#jonathan libby

[dailyjsa]

Secret Origins v2 #7

Writer: Roy Thomas

Artist: Michael Bair

Inker: Steve Montano

Colors: Carl Gafford

[ufonaut]

Concept art for The Golden Age (1993) by Paul Smith.

[sattlersquarry]

Hi! Can you do the prompt of: "patching them up" with Jonathan Byers, please.

Absolutely, anon! Happy Valentine's Day and thank you for the request! I've never actually written for Jonathan before, so this was a nice change of pace!

This is the final request for my Valentine's/500 follower event! I may open requests generally in the future, we'll see. 👀

Word Count: ~0.9k. Jonathan Byers x Reader, this takes place in Season 4. tw for mentions of guns/violence, bleeding, and language.

Jonathan tries not to show it, but he’s mad. 

Not at you. You hadn’t done anything, except come by the same day evil soldiers shot up the house. He’s mad at himself.

After him and Nancy’s amicable breakup, Jonathan wanted to keep his head down and not get involved with somebody new. But then he met you. 

And today, you’d gotten hurt because of him.   

“Is it still bleeding?” Jonathan says, voice and hands shaking as he digs through the glovebox of Argyle’s van. He’s searching for first-aid supplies, but all he’s found so far is weed paraphernalia and coupons for free cheesy bread with any pizza order $30 or more. 

You gingerly lift a hand off your hip. You wince and nod. 

“This is gonna leave a scar,” you grumble. “Right before swimsuit season, too. Just my luck.” 

Earlier that day, you visited the Byers’ house to check on your boyfriend Jonathan. He pulled you past some sketchy-looking government goons and quietly explained that he, his brother Will, and their friend Mike were going to break out of their “house arrest” to find his sister, Jane. You were very confused, but Jonathan refused to give more details. He ushered you toward the door, thanked you for coming by, and assured you everything was fine.

Two seconds later, an agent got shot in the abdomen by an evil soldier. Chaos ensued.

Another agent got shot, and Jonathan led your group out to Argyle’s waiting van. Hopped up on the adrenaline from getting shot at and seeing a man die in front of you, you didn’t even realize a bullet had grazed your side until you were halfway to the junkyard.

“You still with me?”

You snap your attention back to Jonathan. While you had been replaying the events of the day in your head, Jonathan had moved to sit next to you in the backseat. He now holds a first-aid kit. His face is peaked, brow furrowed and lips pulled in a tight, thin line. 

“I’m here,” you say weakly. 

“Roll your shirt up,” Jonathan says. You oblige. He pops open the kit and groans. 

“Geez, Argyle,” Jonathan grumbles.

The kit is barebones. It’s empty besides some alcohol wipes, Spider-Man bandaids, and a sticky note that says Argyle, don’t forget to buy more medicine shit! Peace, Argyle. 

“This will sting,” Jonathan says. “I’m sorry.”

You huff out a laugh. 

“Don’t apologize,” you say. “You’re not the one who shot at me, Jonny.” 

Jonathan used to hate the nickname Jonny. When you say it, it’s his favorite word. 

You wince and squirm as he dabs at the wound with the alcohol wipes. Jonathan mumbles out more apologies, eyes flicking from the bloodied mess on your hip to the pained look on your face.

“It’s fine, Jonny.”

You try not to think about the pain. You focus on watching Will, Mike, and Argyle through the open van doors. They dig a grave for the agent that got killed. You try not to remember how his face looked as he died. 

Once the wound is sufficiently cleaned, Jonathan considers the Spider-Man bandaids before eyeing an extra Surfer Boy Pizza shirt. He begins ripping the fabric into ribbons.

“Lift your arms, okay?” Jonathan says.

You do, and he wraps the garish yellow fabric around your abdomen. He ties it, tight enough to staunch the bleeding. 

“Good as new,” you say with a weak smile, pulling your shirt back down. 

Jonathan doesn’t return the gesture. He looks at his shaky, bloodstained hands, unable to look you in the eye. 

“I’m sorry,” he croaks. He clears his throat and, louder, adds, “This is all my fault.”

“What?” you say. “No. It isn’t.”

“Yes, it is!” he says. He runs a hand through his hair. “You’re hurt because you came to check on me.” 

“I’m hurt because I came to your house at a bad time,” you correct. You gently place a hand on his cheek. He leans into the touch and closes his eyes. “It’s not your fault, Jonny.” 

You’re too good, and Jonathan doesn’t deserve you. He doesn’t want to drag you into his shit, but it’s too late for that now.

“I wish we could take you back home,” Jonathan says, “but it’s not safe. Those soldier guys are definitely looking for us, and as much as I want to support the Surfer Boy lifestyle, we’re not exactly inconspicuous in this van.”

“The yellow paint must be visible from space,” you say. “Airports should use these bad boys to land planes.” 

Despite the circumstances, Jonathan laughs. You always know how to make him laugh.

“You aren’t wrong,” he says, smiling for the first time since the shootout. It’s small, but it’s something, and it ebbs away some of the pain in your side. 

It fades, and he sucks in a shuddery breath. You can tell he’s gearing up for something big. You reach for his hand and intertwine your fingers together. 

“Listen, I really like you, and I really like being your boyfriend. But I haven’t been honest about my family and my past…”

And so he tells you everything. It’s a strange story, but you listen intently without interruptions.

When Jonathan gets to the end of the story—explaining that they have no clue where Jane/El is being held—you squeeze his hand for reassurance.

“We’ll find her,” you say. “We’ll all work together, and we’ll bring her home.” 

Your tenacity, your willingness to help despite the danger, the way you’re looking at him like you truly see him—it floods Jonathan with a warmth he hasn’t felt in a while. He leans in to kiss you, until—

“Uh, brochachos? Do either of you have a pen? This one doesn’t work.” 

[televinita]

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Inside, you'll find a rich selection of artwork and memes from the newsletter's hundreds of thousands of subscribers. From comics celebrating Dracula's famous wall-climbing ability to armchair analysis of the novel's complicated love triangles, the witty commentary and colorful fan art brings a unique twist to the classic tale.

Publishing September 19, 2023

[munsonsreputation]

CONGRATS ON 500 FOLLOWERS!!! I’d love to request a Taylor-inspired Steve fic for the song “Labyrinth.” I feel like it’s so Steve-post-Nancy-breakup coded it’s unreal 🧣

hi libby!!!!

i'm so sorry this request took so long, but i hope you're still able to enjoy this short little piece i wrote up!!! i personally love "labyrinth" and i think it's one of the most underrated tracks on "midnights." and you're so right! this song is totally steve coded and he would have this song on repeat while he laid on his bed and though about life!

i hope you like my spin on your request and thank you so much for your sweet comments and support 💘💘💘

Lost is how Steve Harrington felt most of the time when it came to his love life. Not that he needed a partner to feel validated or loved, but it just felt nice to have someone to be there for and to stick with him.

For a long time, he thought that person would be Nancy—and if anything it was the only person he ever thought about spending the rest of forever with, but plans seemed to change in her mind and he knew then that her heart was set on Jonathan’s but he could never be angry at her for choosing someone else.

He knew that he was lacking in a lot of areas, the ones that Nancy valued, and the ones that he himself tried to improve upon, but it was just too late. And he accepted the fact that he messed up, but it hurt like hell to see her be happy with someone who wasn’t him.

But he also knew that it only hurt that much because of how raw everything was. That with time, that hurt wouldn’t be there anymore because he would be happy that she was getting the love she deserved and he would be moved on.

Robin, being the sweet soul that she was, attempted to help him “move on” which consisted of a bunch of random double dates with Vicky’s friends whom she thought he would like and other times just random strangers she met at the mall. But despite her efforts, Steve couldn’t help but compare them to Nancy and even see her within those other girls.

Part of him despised the fact that everyone just expected him to bounce back from the breakup because he was Steve Harrington. It was never going to be easy trying to get over someone he loved, but them not loving him back.

But he was willing to try.

At this point, everything felt futile. Like he’d be spending the rest of his life trying to move on from Nancy Wheeler. So he stopped going on those stupid double dates with random girls, and instead put his time into trying to focus on himself. Picking up a new hobby to take up his time, which was reading. Visiting the local library and strolling through the endless shelves of books until he found one that interested him enough for him to check out and borrow.

“I’ve read this one before! Lots of plot twists, but you’ll love it!” You bubbled enthusiastically, scanning the book that the handsome stranger had slid towards you.

His eyes caught yours for the first time. And like a slow motion love potion, there was something igniting between the two of you and, in a snap, everything just floated away from Steve’s consciousness. For the first time in the last three months, he didn’t dare see an ounce of Nancy nor think of her when he was looking at you.

His mind echoing the thoughts, “uh oh, I’m falling in love again.”

Steve wasn’t one for believing in love at first sight, but with you something just happened. So flabbergasted, he stared at you with his mouth wide open and his eyes sparkling. It made you laugh, waving your hands in front of him to snap him out of that gaze.

The same gaze you caught him in three months later as you sat across from him in his friend’s living room playing uno.

“Harrington, snap out of it!” You scolded jokingly, snapping your fingers in front of his face where he finally closed his mouthing and blinked.

Everyone giggled, nudging each other as you stared at him amused with your brows raised.

“W-what? I’m fine…I’m good…is it my turn yet?” He stammered as you broke and joined in on the laughter, watching him awkwardly shuffled the cards in his hands to avoid the embarrassment.

The hand of cards you held in your palms flattened out against the wood grain of the coffee table as you cleared your throat and stood up. Steve eyed your stance, following you look around the room smiling at his friends that were now yours.

“No, you’re fine! It’s getting late. Do you think we should head home?”

You turned to him, asking if that was ok, solely with your eyes, and he nodded, a small smile on his face, “Steve and I are gonna head to the farmer's market in the morning so we need to rest up.”

Steve’s adorning eyes never strayed away, your body shifting around the room with comfort and ease while you embraced every single one of them with your famous warm and tight hugs. Smiles exchanged with people whom you never thought you’d gotten the opportunity to be friends with.

Such funny and amazing people.

He never thought in a million years that he’d find someone who’d get along with quite literally anyone, especially his ex-girlfriend, Nancy. If anything, you showed just as much compassion and love as you did the rest of his friends, not caring that she had history with your boyfriend. But you more so knowing and accepting that the past was past, and you weren’t going to allow yourself to become hurt over something that was over.

Instead, you enjoyed spending time with Nancy and the rest of his friends. Appreciating their company and acceptance of you now that you were in Steve’s life. A part of you constantly feeling a sense of belonging knowing that they never treated you differently and Steve could feel that.

He could feel the love, just in the way that the kids would light up when you walked into the room with an arm full of snacks for movie night, or bug him about the next time they would be able to see you.

He knew you were loved by Nancy and Robin when they would tug you up from the sofa and dance around the living room until your feet hurt and the three of you ladies ended up in a giggling mess on the carpet.

He knew you were loved by Eddie and Jonathan when they would jokingly hide your car keys so that you and Steve could stick around for a few more rounds of Uno because they loved both of your presence.

His friends loved you so much so that it terrified him because the thoughts of something bad happening between the two of you would mean that one of you would no longer be able to share these friends anymore.

Now the thoughts echoing as he knew something always was too good to be true. Like a plane dropping down just when he thought the flight was smooth, “Oh no, I’m falling in love again.”

He swallowed thickly, running his palms up and down his denim covered legs before he stood up and found his way next to you, giving a final hug to Robin as she walked you both to the front door.

She smiled at Steve, sending her own hug towards her best friend, making you smile at the scene of Steve letting out a fake exasperated sigh, like he could ever get tired of her, and eventually wrapping his arms around her back.

“You guys get home safe and let me know how the farmer’s market is. Maybe we can all go next weekend!” She bubbled happily, pulling off of Steve and turning to send you a grin.

You nodded assuringly, molding yourself to Steve’s side as he came up beside you, “I’ll call you when we get home from it and let you know then.”

“Night, guys.” Steve shouted, wrapping his other arm across your shoulders, guiding you two out door, hearing the goodbyes shouted before Robin locked up for the night.

The crickets filled the night with their chirps, a slight breeze waving across your skins as you made the short distance to his maroon car that still shone in the dark of the night, thanks to the stars and the single street light.

“Did’ya have fun tonight?” Steve asked, twisting the key into the slot of the passenger door, unlocking it for you.

You tilted your chin up at him, a doey look you gave him every single time he asked that question because the answer was always the same, “I always have fun when you and your friends are around.”

But tonight your response was different, “I had fun! Were you ok? You were staring off a lot.”

You waited for a response as you got into the car, a slight hum leaving his lips before he shut the door and jogged over to the driver’s side where he settled in.

“I just was thinking about some things.” He told you, buckling his seatbelt and starting the car.

You leaned your elbow on the center console, getting closer to him. “About what?”

“It’s nothing important.” He told you, fingertips skimming your arm as he reached for the gear stick.

But if there was one thing you learned after all this time dating Steve, it was that sometimes he liked to keep things to himself before they unfortunately boiled over. He had this way of just not wanting to say how he was feeling because he was terrified of what you would think or say, but you were doing your best to try to break down those walls because you wanted him to be as open and honest, and comfortable with you.

“Steve,” you said delicately, placing a hand on top of his to stop the action of driving off, and he looked at you with confusion on his face, as if you were just going to accept his response.

“You can tell me anything, you know…you don’t have to be scared of letting me inside your thoughts.”

He felt your thumb smoothing over his knuckles and saw the way your eyes softened just like your voice. The words slipping from you with ease because you were dead serious about wanting Steve to trust you with every ounce of his being.

It was only a second after that where you smiled, tilting your head closer to his to press your lips against his. The kind of kiss where there was no movement, just skin touching to let him know that you were right here with him. And so he couldn’t help but smile against you despite his thoughts echoing the scariest words he longed to say out loud.

But before he could even stop himself or pull away from your skin, the words came flowing out like a breeze of fresh air.

“I’m in love with you.”

His voice was soft, yet you didn’t miss the shakiness in his tone, and the way his lips seemed to quiver after he had admitted his feelings.

You were the one who pulled away first, and to Steve that almost felt like a twinge of rejection, like a plane that was free falling and he could do nothing but brace for impact.

But your smile and thumbs brushing over his cheek turned that plane right around.

“I’m in love with you, too.”

And that’s when Steve Harrington knew that he was no longer lost. That even though it took so many wrong turns to get here, he was here with you and that’s all that matter. That if there was one person who wouldn’t mind getting lost in, it would be you and your mind.

leave a comment and let me know if want to be added to my taglist!!

taglist: @translatemunson @kennedy-brooke @manda-panda-monium @tvserie-s-world @givemeth @steveharringtonswife @fckthtgetmoney @loving-and-dreaming @awkotaco24

[mankillercalledbunny]

Hey gang can I get some Fantasy For Grown-ups recommendations (especially if they're available in audiobook format but NOT audible exclusives bc I use Libby)? I've been listening to a lot of T Kingfisher's fantasy lately all of which centers around grown ass adults but keeps a lot of the things I loved about fantasy growing up: fun and creative worldbuilding, competent protagonists, humour and clever dialogue, and intriguing narrative. I also like Pratchett, especially the Watch set and the Witches. I like stories that feel like they could conceivably have been a Dungeons and Dragons campain, or are subversions of a traditional fairytale. I don't mind romance subplots (as long as they're established well and don't feel tacked on because the author felt obligated) but I'm not one for Romance Novels specifically, which is why I don't use the term Adult Fantasy because for some reason people take that to mean porn with some dragons thrown in. I'm definitely up for some Sci-Fi in my fantasy, too!

Books I loved:

T Kingfisher

Nettle & Bone

Swordheart

Bryony and Roses

Thornhedge

Paladin's Grace (currently reading)

Other authors/works

The Watch Cycle (Terry Pratchett) and other Discworld

The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner

Lamb by Christopher Moore

The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

16 Ways To Defend A Walled City by K J Parker (and sequels)

The Abhorsen series by Garth Nix

Books I liked as a kid that are in the same vein

Redwall by Brian Jacques

Lockwood & co by Jonathan Stroud

Everything by Rick Riordon

The Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull

Please don't recommend anything by Sarah J Maas, Brandon Sanderson, or Leigh Bardugo, I've already got the big names on the list.

[alldancersaretalented]

Jump Wins By Dancer

17 Wins: Cami Vorhees

11 Wins: Kayla Mak

8 Wins: Brady Farrar, Brooklyn Simpson, Kya Massimino, Madison Taylor, Vivian Ruiz

7 Wins: Ella Horan, Kamryn Funk, Nicholas Bustos, Ying Lei Pham

6 Wins: Crystal Huang, Hailey Meyers, Katie McCleary, Kayla LaVine, Lily Gentile, Lola Iglesias, Rachel Quiner

5 Wins: Ava Brooks, Brooklyn Cooley, Christina Ricucci, Elizabeth Scott Lanier, Ellary Day Szyndlar, Giselle Gandarilla, Gracyn French, Isabella Jarvis, Jonathan Wade, Kaylin Maggard, Kylee Casares, Lucy Vallely, Mariana Rodriguez, Olivia Alboher, Sarah Moore, Sophia Lucia

4 Wins: Aimee Brotton, Ali Ogle, Ana Maria Zertuche, Ava Wagner, Avery Gay, Cambry Bethke, Camille Cabrera, Campbell Clark, Carly Thinfen, Christian Burse, David Keingatti, Destanye Diaz, Eliana Hayward, Emma Sutherland, Hailey Bills, Halle Lum, Izzy Howard, Jackson Roloff-Hafenbreadl, Jaycee Wilkins, Jayci Kalb, Kelsie Jacobson, Kensington Dressing, Lauren Yakima, Logan Epstein, Madalin Autry, Makaia Roux, Makayla Ryan, Mary Jordan Clodfelter, Mila Simunic, Patricio Lopez, Rosie Elliott, Sabine Nehls, Scott Autry, Sophia Frilot, Sophie Garcia, Stella Brinkerhoff, Sylvia Borash, Talia Gabriel, Taylor Worden, Tim Blankenship, Valadie Cammack

3 Wins: Addison Moffett, Aimee Smyke, Ali Deucher, Allie Andrew, Alyssa Robert, Amy Benedetto, Avery Lau, Bostyn Brown, Braylynn Grizzaffi, Britton Johnson, Brooke Cheek, Brooke Cox, Brooke Toro, Caden Hunter, Caitlyn Polis, Camila Cordero, Candace Vincent, Casey Tran, Chau, Chloe Madding, D'Angelo Castro, Dasha Waldemer, Dyllan Blackburn, Ella Dobler, Ella Jones, Ellen Grace Olansen, Emma York, Erin Bailey, Esme Chou, Findlay McConnel, Fiona Sartain, Fiona Wu, Grace Lethbridge, Harper Anderson, Hayden Hopkins, Hudson Pletcher, Isabel Ulloa, Isabella Lynch, Isabella Vorhees, Isabella Weidmann, Jazmine Raine Werner, Jessica Ferretti, Josie Lutz, JT Church, Justin Pham, Keagan Capps, Keely Meyers, Keira Redpath, Kennedy Anderson, Lauren Shaw, Libby Borash, Lindsey Weaver, Logan Hernandez, Lucia Piedrahita, Mackenzie Meldrum, Maddie Ziegler, Maria Jose Gonzalez, Mariandrea Villegas, Marion Norris, Michelle Quiner, Mini Preston, Miyah LaGrant, Morgan Higgins, Neala Murphy, Nicole Ishimaru, Payton Schultz, Preslie Rosamond, Rachel Louiselle, Reegan Francis, Regina Lozano, Ricky Ubeda, Ruby Castro, Samantha Falk, Savannah Folding, Savannah Manning, Savannah Manzel, Scarlett Ferrell, Selena Hamilton, Sidney Ramsey, Sienna Morris, Sylvie Win Szyndlar, Tessa Marr, Vera Escamilla

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

Once Upon A Time OC Masterlist

[ K - Z ]

Name: Alissa Thorn

Story: Dear Reader

Enchanted Forest: Priscilla Page ( Fables )

Face claim: Kathryn Newton

Name: Angel Dearly

Story: Long Live

Enchanted Forest: Anita Dumas / Anita Radcliffe

Face claim: Ellie Bamber

Love Interest: Roman Taylor | Roger Radclfife ( @the-witching-ash )

Summary:

Angel Dearly wouldn’t say that she was unhappy with her life, but she was bored.  Instead of being a famous fashion designer in New York or Paris, she was a waitress in Storybooke, still living with her grandmother.  There were some good moments, of course: walking Perdita, baking pies, talking to the sweet music teacher who visited Granny’s every day when he finished work, but every day felt the same, and Angel spent her life feeling like something was missing, yearning for something more.  And then Emma Swan comes to town one day, and the life that Angel Dearly was so used to would never be the same again.

Name: Angel Dearly

Story: Folklore

Enchanted Forest: Anita Radcliffe

Face claim: Ellie Bamber

Love Interest: Graham Humbert

Angel Dearly wouldn’t say that she was unhappy with her life, but she was bored.  Instead of being a famous fashion designer in New York or Paris, she was a waitress in Storybooke, still living with her grandmother.  There were some good moments, of course: walking Perdita, baking pies, talking to the Sheriff when he came for his morning coffee, but every day felt the same, and Angel spent her life feeling like something was missing, yearning for something more.  And then Emma Swan comes to town one day, and the life that Angel Dearly was so used to would never be the same again.

Name: Antonietta Caccialanza

Story: Overture

Enchanted Forest: Sugar Plum Fairy

Face claim: Anne Hathaway

Love Interest: Graham Humbert

Name: Ariana Galanis

Story: The Girl Who Died

Enchanted Forest: Ariadne Bayern ( Bluebeard's Wife )

Face claim: Nicola Coulghan

Name: Bradley Cushing

Story: The Game Afoot

Enchanted Forest: Sherlock Holmes

Face claim: Freddy Carter

Name: Calleigh Sheridan

Story: Overture

Enchanted Forest: Clara Stahlbaum ( The Nutcracker )

Face claim: Elle Fanning

Love Interest: Marius Hoffman

Name: Carmilla Rossmore

Story: Love Eternal

Enchanted Forest: Lucy Westenra

Face claim: Meg Donnelly

Love Interest: Libby Kocsis & Will Hopkins

Name: Corrina Mills

Story: Rite Of Spring

Enchanted Forest: Persephone

Face claim: Ana De Armas

Love Interest: probable Graham Humbert

Name: Declan Jones

Story: Bury Your Bones

Enchanted Forest: N/A

Face claim: Thomas Doherty

Name: Dove Thorn

Story: Dear Reader

Enchanted Forest: Robin Page ( Fables )

Face claim: Natalie Alyn Lind

Name: Eilwony

Story: Rabbit Heart

Enchanted Forest: Eilwony

Face claim: Kiernan Shipka

Name: Emmanuel Roberts

Story: I’m Still Here

Enchanted Forest: Jim Hawkins

Face claim: Brenton Thwaites

Name: Eve Dearly

Story: Folklore

Enchanted Forest: N/A

Face claim: Mackenzie Foy

Name: Evelyn Thorn

Story: Dear Reader

Enchanted Forest: Hillary Page ( Fables )

Face claim: Florence Pugh

Name: Findlay Maguire

Story: Folklore

Enchanted Forest: Fiyero Tigelaar

Face claim: Jonathan Bailey

Love Interest: Angel Dearly

Name: Gabriel Whittaker

Story: Folklore

Enchanted Forest: Klaus White

Face claim: Nicholas Galitzine

Love Interest: Lavender Dunbar

Name: Goldie Thistle

Story: Follow Your Heart

Enchanted Forest: Thumbelina

Face claim: Sabrina Carpenter

[bellasbookclub]

Bella's Book Club FAQ 🍎🌲📚

What is Bella's Book Club?

Bella's Book Club, (sometimes abbreviated to "BBC"), is an interactive virtual book club created by the Three Books One Plot podcast. Each month, participants read a selected book from the list of Bella Swan’s (really Stephenie Meyer’s) favorite books and authors as it appears in Chapter 13 of Midnight Sun, then come together to discuss it on Discord and other social media.

Where can I find Bella's Book Club?

We post most of our important information here on our Tumblr, as well as in the #announcements channel of our Discord. You can also follow along on our Goodreads and Storygraph (mainly used to keep track of past and present books we’ve read/are reading.)

Who can join Bella's Book Club?

BBC is open to anyone! You do not have to have participated in previous discussions, or even be a listener of the 3B1P podcast (though we’d love that, of course.) All we ask is that you be prepared to encounter mature themes and situations in some of our books (and discussions.)

How do I participate in Bella's Book Club?

BBC is designed to let you choose the level of participation you’re comfortable with. Most of the action (and fun) happens over on our Discord, during our monthly real-time discussions, but you're also welcome to share your thoughts or fanworks on a book by tagging us on tumblr or sending an ask/submission. We also sometimes post challenges, ask/tag games, and “scavenger hunts” to go along with our book of the month, and encourage each other to get creative. Past BBCers have made moodboards, fanbinds, playlists, shitposts, written fic and parodies, done scientific research, and even recreated recipes from the books we’ve read! The pressure is totally off, though—you’re welcome to read along and lurk from the cozy corner of your choice.

Who runs Bella's Book Club?

BBC is run primarily by bookworm nerds M (@gashousegables) and G (@volturialice) with occasional help from Shannon (@flowerslut).

M (she/they) is an Australian book nerd with librarian aspirations. From Animorphs to a Smeyer-adjacent Dragon girl phase, she's also the weeaboo in residence for the book club. When not feverishly promoting their Virtual Best Friend known as the Libby App they are swallowing pulpy Romances and mandatory sociological theory.

Favorite books: Imagica, the Locked Tomb series, Friday's Child, Picnic at Hanging Rock

G (she/her) is an American book nerd who grew up devouring like 3 high fantasy doorstoppers a week and considered the Scholastic Book Fair a national holiday. She enjoys reading gory Jacobean/Elizabethan tragedies for fun and has worked in Shakespeare education when she’s not stanning her local library.

Favorite books: Annihilation, The Bloody Chamber, the Locked Tomb series, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

Shannon (she/her) is an American jock who read oodles of fic but thought books were mainly good for propping up wobbly tables until she had her own Reading Renaissance in 2022. Now she's on a quest to discover new favorites by seeking out recs and devouring every book in sight!

Favorite books: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the Locked Tomb series, The Vanishing Half

When is Bella's Book Club?

This year, Bella's Book Club runs September 2023 through June 2024, followed by a break for our summer reading challenge. Books are announced one month in advance, and discussions take place once a month on Monday nights at 8 PM EST (Tuesday mornings at 11 AM AEST) during 3B1P’s off weeks. In the event of a postponement, we announce it on Tumblr and Discord.

The current discussion dates for 2023-4 are:

October 2nd

October 30th

November 27th

December 26th (Tuesday!)

January 22nd

February 19th

March 18th

April 15th

May 13th

June 10th

Nominations/recs for the 2024 Summer Reading Challenge will be open May 20th-June 10th. The event will run June 11th through approx. September 11th.

Do you do movie nights?

Yes! We sometimes take a break from reading to host Bella's Movie Club. Many of the books we read have been adapted for film and TV (and when no adaptation is available, we often watch a thematically similar movie.) We host movie nights on our Discord, scheduled according to demand and availability. We usually announce movie nights on Tumblr and Discord a week or so in advance, and schedule them on weekend nights (US)/weekend or Monday mornings (Australia) to accommodate the max number of time zones. If you’ve never watched a movie on Discord before, it’s super easy—anyone who wants to watch joins in via our voice channel, mutes themself (if you don’t know how to do this, the mods can do it for you), and then chats (mostly jokes) in real time via the #movie-discussion channel. It’s a rollicking time.

What books have you read in the past?

For our Season 1 (Twilight) lineup we read Jane Eyre, The Princess Bride, Sense and Sensibility, Tooth and Claw, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Little Women, and Northanger Abbey.

For our Season 2 (New Moon) lineup we read Emily of New Moon, Sunshine, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Blue Castle, Dragonflight, A Long Fatal Love Chase, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Persuasion, and Death on the Nile.

What’s the BBC Summer Reading Challenge?

The Bella's Book Club Summer Reading Challenge is our yearly summer break activity, designed to coincide with 3B1P’s hiatuses. Phase 1 of the challenge involves recommending up to 5 books through a Google form. In Phase 2, everyone’s recs are compiled into a list. Readers then choose 5 books from the list to read (and, optionally, review) during the summer months! You can find last year’s list here (and reccer spotlights here.)

Why are the books on your list Like That?

The list we’re pulling from was made by a white Mormon woman for her Not Like Other Girls YA protagonist. (We’ve found that Stephenie Meyer’s taste in books varies from “a quality classic but uninspired as a rec” to “this is actually a pretty cool deep cut.”) But don’t let that put you off too hard—we love reading through a more intersectional lens and Queering The Narrative, for example! We also take summers off to read each other’s book recommendations, which can be of any genre and include more diverse characters and authors. Even when choosing our lineup of monthly books, we try to schedule so that we end up with diversity of genre, era, style, and subject matter if nothing else.

***

got more questions? send us an ask!

happy reading! (we'll see you at book club)

[seananmcguire]

I'm not sure how to ask this, other than bluntly - how come there's no Black people in Toby Daye's San Fransisco?

Much as you weren't sure how to ask, I've been unsure how to answer, so hey! Awkwardness for all!

The short answer is that of course there are Black people in Toby's version of San Francisco. She just spends a minimal amount of time in the human world, and thus hasn't been interacting with very many humans, of any race. I don't tend to call out or describe people she passes on the street in the human world, but the police station she's at, on Valencia Street, is probably about 60% staffed by Black officers and desk workers, and they would have been there when she was. She just didn't describe them, and that's on me.

Your question made me curious, so I went and looked it up: there have been twenty-three named human characters across the span of the series.

Discounting the members of Shakespeare's company who appear in the Tybalt shorts, and Jude and Alan from Borderlands books, all of whom are (or were) real people, that leaves us with about eighteen humans. We know Bridget is white, and we can assume the same about Jonathan (Toby's father; IDK why I have such a thing for fathers named Jonathan), but beyond that, there hasn't been any real demographic data for any of the humans she's dealt with. The majority of them don't get any descriptive attributes beyond "human."

I know what my intentions were in some cases; Libby, Joe's wife, is meant to read as white, while Susie, his counter staff, is Asian-American. And both of them are in Portland, anyway. Jack, Walther's grad student, is intended to be native Californian (specifically Ohlone), but he's in Berkeley. In other cases, I do not know what I intended. Toby's boss at the Safeway, for example, gets a hair color and no other description.

This is not an excuse for the lack of open representation in the series. I've apologized, enough times that it's on the TV Tropes page for the books, for accidentally locking myself into a very Euro-centric world with the way I set things up (all fae are descended from Oberon, Maeve, or Titania, three figures from European mythology; we mostly deal with the fae; while many of them have darker skin, they're not Black in the human sense, and I would never claim that they were. By the same token, pale fae are not "white," they're fae, but they are European in descent). At the same time, I regret falling into the baby folklorist trap of "oh we call them fairies, they're up for grabs" with some of the Asian folkloric figures, like the Kitsune, and have apologized for that, too.

Despite this setup, there are Black fae, most notably among the Roane, where they married in, got their skins, and now live fully fae among the rest of Faerie.

I'm sorry if that isn't enough. I just didn't think to describe the humans around Toby in more detail during the early books, when she did spend more time around them, and then she wasn't spending a lot of time around humans anymore, and so there was less room for human-specific representation.

Anyway, I'm sorry, and there are Black people, Toby's just been avoiding humans almost entirely for several books now.

[rogerclarkaudiobooks]

"Weird Tales Magazine No. 367: The Cosmic Horror Issue"

Authors: Jonathan Maberry, et al. Narrators: Scott Brick, Robert Fass, James Anderson Foster, Heath Miller, Neil Hellegers, Roger Clark, Joe Hempel, Edoardo Ballerini, Eunice Wong, Simon Vance, Holly Adams, Chris Henry Coffey, Ralph Lister, Natalie Naudus Release Date: July 11, 2023 Length: 5 hours, 56 minutes

Overview:

The first issue in the second century of Weird Tales features a new HELLBOY story by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. Editor Jonathan Maberry has built a collection of cosmic horror that will destabilize your worldview.

Listen to a sample of Roger's contribution to this collection:

Weird Tales No. 367 includes a variety of stories by different authors and narrators.

If you are interested in the story narrated by Roger in this collection, the tale Night Fishing by Caitlín R. Kiernan is the one you're looking for. Or if you have an interest in another tale, author or narrator, check out the table below.

Weird Tales No. 367 is available from:

Apple Books ✰ Audible ✰ Audiobooks.com ✰ AudiobooksNow ✰ AudiobookStore.com ✰ Barnes & Noble ✰ Chirp Books ✰ Downpour ✰ Everand ✰ Google Play ✰ Hoopla ✰ Libro.fm ✰ Overdrive + Libby ✰ Rakuten Kobo ✰

[ufonaut]

Like the song says, I’ll be back when it’s over-- over there!

Tex Thomson in Secret Origins (1986) #29

(Roy Thomas, Mike Harris)

[sattlersquarry]

Libby’s Valentine-A-Palooza!

💐COME ONE, COME ALL, TO THE VALENTINE-A-PALOOZA! This celebration is a belated 500 follower celebration (thank you!!!) and an early celebration of the sweetest holiday around.

From February 4th through the 10th, purchase some sweet treats from your local Valentine Vendor (aka, send some asks!). What strikes your fancy? See the offerings below the cut.

CANDY GRAMS. Have you got your eye on someone? Or do you just want to spread some positivity? Send a candy gram (🍬) to my ask box with some kind words about an account on here that you love. (Candy Grams can also include fic recs!)

LOVE LETTERS. Ooh, how romantic! Request a blurb (💌) about one of the following Hawkins' Hotties (I've only ever written for Steve but want to try and branch out a little!):

Steve Harrington

Jonathan Byers

Eddie Munson

Choose from the following prompts: dialogue prompts or gentle love prompts.

MIXTAPES. A song a day keeps Vecna away! Request a mixtape (🎶), aka send the name of a Stranger Things character and I'll send a song or two that reminds me of them.

RED OR WHITE? Do you prefer pinot noir or chardonnay? Or perhaps a rosé? Send This or That (🍷) questions to my ask box. (Preferably about Stranger Things but can also be about other pop culture!)

VODKA, NEAT. Love?! Gross, I'm gonna hurl! 🤢 If you aren't in the mood for lovey-dovey stuff, order a vodka neat (🍹) from the hottest bar in town, Murray Bauman's Conspiracy Corner. Send any Stranger Things 5 theories, ideas, or wishes for us to discuss. The scarier, the better!

If this flops, it never happened!!!

[halfwaydeepunofficial]

hey there!

this is my oc blog, it’s not attached to a particular wip but rather an insane network of rp that’s about four and a half years old depending on how you’re measuring, unofficially called “the depths”. it’s made up of me, one of my best friends* and a shitton of little guys that are constantly rotating like microwave popcorn in my brain.

* @threecheer, my beloved bestie. none of these ocs are hers, she’s not on tumblr much. but i’ll probably talk about her ocs sometimes bc it’s kind of impossible not to.

feel free to ask me questions about any of my ocs! here are their full names, in roughly descending order from most developed to least developed:

alec michael caldwell

meera shah

franklin emory bendel

sebastian avery olivier

henry jonathan brooks

raphael “raph” roger truman

melanie “mel” robin chambers

solomon “sol” clay kingsley, junior

miriam tzipporah meir

isadora beatrice mallory

lev ilyich kalashnik

sage courtney desmond

violet kara lerner-mitchell

ainsley marianne lassiter

lydia “libby” riva rubenstein

atticus owen miller

beau quinn

maddox rose

some of them have canonical kids and some of them have parents that are occasionally brought in as minor characters (mainly sebastian and sol lol) but that’s about it. also there are several canonical pets - the pfp for this blog is meant to represent Silk Scratcher The Triumphant (or just silk), who’s sort of a mascot for the depths.

my main is @whimperandabang :)

[transition-with-the-torah]

Title: We Need To Talk About Antisemitism

Author: Rabbi Diana Fersko

Format / Cost: Free (via Libby); 2023 current/first edition.

There are eight chapters covering antisemitism, microaggressions, Christianity, the Holocaust, race, Israel, accountability, and the future.

The author is an American rabbi and quite a few of the examples are based in American culture or discussions, such as modern US-based discussions of conditional whiteness in the chapter on racializing Jews. However, I do think this seems like a pretty good overview of how historical antisemitism has functioned and affects modern strains of antisemitism, including in politically Left-leaning circles.

(This has been tagged with #reviews for personal blog organization purposes and may not be a satisfying or complete review for others. This was finished on the 21st of March but scheduled to post after Purim [23rd through 24th].)

Ch 1: We Need To Talk About Antisemitism

Section: What Even Is Antisemitism?

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance defines antisemitism as "a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." [...] He [Rabbi Jonathan Sacks] famously taught that "antisemitism is not allowing Jews to exist collectively the way we allow others to exist collectively."

The author gives a list of beliefs that have been held together by the logic-less 'conspiracy theory' of antisemitism, which includes well-known lies (like blood libel and punishing Jews for deicide) and new to me lies (like Jews control the weather). It's why antisemitism doesn't fall apart by direct contradictions like "fascists called Jews communists while communists called Jews capitalists."

Antisemitism is a collection of contradictions, but it doesn't matter. Pick the major cultural problem and project it onto the Jews—that's antisemitism.

Section: How Do Antisemites Think?

As a cover, antisemitic accusations throughout history have been coupled with arguments that suggest the problem wasn't the Jews per se, just the things the Jews did. If we would only stop doing those things, we could live in peace. I call this If only the Jews would... type of thinking. The Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote that "the euthanasia of Judaism can only be achieved by means of a pure, moral religion, and the abandonment of all of its old regulations." His idea was to take the Judaism out of the Jew. It's a fancy way of saying, If only the Jews would stop being Jewish, we could accept them.

Section: How Does Antisemitism Survive?

The author presents three theories: 1) antisemitism "maintains its appeal by latching on to the highest values of any given society" (religious ideas were most valued in the medieval period so it used devilish religious behaviors, science was most valued in the Enlightenment period so it used race science and eugenics, late 20th-century and forward values have been based around civil rights so Israel [and therefore all Jews] must be the worst violator of human rights ever); 2) antisemitism is a contagious virus (so, like viral spread, antisemitism isn't isolated to one demographic or geographic area) that can mutate and lay dormant before being noticeable again, and 3) antisemitism survives when we don't talk about it.

Ch 2: We Need To Talk About Microaggressions

Microaggressions are much less harmful than the actual violence against Jews. However, they are their own type of injury, the everyday papercuts that Jews encounter. They are the slights that we can just ignore, the vaguely anti-Jewish sentiments that we feel but can't necessarily name. They come from what historian Deborah Lipstadt calls "the dinner party antisemite," the people who make casual but hurtful comments.

The author proposes narrowing as "the practice of restricting Jewish identity to a specific, inflexible, and incomplete Jewish stereotype." Narrowing Jewish Looks goes into 'white skin', hooked or big noses, frizzy or unkempt hair, probably fat, and negative connotations around "looking Jewish" that erases the diversity of how Jews actually can look. Some of this has to do with current day racial differentiation in the US, some of it can overlap with fatphobia, and some of it has to do with historical differences (such as thinking Jews have literal horns). Narrowing Jewish Behavior discusses presumptions about religious observance (the less hidden your observance, the 'more Jewish' you are), skill assumptions (including Jews being better lawyers and financial professionals), and attempts to use comedy as a loophole for presenting a sliding scale of antisemitism - but only as a joke. Narrowing The Jewish Stories We Tell is about a focus on news media and fictional media for leaving Judaism (specifically how Orthodox and Hasidic communities are repressive, antiquated, and must be left entirely). Narrowing Our Own Identity is about hiding your own Jewishness, beating others to the microaggression punch, and the importance of Jews sharing what Jews are like with others [instead of letting non-Jewish people recycle these narrowing stereotypes].

Ch 3: We Need To Talk About Christianity

Even acknowledging any friction between Jews and our Christian counterparts feels like a sensitive topic. Today, Christians and Jews coexist in unparalleled peace in America. Most non-Orthodox Jews I know have Christian family members. My synagogue has Christian board members, and many people in my community have chosen to raise Jewish children in a family where one parent is Jewish and the other is not. [...] That lived reality makes it hard to believe that antisemitism was once fueled by Christianity and even harder to believe that Christian-based antisemitism still exists.

Tbh, I do not find this hard to believe, but I have a feeling that watching people reblog 'Jesus killer' type posts around Xmas 2023 isn't considered a typical exposure to this conversation.

Section: Christian Antisemitism In The Past

Historically, the goal of Christian antisemitism was to distance Christianity as far away from Judaism as possible. The early church was eager, desperate even, to show that Christians and Jews were wholly different. More than that, Jews were dangerous, we were deviants, and Christians should stay far away from us. For hundred of years, Christianity viewed Judaism as a threat. [...] The existence of both traditions was theologically inconsistent. If Judaism was theologically correct, then Christianity was theologically incorrect. Judaism therefore represented an existential threat to Christianity, to which Christian thinkers responded by calling for Jews to give up our beliefs or face violence.

Section: Jews And Money

In the medieval period, merchants and craftspeople began organizing themselves into guilds, which were sort of like professional schools or medical boards. If you wanted to do certain jobs or produce certain goods, you had to be in a guild. Guess who wasn't allowed in? At the same time, the church forbade Christians from working in banking, as they were not permitted to lend money or charge interest. And thus, unable to participate in most mainstream jobs, the Jews were pushed into the world of finance. With this, perhaps the most pervasive stereotype against the Jews became solidified. The Jew became known as a greedy moneylender, controlling the banks, trying to dominate Christian lives through money. That's why, hundreds of years later, a nine-year-old boy in Manhattan has pennies thrown at his feet.

This certainly isn't the only aspect of Xtian antisemitism that started from the early Xtian Church wanting to differentiate itself or that started in the medieval times, but this isn't trying to be a complete history of Xtian antisemitism.

Section: The Christmas Assumption

But Christian antisemitism has found a way to continue to survive. Because today, Christian antisemitism does the opposite of what it used to do. Instead of insisting that Jews are wholly different from Christians, it insists that Jews are wholly the same as Christians. [...] The Christmas assumption is a way of asserting that Jewish rituals are basically Christian rituals in disguise.

While I've absolutely run into this Xtian hegemony before, it feels like a different level of exhaustion to realize that even a rabbi is asked about observing Xmas 'because it's not religious anymore'. (Even a rabbi!)

Section: Christian Antisemitism Today

The Xmas assumption is just one way that Jewish identity gets minimized, and it's not always something that one could consider just a little bit of minimization. The Xtian day of rest and church attendance is assumed to be your day of rest, and trying to get days off from work and/or school for Jewish holidays can turn into A Whole Thing.

Being a Jewish American is also different than being a Christian American in more substantive ways. It means that your elected officials are most often not observers of your religion. It means that laws and policies are informed by Christian beliefs and sometimes violate your own religious beliefs. It means your education has a Christian-dominant perspective. [...] Being a Jew in America right now means that you probably don't casually identify your religion in public without experiencing anxiety. [...] The most significant way that being a Jewish American differs from being a Christian American is that Jews are not as safe as our Christian counterparts.

Some people will hit or physically attack someone who's wearing a Magen David or a kippah. [In some areas, this is directed at Jewish communities that are perceived to be Orthodox or have very distinctive means of dress, like Hasidim.] Others may bring a weapon into a synagogue and attempt to hurt or kill people, which isn't exactly a hypothetical. This is brought up in relation to a Xtian friend of the author who wanted to attend a service during the High Holy Days who was clueless that there would be security, and not a denial that some Xtians may also not have guaranteed safety 100% of the time (specifically, I'm thinking of the Mother Emanuel AME Church and the anti-Black shooting there in 2015, since President Biden's visit to that church wasn't that long ago).

Ch 4: We Need To Talk About The Holocaust

Sometimes the Holocaust is used for humor; other times, it's used for politics; sometimes it's used for self-advancement. But in our culture, it's almost always used. The Holocaust is no longer presented as a tragedy in its own right. Now it's a vehicle for someone else's cause. A path to something else. A metaphor.

While there is a politically Right-leaning example, this isn't just a problem in those circles.

Flat Holocaust is the culturally aggressive miniaturization of the genocide against the Jewish people. It means narrowing history's greatest crime against humanity—a crime both intimate and individual, and one incomprehensibly vast—and turning it into a vehicle, an analogy. It's simplifying something that remains unfathomably complicated. It's reducing the crime with no name, for which the term genocide was invented, into a synonym for the word "bad." It's making the Holocaust into a metaphor rather than a distinct, horrifying event in Jewish history. Flat Holocaust is not the Holocaust. It's the mini Holocaust. It's a shadow Holocaust. It's a caricature. It's a lazy, cheap way to define one's own pain. We hear about the Holocaust a fair amount in public discourse today, but we don't actually talk about it. Instead, we use the Holocaust to talk about ourselves. That's Flat Holocaust.

Five proposed reasons for why the 'Flat Holocaust' happens: 1) The Holocaust is so large of an event that it's hard to wrap your brain around it, which can make it easier to fall into generalizations or grow desensitized to it; 2) When you nearly wipe out a particular minority group, there are fewer people to talk about what happened; 3) "Pain, trauma, and humiliation don't make people want to tell their stories" in the aftermath [to say nothing of enough time passing that there are fewer direct survivors to share their firsthand experience]; 4); With the poor state of Holocaust education in the public school system, a lot of people don't really learn about the Holocaust (or pick up random pieces of knowledge from pop culture and social media); and 5) Antisemitism.

Section: The Result Of Flat Holocaust

Holocaust denial has different shades of denial, and the author uses a pyramid analogy with total denial at the top/peak. Lower down, there's "de-Judaizing the Holocaust" by focusing on other demographic groups killed, especially if it's done in such a way as to make the other demographics the main target of Nazi persecution. There's also "Holocaust minimization" by not wanting to hear anything about the Holocaust 'because it was so long ago' or decreasing the size and scope of the deaths (there's a study cited that half of Millennials believe two to three million Jews were killed instead of six million). [This can also look like downplaying or ignoring that the Holocaust wasn't focused on one particular country and had effects outside of Europe.] At the analogous bottom of this pyramid is "Holocaust omission" where there's a lack of mentioning the Holocaust when it actually would be an appropriate time to do so.

In an effort to counteract the Flat Holocaust, there's a section after Chapter 8 with an excerpt of Fela Warschau's testimony from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and there's interviews with a few third-generation survivors as Millennial grandchildren become the latest to carry on their family's experiences.

Ch 5: We Need To Talk About Race

What is happening with the way we talk about Jews and race in America? Neo-Nazis are talking about the "Jewish race," arguing that Jews in America secretly plot to overthrow whiteness by replacing white people with people of color. Pockets of the progress left are talking about the "Jewish race," framing Jews as part of a white majority that reinforces racial oppression merely by continuing our existence, as my professor suggested [by asking if a Jew marrying another Jew was racist]. And fringe groups like the Radical Hebrew Israelite movement are talking about the "Jewish race," arguing that the Jews usurp Black identity and that African Americans are the true Jews.

Section: The Holocaust Was About Race

Before the Nazis, conversion was often a way to escape antisemitism. [...] In the Nazi mind, Jews were a separate, inferior race, so we were unchangeable, incapable of conversion. Being a Jew was no longer a matter of theology, family, or identity; it was a matter of biology.

Gestures towards race science and eugenics.

As a government, they [the Nazis] proudly and eagerly pursued the goal of breeding a more gifted race. They believed the Aryan race was morally, genetically, and intrinsically superior to the "Jewish race." This is why it is maddening to be told that the Holocaust was not about race.

For those who have not heard of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (often shortened to Protocols), there's a brief explanation of how that book combined the older Xtian ideas of antisemitism with the comparatively newer ideas of race science.

Section: The Far Right: How Neo-Nazis Racialize Jews Today

The Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 didn't pick "Jews will not replace us" as one of their chants during the march for absolutely zero reason. The great replacement theory is an idea that white people are being infiltrated by and tricked by Jews who look white but aren't white. There's also a component of Jews being in another 'secret cabal' and causing immigration, using political control to influence civil rights wins for people of color, and otherwise increasing the amount of people of color compared to white people. Basically: "Generations after the rise of the Nazis, the Nazi idea still survives. To white supremacists, Jews are a race, and certainly not a white race. Instead, we are a race that poses the ultimate threat to whiteness."

Section: The Far Left: How Parts Of The Progressive Left Racialize Jews Today

On the far right, Jews are not white enough, but on the far left, Jews are white, and sometimes the ultimate whites.

This isn't about negating discussions of conditional whiteness or some light-skinned Jews being white passing. This is more about how older antisemitic ideas of Jews having money and power take on a little modern twist to be about a White Jew essentially being a White European, a colonizer, and a white supremacist. This idea of the White Jew isn't just the very top of rich, white privilege – Jews were the 'international group' orchestrating the slave trade, absolutely zero Jews anywhere could possibly be non-white, and 'Jewish privilege' is different enough from white privilege to have its own moniker.

Section: Black Extremism

I've chosen to label this section with the term Black extremism to remind us all that these ideas are by definition extreme—they do not represent the mainstream of the Black community by any means. And they should not be confused with a discussion of Jews who are Black.

This section covers two groups. The Radical Hebrew Israelites is used to describe a subgroup of the Hebrew Israelite umbrella (formerly the Black Hebrew Israelites, but outside terminology has changed as non-Black people of color have increased their membership), since each individual group can have a different attitude towards Jews. The Nation of Islam has put forward different beliefs over the decades, but the leadership of Louis Farrakhan starting in 1981 has included him repeating Protocols-style antisemitism.

Broadly speaking, the core belief of Hebrew Israelites is that Black people in the US are considered the true modern descendants of the biblical Israelites (with some groups allowing non-Black people of color as corresponding to other biblical tribes within the Kingdom of Israel). As far as I can tell, most of the less fringe groups separate themselves from Judaism without antagonizing Jews, especially if they incorporate the New Testament and more Xtian belief and practice into their Old Testament inspired "Jewish" practice. The more fringe Radical Hebrew Israelite groups can view white Americans as the devil (or descendants of a biblical devil stand-in, referred to as Edomites), claim some amount of Jews will be killed with the Edomites during Armageddon, and whoever survives Armageddon will be enslaved by them in the post-Armageddon world. At least one group is known for antagonistic street preaching and verbally harassing people – homophobia, transphobia, anti-Asian Covid-19 stuff, anti-Middle Eastern xenophobia, and so on.

When it comes to the Nation of Islam, it kind of depends on when and under whose leadership you're trying to look into. Like, an ancient African scientist named Yakub actually might have created white people a couple thousand years ago, so they're not really people like whoever's descended from Africans. Or the founder, who is more important than the Prophet Muhammad, will return in a spaceship to wipe out white people and establish a Black led utopia. (When the founder's son became the leader in the 1970s, he tried to expunge these non-Islamic beliefs, incorporated more Sunni beliefs, opened up memberships to non-Black people – including whites – and officially renamed the NOI in his move to make it more of a mainstream Islamic movement.) Those who wanted to carry on the NOI created a successor group with the same name in the late 1970s, which is where Louis Farrakhan came into play as the new leader. He has blamed an international cabal of Jews for the slave trade, praised Hitler, said Jews control the media/banks/US government, claimed Jews were spreading AIDS, and who knows what else on Twitter. According to his Wiki page, he's also gotten into Dianetics since the 2010s, though he maintains that the Nation of Islam is separate from Scientology.

[Note: I also did some outside googling, so not all of these details are in the book.]

Section: Where Does Racializing Jews Lead?

Jews have a specific, painful, lengthy relationship with race that doesn't lend itself to broad brushstrokes or binary racial categories. Jews are not a race. And when we force race upon the Jewish people, antisemitism comes out the other side.

Some physical attacks on Jews are attributed to involvement in the above Black extremist groups, but it's not really about comparing the exact number of attacks from white supremacists to them (or even how many more white supremacists there are in the US). Environments that are open to and encourage antisemitism can be dangerous regardless of the political direction it comes from.

Ch 6: We Need To Talk About Israel

The way we talk about Israel in this country is infused with antisemitism. And talking about that is really, really hard. It's hard because, for those of us on the political left, naming this antisemitism involves calling out people with whom we often agree. It's hard because there is so much emotion infused into the Israel discourse from every imaginable angle.

Section: Anti-Israel Antisemitism In America Targets American Jews

Online, many insist that this shaming is about Israel's government, not about Jews at all, and certainly not about American Jews. I guess the men driving those vans screaming "Fuck the Jews" down the streets of Manhattan didn't get the message. I'm not overly interested in analyzing people's intentions in criticizing Israel. I'm interested in discussing the outcome of that criticism. And that outcome is to diminish and destabilize the American Jewish diaspora.

Section: Excluding Jews From Civic Life: When Intersectional Doesn't Mean You

As the political scientist and former Israeli politician Einat Wilf has written, "Antisemitism works by increasingly restricting spaces where Jews can feel welcome and comfortable, until there are none left." When we make Israel and its supporters into cultural pariahs, we make Jews into cultural pariahs. Because demonizing Israel results in diminishing the participation of Jewish Americans in day-to-day life.

There's a specific example from a chapter of The Sunrise Movement not wanting three Jewish organizations to take part in a rally because they were "in alignment with and in support of Zionism and the State of Israel" despite other organizations in the rally supporting Israel as well. There's also the 2017 Dyke March that didn't allow rainbow flags with a Magen David on them because they didn't want anything that "can inadvertently or advertently express Zionism" present. Really, there could be more examples, which is the point.

Section: Excluding Jews On College Campus

Like our Israel discourse in general, BDS has little effect on Israel itself. If it measured its success by its economic or political impact on the State of Israel, it would be considered a colossal failure. However, BDS has been wildly successful at one thing: toxifying Israel among younger people in the United States.

The author gives quite a few examples of antisemitism on campus, as well, but I mostly keep thinking of what I've heard from others on Tumblr: an Israeli-Palestinian organization, Standing Together, should be included in BDS because there are Israelis involved; some Hillels have been proposed for BDS consideration because Hillel International 'normalizes' Israel, even though boycotting the community space for primarily American students to access kosher food, celebrate Jewish holidays, etc. doesn't seem to accomplish anything regarding Israel; and at least one concerning incident of anti-Israel protesters trying to get to Jewish students behind a locked door. You know, historically speaking, good things do not happen when angry groups of people are chasing after a minority group they're mad at.

Section: The Way We Talk About Israel Today Is Similar To The Way We Talked About Jews In The Past

The lie that Jews are needlessly violent and collectively seek the destruction of others certainly did not begin with the fictional account of Dracula, let alone with the founding of the State of Israel. It existed for centuries before. During antiquity, a Greek writer in Egypt circulated the lie that Jews captured a Greek child every year, fattened him up, and murdered him for ritual purposes.

The previous paragraph before that quote expanded on how a rise in Jews fleeing Russia and Poland due to pogroms in the late 19th-century gave rise to concerns about foreigners that can be interpreted as related to the vampire Dracula. Unfortunately, I just heard about "Montreal newspaper's political cartoon showing Netanyahu as a vampire decried as antisemitism" today, 20 March 2024 [archival link]. Not to get too sidetracked, but also, from "The Twinned Evils of 'Nosferatu'":

[...] and yet, Mein Kampf, published in 1925, makes multiple references to Jews as vampires, bloodsuckers, and parasites as well as "that race which shuns the sunlight." These and similar metaphors were picked up by followers like the Nazi ideologue Albert Rosenberg who repeatedly used quasi-biological terms to characterize Jews as a vampire bacillus infecting their German host. Once war broke out the tone grew ever more shrill as in the 1943 Nazi pamphlet, The Jewish Vampire Brings Chaos to the World. The vilest of Nazi propaganda films, The Eternal Jew, released in 1940, specifically compared East European Jews to a plague of rats and ended with a blood-draining sequence of ritual slaughter for kosher meat.

This is clearly not the only thing written about vampires, Jews, and how vampire depictions do and do not play into this antisemitic history. Back to "We Need To Talk About Antisemitism":

Otherwise, in this section, there's some more history of blood libel with the case of William of Norwich in the late 1140s, a few of the 100+ examples from Xtian Europe, and some examples of modern day blood libel (including literal 'Jews kill babies in order to use their blood in making matzah' blood libel in 2000).

No mainstream American outlet is going to print an accusation that Jews use blood to bake matzah. But the belief under that conspiracy theory—that Jews are bloodthirsty, conspiratorial, and needlessly violent—persists, and it persists most obviously in our rhetoric around Israel.

This is about printed text of someone's quote stating such. As the referenced political cartoon above suggests, I'm not nearly as surprised that there have been political cartoons of Netanyahu drinking blood (sometimes specified as baby blood, but not always).

Another [antisemitic trope] is the accusation of dual loyalties, that Jewish people are not loyal to the government under which we live. Instead, we are loyal to Israel, secret agents for a foreign government. [...] Alfred Dreyfus, a French military officer, was infamously falsely accused of being a spy based on the supposition that, because of his Jewishness, he would not be loyal to the country he served. Jews were accused of dual loyalties in Spain during the Inquisition. We were accused of dual loyalties in Russia under Stalin. And we were certainly accused of dual loyalties, or no loyalty to Germany at all, under Hitler. Well before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, this accusation of conflicting allegiance was commonplace.

Unsurprisingly, there's still modern day examples, as well.

Section: But Wait, Is All Criticism Of Israel Antisemitic? How Can We Tell?

The first [guideline] is to avoid invoking classic antisemitic canards when dealing with Israel. [...] Israel has many blemishes on its society and government. You don't need to rely on antisemitic tropes and tactics to discuss them.

Please imagine that quote is a giant neon sign.

The second guideline was developed by human rights activist and former prisoner of war Natan Sharansky. He articulated the "3D test" as a way to separate antisemitic discussion of Israel from critical discussion of Israel. He argued that we must pay attention to three pathways of thought: delegitimize, demonize, double standard.

Double standard refers to holding Israel to a different, more critical standard than other nation-states. This isn't about letting everyone do whatever they want, but it is about the unavoidable amount of people who ignore or, if they acknowledge it, don't call for the same level of punishment for other countries when they engage in violent conflict compared to what they call for Israel.

Demonize refers to needing to make Israel the worst – to inflating its wrongs into the absolute worst actions imaginable, viewing societal ills as originating from Israel, and attempting to downplay/ignore/twist any possibly okay things about Israel into not-okay things. [Some people may not be able to think about anything even slightly okay about Israel, so an example could be how any progress on LGBTQ+ rights for Israeli citizens is framed as some devious PR plot for improving Israel's international image instead of being normal laws passed for internal reasons and motivations.]

Delegitimize refers to saying that Israel shouldn't exist as a nation-state, especially if you single out the sole Jewish nation-state as the only one that should not exist. [Inevitably, I've seen this type of statement summon anarchists from the ether, so: Yes, there are people who only want Israel to not exist. No, you wanting all nation-states to not exist isn't inherently antisemitic. However, when it comes to international politics and recognizing sovereign nation-states, you're clearly not the majority, in charge of anything, or really putting forward a practical suggestion regarding a nation-state that already exists.]

Section: How Can We Fight Israel-Based Antisemitism?

There are three options: 1) Don't fight it and leave the institutions and organizations that don't want Jews, and for some people, consider aliyah [moving to Israel and becoming an Israeli citizen]; 2) Stay and attempt to fight Israel-based antisemitism via education/fact checking, coalition building, not hiding Jewish connections to Israel, and insisting that there's still space for Jews to remain in America; and 3) Do nothing—the author absolutely doesn't support this option, but it is technically an option. This looks like ignoring antisemitism and making the diaspora less safe for Jews, which will just make leaving look like a better option.

Anti-Israel antisemitism is the American loophole to enter the world of Jew hatred. It is socially acceptable, trending antisemitism. It is antisemitism that feels OK and even necessary for some. The antisemites of the past didn't believe they were wrong, and neither do the antisemites in our midst.

Ch 7: We Need To Talk About Accountability

Never underestimate my ability to not recognize someone being name-dropped. There's enough explanation in the examples of people who have said antisemitic comments (and if applicable, apologized and done better) that it still makes sense, but some people may recognize more of these examples than myself.

Section: Forgiveness Matters

There must be a reentry point for people who make mistakes, even serious ones. Judaism is clear on this matter. When a person errs, there are prescribed paths to return to righteous living. Those paths can include some combination of contrition, education, restitution, reparation, and clear alteration of behavior.

Unsurprisingly, this can be easier with living people who can apologize, seek out education on the Holocaust and Jewish history, and demonstrably not repeat their antisemitic actions.

Section: When It's Time To Move On

Some people don't just make one or two comments that can be fixed with education, and some people very well may decide to avoid their contributions to society to the extent possible. As an example, Richard Wagner was very public about his thoughts on Jews – "It is an established fact that I consider the Jewish race to be the born enemy of true mankind and of everything that is noble" – and beloved by Hitler ("Whoever wants to understand Nazi Germany must know Wagner... At every stage of my life I come back to Richard Wagner."). It might seem like a small thing, but the author, as a rabbi who officiates weddings, tries not to use Bride Chorus/Here Comes The Bride [because it's from a Wagner opera]. This doesn't mean it's always easy to do this, and this can wind up being an individual choice for living people who have reached steadfast levels of antisemitism (author's example: Alice Walker).

Section: Who Decides If And How We Hold Antisemites Accountable?

The sad truth is that, despite the myths about our worldwide influence, Jews have little power over how antisemites are treated in public.

It's much more likely to be someone from that group applying pressure to someone to take action, such as a respected athlete in that sport's circles speaking up about another athlete's comments. This can look like Jewish organizations writing letters and getting nowhere because the group is silent – Dave Chappelle among various comedians, Mel Gibson among various Hollywood examples, and US politicians. Social media is, well, it's not great, and moderation about what counts as antisemitism can be unclear, not enforced, or not able to keep up with the quantity of antisemitic comments online.

Ch 8: We Need To Talk About The Future

Take The Necessary Precautions is about taking the physical threat of antisemitism seriously and adding or maintaining security measures at Jewish institutions, which currently does involves having to deal with law enforcement. [Balancing security with less police involvement is not an easy conversation, but quite frankly, there are no civilian alternatives to bomb sniffing dogs when your synagogue has gotten a bomb threat, so the boards of synagogues and security committees may not have much of a choice but to maintain working relationships with law enforcement.] Just Call It Antisemitism is about a tendency to condemn a list of hate instead of acknowledging when just antisemitism itself is happening. Don't Tokenize covers the history of Jews taking part in anti-Jewish movements briefly and reminds us: "Let's not hold up the exception as the rule and allow their existence to justify antisemitic rhetoric. If you want to fight antisemitism, don't amplify a minority view and claim it's representative."

Avoid Groupthink provides some historical context to how unsafe a mob mentality can be for minorities, specifying massacres of Jews during the Crusades and just some of the pogroms that happened in the 20th-century. On Denying Our Own Antisemitism is about self-honesty concerning the small ways we contribute to antisemitism, such as not speaking up about the less obvious stuff. Don't Use Jews is about not using Jews as a collective as a metaphor or using the Holocaust as a go-to comparison. It's also includes not using Israel as some sort of metaphor: "The State of Israel, just like the Jewish people, is not a concept, a cause, a project, or an idea. It's a real place with real people. We must let it exist as it is, not as we project it to be."

Allow Jewish To Be An Identity is about how Jewish is viewed as a non-identity that doesn't really need to be specified like other identities should be. "Are we a religion, a culture, an ethnicity, a nation, a race? [...] This fluidity, this tendency to pass through categories, can lead people to misinterpret the Jews. Sometimes people try to cram us into one category. Other times, they insist that, because we are not fully in one box, we don't belong in any."

Celebrate Jewish Life is about embracing living Jews instead of focusing solely on dead Jews [see also: "People Love Dead Jews"]. It's not about ignoring history, which does include Jews dying, but the comfort of only thinking about Jews when they're dead and less inconvenient (especially to modern discussions). Judaism has an interest in living and surviving, so there's a section on being proudly, openly Jewish.

[therogerclarkfanclub]

"Weird Tales Magazine No. 367: The Cosmic Horror Issue"

Authors: Jonathan Maberry, et al. Narrators: Scott Brick, Robert Fass, James Anderson Foster, Heath Miller, Neil Hellegers, Roger Clark, Joe Hempel, Edoardo Ballerini, Eunice Wong, Simon Vance, Holly Adams, Chris Henry Coffey, Ralph Lister, Natalie Naudus Release Date: July 11, 2023 Length: 5 hours, 56 minutes

Overview:

The first issue in the second century of Weird Tales features a new HELLBOY story by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. Editor Jonathan Maberry has built a collection of cosmic horror that will destabilize your worldview.

Listen to a sample of Roger's contribution to this collection:

Weird Tales No. 367 includes a variety of stories by different authors and narrators.

If you are interested in the story narrated by Roger in this collection, the tale Night Fishing by Caitlín R. Kiernan is the one you're looking for. Or if you have an interest in another tale, author or narrator, check out the table below.

Weird Tales No. 367 is available from:

Apple Books ✰ Audible ✰ Audiobooks.com ✰ AudiobooksNow ✰ AudiobookStore.com ✰ Barnes & Noble ✰ Binge Books ✰ Chirp Books ✰ Downpour ✰ Everand ✰ Google Play ✰ Hoopla ✰ Libro.fm ✰ Overdrive + Libby ✰ Rakuten Kobo ✰

TIP: If you want to find more audiobooks from Roger, you can click on the "Roger's Audiobooks" tag, or you can also check out my pinned post 😉 Happy Listening!