#if you’re not jewish why the fuck are you pretending you are

[jewishbarbies]

oscar isaac wearing a star of david AFTER saying himself in an interview “I’m not jewish” and then playing multiple ethnicity and culturally jewish characters (one being a very antisemitic portrayal) is not “proof” that he’s actually jewish. if he’s converting, that’s his business, but he needs to stop pretending he’s jewish for some perceived clout. it’s fucking disgusting and y’all defending him are an embarrassment.

[sissa-arrows]

Not a Zionist group lying about one of their members being kept out of a student reunion in Science Po Paris because she is Jewish… that she was told “You’re not getting in because you’re Jewish and Zionist”

The government jumped on it immediately calling pro Palestinians antisemitic monsters. Attal actually referred to the prosecutor in order to condemn legally the students for antisemitism.

The girl realized that her lie could have consequences on her own life if it was discovered so she changed her version saying “I actually didn’t hear the word Jewish or Zionist. A friend told me they might have heard someone else say “don’t let her in she is a Zionist”. I actually got in after the initial refusal but I didn’t stay long because the atmosphere was heavy. When I sat the person next to me moved to sit somewhere else I didn’t feel welcome.”

The truth getting out: Zionist students have been getting in these reunions to scream inappropriate stuff, to take pictures and videos of pro Palestinians students to dox them and threaten them and they make a point always screaming or talking loudly during the minutes of silence for the Palestinians who are murdered by “Israel” daily. That girl is a member of a known Zionist Islamophobic group who call everyone antisemitic all the fucking time. She previously came at reunions to take pictures and videos of the people attending. So when the student organizers saw her they told her “this reunion is meant to be peaceful it’s better if you don’t get in”.

Even now that we know the truth beyond any doubt the government is not backing down and the medias are still being super ambiguous about it.

But wanna know the icing on the cake? A pro Palestinian student went on TV to explain what happened. The journalist had the fucking audacity to say “okay but you were OCCUPYING the auditorium and you gave yourself the right to deny entry to certain people which is illegal”. Like REALLY a Zionist is going to have the fucking audacity to pretend to have the moral high ground on pro Palestinians because they “occupied” an auditorium?!?!?! You’re occupying a whole country a land that belongs to Palestinians so screw you.

(The student answered by saying it was the students duty to organize the reunion themselves after the school refused to do so multiple times and after the school refused to protect the pro Palestinians students who were harassed. Anyway that specific interview was a mess and this is the reason why I laugh at their faces whenever my family tells me I should get into politics… because if I had to go on TV and listen to the Zionists, white supremacists… I would end up punching one in the face. Like what do you mean bitch is going to be a racist piece of shit and I have to use only my words? No we’re past educating racists now it’s a punch in the face every time they are pieces of shit until they’re too scared to talk again.)

Edit to add some sources

Source 1 (paywall but you get how it started with a tweet lying about what happened)

Source 2 (the video of the pro Palestinians student I mentioned)

Source 3 (how the Zionist group went on TV to spread their lies)

Source 4 (the government jumping on the situation)

[edenfenixblogs]

Shut up you genocide supporter

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA PALESTINE WILL BE FREE

So, just to be clear, I made a post specifically explaining that I hear this phrase as a call for my death personally. I hear this phrase as a call for the death of all Jews to be murdered and denied burial and to be shoved into the sea and provided examples as of why. And I received this in my inbox less than a minute later.

I also explained explicitly that I believe Palestinian people have a right to use this phrase and reclaim it from terrorists who took it from them. I explained that my ultimate goal is peace for Palestinians and for Jews. I explained that I wish for Palestinians to live as full and equal citizens in their homeland. I explained that anything that does not contribute to this goal of peace is causing active harm to Jews as well as deepening the conflict going on right now.

Given that information, you chose to send me this.

So you want me to die? You want to kill me, a Jewish person who does not live in and has never been to Israel? You want to kill all Jews?

Hmmm…it sounds like only one of us actually supports genocide, and it sure isn’t me.

Next time you want to tell me that you want me dead and want to kill all Jewish people, you can just say that. There’s no need to pretend you’re helping Palestinians at the same time.

PS: to all the goyim who replied to my recent posts that they support Jews and abhor antisemitism—now would be a good time to show support.

Jews cannot continue to receive this kind of targeted harassment in the name of people who claim to support peace. Standing up to antisemitism means loudly and clearly denouncing this. And if you don’t do so, I’m just gonna assume you stand with @pata-hikari, who wants me dead.

I have made it abundantly clear that I don’t support the violent response to the 10/7 attacks. I have made it abundantly clear I want freedom and equality for Palestinians. It’s time for y’all to make it abundantly clear that you understand that this message was a death threat. That people are using a phrase coined to promote hope and peace and liberation to threaten (another) mass Jewish slaughter. Do you care about me or not? Stop fence sitting or choosing sides. Fight for peace or stop pretending to be my friend and ally. An ally doesn’t stand idly by while someone they claim to support gets death threats.

Again, I don’t want ANY violence. I don’t want anyone to attack this person. What I want is to stop having to deal with this shit every day. What I want is for people to be as loud in their opposition to antisemitism as they are for Palestinian self determination. What I want is to stop having to be regarded as a good guy or a bad guy. I just want to be a fucking person and I want PEACE ONLY.

[weirdmageddon]

i posted this on twitter also but it’s still eating at me. i’m so fucking embarrassed to be jewish rn. i dont want to be associated with this ongoing bullshit from israel. why do we need our own state. theyre just making every jew across the globe look bad in general even though many of us are conflicted about zionism and the legitimacy of israel as a state

people have hated jews throughout history for no fuckin reason but now israel exists but now its like. GIVING people reasons to hate us as a group. note that i DON’T conflate zionism with jewishness, but a lot of people in the world don’t know the difference because theyre uninformed and been dripfed cultural antisemitic tropes their whole life and that’s the scary part is them falsely putting two and two together. like what the fuck israel stop youre just putting fuel on the fire for people around the world to hate an entire group of historically persecuted people if youre being this shitty with your insane colonialism and apartheid like……I Want No Fuckin Part Of This. you’re spelling our own doom. you cant just swoop in and go “mine now” and then oppress the people you took land from under a regime without my blood boiling at the injustice no matter WHO you are. even if my lineage is tied to you. so when news outlets support israel it doesn’t feel like they have the best interest of jews as a people in mind. it’s in the interest of a zionist ethnostate and whatever that christian zionism belief is about the jewish people returning to the holy land as prerequisite for the second coming of jesus. its not like they care about us as a dispersed ethnocultural group, it’s all for that religious narrative that a bunch of people in the US are backing.

saying you want all jews to die is antisemitic. beating someone up because they’re jewish and no other reason without knowing their views is antisemitic. criticizing human rights violations perpetrated by israel and the belief that one group deserves more rights another is not antisemitic. and the fact that israel has the ability to pull that antisemitism card in response to criticisms of the violations they commit because their state is the “jewish homeland” drives me fucking insane. take fucking accountability for your actions. and yes, there do exist full-on anti-jewish groups in the middle east that go beyond hatred of israel’s policies and existence as a state and i’m tired of people pretending there aren’t in fear of appearing to seem like they support the state of israel. on the other side of things many people overestimate this by fearmongering and saying EVERY arab is out to get jews worldwide, telling people like me “they want YOU dead”. this is not the belief every person in the middle east and it really rubs me the wrong way that people group millions of individuals into all-encompassing lumps like this. many people there do understand nuance of this political situation.

even if i have that “right of return” by israeli law or whatever, i don’t feel obliged to it; it does not register as fair. why do i have a “right of return” when i’ve never even been there in the first place while palestinians who have homes there can’t return to them? what’s the basis for that? substituting objective reality with an imaginary reality? i don’t think like that. i can hypothetically come and go whenever i please but palestinians are severely limited in mobility? what makes me more entitled to that land than the people who lived there for centuries? nothing that comes from natural law thats for sure. it’s all artificial and inflated.

but at the same time i also dont want to be the target of antisemitism and caught in the fray just for being ethnically jewish. once people start calling for the genocide of entire groups we’ve got issues (and you better believe this absolutely applies to the palestinian victims in gaza too), because people who dissent to the violence perpetrated by the loudest are caught in there with the people who are perpetrating the violence. lack of nuance. people conflating israel and its zionist apartheid policies with jewish ethnicity and culture worldwide. other people conflating being terrorist anti-jew with muslims worldwide (like that 6-year old palestinian-american boy that was just stabbed to death in chicago). scary times man. but as a jew i can’t just opt out of this if it’s how i was born as. i don’t have control over that. but i can control what i think and what my beliefs are

[spacelazarwolf]

y’all i found it, i found the post that originated the claim that i’m a ZionistTM and it’s even more ridiculous than i expected.

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this is, of course, the same person who labeled me a MisogynistTM for making a half baked joke reblog basically saying “jewish standards of masculinity are different than white western standards of masculinity” then cited orthodox judaism, a community i’m not a part of, as why Actually The Jewish Community Is Horrifically Misogynistic And Bad (as if i haven’t faced misogyny from jewish cis men before???????)

anyway, my post in this screenshot didn’t once mention israel. it didn’t mention zionism. it was talking about antisemitism. i turned off reblogs because people were making it about zionism and israel, which was derailing my original point. i set a specific boundary and people kept crossing it, so i turned reblogs off and blocked people who wouldn’t leave it alone. absolutely nothing about that could possibly indicate that i’m a zionist unless you think that diaspora jews setting boundaries about being forced into a conversation about israel, especially one where we are essentially being blamed for the antisemitism we face because of the government of a country we don’t even live in and have no control over (there’s a phrase that, it’s called dual loyalty and it’s been getting jews killed for decades) or if you think simply talking about the history of antisemitism and current rising levels of antisemitism is somehow “zionist propaganda” in which case you might want to get your head out of your ass and question why you’re agreeing with literal nazis. also bonus points for this person literally just blatantly blaming jews in the tags for the rise in antisemitism because we’re apparently not being antizionist enough to deserve basic human decency and safety! not even trying to hide it anymore huh!

and of course it worked like a charm bc now, months later, you have people saying this:

“the jew is trying to disguise himself as one of you to trick you!!!!!! he is actually evil and trying to manipulate you to further his evil (((zionist))) plans!!!!!!!!!! beware!!!!!!!!!!!” which is literally just repackaged antisemitic tropes that are centuries old. i’ve never interacted with the person in this screenshot in my entire life, and yet they seem to think they have insider knowledge into my Evil Zionist Plans to infiltrate the community and spread Zionist Propaganda because they interacted with one gentile witch that threw a hissy fit about being told not to be antisemitic in discourse about gentiles appropriating lillith. this gentile decided that every single jew who disagreed with them was a zionist, and when i told them it was antisemitic as fuck to call any jew they disagree with a zionist they went on about me being a “raging zionist” and “faking being queer” for DAYS. so it’s not a mystery where the person in this screenshot got the “ooh scary (((zionist))) pretending to be queer and trans to spread his evil (((zionist))) propaganda” rhetoric from. it’s word-for-word from the gentile witch who was pissed about fucking LILLITH DISCOURSE.

bc the thing is, these ppl don’t actually care if i’m a zionist. if they did, they would be engaging with what i’ve said (which is practically nothing because i knew the second the word israel touched my blog that this would happen — which is why i didn’t want people going on and on about israel on a post about antisemitism). they know that labeling a jew a zionist is an immediate death sentence in progressive circles. they know it’s the easiest way to discredit a jew you don’t like. because it doesn’t matter how many times you say “no, i’m not” you will be forever tainted in the eyes of gentiles by that accusation. that’s why they made the accusation in the first place. and so i will continue to not share any of my thoughts or opinions other than “i’m pro palestinian liberation” and “i’m not a zionist” and people will ignore that to play yet another game of Zionist Telephone to target a jew they don’t like. it’s not the first time it’s happened, to me or in general, and it won’t be the last time. i just hope people seeing this and reading this will help people understand how fucked up and antisemitic it is.

so yeah. if you see accusations floating around that i’m a zionist, this is where it came from. a situation that is textbook dual loyalty, being punished for setting boundaries on my own blog, and people who hate trans men jumping at the chance to demonize one with one of the easiest tricks in the book as soon as they see he’s also jewish. the fact i keep having to address this when the origin of the rumor is literally just antisemitism should heavily inform how seriously you take random claims online that a jew is a zionist. most of the time it’s just blatant antisemitism, and very often it’s a way to silence an unrelated conversation that person was trying to have.

[redahlia-writes]

dream a little dream of me. | steven grant

Abstract: He thought it’d be awkward. He thought the lie would be too much and that he wouldn’t be able to keep up, that perhaps his shyness would get the best of him, and though he wanted desperately to try for you, he was terrified he’d somehow mess it all up. But he finds himself at ease, a sense of home he’s not sure he’s ever felt before.

Words: 3K

Content: f!reader; fluff, just fluff, fake dating, a little awkwardness, them being down bad for each other, yes it’s november and i’m posting a christmas fic

A/N: is this based on this tiktok i’ve seen months ago and haven’t been able to stop thinking about? yes it is. but moving on - (scene is from doctor who’s christmas special “the time of the doctor”)

also on AO3 - masterlist

feedback is always greatly appreciated. you can send it here, too

“Emergency, you’re my boyfriend.”

For a moment, he thinks he hasn’t heard you correctly - it’s not the first time he receives a call from you that starts with an absurd statement, question or words that overall leave him confused. He’s almost grown fond of it, though this time it takes him too long to process what you’re saying.

“Ding dong, okay,” he replies, and frowns at himself - what? “I might be a bit rusty in some areas, but -” stop talking. “No, no,” you sound frantic, a clatter in the background followed by a string of curses under your breath before you clear your throat. “You’re not actually my boyfriend, Steven.”

“Oh, that was quick,” you snort, only to return right away to your muttering and swearing, followed by more loud noises that truly make him worry for your safety. “What’s going on? Why do you sound like that?”

“Because it’s Christmas, and I lied to my family, and this bloody oven won’t work and I’m so behind with dinner - fuck,” he knows your phone slipped and fell to the ground - there’s more rattling, a slam, a sigh. “They’ve been setting me up on blind dates for ages until I told them I had a boyfriend, and they said they couldn’t wait to meet him for Christmas - I thought they were joking, but now it’s Christmas and I don’t have a boyfriend and they asked about him for tonight, so I need you to be my boyfriend. Please.”

The last time he heard you so panicked was when a group of school kids had run inside the museum, escaping the control of their teachers. You had fussed and worried about the artefacts in spite of the glass cases, and he’d had to bring you a hot chocolate to calm you down as the children settled back into order, rubbing soothing circles on your back as you at last got up for their tour.

“You do know I’m Jewish, right?” he asks then, and you groan quietly. “Well, mazel tov - you’re still coming to your girlfriend’s Christmas dinner,” he laughs then, shaking his head a little - of course he is, he’s decided the moment he heard your nervous rambling, getting up from the desk to get to the closet and change out of his worn out clothes - he knows it’s play pretend, but his mind still started reeling about the need of making a good impression on your family, and he cannot do that in a washed out white shirt and old trousers with more than a hole in them.

“Alright, alright - so bossy,” he replies, and hears you exhale in relief, a temporary pause that is interrupted by a too loud ding that makes you yelp, quick steps passing by, more noise. “Hey, take a deep breath for me, love, will you?” he calls out - he knows the phone is still on the floor, speaker on, your hands otherwise busy. Later on, once he gets to your place before the rest of your family, he’ll find it there, still.

“Can’t,” you call right back, yelling a little over the sound of running water. “I’ll be there in a bit,” he sighs, and hangs up before you can respond, hoping that, at the very least, your house won’t burn down in the time it takes him to get ready.

To say your family is loud is an understatement. From the moment they walked through the door, Steven’s senses have been assaulted by greetings and laughters and too-tight hugs.

He finds he doesn’t mind it one bit.

He helps you bring the food to the table, keeping an eye on your injured hand - a shallow cut from a broken glass he cleaned and bandaged himself because you refused to lose too much time going to get it checked. Stubborn, he’s muttered under his breath, and you’ve waved a spoon in his direction in mock threat, making him laugh.

He truly doesn’t remember the last time he’s seen so much food, vegan options thrown in the mix he knows for a fact you’ve done last minute when he’s accepted to go along with your lie - he’s thankful for it, for you, for this night.

Your mother is the most curious about him - and where did you meet, she asks, and how long have you been together, and how’s his job, and -

“Mum,” you call just then, loading her plate again with a pointed look. “It’s Christmas, not a job interview. Give him a break, will ya?” “I’m just curious,” the woman shrugs, looking at you and then Steven, then back at you. “You always talk so much about him, I want to hear some of those things from him,” she protests, and for a moment your movements still, face heating up.

“Ma!” you complain, a quick glance in Steven’s direction as he grins - his cheeks hurt for how much he’s been smiling tonight.

He thought it’d be awkward. He thought the lie would be too much and that he wouldn’t be able to keep up, that perhaps his shyness would get the best of him, and though he wanted desperately to try for you, he was terrified he’d somehow mess it all up. But he finds himself at ease, a sense of home he’s not sure he’s ever felt before.

And it’s not so difficult to pretend to adore you, to be in love with you - it’s not pretending at all, really. So he slips into it, that tugging at his heart that makes him feel warm all over whenever you hug him, or rest your hand on his arm, or talk with him in that enthusiastic way that makes your eyes shine a little bit brighter.

“Well, we met at work,” he clears his throat, pushing the few crumbs that remain on his plate around to stop himself from fidgeting with his hands too obviously. You fill his glass again, a new surge of affection in his eyes when he glances at you. “It was her first day, and I still worked at the gift shop - she bought too much candy right after her first tour ended and accidentally started her second one late because I kept her talking about some of the newest artefacts,” you snort, shaking your head a little - it feels like ages have passed.

He doesn’t talk about everything else - about Khonshu, and Marc, and Ammit. He doesn’t mention the help you’ve been during the whole mess, that you’re most likely the only reason he’s still got a job - and a promotion on top of that - and how you’ve kept him sane in the aftermath just by being his friend. He wants to say you’re probably the most important person in his life as for now, but he doesn’t because his mask would fall then and expose him to everyone in the room, you included. For now, it’s just pretend.

“In his defence, I’m the one who started rambling, and he had to remind me I actually had a job to do, so -” you shrug a little, but the smile doesn’t leave your lips. He’s looking at them too often tonight, he knows, but he can’t help himself.

“Is that why you called him your saviour?” your mother chuckles, and you almost drop the glass in your hands, eyes widening. Steven coughs on his mouthful of wine.

“Did you, really?” he wonders, and doesn’t want to sound amused but truly cannot help it. “I thought you’d said it as a joke,” he still remembers - the embarrassed laugh, frantically reaching for your badge as you walk towards the exhibition area, calling over your shoulder a you’re my saviour, thank you!, quickly hiding the candy in the pockets of your skirt.

“Half joke,” you scoff, bumping your knee with his under the table - that’s just for him, not for the show, and he smiles again. “I reckon I wouldn’t have liked it particularly if I had been fired on my first day.”

“Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have liked that either,” he muses, your nose scrunching up with your smile as you lean in a little. “But we’ve been friends since - she also helped me get out of the gift shop, somehow convinced our boss I should do some of her tours.”

“That she told us - spent the whole day complaining about Donna, is it?” both of you groan a little at the woman’s name, then quickly exchange a look that your father, not-entirely distracted by whatever was playing faintly from the TV, notices with his eyebrows raised.

“What she did not tell us,” your mother chimes in again, hands locked under her chin, “is how this,” she gestures between the two of you, a coy smile upturning her lips, “happened.”

“Ma!” you say again, one hand rising to cover eyes and forehead as you sink a little into the chair. At his side, your grandma chuckles, elbowing Steven gently.

“They’re shy, can’t you see?” she tuts, her eyes moving from Steven to you. “Haven’t even kissed once, these two.”

“Come on, leave the kids alone,” your father says, now no longer paying attention to the TV. “What? It’s just a kiss!” the older woman protests, grinning up at Steven. “It’s Christmas after all, what’d you say, young man?”

“Oh, God,” you mutter under your breath, both hands lifted to cover your face. Steven feels his neck burn, words tangling on the tip of his tongue as he glances at you, back at your grandmother, you again, unsure of what to do, say, think. “As long as you drop it.”

There’s an apologetic look in your eyes when you drop your hands and turn towards him - he wants to say it’s fine and don’t worry but he can’t, because you’re leaning in and brushing your lips to his. It’s quick, a peck, a brush of lips that makes his heart flutter, and you’re holding your breath, the tip of your fingers caressing his chin before you’re pulling back, leaving him dazzled, yearning for the taste of wine on your mouth.

“There,” you clear your throat, reaching for your glass with a hand that shakes slightly - there’s a groan at the other end of the round table, and in his temporary haze Steven sees your eyes widen, fingers curling around nothing, a notch away from the glass.

“You call that a kiss?” suddenly you’re wondering if you should’ve stopped bringing bottles of wine when your grandfather refilled his glass for the 6th time, his mood certainly turning jolly. Loud. Boisterous. “Come on, lad. Give her a proper kiss!”

“For the love of -” you look at him and sigh again, shaking your head a little. “Pops, really, it’s not -” you turn to Steven, still apologetic looking.

A split second, and he’s kissing you. Steven shouldn’t be taking advantage of the situation, he knows, but it’s a proper kiss and your grandfather is laughing. And Steven is kissing you, a proper kiss - gentle, delicate, and your hands come up to cup his jaw before you can help yourself, suddenly not wanting him to part from you. His stubble scratches your palm, and you let your eyes flutter shut at last, surprise leaving place to ease.

It’s easy, kissing Steven. It’s soft and gentle and warm all at once, and his hand is on the back of your head while the other rests on your thigh - his fingers trace a pattern over your clothes, and through the small fireworks popping in your mind you manage to discern letters. S-o-r-r-y, the apology on the tip of his fingers as the kiss goes on for longer, his lips parting and yours with them, melting towards him.

You would laugh, if you could remember how to breathe. Instead you’re carefully bringing your hand to Steven’s curls, slowly smoothing them back from his face, and your lungs are burning because you’re supposed to be breathing but really you don’t want this to end, you want to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him until you’ve grown tired of it and then some.

It’s Steven that eventually pulls away, and there’s an odd noise trapped at the back of your throat as you force your eyes to open, to make it seem as if that wasn’t your first kiss, as if you didn’t feel the ground rock beneath your feet, and your heart wasn’t trying to jump out of its place behind your ribcage.

The tip of Steven’s nose is bright red, as if he stood in the cold for too long, and it spreads across his cheeks like a rosy brushstroke - his lips are a little parted, short bursts of air coming out of it as he looks back at you with his eyes shimmering a little. He looks unbelievably pretty, and it takes every ounce of willpower in you to turn away instead of diving right back towards his lips.

“So, who wants dessert?”

You’ve been looking at him for a while. He’s in the living room, carefully stocking up the empty plates from the table, setting the cutlery aside, the paper crown sitting a little askew on his curls. He’s humming as he does so, and a smile catches on your lips - it’s Dream A Little Dream Of Me, a song you’ve found yourself singing often in between tours, Doris Day’s version constantly stuck in your head.

“I will deal with that in the morning - you’ve already done more than enough,” you tell him softly, reaching his side. He looks up towards you, your eyes meeting for the first time since after the kiss - it still burns on your cheeks, lips, neck, the tip of your ears. “Thank you.”

“I cannot possibly leave you with this mess,” he argues, still gathering what’s left on the table - empty glasses and paper from gift wrappings and Christmas crackers. “What kind of fake boyfriend would I be?” he grins a little, and you laugh, shaking your head. The clock behind his head signals 2:34 AM.

“I don’t think I will ever be able to repay you for what you did tonight,” you reach up to fix the paper crown on his head, and he forgoes the plates and forks to turn to you.  “I enjoyed it,” he’s fidgeting a little, fingers tapping along his thighs. “My family - it’s never been like this, I’ve never had anything like it. It was nice. I’m glad you asked me.”

Steven’s never spoken a lot about his family, or Marc’s family - he’s mentioned things off-handedly, but has always been quick to change the subject, and you haven’t asked, there was no need. Still, the hurt is palpable each time, and it makes you ache for him. For them.

“Well, you’re invited next year as well, then,” you say, stepping a little closer and lifting his hand towards him in offering, the other reaching for your phone in your pocket. “Come, there’s one more thing.”

Steven frowns but obliges, watching as your thumb quickly slides across the screen while you wrap your hand around his, and soon enough soft music starts playing from the speakers - the first notes of the song turn Steven’s lips in a smile as you put the phone away again, looking at him again.

“Not Ella Fitzgerald’s?” he wonders, your now free hand reaching for his shoulder. Tentatively, he places his hand on your waist, slowly catching on on your intentions when you start rocking side by side, following the music.

“My grandma would play Golden Girl all the time when I was with her,” he starts following your movements, albeit a little slower, a little unsure. “I think it stuck,” you shrug lightly, taking a little step to the side, then back - Steven follows, looking down towards the floor. “Steven.” “Sorry,” he mumbles, looking up, then back down. You smile a little, drawing closer.

Once the initial awkwardness vanishes, Steven is great - he finds his footing and begins leading, steps becoming wider, more sure, and you let him move you both around the living room as you hum the words almost under your breath, never looking away - Stars fading but I linger on, dear / Still craving your kiss / I'm longing to linger till dawn, dear / Just saying this…

He’s looking at you, too, and smiling still - for a moment you wonder if there truly was too much wine, because his eyes are shimmering, and his cheeks are still red like right after the kiss, as if he’s still warm all over, and then -

“Mistletoe,” he says, so soft you almost don’t hear him, even if the music is low, even if you have stopped singing for a while. You look up towards the doorframe you’re somehow under, and Steven is unbelievably close, his chin tilted up to look at the small plant hanging above your heads, throat exposed to you.

“Steven?” he snaps out of it as soon as you call his name, gentle, and meets your eyes. “Yes, love?”

You desperately hope you haven’t misread the whole evening. You also hope the wine induced courage won’t leave you right now as your eyes flicker to his parted lips. You lean in, gripping his shoulder a little tighter for balance, and the moment your lips brush his he shudders a little, but pulls you closer right away. He hiccups lightly, dips his head forward, and though the kiss is initially hesitant, it’s true.

It’s somehow softer than the one at the table, slower, gentler, and you both melt into it, into each other, hands untangling only to reach for the other - your arms wrap around his shoulders, and his palm presses gently against the small of your back. Steven sighs into the kiss, shoulders sagging as if in relief.

It doesn’t last long, and when you pull away, he chases the contact for a moment longer, lips searching for yours once, twice, and then he stops, eyes widening again as he looks at you. You feel yourself smiling, hand moving from the back of his neck to brush his curls away from his forehead.

“Merry Christmas,” you whisper, the tip of your nose bumping his, and his face splits in a wide grin, holding you a little closer, a little tighter. He won’t let go now - not for the rest of the night.

“Aces.”

[sarahowritesostucky]

📖"The Commander's Omega"

Rated: Explicit

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Tags: alpha/omega, dystopia, sex slavery, forced breeding, mutilation, rape, corporal punishment, fascism, hurt/comfort, power imbalance, mpreg, age gap (38/23), mentions of abortion, miscarriage

Summary: After years of a mass infertility crisis, the United States is overtaken by religious fanatics, and Bucky Barnes finds himself thrust into a brutal world of survival. When he's discovered to be fertile, he's forced to serve as a vessel: a caste of omegas who bear children for the political elite.

Chapter VI. The Shudder Before the Slide

Story Masterlist

Before:

The first time Bucky hits heat, he’s just turned fourteen years old, has just had a great birthday party over the weekend, and is stressed out over all the stuff he’s gonna have to learn now that Rabbi Schmeckle gave the green light for his mom to start planning his bar mitzvah. Alpha boys get one at 13, but beta boys have to wait until they’re a year older at least, to make sure they aren’t “late bloomers” (a euphemism for an omega son—what Bucky learns later in life is every Jewish mother except for his own's worst fear).

He’s in homeroom at 7:15 am, backpack slung across his lap and foot tapping as he eagerly awaits the bell. Harriet Falsworth is in his third period English class and he’s got a not-so-subtle crush on her. He can’t wait to slide his hand-made valentine into her locker. Just thinking of Harriet makes his heart beat faster. … Lately, it’s made other things happen, too (there’s a reason he’s got the backpack over his lap, right now). If half the kids in his homeroom have put space between themselves and him, he certainly doesn’t notice.

“Hey Barnes, what the fuck?”

Bucky turns around in his seat to look back at where George and Seth are sitting. “What?” he hisses, not wanting to get in trouble for talking out of turn in homeroom. Sister Joan is a real hard-ass when it comes to stuff like that. Everybody hates her.

“Why d’you smell like that?” Both boys snicker. “Is it your time of the month or something?”

Bucky scowls. “Huh?”

“That’s enough,” Sister Joan says from the front of the classroom, making George and Seth shut up. Bucky’s still left confused over the remark, though. “Everyone work on your homework,” Sister Joan snaps. 

All the students in the room are quick to pull out notebooks and at least pretend to be working on something, meanwhile Sister Joan’s attention has narrowed in on Bucky. He gulps as she comes over to him, thinking, great, what’d he do now? (Bucky can’t prove it, but he thinks Sister Joan picks on the kids who she knows aren’t Catholic.) 

“James,” she says, using his first name rather than the crisp ‘Mr. Barnes’ that he usually gets from her. Her kinder-than-normal tone is also concerning.

Bucky wavers uncertainly as she stops in front of his desk. “Um, yeah?”

“It’s alright. You’re not in trouble. I need you to gather your things and come out into the hall with me, Dear.”

He frowns at the ‘Dear’, certain that he is in trouble, somehow. She’s just tricking him, trying to get him away from the other kids so she can really light into him. Bucky frowns, trying to wrack his mind for what he’s done lately that somebody could’ve snitched on. But he’s been good! He’d promised his mom that he’d try harder this school year not to make trouble. He glances back to George and Seth in the row behind, confused and annoyed about why they’re still snickering at him. He can’t help but feel that he’s missed out on some soft of joke. “Erm, but ... why?” he asks Sister Joan.

Her lips thin and she straightens her spine. “Because I said so.”

-

Bucky’s forced to leave school early that day. They send him home in a taxi, since his mom and dad are both at work and can’t come to get him. He tries hard not to cry in the backseat of the cab, but it’s a challenge. He’s presented as omega. That’s what Sister Joan, and later the school nurse, had told him. Apparently they could tell it even before he could. Something about the way he smells. It’s embarrassing in a way he can’t quite yet put his finger on, and he hates it. His mom had sounded really upset on the phone, but like she was trying not to be.

Bucky squirms uncomfortably in the cab and itches to get home so he can Google about this, maybe find some fact that can prove they've made a mistake about him. He doesn't feel omega. He has a vague memory of a fifth grade puberty lecture, but he hadn’t paid attention because boys hardly ever turned out to be o!

He can’t get his mind off the way that George and Seth were laughing at him, and it sticks in his mind as the first lesson he ever gets about being omega: it’s nothing to be proud of.

“Alexa: what’s that Tony Stark quote about Isaac Asimov?” 

“Here’s what I found on the web:”  

Bucky takes an absent-minded sip of his latte as he listens to the answer. It’s gone cold by now, but he hasn’t been able to peel himself away from his laptop for over an hour. Not when he’s on such a good roll. Halfway through his paper on the practical applications for intelligence simulation in robotics, and he is in the fucking zone, hyped up on caffeine—okay, and maybe just a little bit of Adderall that he bought from weird-Kevin in the Library. His fingers skip over the keyboard as he tries to keep pace with his fast-flowing thoughts. 

On the other side of their dorm room, Dylan is working, too. Or, he’s supposed to be. But Bucky’s pretty sure he fell into a YouTube rabbit hole a while ago.

“Ohh, sweet baby Jesus,” Dylan croons.

Bucky glances over. “What?” he asks, taking a second sip from his latte and wincing. He really should just warm it the fuck up. The microwave’s only ten feet away from where he’s sitting.

Dylan removes his earpods and looks over. “Henry Cavill,” he says, as if it’s a complete sentence. 

Bucky arches a brow. “Don’t you have a paper you’re supposed to be writing?” 

“Yeah.”

“Pretty sure it isn’t on Henry Cavill.”

“S’for Family Studies,” Dylan says absently. He’s distracted, still staring at his computer screen with dreamy eyes.

Bucky scoffs at the mention of the course name. “What’s your paper on?”

“‘Gender dynamics in mate selection: A case for traditional marriage.” Dylan catches the nasty look that Bucky shoots him and defends himself with a hasty, “Well I didn’t pick it. It's a diversity requisite.”

“Stupid waste ‘a time,” Bucky mutters. “Making us take a bunch of dumb 101’s that have nothing to do with our majors. And we get the privilege of paying for it. It's extortion. I don’t get how it's even legal. I mean this is friggin' NYU."

"It's private. I guess they can do what they want, yeah?" Dylan shrugs and keeps dicking around on YouTube, his disregard for his coursework once again reminding Bucky that his roommate comes from money.

Unlike Bucky himself, who can’t afford to be careless about anything. Not when he’s depending on maintaining his GPA to keep his academic scholarship. They’re only a few weeks into fall semester right now. Dylan’s an incoming freshman, and he has to take all the same bullshit gender and family courses that Bucky himself put up with last year. He’s got no need to maintain his grades the way that Bucky does, though. Lucky fucker’ll probably nab a paid internship straight out of college, just with his family’s connections.

Dylan sighs happily over at his desk (presumably over Henry Cavill, and not his Family Studies paper). “There’s all these videos of him, like, visiting children’s hospitals. He shows up in his Superman outfit to cheer up all the little cancer kids. Ooh! and this one here: he's holding babies at Comic Con!"

Bucky rolls his eyes, attention back on his computer. “So what?”

“'So what?' So I think my ovaries just exploded, is what! So I need this man to breed me, is what.” Dylan turns his laptop to show the video where Henry Cavil is, indeed, holding a baby, then shoots Bucky a peevish look for not reacting appropriately. “He’s unf—with a capital UNF.”

“He’s okay I guess.”

“... You’re gay,” Dylan declares. “You gotta be. Your ovaries never explode. This man is prime. alpha. real estate, he’s worth like fifty gajillion dollars—”

“Pretty sure he’s not.”

“—and he’s shredded, and he’s so sweet, and he likes babies!” Dylan whines helplessly as he puts his earpods back in. “Did you see his bicep? It's bigger than the baby's head!—and I'm sorry but that baby has a fat fucking head. Jesus fuckin’ Christ. Breed me Daddy.”

Bucky hisses and waves his hand. “Hey! Watch it with the God stuff, would you?”

Dylan looks over his shoulder at the door. "Door’s shut.”

“Doesn’t fucking matter,” Bucky scolds. “Alexa’s listening. You think that shit doesn’t get reported back to the RAs?” 

“I—”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that. Can you repea—”

“Alexa, never mind!” Bucky snaps. He looks back at Dylan. “They clock you for too many JFC's and they’ll write you up for creating a ‘hostile environment’ for the rollers,” he scolds. 

Dylan winces. “Right, sorry. Just …” he gestures at his computer screen with a happy sigh. “Ovaries.” 

“Yeah yeah.” Bucky pushes out his desk chair and goes over to stick his cup in the microwave for sixty seconds.

He hasn't been in a very charitable mood about the university's 'decency' code, lately, not since he got into a tense altercation with his ethics professor, after the guy had unfairly ruled on a debate that Bucky had clearly won. The debate had been about the campus’ recent ban on porn viewed through the university wifi—Bucky had been against, his opponent for. The professor hadn’t equally applied the debate standards. And even if he had ... Bucky’s been growing increasingly disturbed with the more things he notices changing around campus, not to mention the broader world.

"Sorry man," Dylan promises. "I'll put a post-it up to remind myself."

Bucky almost laughs. “Good idea. And you want my advice? You’d better stop joking about your ovaries all the time, too. Or your heats."

"Exploding ovaries is my go-to!"

"Find a new one. If the rollers get wind of you being fertile, they’ll never leave you alone.” He pulls his cup out when the microwave beeps and carries it back to his desk, making a long-suffering face as he blows on the top. “Trust me, I should know.” 

Of course by now he’s started taking all the precautions that they tell you to take, these days. He’s stopped getting his suppressants from the campus health center, ordering them from an online pharmacy that uses discreet packaging, instead. He uses incognito mode on his parents’ cell plan to watch any porn, or to buy condoms, or search for anything that’s even remotely controversial. He’s deleted his heat tracking app, changed his documented religion from “Jewish-Agnostic” to “Non-denominational,” edited his dating profiles on all the apps from saying “wants kids” to “unsure,” and has even had his father sign for legal control of all his O-HIPPA forms so that nobody can ever data mine his medical records again—Emphasis on “again,” as he certainly hadn’t done it in time to prevent it from happening once. 

Somewhere out there in the digital ether, somebody already has his medical information in their database. And they’ve definitely been selling it to others, if the nonstop emails, spam calls, and junk mail he’s been receiving are anything to go by. Ever since he got the abortion last semester, various fertility-for-profit and pro-life groups have been bombarding him with heartfelt appeals for his surrogacy, offering compensation for his eggs, extolling the virtues of omega motherhood, bemoaning the population crisis, blessing him with prayers, entreating him to join up with this congregation or that one, begging him to surrender to God’s will for his 'biological destiny'. Oh, and Bucky’s personal favorite: threatening him with surprisingly graphic descriptions of eternal damnation if he doesn’t repent for his sins and produce more babies as penance for killing his unborn child. 

He even received a signed copy of somebody called Serena Joy's book: An Omega's Place. Bucky's never burned a book before, but it'd been damn tempting to start, once he'd flipped past the title page and realized what it was: a flaming shitpile of anti-omeganist trash. He'd shelved it in the library, right next to a book about infectious diseases of the bowel and colon.

“Don’t you want kids?”

Bucky presses his lips together at the presumptive question, trying to cut Dylan a break. The poor fucker probably has ADHD, and to be fair, he doesn’t realize how insensitive he's being, because Bucky hasn't told him about the abortion. “Sure," Bucky says. "I guess. Like, one day if I get married or whatever. Just not now. Not for a long time.”

“Yeah. Me too I guess.” Dylan reaches for his computer mouse with a dirty snicker. “Unless I find an alpha like Mr. Cavill. Then it’s baby-makin’ time.”

“You’d better watch your mouth,” Bucky mutters. “Pretty soon they’re gonna start a womb draft.”

“Oh come on. That’s never gonna happen.” 

“You just wait and see. They’ll be going after abortion soon,” he warns. “Then who knows what else.”

Dylan ‘tsks’ and goes back to scrolling on his computer, telling him that’s an extremist and unrealistic way of thinking. “That’s about as likely as me getting with Daddy Cavill.” He makes a sad, mournful noise. “Son of a bitch is taken. Why can’t I meet a nice alpha like that?”

Bucky hums in false sympathy and goes searching in his desk drawer for a pair of earplugs to drown out any more distractions. He’s joking about the womb-drafting thing … mostly. But he’s actually got a bad feeling about the abortion part of it.

It’s been months, but he hasn't forgotten that rude-ass doctor from back at the first clinic he’d gone to, over break. He remembers the man’s face screwed up in disdain, and more worryingly, the confidence he’d had in turning Bucky away. Bucky can’t get the guy’s parting words out of his mind:

“The law’s gonna change real soon.”

It’s silly to still be thinking about it, he knows. Because he’s checked, since then. He's been keeping up on current events, reading up on national and local politics, keeping an eye out for anything in the news about any change or challenge to reproductive freedoms in New York, or even at the federal level. But other than the usual sanctimonious op-eds and click bait about holy rollers losing their shit outside Planned Parenthoods, there hasn’t been anything happening. 

Still ... He can’t quite get the words out of his mind. 

Base camp for the resistance is a scattered collection of trailers and hastily-constructed shacks in the Appalachian mountains. Bucky knows that they’re somewhere in Pennsylvania, but that’s about all he knows. When he’d first met his contact back in Brooklyn, it’d been very secretive. Nobody had trusted him at that point, and he’d been driven around and then led into camp with a blindfold on.

That’s just fine with Bucky. He knows what he needs to know. Other people shuttle them out on missions when they need to go. Bucky’s quickly made rank as sniper. He’s killed something in the range of fifty or sixty guardians of the faith, and he’s relished every kill.

His mom wouldn’t like that if she knew, would tell him it’s sinful to be glad about killing people. But she hasn’t seen the things that The Faithful are doing nowadays. They’re hanging people who won’t convert. They’re kidnapping omegas and doing god only knows what with them. The few omega refugees that the resistance takes in don’t talk about their experiences out there, and Bucky doesn’t ask. He’s heard rumors though, ridiculous things about sex slaves and breeding centers. He’s got a hard time believing that. It’s a little too outrageous of an idea, even for The Faithful.

Anyway, Bucky’s mom is tucked away with his sisters, safe in Toronto. She hasn’t seen the things he has. Bucky likes to think she’d be proud of him, if she knew what he was fighting against.

He sits next to two other guys on one of the cots that crowd the medical tent. He and the other serving omegas are waiting their turns to get suppressant injections. Bucky had cycled naturally until he was sixteen, then his mom had taken him to the doctor and he’d gotten set up with oral suppressants. He likes the way his body feels when he’s on them, and it’s a relief that he’ll be able to stay on them here. He hadn’t expected that luxury. Sex with anyone but your own hand out here is rare, so pregnancy isn't something he really worries about. But not having a heat while he's trying to shoot some motherfuckers? Yeah that's just peachy.

“Barnes,” the medic calls out. Bucky gets up from his seat and goes over to the guy. “Let's see your ID.” Bucky shows it to him and the man checks something off on his clipboard. “Alright,” he says. “Roll up your sleeve.”

Bucky does. He watches as the medic preps the syringe. It’s been explained to him that they do injections out here instead of pills because it’s more reliable. Makes sense. One shot every three months and you’re good to go. Can’t exactly depend on having a daily pill available when you’re out fighting for weeks on end. And the last thing that’s strategic on the battlefield is an omega in heat.

He holds out his arm for the doctor to shoot him up.

Bucky grunts as Brock and the other guardian pull him out of the back of the van. This is the second damned time he’s been dragged into the red center against his will, and it makes him feel like a hell of a failure for getting caught. At least he doesn’t have a bag over his head this time, but that’s about the only thing that’s improved.

“Thought you could run away, huh?” Brock says, as he tugs on Bucky’s arm to get him to follow along. He looks over, notices the blood crusted on Bucky's neck, and pauses. “You hurt?” 

“No.” Bucky tries to pull away, but he can’t. He growls in frustration when Brock reaches up and tucks his shaggy hair behind his right ear. 

"Aw, hell kid," Brock says when he sees the mess. "What the hell did ya do to yourself?"

Bucky jerks his head away and scowls without looking at him. "What I had to do." They pass through the outer fence, then the secondary, then the inner checkpoint. Each gate locks behind them with a click and a computerized ‘beep’, the sounds like physical blows to the deepest pockets of Bucky’s remaining hope. They hurt. Those are the sounds of his freedom being stripped away, again.

Brock takes him through the gymnasium and into the old locker rooms, back by the showers. He makes Bucky take off all his clothes—beta blue that he’d stolen off one of the caretakers—and tells him to wash the grime off himself. 

Bucky turns the water on and waits for it to get hot. The old pipes behind the tiled shower wall clunk and groan as the water pressure comes through. He holds his hand under the water, noticing the coat of dirt on his forearm and the back of his hand, the blood crusted under his fingernails. He’s been living rough while trying to figure out a way to get past the city limit checkpoints. It’d been okay building up a stink. At least it’d done a bit to cover up the smell of his heat. 

The Faithful don’t believe in the use of suppressants, think it’s against God or nature or some such bullshit. So of course Bucky and the other vessels are never allowed to have them. He hadn’t been able to find any when he was out on the street, either. Being in heat had made the escape harder, but not impossible. He’d gotten out and joined a homeless encampment underneath the 495 overpass near the northeast edge of the city, had traded handjobs with one of the alphas there in exchange for protection, for him scenting Bucky up real good each day and night. It’d worked, until it hadn’t. The camp got raided, and Bucky and a few other omegas were grabbed in the chaos before they could make a real run for it.

Now he’s right back where he fucking started. 

He pumps out soap from the dispenser on the wall and rubs it over his shoulders and his neck. He peeks back at Brock. The alpha isn’t averting his eyes. He’s leaning back against the wall all casual like, watching Bucky wash himself, his mouth turned up slightly at the corners. Asshole. “So what was the plan?” he asks. “Hitch it all the way back to New York?” 

Bucky shrugs. “Or basecamp. Whichever.” He’d thought about heading for New York, or the Canadian border, but that was a long fucking way to go without being caught. From D.C., the rebellion’s basecamp in the Pennsylvania mountains had been the closest option. And even then …

“You wouldn’t’ve made it,” Brock says. “Don’t feel bad. Nobody could, not with the way they’ve got the roadblocks set up. Checkpoints, patrols, citizen tip line. It’s impossible right now. You were always gonna get caught.”

Bucky wonders if Brock’s really trying to make him feel better, or if he’s just in the mood to rub his nose in his own failure. He shrugs, sluicing the water back off of his hair. “I had to try,” he says dully. “You know that.”

Brock hums in agreement, but doesn’t say any more. Bucky pumps out more soap, washes his face, rinses. He turns around and lets the spray beat down on his back, not caring to shield his modesty at all as he stands facing Brock. He lets his eyes slip closed for a beat, enjoying the hot water. 

“You should’ve waited until your heat'd passed,” Brock says. “Bought yourself more time.” 

Bucky grits his teeth and fights not to snap back at him. Of course he knows that, now. But he’d gotten emotional and had panicked. He'd jumped the gun—and Caretaker Kevin—when an opportunity presented itself. He’d acted before he could stop and analyze his options more rationally. Remembering it now just makes him feel awful, so he purposefully stops thinking about it. He opens his eyes and looks at Brock instead, who’s leaning casually against the wall and looking at Bucky’s naked body with mild but undisguised interest (Bucky’s not worried. Brock’s never tried to take liberties before, and he’s had plenty of chances).

But contempt curls in his gut the longer he watches the other man, watching him, standing there at ease in his Guardian’s uniform and his alpha insignia armband, a radio strapped to his chest and a stun baton hanging from his utility belt. 

“Why do you do this?” Bucky asks bitterly. He knows that Brock isn’t a zealot like some of the other Guardians of the Faith are. “Why do you help them, huh? Why not fight?” He watches as Brock’s expression turns grim. For a second it doesn't seem like he'll answer, but then he says,

“I come from a big family. Italian. Catholic.” His eyes flick up to Bucky’s face and he and Bucky just sort of stare at each other for a long moment. 

Bucky wasn’t expecting that answer, and he feels like an asshole. “They alive?” he asks. 

Brock nods.

“They get out?”

“Couldn’t. Not before the borders closed.”

“I’m sorry.” Bucky swallows thickly, looks down and shakes his head. “But that still doesn’t mean that you have to—”

“Oh, they converted,” Brock says, cutting him off. “But we weren’t just a little bit Catholic, right? We were a lotta bit Catholic. Known in the community.” He gestures to himself. “I had to join up. To help sell it.”

“Oh.”

“And my kid sister? She’s o. Married to a divorcée.” 

Bucky’s guts sink. The Faithful don’t recognize divorce, or second marriages. He’s met plenty of other vessels at the red center who were ripped from their "invalid" marriages, their “unspouses” executed for adultery, their kids given away, and their wombs rented out to the state. 

Brock nods again when he sees Bucky’s wan expression. “Yeah. So. One day I take inventory of what I got. I’m ex-special forces. I’ve got marketable skills. And ex-colleagues with those same skills. I approached a Commander, back home, and we came to an understanding. He’s the only reason my sister hasn’t been salvaged.”  

Bucky just stands there under the pouring water, wishing he hadn’t asked in the first place. It’s easier just to hate. He doesn’t feel angry or self righteous anymore. He just feels … tired. Like he did right after they took his arm. “You could’ve at least tried to do the right thing,” he says, but it lacks heat. “You could’ve fought back. I did.”

Brock’s eyes harden. “And watch them string my Nonna up on some wall? Uh-uh. I’ve got too many people I love to fight back.” He points his finger at Bucky, angry. “You picked up a gun in a losing fight cause you had the luxury of knowing that your family got out. So don’t you fuckin’ stand there and judge me.”

Bucky’s jaw clenches and, bizarrely, he feels tears press up hard at the backs of his eyes. He blinks and looks away in humiliation. They’re tears of despair more than anything else, he realizes. Despair at how fucking fucked the whole world is. For everybody. He clenches his teeth and turns back around to face the shower wall, not wanting to chance letting Brock see how stupidly close to tears he is. His face feels hot, and by the time the water hits his face again, he feels a sob working its way up in his chest. He gasps and breathes open mouthed under the deluge of the shower spray, throwing his hand up to lean against the tile wall and calm down.

Behind, he hears Brock sigh heavily. “I didn’t choose any of this, kid. S’just the hand I been dealt, same as you.”

Bucky wants to snap something back to him about that, something nasty about how Brock and he are nothing alike, how Bucky had done the right thing and Brock had been a coward, and wherever their families were didn’t excuse choosing the wrong side. But he holds his tongue and reaches for the soap dispenser instead, pumps out a bunch more of the shower gel and finishes washing off a month’s worth of grime from his body, feeling more drained and hopeless than he has since the day he woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed and looked over to see a stump where his left arm used to be.

Brock’s right: His mom and sisters are all safe in Canada right now. He’d joined the resistance knowing that his actions couldn’t hurt them. Would he have done the same if they were still living in New York, under the regime? He’s never stopped to wonder. Now he’s not so sure.  

“Please!” Bucky begs, struggling against Brock and the other guardian as they manhandle him down the hallway and into one of the old classrooms.

The red center is set up in what was once a high school, and this is one room Bucky’s never been in before. Having heard the screams echoing out into the hallway, though, he’s got a good enough idea about what goes on in here. There’s a padded table with straps that makes his blood run cold and his imagination run wild, and he jerks harder in their hold as they push him closer to it. “No please!” he begs again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” He’s crying, but Brock and the other guardian ignore him.

“God, shut up already and take what’s coming to ya,” Brock complains. “I thought you used to be a soldier.” He doesn’t say it like he’s trying to make fun of Bucky, but the other guardian snorts like it’s a joke anyways. Bucky tries to headbutt him, but Brock catches him in time and stops the other man from striking him. “C’mon kid,” he warns. “Don’t make us tase you, too. Let’s just get this over with.”

“Nnngh!” Bucky might’ve been able to overpower just one of them, if he still had both of his arms. But he doesn’t, and he can’t. They get him up on the table and restrain him face-down. Straps over his back, arms, waist, thighs, calves, and ankles hold him completely immobile. Bucky’s bare feet hang over the table’s edge as he sobs and begs in fear. “Please!” He’s nearly screaming it at them by the time the caretaker walks in, and his heart seizes in fresh terror when he sees who it is. 

It’s Caretaker Kevin—the one whose clothes he’d taken, whom he’d left beaten and tied up and gagged in the school’s boiler room while he made his escape. The man walks in holding a bundle of short, frayed metal cables in his hand. “Under His Eye,” he says to Bucky, as he approaches.

“Please!” Bucky begs, eyes unable to move from the sight of what Kevin’s holding. He knows what that’s for. He’s seen other omegas brought back to their cots, bloody feet bandaged and dragging behind them. “Please don’t do this! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

“Oh, I believe you, Sweetheart,” Kevin coos, reaching out to pet Bucky’s hair back in fake compassion. He tuts when he sees his bloody, mutilated ear, then steps out of sight towards the foot of the table. Bucky hears his horrible, saccharine voice say, “Forgiveness is God’s gift to us all, James. That’s the miracle of His love. But that forgiveness comes through redemption. Do you know what redemption means?”

Bucky sniffles and repeats, “Please, please, please,” against the table’s padded surface, wet from his terrified tears. 

“'Renewal through blood', Ephesians 1:7-8,” Kevin recites. “We all must be punished for our sins.” Down at the end of the table, he makes a slight movement, and Bucky yelps out in fear as something cold and hard touches lightly at the bottom of his right foot.

“No no no! Wait, wait!” He looks helplessly over to where Brock and the other guardian are standing sentinel by the door. “Please help me!” he cries. It’s pathetic even to his own ears, and Brock turns his back to him, looking pained. The other guardian however, seems to want to watch. Sadist. 

Caretaker Kevin takes an audible breath back where Bucky can’t see. There's the sound of displaced air, a 'swish', and then a searing, unbearable pain in the sole of Bucky's right foot. 

He screams bloody murder.

-

They drag him back to his cot that night, bandaged and barely coherent, his eyes swollen and face snotty from crying. Once the caretakers turn in for the night and only a few remain to do the usual nighttime rounds, Bucky gets a slew of apologetic murmurs in the dark from the other nearby vessels. He doesn’t thank them, just cries miserably into his pillow. He thinks of his family and of the unending pain in his feet. He misses his mom.

Within six weeks the wounds are healed, and Bucky’s left with some pretty unique scars.

After:

One time, when he was a few months away from turning fourteen—not long after he’d presented omega, and after the embarrassing debacle of having to cancel an already planned-out bar mitzvah for a "late bloomer" who was no longer eligible for one—Bucky’s whole extended family went on a cruise to Antarctica with the money that Grandpa Herschel left in his will. 

Bucky doesn’t remember too much about the trip, other than sneaking crab legs off the buffet with his cousins and being a moody fourteen year old who was not happy about presenting omega. But one day he’d been standing out on the stateroom balcony with his dad (having a “talk” about how life was apparently going to get better) when they’d witnessed a huge chunk of iceshelf break off from the Thwaites Glacier. It’d felt almost alien to Bucky, surreal, just standing there listening to the incredible noises it'd made, feeling in awe of how something so massive and sudden could seem to happen in such slow motion.

It was the most beautifully terrifying thing he’d ever witnessed up until that point in his life, and after the trip he’d gone on a bit of a geology tangent, reading books about glaciers and watching specials on the Discovery Channel about the polar ice caps.

Looking back on it now, it’s eerie how parallels can be drawn, between icebergs and what wound up happening with the country. Because you see, the thing about the shelves breaking off like Bucky and his dad saw, is that it’s a process. It happens over a long time, and most of it goes unnoticed. The cracks starts early, and small, and they don’t look like much. Sometimes they can’t even be seen from the surface at all. But underneath, they deepen, and they deepen, and they spread, and turn into fissures. Then caverns form underneath, unseen, getting hollowed out and eroded by the seawater, bit by bit. Then the caverns disappear entirely, and it’s just this big, massive iceshelf attached to the glacier, waiting for that final crack that’ll bring it all tumbling down.

The part that you see happens all at once, in a big, dramatic rush. But there’s a ton of groundwork that needs to be laid before that to make it breakable. Then one day it happens. There's this horrible, screeching groan of ice on ice, deep inside, the shudder before the slide. And the next thing you know, the entire shelf is collapsing in this huge, dramatic cloud of ice and snow, breaking off into the water, loud, cataclysmic. And when you watch it happen from the sensible distance of a stateroom balcony, it seems like: wow, dramatic, so horrifically sudden.

But it isn’t. Not really. It happens over time, with lots of cracks you don't see.

-

Bucky’s got no real patience for metaphors, anymore.

He takes things for what they are, and doesn't think too deeply on anything when he can help it. He definitely tries not to think about his old life and how things used to be. The only thing worse than that is thinking about whether he'll ever live a normal life again, or see his family again. One day at a time—isn't that what the alcoholics say?

That day it's cool out, mid fall, the neighborhood trees having dropped about half their leaves, the temperature having dipped noticeably overnight. Bucky enjoys it, likes the way the air smells at this time of year, with all the leaves piling up on the sidewalks and starting to rot, the neighbor houses burning woodsmoke out their chimneys. It's not a smell he associates with home back in the city, so it doesn't bring up any painful sort of nostalgia. He likes that, too.

He sits cross-legged on the front porch swing and watches Sam working at unloading pumpkins and pots of brightly colored mums, hefting them out of the truck bed and bringing them over one by one to sit on the porch at either side, going up the steps and framing the house's stately front door. He’s arranging a nice, autumnal display.

Rich people, Bucky thinks with a smirk, trailing his fingers idly over the bottoms of his feet. He's barefoot even though it's cool out. His red cloak draped over his shoulders does the job of keeping the chill away, and he sits there and plays absently with the texture of the scars on the soles of his feet, contemplating the ridiculousness of seasonal porch decorations in this brave new world of theirs. He wonders if it annoys Sam and the others, to have to put up with all of the mundane domestic tasks that they have to do, to serve as cover for … whatever else it is that they do.

Probably, Bucky thinks. It would certainly annoy him if he had something more important to be doing. Though as it is, Bucky would kill to have a daily routine full of tasks like gardening and bread baking. Anything to cull the hours of boredom that he faces each day, with no reprieve to look forward to besides the couple of hours Steve allows him in the office each night—and he does look forward to it. Bucky is insanely grateful to have that.

He and Steve have become more comfortable around one another, maybe even something resembling friends. Almost. Steve still refuses to talk to him any more about The Secret. He either doesn't trust Bucky enough, wants to keep him out of the loop for his own safety, or both. Bucky thinks it's both. Natasha and Sharon and Clint and Sam have clearly been told to keep their mouths shut, too, because they haven't yielded to any of Bucky's prodding questions.

Sam arrives back at the porch with the last of the mums, setting it down in one spot and then stepping back to judge its placement. He comes back to turn it at a slightly different angle.

“Hey Sam?” Bucky says, knowing that he can talk to the others without worrying about rules of propriety. “Do you think we could carve some of the pumpkins? In private? Just for fun?”

Sam gives him a look. “C'mon. You know we can’t.” Carving pumpkins has been forbidden, along with all other Halloween-related things, since the regime took over. It’s a pagan ritual that The Faithful scorn. Sam seems aware of Bucky's boredom, though, and he glances back at the truck. "I picked up a crate of sugar pumpkins for Sharon. She'll probably need help scooping those out for pies, or whatever she makes with them." Bucky looks pointedly at his empty left sleeve, and Sam shrugs. “Well she could cut, you could scoop?"

"Maybe."

"Eh. She won't be doing it today, anyway."

"Right," Bucky says, resigning himself to his boredom.

Sam gives him a considering look. "... I could use a hand raking all these damn leaves, though," he offers. "If you're—"

"Sure!' Bucky’s never been so quick to agree to yard work in his life. He unfolds his legs and hops off the swing, hurrying for the front door. “Let me just get my shoes!"

-

Later, just as he’s raking to merge his pile in with Sam's, a black van marked with the Gilead government crest pulls into the driveway. Too many bad experiences in the backs of such vans have Bucky freezing in place and staring. Could it be guardians? he thinks. Someone come to take him away? Has someone reported him for reading? Has someone reported Steve? He gulps as his heart rate ticks up in apprehension.

The van’s side door slides open with a jarringly loud sound, and a man gets out. He’s dressed like a guardian, with an alpha’s insignia on his armband. He has slicked-back hair and a scar across his chin, a rifle slung over one shoulder and a duffle bag over the other. He’s got a grim set to his face as he spares a glance around the property, barely looking at Bucky and Sam before dismissing them and heading for the front door.

He goes up on the porch and rings the bell, and meanwhile the van he arrived in pulls away and heads off down the street. Bucky’s shoulders relax somewhat once it's turned the corner and gone out of sight. No van in the driveway means nobody’s getting black-bagged and hauled away. He still watches the newcomer with a sense of unease, though. In a moment, Steve has come to the door and is stepping out onto the porch to shake the guy’s hand, speaking with him like he was expecting his arrival.

Sam appears close at Bucky’s side. “That’s Steve’s new head of security,” he tells him lowly. “Rollins. He was assigned here. Steve didn’t pick him out.”

“Does that mean he’s not one of you?” Bucky asks.

“Yeah,” Sam says. He doesn’t seem pleased.

Bucky resists the urge to let his eyes slide sideways. “Should I … act on protocol, then?”

“Follow Steve’s lead,” Sam says, after a moment of tense silence. 

They both watch as Steve gestures in their direction, talking to Rollins and ostensibly telling the man who they are. Rollins’ eyes do another cool sweep over Bucky, and without realizing it, Bucky’s lowering his eyes in a deferential move that’s been drummed into him since his earliest days at the red center. When he dares to peek back up, Steve and Rollins are just disappearing through the front door into the house. 

“Definitely keep your mouth shut around him,” Sam advises. "As far as he's concerned, this is just another Commander's household. And as far as we’re concerned, he’s an Eye."

"Right."

Together, they go back to raking the leaves. Eventually Bucky works up the nerve to ask a question that he isn’t sure he really wants the answer to: “Why does Steve need a head of security?” Commander Putnum hadn’t had one.

“Death threats,” Sam says. “Not a big deal,” he assures him. “We get them all the time. Mostly it’s nothing.”

“Mostly?" Bucky scoffs, wondering who’d be dumb enough to threaten a Commander of the Faith. "Sounds like a good way to end up on a wall," he mutters.

“Most of it’s noise," Sam excuses. "Untraceable. The ones we can trace almost always lead back to resistance members."

“But I thought—”

“Other resistance members,” Sam says lowly, shooting Bucky a look that clearly says he should shut up. Nobody in the household has yet confided to Bucky just what sort of organization they work for. “Militia remnants, like the ones you used to pal around with, apparently.” Sam smirks and knocks his rake against Bucky's, then goes back to pulling in the edges of the pile they've got. "I should go get bags for these.”

Bucky ducks his head and represses the urge to ask more questions about Steve and Sam and the rest of them: who they work for, what their mission is, how they communicate with—

“This Rollins guy might not just be here for security,” Sam warns, just as Natasha appears at the front door and gestures for them both to come inside. They drop their rakes and head for the door. "There could be another reason."

"You really think he’s an Eye?” Bucky asks, hoping it isn’t true. Whenever eyes start getting involved, people start being disappeared.

Sam doesn’t deny or confirm, but the unhappy set to his face says plenty. “Treat him like one,” he mutters, as they go up on the porch and into the house. 

In the darkened interior of the foyer, Natasha is holding an armful of bed linens. “Commander Rogers is welcoming Guardian Rollins to the Household,” she says, speaking in a way that Bucky only picks up on as being fake because he’s observed how everybody talks now when their guard is down: this isn’t it. Natasha nods for them to come with her, and they follow along behind as she starts up the stairs. “They’re in the office, having drinks. Dinner is in an hour—just them, but we’ll be on standby. Then he wants us all presentable in the parlor for the evening.”

Sam and Bucky share an unenthusiastic look, but say nothing. For the life of him, Bucky can’t imagine what they’re all going to do in the parlor with their new houseguest that evening. At his last placement, the Putnams would frequently entertain guests, but Bucky was rarely ever requested to be present for such things. He’d been quite content to remain in his room in the basement—out of sight, just the way Mrs. Putnam had preferred it. 

“I’ve gotta make up a bed for him,” Natasha says at the second floor landing, and they all part ways to head off to their respective parts of the house. 

Bucky goes up to the attic level to wash up and change clothes. He tries to think of what he’ll be expected to do whilst spending an entire evening with Steve and this new guy that they need to stand on ceremony around. With all the protocols he learned back at the red center, and knowing how things were at his posting with his first Commander, he’s not expecting to enjoy the rest of his evening very much. All he can think of is that he’ll probably be expected to remain quiet and tucked aside, only speaking when spoken to, and only very politely and perfunctory at that. He gets grumpy about it, because this means that his usual routine of eating a nice relaxed meal with everyone else at the dinner table and then getting to immerse himself in books in Steve’s office is out the window for tonight. Maybe even for the foreseeable future. Oh god, he hopes not. He hopes that this new guy Rollins won’t wind up staying long. He’d hate to lose the one thing he’s come to enjoy. 

He usually makes a firm habit of trying not to let himself get his hopes up about anything, but in this one thing, he realizes he’s failed. He’s fallen into the trap of wanting, and now it’s going to lead to the same inevitable result it always does: disappointment. 

He dresses the way he knows he’s expected to: in a fresh pair of soft red pants, long sleeved red shirt, tidy red sweater, white socks, brown indoor shoes that are more like slippers than shoes. Red’s not his color, but at least the clothes are comfortable. He stands in front of the bathroom’s crappy plastic mirror and combs his hair, which has grown longer since they last cut it at the red center, before this placement with Steve. If it grows much longer without being cut, it’ll reach his ears again soon. Bucky considers the blurry reflection of his left ear, with the tiny redtag curled over the cartilage … and his right one. He brings his hand up absently to touch at the mutilated place where he’d used scissors to do what had to be done. He feels oddly apathetic about it, though it’s anything but attractive. What’s the point in worrying about a little ear mutilation when you’ve had ninety percent of your left arm lopped off? 

Still … maybe Steve won’t care if he lets his hair grow out.

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[a-faggot-with-opinions]

I don’t want to come off anon because you get some unhinged people in here (i’m sorry) but as a jewish person the whole “ex-hate group people are bad forever” is so. Christian.

Am I gonna be comfortable interacting with every ex-nazi? No! Probably not! Am I glad they’re open and honest about their experiences and are better people now? YES!!!! One less hateful person makes the world safer for me, and personally I’d rather that happen in a restorative justice way. “Perfect track record or DEATH” helps no one, it’s punitive and impossible. It lets you comfortably dehumanize other people instead of doing the hard work or thinking about the uncomfortable reality of why people are sucked into these ideologies,

Those human beings also deserve to live happier lives not consumed by hatred. People still in those groups questioning and/or looking for a way out deserve to know there IS hope for a better life as a kinder person. I don’t have to invite every single ex-hate group person into my home but I do respect them for improving and escaping groups which often use literal cult tactics like lovebombing or cutting them off from loved ones to keep them stuck in the cycle. They take advantage of vulnerable people like sexual assault survivors and victims of trafficking as well (RadFem groups do this by encouraging that fear and trauma so they can utilize it and keep the victim trapped in a cycle of re-traumatization and terror)

You don’t help anyone by going “well if I got sucked into a hate group I’d just KILL MYSELF”. No one is immune to propaganda/manipulation and everyone is fallible. Kill the christian in your head telling you there are groups of eternally tainted evil beings and not just humans who are fallible and prone to both fucking up and improving themselves. Kill the cop in your head telling you the only solution to any issue is the most violent and extreme one all the time and there is no hope for change.

If you can’t do that than don’t pretend like you’re progressive and actually interested in helping minority groups. Because we’re also prone to fucking up and you putting us on that pedestal is why you eat us alive the second we’re fallible humans (people do this with transfems very frequently btfw). It’s the same issue as people who are happy to reblog “I would PUNCH AND KILL A NAZI” posts but go dead silent the second a Jewish person starts talking about the antisemitism they’ve faced in “progressive” spaces.

Restorative justice and deradicalization are hard but you have to put the work in if you want anything to change long-term. There are a lot of good books and organizations devoted to both so that’s a good place to start.

Literally! And I think it's important to educate people who were formerly part of hate groups to make sure they never join another hate group again. Kill the cop inside your head. Kill the judge inside your head.

[dykesynthezoid]

Literally would rather dieee than be a dropout fan on twitter and some of you are bringing that dumb bullshit here too. You are so mind poisoned by online “activism” it’s insane. “Every brand I know needs to make a performative statement Right Now or I’m going to assume they’re evil.” Do you actually fucking care about Palestinians? Seriously. Look me in the eye. How does this help anyone in Gaza? Why the fuck would the random personal statement of an extremely small, niche American streaming company with a vast majority leftist audience actually help? Hello? HELLOOO? Or are we going to say the quiet part out loud and confirm you only care about “testing” them bc their ceo is Jewish.

Do you think the people in Gaza struggling to survive right now are going “Maybe if this one obscure online streaming service from the states speaks out, then there’ll be a ceasefire.” Like are you for real? Pressuring Dropout into a statement is clearly not for Palestinians. It’s for you. So you can assuage whatever guilt you can’t manage to swallow down about being an American citizen at the moment. Because if you can pressure other people into “performing” activism correctly, maybe you’ll feel a little better about your own privilege. Well it’s shitty. And it’s not helpful. You aren’t changing the world by bullying a small entertainment company on twitter. It’s not about activism. It’s about you taking advantage of a horrifying situation to gleefully inflict any social power and control you can on the people around you.

“Your silence is deafening” I think some of us could stand to shut the fuck up sometimes actually, cause what I’m hearing seems to often be whole lot of bullshit and misinformation and half-baked opinions from people who know almost nothing about Palestine’s situation and can only even pretend to understand it by making completely inappropriate and inaccurate comparisons to events more relevant to your specific American experience, because god forbid we not center our Western perspective when people elsewhere in the world are dying. (That’s without getting into the fact that you all can’t respect Jewish grief to save your goddamn lives and can’t hold space for anyone to have a remotely complex emotion over such a devastating issue bc you’re more concerned with moral purity and making yourself look like a “good activist” than you are about actually helping anyone).

[casualfruit]

Antizionist Jews are like "colonization, exile, rape, and slavery were good for us akshully 🥰" The diaspora isn't something to be celebrated you fucking freak, it was a cataclysm that's the reason we've suffered 3000 years of rape, murder, expulsions, ethnic cleansings, forced conversions and oppression leading up to the world's first industrialized genocide that WILL happen again (aided and abetted by kapos like you). It's the reason my ancestors were forced to live as third class citizens in shithole Libya until they were violently expelled. What should be celebrated is the way we maintained our identity, religion, culture, and connection to our homeland despite the majority of us being forced to leave and facing the aforementioned tragedies in our countries of exile. Also, the hypocrisy of you screeching about "ethnonationalism" (25% of Israelis aren't Jewish. 20% are Arab. There are literally 2 million Palestinian Israelis but go off I guess) when you want an actual Arab ethnostate is just too fucking funny. And by the way, a literal Syrian Nazi invented the lie that Israel is settler-colonial. But you lot have never had a problem spewing Nazi rhetoric. You're just following in the Arab Nazi founder of the Free Palestine movement's footsteps (:

What a shock, the Zionist wants to give me hell but doesn’t have the guts to say it to my face. It’s okay though, I know it’s you @aqlstar

I don’t believe in ethnostates for any race or ethnicity. Not even my own. I refuse to follow any “rules for thee but not for me” bullshit.

It’s not a “Syrian Nazi lie” that Israel is a settler colonial state, it’s just a fact. Sure, Israel was nominally created as “reparations” for Holocaust survivors, but that still required violently removing the people already living there. Does that sound at all familiar? And besides, Israel wasn’t actually made for the betterment of Jews—it was made to be an extension of British and USAmerican imperialism. It’s currently functioning as a satellite state for the US. And every time Palestinians are slaughtered en masse and forced out of an area, Israelis come in to settle there (that’s the settler part of settler-colonialism). Europeans did the same shit with Native Americans, and it was just as reprehensible then as it is now.

Then again, you don’t care about rape, murder, expulsion, or ethnic cleansing if it’s done against Arabs, so that comparison probably doesn’t mean much to you.

You have zero appreciation for the Jewish cultures that have been formed in different places and times across the world. You do not give a single shit about how Jews have managed to find happiness and community and engage in cultural exchange with their neighbors despite all the hardships we have faced. You do not care about diasporic Jews except as a rhetorical tool to bludgeon your way through braindead arguments. Stop pretending to have our best interests at heart when you obviously fucking don’t.

It’s kind of funny how you keep calling me a Nazi when you’re the one in favor of ethnostates. Why don’t you spend some time unlearning your anti-Arab racism and your hatred of the Jewish diaspora before calling me a bigot?

P.S. your insistence that antizionism = antisemitism is literally the dual loyalty conspiracy, aka the belief that Jews are loyal to Israel before any other country no matter where they’re from. That’s one of the oldest antisemitic talking points in history. The Nazis in particular got a lot of mileage out of it.

P.P.S. Free Palestine now and forever 🇵🇸

[jewishbarbies]

wild to me that the majority of jews giving antisemites a pass and being used as tokens are in fact jewish but didn’t care about it until oct 7th. like. they weren’t raised jewish, they’re not religious, they probably didn’t even know they were jewish until someone did a 23&me for christmas one year and the whole family just moved past it. now suddenly it’s “well I’m a jew and I don’t think this is bad” and “well I’m a jew but I’ve never experienced antisemitism” hm I wonder why?? you’re completely disconnected from jewishness in any possible way and now suddenly you’re an expert on what is/isn’t antisemitic, disagreeing with hundreds of jews who have experienced antisemitism their whole lives and pretending your opinion supersedes theirs. jews who are well educated on our history, culture, language, religion. jews who care about being jewish and don’t use it as a fucking pawn in online political discourse.

yes, you’re jewish too, but you need to sit down and fucking listen. if you’re not willing to learn and be educated about what affects us, etc., then you don’t get to claim jewishness on your hate exemption form. if you wanna be jewish now you have to deal with the same vitriol we do, bud. claiming jewishness just for this argument isn’t as temporary as you think it is. the leopards will eat your face.

[sissa-arrows]

random question, but why do Algerians still hate the French? French Algeria hasn’t existed since 1962, so why so much hatred still?

First of all 1962 is 61 years ago. You’re saying it as if it was centuries ago and nobody was alive anymore. My grandparents who are very much alive Al hamdulilah were born under French colonialism. I’m 29 and I saw the consequences of French tortures on my great grandpa with my own eyes (they cut off some of his fingers) as I was lucky enough to meet him (he died when I was 8-9) This is not some ancient event that has no consequences anymore on people. It still has consequences on the country and on the people. Like you’re going to pretend that France didn’t have lynching against Algerians until the 90’s? You’re going to pretend anti Algerian racism is not so present in France that the French word for a racist attack/lynching (ratonnade) is not a mix between an anti Algerian slur and the word “beating”?

Now to answer your question.

We don’t hate the French they hate us that’s different. Algerians don’t give a flying fuck about France. Algerians would want few things more than pretend France doesn’t exist.

But France hate us and resent us for taking our independence. Are we supposed to stay silent when France says we should be grateful for colonialism? Are we supposed to stay silent when they say we should be apologizing not them? Are we supposed to stay silent when absolutely nobody got punished for what they did to Algerians and that they actually got rewarded? Are we supposed to stay silent when the remains of our ancestors (some of them children) are still kept and exposed in French museums despite asking to get them back? Are we supposed to stay silent when France still has our archives including the ones before they colonized Algeria and still refuse to give us those archives? Are we supposed to stay silent when they say the trauma of their colonizers grandparents leaving Algeria is worst than the trauma of our grandparents seeing their loved ones being killed, tortured, raped? Are we suddenly pretending transgenerational trauma doesn’t exist and that 132 years of colonialism and the denial of the horrors committed, worst than the denial switching the blame, has no consequences on Algerians today? My grandpa still sleeps with a shotgun because of the trauma. My father left Algeria because his mother was so traumatized by what the French did during the war of liberation (they killed one of her child, he wasn’t 2 years old yet) that when the civil war started she told my dad to leave cause she didn’t want to lose an other child.

Now do you plan on asking French people why they hate Algerians or do you keep your questioning to Algerians only? We don’t hate France but if we did we would have every single right to.

Lastly if I was a Jewish woman posting about Nazis Germany and antisemitism in present Germany as well as Neonazis would you have felt you have the right to ask me why I still have issues with it cause it happened in 1945? Unless you’re a racist scum you wouldn’t have done it cause you know how horrific the holocaust was and how fucked up it would be to question the feelings of descendants of survivors (I’m still giving you the benefit of the doubt maybe your ask was genuine and you didn’t know any better). So why do you think you have the right to question how Algerians feel about France?

[edenfenixblogs]

I don’t think most non-Jews understand how disappointed we are in the left right now. How completely abandoned we’ve become. How our contributions to progress for other groups have been erased or disavowed or hidden. How the actual tangible things that Jews have contributed to black rights and civil rights are being ignored. How we’re being told we contribute and have contributed nothing.

How we are being told that the world has been kind to us when it never has. As if my mom didn’t grow up getting called a Kike and getting beat up for being Jewish. How I thought I had friends until I caught them saying “xyz was beautiful until Jews showed up.” How people told me I was pretty “for a Jew.” How I grew up hearing stories about bombs being set off in Israel in buses and markets. How I couldn’t even go two weeks without hearing that and how nobody cared and somehow, every time that happened, the whole world became more hostile to me for some reason.

I just don’t understand. I don’t understand what leftists are doing. Or why. I hate that I have to say—of course, I support a free and self determined Palestine (which I truly do)—in order for you to decide I’m worthy of care and support.

We showed up for you. All of you. And the entire movement is abandoning us at best or targeting us at worst. Celebrating our deaths. Saying we deserved it. How are we supposed to trust you ever again? How are we supposed to feel safe ever again?

A very few select people who are in my life have taken the chance to actually learn about and dismantle their own unconscious antisemitism during this time. And I’m eternally grateful for them. But most people haven’t reached out at all. Most people are still sharing hateful things that could get me hurt and they don’t care. Most people Reblogging my posts are still Jews. Because we are alone. And it sucks. You need to be as loud about antisemitism as you are about Palestine or you’re an antisemite (unless you’re Arab/Muslim/Palestinian—I totally get that these groups are also doing damage control in their own communities just like Jews are).

But we are all in tremendous pain right now.

This moment will pass. And when it does, I will remember how many people let me down. I will remember that when I needed support more than I’ve ever needed it in my life, people fucking vanished. They pretended violence against my people wasn’t happening. They ignored and rewrote the history of Israel to suit their own narratives.

You don’t know what it feels like to be hated this much for opposite things. PoC hate us for being too white. White supremacists hate us for not being white enough. Europeans hate us for being middle eastern. Middle easterners hate us for being western/European. Everyone hates us for being settlers but continually kicks us out of their countries so that we have to settle somewhere else.

I saw a post going around from a Black person who said that the reason he and his fellow black activists go protest for Palestinians instead of fighting antisemitism (as if it’s a binary, which it’s not) is that Jews don’t show up. Muslims and Palestinians do. And honestly? Fuck that guy. Heather Heyer died standing shoulder to shoulder against racism in 2017. [CORRECTION: When I first wrote this post I was under the impression that Heather Heyer was Jewish. I want to correct to avoid spreading misinfo. She was just the first (and incorrect) Jewish civil rights activist I thought of. However there are plenty of other actual Jewish civil rights activists to choose from. If you have reblogged this post from me, please feel free to add a link to the permalink version of this post with my correction to your reblog.]I have devoted substantial time and effort and money that I don’t even get paid a lot of because I don’t get paid a living wage. I have continually reached out to PoC people in my life of all religions to ask how they are doing and what I could be doing to help more—both for them personally and how they would best like me to help their community. I have elevated their voices at every opportunity. And not one person I checked in with has done the same for me or for my community.

And it’s bone chilling. It’s awful. And it’s even worse knowing that when it’s over, people will want to go back to normal. They won’t apologize. They won’t self reflect. They’ll just live their lives, maybe a little more aware of how much they hate us and completely indifferent to the harm they’ve caused us. How disposable they made us feel. And the thing is…it’s not hard for you to know. You just have to ask.

Too many people are cowards. Too many people care about looking good than actually learning something or making the world better. And to those people: you should be ashamed of yourself.

I don’t have any hate in my heart. Truly. Not a drop for any group of people. But I have a tremendous lack of trust that anyone would actually lift a finger to keep me safe.

[buttercuparry]

you’re so fucking based for calling out the bs of hindutvas. based on what i’ve seen (outside of tumblr atleast) even zionist jews don’t fw them because they see their “support” exactly for what it is (murderous hatred of Muslims) so to see these hindu jewish solidarity posts here is so baffling to me. it’s so astounding how they’ve convinced themselves they are victims. ig the only silver lining of their moral bankruptcy during this genocide of Palestinians is that the world is becoming more aware of hindutva and why it should be purged

I am not at all based nonnie. This is nothing. If anything, it is the bare minimum. In India, there are crores of people who have to fight from the moment they are born. At a tender age they come to the realization that they are considered bad, evil, impure ( i am referencing both caste and religion here) by so many of the people around them and then for the rest of the life they have to fight against these cruelties...so when I have this privilege over so many people in India, how can I just not talk about it?

When it comes to Hindutva and their demonization of Islam, their dehumanization of Muslims- it comes off as such a mindless thing, doesn't it? But we know it is not just that. Even before the Hindutvadi party came into power, there had been land grabbing, snatching up of properties of Muslims and filling of the state coffers. So the infection had always been there, Hindutva just adds in the further goal of establishing a Hindu ethnostate.

Also yes, the tag of "Hindu-Jewish" solidarity when it comes to defending a genocide is both barbaric and absurd. I say "absurd" because I find it so funny, when I think that at end of October, beginning of November last year, we have had this proposal from "Israel" about importing cheap labour from India- and Indian trade unions, even the BJP run ones, were like "oh no, nope", because they know that the "Israeli" economic structure had been looking for slaves to exploit, to continue on with its smooth existence. So the political hindutva bodies knew what would threaten their spun yarn of "Muslims=terrorists", and "poor little "Israel" being attacked by Hamas just because...". And like you say that Zionists of "Israel" too know that this support of Hindutvadis are less about "Israel" the settler colony, and more about "kill the Muslims". I have always felt that had Judaism flourished in India, the way Islam and Christianity has- Hindutvadis would have abused jewish people just as they do to the Muslims and Christians of India. It is definitely a mask off moment for Hindutvadis in how they want to pretend to be victims.

[stuffydollband]

Okay I’m gonna say this one thing because I just saw something absolutely chilling.

Palestinians deserve the right to live safely and they deserve the right to self determination. Netanyahu is a monster, has always been a monster, and will be remembered as a true villain of history for much more than just this most recent heinous series of war crimes. Hell, I’m even a bit of a tin foil hat about Benjamin and his mysteriously “blindsided” intelligence agencies that are famous for being some of the most aggressive and well informed in the world.

Okay, so we got all that out of the way, now for the thing I’m here to say:

DooOOooOoont make a list of people “supporting Israel” unless you wanna really go full Nazi.

A- you’re largely just making a list of Jews, which is uh… I don’t have to tell you why that’s bad, right?

B- The one I saw put fuckin Malala on there, which is immediately debunkable with two seconds of effort. Several others had, to the most I could find, just made a post about how awful Oct 7th was for Jewish people, which is a true statement that does not equate to support of the disproportionate, vengeful, and overall reprehensible response from Netanyahu’s government.

C- I wanna bring your attention back to point A. The cause of Justice for Palestinians has no room for hatred, no room for your dog whistles, no room for escalation. No room for you “learning” shit in a month and coming in with your hot takes.

A lot of you don’t want everyone to live in a safer world, you’re just hungry for blood. This isn’t one of your little cosplay leftist issues where you pretend like you’re big and brave behind the keyboard of your phone. None of you cowardly shits are fighting a war. You talk a big game, then when the cops come to beat people, where are you? Are you backing up your violent words with violent action, or are you safe at home or running away? These are real human lives. This isn’t a chance to score woke points.

I’ve been on this shit since before some of you were born. Sit down and at the absolute bare minimum, don’t let your (I believe, for at least some of you) genuine urge to show compassion for a people in distress make you act like the same violent systems you decry.

Fuck Netanyahu, fuck ethnic cleansing, fuck anti-Arabs, fuck anti-semitism, fuck bigotry in all its forms, and if you try to “yes but” that, fuck you.

[bellewintersroe]

Hiya lovely, I sent my ship description privately! 💖

Heyyy, thank you for your request!! I loveddd the detail omg so much to write about I’m honestly excited to write this???

I ship you with… Joe Liebgott!!

I was gonna try ship you with somebody else but nah you’re sooo similar to Liebgott in my mind there’s just no way I couldn’t? Like the chemistry and intensity between you both would be amazing? Like your values and looks and everything- sorry if you were hoping for somebody else but I couldn’t help myself!!!’

Joe would deffoooo love your feminine energy, like let’s say you did some pin up modelling on the side before the war and word spread around camp Toccoa fast- he’d probably hear about you before he saw you.

when he found this out omg he was dying to see you? Let’s be honest, Joe already knew he’d be attracted to you, when he heard a pin up model gone combat nurse (let’s just pretend) he already had it in his mind he wanted to be with you?

he just had a feeling? He probably manifested you before anybody even new what manifestation was lmao.

anyway so when he saw you it felt like it wasn’t real? Let’s just say you exceeded his expectations. He was almost like a dog in heat, whining to Webster and Tab how hot you were and all he’d done is walk past you??

This is liebgott we’re talking about I’m sorry but he notices your boobs. He keeps that part to himself but omg!!

your doe eyes and long hair that bounced around stuck in his mind and yes omg that feminine energy I mentioned earlier just captivated him??

finds out from Webster you have Jewish family and omg instantly you’re a perfect match in his mind?

anyway, I feel like he would appreciate how well you take care of your appearance? Let’s say even in Europe, you try your best, and out of everything so ugly in the war how can a literal Angel like you exist, holy shit-

this man needs water he fancies you so much.

as a couple you’d be so hot? Like not to sound shallow but I feel like you’re superrrrrr attractive and so is Liebgott? Like Ross McCall is sexy omg you two would look so good together people would be jealous.

Maybe one day he’d see you defending yourself/ cussing out somebody for insulting your intelligence just because you’re an attractive girl? Like no, being the feisty girl you are you’re not gonna tolerate this.

Joe contemplated stepping in but he admires how well you shut the man down so he watches from a far? Not only are you fucking beautiful but you’re sooo confident, that’s so sexy to Joe.

literally he’s already decided from this moment he wants to be yours.

I feel like he wouldn’t be shy? But maybe a little bit nervous seeing as he noticed you from afar, so one day when he bumped into you he’s a little worried you’re gonna be pissed at him?

but you’re not omg, you laugh it off and you’re so sweet checking up if he’s okay?? This sends his confidence a little higher and he’s suddenly so worried somebody else will ask you out before he did he asks you there and then?

why the hell wouldn’t you go on a date with him, he’s so cute?

but anyway, you go and get on like a house on fire of course! I think the two of you could be really open and I just think you’d get along almost immediately? Like the conversation just flows naturally and you tell him so much about yourself and oh my god tell him more, he can’t get enough of you.

Is sad the date ends so he takes you out on like 5000000 million more.

on your days off drives you around outside Georgia, let’s you drive and honestly is fearful for his life? He’s a such a drama queen OMG, cussing and grabbing hold of the car door for support.

the two of you discuss opinions on topics straight away, etc, religion, beliefs, equality. I feel like Joe could be surprisingly liberal?

like he may need a little education from you on equality on everything if we are talking about the 1940s, but honestly you’re surprised how down to earth and chilled he is when it’s just the two of you together??

Talking about alone time Joe can’t get enough of you- I’m talking kissing, grabbing, sex- you name it.

joe is obsessed with you, the more he finds out about you the more interested he becomes??

maybe one day on a rare weekend leave, you spot some asshole being awful to a young girl. You and Joe share a look and it’s instant fireworks, let’s just say the man backed down immediately.

joe is so proud of you after that and you’re so proud of him. God he kisses you so passionately and I feel like he admits he loves you in the most intense heated moment.

god the chemistry between you two is crazy, people can see it easily, let’s say you’re in a pub in England and after a couple of drinks you’re all over each other.

People wouldn’t even try hit on the either of you because they just know it wouldn’t even be worth it but omg if any guy dares to try come onto you Joe would be kissing his teeth, all up in their face and prepared to humiliate the life out of them.

You both would physically fight anybody if needed.

the same goes for during the war, you’re both so fiercely loyal to one another that you’d take a bullet for each other.

that’s where it gets a little scary. Joe knows the sweet and caring side to you, and he knows deep down you’re not invincible.

this scares the living shit outta you.

would maybe try do anything to get you off the line??

obviously you don’t want him to underestimate your abilities so this causes a little spat between the pair of you? But it’s all in good nature because at the end of the day you’re both so painfully in love with one another.

joe gets a little worried about you when he see’s you withdrawing, but explain to him that you’re just recharging your social battery and he’s understand completely.

falls in love more and more with you every day.

steals you chocolate.

would brush your hair or attempt to plait it.

Grabs your boobs and tries to get a little frisky in public, why the hell not?

I feel like the two of you have an unspoken language? Like you can communicate just through a glance. Often I feel like this would make you both burst out laughing and everybody would be so confused?

maybe you end up cracking up at something Webster said and he gets so uncomfortable by it? Joe would slap his back and say something with a mix of wittiness and sarcasm.

but seriously the energy between you two is crazy, even tho you’re both quite feisty and can get fairly heated you bring out the best in each other.

like seriously just run your hands through his hair and he’ll be the most gentle guy ever, he’d wanna hug you constantly and it’s one day when you’re doing that in which he brings up the thought of having like 50 babies together.

god you’re love is so pure, and so unbreakable. The trust between you both is amazing.

joe never invalidates any of your feelings, when you open up to him about your ptsd he’s almost shocked that he can relate? Like he’s not the most open person, but finds comfort in the fact you can both relate to one another about your mental health?

takes hold of your hand when he recognises you’re a little stressed or anxious in situations, I don’t even think he’d need to say anything, he’d just kiss the side of your temple and keep you close.

he’s much more patient with you than he is with himself or anybody else for that matter.

Tells you constantly you’d make the best moms omg he wants to get you preggers so bad.

despite both being fairly young and your circumstances your relationship is very very stable? Like you both have loads of fun yeah and can have the occasional clash, but at the end of the day you’re both each others person.

if you argue u can guarantee there’d be some amazing make up sex omg.

quickies everywhere- once Babe Heffron walked in on you both and literally screamed like a teenage girl?

You both carried on LOL

you’d tell him off for staring at your boobs in arguments and he’d get all embarrassed and lose the argument lmao.

He loves you sooooo much, he could never ever leave you and honestly takes such good care of you? He’s such a good husband, constantly surprising you, making you laugh, buying you thinks.

always carries around pictures of you wherever he goes.

has one hanging off his rear view mirror of his cab omg. Loves when people compliment you, he’s so proud that you’re his girl.

deffo 1000% gets off to pictures of your pin up modelling, pls take some more… private ones just for his eyes only. ~~~~~~~~~

platonically I match you with… Joe Toye !

Similar to you and Liebgott, Toye I think can be quite head strong? He’s confident, sarcastic, very similar to you.

he’s a little more chilled out yet more outgoing that you? You almost balance each other out perfectly.

I feel like maybe Joe started with having a crush on you because who doesn’t? But when he see’s you with Liebgott he rids that idea veryyyyy quickly.

probably had some flirty banter going on before you and Liebgott became a thing.

he hears somebody maybe talking about women in a bad way? Maybe some nurses? Idk but he tells them to shut their mouth or he’ll stick his brass knuckles where the sun don’t shine.

You watch on quietly and from that day giu just sorta bonded with him? He’s somebody you wanna be around??

Maybe when you get super pissed off about something the Germans did he talks you down? Like you’re super riled up about them firing in your direction and he sorta reminds you where you are and that you gotta stay rationale??

I feel like you’d hype each other up.

he’s a Pisces and as ur a Capricorn you can learn a lot from each other, hence why you maybe rationalise each other so often?

Neither of you are afraid to call each other out on each others bullshit.

that’s why Joe likes you? You give no shit and take no shit. He respects you.

Don’t tell anybody but he’s probs a little bit scared of Lieb???? Like don’t ask me why cos he’s way taller and he’s a good fighter, there’s just something kinda intimidating about Liebgott that you don’t cross.

like I’m best friends with your girl I promise that’s all- please don’t freak out.