend those shared by @/mikexx2 (seriously, look at all those familiar faces that ended up as spouses for gen 1 in bloom valley) and @/marvelann’s sims made townies by @/letthemplaysimscc. i also use the bon voyage locals shared by @/plumbtales. i also make my own townies from time to time or use specific downloaded sims as townies.

iii. on corruption

here’s the good news: as it turns out, corruption really isn’t an issue. april black has made an excellent video on the matter of corruption; although it is long, i recommend anyone who plays ts2 to watch it, or at the very least the final timestamp. to know what to do and what not to do.

although corruption isn’t an issue, i still consider the suite of “anti corruption” mods to be essential in order to avoid overpopulation and overall weirdness.

iv. making the game look pretty

i have linked my eye and skin genetics over here

my supernatural skins default replacements: alien - witch - vampire - plantsim - werewolf - considering switching my vampire, zombie, and werewolf defaults to this

for hair, i only use 4t2 conversions. i just like the way they look. i use @/platinumaspiration’s 4t2 defaults collection, which is a boon. for custom hairstyles, i recommend going through @/4t2clay

for clothes, i recommend going through the sims 2 defaults database. i have also linked some favorite creators for male clothes here. note that they also have female clothes. other creators i enjoy: @/mdpthatsme @kaluxsims @/jacky93sims @/goatskickin

i have a lot of makeup and “skin details” in my folder, but i have always been fond of @/lilith-sims’ things

for build/buy, that’s more difficult to pinpoint, but i again recommend @/sims4t2bb for a conversion database, and also @/veranka-downloads’s plentiful 4t2 and 3t2 conversions. some creators that feature in my folder: @/i07jeuu @/linacheries @/nonsensical-pixels @/pforestsims @/tvickiesims

custom sliders in cas: @/simnopke’s sliders, @/memento-sims’ sliders

for the ui, i use the incredible @/greatcheesecakepersona’s clean ui; i also use the mods linked here (+ @/keoni-chan’s amazing talk to me icon to replace icons), particularly the one to remove the red border in pause mode since that won’t be removed in tab camera

speaking of camera, this is the camera mod i use

i regrettably don’t recall the exact lighting mod i use (looking at them, probably cinema secrets), but i know it is one shared by @/veronaquiltingbee

to beautify my neighbor, i consider these skylines by @/lowedeus to be essential (+ optimized textures by @/celestialspritz). additionally i use the rural charm terrain and roads default replacement by @/criquettewashere in addition to most if not all of their hood decorations. i also love 3t2 hood decor conversions!

another useful resource is the gos events

please note that a lot of these creators do multiple categories of cc, so recommendations for one category may overlap with another; i know that this is just scratching the surface but i hope it helps

v. gameplay mods

i use so many mods to overhaul the gameplay so there will be some omissions. i’ll do my best to provide the most important ones (ignoring the ones previously mentioned)

economy and careers: uni part-time jobs for teens - lower wages - no 20k simoleons handout - loan jar (afaik lamaresims is working on a version to enforce regular payments) - custom bills (750%) - expensive bills for apartments (300%) - private school bill fix (in moreawesomethanyou-al.zip; charges the household 200 simoleons each school day for a child in private school) - lamare’s job options mods - 50% job promotion chance - restricted job offers - work food delivery

food & eating: basically @/jacky93sims's whole library

lifespan & health: lifespan (modified as follows, baby to elder: 3 - 7 - 14 - 21 - 91 - 7-14; i will make the adult lifespan longer still given that i play very slowly, it works as young adult and adult stages, and as is i don’t see many sims of gen 1 living to meet their grandchildren) - more dangerous fires - frequent & faster disease processing

personality: 3t2 traits project and associated mods

relationships and woohoo: acr - romantic standards - reproductive capabilities configurer - pregnant sims wear any outfit

supernatural/occults: plantsims can change hairstyle - no more leafy hair - no more werewolf hair - child lycanthropy - werewolf fangs fix - werewolf transformation 3 nights a week + no personality change vampires can’t eat food - vampire motive decay during day based on aspiration + vampire hunger goes down at night & social/fun decay- hereditary supernaturalism

travel and community lots: visit other sims - community time (+ limeyyoshi’s fix, reuploaded bc i cannot find it)

university: semester changes - pets at university - maternity for young adults - maternity outfit fixed for young adults

misc: planting overhaul - monique’s hacked computer, which i use to give sims separate bank accounts, study skills and badges online, and so on (1 - 2 - 3 - 4) - townie apartment residents - community lot skilling - engagement and wedding ring for color traits - invisible medicine cabinet (so sims can brush teeth and wash face with any mirror) - shiftable everything - midgethetree’s mods - fix subhood selection - longer seasons (7 days)

[historicity-was-already-taken]

I can't seem to write the chapter about Operation Barbarossa and the transition of the "Solution of the Jewish Problem" from one of ethnic cleansing to one of genocide without sinking into melodramatic epic fantasy cliches/straight plagiarism like

THE EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS OF EUROPE, HAD BEGUN [lotr movie orc voice]

YET THE DEADLINE FOR BLITZKRIEG HAD PASSED, AND WINTER WAS COMING

THE POLISH JEWS WHO HAD FLED TO LITHUANIA IN 1939 THOUGHT THEY WERE SAFE, BUT EVERYTHING GHANGED WITH THE WEHRMACHT ATTACKED

god if anything uplifting happened you'd now i'd find a way to put in GONDORVILNA CALLS FOR AID (i mean, vilna did call for aid but...too complex for rn)

[ainsi-soit-il]

Indeed, we are not the first generation to attempt to mark this holiday of joy in a context of anguish. The Vilna Gaon, the 18th-century Lithuanian sage, once said that the command to rejoice on Sukkot and Simchat Torah is the most difficult commandment in the Torah. Commenting on this, Elie Wiesel wrote: “I could never understand this puzzling remark. Only during the war did I understand. Those Jews who, in the course of their journey to the end of hope, managed to dance on Simchat Torah … they taught us how Jews should behave in the face of adversity.”

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

he holocaust educators I met across America were all obsessed with building empathy, a quality that relies on finding commonalities between ourselves and others. But I wondered if a more effective way to address anti-Semitism might lie in cultivating a completely different quality, one that happens to be the key to education itself: curiosity. Why use Jews as a means to teach people that we’re all the same, when the demand that Jews be just like their neighbors is exactly what embedded the mental virus of anti-Semitism in the Western mind in the first place? Why not instead encourage inquiry about the diversity, to borrow a de rigueur word, of the human experience?

Back at home, I thought again about the Holocaust holograms and the Auschwitz VR, and realized what I wanted. I want a VR experience of the Strashun Library in Vilna, the now-destroyed research center full of Yiddish writers and historians documenting centuries of Jewish life. I want a VR of a night at the Yiddish theater in Warsaw—and a VR of a Yiddish theater in New York. I want holograms of the modern writers and scholars who revived the Hebrew language from the dead—and I definitely want an AI component, so I can ask them how they did it. I want a VR of the writing of a Torah scroll in 2023, and then of people chanting aloud from it through the year, until the year is out and it’s read all over again—because the book never changes, but its readers do. I want a VR about Jewish literacy: the letters, the languages, the paradoxical stories, the methods of education, the encouragement of questions. I want a VR tour of Jerusalem, and another of Tel Aviv. I want holograms of Hebrew poets and Ladino singers and Israeli artists and American Jewish chefs. I want a VR for the conclusion of Daf Yomi, the massive worldwide celebration for those who study a page a day of the Talmud and finally finish it after seven and a half years. I want a VR of Sabbath dinners. I want a VR of bar mitzvah kids in synagogues being showered with candy, and a VR of weddings with flying circles of dancers, and a VR of mourning rituals for Jews who died natural deaths—the washing and guarding of the dead, the requisite comforting of the living. I want a hologram of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks telling people about what he called “the dignity of difference.”

I want to mandate this for every student in this fractured and siloed America, even if it makes them much, much more uncomfortable than seeing piles of dead Jews does. There is no empathy without curiosity, no respect without knowledge, no other way to learn what Jews first taught the world: love your neighbor. Until then, we will remain trapped in our sealed virtual boxcars, following unseen tracks into the future.

[cursedhaglette]

writing patterns tag game!

i was gonna do this on the beach but realized how tedious the linking would be and promptly stopped. I was tagged by @aevallare who is not only so incredibly talented but also has incredible tits

we're going in order of what's been opened in my google docs if that's okay with everyone. also all links are ao3. i also only have 5 since the first two consume so much of my brain power. is there a pattern? i don't think so, but happy to leave it up to your interpretation.

The Broken Chosen (f!durgestarion): He can’t let himself focus on who she is or at the number of times Cazador had sent him to fetch the Golden Daughter of the Upper City to add to his exquisite, broken collection. That he’d never been able to catch the socialite, always flitting from party to party, lover to lover.

Hold Me Like a Knife (f!durgestarion): In the name of the dread father - She holds the chalice, carved of polished bone, above her head - raising the fresh offering of spilt blood before her father’s carved icon. In the name of his spawn - The movements are easy, all too familiar. The ashes are mixed in next, fireroot and warg fangs burned til their alchemical properties are all that remains, bubbling and hissing as they combine.  In the name of his unholy spirit -

Colleagues (f!reader x astarion): “Madam, I have Magistrate Ancunin here to see you,” the voice of the office assistant reaches your ears before the door opens and the heavy hinges creak in that way you hate. The older human woman who assists with your paperwork and appointments allows in the familiar, handsome face. You nod your thanks and Vilna closes the door promptly, as she always does.

Thrice Before Dawn (f!durgestarion): Halia’s takes last watch, preparing to guard over the camp until dawn breaks over the horizon, sketchbook in hand. It’s been ages since she’d been able to take the time to draw or journal, either tied up in other things that needed doing while she kept watch or simply too exhausted to do anything but stare off into the darkness.

Apples to Apples (f!durgestarion): His hunt was successful, relatively speaking. Badger tasted…well, uninteresting, but it got the job done and at least it was a bit different than the prey he’d grown used to while camping around the Grove. He feels mostly sated as he walks back through the dark forest, his footsteps and the occasional chittering animal the only sounds to escort him back to camp. 

i'll tag @brain-rot-central @fangswbenefits and anyone else with multiple fics that would like to participate!

[pargolettasworld]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwscfLZEgqY

In memory of an award-winning poet, Rivka Basman Ben-Hayim, who died in March of 2023 at the age of 98.  She was born in Lithuania in 1925. When the war came, her father and her brother were killed, and she spent time in the Vilna ghetto before being deported to a concentration camp in Latvia.  She had always enjoyed poetry, and began writing her own in the camp to help cheer people up.

She survived the camp, got married after the war, and moved to Mandatory Palestine the year before it became Israel, and that was where she lived the rest of her life, except for a period of two years between 1963 and 1965 when her husband had a diplomatic post in Moscow. 

Despite Israel’s insistence on Hebrew as a national language, Rivka Ben-Hayim wrote most of her poetry in Yiddish, the language of her childhood, and the language of the poetry she’d read as a child.  When her ancestors peeked silently through her windows, their silence was not Hebrew silence, as Israel would have preferred.  It was Yiddish silence, and she made sure that her ancestors knew when she was singing and thinking about them.

[vilnan]

in adoration

fandom: dragon age

rating: explicit (minors dni)

pairing: emmrich volkarin/rook (verena ingellvar)

word count: 1,060

A/N: a few days ago i was literally like "how are ppl writing datv fic when the game isn't even out yet" and now i'm apparently one of those people. 🙄 this contains no spoilers! it's just smut and feels, lmao.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

Verena’s beautiful hands are shaking. They are delicate, soft; Emmrich has pressed his kiss on them countless of times, the amber brown skin warm under his lips. She likes to pet the back of his neck with them, fingers tangling into his hair as he whispers sweet nothings into her ear.

It is not particularly unusual for her to be like this, her anger is quick and unpredictable like a tsunami crashing to the Rivaini shores inflicting chaos in its wake. Her dark brown eyes blaze with unquenchable fire as she watches Emmrich now, her carmine coloured nails tapping her bare forearm.

She is gorgeous in her anger, and Emmrich’s breath catches.

He clears his throat and takes a sip of his orlesian wine that is a dreadful vintage to be quite honest. Too sweet to his tastes. He is older and has always preferred a more kick in his drinks. And in his partners.

He clears his throat, feeling a little hot under his high collar, as Verena continues to study him with an unreadable expression. Emmrich continues to stare at her, Verena continues to stare at him.

“What is the matter, my beloved?” he asks as the heavy silence stretches between them, cloaking them underneath its shadow.

read in ao3. ♥

[fauville]

sweet dreams

fandom: the wayhaven chronicles

rating: mature

pairings: ava du mortain/female detective (vesper graves), nate sewell/female detective (charlie langford)

chapters: 4/?

A/N: sorry for the wait, here comes chapter 4! please be mindful that i added a warning for graphic depictions of violence in ao3.

taglist: @agentnatesewell, @carriehobbs, @lalizah, @saintalessia (let me know if you want to be added or removed)

summary:

The creatures in the room aren’t thralls.

They have a deformed faces with visible teeth and no eyes, green skin and sharp razor black nails. Their large hunchback figures tower over even Nate as they roam Murphy's laboratory, making loud groaning sounds and gritting their massive teeth. There are four of them and this will be a tough fight.

If they even manage to get out alive.

read in ao3.

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — What is home? The question sounds like it would best be answered by a children’s book on which each page proclaims a sweet tautology like, “Home is where you feel at home.” There would be a picture of the family nest, parents, grandparents, kids and a dog, a fire in the hearth and soup on the table. Home as Norman Rockwell painted it. Home as so many have sung it: “O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave / Oe’r the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

But pondering what home really is opens us to what is arguably the most troubling political and theological puzzle of our times. For we have entered an age of homelessness and Homeland Security, of mass migrations and refugees fleeing scarcity, tyranny, drought and famine, of rising oceans, poisoned air and water, ongoing wars that destroy homes while killing and displacing whole populations. We have entered the age of the loss of home.

It is especially important for Jews to reflect on the meaning of home today. Not only because that is precisely the philosophical task of this week’s Sukkot holiday, but because we live in the aftermath of a war in which we were almost erased from the earth. And because we live in the presence of a 75-year-old reborn Jewish state, where many Jews feel they have come home to a security unavailable elsewhere.

So what does it mean, for a person or a people or a species, to lose home or to come home?  What exactly is lost when you lose home and what is gained when you recover it?

Historically, Jews know much more about exile than home, more about wandering the wilderness than inhabiting the land. On Sukkot, we are instructed to consider that home may not be fixed, stable and enduring but rather fragile, temporary and portable. How dissonant it can sound then to ears inured to exile when they hear Jerusalem, the object of millennial yearning, described as the “eternal undivided capital” of a state, a national possession, a city like any other.

Consider the reflections of a man born in rural Austria in 1912, the son of an assimilated Jewish father and a Catholic mother who, forced to recognize his Jewish ancestry in 1935 when the Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws, finally fled to Belgium with his Jewish wife in 1938 after Hitler annexed his homeland. An adamant atheist, he was arrested by the Gestapo in Brussels, tortured and then bounced among various camps for two years until the war’s end. When he returned to Brussels anxious to reunite with his wife, he discovered she had died. Alone, unknown and penniless, he changed his German name to Jean Amery and became a journalist and essayist.

In one of his essays, he writes: “For there is, after all, something like a transportable home, or at least an ersatz for home. That can be religion, like the Jewish one. ‘Next year in Jerusalem,’ the Jews have promised themselves for generations during their Passover ritual, but it wasn’t at all a matter of really getting to the Holy Land; rather it sufficed to pronounce the formula together and to know that one was united in the magic domain of the tribal God Yahweh.” Amery could still think of home, but he could no longer taste it. In losing home, he had lost himself. And in 1978, he finally took his own life.

Now consider the thinking of a man who left his home in Warsaw voluntarily at the age of 17 to study and teach in Vilna and Berlin before eventually finding himself a refugee in the United States in 1940. In his short classic, “The Sabbath” (1951), Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes of finding spiritual home not in space, but in time: “The Bible is more concerned with time than with space. It sees the world in the dimension of time. It pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things; it is more concerned with history than with geography.”

Yet just weeks after the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Israeli army’s lightning conquest of Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai peninsula and the Golan Heights, Heschel visited Israel. Smitten by what he experienced there, he wrote a book, “Israel: An Echo of Eternity,” which seemed to many readers a repudiation of his earlier thinking. He writes: “There are moments in history which are unique, moments which have tied the heart of our people to Jerusalem forever. These moments and the city of Jerusalem radiate the light of the spirit throughout the world. The light of the spirit is not a thing of space, imprisoned in a particular place. Yet for the spirit of Jerusalem to be everywhere, Jerusalem must first be somewhere.”

Was Heschel overcome by a moment that felt like homecoming? Or shall we say he lived and thought like a pilgrim who understood that while life is always about the quest, there are nevertheless times when a pilgrim needs, sometimes desperately, glimpses of home both in space and in time?

Amery could not abide homelessness. Heschel was able to take up the task of working for and with African Americans in their own struggle for home. When you feel at home you feel commanded to extend that feeling to others. Sukkot teaches that home is the place and the moment to offer shelter to strangers.

[girlactionfigure]

Nice try. 

But NOBODY was calling Yusif Pasha Al Khalidi a “#Palestinian” in 1877. 

Let me fill in some other blanks for you.

To be clear, the Ottoman Empire was #Turkish, not #Arab.

Also, while #Herzl built #Zionism into the political powerhouse it became and was a focused, determined, genius who cared about saving his people and doing the actual job of state-building and planning, he was most definitely not the first person to just come up with the idea of Zionism – not even close.

First, Zionism is baked into the #Jewish soul – there has been a yearning to return to #Zion since Emperor Hadrian brought 12 Roman army legions from #Egypt, #Britain, #Syria, and areas of #Judea to finally put down the three-year Bar Kokhba Revolt (the Third Jewish Revolt against the Romans) in 135 CE – after which Hadrian was so embarrassed by the early Jewish victories that he murdered more than 1 million Jews, he outlawed the practice of #Judaism on pain of death, and he renamed our homeland “Syria Palestina” after our ancient, long-extinct enemies – the Aegean “sea people” known as the Philistines.

The Jewish yearning to return is why, ever since then, #Jews have always faced #Jerusalem when we pray, Jews have always said “Next Year in Jerusalem” at the end of every Seder on Passover, Jewish grooms stepped on and broke a glass to signify the destruction of the Temple and to remind us, even in happy times, that we are a scattered people, and it is why we would recite the Psalm, “If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning.”

Also, waves of Jews from Europe frequently made Aliyah and moved back home to Eretz #Israel over the years. For example, in 1211, a group of 300 #French and #English rabbis made Aliyah back to Israel. And more Jews from both #England and #France followed them in 1260.

Nahmanides also made Aliyah in 1267, which then encouraged other Jews join him and together they built the Ramban Synagogue in Jerusalem.

More waves of Aliyah came from #Spain because of the Inquisition starting in 1492 – thousands settled largely in Tzfat (Safed), Tiberias, and Jerusalem.

The 1500s saw waves of additional Aliyah from France, #Germany, #Italy, and other European countries as well as North #Africa – these Jews mostly joined a flourishing Jewish community in Tzfat.

Then, on October 14, 1700, a group of 1,500 Jews from Europe, headed by Rabbi Judah Hasid, made Aliyah and settled in Jerusalem.

1764 saw another organized Aliyah, this time of Hassidic Jews who were led by disciples of Ba’al Shem Tov; and they were followed by more Hassidic Jews in the subsequent years and generations.

Then in 1808, the Perushim – Jewish disciples of Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna – organized an Aliyah and established a community in Jerusalem. Others followed them to Jerusalem, while still others moved to Tzfat, Tiberias, and Jaffa.

Then, in 1830, there was a significant wave of Aliyah of Jews from Germany as well as #Holland and #Hungary.

After the Ottomans retook Jerusalem from Muhammad Ali in 1840, Jewish Aliyah more than doubled in the next four decades since Jerusalem was seen as a safer place to live.

Finally, we get to the first writings of the early pioneers of modern political Zionism. Only neither of the two early Zionist pioneers were named “Theodor Herzl.” 

Modern political Zionism started with the writings of Sephardic Rabbi Judah ben Solomon Chai Alkalai  (LEFT) and Ashkenazic Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (RIGHT) in 1843.

Then in 1852, Alkalai established the Society of the Settlement of Eretz Yisrael in #London, and in 1871 he established a branch of this Society in Jerusalem.

Kalischer’s influence, meanwhile, led Chayyim Lurie to form the Association for the Colonisation of Palestine in Frankfort in 1860, and Kalishcher helped found the Mikveh Israel agricultural school in Eretz Israel in 1870.

Then, still before Herzl, Leon Pinsker published Auto-Emancipation in Germany on January 1, 1882, in which he urged Jews to strive for independence in Eretz Israel.

Meanwhile, the “First Aliyah” of modern political Zionism began in 1882, at a time when fewer than 250,000 #Arabs were living in the Land. About 35,000 Jews moved to Eretz Israel between 1882 and 1903.

It was in 1890 (still pre-Herzl) that publicist Nathan Birnbaum coined the word “Zionism” to describe the Jewish return to Eretz Israel where they could become a “normal” people again and live in their own sovereign nation in the only place on Earth the Jews could call “home.”

Then, finally we get to Theodor Herzl and his famous book Der Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”) in 1896.

That should clear a few things up.

@CptAllenHistory

[serenpedac]

It’s been about a year since I received this fun ask and got to make a writers rec list. Since then, quite a few more people have been writing for Wayhaven—some of them new to the fandom, some not—so I’d thought I’d add them to this list.

aeruh (@nat-seal-well) — Technically, Chrys was also on the list last year, but since them they’ve written so much more wonderful fics! I love their Ava/Nat fics, but also anything with Marin and their love of the ocean. Whenever I get the notification they have posted something, I’m looking forward to reading it, because their storytelling is simply amazing!

Vilna (@fauville) — A writers I’m so happy to see returning to write for this fandom! I especially adored Vilna’s Farah years ago. Also love her snippets with Charlie and Nate, but right now, I’m obsessed with her two ongoing longfics! All of the members of UB are captured so well in Vilna’s fics, they feel so *real*

mageick (@nsewell) — Simply stunning prose! That alone would be enough reason to make me follow, but Rowen also writes Ava and Nat beautifully, their dynamic with each other, but also them by themselves. And! And! I often have so much fun reading Rowen’s fic, the detective and Ava communicating through books in the gift fic was such an original idea!

brightpinkpeppercorn (@agentnatesewell) — Mar’s fic for the gift exchanges last year were such a joy to read! Her writing style feels very Mar-like, if that even makes sense? There’s just something that makes me smile in recognition each time, something about the eye for detail and the thought that is put into the characters that is lovely! Also, don’t forget to have a look at some of her older works on Ao3, they are wonderful <3

EllsterSMASH (@ellstersmash) — I have some catching up to do here, but I am in awe at how Ellie captures Mason! I love soft!Mason and she captures those softer feelings, while still making it feel true to his character. I’m also very much enjoying getting to know Theo a little.

PearOh — This is one of those writers whose fics never disappoint me. Case in point is their most recent fic which centres on the LT route. This is something I’m often hesitant to read, but they navigated it beautifully and thoughtfully for all the parties involved. Oh, and they usually post a version with the male LI and one with the female LI, so you can choose the one you prefer ^^

roseboba (@lovelyfoolish) — Another writer whose writing I just want to go through over and over to drink in all the words and phrases, because it's gorgeous. ck's fics touch me each time, they feel so carefully crafted. Also, I'm forever thinking about ck's Nate, he's wonderfully written!

thelionhearted (@thelionheartedo3) — Mango has stolen my heart in the past year. Seeing UB interact with a cat is always excellent and Rinn writes it so well! I also adore the Camelot AU, with Nate and Adam, although I'm also preparing to have my heart broken. Excellent writing, always!

*~*~*~*~*

Finally, I'm also adding my 2023 rec list because it has wonderful fic on it as well

Hii, can you recommend TWC writers? I'm new to the fandom so I dunno many writers (for any detective).

Thank youu 💓

Hi anon! Welcome to the fandom ^^ This was a great ask, it was fun to get a chance to talk about the amazing writers in this fandom! 

Some notes:  If someone writes for multiple pairings, I mention the one that is my favourite of theirs first. This list only has writers who post their work on Ao3, since that’s my preferred place to read fic. Some of the people on this list are not (as) active in the fandom atm, but their work is still very much worth reading! One final caveat is that there are many other writers that I love, but argh, this list was already getting very long haha

Alright, enough rambling, here’s a list! I hope you’ll have fun reading <3

SerialChillr (@serial-chillr) – Detective/Mason, Detective/Nate – Amazing writing, obviously, but I wanted to highlight the way Serial writes relationships. The gradual development of intimacy, opening up, ah, just everything. Also, excellent smut!

firebreathing_bitchqueen (@thee-morrigan) – Detective/Nate, Adam/Nate, Detective/Ava, Detective/Morgan, Detective/Felix – First of all, I love Katie’s N-mancing detective Holland. Self-reliant and sarcastic, she plays off of Nate really well. Other than that, Katie’s prose is always a joy to read and her writing feels very immersive!

cryptidlibrarian (@vryptidart) – All pairings (ignoring gender options), including Detective/Farah and OC/Nat – What I love most about Salt’s writing is how they bring their stories and characters to life, whether that’s in their stories that expand on the world of Wayhaven or in their various AUs. Their stories always feel imaginative and vibrant!

aeruh (@sealriously-sealrious) – Detective/Felix – This writer currently only has one TWC fic online (though I saw a WIP snippet for another one), but oh, the way they write F is so good! Nuanced and with a great character voice. I’ve also read a few of their works for their other fandom, which were also very good, so I’m happy to recommend them.

Arcane_Apparition (@agnt-sexysuavewell) – Detective/Nate – I’ve some catching up to do on this writer’s fic, but ones I have read have been wonderful. The feels! The turns of phrase! I also feel they have such a good understanding of N’s character. 

evil_bunny_king (@evilbunnyking) – Detective/Nate/Ava (poly as well as LT), Nate/Ava, Detective/Nate, Detective/Adam – Listing my favourite pairing here was a bit of a struggle, as all Bunny’s writing is gorgeous. The atmosphere, the beautiful prose, the insight into different characters and their relationships to one another. Masterful writing!

forest_creatures (@whalesfall) – Detective/Nate, Adam/Nate – Again, beautiful prose, but I also really like how their writing goes into a slightly darker direction at times, focusing on the vampire’s need blood. Because, let’s be honest, there’s something very sexy about drinking someone else’s blood. Seeing this writer return to the fandom when book 3 came out made me very happy!

plasticdodecagon (@wayhavenots) – Detective/Nate, Detective/Morgan, Detective/Ava – Great dialogue! Seriously, PD’s character interactions are so well-written, whether they are lighthearted or more angsty, they always feel very realistic. Just a heads up, I think she has a couple fics here on tumblr that are not on Ao3.

Lykegenia (@lykegenia) – Detective/Nate – Lovely writing that just flows wonderfully  and is a delight to read. The relationship dynamic between Nate and her detective, Leah, is so good, but what I love most is how she captures Nate’s character.

shahrazade (@ava-du-mortain) – Detective/Ava, Detective/Morgan, Detective/Nat, Detective/Morgan/Ava (LT), Detective/Farah – Very varied writing, from angsty snippets to sweeter ones to horror, and all of them have some very poetic turns of phrase in them. Also, Nairuz captures all members of UB really well!

narrativefoitrope (@narrativefoiltrope) – Detective/Mason, Detective/Nat, Detective/Ava – The soft angst of Erin’s Winter/Mason pairing hurts so so good! They explore what a detective choosing to remain human means in such a heartbreakingly intimate and thoughtful way. On a more general note, I really like the dynamics of all their pairings (narrative foils indeed).

Ejunkiet (@ejunkiet) – Detective/Mason, Nate/Adam, Detective/Nate, Detective/Ava, Detective/Morgan, Detective/Falk – My favourite thing about EJ’s writing is how the trust and intimacy comes across so well. There is some excellent smut in here, always with feelings shining through, whether those feelings are spoken (or even acknowledged) or not. I very much admire how EJ makes me feel those, ehm, feels!

qbrujas (@queerbrujas) – Detective/Nate, Detective/Morgan, Detective/Nat, Detective/Ava, Detective/Felix – Stunning prose that always feels so intense. As in, the emotions are felt very strongly, pulling me along, and I’m here for it. Silv also has great interpretations of N in general.

natehsewell (not on tumblr anymore?) – Ava/Nat, Detective/Nate, Detective/Ava, Detective/Adam – The kind of writing that makes my heart ache, because it’s so beautiful. It’s like poetry that makes you want to read it over and over.

In case you’re interested in recs for individual fics, here and here are my End of Year Fic Rec Lists from the past two years. 

As a final, gentle note, I’m sure these writers would be overjoyed to get a comment if you’ve read and enjoyed their writing.