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aguineapigcouldntdothis · 1 month

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I do not find it reasonable that the term "ashkenormativity" is frequently used to mean "asheknazi jews, aka the white european ones, are racist, colorist, and even antisemitic against other jews". not only is that an improper definition with loads of information, it fails to recognize that the people who are most likely to perpetuate ashkenormativity are goyim.

for the purpose of this post, I will be going with the definition that ashkenormativity is the belief that ashkenazi people are the default jews, which leads to them getting more respect, opportunities, recognition, etc. goyim, especially in the western world, have likely only been exposed to ashkenazi jews, meaning that they are likely to view them as the blueprint. they are simply drawing conclusions from the available information, which in my eyes is not a huge issue. the true problem arises when they learn about other types of jews and immediately decide that we are "improper". because we don't fit their idea of what a jew looks like, acts like, etc., we are either bad jews or not jewish at all.

it is not the fault of ashkenazim that goyim think this way, and it is not their responsibility to fix it. it is also not their fault that most jews in the western world are ashkenazim. it is absolutely the responsibility of goyim to learn that there are many types of jew and we are still one people.

ashkenazim are less likely to spread ashkenormativity than goyim because they are exposed to other jews more often. they may have different norms than a sephardi, mizrahi, etc. jew would, but they're usually able to recognize that we are all jews with a shared culture. and by usually I mean I can count on 1 hand the number of times an ashki jew genuinely thought they were better than us. 2 hands if we're counting repeated offenses from the same person. I believe that has nothing to do with their heritage and everything to do with them being an asshole. point is, learning by observing other jews is an effective tool to combat prejudices. the more examples you see of a non-ashki jew, the more likely you are to correct yourself when you promote ashkenormativity.

i feel like a fun exercise would be to compare 2 separate interactions ive had with a goy and a ashkenazi jew. both contain examples of ashkenormativity. neither is significantly worse than the other so they are close enough to compare.

interaction with goy:

context is we were talking about jewish traditions and it got to the topic of food. I actually cooked a ton this year i didnt know what I was in for.

me: I won't cook that much this year, but usually id eat a lot of unleavened cakes and rice for passover

goy: i thought you guys ate matzah

me: I mean yeah but we eat other stuff too. im sephardi so I get more options which is fun (this was said as a joke, not judging anyone)

goy: oh so you're not really jewish then?

me: no im still jewish, Im just not ashkenazi and we have some cultural differences

goy: but like you're not jewish religiously, right??

me: I mean im not orthodox but yeah im still a religious jew. i just practice based on my culture its not hard to get

goy: wouldn't it be easier to just do what everyone else does though

me: yeah I just like doing this more it's fun for me

goy: yeah whatever I dont get this im done

interaction with ashki jew:

context is i was at shabbat dinner chilling on a couch and talking to a friend i made

ashki jew: so you know that shul down by (location)

me: the what?

ashki jew: ...the shul??

me: I've never heard that word in my life what is that

ashki jew: its just the synagogue. you've never heard that word before?

me: no i was so confused ive always just called it synagogue. sometimes the old people would call it kal never shul though

ashki jew: ok just like tell me if I confuse you with my yiddish again

I feel as if the differences between these interactions is quite clear. so, I wont go into heavy detail analyzing them. the basic idea is that during the conversation with the goy, I kept explaining myself and they refused to listen. they believed that ashki jews were better than me and that they themselves were also better than me. I was essentially told that I do not know anything about judaism because in their eyes I am not truly a jew. during the conversation with the ashkenazi jew, they explained themselves immediately because we are equals. they know we are both jews and we're more similar than we are different. it surprised them that I didn't know what shul meant, yet they did not use that as an excuse to tear me down.

I truly think people do ashkenazim a disservice by assuming that they are power hungry jews (*cough* antisemitic stereotype *cough*) who will stop at nothing to be better than the sad little sephardim and mizrahim. in reality, most of them, like my lovely friend, are more than willing to learn and share with other jews. the people who are truly hurting us are the goyische antisemites.

this is gonna sound hypocritical because I just made a long ass post about an intracommunity issue, however, can we please just focus the majority of our energy on the actual antisemites who are truly hurting us instead of other jews? this is an important topic that we need to discuss it's just not the most important thing us jews have going on. other jews are my friends and I refuse to be separated from them for the approval of goyim, and I know they will show me that same kindness.

note: I am just not feeling like myself today forgive any weird writing mistakes ill fix them later or maybe not

#jewish #jumblr

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jellybeanium124 · 1 year

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in honor of speak your language day this monolingual is going to teach you all the yiddish they know... poorly! these transliterations are terrible and I don't care! but that doesn't mean I don't care about yiddish as a language. yiddish means so much to me as an ashkenazi jew, and I wish I had the time to become fluent. hopefully someday. I also want to say that some of this may be technically wrong. what I am sharing here is what I was taught by my parents and grandparents and probably differs from correct yiddish. if you want to learn more please consult proper sources made by fluent speakers.

before we get started you need to know that many things yiddish has a literal meaning and a connotative meaning. basically, it's a language of idioms, or, at least, many of those idiomatic expressions are what survived to get passed down to me.

yiddish: jewish

oy vey: if you don't know this one already I can't help you. you know an oy vey moment when you see it

oy vey es mir: when it's even more oy vey than normal

goy: non-jew (for me it's kind of specific to white people, yknow the people who lived around the shtetls and did pogroms and stuff. versus "gentile" which to me means literally every non-jew)

losenkopf: literally translates to "hole in the head." aka idiot

goyishe kopf: literally means "goyish head." aka idiot

yiddishe kopf: literally means "jewish head." aka smart

sheine: pretty

meidele: girl (combine 8 and 9 for "sheine meidele" which means "pretty girl" for a cute pet name)

engele: boy (combine 8 and 10 for "sheine engele" which means "pretty boy" for a cute pet name)

punim: face (sheine punim is another cute pet name)

pupik: belly button

pulkey: thigh (fun fact! I didn't know pulkey wasn't english until I was like... 12)

ketzeleh: kitty. also a pet name

feygele: little bird. can also be derogatory.

hinetele: puppy. also a pet name

gey khaken affen yam: literally "go shit in the ocean" aka go fuck yourself

gey gesunte heit: literally "go in good health." basically it's a way of saying goodbye when you like/love someone.

a dank eich: thank you

nish to farvos: your welcome

kinehora: combo of "kin ein hora" which means "keep the evil eye away." aka a verbal knocking on wood/crossing fingers

ich hob dich lieb: I love you (in yiddish: איך האב דיר ליב)

#speak your language day #syld #nina rambles #yiddish #judaism #jewish

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olderthannetfic · 8 months

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I definitely think there are people who use those "diverse reading challenges" to show off, but I also think you can have a truly genuine desire to diversify your reading habits, and challenges can be a good way to incentive yourself to do that and keep track of it. And I'm not sure there's a go-to standard for who is "tryhard" beyond if they act cringey and show-offy about it on social media. I was going to say something like "do they genuinely seem like they're trying to branch out, or just reading the same things as they usually do but with a black lead" - but honestly, I want the people who are "just reading YA" or "just reading romance" or whatever to read more diversely, too. Like for romance readers specifically: Read more romance with COC or written by POC, read more M/M and/or F/F if you primarily read het, read more stuff written by people from outside of North America and Western Europe, etc. And if you primarily read serious "classic" literature, try reading one from Africa beyond the lit-class staples like Things Fall Apart rather than another white British author, just to give an example. I think everyone should do more of that. I think those can all come from a genuine desire to try new things, not just show off to your followers about how open-minded you are.

Actually, I think the big way to tell if someone's being "tryhard" is, yes, their reaction on social media, but particularly how they talk about the book when they're done. The one big Tell I see on Goodreads about people who want to be seen as "reading diversely" but don't really appreciate diversity is when they read a book about, say, Muslim characters and then leave a 2-star reviewing whining that they didn't like that the book expected them to know 101-level things about Islam like what Ramadan or the hajj is. (Or alternately, are mad that it DID explain that stuff "too much," oblivious to the fact that in Christian-majority cultures, that's a publisher expectation that you do that with any other religion, because of ignorant readers who will whine if you don't spend a paragraph teaching them what Ramadan is because apparently these supposed "diverse readers" can't be assed to learn literally anything about the best-known Muslim holiday.) I saw someone complain on Tumblr about Goodreads reviewers getting mad at all the "Jewish stuff they were expected to know" to read Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver, and this person was like "I'm a goy and I understood all of it because it's stuff you would know just from having seen Fiddler on the Roof. If all the Judaism you need to know for a book is stuff that you can get from watching Fiddler on the Roof, then maybe the issue is not the book, it's you for not having such basic information about a major world religion and then reading a book about it."

Or as another example, when people complain about how the particular set of lingo this person who is oppressed in a way you are not used to describe their oppression is not the exact thing that Twitter discourse has told you is "correct" to use or that it is offensive. When they get mad that a book where a black person is talking about their life experience with police brutality has "too many descriptions of violence" and "I'm rating this lower because it might be triggering." (In general, when people seem to conflate "this triggered me" with the kind of "productive discomfort" that relatively privileged people NEED to confront in fiction about marginalizations they don't experience in order to grow as humans. But also it's just like... there are some topics where it would be doing readers a disservice not to describe them graphically. Not everything can be communicated in a way that would earn a G rating on AO3. That might mean the book is inaccessible to you, but that's on you to deal with, not on the author to censor themselves.) Or when they, as in the American Fiction example, expect it to fit some stereotypical ideas of "authenticity" and are mad that this POC or LGBTQ+ or disabled person's lives are more like their own rather than feeling like a museum exhibit about an exotic Other culture.

To me, "tryhard" is when you don't actually value diversity FOR diversity. If you're going to read diverse media, you can't get mad when it actually is diverse. If you want to read about stuff about/from other cultures and identities, then a) you need to be okay with being challenged, b) you need to not expect the author to hold your privileged hand all the time. You can look up unfamiliar words like "hajj" or "Purim." It's 2024. You have a tiny computer in your hand that is several times more powerful than the big computers that put astronauts on the moon. You can use it to go to Wikipedia when you see a word you don't understand, it's not that hard! Expecting authors from other cultures and identities to patiently explain every aspect of that to you like an elementary school teacher is the ultimate sign of entitlement and privilege, especially if you're reading, say, a book by a Congolese author about the Congo, not one that they wrote specifically for Western audiences!

When people make a big show of reading "diversely" but then seem to be upset that those books are actually, you know, DIVERSE, that's a big flashing sign that it's performative tryhard nonsense to me.

It's pretty sad when we'll go google some xianxia thing to watch The Untamed, but we can't manage to look at a ten thousand times more commonplace wikipedia article on a major world religion.

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pearwaldorf · 7 months

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Some shit has come across my dash that reminded me about this talk* between David Baddiel and Toby Lichtig that discusses his book Jews Don't Count. (There is also a documentary of the same name, which I have not been able to find. Supposedly it's on iTunes, but I'm not downloading it to find out.)

It discusses the duality of antisemitism wherein Jews are seen as both powerful but also "the usual" tropes we associate with non-Jewish marginalized people. It's all tangled up with white privilege (because some Jews are white), the idea of passing, and the conflation of Jewishness** and Judaism.

This is instructive and useful for everybody, but especially people who consider themselves leftist or progressive. I very much hear (or not hear) the silence on the left when antisemitic stuff comes up, from the left or the right. (And it's amazing how that shit sounds exactly the same regardless of which side it comes from.)

As a goy and somebody who considers myself progressive, this is something I find extremely fucking concerning. If a group of people are being attacked and marginalized because of things they can't control, they should be protected. I don't see how proximity to whiteness*** (and some Jews benefit from white privilege) changes how we approach the issue.

Like. This article from 2020 talks about how Tottenham Hotspur uses a word considered to be a racial/ethnic slur to describe their fans and players. I substituted the n-word or the c-word and it became extremely clear how offensive this is.

It is enraging to hear people say it's reclaimed when they were the ones who made it a slur in the first place. A dominant group can never reclaim a slur that is leveled against a marginalized group. That's called, uh, using a slur to describe a marginalized group. You would never do this with anybody other ethnic/racial group today, but it's acceptable because antisemitism is baked into western culture.

One of the things I have been most surprised and appalled by is how very little I know about Israel and how that affects what I know as an American. I was in my 30s before I learned there were non-zionist Jews. I had never met or heard of one.

[Part of this might be where I grew up. The PNW has a very small population of Jews (~1%), and I knew exactly three: my 2nd grade teacher, the annoying kid, and the annoying kid's dad (who was a rabbi and came to talk to my high school class). My primary exposure to Jewish culture was Kornblatt's and Mel Brooks.]

So maybe my knowledge of Jewish (and Israeli-American) politics is kind of remedial. I can't recall a subject where I continually learn something that makes a lot of things fall into place. And sometimes I wonder if other people have this experience too.

* "BAME" is a term that comes up a lot in the video, which is an abbreviation for "Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic". It is now an outdated term, but it takes time for that to filter into everyday consciousness.

** As Baddiel bluntly puts it, "It doesn't matter if I'm an atheist, that wouldn't have gotten me a pass out of Auschwitz."

*** Honorary whiteness is a whole different can of worms which is not quite relevant here.

#antisemitism #david baddiel #jews don't count #pear text #word vomit #i didn't mean to make the post that long sorry

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jewishbarbies · 3 months

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Would it be weird for me as a goyim to learn more about the Jewish religion/culture? I think it’s a beautiful religion/culture with wonderful stories, mythology, practices, beliefs, history (if you look past the antisemitic stuff and the holocaust and basically all the bad stuff, but I do plan learning more about that as well, I just mean that the history of Judaism is beautiful despite all of the tragedies, not saying that those tragedies are to be ignored), languages and values, and I’d love to learn about them, but I was wondering if it would be weird considering that I am an agnostic goy who has no plans of converting to anything, I just think Judaism is beautiful.

I don’t think it’s weird at all! we need more goyim to be educated on us and our culture if we want antisemitism to be less common. I’d say the first lesson would be goyim is plural and goy is singular, so you would say “I’m a goy” or “we’re goyim”. but i think as long as you’re respectful, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with learning more.

#Asks #anonymoose

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barbiebattle · 2 years

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Okay, since villians won the poll for what bracket we do next, before we start voting, I do want to make sure we're all aware and cognizant of the antisemitism that has been present in Barbie movies, particularly in the villians.

Some of it is inherent to the stories being adapted. Given how antisemitic Tchaikovsky was, that was always going to affect Nutcracker and Swan Lake. That said, Mattel and Rainmaker did choose to make Rothbart and Odile like that. And Rapunzel and A Christmas Carol have antisemitic origins as well.

And while I can't find any specific discussions on it by Jewish people, Preminger as a name has Jewish roots, and giving that name to a kidnapping, greedy, thieving villian certainly does play into stereotypes.

Some of this stuff feels pretty inherent to the genre of fairytales, but it's important to think critically about why that is and how the history of antisemitism in fantasy can unintentionally influence us today.

Also, while both the hosts are Goys, I do recommend listening to the podcast Put A Shrimp On It. The podcast intended to review all of the movies, but they only got up to Princess and the Pauper before discontinuing it. They did quite a bit of research on each movie they did review though, and are the reason I even learned about half of these problems in the first place.

As you can probably guess from that anecdote, I am also a Goy. So it's entirely possible that I'm leaving out some important discussions out of ignorance. If I have any Jewish followers who'd like to contribute to the discussion or have links to other discussions, that would be greatly appreciated.

#barbie #barbie battle #barbie nutcracker #barbie swan lake #barbie christmas carol #barbie rapunzel #barbie princess and the pauper #antisemitism

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some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat · 2 years

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An Incomplete Guide to Recognizing and Unlearning Antisemitism

Ok first of all, disclaimer: I'm studying to convert, but I am not Jewish yet. I will not pretend to be speaking for Jewish people, merely collecting and boosting their voices to help other gentiles learn, especially if you're like me and tumblr posts are very easy to absorb information from.

Since I just discovered my antisemitism tag is almost empty if you use the search, and you need to open my blog website in browser to really see it, I decided to go through it and collect good educational posts about antisemitism.

(Update: you should be able to follow this link on mobile as well as in browser or this link if you're in browser and prefer to read on my forever under construction theme, both should show you all my posts with this tag without tumblr's infamous search getting involved)

This list is far from comprehensive, but should contain a lot of useful information to get you started. These are things I've learned and collected over the years, and hopefully will continue to update and fill with Jewish voices. To my knowledge, every post and video except my own is written by an actual Jewish person.

If any of the links seem broken or mislabeled, or if you are Jewish and think information provided is inaccurate or would like to append something, please let me know.

Before you read, you should know the following terms:

Goy = gentile, AKA a non-Jewish person.

Goyim = the plural of goy.

Goyische = non-Jewish as an adjective.

These terms are not slurs and not meant to insult you any more than "cis" is for non-trans people. That said, some consider it appropriative to use these terms unless you are Jewish, so the English word "gentiles" is recommended for gentiles to use.

"Antisemitism is still a thing?" Yes, very much so.

(https://youtu.be/FAJfddwKraQ)

"But that's just neo-nazis, right? I'm not antisemitic!" Sadly, Antisemitism is prevalent across the political spectrum, and everyone needs to learn to recognize and address it in their own communities.

(https://youtu.be/c3dKIDtAYXk)

History and background of Christian persecution of Jews

(https://some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat.tumblr.com/post/694056361073508352/i-really-hope-this-isnt-disrespectful-if-it-is)

Everything that threatens the Christian hegemony is blamed on Jews (with further links)

(https://some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat.tumblr.com/post/699849670733824000/godless-atheists-is-a-dogwhistle-for-jews-can)

Information and resources on various dogwhistles

(https://some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat.tumblr.com/post/190039635794/with-some-of-this-stuff-its-hard-to-tell-if-its)

More on cultural Christianity

(https://some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat.tumblr.com/post/700025394657738752)

#antisemitism #I know this is all tumblr stuff but like I said it's to replace the tag and I'd be happy to add other links as well once I find them #But for now this is the result of spending my evening reading through my tag and picking out the most useful #sfw #I'm going to make this my new pinned post as well.#tw religion mention

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whosafraidofvirginiawoolf · 2 years

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my prof was like oh btw the person who discovered this stuff we're learning was a woman who had to really fight for her right to study at uni as a woman back then and then i googled her and was like yeah typical my prof left out the fact that she was jewish and had to hide during facist italy and from the nazis like okay classic goy move

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jewish-vents · 5 months

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post 10/7 jewish culture is straight up no longer believing your goyische friends actually like you and are in for the long haul. immediately after 10/7 I lost a few people who were disgusting assholes, but ever since then my goyische friends on this website have been slowly "un-friending" me (unfollowing, soft-blocking, and blocking). I'll have other goy friends who stuck around this long say nice things about me, compliment my fics, my blog, and even me, and I just... don't believe it. I know that's a common social anxiety fear, but I never struggled with social anxiety that badly. if you asked me if I thought my internet friends really liked me last september I would've said yes and meant it. but now, after months and months of my friends dropping like flies (and I almost NEVER lost mutuals before 10/7, not in almost 4 years on this website), I don't really believe them. I just can't. I'm waiting for them to realize they don't want to put up with my jewish ass anymore.

I've decided to stop talking about i/p because of this... I'll see posts on my dash (like from jewishlivesmatter) which I think are good and I wanna put on my blog, but I feel like every post about it pushes my goyische friends a little further away, a little closer to the block/unfollow button, so I'm just... not. I used to be scared to talk about i/p, from may 2021 when I learned just how antisemitic most goyim were because of the riots, to oct 7. but now I no longer fear getting doxx'd or getting swarmed with anon hate. I just know that talking about it is the number one way for Jews to lose friends.

"do you even want to be friends with these people?" yes. if I held goyim to the standard of i/p opinions I think everyone ought to have, I'd have no goyische friends. at this point as long as they agree that hamas is a terror org and a 2-state solution is best, I'm down to keep being friends, because even that is a godsend for people my age (20s).

it's even started to affect me in real life. the other day I had a talk with a goysiche friend of 15 years about i/p (knowing where they stood, obviously, by this point). we got into a mild argument, but they had stuff to do so we had to stop. I sent them an unrelated text an hour later, and when I got radio silence for the rest of the day (our argument was in the morning) a part of me genuinely believed that was it for us and braced for losing an irl friend who means so much to me and I thought was going to be in my life until one of us dies. they'd be in my wedding party. we've penciled in figuring out some honorific my future kids can use for them instead of aunt/uncle because they're nonbinary. I caved and texted them to make sure we're still friends, and they said yes, thank fucking gd, because otherwise I might've just had a full mental breakdown.

anyone else waiting for their remaining goyische friends to leave them?

#jewish vents #antisemitism #i/p

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gxrlcinema · 2 years

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first of all, in a modern au, what do you think stucky’s first holiday season would be like together if we’re thinking the (best) headcanon of bucky being jewish and steve being catholic

OH BOY THIS IS GOOD

Okay so I grew up around a lot of Catholics but I haven’t like, studied Catholicism so I’m sorry if I get anything wrong (Catholic followers feel free to correct me!)

Poor NJB Bucky (NJB JBB, if one would) has no idea what Christmas is actually like from a religious angle. Like, yes, trees, gifts, movies, etc. He gets that. But what is a mass, and why is Steve telling him he’d like him to come but Bucky doesn’t have to if it makes him uncomfortable?

Bucky goes to mass and observes it like an anthropologist. He has many questions afterwards.

“Why are the seats so uncomfortable?”

“I dunno, Buck, maybe it reminds us of G-d’s presence.”

“Okay, but is that like a Bible thing or a ‘the Pope said it’ thing?”

“What?”

(This is the day Steve Rogers learns about the Talmud).

Steve fares a little bit better with Hannukah, having had a Jewish best friend (Arnie) growing up.

Bucky is actually kind of annoyed by this. Steve is showing him up in front of his Bubbe.

Like, when Avital (one of Becca’s adorable offspring) asks to play dreidel, and Steve launches into an explanation of what the letters on each side represent, both in the game and as a phrase.

“If you put those words together it says ‘nes gadol hayah sham’ which means ‘a great miracle happened there’. Do you know what that miracle was Avital?”

“The oil?”

Steve grins and gives Avital a high five. “That’s right! The miracle of the oil.”

Ruth, Bucky’s middle sister glares at him.

“If you don’t marry this goy I will.”

They do Christmas dinner with Steve’s friends.

Bucky stays the night at Steve’s Christmas Eve. He doesn’t realize how big a deal it is until he’s woken at 6 AM. He tiptoes out to the living room to see Steve, who got so excited at the prospect of spending Christmas with someone ( which he hasn’t done since his ma died) that he woke up early to put all the presents under the tree and stuff the stockings like Santa had appeared overnight.

Bucky goes right back to bed without saying a word. Remembering Steve teaching Avital about miracles.

When Steve nearly cries at the watercolor set Bucky gifts him - because he’d wanted to be an artist once, and Bucky thinks he can and should want it again - Bucky thinks that Steve Rogers might be a miracle all on his own.

#ilanswers #tiff 🐢#helena ⚰️#ipmoshpit #ilana hits 600!#stucky #stucky headcanon #jewish!bucky #jewish!bucky barnes

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the-warmesthello · 2 years

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owen's family/siblings hcs

a couple of hcs about owen's family bc im sick and need to write these down before the delirium fades and i completely forget all of this.

PRE-POSTING EDIT: i'm better now. i did, in fact, forget all of this and am piecing it back together. this isn't fully sick me's vision, but it is what i think.

PRE-POSTING EDIT EDIT: wow this is so fucking long why am i incapable of being normal about this. btw just realised that these r ocs. im making ocs. i didn't think of them as ocs up until now, just as literally what his family's like the same way canon is what his adult life's like, but i made spies are forever ocs and you will hear about them. this message brought to you by me a week after i started making this post.

this is the springboard for all my stuff about owen's family. in this post i'm only focussing on childhood except where i think i might forget. my barb-owen lavender marriage au is based on inheritance fraud regarding these specific people. i might contradict myself later, but probably not.

trigger warnings: emotionally abusive family, ableism, parent death, traumatic/accidental death, trauma and its aftermath, child labour exploitation i think?, war undertones, abusive school experiences, one mention of anti-welsh sentiment, implied antisemitism. if you want to skip the worst of the death bit, skip the 3rd point under C.

very long also putting in bigger tags so don't want to force people to see triggering stuff, so it's under a read more.

parents

father's (b. 1895) side of the family is old money. very proudly welsh in the way of language and history, but they're politically aligned with the crown. all tories, except for a cousin that started voting plaid cymru in 1927 and was disowned. father has a strong desire for a well-rounded, educated, "manly gentleman" for a son, the same as what his father wanted. lineage is everything for the carvours. that's how it's always been.

mother (1904-1942) was jewish. her family immigrated to swansea when her parents were both children ('they met on the boat over, and it was love at first sight', mother would tell them). they integrated and became comfortably wealthy, though by what means mother never told. when she told her parents she wanted to marry a goy who wouldn't consider conversion, they fought, and even though they made up, the relationship stayed stunted.

sibling intro

owen had 3 siblings growing up: an older brother (by 6 years, A), a younger sister (by 4 years, B), and a younger brother (by 10 years, C).

someone help me with their names i'm tired. some ideas i have: - A (edit: alan reese carvour) i want to be a name that i would associate with an older guy, with fewer spelling-related ties to welsh than his younger siblings. alan, reese, trevor/trev, gavin, brian, edwin/ed - B (edit: catrin avalon carvour) i want to be similar to the name owen, one that's clearly welsh/a welsh variant if you think about it but enough of a common name that it's not super obvious to foreigners. gwen, catrin/cadi, megan, nia, enid, avalon/ava, rhiannon (cant use gwen unless owen's trans and he chose a name similar to his sister's on purpose) - C (edit: dafydd arthur carvour) i want to have a welsh spelling of a name that could be anglicised easily, should he wish. dafydd/dai, gwilym, arthur, daryn, harri

A was born in the may of 1924 while the carvours were still living in london. mother and father had recently married, and mother was young and didn't have very much support outside of her in-laws, who resented her for reasons A will never understand.

he'd always been kind of a troublemaker, throwing things and screaming and colouring all over the nursery wall, but his father didn't bother trying to fix any of it because 'boys will be boys', and his mother used to try but gave up easily when he preferred his father to her because 'forcing someone to like you better never works'.

due to this, he never really learned how to cope with emotions in a healthy way and often "embarrassed" his parents with his public emotional outbursts. only then did his father care how he acted, but the sudden rule change didn't make sense. he picked up on that shame and internalised it deeply, becoming defensive whenever someone suggested another idea to him.

probably has some kind of undiagnosed thing, but nobody ever took him to be tested when he was young, by the time he was old enough to communicate that it was a problem he didn't like either, everyone had already written him off as manipulative and beyond saving.

so he stopped caring. if he did something wrong, he was a horrible little brat. if he tried to do what people asked, they said he was trying to get something out of them.

eventually, his parents (or at least his mother) improved somewhat, but at that point he wanted nothing to do with them and was grateful that he only had to see them on school holidays. their attempts were too little, too late.

resents owen for being the 'better son', but very protective of his other siblings.

found a healthy coping mechanism in lifting heavy things when he was tasked with digging anderson shelters for everyone and felt the weight of his frustration being thrown away behind him with the soil.

this became his go-to calming method, even if it meant father screamed at him.

after 1942, he didn't dig any more holes. it was too much to bear.

so he turned his escapism into perfectionism and channelled his athleticism into boxing. he dropped out of college, got a promoter, and spent every waking moment counting out money, considering the odds of each fight, and training.

it was overwhelming, but that's what he wanted it to be.

eventually got disowned for leftism crimes. (good for him)

owen

yes i'm gonna make one of these for him too.

born in november 1930 in aberystwyth. parents' marriage more established, but not strictly happy. owen picked up on clear ideological differences between his parents at a young age, but both were raising their children under their model of success.

an 'odd' child, but in a way that was less of an inconvenience to adults so was never reprimanded for it.

he didn't really understand why people liked some behaviours better than others, but knew that when he did the right things, people were nicer to him, and sometimes even gave him things, so he learned to play the game.

honestly, as an adult he finds it funny that A was always seen as manipulative when really out of anyone in the family it was himself. i mean, like, he knew that sucked for A, but he wasn't gonna say anything about it.

since he was the "smart one", he became the de facto eldest son, and was given a much more thorough education in languages, music, and science.

played the cello, first because father told him to, then because he liked it. he liked the way it could sway with him and how deep it sounded.

father liked how there were no frets forcing one in line, like a guitar, but one still had to follow the rules or it would sound bad.

when war broke out, owen was introduced to a family that had recently moved in. his father said that he should get to know the children, they were his age. they could be friends.

after dinner that evening, his father invited him to his office, a rare honour. a machine was already set up, and owen watched the wheels rotate as he answered question after question about the neighbours' children's lives.

where are they from? have you been able to see anything in that room no child is allowed into? what did that note slipped under the front door say? can you draw it? what have they overheard about the move? what did they say their parents' jobs were? what is... who did... where... thank you, owen, that's all. you may go to your room now, there's something there for you. think of it as a token of gratitude for your trouble.

this continued for a few months, all the way up until the family disappeared. owen thought it was odd that they hadn't brought their things.

either way, the conversations stopped after that, until the next time. and the next.

when he decided to join mi6's training program, he couldn't help but notice that his file was already several pages thick on his first day.

way back in 1942, he was the first to hear the siren. the sound made him feel sick for the rest of his life.

born in july 1934. with the 'heir and a spare' out of the way, the pressure on mother to produce another son was gone, and both parents welcomed a baby girl.

spoiled by her father with material goods, but she could sense that it was to set her up for something, and there was less emotion behind it than a plan, though for what she couldn't know.

had a knack for cheering people up, even father. she could sing, and dance around a room, and perform a smile to make it all better for a moment.

she loved her siblings. if father was treating A unfairly, she would mediate. if owen was cracking under the weight of his schoolwork, languages, music lessons, the now mandatory play sessions with the neighbours, readings, and shooting practice, she would sneak into his room and offer to help cover for him.

great tree-climber. sometimes would go up and wouldn't get down unless there was food waiting for her.

some days, mother would take her into a secret room off one of the corridors nobody went through, and in there were candlesticks, both straight and tree shaped, and a cup that looked older than even mother, and a cloth that mother taught her to put on her head with a song in a language she didn't understand. there was a little metal canister on the doorframe, and when she was very little mother would lift her up so she could touch it whenever she went in or out.

mother used to say, 'this is where we come from. remember that.' and 'this is precious, and secret, and only for us to know. we can't tell father.' and it was only when B was grown, and had her own husband, and her own children, that she understood.

loved painting. mostly her dreams, which she could remember as vividly as any other memory.

what happened that night in 1942 was only 4 hours after she blew her eight birthday candles out. every year hearing the birthday song would bring it back.

talking about mother hurt after that, so she didn't.

her paintings became more focused, more like the dreams she had in the few years after that night, even when her dreams moved on somewhat. the current dream paintings were private, only shared with her family and close friends.

the ones she shared were precipices, a candle being snatched by the darkness of a tunnel, mother telling her that she was sorry for leaving while sitting with B in a sunny field, on a train, in the secret room.

after her death, the moderate number of people in the art world who know her work will wonder who the woman in her work is.

some say a reflection of herself, some a recurring character living a full life, some later on suggest a lover. the truth was that B never fully moved on from what happened, even though her life did.

born during the war in january of 1941. both mother and he had almost died, and he was sick for a month following his birth.

has no memories of mother, but always thought that she looked very pretty in pictures.

C was only 18 months old when the siren went off. mother had lifted him out of his cot while the whole family and staff filed out of their rooms to the shelters. it had been dark, and mother was shaking so much, the way she always did when this happened, and she must have missed a step on the way down. she had twisted backwards to protect him the only way she could.

father never let him forget that it was his fault.

growing up, owen and B were the only people in the house who wanted to take care of him, and they tried their best.

but C was... different. more delicate. he seemed to get sick if someone across the house shut a door too loudly. he had no interest in climbing trees or playing the cello. he seemed almost like a rabbit, always looking around, scared that something was going to get him at any moment.

the only thing he seemed to like doing was reading. he learned at what might've been a remarkably young age, but must not have been, because father never said anything. owen told him later that they'd learned to read at the same age, and he was told that it was early, so C must also have been a quick learner.

owen helped with his learning as much as he could, but support from father was impossible and textbooks were so much more difficult than fiction. in fiction he could go wherever he wanted.

his favourites were a little princess, the naughtiest girl in the school, and trixie belden mysteries.

father tried to take them away, said they were too girly, but B always managed to sneak them back. she recommended more grown up mysteries, like poirot and father brown, for when he needed a 'boyish enough' story. but it was always the boarding school stories he liked best.

so he was excited to see what adventures would await him when he finally got to go himself.

it didn't go well.

(he'd one day find that most things never do go the way they are in stories.)

the school he went to was english, and the boys all made fun of his name and how his chin jutted out when he was nervous and the way he talked, as well as everything his father had.

he spelled his name differently when they said it made him look stupid for 'spelling it wrong'.

the teachers criticised his posture and his handwriting and how he undermined their authority, though he didn't mean to, really he didn't, it was an accident.

the teachers said that if it happened this many times it couldn't have been an accident.

when he turned 21, he changed his uni major (then dropped out altogether), changed his attitude, changed his clothes. became a writer/producer as part of a travelling theatre company. all for the sake of being free.

some would say he went too far in that.

#magnetic tape recorders didnt commercially exist until 1945ish but photoelectric paper ones did so thats what that was #also jurtwen made me do it to em :) i will hold on to this concept forever #holy shit this took so long #anyway hope this is a Thing and not just some prolonged bullshittery #headcanons #owen #im right #owen carvour #spies are forever #tin can bros #emotional abuse tw #ableism tw #parent death tw #trauma tw #school tw #the rest should be fine since it's under a read more and only smaller things but if anyone wants them tagged ask me and i'll do it

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aliceat97point3 · 3 years

Text

Extremely Short Reviews of Many Matthias Schoenaerts Movies (part 2)

(this guy)

Fairly long post but shorter than the last one so... you've been warned

Racer and The Jailbird or Le Fidèle

The title says it all. A race car driver, Bibi, falls in love with a bank robber, Gigi. Fairly sweet love story with a tragic ending. The star of this movie is the excellent chemistry between Bibi and Gigi so if you're not into love stories skip this one. (the english title is oddly hard to get right because I always want to say either 'Racer and Jailbird' or 'The Racer and The Jailbird')

highlights:

adorable couple stuff

good sex scenes

kinda funny from what I remember

Gigi hates dogs which is funny because Matti loves dogs. This is the second time he's had to pretend to hate dogs. First time was in Rust and Bone.

Disorder or Maryland

(gif by @candordisarmsparanoia )

Matthias plays the french equivalent to a Marine with PTSD. He either discharged or on a forced temporary leave and gets a job as a body guard for a rich guy's wife and son. Fairly slow until about a third of the way in and the action kicks up to 11.

Hightlights:

Matthias's looks of yearning are in top form.

Made me yell at the screen multiple times "say something!" "don't say that!" "DON'T SAY THAT IN FONT OF THE KID"

The wife is from National Treasure. That's why she looks familiar.

Pulsar

I don't get this one. Someone hacked this guys wifi after his girlfriend moves to New York for work and they're doing a long distance relationship. Here's the thing... it's been a long time since I saw this one but it didn't seem like the hacker did much. They sent one fake breakup text to matti's girlfriend but yeah ... I don't understand the main dilemma of this movie.

highlights:

Another dutch movie!

Mattias does a skype puppet show for his girlfriend that is just so Awkward.

Suite Française

Matthias plays a composer turned Notsea officer who is part of a platoon of NotSeas that have taken over a French village. One of his jobs is to sort through letters that turn out to be 90% of the villagers trying to turn each other over the Germans because of loyalty is an illusion. It's a village of French snitches basically. They all think doing the notseas favors will get them immunity...this doesn't work.

Highlights:

Matti's got a dog again! (It's the dog of a family fleeing from the German invasion but still... It's a cute dog...that is also a constant reminder of the horrors of war)

Matti being charming while wearing a notsea uniform is kinda jarring.

Kirstin Scott Thomas is a Force to be Reckoned With. She starts off as an antagonist but eventually joins the good guys. She's also one of the few that hates the Germans right of the bat so that's a point in her favor.

Margot Robbie is in this! I just learned that on imdb. No idea who her character was.

Fun Interesting fact: based on a novel written by Irène Némirovsky during the invasion. I don't think I can do her life story justice so look her up because it's complicated. She was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism in her 20s. I personally think that helps explain how this story came about and the themes of ambivalence running through it. but that's just one goy's opinion. (This part was so hard to write because I really didn't want to accidentally be antisemitic while talking about this and if I was please please tell me)

Red Sparrow

From WWII to the cold war. Slightly easier topic. My first Jennifer Lawrence movie! She plays a ballerina who breaks her leg and has to become a spy, I don't get why she can't go back to ballet once her leg heals... I feel like I missed something there. Matthias plays her creepy uncle who has an incestuous crush/obsession with her.

Highlights:

At first I thought matti and the guy playing the American agent should have switched roles because I thought Matthias wasn't great at playing a creep but I was proven wrong in the end.

Matthias very last scene is chef's kiss

Best line ever "You sent me to whore school" (just look up a clip of that don't watch the whole movie)

Recommend for: people who like movies about whore school because that's what the majority of this movie is.

Getting into the short films now!!

Death of a Shadow

Surprise surprise, Another bitter sweet tragedy. The best way to get Matthias in a movie is to make sure it has a tragic ending. This one is about a WWI(?) soldier who is stuck in a limbo museum and to get out he has to collect shadows of people as they die for the Curator, who prefers murder to old age. I do recommend this one even though its sad. It used to be on amazon prime but I'm not sure where to find it now.

Daughter

A.k.a The Closest Thing to a Rom-com We'll Ever Get From This Man.

This my favorite short of his. It's about a girl who's waiting to hear from her dad as she fixes up his boat. While she's waiting she meets Mattias. very cute and of course a little melancholy.

vimeo

The Muse

Matthias plays a poet looking for his muse. but once he finds her he gets a little scared.

Honorable mentions

The Command or Kursk

I tried so hard to watch this one but it turns out I can't watch people trapped in a submarine. I freak out. but I got through enough get really really mad at the russian government.

Our Souls at Night and Bloodties

I skimmed through these two and basically just watched Matti's scenes so can't give a good review of them as films in their own right. Matthias was great in them.

#matthias schoenaerts #racer and the jailbird #Le Fidèle #disorder movie #maryland movie #suite francaise #red sparrow #death of a shadow #the muse #daughter short film #the command #kursk #our souls at night #bloodties #Vimeo

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