#actually maybe i should talk to the other jew in my party to see if it bothers her. might be weird cause we're not very close but maybe

[dabidagoose]

Not really sure if i should be as bothered as i am about how phylactery is used in DND, since it also refers to tefillin. I saw some people on other parts of the internet discussing how phylactery is more of a translation of tefillin, and sometimes the word has just been used to mean amulet or something to do with protection in Greek, but I'd be curious to know if anyone on here had any thoughts on the matter.

[motelgirl]

Nothing to Lose- Aldo Raine x Fem!Reader

Request: @inglourious-imagines

Prompts 11, 33, 40 of @inglourious-imagines list :)

I didn’t really know whether to do something angsty or not for this, but i’m not a huge fan of writing angst myself so I decided against it. Sorry it took so long but i’m finally back on it and will be posting regularly again soon. Hope you enjoy it <3 Sorry it’s so short by the way.

Y/n Y/l/n and Aldo Raine. Back in Tennessee, the two had been inseparable ever since they where children. If you saw one, you knew the other wasn’t far behind. They joined the army together, however what they didn’t know is that they would have been deployed in completely separate countries. That’s why when the news got through to Y/n that she was required for Lieutenant Raine’s group, she was more than ecstatic.

Y/n trudged through the rainy night in Paris. She had been dropped in the city just half an hour before and told the name of the hotel she was to rendezvous with the party. Now she was miserable, tired and hopelessly lost. Just when she was about to give in and continue her mission in the morning, she saw a wooden sign with the name of the hotel illuminated by a gas lamp in the distance. She grinned to herself, walking speedily towards it.

The door opened, ringing a bell above. A bald man of around forty looked up from the bar, his eyes following the girl as she smiled at him and greeted him with a simple ‘bonjour’ to which he returned, before she walked up the stairs on the hunt for room three. It wasn’t hard to find it as she heard the all too familiar voice from behind the wooden door.

“She’ll be here in a second, it’s dark out there maybe she lost her bearings,”

Y/n decided this was her cue and pushed on the unlocked door. Immediately, her eyes went towards the only two men awake, sat at the table in the middle of the room. She couldn’t conceal the huge smile on her face at the sight of her old friend. On instinct, she pulled the now standing man into a hug. He let out a light ‘oof’ noise at the unexpected contact, before smiling, rubbing the girls back. They pulled apart and Aldo looked towards the other man in the room, his hand now draped over Y/n’s shoulder.

“Y/n, this is Donny Donowitz, you might know him better as the Bear Jew. Donny, this is Y/n Y/l/n, one of the greatest fighters the Basterds will have. Guaranteed.”

The girl threw Donny one of her charming grins as he stood up and shook her hand. His eyes darted between Aldo and Y/n, before they landed on his arm on her shoulder.

“Y/n Y/l/n! The girl i’ve heard so much about. You know, ever since we met, Aldo hasn’t stopped talking about you,” he smirked, sitting back down in his seat. Y/n followed, placing herself in the spare chair around the table as Aldo sat where he previously was.

“Oh really?” She laughed quietly, trying to keep her voice down as she noticed the rest of the men around her and in the other room sleeping.

“Says you’re the best girl he ever known. I’ve never seen him even lay eyes on another girl before,” Donny continued. Judging by the empty bottle on the table, Y/n could tell Donny had a bit to drink beforehand and maybe she should take this information with a pinch of salt. However when her eyes met Aldo’s, who was glaring daggers into Donny, she realised maybe it was true.

“Anyway, we got a mission tomorrow night, but I’m sure you’ve been told. Nice to meet you Y/n, I’m off to bed,” Donny smiled at the girl who returned a slightly amused one back before watching him leave the room. She was left sat at the table with her old friend.

Standing up without a word, she slowly made her way to the balcony on the side of the building, closely followed by Aldo, who’s eyes hadn’t left her since she entered the room. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and offered it to Aldo, who accepted. The pair stood in silence on the balcony.

“I’ve missed you, you know. Life just wasn’t the same without having you around to annoy the shit out of me, I gotta say,” Aldo broke the silence. Hearing this, Y/n let out that angelic laugh that he had spent years imagining, trying to recreate in his head. Nothing compared to the real thing.

“So,” she paused, thinking of the right words to say, “what did Donny mean?” Her eyes looked at his with innocent curiosity. He watched as she flicked her cigarette butt over the side of the balcony.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. ‘The best girl he ever known’” She quoted the man. He looked at her unimpressed as she sat on the chair perched on the corner of the balcony, crossing her legs and leaning her head on her hand. “Is he lying?”

For just a moment, when he looked at her, he felt all his defences go down. He felt the way he did about her before the war, when they where still living the simple life in Tennessee. Bootlegging moonshine, running from the law and laughing their asses off most of the time. Back then, the two moved into their own tiny house in the smoky mountains when Y/n ran away from her house at seventeen. Being deployed in different countries for god knows how long may have hurt Y/n, but she didn’t know it hurt Aldo ten times more.

“Donny ain’t a liar.” The simple sentence caused a cheeky grin to make its way onto Y/n’s face. “Oh God, why you looking at me like that. I ain’t seen that smile for years,” he joked, however seeing her after all these years made him feel a way that, in the most cliche way possible, he had never felt when she wasn’t around.

“I’m never letting go of the fact you think i’m the best girl you’ve ever known,” she continued to grin up at the man. He shook his head, turning back away from her and looking out at the Parisian skyline.

“Do you ever shut up?” Y/n couldn’t see his face, but she could hear the smile as he said these words. She waltzed over to him and leaned beside him on the balcony, taking a deep breath and letting out a louder sigh than she was meant to.

“You’d hate it if I shut up I just know it,” she continued to grin at him. Her eyes tried to make contact with his but he continued to look out towards the city.

“No I wouldn’t,” he retorted. The pair where reunited, for that one half an hour slot, they felt like they did before. Unworried, bouncing off each other, joking and making fun of each other and always an underlying feeling that something was going unsaid. She was so desperate to find out what it was.

“Are you trying to start a fight or are you flirting, because to be honest I known you for all my life and I still can’t differentiate the two,” she tried her chances. She hoped deep down that he would choose the second option.

“Well let’s put it this way, I wouldn’t ever wanna start a fight with you,” he found his way around saying it directly, but truth be told he loved the girl and she loved him back. Donny could tell the moment she walked in and he was sure that the rest of the men would feel it in the morning. There was a brief silence as Y/n figured out what he meant. For what felt like the thousandth time that night, she felt that smile grow on her face.

“Well if Donny never lies. Does that mean you actually haven’t laid eyes on a girl?” She was now in extremely close proximity of the man. He didn’t need to reply for her to find out everything she needed to know. “Well, what will you do now I’m here?” Y/n needed answers to her questions, and the best way to get them was to ask directly and straight to the point. In her logic, she’d probably end up dead before the end of the war anyway so what did she have left to lose.

No words exchanged, Aldo took her face into his palms and kissed her. Softly at first, pulling apart only momentarily before she pulled him straight back in, now kissing his harder like it would be her last one ever. She had waited all her life for this moment and now it was finally here she could never let go. I’m a matter of seconds, she went from having nothing to lose to having absolutely everything.

[sylvielauffeydottir]

Hi I just saw your post about Israel and Palestinian. I don't know if you're the person to ask or if this is a dumb question but I was wondering if anyone has considered starting a second Jewish state? I was wondering because there's a bunch of Christian countries so why not multiple Jewish ones.

Sorry if I'm bothering you and Thanks for your time.

That’s actually a pretty interesting question. I am going to apologize right now, because I essentially can’t give a short answer to save my life.

I’m not a ‘Jewish Scholar,’ so while I can speak with some authority about the history of Zionism, I definitely couldn’t speak about it with as much authority as others. I mentioned in at least one of the posts I have written about the history of plans for a ‘Jewish state’ when Zionism was originally being proposed, and I can kinda of track the history of Zionist thinking for you if you are interested, though essentially it’s just about arguing where to go. But there are better scholars for this than me, so I would recommend Rebecca Kobrin, Deborah Lipstadt, Walter Laqueur … idk. Maybe just read some Theodor Herzl, honestly. With all of that said, I can speak with some authority about the post-war history of this in the Middle East. So let’s go.

In post-war times, there has really only been one serious discussion of an alternative Jewish state, as far as I know. And actually, this is part of why I find it so ironic that people are campaigning so hard to be “anti-Zionist” and to express views like “anti-Zionism” in their activism, because the Jews in Israel who are most anti-Zionist are actually the settlers of Palestinian territories, who want to secede and form a “Gaza-State” called Judeah. There's a great book about this called The Deadly Embrace by Ilana Kass And Bard O'Neill, if anyone is interested. Anyway, most of those people, who are largely Haredim (the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, though some of those settlers are semi Orthodox), have essentially been waging a “culture war” about what it means to have a Jewish state and what the identity of that Jewish state should look like basically since the 1980s.

There is a really good article about this that you can find right here written by Peter Lintl, who is a researcher at the Institution of Political Science for the Friedrich-Alexander Universitat. I’ll summarize it for the lazy people, though, because it’s like 40 pages. Just know that this paragraph won’t be super source heavy, because it is basically the same source. Essentially, the Haredim community has tripled in size from 4% to 12% of the total Israeli population since 1980, and it is probably going to be about 20% by 2040. They only accept the Torah and religious laws as the basis for Jewish life and Jewish identity and they are critical of democratic principles. To them, a societal structure should be hierarchical, patriarchal, and have rabbis at the apex, and they basically believe that Israel isn’t a legitimate state. This is primarily because Israel is (at least technically, so no one come at me in the comments about Palestinian citizens of Israel, so I’ll make a little ** and address this there) a ‘liberal’ democracy. Rights of Israeli citizens include, according to Freedom House, free and fair elections (they rank higher on that criteria here than the United States, by the way), political choice, political rights and electoral opportunities for women, a free and independent media, and academic freedom. It is also, I should add (as a lesbian), the only country in the Middle East that has anything close to LGBT+ rights.

[**to the point about Palestinians and Palestinian citizens of Israel: I have a few things to say. First, I have recommended this book twice now and it is Michael Oren’s Six Days of War, which absolutely fantastically talks about the ways in which the entire structure of the Palestinian ‘citizenship’ movement, Palestinian rights, and who was responsible for governing Palestinians changed after the Six Days War. If you are at all interested in the modern Middle East or modern Middle East politics, I highly recommend you read this, because a huge tenant of this book is that it was 1967, not 1947, that caused huge parts of our current situation (and that, surprisingly, a huge issue that quote-on-quote “started it” was actually water, but that’s sort of the primary secondary issue, not the Actual Issue at play here). Anyway, I’ve talked about the fact that Israel hugely abuses its authority in the West Bank and Gaza and that there are going to be current members of the Israeli Government who face action at the ICC, so please don’t litigate this again with me. I also should add that the 2018 law which said it was only Jews who had the natural-born right to “self-determine” in Israel was passed by the Lekkud Government, and I really hate them anyway. I know they’re bad. It’s not the point I’m making. I’m making a broader point about the Constitution vis-a-vis what the Haredim are proposing, which is way worse].

To get back to the Haredim, basically there is this entire movement of actual settlers in territories that have been determined to belong to the Palestinian people as of, you know, the modern founding of Israel (and not the pre-Israel ‘colonial settler’ narrative you’ll see on instagram in direct conflict with the history of centuries of aliyah) who want to secede and form a separate Jewish state. They aren’t like, the only settlers, but I point this out because they are basically ‘anti-Zionist’ in the sense that they think that modern Zionism isn’t adhering to the laws of Judaism — that the state of Israel is too free, too radical, too open. And scarily enough, these are the sort of the people from whom Netanyahu draws a huge part of his political support. Which is true of the right wing in general. Netanyahu can’t actually govern without a coalition government. Like I have said, the Knesset is huge, often with 11-13 political parties at once, and so to ‘govern’ Netanyahu often needs to recruit increasingly right wing, conservative, basically insane political parties to maintain his coalition. It’s why he has been so supportive of the settlements, particularly in the last five years (since he is, as I have also said, facing corruption charges, and he really can’t leave office). It would really suck for him if a huge chunk of his voters seceded, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, that is the only ‘second Jewish State’ I know about, and I don’t think that is necessarily much of a solution. I really don’t have the solutions to the Middle East crisis. I am just a girl with some history degrees and some time on her hands to devote to tumblr, and I want people to learn more so they can form their own opinions. With that said, I think there are two more things worth saying and then I will close out for the night.

First, Judaism is an ethno-religion. Our ethnicities have become mixed with the places that we have inhabited over the years in diaspora, which is how you have gotten Sephardi, Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, and even Ethiopian Jews. But if you do actual DNA testing on almost all of the Jews in diaspora, the testing shows that we come from the same place: the Levant. No matter how pale or dark, Jews are still fundamentally one people, something we should never forget (and anyone who tries to put racial hierarchy into paleness of Jews: legit, screw you. One people). Anyway, unlike other religious communities, we have an indigenous homeland because we have an ethnic homeland. It’s small, and there are many Jews in diaspora who choose not to return to it, like myself. But that homeland is ours (just as much as it is rightfully Palestinians, because we are both indigenous to the region. For everyone who hasn’t read my other posts on the issue, I’m not explaining this again. Just see: one, two, and three, the post that prompted this ask). This is different from Christians, for example, who basically just conquered all of Europe and whose religion is not dependent on your race or background. You can be a lapsed Christian and you are still white, latinx, black, etc right? I am a lapsed Jew, religiously speaking, and will still never escape that I am ethnically Ashkenazi Jewish.

Second, I think you raise a really good point about other religious states. There are many other religious majority states in the world (all of these countries have an official state religion), and a lot of them are committing a lot of atrocities right now (don't even get me started on Saudi Arabia). I have seen other posts and other authors write about this better than I ever could, but I am going to do my best to articulate why, because of this, criticism of Israel as a state, versus criticism of the Israeli Government, is about ... 9 times out of 10 inherently antisemitic.

We should all be able to criticize governments. That is a healthy part of the democratic process and it is a healthy part of being part of the world community. But there are 140 dictatorships in the world, and the UN Human Rights Council has condemned Israel 45 times since 2013. Since the creation of the UN Human Rights Council, it has has received more resolutions concerning Israel than on the rest of the world combined. This is compared to like … 1 for Myanmar, 1 for South Sudan, and 1 for North Korea.

Israel is the world’s only Jewish majority state. You want to talk about “ethnic cleansing” and “repressive governments”? I can give you about five other governments and world situations right now, off the top of my head, that are very stark, very brutal, very (in some cases) simple examples of either or both. If a person is ‘using their platform’ to Israel-bash, but they are not currently speaking about the atrocities in Myanmar, Kashmir, Azerbaijan, South Sudan, or even, dare I say, the ethnonationalism of the Hindu Nationalist Party in India, then, at the very least, their activism is a little bit performative. They are chasing the most recent ‘hot button’ issue they saw in an instagraphic, and they probably want to be woke and maybe want to do the right thing. And no one come at me and say it is because you don’t “know anything about Myanmar.” Most people know next to nothing about the Middle East crisis as well. At best, people are inconsistent, they may be a hypocrite, and, whether they want to admit it to themselves or not, they are either unintentionally or intentionally buying into antisemitic narratives. They might even be an antisemite.

I like to think (hope, maybe) that most people don’t hate Jews. If anything, they just follow what they’ve been told, and they tend to digest what everyone is taking about. But there is a reason this is the global narrative that has gained traction, and I guarantee it has at least something to do with the star on the Israeli flag.

I know that was a very long answer to your question, but I hope that gave you some insight.

As a sidenote: I keep recommending books, so I am going to just put a master list of every book I have ever recommended at the bottom of anything I do now, because the list keeps growing. So, let’s go in author alphabetical order from now on.

One Country by Ali Abunimah Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman The Girl Who Stole My Holocaust: A Memoir by Noam Chayut If a Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State by Daniel Gordis Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis The Deadly Embrace by Ilana Kass And Bard O'Neill Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation by Yossi Klein Halevi Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael Oren The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East by Abraham Rabinovich One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate by Tom Segev Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation by Eyal Weizman

[nobody-knose--archive]

i’ve been aching to commentate spirit phone’s commentary for ages. glad i finally got around to it, this was an ejoyable experience. liveblog below the cut

-i'm like half certain i've heard this commentary before. maybe not the whole way through & it was probably actual years ago

-nice hearing stuff like this. in-depth personal view of the album-making process. makes it seem like more of a real thing i could do myself someday

-neil cicierega real person momence

-i could probably go real in depth about neil cicierega/tally hall parallels specifically concerning like. the arc of their musical careers. but i won't, here

-wild how i legitimately don't care much about micheal jackson

-didnt we get a bunch of spirit phone stems from the needlejuice release/his patreon? we could probably hear the funny track he speaks of here in that

-i love hearing musical artists, especially neil cicierega, talking about the meanings of their songs. like, not only has this song been claimed to hell & back by the tumblr gays, but with later ones i just can't see where he gets these ideas from. also, claiming there's any one meaning or plot to a song just seems silly to me

-shoutout to neil reusing a midi from like, 1998, that he made at 12 years old, whose entire melody was reused for the main verses of everybody loves raymond. loved finding that out on my own 2 years ago. now it's common trivia in this fandom. not bad times

-it'd be neat if neil did individual trans tracks here like he did with view monstel, those things are half of why i consider it my favorite album

-it's a lot easier to ignore the creator's intended meaning behind a song when he can't even remember it. thanks neil

-seesaw effect

-and there's my joke all but 1 of my followers wont get. moving on

-what kinds of movie theater lobbies has neil been to where there are arcade machines. i mean im not one to talk but that does sound rather strange

-why do songs' titles even need to be taken from the lyrics. ive never seen that as any sort of requisite. it's like titling any form of prose you can just give it whatever name ya like

-"this part sounds pretty cool right"

-is neil's vocal range only mildly better than mine? with training i could change that

-oh i haven't processed any of the last 25 seconds hold on

-god. a shit ton of vocal modification in this song. it's like neil returned to his roots but with quality this time

-i, as an ace/aro, have never related more to an allohet guy in my life. what is the point of eyes!

-professional humming/whistling takes skill. it's different from the recreational or casual stuff. i'd know

-there's a name for the way sound (especially music) gets distorted when moving past you and i can't remember it but it's probably what neil's referring to here in the way he recorded the intro

(- update: it's the doppler effect no need to tell me cas already did)

-as someone who hasnt seen the rugrats or take me there by blackstreet i'll just say it sounded like a bouncy music box melody. nice to hear a song that messes with the typical scales though. lydian & diatonic.

-that's a rather specific thing to be glad about, but given what he talked about in his last full audio commentary about the jew harp i suppose i'm not surprised

-i know that tmbg song now. listened to it & saw the music video too. yep they're different alright

-where the hell does neil get all these instrumence from anyway

-huh. hadnt heard this part of the commentary before making my oc concerning this song but i like to hear neil's approval concerning part of my interpretation

-i love how ive heard a billion different tellings of this mellified man story from lem dem fans talking about this song and neil's is by far the wildest

-good god that does only make it worse neil

-i love making liveblogs of lemon demon albums. with the fullerenes or tally hall i cant name a specific dude to take out my woes on generally but with lemon demon i can just say neil all the time. i like being on a casual first name basis with this dude ive never interacted with once ever

-is sweet bod the one other than cabinet man with a demo in the bonus tracks? i forget

-holy shit the boston molasses disaster someone call up soapy if it doesnt already know, it'd love this

-two thousand nine. god i miss the fiddle solo. the ver with it is truly the best one

-he pronounces it jeff? i've always read it as gef with a hard g. that's what i get for knowing words that are never spoken aloud

-that's a fun meta interpretation of this ghost story that's over a century old. i like that

-i've noticed neil generally does the same synths across a whole album. it's especially more clear in the earlier ones, and does mean i occasionally mix up songs between clown circus & live from the haunted candle shop

-ah! ancient aliens! my least favorite track on this album. i cant even claim to have the least interest in a popular one i've just generally not liked this one much from the beginning. so im curious to see what neil's got to say, i think ive been in ~new commentary zone for a while now

-anyway. newest update on the loolin not realizing a song's funky time signature front: i think this one's in 6/4. or at least switches a lot between time signatures. granted i dont listen to it very often for the reasons stated above

-see the way neil describes it. eldritch horror upon being visited by the unknown at a time when humanity'd hadn't even yet had a chance to imagine such a thing occurring. should be right up my alley. but the sound itself & many of the lyrics simply turn me away.

-must i specify i don't dislike it? spirit phone is neil's best album it not being my favorite doesn't mean i think it's bad yadda yadda nobody should be surprised by this it's not like anyone in these fandoms reads my liveblogs <3

-granted i think this is. the first bit of spirit phone content i've made on my blog ever. so who knows things can change <3

-the transitions in spirit phone are much less view-monster transition tracks & more extended outros. view-monster's were a bit more intro than outro sure but they also seemed directed upon making a 2-way rather than 1-way bridge between tracks. or something like that

-.............soft fuzzy man is an incredible nickname for a cat. i'd steal that if i werent afraid of introducing my relatives to lemon demon

-jirls

-an underlying metaphor is good enough. the literal side of the lyrics are fun. nothing but agreement here neil my good man

-the transition into as your father i expressly forbid it from soft fuzzy man is the best one in this album

-buddy you ask if a musical idea has been used before odds are the answer is yes in this day & age the question is has it been used in the way you're using it. like sure this soul jazz record from the 60s that was sold out in kansas stores for a week used this bassline that youve found yourself copying. but seeing as youre using it in some angsty garage rock ballad type tune does anybody actually care

-doesn't everybody like to say things in an unhinged manner from time to time

-imagine having a guitar dad, i say, with my dad being a folk accordion/fiddle dad, which is infinitely worse in every way

-i think he was in an actual folk band at some point. idk the 90s were weird

-iron my life?

-m-more intimate? there are a lot of ways i'd describe this song but intimate isn't one of them. granted as your father is negatively intimate so from there i guess you've got nowhere to go but up

-...still glad to see his interpretation kinda supports my oc at least

-the way he says characters in songs shouldn't worry about death really strongly makes me think this is some sort of. thematic continuation of stuck from dinosaurchestra, even if there's no real death in there. interesting. would also mean that the dad from these past 2 songs is named carlos betty (no last name)

-i literally never assumed this was a flute solo. piccolo at best. it's pretty clearly a recorder

-my mom plays the recorder. i wonder if she can play recorder better than neil cicierega

-we can throw a party in honor of the crushing weight of responsibility! i simply won't be the one throwing it because i have enough on my plate already <3

-what the hell does "a sense of intent" mean

-i've never heard rush before however i disagree with neil's understanding of 6/4. 6/4 is meant to have emphasis (onbeat or another term i can't remember) on the 1st & 4th beat of every measure, which is greatly different from a measure of 4/4 then a measure of 2/4. it's why his 5/4 always sounds weird, because while it's recognizable in sequences of 10/4, it's more 2 measures of 4/4 with one of 2/4 tacked on the end. that's also how it's different from 3/4. i don't know much music theory but what i do understand i will fight to the death about

-"canonized" that's. a very interesting term to use when referring to a former president

-from now on i will interpret every love song directed at some unseen "you" to be inviting me to marry them for tax purposes. thanks neil for being an aromantic icon

-ah hell yes hell yes man-made object is my favorite goddam song on this album

-short & sweet & good damn vibes. neil's thoughts on it all are only making it better

-wild how he uses very few vocal effects for a song that he clearly is straining his vocal range for. go off neil

-the qualifier of man-made is a wonderful thing. oldest or biggest thing? oldest or biggest man-made thing? what a incredibly important specification. a world of possibilities lie between the two. oh i love it

-just gets me thinking yknow! what we consider weird/impressive in another species, in our own species- what kind of equivalent to that would there be from an outsider looking in? are there alien versions of the significances we place upon things, that we could never imagine? the limits of the human imagination mean we could never conceive of something else in the world that isn't, in some way great or small, just like us- and are we wrong for thinking that? such a juicy topic i wish there were a name for it because it's kinda hard to explain concisely

-spiral of ants. my second favorite song from this album, in fact. a good one to experience

-the vocals are just another instrument. they really truly are. i wasn't going into this commentary expecting to feel solidarity for neil cicierega in this chili's tonight on more than one occasion but here i am.

-like, his whole stance on interpreting songs is something i agree with almost entirely. you can take it at face value, you can dig to their very depths, you can listen to songs without caring what the lyrics mean whatsoever, and those are all fun. & yeah while any of these people can be annoying as one of the types who enjoys gliding on the surface more than anything i find those who dedicate themselves to figuring out the whole meaning of a song over anything else to be both slightly scary & slightly annoying <3 keep up the good work

-i want to make songs for my siblings the way neil makes songs for his sibling(s)

-spinch

-neil really shouldn't be allowed to be this funny like this whole album youre thinking golly! he's just a normal man this neil cicierega! and then he starts listing the cat hacks jokes & you remember he's had ridiculously consistent viral success with all his humorous endeavors and holy shit it's neil cicierega in action talking about his music. god bless you neil

-you're welcome, no problem, my pleasure. good eveternoon, radio audience!

[boogiewrites]

Choking On Sapphires 93

Characters: Alfie Solomons x Genevieve (OFC)

Title & Song: Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts

Summary: Alfie is never far from paranoia. But he and Genevieve both find that it's granted when it seems like the whole of London could be out to get them.

Warnings/Tags: Crime. Canon typical everything. 

Click on my icon then go to my Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.) Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT!

There were only a handful of men in the abandoned warehouse in London this night. A location well suited, as gloomy and shady as their business practices. The cover of smog and fog from the nearby canal both serving as cover for their 'off the book' transactions. Despite their dastardly reputations, if these few men had somehow all been taken out at one time, the city would��ve plunged into bloody chaos that would lead to more trouble than already fell upon their territories.

They were a motley crew to be sure, all with twitching hands and shifty eyes. Not an ounce of trust to be found between any of them. They’d been called to this neutral ground on the guise there was a threat looming over them all. But since when wasn't there one? This desperate claim had been made by Niko, the newest head of the Greek gang who was less than a year into leading after assassinating his father. He was being met with much criticism. The decision to bring together the gangs and criminal leaders of London tonight would be met with the same disdain.

The men stood in their big coats with deep pockets, their seconds in the shadows of the dimly lit and dusty warehouse. Niko stood self-assured in his shirt with the rolled-up sleeves to show his heavy and dark forearms, hair black and slicked away from a strong masculine face. He was feeling accomplished for the ability to get all these infamous people together, and if he’s been smarter he would have actually done something with the occasion. You had the drug runners, the triads, who expected the threat to be from another country. The Sicilians who were known for their brothels thought perhaps new law enforcement might’ve been a threat to their money-making. The English boys and their known violence with the protection rackets they ran, this being their home and all, were worried about the Americans coming in and trying to disrupt the well-established lines in the sand for territories. There were bookmakers and gambling den owners, none who wanted their flows disrupted. Sabini, perhaps the most intelligent of them all had been over the race tracks for some time now, only sharing the space by negotiation or force with the Peaky boys or the Jews. And he couldn’t help but notice neither of which were at this gathering.

Sabini, looking at his pocket watch with a hard face knows Alfie wouldn’t be one to be late, and seeing as he knew the rumors of he and Nikos falling out, his suspicions were growing by the ticks of the watch hands. His faith this would be worth his while was dwindling just as quickly.

“I suppose you are the ones who are going to show...shame not everyone could hear this.” Niko begins, standing from his perched spot on a large wooden crate. “I know you have heard of a joining of powers to be happening soon. And I believe we should all take this as a threat.”

“What are the bloody Americans doin' now?” Billy Hill, one of the English roughens groans.

“No Americans.” Niko corrects and most of the men in the room go through relief and then a feeling of ‘then what?’. “One of London’s own and the French.” He begins.

Sabini groans audibly.

“I’m serious!” Niko insists with eyes that say he’s telling the truth. “I’m sure you’ve all heard that the Jew Alfie Solomons and that French whore Genevieve Durand are getting married.”

“Fucks sake.” Is the grumble of choice that works its way around the crowd.

“We can’t have her alliances and the Jews pairing! It’ll throw off the balance we’ve worked so hard to achieve!”

“And how is Solomons marrying going to affect anyone but him?” The annoyed lead of the Asian gangs calls out.

“This Durand is no ordinary woman.” Niko compulsorily insists.

“Yeah, we know you’re sweet on her.” Sabini mutters.

“This is about her French connections. Parliament, the gypsies, and the Irish! All of them will be with Solomons and not against him now because of her.”

“Look. She’s the godmother of a Shelby baby. That hardly calls for panic. She’s the niece of a French Jew, who has NO footing here. Those are not alliances. You’re acting like a bloody woman, so dramatic.” Sabini purses his lips.

“We all know what Horne did to her.” Billy interjects. “If you think she’s a threat after a wallop like that you’re mad. Alfies the one ya gotta watch for, and you know those Jews, they get all sentimental about their wives. This could work in our favor if he’s gone soft for the bird.”

“I do not think underselling Solomons is a good move. You saw what he did to Horne.” The Asian lead reminds them.

“That shows how unstable he is!” Niko yells.

“Well he didn’t kill his own father now did he?” One of the bookmakers snarks.

“Everyone agreed to that!” Niko shouts, his anger showing at not getting his way.

“Yeah and I think everyone’s agreeing that we don’t give a fuck about the hard prick you’ve got for Solomons woman and how you want us to the dirty work to take him out of the picture.” Billy’s known brash remarks surprise no one.

“That’s not what this is about. She’ll be trouble! I'm telling you. She’s a sly one. Don’t underestimate her. She could be a loose cannon and telling Solomons what to do, and with the men she’s got behind her she could try to take over the city!”

Everyone but Niko laughs. “Her? Telling ALFIE what to do?” Sabini laughs and wipes away an imaginary tear to sell his point. “You daft boy, listen… she’s a woman yeah? She’s gonna get married and shit out a few little kykes and fall into place. Same as the rest. It’s what they DO.”

“She’s not like other women.” Niko growls.

“We know you’re sore about losin' her to a old man like Solomons, yeah?”

“Maybe she prefers the cut cocks.” Someone remarks and a chuckle passes through the group.

“More like the money.” Another adds and a general nod of agreement moves in a wave across the room.

“LISTEN!” Niko shouts in anger. “I think this marriage is a bad idea. She’s been knocked senseless, attacking people in public, and we know Solomons can be unpredictable. Look what he did to Horne!?”

“A man’s love and loyalty to a woman is fueled by an ancient fire. He was within his right to do that.”

“As poetic as that is,” Sabini rolls his eyes “I’ve known Alfie longer than any of you. And if I say there’s no reason to react then there’s not.” He states clearly with the wheels in his head turning his unspoken thoughts.

“He burned down half the city for that woman. He threw a tantrum like a child and bypassed so many of our unspoken rules in the name revenge.” Niko screeches.

“Like you now, yeah?” Sabini snarks. “You have no business with either of them now. Because YOU threw a fit? Remember?” Niko puffs up in shame. “Why do you care? Why are you wasting our time?” Sabini gestures with his hands and gives Niko a disgusted expression for bringing them there “If ya gonna call us all up, Why not talk about the upcoming elections? Or how they're clearing out the slums and breaking up all our established territories?” The reaction from the group is a unanimous groan of agreement. “Those are real fuckin’ things to worry about. If you’re so concerned about women in power why not go after the fucking labour party too?” Sabine’s experience overrides Niko and his barely thought out objections.

The group laughs and makes Niko feel small and childish. A feeling he hated as the youngest son and one he hadn’t felt since his father died. It did him and no one else any favors to light that pain within him again. For it was the one that lead him to kill the last man who caused it. But now that he had the attention of the entire family. ho knows how he would lash out next time he reached his breaking point?

For as crass and disrespectful as Sabini was, he wasn’t the dumbest criminal in London by a long shot. He’d thought about what Niko said after patronizing him in front of everyone. Even though he didn’t agree, he did have a few points of sense that he hadn’t meant to make. Alfie would be having to change up his repertoire. He had Shelby in Parliament and an uncle in law that was the head of a crime family. Albeit was in France, but clout was clout and bodies were bodies when fighting broke out. Sabini didn’t think Gen would be a problem, as he had heard of her seriousness with her newly found Judaism and expected her to be a good little wife and let her husband rule the roost. But Sabini only knew of the slurs and stereotypes for the Jewish people, not so much their beliefs. Because if he had, he’d know what sort of power, Gen, as the wife would hold in their household. Instead, he saw an opportunity to mend things with Alfie. A peace offering for the joyous occasion so it wouldn’t seem suspicious. As he had said, he knew Alfie. He knew what he was capable of and what a pain in the arse he could be. He’d like to make things easier, not harder so he knows it’s time to make a truce, to show him he wasn’t a threat. Sabini knew it was time to reach out to an old school mate. Because he most certainly didn’t want Alfie Solomons on his bad side.

———

Genevieve’s giggle could be heard from the other side of her bedroom door. The raised hand to knock hesitates.

“Do I have to do it?” The young boy winces, fearing interrupting Solomons during his time with his fiancé.

“Oh fucking-c’mon!” Claire gruffs and shoves him out of the way. “Gen? Alfie? Pardon the interruption but we have some little birds with news out here.

The groan of Alfie can be heard, rolling to his back and throwing his arm dramatically. “WOT THEY WANT?” He shouts as Gen pops out of bed to throw his pants at him and slide on a gown before slinking back into bed. “WHO is it?” He asks quickly after.

“One of yours and one of Genevieve’s.”

“Both?” She hears the women in question ask.

“Come in.” Alfie commands, now sitting up with the covers pulled up under his arms.

“Go on.” Claire shoves the two young boys into the room who feel immediately as if they were trespassing. She stands in the doorway so they cannot leave and watches them creep forward.

“Ya gonna speak or what?” Alfie asks with a jut of his chin.

“Yes sir.” The taller of the two mumbles as he steps forward.

“Come to the foot of the bed and speak up.” Genevieve directs with much more kindness in her tone, directing them with a pointed finger.

“Yes ma’am.” The boy keeps his eyes lowered, his hat being wrung in his hands, a clear ring of sweat around his collar. “Who first?”

“You dear, you’ve been employed the longest,” She explains to Alfie's nervous spy. “Seniority.” She nods.

“Yes ma’am. There was news of a meeting last night.”

After a pause, Alfie makes a rolling motion with his hand. “Anything else to go wif that to make it useful?”

“Downtown they saw some men meeting in one of the old warehouses.”

“Some men?” Genevieve tries to get more out of the boy.

“Gangsters, ma’am.”

“Mmmph. And who?”

“Only person I was told the Greeks.”

“Fuckin ell.” Alfie sighs. “That all ya got?”

“Yes sir.”

“I have more.” The smaller of the two adds sheepishly.

“Then out wif it.” Alfie demands loudly.

“The Greek was there first, then some of the English Hill lads and the bookmaker Comer. Triads, Sabini, and the other Italians.”

“Now that’s the kinda report I need yeah?” Alfie says in a fatherly tone to his informer.

“Is that all?” Genevieve pries a final time.

“No one was inside to hear what was said but no shots or shoutin' and it was over very quickly. No one we knew was there.”

Alfie hums with narrowed eyes in thought. “What of the fascists?”

“No political men, only the kind what run the streets like you, sir.”

“Good lad.” He nods in approval.

“Claire pay them their due.” Genevieve points her way. “Leave with her boys, thank you.”

“Give the missus boy more,” Alfie calls out and the young one's eyes blink with surprise. “We reward detail. Leave nothing to interpretation when ya can lads.”

“Yes sir.” In unison comes from the shabby pair.

After the door is shut behind them the minds of the two business owners are piecing together what they had.

“Of course I wasn’t invited to this but I’m assuming you weren’t as well?”

“No,” Alfie says with a slow shake of his head. “No Jews at all actually.”

“But no fascists. Curious.”

“Not about us then.”

“Not as a whole, no. But Niko…”

“Yeah that... fuckers up to somefin.”

“I’ll keep an ear out, poke around at my retailers today.”

“Good, good. I know I can lean heavily on paranoia…”

“It’s kept you alive this long.” Genevieve smirks. “Listen to your gut, always.”

“But no one you run wif was there. None of ours. Leads one to believe this might be personal, yeah?”

“I do agree. We know the man isn’t happy about us. Now we're being left out and those with known loyalty to us are as well. I don’t believe that to be paranoia so much as putting together a bigger picture. Perhaps you could ask-“

“Sabini, yeah.” He finishes her thought.

“Mmm Hmm. He’s been behaving as of late. Due for another check-in I’d say.”

“And I’d say you’re right.”

———————-

Sabini happened to have reached out to Solomons for a meeting before Alfie had the chance to initiate. Alfie knew this meant one of two things, that Sabini needed him, or he needed Sabini. Or perhaps a third option of both? Alfie was prepared for all outcomes as he prided himself in.

For anyone else the smugness on Derby’s face, set to its usual twitch of him acting as if he’d smelled shit, would’ve been an indicator of which option was on the table for discussion. But this observation was useless against someone like Sabini. He didn’t give himself away until you dug in close and arrogance was his base nature.

He waltzed in like some greyscale silent film star with shiny shoes and a coat draped over his shoulders. His appearance next to Alfie gives nothing away that they were both raised in the same streets as the learned posh facade Sabini had long practiced to appear authentic. Alfie even has the passing thought of observing Sabini’s practiced measures of sitting down to be a tad too feminine at this point but that was neither here nor there, he supposes.

Alfie’s nose twitches both from his business mate’s luxury cologne and his impatience for the small talk. He was only interested in faux comradery if he could benefit from it. Sabini was lamenting on the state of the cabinet, the changes, and the way the kids no longer remembered the war and it was leading in directions he didn’t particularly care for. Perhaps it was an attempt to be personable, but Alfie had no time for such things when it came to someone who he’d known since before his balls dropped.

Alfie perks up his demeanor, hands flat and wide on his old wooden desk, dust unsettling as he hit heavily against the top. “Now DERBY… “He clears his throat, lips pooching out ever so slightly to appear in thought, but it was clearly making a mockery of the behavior of Sabini. “We could, y’know, sit and listen to you talk out ya arse ‘bout shit no one gives a FUCK about.” he blinks rapidly and nods his head with his low brow directed at his associate. “Or we could just skip it, the gossipin’ like the birds ‘n that, and get down to business. Like men.” his tongue punctuates against his teeth to show through his deepened voice that he meant what he said. In case Derby had forgotten.

“Now for what it’s worth, your precision is something I always did like about you Alfie.”

“Compliments ain’t like you now, Derby, old friend. Should I pull me cock out for those sweet words or do you want to get to your fucking point?”

With a slight wince of his lips, Sabini takes a deep breath to crispen his delivery. “I am here as a show of good faith, right? I have some information that you need and I want to discuss how this might affect us in the future.”

“Us?” Alfie laughs and sits back in his chair with a smug grin. “Presumptuous, innit?”

“Yes. Us, Alfie.” Sabini states with the annoyance already showing through in his voice.

“Go on then.” a demanding hand motions forth from the leather chair.

“The Greeks are trying to upset the truces.”

“Ahhh.” Alfie groans. “Always the fuckin’ Greeks, yeah? If not then it’s the Italians.” he jokes.

Sabini chose to ignore the jab. “I have the information you want. But I need something from you in return.”

“How do you know I need it? How do you know, yeah? That I don’t already know?” Alfie's lip curled up almost in an almost childish taunt.

“Because you aren’t reaching out to anyone. You’d be doing damage control if you knew. Gettin’ all the little ducks in a row to keep everyone in line.”

“You are being rather bold, y’know, there mate... Don’t much care for it to be honest. Arrogance, innit? Which means, you tellin' me how you think I fuckin’ run things, which you can fuck RIGHT OFF with, mate, respectively, I mean that Derby old mate… THAT indiscretion leads me to believe, yeah? That you do genuinely think that the information you have is valuable.” he taps the desk in front of him to demand the information with not only his words. “So what is it that you think is so important that you’d come down here to mingle among us… dirty dust bin lids, I believe is what you call us.

“I need something from you in return.”

Alfie throws his hands up half way, “Let me ask you this Derby, in all seriousness now lad, Are you thick? Are you lame? NO! No, listen ‘cause that statement was something an imbecile would say to a man like me.”

Sabini sighs and rolls his eyes, “Me ‘n you go way back Alfie. We’ve been enemies, and we’ve been friends. And isn’t it much better when we’re friends?”

“Oh yeah, mate.”

“I need us to be on the same side here. We grew up together. Immigrant lads and the like. We know war, we know the streets, we have an advantage here as a pair and I want to propose we work together instead of apart for the foreseeable future.”

“Mmm.” is Alfie’s only response. Best you stay silent and let the other man do the talking.

“Can you agree to that? We can do it formally, with your contracts and that. I know how your lot loves to have documentation of everything.”

“Can ya fuckin’ blame us? What with whats’ goin’ on out there?”

“That’s why we need to work together.”

“How’s about you tell me what this information is and I will tell you if it’s worth me workin’ with a man like you? You Italians aren’t known for your inclusivity ya daft fascists.”

“Alfie.” Sabini groans. “You know I'm not that stupid and I know you aren’t either. Let’s move past this yeah? I’m English, I don’t live in bloody Italy, my parents don’t live there, I work with what’s in front of me don’t I? Not with my head in some other fuckin’ country. Give me a bit of credit here, I'm not some amateur.”

“A truce?” Alfie quickly switches the conversation direction in a show of understanding.

“Yes.” An exasperated Sabini spits out.

“What terms?” Alfie asks with a rather dainty placement of his gold spectacles and a lick of his pen.

“We share the tracks. I can give you more races to share if you agree to not come for me or my men. We won’t cross on each other territories of businesses. No fighting over pubs and theatres. We’d have each other's backs, like the good old days.”

“Good old days.” Alfie snorts as keeps writing. “I get one race a month of my own. Share the rest.”

“Fine.”

“NO crossing territories, no murderin’, no fightin’.” Alfie repeats, with a mumble as it’s the least of his worries.

“Agreed.”

“And the giving of men for circumstances of attack and revenge on other groups if the situation arises.”

“Acceptable.”

“Then sign here,” Alfie says with a satisfied expression. “You must be in a right spot, mate. Givin’ up this.”

“It’s an investment.”

“Mmm.” Alfie hums and shakes the paper to dry the ink. “Now. This information…”

“There was a meeting-”

“Remember when I said I knew things…?”

“Let me bloody talk now. We get it you KNOW things, Alfie.” he interjects with an annoyed wave of his hand. “What you might not know is that Niko tried to gather the lot of us from all of London and turn us on you.”

“Mmm.” another sound of acknowledgment that meant nothing.

“He doesn’t trust you or your bride to be. Congratulations by the way.”

“Thank you.” he nods gracefully.

“We all know he’s after her, yeah? But he wants us to believe she’ll turn you against everyone and try to take us all down one by one. Which after your reaction to Horne, almost all of us aren’t sure what the fuck to think about you.”

“Couldn’t possibly have been intentional.”

“I wanted a truce because I don’t want you coming at me how you did Horne. A new war between us will do nothing but lead to problems I don't fucking have time for anymore. Not with how the worlds changing and us getting older.”

“Yeah, I feel it in my legs mostly...” Alfie groans.

“Niko is going to come for you. I believe you need to set up a meeting of your own and address him and, well bloody almost everyone else. It might help, might not. But at least then when faced with you and not behind your back you might see what sort of man Niko has turned into after taking over.”

“Never was much of one to begin with.” Alfie rolls his eyes.

“No, which makes him behave like a child and thus not act according to the truces that are set in place.”

“Yeah yeah.” Alfie nods. “There needs to be somethin’ said. Can’t have the little wanker goin’ round runnin’ his fuckin’ mouth bout me. OR my wife. “

“All this over a fucking woman.” Sabini groans.

Alfie points a ringed and aggressive finger his way. “You can’t be talking about her either, yeah? That’ll break this little agreement faster than I could put a bullet in your fuckin’ skull, right?”

“I'm not. Nothing personal just… he’s acting like a little boy. I know marriage is important to you Jews.”

“Always the tasteful one, Derby.”

“You know what I fuckin’ mean.”

“Unfortunately I do speak prick.”

“Alfie, I’m not after you or your wife. In any capacity. How I talk is just how I talk, yeah? I don't mean nothin’ by it, it’s just how I am. How we grew up. And I know you. We know each other right? And I would rather work with the devil I know than the devil I don’t. And that’d be you. Especially after what you did to Horne.”

“Mmph.” Alfie nods. “Spose that checks out.”

“I was impressed, I’ll admit. We haven’t seen a retaliation wipe out a whole enterprise like that in decades.”

“And I’d dig him up, skull fuck him and set him on fire if I could. Salt the fuckin’ earth wherever his feet touched.” Alfie's eyes are familiar darkness to Sabini. He’d expected as much from him after seeing the ash fall from the city skyline line it was snow from the destruction Alfie orchestrated. “I don’t blame you for not wantin’ me on your bad side. I know they say we’re both crazy now.”

“But see...I know neither of you are.”

“And that’s why we’ve not killed you yet, mate. Every now and then, you use your brain. ”

@jaegeeeeer @cosettewinchester @lookuptheskyisfalling-blog @brianaisasongbirdd @cry5t4l-w4rri0r @jess2464 @hardygal69 @thegarrisonpublichouse @a-flock-of-angry-pigeons @pootle @s-h-e-w-r-i-t-e-s​

 @musingsby-night​ @shine-dont-shadow​ @inkinterrupted​ @vale0413​ @emerald-bijou​ @elaenom @give-jack-a-lightsaber​ @ultrablackwidower​ @tinastarkandco​ @arrowswithwifi​ @marvelgirl7​ @they-are-not-just-stories​   @ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes​ @alitheamateur​ @gold-trashbag @divadinag​ @imhelenagardner

[evermoreholland]

Questions (Peter Parker x Jewish!Reader)

Title: Questions

Pairing: Peter Parker x Jewish!Reader

Summary: Peter has lived in a Jewish neighborhood the majority of his life, but he has never once tried to learn more about the people living there. That was until he met you.

Requested: No.

Word Count: 1.9k!

Author’s Note: This story is more of a platonic pairing. The reader teaches Peter about her religion because he’s curious. He watches the reader do certain things that she wouldn’t question, but he did because it was different for him.

I am Jewish but some of my facts could still possibly be incorrect. Feel free to correct me and leave feedback.

--

It was your first day at Midtown High and you were nervous. All of your life you have lived in a small town, but you’re family decided to move to a larger community. Your father was appointed to be the new Rabbi at the Modern-Orthodox synagogue in Queens. Although you were happy for him, it was hard to move to a big city. 

It seemed weird to your father at first that you were even going to Midtown. There were many Jewish schools in New York that you could go to. You had a love for science and your mother didn’t mind sending you. You planned study lessons with your father after school so you could still learn Judaic studies.

Your family was Modern-Orthodox. You kept Kosher and Shabbat, which are laws directly from the Torah. However, you didn’t keep all of the typical Orthodox customs. Your mother didn’t wear a sheitel (wig for hair covering), but instead, she would wear scarves or baseball caps. Sometimes she didn’t cover her hair at all. You did participate in all of the Jewish holidays, not just Hanukkah and Passover.

You got ready for school like you normally would. You woke up, you got dressed in your skirt and long sleeve top, and then you prayed. After that, you went to the kitchen to make breakfast for yourself and then prepared your lunch. You saw that your sister, Gilah, hadn’t packed her lunch yet. 

“Gilah, do you need me to help you pack your lunch?” you asked your younger sister. 

“Yes, please. Ima (Hebrew for mom) told me to ask you before we went to school,” she replied. Your sister was 8 and she didn’t know how to pack herself a well-balanced lunch, so you would usually have to help her out. 

You had 3 older brothers and one younger sister. Your brothers were in yeshiva (post high school program for Torah study) and they were out of the house so you took on the job of helping out your younger sister.

You packed lunches for the two of you, grabbed breakfast, and then made your way out the door to walk Gilah and yourself to school.

“Y/N, don’t forget that we need to call Bubbe after school to tell her about our day!” your sister said on your walk. Every day after school you would visit your grandmother and talk to her about your day. Since you moved, you would have to call her instead.

“I could never forget, Gilah,” you said. You dropped Gilah off at school and then made your way to Midtown. When you approached the building your first thought was: This school is huge. Typically, Jewish day schools are much smaller in size. 

You made your way in and honestly, you were a bit overwhelmed by the size of the school. You got your schedule and made your way to your locker. You looked to your right and saw that your locker neighbors with a brown-haired boy. A very cute boy. At least that’s what you saw from his side profile.

“Hi, excuse me?” you asked. Then the boy turned around and you definitely confirmed to yourself that he was cute. 

“Y-yeah?” he stuttered.

“I’m Y/N L/N. Ummm, I’m a junior and I’m new here. I was wondering if you could show me where the lab is?” you asked him. You were here a few minutes early. Doesn’t hurt to ask.

“Sure. I’m actually going there too. I’m Peter by the way. Peter Parker,” he said with a smile. You both then made your way to the lab for your first period class.

“So what made you move here?” Peter asked.

“My dad got a new job,” you said simply.

“What does your dad do?” Peter asked.

“He’s a Rabbi,” you said.

“So you’re Jewish? That’s so cool! Do you happen to live in Forest Hills?” Peter asked. Peter lived in Forest Hills which was mostly a Jewish neighborhood.

“I do actually,” you said.

“I live there too, but I’m not Jewish. I love my neighbors though. I even went to my neighbors Hanukkah party this year!” Peter rambled. “Sorry for rambling.”

“Don’t apologize,” you said and finally you were in the lab.

You were enjoyed Midtown. You liked the classes you were in and the students were really nice. 

It was lunch and you made your way to the cafeteria. You spot Peter at a table with his friends. He locked eyes with you and waved.

“Can I sit with you?” you asked as you approached his table. 

“Sure,” he said as patted the seat next to him. 

You pulled out your lunch bag and then pulled out your salad. Before taking a bite, you said a quick prayer and then ate. Peter noticed you mumbling to yourself.

“Did you say something Y/N?” Peter asked curiously.

“I was just saying a quick prayer. No biggie,” you said as you kept eating. Peter was curious as to why you packed your own lunch. School lunch at Midtown came for free with tuition. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, why did you pack your own lunch?” Peter said.

“Oh, I don’t mind the question. I keep Kosher,” you said. Peter settled for that answer. He didn’t know anything about keeping Kosher, but he didn’t want to pry. He would just look it up later. 

“What is Kosher exactly?” Peter’s friend said.

“Ned! Can we not bother her about every little detail please?” Peter asked Ned.

“It’s okay to ask questions, Peter. In Judaism, people encourage us to ask. We are all about asking questions and learning more,” you said and then Peter urged you to go on.

“The word ‘kosher’ is Hebrew for ‘fit’ or ‘appropriate’, and kosher foods are those foods that are deemed fit by the regulations of kashrut, the Jewish dietary law,” you said.

“Is it really important?” Peter asked. He didn’t want to come off as rude, he genuinely wanted to know. 

“It’s actually one of the most important aspects of our religion. It’s a way to uphold the fundamentals of our beliefs,” you said. “There are specific foods that are deemed appropriate by kashrut such as land animals that have cloven hooves and chew their cud. We’re allowed to eat most birds. And also no shellfish,” you continued.

“So you can’t eat bacon?” Peter asked.

“Correct, pigs don’t chew their cud. Also, they’re super cute,” you said with a giggle. “There are many more laws involving Kosher, such as symbols on snacks and stuff, but I don’t want to bore you.”

“That’s really interesting. Some of my Jewish neighbors don’t do that though,” Peter said.

“That’s because everyone’s on their own level. Not all Jews are the same. Some can be completely secular and only celebrate traditional holidays like Hanukkah, others keep the Sabbath and Kosher and follow all of the laws and customs, and some are in between,” you said.

“What are some of the key fundamentals of Judaism?” Peter said. He wanted to know more. 

“Lunch break isn’t long enough for that, Peter. You could come over one day and we can have a discussion about it, if you want. Don’t feel pressured though. It’s a lot of information,” you said.

“You free today?” Peter asked. That questioned made you smile. This was all new to you too. All of your life you had Jewish friends so some of this stuff was hard to explain. 

“Yeah. I just need to text my parents to see if they’ll be home,” you said as you began to text your parents. They texted you back and they didn’t really want you bringing a boy home, but you convinced them.

“They gave the okay. I just have to pick up my sister from school, call my grandmother, and then you can come over,” you said.

Peter, Ned, and you exchanged numbers. Ned decided on not coming this time around, which was fine.

Peter was nervous about coming to your house. What if he said something offensive by accident? He also didn’t want to come to your house empty-handed but he didn’t know which Kosher symbols your family held. He decided on shooting you a quick text before going to the store.

Peter: Hey. I don’t want to come to your house empty-handed. What Kosher symbols do you follow? 

You read the text and smiled. He’s so sweet.

Y/N: That’s so sweet of you Peter. We usually get snacks with CRC, OU, and the k with the star around it :)

Peter: Ok thanks. I’ll be there soon.

You were excited that Peter was interested in your religion, but did he actually want to be your friend? Well, maybe he did. You didn’t really know.

He came to your house, treats in hand, and gave a light knock on your front door. He was met with what he assumes to be your mother.

“Hello. You must be Peter, come in,” she said with a welcoming smile.

“I brought you some coffee cake,” Peter said as he handed your mother the treat.

“I love this brand. Thank you, Peter. Y/N, come to the living room. Your friend is here!” your mom said.

“Hey Peter,” you said as you made your way to the living room.

“Hey,” he said.

“My dad should be home soon. He just had to go to prayer services at the synagogue,” you said.

Your father came home about five minutes later and he was eager to learn with you.

“Y/N, what books did you pick out for today’s session?” He asked as he made his way to sit by the two of you.

“Abba, I didn’t pick out any books today,” you said.

“Why not?” He asked.

“Well Mr. L/N... wait, or is it Rabbi L/N?” Peter asked.

“It’s usually Rabbi but whatever you’re comfortable with,” your father said.

“Well anyway, I came over because Y/N was teaching me about Judaism during school because I wanted to know more. We didn’t really finish talking about it,” Peter said.

“Why do you want to know more, Peter?” Your father questioned. 

“Ummmm, maybe it’s because I lived all my life in this neighborhood and I never once acknowledged their religion,” Peter said.

“Maybe that’s because you don’t care about the religion someone’s affiliated with, you just care about the person that they are,” you chi med. 

“I guess so,” Peter said simply.

“Why do you want to know more now?” your father asked.

“Because I met your daughter and I knew that I was going to be friends with the minute I saw her. I want to know more because it’s a part of who she is. I may not be religious but I want to know what makes Y/N the way she is,” Peter said. He was proud of his answer. You were proud of his answer. 

Peter and you got along pretty well after that. You didn’t only talk about your religion. You talked about each other. You realized you liked a lot of the things that Peter liked as well. You’ve been hanging out ever since the first day of school. You really fit in with Peter and his friends. Peter would come over twice a week to hang out with you and to do homework. Peter kept asking questions about Judaism. You were happy to answer. He stopped asking as much because Peter knew that your religion wasn’t the only thing that made you who you are. It is a big part of your identity, but not the only part. He then started more questions about you. You were definitely happy to answer those questions.

--

Peter Parker Taglist:

@peterandtom @osterfieldnholland @serasara809 @beverlyparkerr @kickingn-ames @peonyophelia @fancyxholland @viagracex @unsaidholland @cindercock @tom-hlover @starlight-starks @god-knows-what-am-i-doing @yalikejazzzz @panickedbrain @musicalkeys @quaksonhehe @anapocalypseinmymind @in-a-lot-of-fandoms-tbh @hollandfangirl

Tagging mutuals who may be interested: @fallinfortom @cosmicholland

click here to be added to my taglist!

Masterlist

[asiaberkeley]

Afghan is beautiful

I am a half Afghan woman. An Afghan-European American. An Afghan American.

Admittedly, it took me awhile to offer up this information in the aftermath of 9/11 when Afghanistan became synonymous with terrorism in the eyes of many Americans. Taking pride in my heritage suddenly and painfully became controversial.

People didn’t know about my Afghan-ness though because I had my mother’s surname and not my Pashtun father’s: Hotaki. Also, I didn’t wear any kind of head covering because I was raised Catholic. It was easy to hide and pass for completely White.

My late father, an aspiring doctor and med school student who spoke six languages, left Kabul with his family before the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan as a child. They were the lucky ones. He spent most of his life in Germany where many Afghans have sought refuge. One of my fondest memories is flying kites with him and my Irish-Swedish-French American mother in the Munich Public Gardens as a child. There was no wind that day and we dragged the kites in dizzy circles…laughing together...just as I imagine him now when he was a boy: kite flying in the streets of Kabul.

Since my father died when I was six, I returned to my mother’s hometown of Boston with her in 1996. I was later left to contemplate what it meant to be Afghan in a place with very few Afghans compared to Virginia, California, and New York. In college, as an Asian Studies major at Wellesley College and later at the University of California, Berkeley, I often corrected people who said that Afghanistan is in the Middle East and not in South-Central Asia. I wondered why it seemed that no one had received much education on this country’s history or people outside of reading the popular Khaled Hosseini novel, The Kite Runner, especially since we have been at war—fighting together with the Afghan forces against the Taliban in the longest war in American history.

Many Americans don’t realize that the attackers on 9/11 were not Afghan. The attackers did seek a hiding and meeting place in Afghanistan, however. But those facts shouldn’t matter. Because it doesn’t matter what ethnicity, race, or nationality someone is if they commit a crime and it doesn’t matter where they were hiding. The guilty party does not represent all people of their background or country just like Hitler does not represent all Germans or all of Germany and El Chapo does not represent Mexico or all Mexicans. Similarly, the latest mass shooter in El Paso doesn’t represent all white American men.

After former President Trump pondered out loud the mere possibility of a concocted plan to kill 10 million Afghans and wipe the country off the face of the earth – presumably through the use of nuclear weapons – I have thought more about what it means to be Afghan American today. And it’s not because of those unimaginably cruel musings which add insult to injury in the homes of all Afghans traumatized by decades of war. Indeed, nearly every person who is not a white man has been made to feel worthless, subhuman and criminal under the rhetoric of the former Trump administration...so Afghans are not alone.

But Afghans were alone in the discussion of their genocide in 2019. I have contemplated my identity even more because not one leader or politician in America of any background spoke out formally against those disturbing statements. (And it doesn’t matter if this was an actual plan of his or just an imaginary scenario dangling in the recesses of his mind.) What does the national silence mean?

After 9/11, Afghan American author of West of Kabul, East of New York and Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary, went viral with an email he sent.  In it, he wrote:

“The Taliban and Bin Laden are not Afghanistan. They’re not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think “the people of Afghanistan” think “the Jews in the concentration camps.” It’s not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity, they were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. I guarantee it…Some say, if that’s the case, why don’t the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they’re starved, exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated.”

After 2001, my family warned me that just telling people I was Afghan may offend or anger them because they may have lost a loved one on 9/11 or they may have had a son or daughter deployed to Afghanistan. In middle school, a classmate told me I was from the land of the terrorists after I proudly showed her an autographed book I received from an Afghan British writer, Saira Shah, called "The Storyteller's Daughter." My American cousin, a veteran, was later deployed to Afghanistan and brought back a burqa which I showed to my classmates in high school to teach them about the Taliban’s oppression. Contrary to what they may have assumed, what they saw was not traditional Afghan clothing. Traditional Afghan clothing, banned under the Taliban, is colorful, intricate, deeply hued, bright and beautiful. Google it.

A year has passed since Trump discussed wiping Afghanistan off the face of the earth. After it happened, I regularly checked Twitter and the news to see if any of our nation’s leaders denounced those remarks. I called my Governor, Congresspeople, and many others asking if just one would put out a statement to support Afghans and Afghan Americans against talk of our annihilation. The Governor’s office simply said that he did not put out a statement. I still haven’t found any. However, some Americans did speak out on social media. Thank you.

We have studied the long-lasting horrors of the U.S. nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in our classrooms. I thought we concluded as a nation that something like that could never happen again. That not a single person in power thought it worth it to speak out against the possibility of the U.S. committing another nuclear genocide bewilders and frightens me. Is it controversial to say out loud that Afghans civilians do not deserve to die en masse? Are Afghans so vilified in our society that it’s a public risk to defend us?

If you still blame the Afghan people for 9/11 even if only on an subconscious level, think again. Many of the Afghan people are suffering in ways you can only imagine in your worst nightmares. They are not responsible and took no part in this. Like the poor souls who were killed in the Twin Towers, Afghans are survivors and casualties of terrorism as well. Afghan women have lost their entire families. They have been abused and pillaged. Men, women, and children have been bombed and maimed. Their history, including the rich Buddhist Silk Road history of Afghanistan, has been destroyed by the Taliban and others.

Discussing our nation's capability to conduct nuclear genocide of an entire people and country is an affront to all humans.

So I suggest to all of our nation’s leaders who have remained tight-lipped in the face of the unspeakable: Take time to learn something you don’t know about Afghanistan. Perhaps that could start with the story of progressive Afghan Queen and feminist Soraya Tarzi who asked, "Do you think, however, that our nation from the outset only needs men to serve it? Women should also take their part as women did in the early years of our nation..." Or it could be about the life and death of iconic Afghan singer Ahmad Zahir. You could learn about the courageous resistance of Afghan women and girls throughout history or visit that Afghan restaurant you were too timid to enter and try a sweet pumpkin kadoo dish.

As the war in Afghanistan, a war based on lies and deceit, may be coming to another tragic end with even graver implications for the women left behind who have fought so hard for equality,  maybe it’s finally time to read another book that is not the Kite Runner... and most importantly, time to look deep inside of ourselves and question the possible anger, hate and bias that has developed towards the Afghan people after the catastrophic and traumatizing events of September 11, 2001.

*See the Washington Post’s Afghanistan Papers which deemed that the American military did not know what it was doing there and that the war was based on lies and deceit. Government officials misled the American public about the war. The war has cost the lives of thousands of American soldiers with many more wounded as well as 100,000+ Afghan civilians killed or hurt. Many of the American troops have returned with PTSD. 30% of the Afghan casualties were children.

Sources

https://apnews.com/a2a8d7a4f89ec0515379dc4d4a38b56a

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/documents-database/

[naturaldisasterfanfiction]

34. Part 5

Pressing kisses to the side of Robyn face, she is really just wanting to stand here while I hug her, like she hasn’t even said a word “I feel like because you love me Chris you’re kinder with your words, you mind what you say because you care for how I feel so you won’t tell me the truth, you know” she spoke some shit “I mean, you didn’t lie there because you’re my whole heart, I wouldn’t disrespect you like that so yeah I would mind what I say but if you looked awful I would be like ok Robyn, you really let yourself go. But honestly, with what you went through. A natural birth, how you snapped back just doing things with our daughter, it was perfect, your body will be fine. I can’t wait to have sex with you, I am feeling it. I be jealous of Fenty having some breast, man. It’s hard. You are right, I am careful of my words but that is because I love you. You love me so you’re comfortable, so fucking what you dressed down. Baby you looked great, a new mother. But you’re glowing still, you know how the world is. They have this fake outlook on how people should be, don’t worry about it. Trust me” Robyn nodded her head against my chest, she is so sensitive “nobody knows the real Robyn, I think people would be shook” resting my head atop of hers “that I’m insecure?” She is so cute, nobody understands how adorable she is “that you’re not superhuman, you’re my gummy drop, that is it. Has to happen, my gummy drop” hearing Robyn giggle makes me happy “I think I just want to be sexy for you, like I know you. I know how much you love sex, if you ever go soft on me I’m gonna lose my mind” I snorted laughing “if it happens I can’t stop myself, stop being stupid. You want the terrible two to look after Fenty while I spoil you? Like spend time with you?” Robyn moved her head back “time with me huh? If Fenty is ok then I would love that” nodding my head “oh good” rolling my eyes playfully “just don’t be pulling down your robe unless it’s sexually” fixing the robe as I stepped back “you want me to get your phone? I’ll be back up” Robyn nodded her head, I guess I will just gather the two idiots and see if they will.

Not going to lie, I get why Robyn loves her team and her circle is small like this. I told them that they can take care of Fenty while we spend time together and they are both helping me with some food to take upstairs, I didn’t ask for that. I just literally wanted them to take care of Fenty “pretend you did this and oh, it’s a shame you can’t have sex yet. You could snuggle her I guess but I hope Fenty likes us, and these strawberries are delicious” Jah popped one in his mouth “delicious” I chuckled “thank you both for doing this; you don’t have too you know” sitting on the bar stool watching them both “you better rub her feet” that is a good idea “I just want to spend time with her, just us. I want her to know she is so loved that she has an amazing body. I get like it’s hard to keep up that persona, the world is wanting you to look like that person constantly. It’s hard, I know how that feels because they all want me to be this normal nigga when I ain’t even close to that. I think with Robyn and I we good, we are happy I just think people are going to want to meddle in our lives. They will want to see us fall; it sucks for us because they dislike us that much. I mean not us, but me” shaking my head “I get why they do though Chris, you seem so cocky. You come off as a confident cocky guy that I would not approach, like meeting you at the party I did side eye your ass because I’m like oh no sweetie Robyn is gonna be on that dick and she don’t need that. I was one of those people because outside looking in you seem like a real asshole, but honestly you’re not” look at Jah telling me the truth “I appreciate your honesty, like I get it but that’s my defence mechanism, because I’ve always had to be defensive you know” looking to the side of me “oh hey” placing my arm around Robyn’ waist “you was taking too long” I didn’t expect Robyn to come down “girl, this was supposed to be a surprise but Mel and I are putting together a little something for you both, don’t mind us” smiling at Robyn, she makes me so happy and she doesn’t even see it.

Chris was taking too long so I came down and was not expecting my friends to be putting out a feast for me, that is so cute. Feeling Chris’ thumb lightly rub against my hip as I stood next to him while he sat on the stool “are you ok boo?” Jah asked “I’m ok” my voice broke again “ugh! No! Just I am ok, I just need time, you know. No, not the camera” hiding my face with my hands, I asked Dennis to film but now I regret it “I just, I am hurt. Nobody will understand how that feels if you haven’t been through what I have, like I know Chris has but he blocks it out but I’ve always wanted that, when I say that I mean my dad’ love and it’s hard because I get that barrier because he wants me for money, he sees me as money signs. And when I saw what he did, I was so angry. My daughter, like me ok, but my daughter. Oh it hurt me so much to see it, and now I’m mourning my dad. Like I am trying my best to handle my life already, all I wanted was peace. I wanted my family to be happy, like I am with them. Fenty is the first child, well grandchild and now her grandpa is not around because he sold her like he did me, I am just hurting so much. I will be ok” Chris wrapped his arms around my neck kissing the top of my head “he’s trash Robyn, there is nothing I can say about him. Who the hell talks about their daughter and how they look, that is disgusting” Mel said, nodding my head in agreement. Chris is being so loving towards me, I love it “that is it” I said to Dennis with my lower lip quivering, I am a wreck.

Being in Chris’ arms is making me feel so much better, he is just holding me and not letting go “I hate that you’re crying my baby but, whah we have done for you is cut up fruit. We got the chocolate melted, you two can just snuggle up and be freaky, joking but just relax. We got all the snacks here, candy, got the fries frying, chicken will be out. You both just enjoy your time” I cooed out, that is so sweet of them “I don’t appreciate you both at all, would be nice to just spend some time. With him, with myself without thinking oh no Fenty is going to cry and then we have to just forget the little time together” when I smell Chris I just sniff weed, I miss that so much “Chris, why don’t you show Jah the things Fenty may need or want” stepping back from him “you sure? I can wait here” walking off to go around the counter “yeah, then just come back. So they know what to do, explain her fake cry too. When she needs the attention” I said “what!? You tell me my niece be fake crying!? No way” I chuckled “girl, Fenty be putting on a show. When she wants some attention she will do the fake cry, it’s much more like a kitten crying but when she is hungry you will hear the change in her cry, she is so dramatic” Mel’ eyes widened “I don’t expect anything less from her, oh my god. She is so you, fake ass” Mel put the plate down “I am glad to see you are smiling a little, can I just hug you?” nodding my head with my arms open, this is why I wanted to come here “I love you so much, I am honestly hurting for you. I think this little time will make you feel better” I sighed out heavily, I just feel ok “what is it?” Mel asked.

Mel knows me “I just, maybe that article is right. I look depressed, dragged down. I have gained weight; my vagina still feels weird. I looked better pregnant then I do now. I can’t please Chris, he is literally asking me to do something but because I can’t bring myself to be sexy I can’t, he will end up just looking to others. I am not special Mel, I am worried. You think I am going crazy, but I am not. He loves me yes but how long will it last for? How long will he wait for me, a man that has sex near enough every day, he stopped because I was pregnant but come on, you know what men are like. Men are men, look how long it took me to even get a man that wanted me, I just feel like I need to do better” Mel cringed, she is cringing because I am right “men are men but I believe Chris won’t, I feel like Chris cares about you too much, he is more into wanting to kill someone for you. If he was in cali alone, then I suppose I would think it but he is here, you will feel it Robyn. I can’t make you feel it, he can’t make you feel it but only you can, and you are. This is what the outside don’t see, they don’t see you like this” I sighed out “shit, nobody wanted to wife me. Funny right, sexy doesn’t get you far. It gets you dick and then left; I just want to please Chris. I want him to be happy, he jokes around but those jokes mean something. I dropped my robe naked and watched his reaction” Mel’ eyes bulged out “what, oh girl. You are getting yourself so caught up in this. How are you feeling depressed, actually its common in women that have had babies for this to happen. What did he do?” I keep looking to see if Chris doesn’t overhear “he was shocked, he didn’t like it but not in that way, he felt I was not me and he put the robe on me, I cried. A lot is happening isn’t it?” Mel looked at me in sadness “there is, but I am here” Mel wiped the stray tear “just spend some time, block out the outside world, block out me and Jah entertaining Fenty or making her cry” smiling at her lightly “the blogs are horrible” I mumbled.

I just feel like maybe I am doing too much, with everything. I wasn’t ready for this moment, I wasn’t ready for my own dad to belittle me so it’s hit me badly but I will get over it “Jah, you had my back for Rorrey, we can do it” looking up at Chris, he looks annoyed “but Canada?” Jah said all wide eyed, he looks in a panic “what about Canada?” I asked, “oh did the Jew respond?” Mel said, what on earth is happening with these “did I miss something? I am confused” looking between everyone “you not seen Chris’ video?” shaking my head “clearly not, you have my phone, what did you do Chris?” I really didn’t question when he said video “head of Fenty corp doesn’t know, well it was Chris’ fault” Jah spat “give me my phone” I held my hand out “so the plan is Chris is going to beat Canada dry’ ass  in Canada” taking my phone from Mel “why is Drake even involved in this!?” I am confused on that, unlocking my phone “Chris called out people, just watch the video” tapping on Instagram “I will but Chris you are not doing that, just relax. He is a bitch” shaking my head “I think maybe Chris should, Drake mocks you” never did I think I would hear Jah condoning violence “but we are beyond that aren’t we, Drake will be hiding behind his security anyways” let me see this video he has done, I never questioned it.

I sighed out smiling, like I am not even angry “I like it, you looked so angry there. He’s a puppy really, so what did he say? Clearly he’s crying in the corner” locking my phone looking up at Chris “he said come and beat his ass then and said he will send the jet” I sniggered “sure, just send him a picture of us on our wedding day and be done with it Chris, it’s over. I am over it; I am telling you now what will hurt him is that so do it. But I will never hold you back if you hit my dad. And what you said about loving me more then you love yourself, it’s a weird feeling to have that” smiling at him “and this bitch is stood here saying she is worried that Chris would want another piece of pussy, she was doubting you” Mel snitched “what pussy?” Chris said confused “I just feel like I can’t fulfil your needs, I am just thinking stupid Chris. Clearly” waving him off “oh right, that doesn’t bother me like that. I seen it with my own eyes what you went through. I don’t expect sex for months and I accept that, because you went through so much Robyn, I was there” I doubt my husband a lot, I need to stop doing that “I can’t even text anyone back, my phone is going wild since this announcement. People are going crazy, like I can’t even message, just I saw Drake and had to answer back” that video has really made my night “let’s just leave our phones and go upstairs. Let’s pretend this doesn’t exist” I think I am done here, I just want to spend time with Chris alone.

Chris has honestly made me happier, like I was feeling the worst, but that video really made me happy “come on, let’s go” I want to go now, I sighed out smiling “aye, what are you looking at, on your phone?” Chris seems so engrossed in his phone, like he is not even hearing me “Amikka has called me four times in one go, she knows I am on my phone. She is calling again” of course she is “answer it, put it on speaker. Let us all hear what she got to say” Jah is right “yeah, let’s hear it” walking slowly to the counter “ok” Chris answered the call and then placed it on speakerphone “yo” he placed on the counter, Jah gasped rushing to Chris’ side. Oh she is crying, like sobbing crying “chile” Mel said lowly “what is it?” Chris said “is it Aeko, if not then I need to go” I know Chris wants to just put the phone down, that bitch is crying her whole heart out on this call “how could you, this is what you were doing over there? Marrying that bitch, I screwed up that lawyer shit. Fuck you, fuck her and fuck that child you had with her. You really married her? Because she is Rihanna, you married her to gain. I know you, you married her because you know you’re a fucking deadbeat loser, she is also a fucking loser to be with you. She will need to come personally to shut me up because I will be singing to the gods about her precious fucking husband, you fucking married her! I would let you do anything; I was willing to do that for you” I am not going to say anything “I think for your own good you need to sign it; I get you’re angry. I did play you on but I was never into you like that, you know this” hearing Chris’ son in the background “your dad is a psycho, he doesn’t want to speak to you” the oldest thing in the book is to use the child “you chose her over your son, you gave her marriage because you’re stuck Chris. You have no choice, because then you wouldn’t see that girl that looks nothing like you. There is a reason to this, you treated everyone like shit, you get what you deserve. The girl could be Drake child, she has been around” Jah gasped, Chris looked at me as I stared back at him “you can talk down on me but don’t speak on my wife like that, that goes for you and my mother” he said “I hope she has a job, Chris you don’t send her money anymore. That is our money, you will send your son care packages. You will directly pay for his school, medical bills. Until we go to court you ain’t getting a dime bitch and that is on god. You will be begging to sign those papers; you better hope those boutiques hire you. I think you’re getting above your pay grade, next time you mention my name, or even my husbands name every endorsement you are clutching at will be gone! I suggest you apologise to your son, hug him, kiss him goodnight before he ends up here and he’s playing happy families with me because his mother can’t afford to keep a child. Now if you don’t mind Chris needs to rub my feet, disconnect the call” Chris disconnected the call “oh my god! You hear how quiet she got; she is shook!” Mel spat, she got on my fucking nerves talking down on me, she won’t be again.

Jah is gasping for air “I am fighting! Oh my god, baby you about to adopt her child. Oh my god” I shrugged trying to not laugh “she will never call me out of my name again, I promise you. Nobody calls me a bitch unless Chris is dicking me down but even then he doesn’t so yeah, she got another thing coming. And I am being dead ass, you’re rubbing my feet” Chris looked up from his phone “what are you looking at?” he seems too engrossed in that “she is sending me pictures of Aeko crying” shaking my head “turn off your phone, stop entertaining her and Chris. You don’t send her money” he better not, I don’t give a fuck “I won’t, she disrespected my wife. But when you said care packaged what do you mean?” Chris is right, what did I mean “so…” I dragged out “things like clothes, food so you will ask her what she needs. Baby, online shopping exists yeah, you know where she lives but you will not send her money. You pay directly, fuck that bitch! And I am not saying your son will go cold, that is not it but she will not sit on our money until she can bow down and stop this shit. I hope that ain’t the case, I am not ready to be looking after anymore kids. I feel a little weird about meeting that one, I don’t know” walking off to get some water.

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Books

The Medium-Sized Book of Zim Scripts: Vol. 1: Pigs ’n’ Waffles by Eric Trueheart. What a ride. Love what Trueheart can do with a sentence, even if it often leaves me baffled and laughing nervously. It was great, not only to see how some of the episodes came about, but some of the jokes that never made it to screen or pitches that got nixed early on. There’s snippets of lore and ongoing correction for the Zim Wiki and randomness coming out the ears. This is definitely a surreal read and loads of fun. I waited until the physical copy was available because I’ll take a book in my hands over Kindle any day. No regrets. Here’s hoping he really will do a volume 2 (about the episodes that he CO-wrote, as opposed to this book about his solo ventures).

Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien. Alternately infuriating and genuinely challenging with occasional confirmations of what I thought. I’m not completely sure I can rest on everything these authors say. They are very helpful in that they point out the things that “go without saying” in Western culture that blind me to original intent in scripture. However, I’m not confident they’re free from alternate bias in their interpretations. Western culture is often belittled in comparative examples. While we have many flaws, I don’t think the authors gave a fair assessment of many traits they belittled. On the flipside, I also was made aware for the first time of the cost (the things we’ve lost or exchanged) FOR some of those strengths, and it did stagger me. I take this book with a grain of salt, but it has been very helpful in pointing out where I put on “Western blinders” in reading the Bible.

Unoffendable by Brant Hansen. Within the first couple of chapters I found myself (of course, of course) offended. However, I made myself listen. And. Yes. So much yes. So, this book, in a nutshell, postulates that while Christians are seen as one of the most easily offendable groups out there, we’re actually called from the get-go, by the One who we claim to serve, to be unoffendable. That when we have our natural reaction of anger, that we do not get to hold onto it even if the other person is insulting us, even if the other person is “wrong! wrong! wrong!” even if the other person is abrasive. Hansen claims that even what we know as “righteous anger” is not a right that WE have, it is only a right that God has, and that we’ve twisted things in order to justify holding onto anger even though it’s explicitly contradicted in scripture. My initial “Hey wait a minute!” had to do with the psych books that tell me all about how anger is an early warning sign that someone has violated your boundaries, but having listened to Hansen, I don’t think his idea contradicts that. He stresses that right action should always be taken, but without the impetus of anger. Justice should be pursued, but without anger. Boundaries enforced, but without anger. Without offense. This is a shorter book, but very interesting (he has a great sense of humor, very self-aware style), and I’ll have to mull over the things he’s said.

Movies

Tarzan (Disney animated). Been a very long time since I’ve seen this. The fluidity of animation and the stirring soundtrack are my favorite bits. I’m mesmerized by the jaguar and by Tarzan’s motions on screen, more snakelike than humanoid/feline.

Uprising. A miniseries depiction of how untrained Jews in the Warsaw ghetto held off the German army for a pretty long time. It’s been a while since I watched any WWII movies, it’s still hard for me. But this was excellent. And it leads into how I ended up watching:

The Eternal Jew. A sub-plot in “Uprising” followed the filming of Nazi propaganda film “The Eternal Jew”. In lengthy conversation with my husband, I mentioned I was curious because in all my time consuming media about the Holocaust I had never actually seen original Nazi propaganda (beyond brief glances in museums), which feels like a major lapse if you take the topic seriously. So he took the time to track down a copy with English subtitles and we roped in our housemate to watch it (if you’re having trouble finding it, check the Internet Archives historical section). The three of us turned watching this one hour film into a five hour viewing session interspersed with pauses for lengthy discussion. My recall-and-regurgitate functions do not work very well to cover all that we talked about, but it was a very good and productive discussion. A couple things I recall being taken aback by was that the rhetoric in this film was A) not “TOTALLY UTTERLY OBVIOUSLY FALSE” or as idiotically reasoned out of thin air as I thought it would be (in fact it was often based on some distorted understanding of actual Jewish culture) B) centered just as much on economics as race, if not MORE centered on economics, and C) echoes a lot of similar rhetoric from political organizations today that utterly and completely disavows the party that produced this film. Except this film came first. That… disturbs me.

Shows

24. I remember my high school geometry teacher being obsessed with this show, and several years later I watched a few episodes with my then-boyfriend here and there. I sat down to watch season one through with my now-husband and whoah. I have never enjoyed a show that produces this level of cortisol in me as much as I enjoy this show. I will definitely have to take breaks in between seasons but I want to watch them all now. I just have to make sure I have enough yarn to get through, because I stress-crochet to the max while watching. Pretty sure I work faster while watching this show. Expect more blankets from me. (by the end of season 1) There is not one single feel left unsquashed. Pray for my doomed soul, I have seven seasons to go.

Infinity Train season 3. aaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAAAAA everything HUUUUUUURTS WHY.

Anime

Love Live. Dropped after 3 eps. Not my cup of tea.

Fanfiction

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I needed to sink into fantasy and check out from reality for a while so I plunged into a re-read of the best Harry Potter fanfiction I’ve ever read. A story that, yes, I find better than canon in pretty much every regard. I blew through it in about two weeks, now I need to find something else to sink into for a while, I think. Or maybe this mood merits a library haul. And now I want to check out the other rational writings of the site this author hails from, lesswrong.com, and see if I can learn the methods of rationality.

[turdblossommm]

Marry Me {10}

Summary: Bucky and the reader are hopelessly in love with their best friends who are getting married, where the pair first meet. Will there friendship turn into something more or will it crash and burn?

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

A/N: heeellloooo back at it again with another part

part nine // masterlist 

“I have yet to go upstate, this is exciting” You smiled as Bucky drove out of the city

“Yeah my Ma wanted to get out of the city once me and my sisters were gone” The side of the roads were covered in a blanket of snow, that had to be your favorite part of New York. The snow here was much more magical than the snow you saw at home

“Just to remind you, please don’t get offended when my dad asks why you don’t celebrate Christmas”

“I will pretend to believe in the New Testament for your family” You smiled and Bucky watched you look out the window. You had been a little off since your fight with Clint, who you also haven’t made up with.

Bucky was also nervous about his family, they were very white collar people while your family was blue collar. He didn’t want anyone to offend you and it also doesn’t help that his mother always wanted him to end up with Natasha. She sounded happy that he’d be bring a plus one but he was nervous for when they see you.

He was also pretty sure Clint and Natasha would be there because her parents normally come to the Christmas party. Bucky was worried that the whole night would be a disaster between your feud with Clint right now. Bucky pulled up to the gate and watched your jaw drop as he punched the code into the gate

“You live here?” You asked 

“My parents do” Bucky shrugged and grabbed the over night bags from the backseat and pulled you along the walk way to the house. He pushed the door open and allowed you to walk in the mansion first. You started in awe at the chandelier in the entry way that would probably never lasted at the ranch. Suddenly you almost felt embarrassed of your house and letting Bucky see your family.

“You okay?” Bucky asked and you nodded and followed him through the house 

“Ma?” Bucky yelled and you saw a women walk into the massive kitchen you couldn’t stop staring at

“James” He embraced Bucky and you almost wished you did your hair instead of throwing a beanie on your head and maybe put a little makeup instead of the bare face “And you must me Y/N” She hugged and you slowly wrapped your arms around her

“It’s nice to meet you Mrs. Barnes” She pulled back

“Please call me Winny” You nodded and she turned to Bucky “You’re room is all cleaned and everything” She smiled and Bucky led you up the stairs. His room was the size of your apartment you had during college, it was a small studio apartment, making his room huge.

“There’s so much room for activities” You winked and Bucky chuckled as he rested his hands on your hips and left a trail of kisses along your neck sending shivers down your spine. You hummed in pleasure driving Bucky crazy and causing his pants to tighten

“You can swap spit later” You jumped away from Bucky as he groaned

“Go away Becca” He turned and glared at his sister

“I’m Becca” The second sister said

“I’m Rachel” The first one sassed

“I’m sorry Rachel” Bucky sarcastically apologized to the first sister

“I’m only joking I am Becca” She smiled and both walked out of the room

“They’re a nightmare” He grumbled 

“James” He groaned as his mother called him and you giggled

“You think this is funny?” You nodded

“I think it’s hilarious James” You laughed and walked out of the room, Bucky trailing behind you. He walked into the kitchen where the rest of his family was sitting, he introduced you to his sister and dad. Bucky smiled and look around the kitchen and his eyes landed on the ham sitting next to the stove

“Are we just having ham for dinner?” Bucky asked 

“Of course it’s the Christmas ham” George chuckled and you grabbed Bucky’s hand and whispered

“Don’t worry about it I can eat other things” Bucky shook his head and turned to his mom who reentered the kitchen, Winny saw Bucky’s eyes on the ham and your pleading eyes towards him whispering for him to stop. Winny pulled the tiny beef Wellington she had made and even found a Rabi to bless it for you. You turned to Winny when she placed a hand on your should

“I had a beef Wellington made and it’s kosher” You gave her a weak smile

“Thank you, you really didn’t have to go through all the trouble”

“Nonsense” She waved you off “James would’ve had my head” She clapped her hands “Now everyone go get ready guest will be here soon” You climbed the stairs after Bucky who had Rachel and Rebecca yelling at him to move it along. Once you got in the room you looked at Bucky and let out a laugh

“I really thought you were going to lose it over ham” He smiled

“Hey I’m making sure you being a good Jew” You laughed even hard

“Please I’m a total Jew for Jesus, he’s my number one Heb” You threw your head back and let out a loud laugh as Bucky joined you. He couldn’t stop looking at you, hat hair and all without a trace of make up. Your beauty surprises him more and more everyday.

While Bucky showered in the connecting bathroom you began to curl your hair that you rarely wore down, it was easier to keep in a bun in the lab. You stole glances at Bucky’s bare backside from the mirror

“Take a picture next time” He smirked as he died his hair with a towel and leaned against the counter

“Maybe I will” You wink and he grabbed you by the waist and carried you back to the bedroom and tossed you on the bed “We don’t have time” You giggled and his kissed down your neck and he growled that warmed your insides

“If you wait until tonight I’ll do that thing you like” You whispered in his ear and he perked up

“You promise?”

“Cross my heart” You smirked

“Fine” He pulled you off the bed and you walked back into the bathroom swaying your hips and he groaned “Put some pants on” You laughed as you started to prime your face. Once your simple make up was done you pulled your dress out of your dry-cleaning bag. It was a black tea length dress with a lace bodice and a drop waist, accenting all your best features

“Buck zip me please” Bucky enter the bathroom while trying to fix his cuff links and stopped when he saw you. He’s never seen you this way before

“Doll” You felt your cheeks warm as you looked at him through the mirror. His fingers left what felt like scorch marks as he zipped the dress. You smiled as he pressed a kiss to your shoulder and you felt yourself fall. ‘Screw the agreement tongiht’ you liked Bucky and you wanted to pretend it was real for a little longer.

Bucky couldn’t take his eyes off you as he led you down the stairs with your hand on his arm. Winny had watched her son pine over the same women for years, but he had never looked at her they way he looked at you tonight. Winny embraced you for the second time 

“You look beautiful”

“Thank you” You smiled “You look wonderful” Winny kissed her son’s cheek as you went to talk to George who had questions about your religion

“She’s the one” Winny whispered and Bucky turned to look at you, watching you try to explain Passover to his father

“She is isn’t she?” Bucky muttered as his mother gave him a soft nod and he went and saved you from his father. He led you around the room, he marveled at how you worked the room and charmed all his relatives and family friends

“James” Bucky turned to Natasha’s parents “Mr. and Mrs. Romanoff” Bucky shook her dad’s hand and kissed her mom’s cheek “This is Y/N” You shook their hands as they smiled at you

“How did you two meet?” Mrs. Romanoff asked

“Actully at Clint and Nat’s wedding” Bucky smiled

“Oh I didn’t see you there” Mr. Romanoff turned to you

“Yes I was running a little, I was stuck in the lab” You gave them your best fake smile

“Lab? Are you a doctor?” He asked

“Techniqually, I have a doctorate but in mathematics but I’m a chemical engineer” You smiled and he raised his eyesbrows

“Got yourself a smart one James” Bucky nodded

“Yes I did” He smiled down at you

“It was good to see you James” Mrs. Romanoff grabbed his hand and they moved on and you let out a breath you were holding and Bucky let out a laugh and you swatted his arm

“I could see you sweating bullets”

“I don’t know why I was so nervous” You laughed

“Want get fresh air, see the garden?” You nodded and grabbed his hand as he led you out to the garden. He wrapped his jacket around you as he saw a chill crawl up your spine.

“Thanks” You pulled the jacket tighter around you

“I know you don’t celebrate Christmas but I got you something” He reached into his pants and you stopped him

“I got you something too” You smiled “After dinner?” He nodded and led you through the maze of would be flowers. You looked up to the stars and lost yourself in the sky. Bucky smiled down at you

“Thank you for coming” You shot him a quick smile at quickened his heart rate

“Course” You went back to the sky

“Look Y/N I have to tell you-“

“Dinner’s ready you two” Winny called from the deck and you quickly walked back into the house with Bucky behind you. Once inside you handed him his jacket back and turned to face to face with Clint and Nat

“James, Y/N I didn’t know you were here” Natasha embraced you and Bucky while Clint gave you a half hug and crushed Bucky’s hand. You sat at the table in between Rebecca and Bucky with Clint and Natasha across from you. Dinner was filled with polite conversations, Clint smirked as the ham was placed in front of you and you smirked back when Winny gave you some of the beef Wellington

“How you doing?” Bucky looked down at you

“This is so fancy and I don’t know which fork to kill myself with” You whispered and Bucky tired to keep his laugh in

“Y/N where did you study again?” Winny asked half way through dinner and Natasha perked up, she didn’t know very much about you, Clint never wanted to talk about you.

“Columbia, my brother actually just signed a letter of intent to Columbia as well and with be attending in the fall” You smiled 

“Did you parents study their too?” She asked and you shook your head

“My parents didn’t go to college” You could feel eyes on you and Bucky’s hand on your thigh rubbing calming circles with his thumb

“Well it’s not for everyone right Rachel?” Winny smiled  and Rachel nodded

“I’m not much for school”

“What do your parents do again Y/N?” You turned to Clint who had a smirk on his face, knowing damn well what your parents did. You cleared your throat and Bucky squeezed your thigh

“My mom owns a bakery and my dad is a third generation cattle farmer” Clint went back to his food with a satisfied smirk on his face. You felt like everyone was looking at you like you’re less than them, like they knew this is the first time you’ve had to figure out with fork is the salad for and which is the one for dinner. You wanted this dinner done before Clint could make you look like a bigger fool. Once dinner was done and all the dishes were cleared you were the first one up and out of the dining room.

Taglist: @hailqueenconquer​ @2ptonpt​ @sebbbystaaan​

[dailyaudiobible]

12/08/2020 DAB Transcript

Hosea 10:1-14:9, Jude 1:1-25, Psalms 127:1-5, Proverbs 29:15-17

Today is the 8th day of December welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is a joy and an honor to be here with you today as we do what we do every day, take the next step forward together in the Scriptures as we continue our journey toward the end of the year. And I've been mentioning things are gonna speed up because we’re moving to use shorter texts. Today is no different. We will conclude the book of Hosea today in the Old Testament, and then when we get to the New Testament, we will read in its entirety the letter of Jude and we’ll talk about that when we get there. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Hosea chapters 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 today.

Introduction to the book of Jude:

Okay, now that we are at our New Testament portion for the day, as I mentioned at the beginning, we’re gonna read the entire letter of Jude, which is pretty short, 25 versus. And it wasn't too long ago that we were reading first and second Peter and we may notice as scholars have noticed that second Peter and Jude are fairly similar. And it…it's thought that second Peter is using Jude as a source because of the similarities. It’s not unlike the synoptic Gospels sharing material and stories. So, if this is a true theory, then Jude's letter would then predate second Peter and that would put the letter somewhere maybe in the mid-60s A.D. And that's not the case if the similarities are just like coincidental. Then the letter could go all the way to somewhere near the end of Jude's life and that would prop probably be somewhere around 80 A.D. And that's fascinating and interesting and certainly trying to place these letters and these texts in…in their proper place historically, that's definitely a discipline worth achieving, but there’s probably a more important question, at least for us who are about to read this. Who is Jude? Who is this person? And that has been a question that has been raised throughout the history of the church. It's a question that continues to be examined among scholars to this day. If we move toward what has been the consensus then the majority of traditional scholars agree that the Jew who wrote this letter was the brother of James and the brother of Jesus, which would most definitely give the letter credibility and be a valid explanation for why it was preserved, but we need to remember like James, Jude, the brother of Jesus didn't believe, like he wasn't an apostle. He didn't follow along under Jesus teachings. Even though they were brothers he didn’t believe in Jesus during his ministry. But with a short letter like this there are still some mysteries like, who was this supposed to be read by? Who is this writing to in the first place? Jude says he is writing to all who have been called by God the Father who loves you and keeps you safe in the care of Jesus Christ. So, like that's everybody who believes ever. And, so, we can include ourselves as recipients of this letter, but if the similarities between second Peter and Jude are true, then it's than likely that Jude was writing to the same people, possibly that Peter was writing to, which would be the displaced believers who were fleeing persecution and marginalization, both because of their faith in Jesus, but also those who had been dispersed into exile in generations past. Oddly, it looks like Jude was wanting to send these people an entirely different letter. I mean, he says that. We’ll see that in a minute. But an issue has arisen and he…he writes to address it. And the issue was this false teaching about grace. And what Jude is addressing isn't something that hasn't been addressed in other letters. Basically, that the teaching about grace is that you receive it as a gift. You haven't merited it right. It's unmerited favor that is bestowed upon you by God. And that has always been a core understanding of our Christian faith, right? You can't earn it, it's a gift, it's grace. So, when we’re reading through the letters like James and the letters of Peter and letters of John we see there's an understanding that if you receive this gift, it should transform you and it should transform the way you live your life. And your faith then should be evident in the things that you do. What Jude is addressing here is kind of the opposite of that spectrum, which is basically an understanding that if this grace has been bestowed upon me freely and there is nothing that I can do to ever live into it or live up to it are earn and it's given to me as a gift and nobody can take it away from me then I can do whatever I want with whoever I want whenever I want to do it because sin isn’t a category of my life anymore. God has taken it away so now I can do whatever I want. And Jude is forcefully opposing this concept. Okay, there’s one more thing to note about Jude and it's really not about the text or who Jude was, or when this was or anything like that, it's where it lies in the New Testament. We’re gonna read this entire letter of Jude and this is kind of the end of the letters. And, so, when we conclude our reading today then and…and check it off in the app then we will see, we have concluded another portion of the Bible, the general letters and we will get the general letters badge, which is cool. But that's where we are. We have one more text in the New Testament that will take us to the end of the year and that is a book known as Revelation. And there are letters actually contained within the book of Revelation from Jesus and we’ll read those. But as a category we’re moving into apocalyptic literature and prophecy. And, so, as we read through and conclude Jude today, we will be making the final turn into the final book in the New Testament that will…will carry us forward. So, let's dive in and read in its entirety the letter of Jude.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word. And as we have spoken out loud so many times, we are grateful for the way that it transforms the way we think about things. And when we think about things differently, when we change our minds about things then we realize that we have done exactly what you have invited us into, repentance. Repentance is changing our minds and moving in another direction. And your word continually pulls us forward into all truth and we are grateful for that, deeply, deeply grateful for that. And, so, as we continue through these final weeks of this year and as the pace increases in our lives, but the pace increases in the Bible, we ask for attentiveness for focus for openness. Sometimes when things get so busy it's like we can’t handle another thing and so we start to shut down. And this is one place that we need to remain open, one place that is set aside as a place in community to work through the Scriptures certainly, but as a place that is a constant, an oasis, a place that we can go to to reorient ourselves from the chaos of life. And, so, help us to keep this day by day step-by-step rhythm as we move into the final weeks of the year we pray. In the mighty name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website, it’s where you find out what's going on around here.

So, a couple things Christmas related. Every year we have an annual Christmas party together. It's virtual. It's beautiful, it's moving. I have never attended one of these little virtual parties that…that I don't end up in tears just hearing everybody. And, so, now is the time. And, so, you are invited to call in your holiday greetings to the community that you've been spending this year with. And you do that by using the prayer line or the Hotline in the app. So, this is a rare thing. Normally the rule is just one call…one call a day, not multiple stacks calls, but this is one time where you can call and then call back if you have a prayer request. The only rule about this really is do not combine a prayer request with a holiday greeting in the same call or that…it will get nowhere. So, if you have a prayer request, certainly call it in and or use the Hotline and send it in. And if you have a holiday greeting then do the same but just don't combine them. And we’ll do this for a week. We’ll collect these for a week and compile them together and then Jill and I normally get together and have a conversation about the year, the year that we’re leaving and about our sense of the year that we’re going into next year and just talk a little bit about that. And then we hear from each other, all of the greetings from all over the world and we are just immediately reminded of this thing that we got to be a part of, this beautiful thing called the Daily Audio Bible around the Global Campfire. So, today's the day we start. You can call in your holiday greetings, like I said, using the telephone 877-942-4253, or using the Hotline button in the app. And I am particularly looking forward to our Christmas gathering this year and it always brings joy, always. And joy…you know we’ve had to contend for joy this year, haven't we? So, just to have this dumped into our lap, just as we collectively come together and celebrate the wonder of the Christmas season is beautiful. So, send in your holiday greetings for the next week and we’ll be working to put it together.

And then the other thing is, it's obviously Christmas time. And, so, I've been talking about the Daily Audio Bible Shop as an option, as a place to go and shop and look around. You may find some really wonderful things, unique things to give away. You also might find some stuff that you…you want, to remind you of the journey that you’ve been on. So, we have journals. We have developed a journal that…well…it's my daily Journal. So, we’ve developed these journals. We have wonderful things to write with, resources to take the journey deeper, video wise or…or in book form. The Global Campfire line, just all kinds of stuff. So, check it out in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. If you spend $40 or more in the Shop, we will send along with your order the Daily Audio Bible ornament for 2020 with our words for the year which were “vision” and “settle”. And, so, take advantage of that.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible here in the waning days of the year, I cannot possibly thank you enough. I've tried…I’ve tried all the vocabulary words that mean grateful and that mean awe and that mean wonder and that mean surprise. And all those things are true on a daily basis. Isn’t it surprising and shocking that we live in a time that we could get together like this and even taken for granted? That we could be all over the world working our way day by day step-by-step through the Bible and that we would know each other by voice, that we would know each other by heart and that…that we live in a time that we could even take that for granted? It's amazing. But the only reason it exists is that it exists because we’re community and we’re in it together. And, so, if life has been brought into your life this year or if light has shown and shined into the darkness, if it's just been an oasis, a place to go in the middle of very uncertain chaos then thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or holiday greeting or an encouragement you can hit the hot line button in the app, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi, DABbers it is December 3rd and I wanted to call in because of two things. First of all, to thank you all over the last several weeks. Probably since the end of October I have been putting on the Prayer Wall and on Facebook and had called in about my dad who was ill and we didn’t know if you really understood salvation and we were praying he would make it to his 95th birthday which is Monday. And he did and was surrounded by family and it was beautiful. And he went to be with the Lord last evening, December 2nd. And I just wanted to thank you all for your prayers. And I also wanted to take time to let Brian know how meaningful today’s reading was of first John and specifically his message afterward and the application of it. It was so special to me and it’s what we need to hear for such a time as this. So, thank you DABbers and God bless you and thanks for your prayers for my dad. God was good, is good, and he gave us that hope that we wanted. Thank you. God bless.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible it’s Laura Lee in Boynton Beach. It’s 5 AM on December 4th. Getting ready for work and feasting on the word of God in the 16th year of feasting on the word of God. Thank you, Lord for the voices of the Hardin family who have fed us faithfully. I want to just tell you how thankful and grateful I am for all of you. I love you all. From the very beginning I’ve heard the people join the family and grow and rejoice and weep and praise and sing. And I had such a wonderful Thanksgiving in Savannah going back to the holy ground, the altar which I was saved on and the people who were part of that salvation. And I want to welcome some new listeners who are ending the year right so they might start the year right. So, David Browning invited his grandchildren Bahavia and Kyle. Welcome Bahavia and Kyle. I invited Berena from Savannah and she is listening and double DABbing already. And iErashum is another woman I work with, but she is a new believer, my little girl and she is listening as well. She loves China. So, help us feast on your word Lord. I thank you for the new believe …

Hey Daily Audio Bible family this is John from Bethlehem Pennsylvania I hope you’re you doing great today. It is the 4th December, welcome to the last…the last few days of the year. What an amazing year it’s been. Harold, I heard your prayer today on the prayer line for your son Jonathan who had been admitted to the hospital. You’d mentioned that he’s diabetic and they took a look at his foot and the MRI showed that they may have to amputate. I just want you to know that yes, I am praying for you, and I’m praying for your son for healthiness for courage for strength for full and for God’s comfort, that he shows up in a real way for him. Sky and Rebecca or SkyBecca, team SkyBecca, with a van named rhino. That’s so cool. Man you guys are amazing. And, yeah, we are tent dwellers here aren’t we? Thank you so much for your call. You could hear your voice, you know, break a little bit when…when you are talking about how your luster possessions and that you’re moving and you’re moving away from the family but you’re bringing light life and hope into people in the world. And, so, God bless you guys as you travel. And, yeah, I’m thinking about you and praying for you as you move on and praying for your health and well-being. And God’s Smile, kiss kiss everybody…you are just a hoot. I love you and man the work that you’re doing in Maria’s life. Man, how God uses us for His glory. You’re bringing Maria closer and closer to Jesus. And, you know, the impact that that’s gonna have on the world and on the kingdom of God. You truly are loving, and I just thank you so much for setting such a great example. Well…I love you family. I’m gonna go. My time’s running out. And know that you’re being thought of and loved. Brian, I love you buddy. Talk to you soon. Bye.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is Mac from Pennsylvania and my heart was moved for Harold from St. Louis who called in today about his son Jonathan. I’m a father too and I faced some health issues with my…with my son, both of my sons actually from time to time but from a father to a father Harold I am praying for your son Jonathan, that the Lord will save his foot and ultimately __ him of the issues he’s facing with his diabetes. And I’m just praying for him. I’ll be praying for him throughout the day today whenever I have time and whenever I can think about it. And just from a father to a father from our father Harold I’m praying for your son for you for strength.

Hello DABer’s my name is Stefon I’m from Sydney Australia it is the 4th of December and I just want to say I’ve been listening for quite some time. And Brian and Jill really thank you so much for putting together this program here. My wife and I have come almost to the end point where we’ve never read the whole Bible but because of this program we’ve been able to do that. So, yes we…we run sometimes behind. I think at one point I was almost a month and ½ behind but little bit by little bit, you know. Playing em’ one after another sometimes it connects a story really well and you see a greater picture. But I just want to say thank you so much and I’m coming to find that listening to everyone’s prayers prayer requests and how much we care for one another as really made me feel like I really am part of a Global Campfire. So, it’s hot and sunny outside at the moment in Sydney. and, yeah, there’s so many souls. We’re such a multiculturally society and city over here down under. So, just pray everyone that the word continues to spread. We’re so blessed that we don’t have to be on a mission to see other countries. They’re all here in this one place. How amazing is our God that he’s brought the whole world to a place to like Island like Australia? So, hello everyone and thanks for listening to this…this request. God bless. Bye.

[dobrikdeadass]

views

word count: 1705

description: david talks about addie on the podcast for the first time.

October 2019

“Welcome back to Views. I’m David, I’m 23. That’s Jason. He’s 46.” This was the first time David had avoided stumbling over his age since his birthday months ago and he was excited. “Wait, Jace, that was so smooth.”

“David if we’re gonna talk about smoothness we need to talk about that stunt you pulled with the Monday video.”        

He let out a giggle. “Wasn’t it the best video?”       

“It was really fucking cute dude. Are we gonna talk about her at all or are we just gonna leave the listeners hanging for a little longer?”

“Nah, man. I’ve had to hide her for so long. I’m so excited to talk about her you have no idea.” David had a huge smile on his face. None of the podcast listeners could see it—the boys stopped recording video with the podcast months ago. But he was sure the happiness shone through in his voice.

“Alright then dude, let’s do this. I guess you should tell people her name, right?”

David let out his signature laugh and fell back into the couch. “Oh yeah, I totally forgot I didn’t put her name in the video. Okay, okay. Her name is Addie, which is short for Adaline and she’s gonna kill me for telling everyone her full name but oh well. She is absolutely incredible. So smart and funny and a thousand percent out of my league.”

“The fact that she is still with you is mind-blowing,” Jason said, agreeing with David. When he’d met her for the first time he actually thought it was a prank.

“No dude, one of the reasons I wanted to keep our relationship private at the start is that I was convinced she was gonna realize how much better she is than me and end it.” Jason laughed and nodded his head in agreement. “No, but seriously she is incredible. I fall more in love with her every day.”

“Okay, lover boy. I don’t think the listeners want to hear you be mushy-gooshy all podcast. Tell us some more serious stuff about her, about your relationship. What does she do, how’d you guys meet, why now? Blah, blah, blah.” Jason knew everything already, but it would take a little goading for David to do more than say how much he loved his girlfriend.

“Fuck you, Jace. Let me be in looove.”

“Alright guys, so that’s all the time we have for this episode of Views—”  

David laughs again, in a great mood. “Uhm, no seriously. Okay, so we met when I started talking to Nickelodeon about America’s Most Musical Family. She’s a lawyer. Well, she is now. At the time she was interning for them, so she was assisting with all the contract negotiations and stuff like that. But now she’s a fully graduated lawyer. There was a clip of her graduating in the video actually. And she took her big test to actually get licensed so she’s done studying and is going to work every day.”

“What’s she doing now?”

“She got a job clerking…is that what it’s called? I should know this, holy shit. We’ve talked about it so much.”

Jason laughed at David’s slight panic. “Yeah, dude I think you’re right. That sounds familiar.” 

“Anyway, she’s clerking for a fancy judge in LA. I’m not sure if that’s the right word but I am sure this job is like. One of the hardest ones to get. Like she could work on the Supreme Court or something like that after this job, she’s that fucking smart.”

“Wait really, dude? I didn’t know that. Is that something she’s interested in?” Jason asked, genuinely curious.

“I’m not sure, Jace. She talks about the Supreme Court like it’s her dream job, but you know how humble she is. I don’t think she would actually think there’s a chance for it until, like, she started the job. Apparently like only ten people can clerk there a year or something crazy small. But maybe. How fucking cool would that be? Anyway. We’re just living in the moment now. She’s super nervous about her job because she has super bad imposter syndrome but I know she’s killing it. And it’s so nice to come home and have her like actually be here and talking to me and not just be here but studying.”

“So, you said home. I think you need to explain that one dude.”

“Oh shit, well, yeah. We moved in together officially after she graduated. We’d been dating for a year and it just felt right and it’s so great to be able to go to bed with her every night. That’s why we finally decided to tell people, though. Her stuff is here now, and it was getting hard to hide it when we were filming. Like, she’s Jewish right, so she put up these… uhm… what’re they called Jace?”

“Mezuzahs.”

“Yeah, she put mezuzahs up on the door frames, which, like, I guess is just like a thing you’re supposed to put up when you’re Jewish…”

“Well, when you’re a good Jew,” Jason said with a laugh. “I have no mezuzahs up in my house.”

David laughed too. “Yeah, you and Josh did not prepare me for this. I thought I knew what was up with, like, Hanukkah and stuff but she’s so much more religious than you guys.” 

“Yes, Addie is better than I am, we get it.” David dove back into the couch with laughter.

“Anyway, people started to see the mezuzahs in some of the vlogs and people got really confused trying to figure out what they were, and then like in the fridge people noticed there was more than just drinks because Addie is a great cook and feeds me which is awesome. So, all of that was getting hard to hide. And her too, now that she’s here full time.” David laughed. He was so happy to have this all off his chest and to be able to be open about his whole life again.

“So we just decided to tell everyone so it was on our terms. She’s able to control what people see of her now and stuff which makes her feel better about the whole thing. We don’t want to be, like, super public like I was with Liza or anything. But it’s nice to not have to hide her.”

Jason hummed in agreement. “So you’re not gonna have her in the videos or anything?”

“No, I’m sure we’ll film, like, a Q&A at some point and I’m sure she’ll be in the videos here and there but her job is, like, real. And requires confidentiality. Like, I don’t think future firms want to see her getting drunk at a party. And she’s not the kind of person who would want to be all over social media anyway. I don’t think it would be fair to her to be crazy public and honestly, I don’t think I want to be that public in a relationship again.”

“David Dobrik growing up? Who would have thought,” Jason said.

“Fuck you dude,” David said through laughter.

“No, seriously dude, I’m proud of you. She’s great and you’re great together. And being with her has put you on more of a schedule.” They were both laughing now. “For anyone wondering, we are recording this podcast at three p.m. because David has finally learned how to schedule his time because Addie works a nine-to-five office job and David—”

“Well, yeah so when we first started dating and she was in school I could still kinda get away with my fucked up schedule but as she’s started working I realized if I want to, like, talk to her ever or, you know, cuddle with her or something, I can’t be editing when she’s awake and home. I mean there are sometimes when I’m super behind on an edit when my other priorities get in the way so I’ll, like, put the computer away when she gets home and just be with her until she goes to bed. Like, last night I did that and I finally finished the edit at like seven when she was waking up and I don’t normally wake up with her but it was so cool to just watch her get ready and stuff. Like the way she pulls on a pencil skirt is just so mesmerizing to me. And then she gave me a kiss before she left. Like it’s great to just be able to be in sync with her because there were a few months where I was a shitty boyfriend to her with my editing schedule and I felt so terrible about it. So now I’m trying to be good about it so that I can actually see my girlfriend, y’know.”

“Dude, I’m not complaining. I’m so happy that you’re usually asleep at three a.m. like a normal person. And the fact that you didn’t sleep until three p.m. today even though you got to bed super late is also a vast improvement.” 

David laughed again.

“Alright, before we cut to an ad, tell me your favorite Addie story.”

“Ooh, my favorite Addie story. Hmm, the first one that comes to mind is my twenty-second birthday, we had kind of been flirting after my meetings at Nickelodeon, but she didn’t want to actually go on a date with me because she thought that was super unprofessional. But I think it was pretty obvious that we both were interested in each other. So, when I came into my first meeting after my birthday she told me she had something for me and I followed her to her desk and she had baked me twenty-two little camera cookies. Like, you could tell she would do something like that for anyone in her life—and I’ve seen her do that kind of stuff since we started dating—but for her to think about my birthday, and spend time to make these for me, and personalize them to look like my camera. I don’t know. It’s just so her, y’know?” David was smiling. He hadn’t stopped all podcast and Jason was sure the rest of their conversation would be about Addie.

[spanishskulduggery]

What are some cultural differences you (or your follwers) have discovered while studying spanish?? I’m curious, i’m from the US & recently talking to my latina cousin I realised that when she says she is going clubbing she’s talking about going out after 2am and coming back at like 8am!!! Which is mental to me, i need my sleep lol. So now i feel like there are so many things we do different & i’m so eager to find out more 😂

Is this a culture thing or a language-y thing. Either way, in no particular order:

- Weddings are a big one. Latin American weddings are a BIG thing and go on at least 24 hours pretty much.

- Another I’ve noticed is that Spanish uses a lot of nicknames that sound really demeaning if you used them literally in English. Like in a lot of countries, you could just be known as el gordo/la gorda if you’re fat, or judío/judía “Jewish” if you’re Jewish. In English, if you went around calling someone “Jew” it would make you sound like a Nazi, and if you just referred to someone as “fat” without any context you would sound like a monster. English is very PC at times and Spanish sounds very rude when translated literally. [I definitely took that one from Joanna rants but I knew someone who went by Flaco growing up]

- I’ve also found out that sometimes these nicknames just last for life? Like I don’t know where I saw it but someone had been hearing their relative’s nickname all their life and thought it was their actual name.

- Last names are very unique. I had no idea that so many Spanish-speaking countries had women keeping their own last names even when married.

- Names in general. I didn’t realize that so many people seemed to have multiple first names. I have met people in the US named like “Ann Marie” or “Mary Margaret” but it wasn’t as common as Spanish.

- Also English tends to assume the last name you mention is your last name, while Spanish tends to have the first last name mentioned be the father’s surname and is the one you’d use most often. Or like… if your name was Miguel Díaz Vega or something, in English-speaking culture you’d call him “Mr. Vega”. In Spanish-speaking culture, you’d say “Mr. Díaz”.

- I didn’t realize that for a time Franco made it so you had to give a child a Christian name in Spain.

- That Spain and Latin America don’t always get along, which I did sort of know but I thought it was like how the US and the UK don’t always get along but it’s a lot more intense. 

- Also, not all of Spain gets along with all of Spain. And all of the autonomous communities have kind of a reputation among each other. It’s kind of like how in the US everyone thinks of California as one way. Except in Spain it’s a little more serious and contentious at times.

- And some Latin American countries are like… openly hostile about other Latin American countries, which again, the US and Canada are neighbors and generally both speak English but we’ve got stereotypes and not seething hatred. Not to say all Latin American countries hate all other Latin American countries, but I knew someone who nearly got disowned because they were dating a Colombian person.

- That “racism” in the US is almost always black or white, literally. In Latin America most racism comes out as “colorism”. In the US and a lot of English-speaking places, people think of anyone from Latin America being a person of color. In Latin America, everyone realizes that some people have European ancestry, some people have African ancestry, some people have indigenous ancestry, some people have Asian ancestry, and some people are any combination therein.

Meaning that you could be “white” by US standards like a blonde and blue-eyed person who just happens to be Mexican or Puerto Rican, but the US assumes outright that you’re a person of color.

But in Latin American society, the colorism comes out in that everyone seems to understand that most people are mixed in some way, but there’s preferential treatment or more representation for people of lighter skin tones. This comes out especially in families where some family members might just not associate with other branches of the family or ignore they exist. And that there are all kinds of words in Spanish (different words in different countries at that) for people who are light skinned or people who are darker, or people who are light skinned who act like they’re darker and vice versa.

- Also there are weird superstitions and things that are kind of vaguely racist by US standards. Like in some countries if you see a black person it’s customary to pinch someone you’re with for good luck.

- In some places you’re supposed to pinch a redhead when you see them for good luck which is less racist but more invasive I guess?

- People are also very relaxed about certain words or traditions that I as an American have some politically correct visceral reactions to. Like in Spain it’s not that uncommon to see someone in blackface when it’s Three Kings Day, or how in the US it’s no longer considered acceptable to say “gypsy” you’re supposed to say Roma or Romani, but in Spanish gitano/a is not seen as anything that bad except for when it is

- Also Three Kings Day is a thing and very important. I mean we do have the Epiphany in the US but unless you’re religious, it means nothing for you. On Three Kings Day, it’s kind of like Christmas because you get gifts and you leave out grass or food for the camels.

- I was not prepared for Pascua being used for both Christmas [also Navidad] and Easter by the way. That’s real difficult for me.

- You also kiss your elder family member’s hands in some places. I’m not totally sure if it’s like la bendición exactly, but in some countries it’s a sign of respect or how you ask for someone’s blessing

- “Heal, heal, frog’s tail/ass, if you don’t heal today, you’ll heal tomorrow” when someone - especially a little kid - gets hurt or sick. It’s kind of like “kissing a boo boo to make it better” except it is literally phrased like a magical spell

- In most places, the idea of “Friday the 13th” is “Tuesday the 13th” in Spanish countries. Unless you literally mean a date, “Tuesday the 13th” is the unlucky day, which kind of makes me think of Ides of March I dunno

- Being told not to walk around barefoot because your ovaries will freeze

- Gross, but if you’re a girl being told to “serve” your male relatives like your cousin or your brother; sírvele 

- Sometimes there are terms of endearment that translate very badly in English. I could never call someone mi gordito/a or mi negro/a as a term of endearment, regardless of body type and regardless of skin color and it translates as “sweetie” or “dear”. I would never feel comfortable saying those words to anyone at anytime for any reason because it took me years to get over feeling weird about negro/a being “black”

- Trying to figure out whether to use a comma or a period when talking about thousands because some people will do 100,000 and some people will do 100.000 and then SOME people will just do 100 000 

- It’s not a “party” if there isn’t dancing. If you’re just standing around talking, it feels like a funeral. You at least need a space where people can dance if it’s a party.

- Las Mañanitas being the Mexican Happy Birthday song and if you listen to it literally you’re just like “why are we talking about dawn so much??”

- “suburbs” in the US are nice places where people live who work in a big city, they’re like nice slightly rural communities and they’re the dream of the middle class. A suburbio in Latin America is a “shanty town” or a “slum” usually, like makeshift houses built out of sheets of metal and bits of wood. 

- “Middle class” in general just means something completely different for the US than it does for Europe and parts of Latin America. In Europe especially the “middle class” are the snobs who act like they’re better than each other and are obsessed with materialism. In the US “middle class” is “I’m not poor because I worked hard and I’m not rich because I’m self-made and I picked myself up by my bootstraps and I now live in comfortable stability with a wife and 2.5 kids and a picket fence and this is the American dream”. Europe is like “the middle class is the worst part of humanity” and is more like how the US would describe “keeping up with the Jones’s”

- Trying to explain the times Spaniards eat is very difficult because in the US you have breakfast when you wake up, 12 noon is lunch, dinner is sometime between 5-7 usually. In Spain there’s a breakfast, a snack, a second breakfast, a huge lunch, maybe another snack, dinner if you’re hungry but it’s late and probably tapas. I’m like 90% sure that the US definition of meal time was based on a factory schedule because it is so weirdly strict and on a timetable.

- The US cares more about Cinco de Mayo and the majority of us don’t even know what it symbolizes for Mexico, or that the majority of Mexico doesn’t celebrate it

- The US is very rushed as a culture especially in big cities. If you make people wait for you, you’re the rude one and you should be ashamed. In a lot of Spanish-speaking countries, it’s more relaxed. Like I’ve heard “Spanish time” or “Mexican time” etc when people are saying they’re operating slower but I think the US is just VERY rushed

- The US is very weirdly affectionate and loving but also very prudish. Like we smile at each other, we laugh and say “I love you” as a goodbye. But when sex comes up we act like it doesn’t exist and it is so bizarre because it is the exact opposite in Europe because many countries would consider you being weirdly inappropriate or disingenuous for smiling at strangers or asking people how they are as a greeting [and make no mistake, in the US except in the South, we say “how are you?” and if we don’t know you, we aren’t looking for an answer other than “good”]… We really must seem like overly emotional liars sometimes to people in Europe.

- The grading system in general

- I can’t even get into the metric system and Celsius. I’ve seen fear when I tell someone it’s 98 degrees outside. 

- La chancla

- There are some superstitions that most countries have about not putting your wallet or purse on the floor and itchy palms meaning money coming your way

- People making jewelry out of baby teeth

- Speaking of, the Tooth Fairy is a mouse named Ratoncito Pérez

- el hombre del saco is a common thing to scare children with if they misbehave

- You’re gonna learn real quick that in Latin America if you’re from the US and you say soy americano/a you might get some nasty responses about how they’re also Americans living in the Americas, which is valid and why I say estadounidense

Spain on the other hand says americano/a pretty often and also norteamericano/a which I guess is closer but also I guess canadiense is distinct enough? I dunno. I usually stick with estadounidense because I don’t want to be That Gringo

- Along the same lines, generally avoid calling people in Latin America “Hispanic”… that’s a term that really only Spanish-speakers in the US use. For everyone else it sounds kind of like you’re calling them “subjects of the Spanish Crown”

- SPANISH REGIONALISMS THAT NO ONE TAUGHT ME AND NOW GROCERY SHOPPING IS THE WOOOOORST IT’S NOT EVEN A CULTURE THING ALL THE TIME BUT I JUST WANT SOME BEANS AND WHY IS BANANA A PLANTAIN THEY ARE DIFFERENT

-Also Chile. Just Chile. Just Chile in general. Shout out to my lovely Chilean followers, you know what why you’re on this list and not just because yellow is your lucky color, ya po

Anyone else want to add some because I want to learn

[ma-ri-yana]

Wanderlust

A/n: Can you believe I have yet to give this thing a title?? Crazy, I know. Let’s see if I give it one before I post the third chapter. Lmaooo, watch me wait till I finish this fan fic to give it a name...

Wait, tHat’D acTuaLly bE pRetTy cOoL! If my writing wasn’t complete shit, but okay.

Edit: she has a name now. Not that anyone cares or anything...  😔👉👈

I’ve got some good news and bad news: Hurricane Dorian doesn’t seem like it’s gonna come to Florida. The good news is that my hurricane snacks haven’t gone to waste because of the hurricane parties I’ve been having. Just kidding, I ate them all by myself. As if I have friends...

Me: Should I even bother with a word count?

Also me: alright, y’all. Word count: 2678

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

HaVe fUn ReaDinG tHiS piEcE oF ShiT thAt iS aLsO noW mY bABy. but if it thinks it’s not a piece of shit, it’s got another thing comin’.

"You seem to be taking everything fairly well." Sypha commented, sitting beside the other female as they travelled through the forest in a carriage. This carriage looked very much like the ones used by the pilgrims. Sypha's words were heard and processed almost immediately but Aurora didn't verbally respond to her with the same speed, she only nodded her head as she shivered uncontrollably from the unbearably cold wind the breezed over her. She couldn't bring herself to speak. Taking it well? How does one take something like this well? She wasn't 'taking it well' at all. She was worried. Beyond worried. Downright scared out of her mind. What if Marisol was killed? What if she was kidnapped? These were different times with different laws and different mindsets. Speaking of different times, she somehow managed to go five hundred and some odd years back into the past in a completely different country on the other side of the world with no way to communicate with anyone she knew and no way to go back to the world she knew. She was in a foreign land, foreign country, foreign time and she was alone with strangers she'd just met. She wasn't exactly the type to voice her true feelings, she only ever exposed enough of herself and her feelings to make people think she was the type to overshare and that she couldn't keep her mouth shut. But whilst she ran her mouth about a lot of subjects and joked around to no end. Whilst she made people believe she was a motormouth, she kept her mouth shut when it came to a whole lot more, when it came to truly expressing herself.

She couldn't help it, she'd been that way since she was little. Even when things that were beyond horrible, absolutely atrocious happened to her. When she'd been ripped of her innocence at far too young an age to be able to even know what was going on, she'd kept her mouth shut. She didn't even tell her sister, the person she confided in the most. All she needed was to be with her to feel better. Aurora didn't realise how accustomed she was to having her sister around to comfort and reassure her, until she almost felt like suffocating. But of course, she wasn't going to say anything. This was how she ran her life for seventeen years and it wasn't going to change in the span of two hours.

It wasn't as if anyone would notice that she was 'uncharacteristically quiet', they'd just met her. Well, that was what she thought, but Sypha knew something was wrong, her intuitive nature told her so. She didn't ask at the moment because she didn't want to pry, but she had made a mental note to herself to try and get Aurora to open up to her at some point.

They continued walking a bit longer before Trevor spoke up, "Let's make camp here."

The group hunkered down and made themselves a little camp site, built a fire with the wood they found and sat near the fire. Aurora remained quiet in the duration of it. She sat the closest to the fire with hopes of keeping warm, but she didn’t feel like speaking to anyone. Luckily for her, it didn't seem like there was going to be a lot of talking on her end as the conversation the group was having revolved around the tall blond male she'd just met not too long ago. Apparently, they'd all just met each other a few weeks ago. She thought they were close friends that'd been together for a long time, turns out, they met by unfortunate circumstance. Aurora didn't quite believe the things the man was saying, though. Half vampire? Him? Vampires didn't exist. They never did. This story he told was full of hyperbole. Everyone knew that this "mass genocide" was really a plague and that this whole story was just something the people in the area made up to explain something they didn't comprehend. It was reminiscent of the blame the Jews got for the black plague not too long before their current time. Of course, this perspective would not have been easily shared with the rest of them.

"You? A vampire? Those don't exist. They're myths." She finally spoke up from her little spot near the fire whilst she put her hair in a ponytail using the hair elastic -or as she would say, ‘cola’- she had around her wrist.

"Oh, but they do exist. And so do the night creatures." Adrian chuckled, watching the girl as she put her hair up only to let it back down once she realised how much colder she was with it tied up.

"And magic." Sypha interjected.

"Prove it." Aurora challenged, crossing her arms. She was confident they wouldn't be able to. Whatever tricks they could pull out of their hats, she was sure there'd be a scientific explanation for it. There was no way, absolutely no way in hell they could change her mind. No way at all.

"Would you like to go first? Or shall I do the honours?" Adrian asked, not making any attempt to hide his amusement. The youngest of the group wasn't pleased.

"We should save the best for last. You should go first." Trevor intervened, crossing his arms as well as he leaned back against the wagon they had. Sypha smiled to herself and answered his comment whilst tucking a lock of her rather short hair behind her ear.

"Well, I'm not going to deny that my powers are be--"

"Got anything other than teeth?" Aurora asked the dhampir, rather unimpressed. Her face was void of any amusement to just how uninterested she was. But as cocky as she was about her beliefs, she wasn't quite expecting what she saw next. She watched in awe as he levitated off the ground and her jaw dropped without her permission. "What the hell? You're lying. You're probably wearing some sort of harnesses with like, a wire hooked to it that's also attached to a tree. That's not scientifically possible. Humans can't just--"

"As I’ve said, I'm not human. Only half that and half-vampire." He spoke nonchalantly as he circled around her. Aurora watched him as he did so, trying to find a way to justify what she was seeing without openly admitting she was wrong; without having to openly admitting that the things she'd been told her whole life were just stories actually had truth to them.

"If you think that's impressive, look at this," Sypha giggled, drawing her hands together before separating them and moving them around in awkward motions. Aurora watched the older woman as fire spouted out of the tips of her fingers. After a few seconds of her demonstration, she stopped. "What do you think?"

"I don't think I know what to think right now."

The three strangers laughed at her response, prompting her to laugh nervously and tear her eyes away. "I think I'm just gonna listen to music for a bit…" she mumbled to herself as she reached for her backpack and looked inside. The group was, needless to say, a bit confused as to how this girl was just going to listen to music without a band of musicians to play something for her; but, they decided not to question it and leave her be. Alucard watched the girl closely as she pulled out her iPod and plugged her headphones in. Aurora put her headphones on but she didn't play any music. She suddenly wasn't in the mood for it any more. Her conflicting emotions were replaced by her ever growing anxiety. "I don't have enough medicine."

"What do you need medicine for? You look fine." Trevor scoffed.

"I don't really know, I just need it," she shrugged. "My mom told me that I have a medical condition and that I need to take these pills three times a day or else I'll, uh… die."

"Have you ever tried not taking them?" Sypha cross-questioned.

"Do I look like I wanna die?" Aurora chortled, but stopped abruptly for dramatic effect. “Don’t answer that.”

"How long have you been taking them?"

"As long as I can remember...?"

"What exactly are pills?"

"May I see the ‘pills’ you speak of?" Adrian asked her. He was fairly interested in seeing how medically advanced humans have gotten.

"Why don't you stop taking them? I mean, if anything goes wrong, I'll fix it. I'm a pretty good healer, if I may say so myself." Sypha bragged, pointing to herself with her thumb. She had a pretty smug expression on her face when Alucard called for her.

"Sypha, do you mind taking a look at this? I need a second opinion."

"Huh? Ah, yes." The woman walked over to him.

"It looks like it's laced with magic." He analysed, holding the pill up so Sypha could see it better.

"Magic? That can't be right," Aurora muttered, watching the woman that stood next to the dhampir as she too looked at the pills inside the bottle. “How does it look like it’s laced with magic?”

"I recognise this… This type of magic is used to conceal things…" the woman began, "certain physical features… it's also used to neutralise other kinds of magic."

"Why would my mom give me those?"  She was still very skeptical.

"To protect you, maybe? People do get killed for practising witchcraft, you know." Trevor chuckled.

"Interesting…" Sypha whispered before clearing her throat. "The magic in this thing is oddly specific."

"Specific, how?" The brunet inquired.

"The characteristics and powers it's focused on hiding… are those of vampiric nature."

"Meaning…?"

Sypha rolled her eyes to express her annoyance. Could this man be any dumber? "Do I need to hold your hand and walk you through everything?" She scoffed, "it's clear she's a vampire."

Aurora erupted into a fit of laughter, causing everyone's attention to turn to her. "What's so funny?" They all said in unison. Their question wasn't answered. For a while, she kept laughing. Laughing and laughing and laughing until her laughs turned into high pitched wheezes that signalled her increasing need for oxygen intake. Once she'd caught her breath, she continued until her fit of laughter turned into a fit of coughing and more wheezing.

"Oh, shit. I'm sorry, this just sounds like a shitty fan fiction plot. Am I getting Punk'd or something? You guys really had me going there. I even believed you guys with that whole magic spiel. Y'all really got me with the flight and light show. Really, you guys really did. But now it's time for it to stop. Where are the cameras? Marisol must be laughing her ass off. I bet she orchestrated the whole thing," she ranted. Aurora walked around the perimeter of the camp site and looked for hidden cameras and her lost sister who, in her mind, wasn't lost, just hiding. She was desperately looking for a rational explanation for everything that had happened within the past 3 hours.

"What are you doing?"

"I think she's gone mad."

"Maybe my Romanian's shit." Aurora muttered to herself. She slowed down her speech as she spoke to them. "Cameras. Where are they?" When they stayed quiet, she pulled out her phone and pointed to the camera. "Where are they?" Again, nothing.

At that moment, her alarm went off. The alarm that told her to take her medicine. "Ah, it's time. May I get those back, please?" She reached out to grab them.

Sypha pulled back, "how about you don't take these pills and you see what you are for yourself?"

"Because I’m nothing but dead if I don't take those damn pills?" The seventeen year old argued.

"Those pills will only hinder you, we don't know how long you'll be stuck here and you’re going to need to--"

"You're gonna hold us back if you don't learn how to fight." Trevor interjected.

"Right, better I die than hold you back from your made up war with vampires that sparkle in the sunlight,” she cackled. Alucard seemed to be amused by her comment and didn't waste a second to answer.

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but vampires don’t sparkle--”

Sypha interrupted him rather rudely and made a poor attempt of reassuring the frightened woman,  "I'll heal you if anything happens to you--"

“You can’t heal me if I don’t even know what in the living fuck is wrong with me. If I don’t know, what makes you think you will? Are you a doctor?”

"I've had enough of this." Trevor complained. "Sypha, can you please make her shut up?"

"Um.. No? I don't know any spells for that."

"She's just in denial, she needs time to process this." Alucard sighed.

"We don't have time for this," the brunet complained, his arms extended all the way out to point in the teenager's direction.

"We don't, but we have no choice. And we can use all the help we can get. Assuming she can read, she can help us look--" Adrian was interrupted by the Belmont.

"What was that?"

"Animals humping in the undergrowth." Adrian chuckled to himself at his own joke. "Wait, no." And that was when he heard Aurora shriek.

"Which is the nearest town? Is it still Gresit?" Trevor asked.

"Argeș is closer to us," said Sypha.

"What in the actual living fuck are those things?"

"Night creatures," the blond answered as he kicked dirt into the fire, killing their light source. He turned to face the beings and didn't bother to look back at her when he spoke again. "Do try to stay out of the way." Aurora rolled her eyes at his request but did as was asked of her anyway. He was treating her like a child and she wasn't too keen about it. That was something her sister would've said to her. One of the many things that aggravated Aurora about her look alike. Now that she thought of it, she couldn't help but feel slightly better. Now that she knew she was… a vampire and that her sister was one as well, she had felt relieved to know that she was most likely safe. Then again,was she really a vampire? Or was her growing suspicion of being the victim of an elaborate prank not merely speculation, but the absolute truth?

Alucard drew his sword and muttered, "no further," just before the beasts lunged at him. He teleported further to the right and sliced one of the beasts in half, vertically. He continued to fight and dodge different blows as they breathed fire in his direction. Aurora distanced herself from the fight a little more. Unfortunately, this drew the attention of a night creature that was just flying in. So now, instead of finding a safe hideout, she was running for her life. Luckily, Sypha caught on to what was happening and burned the thing to death. Aurora panted and thanked her, earning a grin from the woman. Trevor's whip cracked against one of the beasts, forcing it and the other creature it was clinging to, to fall from the sky. The vampire hunter happily finished them off. And just when they thought it was over, more appeared. Those night creatures directed their attacks at the two men. Sypha used her magic to stop the fireballs from hitting her friends and collected the fire, redirecting it to work against the beings they came from. All were killed except for one. That one beast decided it wasn't having it and the second time it tried to burn her alive, she forced the fire to stay within the thing and cause it to combust instead. A few seconds after it's sure defeat, it forced itself up and flew off. All four of them stared at it as it left, Aurora quietly walked over to the other three without tearing her eyes away from that creature. Alucard was the one to break the silence. "Nobody's going to Argeș tonight."

[lunasaturnine]

Vienna and cultural trauma

WOW so cool to sign into tumblr and see 99+ notifications, and think “oh a post got some attention,” but it’s actually just general attention!

My astro blog is ready for some action! Or maybe ppl are just bored bc of the quarantine. Either way, it would be cool to write.

I want to write about VIENNA.

I just took a course about somatic healing of trauma and it gave me a good overview of how trauma recovery works. Chapter 1 of trauma recovery is gathering resources. Chapter 2 is dipping or oscillating back into the memory, whether it’s a clear memory or just something held hidden in your body, with your new resources, and allowing circles to complete. Chapter 3 is being bigger bigger brighter in the world !!! (It’s a nice course, it’s on somatopia.com, it costs $40 if you have that to throw around, it’s like 2 hours of videos of a nice man talking in a soothing voice in intelligent language about healing from trauma)

Now I’m thinking about cultural trauma and Vienna. I have long felt that helping to heal the Hitler wound of Vienna is one of my soul’s major dharmic thrusts. So I googled “healing cultural trauma” and most resources out there talk about the trauma of the victim culture. That kind of trauma is totally different, because it recommends amplifying the traditions and greatnesses of the culture, and when you’re a cultural perpetrator of violence, amplifying the greatness of your culture is a trigger because cultural superiority is what lead your culture to be violent. But there are still a lot of resources with a lot of valuable information. I’ve only skimmed a couple things so far and it seems like one thing people emphasize in cultural healing is human connectedness.

The internet is a little hard to navigate on this topic, but I found an NYT editorial called “I loved my grandmother but she was a Nazi.” The author’s sweet grandma was literally a Nazi but she was a nice person who didn’t hate Jews. When the author talked to her about it, she would deflect. “He said a lot of things, I didn’t listen to them all” and “I was caught up in my own life” etc. The author says, that’s bullshit, there’s something she’s avoiding, and I can’t understand what it is or why she’s doing it, and I’m hesitant to say this because it might seem like I’m trying to forgive Naziism but I’m really just trying to understand who I look at when I look at my grandmother. It’s the most direct address of the West’s Nazi wound that I’ve found in my two and a half minutes of searching on google and I think it’s on the nose.

In the readmore are my more concrete thoughts on potential resources for Western/German/Viennese healing, and thoughts about what working through phase 2 would look like for a perpetrator culture.

Resources

On this reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/5nfqwp/my_grandmother_grew_up_in_nazi_germany/

there are some resources. First of all, 1. there are people from diverse backgrounds respective to WWII, coming together and talking as equals in the same kind of “room.” The descendants of the persecuted and the persecutors are together and they are not enemies. The knowledge, and SOMATIC FEELING EXPERIENCE, of that, can be  a resource. I am typing over this brusquely and that’s Mercury magic for you and you should know that I just burst into sobs. That in just a couple of generations, the grandsons and daughters of enemies can be together and not hate each other and even love each other is an immense resource and can be leaned into at any point. There is a vast well of cultural relief available here. My tears are thankful, grateful tears, tears of relief. I am thinking of the parks in vienna that are holocaust memorial parks. I am thinking of that horrible statue out in front of the Albertina that is a memorial to cultural violence but at the same time, also represents the trapped soul of the Perpetrator culture, since we are all One. In the same way that a piece of music which opens with a terrifying chord represents both the terror experienced by the terrorized, and the menace of the terrorizer, AND THE FEELINGS IN THE terrorizer that caused them to generate this chord... off on a tangent, and I’m not sobbing anymore! That was crazy. I have a tendency to lock my feelings up, but being alone in this house and in this quarantine, I can open up locked wells of feeling like that.

That resource is IMMENSE, and it’s RIGHT in front of our faces all the time. I took a class on 20th century germany in undergrad, and the professor was a young guy with a Nazi grandfather, well I’m not sure if he was a Nazi but he was a German soldier, and he remarked on it. And I think at the time I thought “how lovely” but if you sit with that feeling, it’s deep as hell. And if you sit with it from the perspective of a penitent perpetrator, it’s REALLY FUCKING DEEP.

So that’s available. Im gonna post this real quick as a way of saving the draft but I have more ideas.

Okay. Continuing,

Resource 2 also from reddit post

The top respondent says his German POW uncle had a British GF. That’s similar to the first resource, but more immediate. I’m sure there are lots of stories like that. Intercultural experience that nullifies certain tensions

Resource 3 also from reddit post

The stories of people who did do the right thing... maybe. I dont know. I’ll get off this post soon but it’s interesting. Idk if this counts as a resource, it’s kind of a tangent, but the more I learn about karma and trans-life inheritance of it, the more it seems true that it really is better to die living in line with your beliefs than to live safely. Like the person in Pweuy’s post. That father died but his karma was pristine as far as this was concerned and perpetrator trauma did not cling to him.

ok jesus this is an interesting post... the girl skipping over the river of blood as it trickled out of the asylum... the hitler youth boy befriending a lamb and the nazis slaughtering it in front of him... the russian soldier who guarded the german girl because she reminded him of her daughter...

Okay. Before I go on, I want to clarify that I am not specifically talking about people who held Nazi beliefs in their core. There is a special type of perpetrator injury that is specific to that kind of thing, true villains and terrorists. I’m talking more about “ordinary Germans” who didn’t think very hard and got swept along, moderate supporters to moderate resisters. As a culture, they were moved by the tides into Naziism. They have culpability, but not the exact same kind of culpability as perpetrator people. The culture moved to perpetrate these crimes, and they were a part of that culture. That’s the specific kind of wound I’m interested in healing. There is a poster on that page whose grandma really loved Hitler...

Ok! I spent a lot of my energy in that page, now its 10PM and I still have veggies to prepare. I need energy for this next thing I was going to talk about.

Resource 4 - this one specific coffee shop

I’m putting *s in its name because I like this blog anonymous. P*****n is a coffee shop in Vienna that is the only happy place I went. There were places that were ok... and fine... maybe pleasant... but this place was American levels of happy. Waiters danced around and were actually relaxed and happy. P*****n’s theme is intergenerational communication. It hires grandmothers to work behind the counter, and make pies, and you’re supposed to buy a slice of their pie and talk to them a bit. And then the waiters are young, and they communicate with the Omas. And the Omas are maybe not old enough to have been Nazis but their parents were.

They also include a bit in all their menus about intergenerational dialogue and wondering what more they can do and how they can be more of a space for it.

I had MANY genuinely pleasant little experiences there... and I think that little space that some person with a vision made, is a blossoming flowerpot with lots of healing energy where true dialogue could happen. So that could be a resource too. The happiness of that place. In fact, these conversations could happen there.

But I wouldn’t want to break the space. The course I just took talked about titration, which is just accessing a TINY part of the traumatic memory, so you don’t get overwhelmed. This is a very icy fucked up conversation for a lot of people. My Viennese friend told me to talk more quietly about it than I was. Actually I did talk about it there with some people! The German girl was surprised that I thought Vienna had a wound. So was the Irish girl actually. For other people it’s really evident. My Viennese friend. D**n. Rf: “it’s ALL I feel when I am there.” ME. God that conversation was sooo gentle and sweet and light. The Irish girl was wondering if she should move to Vienna or stay in Barcelona, and the three of us talked about Vienna nd it was SOOOOO LOVELY, holy BALLS.

But even if we don’t hold conversations there exactly, that could be a really good place for conversation to start. I could reach out to the people who run the shop to ask them about it. And then maybe conversations could happen in other places (don’t want to spoil the sweetness of the shop).

Resource 5 - personal as I investigate maybe not really a resource - but yes maybe it is a resource: Grounded, comfortable people who are Viennese, and who understand the goals and also understand the sensitivities of Viennese people more than I do; 

Resource 6 - people who are experts at cultural healing in victim cultures

Resource 7 - fostering dialogue between those two parties, also me.

Again I’m really playing fast and loose with the idea of resources. Maybe. We’re starting to move into phase 2, also, because with this dialogue, I want to open up some scripts for how to TITRATE sensitively.

phase 2

For instance, notice that I didn’t say something like “Remembering Vienna’s amazing heritage of incredible music that has the power to redeem and heal equal to and more accessibly than religions.” I think it’s true that Viennese music is a major healing resource (BEETHOVENSCHUBERTMOZARSKLTBSLJRTHBLEWSKJNS:OFDFD), but since it is bound up in Viennese identity, that notion is complex. Also, it’s not only that Viennese identity is nasty because it’s nazi and therefore that gives Schubert etc a dark tint, but also, the grand things that Vienna has contributed to western culture are now a part of Vienna’s current wound of degradation, cheapification, and humiliation by TOURISM. although I will say that I think Resource 8 should be MY OWN deep internalization of the healing power of Viennese music. Posting again to save...

...not only does that music help me be healed, but it also helps me understand healing process in the specific language of the culture i’m interested in

okay.  Phase 2. 

A picture of what I think sorta needs to happen

I think Omas that say “It was just a lot of talk, we ignored it” and “I was busy in my life”... I think what needs to happen for a perp culture is for them to actually own their part in the villainy, to claim it and stand in it and feel the pain, and say “I’m SORRY, this was HORRIBLE, I AM SORRY.” THIS WILL ALLOW THEM TO BECOME NEW!!!!!!!

That’s a v different healing process from like native american healing etc.

I really think somatic approach is a better road in than cognitive because, god, imagine cognizing all of this HORRIBLE SIN bit by bit knowing your culture perpetrated it and not having anyone to blame it on. Jesus.

How might the process of getting there look?

This is vague especially now that I don’t have that burst of energy. Conversations...

Here’s a question. After resource gathering.

“Knowing that bells rang for Hitler in Vienna, how does it feel to be Viennese?” IN YOUR BODY?

Damn THAT’S GOOD! THAT’S THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION. How does it feel to be Viennese? The goal is for it to feel OK.

Um, speaking specifically about Wiener trauma and their welcoming of Hitler, a few years ago, I read this in some guidebook, Vienna’s government acknowledged that they welcomed Hitler and that they were wrong, and investigating that is important for my mission. It’s cool because 1. it’s a Big Ol Step and 2. it lays groundwork for all of this.

Step 3 is really beautiful to think about. In the course I took, it’s where the instructor got out of his soothing calm neutral demeanor and started speaking passionately and bursting with smiles.

In addition to being able to be more firmly grounded in their own individual and cultural identities...

Okay, so, I’m drawn to this because I’m drawn to it, punkt. That’s all. But also, and I think I’m really late on the uptake here, I think I was due in Vienna many years ago, I think that whatever work I do in Vienna is helpful for the echoes of Naziism in today’s world, such as Trumpism (which does not...exactly... have the same kinds of premises but uses a lot of the same kinds of mecahnisms) and actual brazen nationalism, white supremicism, and far right movements. Hitler is a LOUD and REVERBERANT figure in our history for this kind of energy, and if we can do healing surrounding him, re-discovering resilience in the moderates, helping them go through the emotional journey they need to go through, they will be a beautiful resonant horn call from the past, a solid core of NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that will strengthen the culture of the entire FUCKING world.

Music will be a part of it.

I have always loved Vienna, and I can’t really analyze it. I love it like a girlfriend. I know she’s problematic. And she can be really really horrible.

The wound is deep. The horribleness, the life negating quality not only of the FUCKING WRETCHED SHOP CLERKS, but also of the WAY -- THINGS -- HAPPEN, of the overall weird ass SPIRIT in Vienna, is... God DAMN WHY do I like that city so much? It’s bizarre. It’s very pervasive. I don’t enjoy experiencing it, I don’t think it’s attractive, I don’t like it. I love Vienna THROUGH that wound. I REALLY LOVE Vienna. That’s one of the clearest things that I know in my heart. I love Vienna... and that’s the whole story. It’s one of the easiest things for me to say.

Lots of people love a city. We do it for reasons. I think our hearts are drawn where they are drawn because we are attracted to healing the specific karmas of places. The karma of my hometown is mainly racial, with native american underneath. The coffee shop that is equivalent to P*****n serves often as a place of racial conversation and healing. It is actually pretty amazing. And once there was a white supremacist with a gun there and he stood up on a table and let people see his gun. He didn’t yell or anything. But that vital thing happened there in that coffee shop.

Excuse me I also love coffee shops and Vienna is the land of coffee shops.

Okay. I love Vienna! I literally love Vienna, with my heart. I love Vienna.

One last thing. I’m saving then editing...

The postscript: A major resource, and it kinda sidesteps some things, is language. It will be much better if German is spoken in these conversations. When I went to Vienna last, I didn’t prepare my German because when I went to Vienna first, everyone spoke English and it was simply easier to speak English all the time, so I figured I wouldn’t try to give the illusion and disappoint. But lo... the native people really, really resent it if you don’t even try to speak German. They actually seem to experience it as an injury. It is wild, if you’re not expecting it.

ALL OVER VIENNA I saw the Graffiti stamp/brand, “Tourism is terrorism.” 

When I was in the airport and the cute customs dudes asked me the purpose of my visit, I said “TOURISM” and they laughed. That was fun. But it was a lie. I was a pilgrim. I... know I was a tourist, technically. But I felt such hatred for the tourists standing like apes in front of the Schubert statue in the Stadtpark. Their wretched selfie smiles plastered on top of the emptiness of their experience. My purpose in Vienna had nothing in common with theirs. And I claim that I didn’t do a lot of the tourist things - not many museums or concerts or whatever.

One of my more pleasant memories was going into a used book shop and asking about a book in the window, a German-language edition of the tao te ching from 1923 (a very strange time). I asked in English. The clerk was confused and asked if I spoke German, and I answered in German that I spoke some German, but was learning, and knew the TTC very well, and that it’s simply usually easier to speak in English. I might have used imperfect German, but I felt dignified and natural doing it.

Ok, not only the German language, but the quiet Viennese demeanor of Scorpiness. Scorpscorpscorpscorp. Quiet, observant, emotional, and responsive to gentle tenderness and consideration, and traumatized by brashness. 

Both the spoken language, and the language of the demeanor, I think are somatic approaches that sidestep cognitive...things and make the culture feel unconsciously accepted and open.

On my first trip I learned howwwwww AMERICAN I was, and then on my second trip I opened myself up to my inner Wiener and was quiet and scorpy, and I felt warmth emerge from the people and city in response. It felt really right, and it felt like i was honoring...her, and it felt um sort of romantic. ha 

[schraubd]

The Trouble with (Jewish) Anger

If you read contemporary political theory publications, you've probably seen that "anger" is having quite the moment as a political emotion right now. As against a skeptical literature where anger is viewed as necessarily destructive or reactionary, a bunch of theorists have sought to identify and promote the uses of anger as a tool of public mobilization, asking what anger can do or promote under appropriate circumstances. Whenever I go to talks or read articles on that subject, though, I always find myself a bit perplexed. The authors seem to concentrate on defending the thesis that anger is powerful -- they suggest that anger (again, in the right circumstances) can accomplish things that might otherwise be out of reach. But it seems to me that the classical knock on anger isn't that it isn't powerful -- virtually everyone concedes that (how many fantasy novels tie anger to a powerful dark side that allows access to eldritch magic?). The problem with anger is that it's hard to control. Anger is difficult to contain and difficult to cabin. Once it is unleashed, it is hard to bottle back up. It ends up hurting those one doesn't intend to hurt, it lashes out in unpredictable and uncontrollable directions. And, of course, anger has the difficult property of being self-generating against critique -- trying to persuade someone that they should be less angry only makes them more angry (convenient, that!). The Jewish community in America is, I think it is fair to say, getting angry. What are we angry about? Well, a few different things, I suspect:

We're angry that a community and a politics that we've long called our own seems to be increasingly comfortable with the promotion of antisemitic stereotypes, and is indifferent, at best, to our feelings of hurt and fear at that fact;

We're angry that we've been unable to muster any significant public attention towards or mobilization against antisemitism from the mainstream political right, no matter how much effort we expend trying to raise it, and we're angry that media sources who are utterly indifferent when we try to talk about right-wing antisemitism only perk up when we talk about left-wing antisemitism;

We're angry at left-wing antisemitism because we're angry about antisemitism generally but this antisemitism is in our home, and also because this is the antisemitism where we actually seem able to touch it and make people pay attention to it and make its perpetrators take notice of us, and so all the anger over the antisemitism where we can't make anyone care about it gets displaced and funneled into this one social arena where somebody will pay attention to it, even as we realize how unfair that is and we're angry about that too;

We're angry that we're blamed for how other people talk or don't talk about antisemitism, and we're angry that people seem less interested in hearing what Jews have to say than in cherry-picking the Jews whose views are consonant with the narrative they want to draw and trumpeting to high heaven;

We're angry that any time we try to talk about antisemitism in a case that's within a half-mile of "Israel", we're accused of being unable to tolerate "any" (any!) criticism of Israel, or of being in the bag for Likud, or of proving the point that maybe our loyalties are in doubt;

And, I think, we're angry that the Israeli government has been racing off to the right, busily making some -- some -- arguments that once were outlandish now plausible, and putting us in increasingly difficult positions. We're angry that we've been basically powerless to stop this decay of liberal democracy in Israel, we're angry that a community and a place that we care deeply about seems not to care about us in return and is mutating into something unrecognizable to us, and we're displacing that anger a bit.

That's a lot to be angry about. It's not unreasonable to be angry, about any or all of that. And I think it's the case that to some degree, anger has fueled some genuine counterattacks against all of these things. Jewish anger has, certainly, prompted some people to issue apologies who otherwise would've continued about their business, engendered some discussions that otherwise wouldn't have have begun, prompted some solidaristic bonding that might not have otherwise occurred. One could, I think, fairly say that Jewish anger has greased the path towards some accomplishments for the American Jewish community.

But anger, as powerful as it is, is also difficult to control. I don't like the political-me when I'm angry -- and more than that, I don't trust the political-me when I'm angry. My tactical choices are often unwise. And when I look out and say how angry we're getting, I worry. I worry that we're not going to be able to bottle it back up. I worry that it is going to burst it's bounds and rage beyond control.

People have been making a lot of (premature, in my view) comparisons between the Democratic Party and UK Labour. But this is one parallel that concerns me right now. British Jews are angry at Labour, and they're by no means unreasonable to feel that way -- I've been quite vocal in calling out the disgusting cesspool of antisemitism that has taken over the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's watch. That's legitimately anger-inducing. And one could even argue that Jewish anger about this has played a significant role in forcing Labour to come to the table and take what (meager) steps it has taken to tackle antisemitism in its ranks.

But I also worry that this anger and bitterness has gotten so deep that it's almost impossible to imagine any set of steps by which Jews and Labour might reconcile. Even when Labour officials do issue statements or take steps that seem genuinely positive as expressions of the importance of tackling antisemitism, the mistrust runs so thick that they're often immediately rejected -- "what good is this statement or that commitment coming from so-and-so, who's been so terrible to us in the past?"

I'm not saying that these statements or commitments will always be followed through on or even that they're always offered in good faith. I'm saying it almost doesn't seem to matter any more, the efforts that are offered in good faith and would be followed through on are swept away just as decisively by the omnipresent feeling of woundedness and mistrust. At a certain level, what Jewish anger wants out of Labour is for it to have never done such awful things in the first place. But there's nothing Labour can promise to satisfy that demand -- and so the anger can never be placated. And that, ultimately, can only lead us to a destructive place, where Jews and the left must be enemies, because there is no longer anything that can be said or done that is interpreted to be a gesture of friendship (even the most perfectly worded statement can be dismissed as a front or a guise, or insufficient given past sins).

American Jewish anger, I worry, is pushing us towards a similar precipice -- one where we can't stop being angry, where there's no plausible pathway through which our anger can sated. 

Consider reactions to the Democratic leadership delaying a proposed antisemitism resolution, with the suggestion that it be redrafted to more explicitly tie the fight against antisemitism to other forms of bigotry. 

One interpretation of this move is that it helps dissipate the notion that Ilhan Omar is being unfairly singled out, and sends a decisive message that the fights against antisemitism, racism, and Islamophobia are united struggles -- they are not in competition with one another. Another interpretation is that it "All Lives Matters" antisemitism, implies that antisemitism cannot be opposed for its own sake but must be laundered through other oppressions in order to matter, and overall represents a capitulation to those who are upset that Democrats are acknowledging the existence of left-wing antisemitism at all.

Which interpretation is right? Well, one would have to see the newly-drafted language, first of all. But I suspect that the answer will be that there is no one right answer. Either interpretation will be plausible. 

So it's up to us to choose which hermeneutic world we want to live in. We could declare, decisively, that we view such a resolution as not excusing left-wing antisemitism but also not singling it out; not suggesting that antisemitism only matters insofar as it can be tied to racism and other bigotry but rather rejecting the claim that vigorous opposition to antisemitism in any way, shape, or form is hostile to opposing these other hatreds. 

And to some extent, our declaration of interpretation will generate its reality. If we choose to believe that this is what the resolution means, that it is an expression of solidarity and of unity, then that is what it will come to mean. If we choose to believe that it means something else, that it is an insult and a capitulation, then it will mean that instead. It is both weird and, when you think about it, not so weird that it is fundamentally up to us whether any such resolution is an act of solidarity or not.

Viewed that way, the right answer is clear. But I think anger is pushing us toward the wrong choice. Yet know this: there is no resolution the Democratic leadership could write that would make it so that we weren't in this anger-inducing reality where such a resolution felt necessary to begin with. If that is our standard, we will never be placated. So the question is how do we move forward in a damaged world? Does anger get us there?

I think not. Anger doesn't look for common ground. It doesn't look for the positive or the best in people, it doesn't offer much foothold for rebuilding. It hurts those we don't actually want to hurt. Like a fire, it rages past borders and over barriers. Even when anger does do its "job" of mobilizing or organizing or signaling the degree of woundedness a given practice is generating, it doesn't easily return to its cage. Often, anger slaps at hands that really are just trying to reach out, really are trying to figure out how to do better. Which, of course, generates anger of its own. And so a cycle emerges, that is very hard to escape from.

As I mentioned above, one of the most difficult aspects of anger as a political emotion is that telling people to be less angry only makes them more angry. Even still, and even recognizing that we have grounds to be angry, I still find myself imploring my community that we need to let go of our anger here. It's rapidly losing whatever productive attributes it has, and I fear that if we don't bottle it back up now, we will completely lose control over it. 

And that thought terrifies me, because I cannot imagine that a Jewish community that is uncontrollably angry at the political community we've long called home will be a healthy, or happy, or productive place to live.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2UobK0d