#not sorry if this offends you because I’m Jewish and I think it’s funny and you can block me

[ollyvoilesrandomblog]

My hand slipped. (I missed Kakashi’s birthday and it’s his bad luck that the very next day is a major Jewish holiday.) Happy Rosh Hashanah!

[shiraglassman]

Hey, I know this is kind of a dumb question, but I came across a TikTok about a month ago suggesting that dragons (the western, fire breathing, princess snatching, treasure hoarding ones) were rooted in antisemitic in the same way something like goblins are. I couldn’t tell if it was a joke or not, and it kind of sent me into a tailspin, since I’ve always loved dragons (I read the WoF series ONCE and wouldn’t shut up about it for 3 years), and I was worried that I would have to drop them entirely for fear of offending someone. I can definitely see the similarities between common antisemitic tropes and dragon tropes, but I’ve always heard that the origins of the western dragon were that it was just a scalier of the devil and not meant to represent any marginalized community. However, I am not Jewish in any way, and I’m aware it’s not my place to dictate what is and isn’t harmful, so I was curious as to what you thought. (Sorry about how long this is TuT)

I held on to this ask for a few weeks to try to make sure my response made sense, so here goes. Disclaimer that I'm just one Jewish woman who loves dragons, and I claim no expertise or position of authority. I can't guarantee that someone won't look at your special interests and judge you unfairly. I also can't guarantee that you'll be hyperaware enough and careful enough to catch dogwhistles if they're subtle, compared with ordinary fictional dragons. What I can guarantee is that your average Jewish person is not going to assume you are more unsafe to be around than other unknown gentiles just because you like dragons, but fandom spaces and Tumblr spaces sometimes represent a skewed or specific cross-section of the population and may react differently. I can't make any of those calls. I don't want to tell you to start tuning out marginalized people when we speak about our issues including bad representation, but I also don't think "every Western dragon" is a problem the same way the entire perception of Halloween witches is, for example. For "some reason" (antisemitism) we've decided that big hooked noses are a thing you strap to your face to fake being a witch, or the way witches look in clip art. This is an issue because it takes a simple, neutral feature that some of us have and exaggerates it to the point of looking nonhuman. "Ha ha," says the trope. "Wouldn't it be funny if this trait that these Others have was so different and so jarring in appearance that they looked as different as they truly are, from us, the In Group?"

If the same group of folks who had anxiety about us coexisting alongside them created the witch aesthetic as created the Western dragon lore, and indeed much of old-fashioned European fantasy, it's easy to see how their feelings about us an other marginalized groups (disabled people etc.) creep into the stories. HOWEVER, it's also incredibly easy for dragons to not be us. Or have anything to do with us. If you're nervous when writing your own stories that someone is going to mistake your greedy characters for Jewish-coded, try to establish that real (human or otherwise) Jewish characters coexist with the greedy dragon or whatever to show that you're not using the dragon as a subconscious Jewish reference. But if you're talking about just "can I continue to buy dragon merch from creators who draw cute art", the only thing I can tell you is that there's an intense diversity of opinion among the Jewish people and even though I'm saying it's fine and probably most people at my temple would say it's fine, I can't account for strangers on apps I don't even have. Personally, I think you're safe as long as you avoid dragon things that evoke the trope directly. And many MANY dragons don't even evoke the trope these days, because so many millennials and younger grew up adoring dragons so we launched media where dragons are good. And don't even always hoard wealth. Much of modern dragon media seems to ignore the greedy and/or hoarding tropes entirely or have replaced greed as a motivator for the collections with "this dragon has a special interest", which is cute and doesn't evoke antisemitic tropes at all. You'll probably be able to make good judgments about what does the trope and what doesn't, but for some additional help here is a post Meir and I did on @writingwithcolor, which is where we'd prefer these questions be directed (yes, I know we're closed currently but we're reopening soon.) P.S. If this was sent to my personal specifically to avoid the WWC ask box being closed, please don't — that's an amount of volunteer work I simply can't take on. But I also know that it's possible and likely that you didn't know about WWC at all, so now you do — feel free to peruse our vast archives of past posts. @im-tired1124

[healyh8ter]

just saw your take on the podcast and i agree. feel like even if it is satirical which some people are saying it is, there is a line and that line was crossed.

i’ve seen online that the hosts are jewish and gay so people were saying them two were allowed to make their jokes abt jewish ppl and gay ppl but honestly idk i try and stay off stan twitter because everything is taken out of context i never know what’s a good source.

listened to the whole episode myself and i only laughed once and it happened to be at matty getting caught jacking off because god that is just awkward. after that, there wasn’t anything funny in the actual episode and even if we’re all “a bunch of snowflake twitter stans” as we’re being called online like i’d rather that than be a bigot tbh.

are you staying away from the situation or are you actively debating it? i tried to share my thoughts on twitter but was told i do not understand satirical comedy or what centre-left politics are (even though i’m one of the most political and educated people you’ll meet) by some man so i left twitter for today.

not sure what to do because i am a massive fan of their music and hold it extremely close to me, it’s also my special interest as an autistic person and hard to give up easily- any advice? :)

hey there, im glad we agree on things and most people seem to agree with my take on here.

about the hosts being gay and jewish i have no clue but im literally a gay man and some of the comments he made about gay men i personally wasn’t offended? i just dont wanna be offended by such immature jokes. however everyones feelings are valid because some of the other jokes were pretty vile. im definitely not taking away from how women and other poc mentioned must feel right now. Its not great. i see u all and how horrible u must feel. im really sorry.

i agree about the twitter thing, stay outta there!! alot of information and statments wont be true or they’ll be twisted and also twitters just stressful as a whole, i saw incels attacking the 1975twt and alot ppl had to go private.

the podcast REALLY WASNT FUNNY, truly i don’t get the humour in it at alllll. i literally felt pure embarrassment and just cringed multiple times really did feel like a teenage boy conversation.

OH MY GOD! i get u about the special interest thing, it’s literally why i made this blog. i’d say dont bother debating especially on twitter. no matter what you’ll say someone will have an offhand comment to say and its not worth it. whatever you think is right stick by that. but if u do debate please be mindful of everyone and how they feel.

i know im definitely not abandoning this blog or my interest im just gonna stay vigilant of what part of the band i am supporting, i support the music and the art they make and even some points matt’s made in the past have been really good!!. i just don’t support certain things mattys said or done before and now. i’ve been a fan for a long while so theres alot i’ve stuck through in terms of matty being stupid. getting flashbacks to 2021

anyways i say do what u personally think is right. just stay respectful and mindful of others in the process!

[mcnuggyy]

I don't understand how, besides being a character named after Tacos who really wants to make a Taco (which Justin admitted was racially insensitive on his part), and that being kind of a gag, how exactly is Taako racially coded at all? It kind of seems like it's all just based on his name being a joke by a white creator who wasn't thinking of the racial implications. I just don't understand why he can't really be any race anyone wants him to be (including latine btw) 1/2

2/2 The blue thing I get, btw, and I'm definitely not suggesting that as an alternative, or that we should whitewash a latine character for the sake of it-- I just don't think the McElroys have ever said he's latine. And I think judging people for being uncomfortable with their version of Taako being a representation of latine characters by assuming they have ill intent when they draw a non-latine coded Taako is maybe wrong.

-

Hey! So I actually kinda talked about this before, but I had a REALLY BIG thought about this in the morning actually, so hopefully I can shed a bit of light on this. (I am ignoring that canonically Taako is a Sun Elf for this)

Okay so, overall because of the McElroy's decision to keep the podcast as “race neutral” as possible, purposely living things up to interpretation, (except for the few canon characters of color (which is like 3 lmao)) This means that any slight deviation from this “neutrality” has very serious implications when it happens. It is NO coincidence that both Jewish people and Latine people have found themselves heavily relating to Taako, hc him as Jewish and/or Latine, etc. It would be foolish to think of this as simply coincidence when the text itself kind of gives us reason to. And in this “race neutral” world, that little bit is all you need. 

(i may be reaching a bit but again, i want to emphasize how BECAUSE, this world is MEANT to exist in a “race free” world, LMAO whatever the hell that means, any bit of reference to culture or ethnicity is a very big deal)

Taako says stuff in Yiddish, and one of his big character arcs, is looking for the lost connection of his sister (whether he realizes it or not) and reconnecting with those lost bonds through tex-mex food. He navigates the world through food, that’s kind of his thing. Which to me is a VERY first generation, second generation, child of mexican immigrants, etc. narrative to me. Like that is1000% a Tejano/Chicano narrative to have. Having a nickname/name like Taako, Lup, Tostada, etc. IS SOMETHING we MEXICANS DO TOO LIKE A LOT, I have cousins who are nicknamed Brownie, Dulce, Coco, Guayaba, and Manzanita, and other people have name’s like Concha, which is both shell and a type of bread that looks like a shell, like honestly whether Justin realizes it or not, SILLY NICKNAMES LIKE THIS ARE KIND OF A CULTURAL THING.... White people have nicknames sometimes sure, but for us, it is like a right of passage, it is a big part of who you are, and you can even end up with many different nicknames, some are just PLAIN MEAN, like Chachalaco (someone who never shuts up), Gordita, or mine being Guero (white boyyyy) Like I RELATE TO THEIR NAMES, and that might not make sense to you, but as someone who literally has oc’s named after Mexican food from when I was a kid (Takito, Flor, and Churro) ... well.... sorry but that’s Latine culture babeyyyy

(also own personal hc but like... i can totally picture these little Latine kid’s fucking choosing their own name’s / nickname’s cause that’s like exactly what me and my siblings were like as kid’s smh) 

( also Lup.... Lupita... Lupe.... Guadalupe.. Lupes.... Maria Guadalupe.... smhhh

it’s literally the most common name, it’s SO funny to me, that ALONE is enough in my opinion LMAO, you can’t name a character a common short hand for a name like Guadalupe and NOT expect me to gravitate towards her smh 

-respectfully, a fellow Guadalupe) 

I get what the brothers were trying to do by letting fans hc and come up with their own designs and stuff, but when it comes to race and ethnicity it can become kind of an issue... And as I said in the beginning, because they tried to keep the world as “blank” as possible (which often times really just means white lets be honest here) that means any small instance of a character breaking this neutrality, becomes very difficult to ignore. And I really think, ignoring how many Jewish and Latine fans relate to Taako and Lup, seems like a disservice .... there is clearly something going on here, and I don’t think we should ignore it.

At the end of the day, it is what it is, and there isn’t much else besides this, and Taako canonically being a Sun Elf, and his relationship to food, that to me feels very cultural and important, especially when it comes to trying to reconnect with something you lost (whether it’s family, or traditions), it’s all very metaphorical, but I think it does have some very strong references there that I and many others see themselves in. 

(and ofc Latin America is very diverse so there’s that too) 

Also I think it’s important to acknowledge that my biggest issue with blue Taako has always been the way the issue went about and what occurred. White peoples opinions on the matter were prioritized, and instead of LISTENING to poc, the McElroy’s let their white guilt take the lead... I would just like for them to have some creatives of color on their team at this point, is that too much to ask?

I think I am very much aloud to remain bitter and upset about this... I don’t want white people getting offended on my behalf over something that isn’t actually offensive, and would actually be pretty awesome representation in my opinion. But again, white voices, feelings, and opinions have been prioritized, and I just have to accept that lmao. 

[steve-hairingtons]

yeah hahaha funny you "roasted me" or whatever. i'm religious and that was my opinion. im sorry u think writing porn is ok and hating on christians is acceptable. if i was a jew or a fucking muslim terrorist you'd think differently. did u know christianity is the most oppressed religion? yeah. it's bcus people think we're awful for no reason. god all of you fucking fags are gonna be so pissed about this post huh

what the actual fuck is wrong with you

i voiced my opinion about you being a hypocrite and you got offended. i didn’t get offended over your first post, but this just lets me know you’re a total piece of shit.

also, if you were jewish or muslim, i wouldn’t think any differently about you being a whole hypocrite.

christianity is the most oppressed religion in the world?

i have to laugh

are you a muslim in america? no, you’re christian. and i’m gonna assume you’re american because i’ve never seen a non-american think like this.

also, i’m not even gonna touch on you saying fag. if you’re not gay/bisexual, DON’T SAY IT. (i’m bi before u attack me)

i really wish there was a way to block anons because i’m so sick of this person already

[szopenhauer]

What shirt you’re wearing now? my old Mickey tee  Last video you watched on yt?

I’ve felt like on drugs watching it <3

Who is the tallest person you know and how tall are they? my ex classmate Z.B. is but no idea how tall exactly, I’ve been “dating” him in pre-school which is even more funny when you know that me and N.A. were the shortest kids (and still are petite adults) What are you listening to? Natural by Imagine dragons

How do you get songs out of your head? listen smth else or wait for it to pass? Have you seen all the High School Musicals? I don’t think so, I know I’ve watched at least one because my sister forced me to but I hate musicals and Zac buffoon is no good Do you dress appropriately for your age? no What song reminds you of summer? many  Do you like your neighbors? nah Has a bird ever flown into your window? chimney, don’t worry, it survived Do you have nicknames that are longer than your actual name? sorta, could say so

What did you do today? visited gastrologist Do you like to sleep a lot? kinda, would say so Have you ever been in a class that you thought you were too smart for? oh well... Who was the last person you apologized to? my gf because I wasn’t able to write back as I wasn’t feeling well and was a little busy Would you ever get a pet tarantula? nope, I’m not scared of it but feeding spiders is gross and also my current partner has a phobia so no point of getting a pet like this Do you charge your cell phone every day? yeah Do you use tumblr? <I dislike ppl who say “what’s tumblr” as a response to questions like this because those surveys weren’t made in here so chill> Don’t you hate when people stare at you? ugh... Do you have a secret you’ve never told anyone? I do not Are you Jewish? I am not Does anyone copy the things you do? some ppl used to and yet been bullying me for what I was doing - stupid Is your dad still alive? luckily

Are you OCD about anything? you either have ocd or not, you can be obsessed about smth but then it’s not a disease, I might have this mental problem but it’s more likely just my BPD 

What breed of dog are you the most similar to? pug? Is anyone madly in love with you? hmm...

Are you over-protective of anyone? possibly ^^” Would you say cancer rates are on the rise? it seems  Do you have a good memory? it’s complicated How do you normally pose in photos? not... normally XD Are you looking forward to tomorrow? knowing that my sis won’t come? more than I did an hour before, sorry not sorry Will you hug anyone tomorrow? my parents obviously Could you name all 50 states off of the top of your head? no way When was the last time you were scared? always, more or less What’s your favorite song by Rihanna? Bitch better have my money - dunno why Do you have a pretty eye color? it’s fine in my opinion What’s your favorite Mel Gibson movie? despite him being an ass irl I was a huge fan of his old movies Do you ever put ketchup on your cereal? umm... what? hmm... Do you hate the person who last texted you? we’re in a relationship Do you ever wear plaid? at times Where are your parents at the moment? dad’s working and mom’s asleep Are you procrastinating as we speak? drying my hair, drinking water, responding to my father’s text and going to sleep Do people ever make you smile stupidly at the computer? yup Do you take painkillers? nope

Have you ever hugged someone you didn’t know? for example - there were those women in heart costumes on valentine’s day who were giving away lollipops and they hugged me  Do you think God actually exists? I believe so Who did you last give a piggyback ride to? to J.N. and P.N. brother D.N. Did you know that a banana is actually a herb? wtf Do you like little random facts like that? love Who was your favorite Beatle? Paul What’s the ugliest trend you’ve ever seen? can’t choose only one

Do you say ‘legit’? nah

Have you ever solved a Rubik’s Cube? tried, failed, gave up

Who do you think is the easiest to talk to? my dad and @jonasz-cat Would you ever date a friend’s ex? hell no Do you think Ke$ha is good or no? I don’t listen to her music Are you talking to anyone right now? online

Where did your last hug take place? home

What did your last text message say? jest akuratny :)

which of these prints did you last wear: animal print, striped, checkered, plaid, floral print, polka-dotted, argyle, or houndstooth? floral print (and plaid)

out of you and your friends, who is the pickiest eater? ME

is your room cleaner now than it was a week ago? mhm :3

who was the last person you picked up at the airport? -

What’s your favorite color of shoe? it doesn’t matter much

Do you post music on your facebook? yup What do you think about people who don’t have facebook? they should unless they’re old Would you rather go to school or have a job? job gives money so... Take pics with phone or actual camera? depends If you could paint your bedroom walls any color what would it be? I wanna a vintage wallpaper tho Chocolate or vanilla ice cream? vanilla Camping or going to the mall? mall Swimming or Hiking? hiking Do you collect stickers? I got ‘em as gifts for my scrapbook and didn’t use  Stuffed animal, flowers or chocolates? stuffed animal Pizza or pasta? pizza Italian or Mexican food? italian Do you walk around barefoot in your house? ewww, yuk Do you have a ring on your ring finger? not rn What band shirt would you wear? my fav bands of course What band shirt would you not wear? guess... What do you think about cigars? remind me of Aquarius from my book 

Pencils; Mechanical or Traditional? traditional

Does it weird you out when people much younger than you, hit on you? creepy Is there anyone you know is into you right now? :D Do you tend to want what you can’t have? I want health  What are you most confident about, physically? pfft What are you most self-conscious about, physically? my skin Have you ever felt trapped in a relationship? sigh...

Is it wicked hard for you to sleep when its hot in your room? it’s harder

Do you ever think people are just saying dramatic things to get attention? there are human beings who act this way 

Are you easily offended? I’m sensitive but not the worst?

Is most of your email spam? D: 99,99%

Do you laugh at the expense of others? when they “deserve” it

do you have any bruises? on my knee which is weird as I barely ever get any and I didn’t hurt myself lately would you consider yourself a drama queen? to some extent when you were little did your mom ever sing to you? from what I remember ever feel like you don’t belong? because that’s true does your printer need ink? black

[bilgisticallykosher]

Sanders Asides: Are There Healthy Distractions? reaction

Pre-anything: I'm not expecting to love this one as much as the last episode. Nothing terrible, but the disgusting trash man intro is just a hard thing to beat.

I’m expecting this to be SvS part 2. I'm expecting some sort of reaction and conclusion to Virgil's reveal at the end of DWIT. I'm therefore looking for any sign of confidence from Virgil immediately pointing to him being Deceit. I think it's likely not going to be addressed until late in the episode. Virgil angst until he comes back. Will Deceit be wearing Virgil's current hoodie? People have theorized that since he took notes on Roman's advice, it's possible for him to be better at pretending to be someone else. Especially someone who pops in, as opposed to rising up. 

I'm also anticipating Thomas to come up with a different solution to the callback/wedding thing. Namely, Logan asking him if he'd just speak to Lee and Mary Lee, and ask to celebrate another time, more privately, and if he could go to the callback. Like, there's definitely a reason Deceit threw Logan in the back where he thought he'd have less influence. 

I'm also waiting on Roman angst. We needed to meet another character (there's no way it wasn't Remus) before entering Roman's room. 

OH GOSH they're doing animation, right? Or, another medium? That's gotta be for Roman's room! I was thinking maybe stop-motion or fluid animation. I'd also LIKE Deceit's name reveal, but I'm not sure we'll get that. 

Post-title screen. I thought this was an old TS & Friends I'd missed. I, didn't love Frozen. This is an understatement. Okay. Still really like the name Sanders Asides, it's funny. That's. Hm. Well, it looks like Virgil. In a different outfit? Intriguing. So, distractions, like distracting yourself from wedding/callback? Also, "Are there healthy distractions?" Almost like "Can lying be good?" (At least, I have misremembered the title as "Can distractions be good?" at least five times already.) 

Okay I'm also focusing too much on my theory and supporting it. I know Frozen has been used as a metaphor for Depression and/or other mental illnesses, so, maybe that's why Virgil's the focus in the title screen? 

WATCHING! Y'know, despite the Jewish thing, I've only ever seen two episodes of The Goldbergs, didn't really get into- YES HELLO THOMAS. What. Is this an actual ad? Why does he sound like a pirate? HA! He acknowledged it. "What the hell is that accent?" Idk, a little Remus, a little midwest? 

Okay, that was the opening? Wondering if the red jacket plays any special significance, or they just saw it and bought it. 

I like the effects of the A. Virgil is. There already. Hnnnnnm. I dunno, man. This is supposed to be part of the chronological series, right? Oh it's a skeleton onesie! Canon onesie for Virgil! 

WOAH EVERYONE! Ooh, Roman's Beast? I wonder if that'd change depending on what show either actual, or character, Thomas is in. They're all there! Different order, too!

OH MY GOSH is this taking place twenty minutes after DWIT? IS THIS DECEIT??? I failed at not pushing my theory, whoops. I'm still suspicious. (Roman's floppy horns.)

Literally nobody believes that you didn't put all Frozen answers in, Ro. "I don't wear those anymore, they're too childish." Still waiting on Logan angst, too… probably after Roman. 

"Thomas is in a bad place" Virgil looks uncomfortable, but he also didn't seem so offended when Roman pulled his "twenty minutes ago" line. Well, it's definitely Logan, "Thomas is at home." Haha. Also, Roman's hood falling down was hilarious??

Okay, screw it, I'm pushing this. Virgil did learn last episode that repressing problems isn't the way to deal with them. But I feel like Deceit would also keep pressing for them to acknowledge why he feels bad? Also, Thomas's face, wow, discomfort. 

I don't get the "Thomas in the movie" joke, it's a snowflake? "Or neutral." Burn! "This weird ice cutting song." Man, where's the Critic? "Externalization" he had a little smile, guys. 

Some Logan vs. Patton tension AND some Logan vs. Roman tension. "Fear will be your enemy." Virgil looked at, Thomas, I think? Damn guys, this might actually be Virgil. 

Okay I watched this four times, Virgil and Logan do not shout Joan. And Thomas does it sadly afterwards. "Passage of time," This might actually be Virgil! 

I just choked! Oh my gosh, you guys, he is naked my throat hurts from not screaming. I'm having trouble getting over this. This cannot be a shock to anyone, but I want to hear him say "I sleep in the buff" several thousand more times. 

"Did I screw everything up" oooh, I was wrong, it's Virgil, but who cares, buff. Thomas is looking at his phone, is it not too late for callback? 

WOAH going right for Patton's throat! Ahaha, the tallies were hysterical. 

"Why have a ballroom with no balls?" "*snrk*" Don't lie, Thomas, that's hysterical. 

Patton's sadness and "without trust issues" hmmm. Shut out [her] whole life, is this supposed to be a comparison to anyone? Logan's "hey, yeah!" Is oddly hilarious. 

Is the "he" that Virgil's talking about the director? "Well she really shouldn't be letting go of anymore of her clothing." Oh my gosh. 

Oh, today is April 13th! The wedding is at night, so is he already missing the callback? ICE TOILET!  Remus, my god. Also, just noting, minus hair and makeup, this is some easy Remus-ing for the crew. They didn't have to deal with the whole outfit. 

Good point, Logan! This is not how Roman shows affection! Especially towards Disney! You guys, what if Roman is Deceit?... No, he hasn't been pushing the callback enough. But like. Beast/Prince symbolism? Hm. I'm watching him. 

Wait, what the hell party? I, I'm confused, wait he's telling Thomas's friends? That doesn't sound like he's going to the wedding? Who is "he"? If he were missing the wedding, it'd be him talking about Lee and Mary Lee.

Unless he sent someone else to the wedding in his stead? So he could go to the callback? Did he send Deceit? That's. Unlikely. But misrepresenting his side? Idk idk. 

"If he lied on purpose." MUSIC! Wait what's this about unsympathetic judgemental jerk? Who are they talking about??? This had better be revealed at the end. I went back, judgemental jerk used twice, and combative compatriot sounds like Deceit, what other "he" is there, but the Sides can't be seen by others, so????????

The music is still going. Rico? Oh, is that the answer? So is this unrelated to the wedding/callback? Okay, party isn't wedding. That was also an incredible act of breath control from Thomas. Standing ovation, dude. 

Oooh, the grounding thing! Ice machine! Ice machine is one of my favorite Shorts characters, guys, I love him, he a loud boy. "Deodorant" *excited noise*... oh, no that's fine. 

But I mean. Couldn't he do something now? Call or text an apology? Logan "have I mentioned that you called me cool yet" Sanders. Long ice powers list. 

I just realized that the voting hat was Deceit's! I- oh, he's just literally off-screen. I'm. Fairly certain that I was wrong now, yes. Virgil hissy. Ha, they didn't want to do Deceit's makeup. Understandable. Oh, is this the animation thing? 

"Love is an open wound" ooooh, nice. That was actually a cool re-write. In the buff. Is Thomas legit writing fanfiction now? 

I do not like the holiday season, I'm Scrooge. I do love Joan, though! DARK SIDE SWEATERS I would legitimately never wear them. Ever. Because X-mas. But eyeballs and demons. 

Logan angst is still incoming. 

So, it was tied to the main narrative, but… Virgil wasn't addressed? So, is it just loosely tied, but not necessarily sequentially? It's real cute seeing them all hanging out together like on everyone's fanfics, and that had to be crazy to edit. And hey, the Frozen stuff was better with commentary. But I'm still waiting on SvS part two, I think. And post-DWIT "fallout," but I did really enjoy all of them together being (relatively) cute. 

Sorry for being really focused on one theory. And, really, it's not like I'm disappointed with the episode. In and of itself, I liked it. It's just that I was expecting a direct continuation of the last two episodes, which this was not. And that's fine! I just, I hope we get that continuation. Like Thomas said, narrative has been building up for certain things, and they've been waiting on other aspects for a long time, so I'm sure they're even more excited to show them to us as we are to watch them. And have I mentioned editing? Must have been some job to do all that. Really great. 

[ilovemygaydad]

part 5/? of punk!patton gets adopted by single parent logan

part one - part two - part three - part four - ao3 version - masterlist (includes asks and art!)

pairings: moxiety, eventual logince, background pining remceit, mentions of past thomas/female oc

warnings--these are very important this chapter: food mentions, stress, anxiety, kissing, flirting, divorce mentions, making out, mentions of murder (i’ll mark it out), attempted murder, guns, gunshots, gun wounds, head trauma, homophobic parents mention, homophobia, there’s so much swearing i am so sorry, maybe something else

a/n: no joke i’ve had this planned out since before the last part came out, but i literally just couldn’t write it all at once, and i’ve been having a really emotionally weird week. next chapter should start out pretty funny. idk. please enjoy this.

a/n 2: sorry that this took so long to get out. i don’t think it’s that great, but... yeah. whatever.

it’s friday night babey which means that it’s dinner time with the sanders, and logan and patton are freaking out

logan has been cooking/prepping food for the past day, and he immediately started finishing up as soon as he got home from work

patton, on the other hand, was feverishly cleaning the entire house 

it isn’t even messy, but he’s worried that virgil and/or roman are going to be upset

(which they aren’t????? but whatever)

and patton even cleaned himself up! he tried (and failed) to tame his wild curls into some sort of neat anything, and he wore his nicest pair of black jeans and a black sweater with floral designs that he’d bought at the mall with virgil a while back

it was a little out of his comfort zone, but virgil insisted that he get it because it looks very good on him

and, god damn it, you can’t say no to virgil’s puppy eyes

the doorbell rang just before five, and logan ran out of the kitchen to get it

patton literally vaulted over the couch, skidding to the door just behind logan

virgil is like

literally the cutest person on the planet

he’s wearing a white lace dress that has a flowy skirt, and he’s got a white flower crown on, and he looks like an angel

during the time that patton’s being a gay disaster, virgil holds out a bouquet of blue flowers and says, “dad made me get them for you”

patton smiles gently and takes them, pulling virgil in for a quick kiss before leading him inside

roman has, like, eight giant tupperware containers full of cookies and brownies and stuff in his arms, and logan’s like

what???? the fuck?????

“you didn’t need to bring desserts, roman. i have ice cream...”

and roman gives this cocky smile and says “my best friend, emi, loves to bake for us, but he doesn’t really know how to limit himself, so we have tons of baked goods lying around that we can’t eat. not to mention that i can’t keep up this fabulous figure if i only eat sweets!” wink wonk

and logan can feel his face heating up after that wink, but he pretends that it’s just the heat from inside

roman really does have a good figure...

logan chooses to not respond to roman, instead saying, “let’s go inside so you can put those containers down”

they turn to go, and they catch a glimpse of patton and virgil from down the hall

the kids are sitting on the couch, laughing and talking and exchanging the occasional kiss

the adults watch for a second because aw, but quickly move on to the kitchen

“you can set the containers down on the counter over there. i made a a couple of different things for dinner just in case you two didn’t like something that i made, so there’s spaghetti, pizza, and hamburgers. everything is absolutely gluten-free; i know because i triple checked with a list online and bought new utensils to reduce contamination. you’re free to have as much or as little as you like--i won’t be offended either way.”

roman kind of freezes because holy shit that’s so thoughtful and kind

“that’s... logan, that’s too much. you didn’t have to do all that for virgil.”

“what are you talking about? it’s only common courtesy to assure that your guest is able to eat without getting sick, especially when they have a disease that can cause irreparable damage to their body.”

“yeah, but a lot of people don’t care enough to ask or remember, so virgil often has to find something else to eat last minute... i brought an extra dinner just in case, which is very unfair to your person, but virgil has suffered too much for me to not be careful.”

“that’s...” logan starts, trying to express what he feels. “that’s just shitty.”

roman smiles and laughs a bit, replying, “yeah, it is, but at least you aren’t, you know, shitty”

and they have this little moment where they smile at each other, and both of them are like wow this man is... good looking but they snap out of it because

dumb gays

everyone in this au is a dumb gay

including yours truly but that is noT important

logan’s like “hey we should get the kids for dinner” and roman obvi agrees

but when they go to get them, they see the kiddos being all adorable and gay and logan turns to roman with this very serious expression like

we must spy on them. this is the cutest shit i’ve ever seen.

so they shuffle over to the edge of the doorway, just out of sight, and logan peeks his head in every now and then for visuals, and he’s repeating what he hears so that roman can understand what’s happening

logan’s in the middle of telling roman something when

dun dun dunnnn

a voice suddenly appears from behind them like

(the voice is virgil)

“what... are you two doing...?”

fucking busted

logan is like

aHa i can lie to these children!

and he says, “we were talking about work--”

but patton just cuts him off with this deadpan look and “you two are horrible liars”

cut to: roman gasping in offense that this emo nightmare of a child just called him a liar when he didn’t even say anything

so he says, “i didn’t even say anything”

patton, being... well, being the asshole that he is, says, “my point still stands”

roman splutters for a while longer, trying to look at virgil and logan for help, but virgil just shrugs and walks with patton to the table, and logan is still very embarrassed about getting caught

it takes a few seconds, but both adults recuperate and move on to what’s important

which is, obviously, dinner

logan walks virgil through what’s available and offers to cook something else if he isn’t feeling particularly happy with anything

virgil damn near cries at how nice logan is

dinner gets served, and they all start eating the (delicious--who would guess that calculator watch knew how to cook something that tasted like it was served in a fancy restaurant) food

after a few minutes of idle chatter and slight pda between the kids, logan offhandedly comments, “you know, i am extremely happy for the both of you that you didn’t cycle through numerous girlfriends before finding out that you’re queer like many of us do.”

and everyone at the table freezes because

logan’s gay????

“hold up,” roman says with a shocked expression. “you’re gay?”

and virgil sighs and shakes his head because “dad, you’re an idiot. he literally has a pride phone case, and there are multiple pictures of him at pride around the house--including one right behind you.”

he also elbows patton when the punk mutters out a very soft “what the fuck”

“i applaud your observational skills--”

“i assume neither of you knew that he was jewish, either”

and now it’s logan’s turn to be surprised because... who the hell is this kid

“you have a dreidel on the mantle that i assumed you forgot to put away after Hanukkah last year.” everyone stared at him. “oh, i’m sorry that i’m not as much of a dumb gay as my father.”

cue roman getting offended again

“excuse you! the role of ‘dumb gay’ is exclusively reserved for thomas f. sanders!”

poor patton hasn’t stopped being confused this whole time, but roman luckily jumps right back into his explanation

“my twin brother, thomas, didn’t realize that he was gay until he had been with a woman for six years and had a child with her. they amicably parted ways because, like him, she was also gay. i am not nearly as stupid as my brother, and i take great offense to virgil calling me a ‘dumb gay!’” he said matter-of-factly

virgil opens his mouth to say something, but roman cuts him off with a swift “if you so much as think about saying what you’re going to say, i will throw you into the ocean without a moment’s hesitation.” roman then very calmly turns to patton and says sweetly, “so, only good child at this table, tell me a bit about yourself so that i know what my devil child is getting himself into.”

unbeknownst to roman, virgil mutters “dumb gay,” under his breath, causing logan to crack a smile across the table

patton shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “my birthday is february nineteenth, my favorite color is blue, and i’m homoromantic asexual.”

roman waited for patton to say more, but the teen averted his gaze back on his food and took another bite

logan decided to pick up the slack after the few seconds of awkward silence “what about you, virgil?”

unlike patton’s less than enthusiastic reply, virgil perked up at the chance to speak

“oh, well, my birthday is june second, and i really like purple! i’m pretty sure that i’m pan, but i have a preference for guys. oooh! and i really want to be an elementary school teacher.”

that made logan perk up. “really? i currently teach first graders across town.”

“no way!” virgil gasped. “that’s awesome! i love little kids so much. they’ve got so much energy.”

“and their intelligence is unrivaled!”

“yes!”

roman and patton watched as the two excitedly conversed about kids and teaching

patton admired virgil’s enthusiasm, and was happy that he was getting along with logan.

and virgil looked really cute with his happy smile and the little glimmer in his eyes

patton may or may not have zoned out in favor of staring at his beautiful boyfriend

roman couldn’t really tell what logan and virgil were talking about (they were speaking far too quickly for him to follow), but he admired how excited logan looked when he was speaking

oh no

roman was falling for logan

time to not follow his own advice and pretend that his feelings don’t exist

after another half hour or so of chatting, the adults and kids split ways for a while

patton and virgil went up to patton’s room, and logan and roman stayed in the living room

the boys settled together at the end of patton’s bed, holding hands and leaning on each other

“you look paw-sitively purrfect, virgil” patton giggled

“is... are you saying that because i have cat-eye eyeliner on?”

“...maybe”

virgil smiled and pulled patton in for a kiss

they kissed for a little, but patton eventually pulled away

he looked worried, and he fidgeted with his hands as he said, “do you think that your dad likes me?”

“well...” virgil started. “he didn’t like you for a long time. after the first day of school, he kind of held a grudge on you.” patton winced, but he didn’t get the opportunity to say anything. “i think he’s forgiven you now.”

“really?”

“i promise. he just wanted to protect me because he’s my dad, but i think he’s realized that you’re not actively trying to hurt me, and you’re just a bit dumb at times”

“hEY”

virgil smiled and nudged patton “you know i love you”

“hnnnnnn i love you too”

“heLL YEAH!”

meaNwhiLE downstairs

logan led roman into the the living room and roman was

stunned

because logan had at least a thousand books meticulously organized around the room

“how many books do you have in here...?” roman asked, running his hand over an entire collection of encyclopedias 

“about one thousand two hundred on the shelves, but i have some children’s books in those baskets at the bottom as well as the books that are starting to fall apart like my copy of hamlet”

“how did you even get so many books? i’ve been collecting novels my whole life, and i only have a few bookshelves full”

“my mom is a librarian, and whenever they would get newer copies of books or get rid of unwanted books, she’d give them to me. i’ve bought a fair few of these myself, but there are only so many that i can buy on a teacher’s salary”

and roman’s like

????? hot

and logan keeps rambling on about books, and roman’s just having a gay crisis but it’s fine 

but then logan looks at roman expectantly, and roman hadn’t exactly been paying enough attention to read logan’s lips, so he played the “can you repeat yourself? i didn’t catch it” card

“sorry. i asked how you came to adopt virgil”

and roman obviously is like hey how about we spill a lot of sad life things with this almost stranger because he’s cute

~this is where the murder is mentioned~

“his mom was my best friend in high school. although we went our separate ways for college, she stayed supportive of me after i came out. she was... the only one from my old life who would even think to talk to me. even thomas hesitated to talk to me for fear of crossing our parents and their ridiculously catholic ideas.” roman sighed. “eventually, though, she got mixed up in some bad stuff, and she got with this drug addict who got her pregnant with virgil. when virgil was about a year old, the guy thought that my friend was cheating on him, and he shot her. the shot, luckily, didn’t kill her right away, and she was able to push him into the corner of a table and kill him before he could get to virgil. she called the police, but she died before they could get there. as soon as i found out, I went and started the adoption process. i had only been a year out of college at that point.”

~end of the murder mention~

logan was stunned. “that is... horrible, roman. i am so sorry for your loss.”

“it’s alright,” roman said with a shrug. “it was over a decade ago, and it led to me getting the best thing in my life. the circumstances were shit, but virgil has made me a better person, and i wouldn’t know what i’d do without him keeping my head on gay.”

“you mean straight...?”

“nothing about me is straight, logan. don’t be absurd”

eventually, it’s time for roman and virgil to leave

virgil and patton walk out to the car and leave the adults at the door because they wanna kiss each other goodbye without being spied on

on their way to the car, virgil whispers “how much do you want to bet that they’ll be flirting with each other by the time we leave”

“ten dollars. i mean, didn’t you see how your dad looked at logan? it was gross!”

meanwhile, at the door...

roman leans back on the doorframe and smiles. “this was a nice night, logan. virgil definitely had a lot of fun”

“that’s great; i’m glad”

“here--give me your phone. i’ll put my number in, and we can get together some other time to get to know each other better”

logan obliged, and roman sent himself a text using logan’s phone and set his contact name as “prince of your dreams”

they chatted for a minute or so longer, just to give the boys enough time to say their goodbyes, before parting ways

logan didn’t spend the rest of the night texting roman

don’t be ridiculous

to be continued

asks are loved and encouraged, and make sure to check out the amazing art people have made on the masterlist! 💖💖💖

tag list: @residentanchor @eeveeawesome @xionical@absolutesandersidestrash @stormcrawler75 @musikasworld @ironwoman359@a-weirdo-with-a-computer @thegaypotatoroyalty707 @darkrainbow333@ravenclawunicorn1 @noahlovescoffee @whymustibedraggedintofandomhell@romansleftshoulderpad @still-waiting-for-cookies @emounicorn2006 @lana–22 @angels-ofthe-sea @demonickittykat @lonelysoul43 @the-virgil-mary @five-second-cookies @noisywolfbatbakery @band-be-boss-blog @heck-im-lost@lamp-calm-sanders @patton-e @knightofbloodcancer @cloudchaser7@really-sleep-deprived-nerd @era-eclipsed @khadij-al-kubra @anxiousmorality@are-you-really-sure-about-that @today-only-happens-once@notalwaysthevillian @backatthebein @sunshineandteddybears @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2 @emo-sanders-sides-loving-unicorn @dodos-in-damnation@some-lost-meme-boi @dead4sevenyears @spookyingarbageisland @the-poison-apple-of-art@radioactivehelena @the-melody-of-eliza @im-a-mess-aaaaaa @whycantihavemorethan32characters @broadwaytheanimatedseries@veryvirginvirgil @llamaavocado @unisaurioamorfo @caterpiller-tea@cornycornfriendo @simon-at-3am @calico-kiri

[yuwhala]

Trying to read a lot of post right now and trying to be open minded (which is, I'm ashamed of it, not my forte) because I'm confused about a lot of things and why we (Tumblr) didn't like this season. Just a heads-up before you read the rest : this is not sarcasm, my writing is not the best and I'm sorry about it, I'm not trying to say that you should love this season or feel comfortable with it, I just wish to share how I feel about it all and wish to know why we do not agree on others things. I also mostly write because it helps me sort out my thoughts and see things more clearly. I wish not to offend anyone and please let me know if I did.

There are some things I really didn't like :

- The thing I wish happened (like apparently everyone else) was the girls apologising. Because right now it feels like they never did any wrong when ......they did. And that's bad, because the only one that is pointed out as the bad person by the show is Ingrid. When she's not the only one who behaved badly. But that's what the problem is. The show doesn't even show us that the girls not supporting Imane is a Bad thing. None of them said anything when Ingrid was saying obvious bullshit or when Daphné is saying her usual shit. It's always Imane doing it. And no one going her way either. The only time someone other than Imane was being angry at a racist comment was Manon back in season 1 when she stormed out of the room after Daphné was being (once again) racist af and she told her that she didn't understood how  she could say so much bullshit. But that's all. So yeah I wish they would have made the white girls apologize for not being here for Imane. Ever. The fact that we got that amazing clip of Manon and Imane talking about how Imane never feels like she belongs and that we never ever got a following consequence of that discussion is ridiculous.

- Manon and Charles going back together. For obvious reasons. Like ? Urgh. No.

- Jamila talking back to Imane on pure coïncidence like she never abandoned her when Imane entered highschool with no explanation other than "sorry I don't think that we should talk anymore" ????? What ??????? And now they're BFF ????? When Jamila never apologized either ????

- That's a really small complaint that is nothing near as terrible as the other things I pointed out but there is a lot of small time mistakes. Some clips were clearly supposed to be aired on other days than the days we got them.

- Another small complaint but one of the things I liked the most about Sana's season was seeing her praying and the whole process that went with it. I feel a little robbed here. Those were moments that felt utterly beautiful and mesmerising to me when I first watched Sana's season.

But there is a lot of things I liked and I think are important to show on a french TV show mainly directed for a young audience :

- They adresses a LOT the day to day racism a black Muslim woman can get, they voiced the fact that it was racism a lot too and that Imane had all the rights to be angry at that kind of comments. They made it real too : Imane had to stop dancing because the teacher didn't want her to wear her hijab in the lesson. That's an actual debate in everyday life in france : we're living in an "secular country" (lol not really but that's what politicians like to say whenever they want to be islamophobic. Funny how our joke of a president actually said we had to reconnect with our catholic roots. Lol. Secular country indeed. ANYWAY) and that's why Imane doesn't wear hijab at school, because “no one” should wear signs of religion in public school (but hey guess little crosses or Mary’s face for catholic folks around their necks or David’s star for jewish kids around their neck is not a sign of religion right ? Because I’ve seen them more than once in school) . Perhaps you know that not too long ago there was a polemic about a french store for sports equipment announced that they wanted to start selling sports hijab for hijabi women and well our country went NUTS and the company had to abandon that project because they were sent death threats and whatnot by racist people. And the show addressing that issue (that is french people being racist) is important. The show showing us that wearing the hijab is Imane's choice is important. Imane voicing that being a black women who is muslim in France is making her life difficult is important. And they showed us that many time. With ordinary racism. With Ingrid being afraid of black girls for no reason other that they're black. They've showed us a lot of hardship that comes with it : people being ignorant and racist, people being racist because they're racist, people judging and assuming things because they heard that thing somewhere but never checked the facts. And the fact that Imane said on many occasion 'this is racism' was important. They give us an explanation on why in the first seasons Imane seemed harsh and that being linked with the racism she has to face everyday was really nice. They made Imane tell that she was not feeling like she belonged anywhere. 

- I know a lot of people hated this but I'm glad she apologized whenever she did a bad thing. This is showing her growing up and be a mature teenager. This is showing up that she knows when to apologize but she also knows when she doesn't have to. I'm glad that Imane messed up. I'm glad she had a lot of communication issue. I was sad with her, I was ashamed with her but in the end I think we could all understand why she was acting the way she did. You can make mistake, you can realise that you made a mistake and still apologize.For me the drama was necessary. There was drama in every season of Skam and that’s kind of the goal of the show, to show that you’re allowed to make mistakes. The thing that was not handled well was the outcome of the drama.

- The family interactions and clips were incredible. Her mom being the 'bad cop' and her dad being more of the laid down dad type was perfect. Put Idriss on this and have them talk about why they think they're making their parents disappointed in themselves, why it's difficult to live as a Muslim in France, how they can talk to each other and understand multiple points of view too. How it's ok to be angry to feel emotions but to take them out on people who just wish for you to be happy is not the way to do it.

-The Lucas's talk. Again this is going with my first point but the fact that they added Imane saying that she's not the one who should have to be patient with racist people because they're ignorant was nice.

- The first four episodes were incredible and I think we all agreed on that. It was just Imane day to day life + her falling in love and enjoying life.

- Three of my favourite clips of the show : The bus clip, the chair clip and the mom clip. The bus was such an important scene where Imane was also asking questions to herself + all the cinematography that went into a simple bus ride was so great. The chair clip showing four very different Muslim girls talking about Ramadan and rules and how they're hungry, and love and sex and random things was so nice. They all had they're own way of talking, one reminded me of Emma because she had the same kind of vocabulary and way of saying things, one was more uptight etc. They all wear their hijab in different way they all say on different chair it was so nice. The mom clip, well, seeing a parent apologizing is not something I'm used to on TV show. Well they do apologize when they did extreme horrible things like killing someone but they never apologize for simple things like Imane mom did. The music in general used in the show is really nice and since season 3 Skam France outdid themselves on the cinematography part of the show.

That's all the things I can think about for now so what's the conclusion of all that ? I don't really know. As you may have understood I'm a white girl, I'm a part of some 'minority' groups (what's the word when it's not really a minority but still a group that is being pointed out as 'bad' by media and a large group of people ? The more I write the more I'm losing my English) like I'm a Bi girl, I have depression and I'm fat but I'm aware that's nothing to compare with being a woman of color and being a muslim woman. So yes, I think there is a lot of things that I did not understandd in why people hated this season and I should just accept WoC European Muslim critics and not try to say 'you're wrong' so I hope I'm not doing that here. I just wish to share my likes and dislikes of the season. Sometimes I have to think about an issue for a whole week to just kind of understand something I didn't agreed on before, so I'll be patient . Perhaps in two weeks I will just see the whole season on a different way. Perhaps I'm being too kind on the compliments (The other day I read that you shouldn't praise someone because they're being against racism because racism shouldn't exist in the first place. I'm still debating on that subject but I'm wondering if that applies here).

The thing is I'm still glad that this season exist. Yes it's really not perfect and yes the whole 'the girls never apologized or stand by Imane' is awful. I'm glad in the sense that I wished I could have seen this on TV when I was myself in highschool. When I was as ignorant as Daphné (...yeah... That sucks....I don't really understand how I managed to have friends). Because seeing that show, seeing all of what Imane had to go through would really made me oppened my eyes. It would have been a slap to the face and a needed wake up call. But yes, I agree, it was far from enough. So I'm a little on both sides. But as the same time I’m saying that this is an important season to see as a white ignorant woman, but perhaps that’s the whole issue ? That Imane’s season shouldn’t be made for white woman like a POV on a WOC every day life but just a story for Imane to live herself ?

[badassbaker]

Alfie oneshot

Hello, beautiful people! My amazingly talented friend, @niktwosixteen shared this little Alfie drabble with me last week and told me that I could share it with all of you.

Her steps echoed on the polished wooden floors as she made her way through the ostentatiously appointed office. The carved mahogany and stained glass windows displaying the wealth and success of the building’s owner, the past five years had indeed been very good to Thomas Shelby.

“Excuse me, Miss, do you have an appointment?” A timid voice echoed through the room, pulling her out of her revelry.

“Missus,” she corrected, turning to face a beautiful, young woman no more than twenty. The young thing looked puzzled, her large brown doe eyes blinking owlishly until she spoke again. “I’m married. I’m not a Miss, and I do not have an appointment.”

“Oh, I’m very sorry. Well, you see, Mister Shelby is very busy, he doesn’t see anyone without an appointment.”

The hesitant tremor in her voice was not missed. It was weakness, naïveté broadcast when it was the last thing she had the patience to deal with.

“Mister Shelby has what he has because of my husband’s assistance of his import company. I’ll be taking my appointment now.” Without another word she turned and walked up the stairs and through the double glass doors to his office.

:o:o:o:o

“I’m not taking unscheduled visitors.”

The smooth lilt of his voice was cut with the intensity of the words. Emotions surged through her instantly. Everything that she had felt that afternoon when she’d first heard the news. Terror, fear, devastating sadness…and above all furious rage.

“I don’t see myself as a visitor Mister Shelby, all things considered.”

His glacial blue eyes instantly darted up from the stack of papers he was reading, taking her in with apprehension and interest. He stood, buttoning his suit coat before he spoke, “Miss Gellner, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

Josephine straightened her shoulders, feeling the drape of black lace over her hair dragging across the fabric of her dress. “It isn’t pleasure that brings me. It’s business.”

His brow furrowed behind his circular glasses as he withdrew a silver box from his pants pocket, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. A thin wisp of smoke curled out of his lips. “You and I have no business Miss Gellner.”

Her jaw clenched at the dismissal in his tone. She chose to ignore it, instead sitting down in one of the leather chairs in front of his massive oak desk, crossing her legs and meeting his eyes with an unflinching stare.

“Miss Gellner is my maiden name, Mister Shelby. Just as Miss Burgess was Grace’s.”

At the mere mention of her name his entire body language changed. There was a brief flash of a unimaginable pain in his eyes for a split second that she knew all too well, before it disappeared instantly. To anyone else it would have gone unnoticed—anyone who hadn’t felt it.

“I didn’t know you took his name.”

Josephine managed a small grin at the very mention of her husband. “There was a negotiation, he had a way with his words. I found myself at the losing end of that contract.”

It might have been amusement that registered in the tick of his lip, but as any of the gypsy’s moods, it was soon replaced with a practiced indifference.

“Very well, Missus Solomons, I still do not have business with you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. My husband owned thirty five percent of your import business. Now I own it.” Josephine reached into the pocket of her coat, pulling out a worn piece of parchment. She placed it in front of him before sitting back in her chair. “You’ll notice your signature. Witnessed by a Notary, it’s all perfectly legal.”

Tommy’s jaw flexed before he sat down. “I don’t need to read it, I know what it says. So, what, you’re going to run his rum business now? Alfie had let that go before…the end.”

The End.

Those words were like a dagger in her chest. Her heart pounded, and she could feel the prick of tears in her eyes, but she refused to let the pool or show. There was nothing in her left to cry.

“No. The rum is gone,” she managed to say without even a crack in her voice. “But you are still exporting through my docks in Camden, and I haven’t received one pound of my royalty Mister Shelby.”

He exhaled a thick cloud of smoke, “And, you’re going to do what exactly, Missus Solomons? Your husband’s men are gone. Your influence in Camden is gone, you have nothing at all to leverage me with. So, unless there’s something else you plan to use to convince me, you had best be on your way.”

The innuendo in his words were not lost. A laugh bubbled up from her throat. Once upon a time she had been a proper Jewish woman that would have been scandalized and offended by the suggestion. The same propriety that would have had her worried about how it would look to be alone with a man. But that was before the pure force of nature that was Alfie Solomons claimed her.

“A fuck Mister Shelby?” Her laugh echoed through his office. “I’m afraid you may entertain other women in such a fashion, but I am off the menu sir.” Josephine rested her black gloved hands on her knees as she continued. “No, you see I have a deal for you.”

“A deal. For me.” Tommy mocked in a flat voice.

“Yes, you see, I’ve been listening very closely to the talk in my community. There is nothing but talk of the Americans coming to London ever since Luca Changretta’s assassination. Those wops do multiply like fucking rabbits and spread like a plague if nothing else.”  Wide eyes at her vulgar remark made Josephine smile. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. You see, I’ve done a little learning about the young wop in Chicago who you used to betray Changretta. Alphonse Capone, wasn’t it?”

Shelby’s eyes narrowed, and it was all the confirmation she needed.

“I wager you didn’t look close enough at things, Mister Shelby. How could you? You didn’t have time with Changretta coming after everything you loved like an animal. Well, let me tell you what I’ve learned,” she leaned across the table to take a cigarette from his silver case, putting it to her red painted lips and waiting for him to light it with an agitated flick. Josephine took a deep breath and exhaled the smoke slowly. “The American’s don’t run things quite like you do here in London. They blend, alliances are made by actions, not blood.”

“Is there a point?”

“Alfonse Capone’s right hand man is a Jew, Jake Guzik. And Mister Capone has made a peace deal with the Jewish Purple Gang that controls the waterways of Detroit in order for his liquor shipments. People say he’d rather make peace than war. Funny thing about them though, they don’t seem to like you all that much from what I hear Mister Shelby. Think you’re over charging for gin that isn’t sweet enough for ladies’ tastes. I wonder if they’d be interested in an excuse to come over here and lower the export charge. A grieving widow does things to men’s hearts. Gives them reasons.”

Tommy’s eyes widened for a moment and he nodded slowly as he contemplated her words. “So you’re giving me a deal…or death. Seems as though you offer the same terms as Alfie.”

“No,” Josephine said softly. “Big fucks small, Mister Shelby, and I’m afraid I won’t be small again. I have too many mouths to feed.”

He was silent for a few moments before he nodded. “Alright then, I’ll have my lawyer draw up papers for payments, and when they are ready we’ll sign. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting.”

“Thank you for your time, Mister Shelby,” Josephine said as she stood, reaching out her hand to shake his, the firm clasp displaying her sincerity before taking back the signed contract and turning to the door. She stopped just as she reached out to the knob, looking over her shoulder. “Have you ever been to California, Mister Shelby?”

Irritation suffused his expression as he poured a tumbler of whiskey. “Can’t say that I have, Missus Solomons.”

“They say the weather is just beautiful, breathes new life into the body. Heals wounds, refreshes the mind and the soul…” her overly enthusiastic words were met with a roll of his eyes, “they even say there’s a man there who cures cancer.”

Shelby froze at her words.

“Good day, Mister Shelby,” Josephine’s voice suddenly lost all cheer when she spoke again. “I do suggest the next time you shoot a man, you take better care to aim.”

[sleeping-is-for-the-weak-nerds]

Part 6! Sorry it’s a bit late! Couldn’t figure out how to start it.

The next day, Logan came to their table wearing a gray wavy wig, a long black jacket with matching pants, a white button-down, and a red scarf, tied loosely. He was followed by Thomas, who wasn’t dressed in a costume. The two sat down, and while they were talking, they were joined by Roman, who was wearing a grey three piece suit with a matching top hat, and carried a cane. The three talked even more, but stopped in surprise when Patton and Virgil sat down. Patton was in a dark wine red suit with velvet designs on it, with a black, ascot underneath. He had also drawn on two thick, black lines right above his mouth, and had gelled his hair into submission and slicked back. Virgil, on the other hand, was in a long black dress, and had painted his face pure white. He had thin black eyebrows, light purple eyeshadow on the outer corner of his eyes, and dark red lipstick on. The pièce de résistance was the long, straight black wig he had on. 

“Are...are you two Gomez and Mortica?” Thomas asked, staring at them in awe.

“We are.” Virgil said, smiling gently at his boyfriend, who pulled out his chair for him to sit down.

“Didn’t you two do your idea yesterday?” Roman asked quizzically.

“We did. This was all Patton’s idea, surprisingly.” Virgil answered, while Patton nodded along enthusiastically.

“Why is Virgil in the dress this time, if I may ask?” Logan asked.

“Logan. What is my last name.” Patton said.

“Gome- oh my god. Are you seriously doing all of this for a fucking pun.” Logan said, looking a little peeved at the notion.

“Yes indeed! And watch your language!” Patton pouted.

Thomas looked confused, looking over at Virgil for explination.

“Logan isn’t a huge fan of Patton’s puns.” Is all Virgil said.

“I see...and, who are you two supposed to be?” Thomas asked, turning to Roman and Logan, who stopped the argument they were having with blushes across their faces.

“I am no one special, just a simple man from the Victorian Era.” Roman said, tipping his top hat.

“Of course you’d pick that era, it’s just as fanciful as you are.” Logan said, rolling his eyes. “I am, however, someone important for the time. Ludwig Van Beethoven.”

“Nerd.” Roman said, rolling his own eyes.

“I’ll have you know, you imbecile, Beethoven wrote one of the most well known classical pieces of all time, Symphony No. 5 in C Minor. Which you would know, if you paid attention in music class. You’re dense, fiú má tá tú go leor gleoite*.” Logan growled at the boy across the table.

“Okay, quieres pelear, guapa*? Because if so, square up!” Roman spat, slamming his hands on the table.

“Do they...always fight like this?” Thomas asked nervously, looking over at the squabbling duo.

“Hm? Oh yeah, it’s fine. Say Thomas, don’t you have a costume?” Patton asked curiously.

“Oh, no, I don’t celebrate Halloween. I come from a Jewish family, and we celebrate Purim instead. It’s Halloween, but...sillier, I guess. Instead of donning costumes and going trick-or-treating everywhere, we kind of stay in our neighborhood and go around in funny costumes an give out homemade edibles.”

“How intriguing.” Logan said, he and Roman having stopped their fight to listen  to Thomas.

Thomas laughs a bit, and nods. “I love it though. It’s my favorite holiday.”

The bell rung, and the five waved goodbye and went on their days, waiting for lunch.

~~**~~

Lunch came fast, and four of them sat down, looking around for the last of their group.

“Where’s Logan?” Roman asked, turning his head to and fro.

“I saw him last hour at art, so he couldn’t have gotten that far behind me. I’ll go look for him.” Virgil went to get up, when Roman got up first.

“I’ll get him, don’t worry. You eat, okay? Snuggle with my brother, he’s very in character for you.” Roman said, smiling a bit at Virgil’s happy smile.

Roman walked out of the cafeteria and down the hall, looking in classrooms and bathrooms alike. When he got to the end of the hall, he turned the corner, but froze in shock, as he watched someone dressed as a lumberjack pinning Logan to the lockers.

“Now listen, Dorkan, when I said that I want a cheat sheet for the chem test, I expect for you to give me a cheat sheet for the chem test.” the bully sneered.

Logan was tearing up, but he said, “We don’t even have the same class Wilson, please, stop bothering me.”

The bully-Wilson Roman’s mind corrected, ringing a bell, but unable to place where he’s heard the name-growled, and slammed Logan to the lockers again, making him cry out softly.

Roman saw red.

“Now what in the hell do you think you’re doing.” Roman snarled, stomping up to the bully.

Wilson turned with a dirty look on his face, half of his sentence-”Stay out of this you mor-”-already out of his mouth, but blinked when he saw the track star standing there. It was Reese Wilson, a fellow member of the track team.

The red in Roman’s gaze got darker.

“Oh, hey Roman, wanna help me rough this nerd up too? I bet you could get some good math help out of him.” He shook Logan, making his head bounce off the lockers enough to jostle his glasses, and make him wince.

Roman’s gaze nearly went black, and the only look on his face could best be described as apocalyptic. He grabbed Reese by the collar, and pulled him away from Logan, making him drop him.

“Is this how you treat others? By bullying them into doing your bidding? You are a horrible human being. Not only will I be telling the coach about this, but you better damn well believe that I’ll be telling the principal. I hope you have a good excuse for this. Oh wait, you couldn’t. Because there is no fucking excuse for bullying. Now get out of my sight.” He pushed Reese away from him, who darted off down the hall.

Roman walked over to Logan, and held out a hand to help. “You okay?” he asked.

Logan took his hand, and nodded as Roman hauled him up.

“‘m fine, just a little shaken up.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“Alright.”

~~**~~

At home, Logan’s phone buzzed with a text.

Romeo: hey, if u ever wanna talk, i’m here 4 u.

Logan smiled, and typed

Me: Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.

Romeo: ;D

Logan laughed. Then his phone rang.

“Hello Virgil-”

“WHY DID ROMAN JUST TELL ME THAT YOU WERE BULLIED AT SCHOOL TODAY, AND WHY DIDN’T YOU.”

Logan’s going to kill Roman Gomez, the next time he sees him.

That beginning was so hard to figure out, you have no idea.

Virgil and Patton are wearing this:

Roman is wearing this (what the guy is wearing):

And Logan has on something like this:

Special thanks to @broadwaytheanimatedseries for the idea for Hebrew Thomas idea, and for giving me the coolest crash course I’ve ever been through. They will be helping me with all of the Hebrew translations and customs so that I don’t offend any more people. And another thanks to @chocolatecakeandme for the ideas for Roman and Logan’s costumes. I also have ideas for Virgil’s and Patton’s separate costumes from them as well. Thank you two so much!

*Even if you are pretty cute in Irish Gaelic.

*Do you want to fight, beautiful? in Spanish. I think.

Taglist (do you know how weird it is to put a taglist at the end of all of these posts? Wild dudes. Thank you all for the support!):

@officialwaterfairy @sammy-is-obsessed @wildhorsewolf @fuckmymentalhealth @puns-and-patton @onalllevelsexceptphysicalimlogan @roxiefox24 @lordvoidghost @curlycutiekinz @cornycornfriendo @vir-gull @mandeebobandee @ravenclawangst @khadij-al-kubra @allycat31415 @punsterterry @the-fandoms-are-takin-over @ipaniceverywherenotjustthedisco @changeling-ash

[rumpikerzzzworld]

[I’M NOT SURE IF THIS IS A BOOK REVIEW]

Finally, I finished reading this book after I got my mood to read books again. Actually, I’ve read some chapter of the book in November 2018, then I had my holiday for a week. I brought the book during the trip, but I couldn’t find the time to read as my schedule was very tight moving here and there. lol. After going home from the trip, I still had this holiday-fever until the New Year of 2019. I was even lazy to come to work, but of course, work is a compulsory so I keep doing it because I need money. lol.

Okay, that’s the intro. Let’s talk about the book! Before knowing this book, I saw some people said the book called 21 lessons for the 21st century is an interesting book. So, I googled it, saw the review, saw the author’s background. And here you are, I found the author was Yuval Noah Harari which I had seen his videos on youtube a few years ago, but I didn’t really pay attention to his books. I learned that 21 lessons for the 21st century is the third series of the previous books named Sapiens, and Homo Deus. So, I think in order to understand as a whole, I need to read it from the first book. Here it comes, Sapiens! Good that the book has been translated into my first language which is Bahasa. I do read English books, but never read for the book that have very formal language which have a lot of science terms or such things. And plus, the English one is expensive in my country. (funny that I think i’m going to buy the English version one for the third book).

Reading a lot of famous and clever people such as Obama, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg giving the words as they also read this book made me enthusiast. Like, wow even those brainy people read the book and gave amazing review, it means this book is no joke. And they were right, as I read the first few sub-chapter, it’s indeed a very mind-blowing book. Let’s be honest, this book might not be accepted by most of people in my country as most of the things were so based on science. The people in my country are so into religious thingy, especially at this very moment. They’re offended easily if something kinda touching their religious belief which a lot of things here are served based on science and history, not involving what most religious people believe, which is God. Adding to that, the author’s background is a Jewish and an atheist (?), the two things that most muslim hate. Funnily, if the book was published about 10 years ago, i’d probably one of the people I mentioned above. 

This book really freshens me up because I’ve been in journey to seek about the things that I’ve been wondering about but never found the answers or a satisfying and make sense answers. I’ve been raised by dogma, most Indonesians are. When parents and teachers don’t know the answers about the question of history and science, they would just brush it off and say we shouldn’t ask that, let it be the God’s secret, if we keep asking it that and couldn’t find the answer, we would get lost. Somehow I obeyed it, but still my curiousty wouldn’t disappear. I read a lot of books that full of conspiracy theories about this and that, and I somehow believed it. As I’m getting older, i’m kind of tired reading those because those people didn’t give a satisfying answer. I stopped searching it and just facing life like what my parents and teachers said that our life started from Adam and Eve. There’s no human being before them. I’m sorry, but the answer could be no.

I was one of the people who against Charles Darwin and his Evolution Theory. History teachers in school taught about the theory, it’s also in school books. But when my teachers told about it, they would add this words “but as we trust in our religion, this person (darwin) just made it up. We believe Adam and Eve were the first human, so this theory is just for you to know, not to believe”. I took my teachers’ words as I was still having the same paradigm like them. Sorry to say, now I think they just couldn’t explain it better or didn’t learn well about the theory. Now, through the Sapiens book, thanks to Yuval, I understand it better. I used to brush it off, and now I have some faith in the theory. Sadly, I couldn’t witness darwin’s words about the next evolution as it will happen in the future which I won’t be here anymore.

I’ve been watching a lot of animation videos that explained how this universe was born, and I could picture it better when reading Sapiens. It was really mind-blowing how, we, human being have been on this earth in a very short period of time compare to the age of the earth and universe have been living. I have this love-hate relationship towards homo sapiens when reading the book. I can say that Yuval hate sapiens a lot as Human have been destroying nature and creature a lot since they evoluted and changed the game. It took millions of years for earth to have such a brilliant and also destructive creature called Homo Sapiens. 

First of all, let me say, Sapiens, you are truly amazing for ruling the world with your tiny body. How amazing we’re to build the world because we have different thought than any other animals, we make community and make it bigger to fill our interests and need. I think about it again, in this era I meet a lot of people online, I don’t know about their identity, never met them in real life, but I can talk and discuss with them about anything. We even held an event, collecting money, giving things for the celebrity we stan. We organized things from our own countries, and it works. Amazing. The thing that no one of animals can beat our ability [as of now]. That’s why, we’re so cocky that we don’t want to mention ourselves as animal. We made the term for ourselves as Human which is different creature than animals. We have a higher level and can’t be compare to them. That’s what we believe.

It’s just almost 74 years since the homo sapiens world have been changing so fast into (I wish) a better world. I don't know if I should thank Albert Einstein for releasing my country from the imperialist in 1945 or not. Yeah, at that time my country was colonized by Japan, and they were very cruel to my people. The time when the US defeated Japan by bombing the two region called Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and finally they backed off and abandoned the countries they colonized, a lot of countries could get their independence, including mine. The world moves into a faster change. No more major war around the world, eventhough it still happens, mainly in the middle eastern. But, still the world is way better compare to in the past. 

I can’t explain everything what I read in the book, because so many things were told and explained. Try to read it yourself with an open-mind then you can absorb the knowledge and you can decide either you want to accept it or not. As for me, it doesn’t make me change into an atheist person nor totally ignoring the religious belief I have. I still trust in the God I worship. But a lot of things were not told in the holy books, human have been trying to find the answers, and it’s fine. The book has a good structure of history. You can connect it based on the period of time since the pre-history era until now so that everything makes sense. Kuddos to Yuval for wording the book so well, so that it is not boring to read. I can say, this is one of the best books I’ve ever read. If i’m allowed to give ratings for this book, I would probably give it 8.5/10. I’m currently reading the second book called Homo Deus, i’m hooked already. I just can’t wait to finish it then purchase the third book, 21 lessons for the 21st century. I’m going to post my short-review again after I read those books. See you in the next book!

-mels-

[vaspider]

New & Updated Intro Post

My intro post is now incredibly outdated, so, here’s an entirely new one. Let’s start with a few important updates:

If you like what I do? Consider hiring me, consider buying something from NerdyKeppie (the shop I own with my spouse - we do custom work!), consider buying me a coffee or becoming a Patron or tossing some money in my PayPal tip jar.

I am a disabled, queer, fat, Jewish non-binary butch whose entire income is derived from selling Quality Queerwear via our company NerdyKeppie (we also offer patches of all sorts, nerd gear, etc -- if you don’t see it, ask!), Patreon (queer fiction for a dollar) and freelance work. Please consider supporting me if you like what I do!

Yes, I used to identify as femme and in 2018 I came out as butch and forgot to update my intro post for like a year. So, yes, at one point I identified as femme, largely due to social pressure and trying to be something I wasn’t. 2018 is the year I claimed my butch soul, and holy shit, I’ve never been happier. This is not an indication of me not understanding butch and femme - it’s an understanding that no matter how old you get, you are constantly on a journey to understand yourself better. Or, at least, you should be. 

At one point I identified as pansexual as well as bisexual, and I like the header art with the pansexual flag in it which was made for me years ago, so even though I no longer identify as pansexual, I’m keeping it until I find something I like better. You’d think I wouldn’t have to explain all this but people love picking at these things. 

No, I am not going to debate the history or meaning of butch and femme with you or anyone. The links are in my header. 

If you’re here to hateread, do yourself a favor and don’t. That’s just not healthy. And for the love of G-d, stop linking to my posts. I can see your posts, y’all; I have a site tracker. It’s just awkward and kind of sad. 

Okay, so anyway. 

Radfems, TWERFs, SWERFs and REGs/Exclusionists are explicitly not welcome here, and I do not want my family stories or life used for your politics. I block all of these categories, full stop. Radfems & TWERFs/TERFs deny the essential humanity of myself and my daughter and Exclusionists are just sort of painfully clueless about community history and what the community actually looks like offline. if you self-ID as one of those, please save us all the trouble and just don’t. If you’ve reblogged one of my posts and added something about how this proves one of your points, please pretend you respect other people and take it down.

If you are here because you don’t understand the post about the dog that attacked me, or its point, either legitimately or because you don’t really want to get it & want to argue with me about it, tell me I need to get counseling for my fear of dogs, tell me I’ve compared men to dogs, please go read seananmcguire explaining the post to someone who already sent me an ask about it. That pretty much covers why the post exists. Also you should buy and read Seanan’s books.

Also, also, all of the stories about @seananmcguire you’ve heard are probably true if they’re bizarre or funny. Especially the one about the lizard and the one about the frog.

If you’re here to tell me my views on asexuality & the queer community are wrong or that stuff I lived through & you weren’t born yet for is ‘ahistorical,’ go away. This blog is explicitly anti-gatekeeping for the Not-Straight Club.

If you’re here about the post about my great-grandmother, I kind of don’t have it in my heart to answer all the sad family stories. If you shared a family story on that post, thank you. If you want to use it to make some sort of gross radfem point about marital rape or some comment about how my great-granddad should have learned to pull out, I’m gonna block you without answering you. Don’t be gross.

If you’re here about the tiny house post, please read the notes, I’m not gonna explain it again.

Anon is never turned on, but if you ask me not to publish an ask, I won’t. Please remember to put that in the ask.

So here’s some stuff you should know about me:

I’m older than large portions of Tumblr, and in a fair number of cases I’m probably twice your age or more. If that’s a problem, I really am not offended if you aren’t cool with interacting with me. Age can be a powerful unbalancer in social relationships. I AM going to get annoyed if you start ‘explaining’ stuff I lived through to me and insisting you know my history better than I do.

Since it bears repeating one more time: I’m not interested in interacting with TWERFs, SWERFs, or ace-exclusionary queers. I’ve been Out for nearly 30 years & I really have no desire to argue my lived experience with anyone. I explicitly reject the term SGA.

My immediate family consists of my spouse @dadhoc, our beloved @apocalycious, my   teenage daughter @mistresskabooms and stepson, my adopted son Owl, and DadHoc, MK and I’s 3 dogs: Lyudmila Pupperchenko (Mila), Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Cap), and Ser Davos Seawoof (Davos).

My brother’s band is Downtrodder and you should listen to them, because they’re awesome.

No one in my immediate family is cis or het. I have been called Spider for 20+ years, & now a lot of people call me Mama Spider.  

In this house we understand that Ally is a verb, and it’s possible to be antagonistic toward a marginalization that you possess. Internalized transphobia, ableism, etc. are hellacious things to uproot. In this house we try to stay in our lanes & we understand call-outs while being aware of the toxic parts of call-out culture. Be cool to teenagers: you were one, and yes, the shit you said was just as stupid. You don’t win points for browbeating a teenager over an idea, you just look like a jerk.

I used to have a lot of paragraphs here about specific beliefs of mine, but really: Ally is a verb, intersections matter, capitalism is broken and cannot be fixed. I understand the difference between a bolt of linen and four shirts and believe that labor is entitled to all it creates. My class is ‘petit bourgeois,’ as I have seized the means of my own production.

If you screw up and you say something that hurts someone, say you’re sorry, and try not to do it again. It’s not that hard! Don’t tell them they shouldn’t be hurt. This goes double if it was an accident. “I didn’t know that was offensive, I’m sorry for hurting you. I’ll be more mindful in the future.” See how easy that is? That’s how we do in this house.

I’m bisexual, non-binary, disabled, neurodiverse, and don’t want pity or to hear how sorry you are for either of those last two things. Being autistic is just fine, and it didn’t happen because I was vaccinated. I have PTSD and GAD, and I live with both of them. They’re terrible roommates but I’ve got used to them. I’d like it if people would just stop throwing shade at the invisibly ill when we park in handicapped spots – I’m missing part of my spine, for fuck’s sake – and playing Oppression Olympics will get you stern looks and no dessert.

In this house we do nerd culture, there are no fake geek girls, and we understand that women invented masked superheroes (The Scarlet Pimpernel), science fiction (Mary Shelley), the modern novel (Jane Austen), dystopia fiction (Mary Shelley again), computer programming (Ada Lovelace and the ENIACs, which is my new band name), and got Star Trek on the air (Lucille Ball).

If I didn’t cover it, assume if it involves being a jerk or punching down, I’m not okay with it.

If it involves dogs being adorable, otters, mermaids, spiders, most of the major fandoms Tumblr loves (I can’t get into Supernatural, sorry, I tried), or people doing awesome shit, I am definitely here for that.

I am a Social Justice Paladin. I tank trolls. I used to think I was a Rogue, but, yeah, I tank trolls. 

About six months ago, someone started calling me the ‘Non-Binary Regent of Summer,’ and I ran with that like an Olympic torch. Yep. It me. 

@hypoallergeniccuddles thinks I’m secretly Mrs. Weasley.

That may be true also. If so, please remember what happens when you fuck with Molly’s children.

Welcome. Supper is at seven, the Wizard Home will make a room for you if you need it.

This post will be repeated a few times over the next few days so everyone sees it. <3 Thanks. I’m glad you’re all here.

[hockey-jews]

For anyone who wants to learn more about Judaism! Also, kind of a post about how to deal with some Things and Stuff. This is a long post so I’ll put it under a read more for those interested:

This is really for an anonymous message I got that described struggles with things that I think many of us struggle with or have in the past: not being “Jewish enough” in the eyes of other Jews due to your heritage being on the “wrong” side (read; on your father’s side), yet still experiencing antisemitism from goyim. Not learning very much, if anything, about Judaism as a child but wanting to learn more as an adult. Not being comfortable with some traditions or laws of Judaism because you are a) a feminist b) LGBT c) an atheist. Living in a place with few to no Jewish spaces. Not feeling welcome in the Jewish community due to any or all of these things. 

Book recs!

If you’re the kind of person who enjoys reading (or can at least tolerate it) I highly recommend these books! They’re all books that I have either read/started reading/or plan on reading. (Please keep in mind that none of these are Jewish texts such as the Torah or the Talmud and that I do understand the importance of such religious texts but am not recommending them because I feel those are obvious sources of information)

A Bride for One Night if you aren’t familiar with the Talmud, it’s a collection of writings and explanations of Jewish laws and traditions and it’s old as balls. The author of this book, Ruth Calderon, takes a bunch of Talmudic stories and makes them into these wonderful beautiful stories that are easier to read than the original ones from the 3rd and 6th centuries. Even if you don’t know anything about the Talmud this book is so fascinating and fun to read. 

The G-d Who Hates Lies is literally perfect for you if you have issues with how women are viewed and treated in the most traditional sense of Judaism. It’s a really great criticism by people who are extremely qualified to make those criticisms (both are rabbi’s and I think they both have doctorates in theology, specifically Modern Orthodox Judaism, which makes for a really cool viewpoint). I can’t find anything about the third author of this book, who is a woman, but it’s comforting to know that a woman had a part in this as well. Obviously these people love Judaism, they just want to see it adapt to modernity. Just in general it’s a really thoughtful book that challenges dogma. 

Jewish Literacy was recommended by an anon (thank you!) The rest of the title is “The Most Important Things to Know about The Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History” so like. Ya get what ya see here folks. HOWEVER I did see a review that mentions there is some Islamophobia and hostility towards Jews who are antizionist. It does genuinely look informative and I haven’t read it myself so I can’t attune to whether or not that review is accurate, but maybe be cautious if you read this in knowing that the author may not be objective. 

Book of Mercy made me openly weep and feel something tender and weird in my heart and like. Okay so it’s not informative so much as it’s a book of poetry by Leonard Cohen (he was Jewish if you didn’t know!) He calls his poems “modern psalms” and honestly this would be a good read even if you aren’t religious at all because his writing is just so gorgeous. But it does have references to Judaism and his identity as a Jew 

Understanding Judaism is really a “building blocks” kind of book to me, if that makes sense? It’s really informative but also really basic and is fantastic for people who know very little about Judaism or just want a well presented understanding of the core aspects of the Jewish religion. Even if you aren’t a Jew who’s looking to learn or someone who is considering conversion it’s still a good book if you’re interested in world religions regardless of your faith or lack thereof. (man I’m starting to sound pretentious lmao I just mean like, if you’re an atheist or Catholic or whatever, it’s pretty interesting and also this guy is kinda dorky-funny so it makes for an easier read than some other books about religion)

Shmooze I think this is meant to be more for a group to read an discuss, and like, also maybe meant for a younger audience (I’m talking about teenagers so not really that young, but if you’ve been reading dull infodumps by 90 y/o Jewish rabbis with doctorate degrees this is gonna be a change of pace lmao) I should mention that I’ve only read like two pages of this book because I saw it at Barnes and Noble and just kinda briefly checked it out so I don’t know a ton about it but it stuck in my head and the reviews look positive so 

Obvious I don’t think you have to read all of those because I haven’t even read all of those so maybe just check one of them out if it seems like it could be helpful to you. 

Judaism here on tumblr dot com:

Okay so like. This is really my personal diced onion so take it however you will but keep in mind that this really only reflects things I’ve come across and how I feel. 

Obviously there are a lot of really great blogs about Judaism but I don’t have any specific ones to recommend I’m sorry :O I really really hate ~Discourse~ and like, in-depth arguments about the Holocaust because I get so wrapped up in it and let’s be honest, tumblr is all about the discourse and ignorance. That being said, I like to follow other people who are Jewish and blog about whatever because that usually leads to safer discussions and also is a great way to find really helpful thoughts and discussions by other Jews about topics like being LGBT, being a woman, being an atheist, etc. These are just nice to read and also if you aren’t familiar with certain Yiddish or Hebrew terms that are commonly used it’s a good way to see how and when they’re used in certain contexts. 

I’m going to tag anything like this that I post here as “good info” just so me and anyone who wants can find this stuff easier. No they won’t necessarily have anything to do with hockey. 

Also please be very careful when you’re reading a post that is presenting certain things as facts, always double check what someone is saying because misinformation is spread so quickly, and it’s almost always unintentional. The things that I find genuinely helpful/safe/fun involve opinions, common feelings and experiences, little personal stories and jokes, cool stuff like that. 

I’m Jewish on my father’s side :0

Me too boo. Unfortunately that’s an unending discussion, and one that is often held by matrilineal Jews and doesn’t actually include patrilineal Jews, nor does it consider our thoughts/feelings/experiences. Without sounding like an idiot, it is absolutely buckwild to me that there are people who have been raised Jewish, have never known anything other than Jewish tradition, have been subject to antisemitism, but still aren’t considered Jewish. 

And then this is where I see matrilineal Jews who hold this viewpoint bring up Reform Judaism, which is one of the three main branches of Judaism and does recognize patrilineall Jews as Jews. I’ve seen some discrepancy as to whether or not patrilineal Jews had to have been raised Jewish in order to be considered Jewish. This is all well and good for Jews like me whose family practices Reform Judaism, but for patrilineal Jews who wish to practice in an Orthodox or Conservative synagogue, it gets tricky. 

Basically, yes this is a huge topic that inspires a lot of disagreement, and that sucks, but here’s what it comes down to. No one else is allowed to make you feel inferior because of your heritage. So many people, even modern Orthodox Jews, recognize that certain aspects of Judaism need to adapt to today’s society. I don’t want to offend anyone here, but I really do feel that most matrilineal Jews who don’t consider us Jewish are extremely hypocritical (for a lot of reasons but mostly like...y’all really follow every aspect of Jewish Law? Like do you really? All of it? Girl do u? Or are you maybe just being elitist). Learning about your heritage, talking about shared experiences, combating antisemitism, these are all things that are fair game for you (especially for the anon who said they were atheist) and going to Shabbat services, praying, participating in holy days. That’s all yours if you want it, bubbeleh. 

Can I be an atheist Jew?

Sure you can! I, personally, am not an atheist so I wasn’t comfortable finding specific resources about this because I don’t really know much about it? It’s fine with me if you’re atheist that’s none of my business, I just don’t want to direct you to a bad source. But yes, many Jews are atheist, many are secular, I’m sure there are many here on tumblr. It’s absolutely okay, Judaism is an ethnoreligion, and while you may experience Judaism different than the rest of us, you’re still a Jew and still belong. 

Here’s an excerpt from a short lil synopsis of Judaism:

These three connotations of Judaism as a monotheistic system, as a literary tradition, and as a historical culture are sometimes viewed separately. For example, there are Jews who see themselves as culturally Jewish, but who are also non-religious or atheist, often identifying more strongly with Jewish “peoplehood” than with traditional understandings of God and Torah. Even so, all Jews would recognize that these three points of reference have shaped and guided Jewish experience through the ages.

Jewish “peoplehood” that they talk about is like. Culture, customs, food, art, history, etc. 

One last little note on this, you’ll hear a lot that Judaism focuses more on actions than on beliefs. This is an excellent article that is pretty short and worth reading that I want to include because I think that even if you don’t believe in G-d or even if you are seriously questioning, the focus on just. Doing good. Actively doing good things and trying to be a good person (I know that’s objective but bear with me) is a such a huge part of Judaism that you can try to incorporate into your life without having to subscribe to any sort of dogma or beliefs that you don’t hold. “Judaism is certainly a faith-based tradition. Belief in G-d is central to our religion. It just isn’t a prerequisite. If you are Jewish, you are so regardless of belief.” 

But I’m a feminist....

As you should be. This is probably another personal statement you gon’ wanna take with a grain of salt, but I think Judaism, especially in the last 50 years or so, has made huge strides in this. Especially Reform Judaism, but that kind of goes without saying. 

Example, my synagogue was founded as a Conservative synagogue. Our website still says we are. I’m not actually sure tbqh, like I said, my family are Reform Jews, and so are most other families in our congregation I think but this is literally the only synagoge for like hundreds of miles so. Anyways our rabbi is female (Rabbi Shaina!) and she does great work, we all love her. She’s really adament on teaching kids that gender shouldn’t keep you from anything, that Judaism is for all Jews, that it should enhance our lives. She wears a tallis, lays her tefillin, and reads from the Torah. 

My point here is that while this isn’t like, the end of misogyny in Judaism as we know it, it’s still a big deal in most religions to have a woman as their religious leader, essentially a position of religious power. For men to accept a woman as a religious leader is not something that is super common in most religions. And we’re like, a tiny congregation over a hundred miles away from anyone else, technically a Conservative synagogue, that’s super loving and accepting of a feminist running our shit... female rabbis are super common and I think it speaks a lot to how we’re progressing as a religion. Reform Judaism is going to be your best bet when it comes to tolerance but knowing that all three of the main branches are progressing, at least with this, is really comforting to me. 

However, that’s an extremely one sided view and doesn’t really show the issue as a whole. This super short article (? not sure) is a bit pessimistic in my mind but presents the other side of things and gives a good explanation of the traditional sources of misogyny in Judaism, so this could further your understanding as well. 

By no means are we perfect but we’re workin on it. Look into Jewish Feminism though, if you have the time. That article is just a lil intro to the topic. 

I’m Q*eer/LGBT and I’m not sure y’all are gonna be cool with that...

Well this one’s a doozy. 

I’ll kick this right off by presenting an article that is objective and does not reflect the author’s opinion, just lays out the issues at hand. It also has some links to other good pieces, including one cool story about a transgender man, Rafi Daugherty, embracing his role as a father and details his experience with pregnancy and giving birth. I should mention that I am cisgender so I’m interpreting this article through a different point of view, but it really does make a point of celebrating Rafi and his daughter and sharing their story. It does include a little cultural background context, but this is a positive story that I think deserves to be shared :) 

Then there’s this statement from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism that confirms its absolute acceptance and support of LGBT Jews. 

On the other side of things, there are still homophobic and intolerant Jews. Conversion camps were not just a Christian thing, there were Jewish conversion camps as well, which is horrific. Idk what to say because I think homophobia and transphobia in Judaism is really similar to what you would find in Christian settings. 

I’m bisexual and I feel completely welcomed by other Jews who know this about me, and I certainly don’t feel any less Jewish because of it. 

I live in a place where Jewish spaces are rare.

I really hate to disappoint with this one but I don’t have any specific sources or anything like that. Alls I got to say is that’s why the internet is so great? I really don’t feel like that’s helpful at all, but I think for the most part, the Jewish side of tumblr is pretty accepting and welcoming. Obviously that’s not always gonna be true though idkdjaskfl;dj

I spose with this one I wanna encourage anyone who has any good resources for involvement or something like that to reply to this post or drop by my inbox and let me know! Or maybe just your thoughts on some Jewish spaces you’ve encountered? 

I hope this was helpful

In conclusion, don’t let anyone make you feel less Jewish. Your sexual identity, gender identity, and even your belief in G-d doesn’t take away from your Jewishness. I’d like to say that since I started delving into Judaism a little more I’ve found a lot of peace. And yeah that sounds cliche and also vague but it’s really a breath of fresh air to learn about my family and know more about this community. Also if you’re comfortable with or willing to try prayer, even if you’re atheist, it can be a good way to decompress sometimes, a really therapeutic kind of way to voice your thoughts and feelings and reflect on them. 

There’s so much information and culture to delve into but it’s so so worth it to learn and I’m really happy for you that you’re interested in getting more in touch with your Jewish roots. 

If any of these links don’t work and you’d like to see them let me know!

[pippiessweathogs]

That 70’s Show/ Welcome Back Kotter crossover

Title: What Happens in Brooklyn…

Summary: When Donna receives a summer job opportunity in Brooklyn, she plans a road trip for her and the rest of the gang. Once there, they spend time getting to know her cousin and his friends.

Chapter three

 Everyone stepped onto the Coney Island Boardwalk, prepared for the adventure of a lifetime. Each of them expressed varying degrees of excitement as they walked and explored, taking in all the sights. Kelso held an everlasting childlike wonder as he looked in all directions with an open-mouthed smile. Fez immediately asked about the best places to find candy or even carnival type snacks. Jackie pondered about shopping areas, but scrunched up her face in disgust over the idea of the only stores along the boardwalk involved tourists and souvenirs.

       Hyde hung back a few feet from the rest of the group, scoping out the area from behind his sunglasses. He stood for a moment, thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans, and he gazed around as though he was trying to find something that would impress him. His Zen-like cool surrounded him and covered his real excitement of being in a big city that would bring him near cool people such as Lou Reed.

       Eric, while excited, desperately tried to hide his giddiness. He thought that if he could play it cool then he would have an easy time impressing the Brooklyn people and not coming across like a tourist. This failed the moment he saw a souvenir shop with a Star Wars themed Coney Island trinket.

       Donna gazed around the area, trying to contain her own giddiness. Playing it cool was much easier for her as she took in all the sights. She knew she would have to keep her cool if she were to keep a look out for her cousin. He had left that morning to meet up with his friends and he told Donna to meet up with them on the boardwalk. She just had no idea how difficult it would be to keep everyone moving in the same direction together and not get swept away in the crowd. She was going to make the most out of this trip, even if it meant having to constantly wrangle her friends every step of the way. At first, her silent search for her cousin seemed daunting and quite hopeless due to the size of the crowd on the boardwalk, as well as her lack of knowledge of the area when it came to navigating through it. Luckily for her, and her friends, Vinnie spotted them.

“Hey Pinciotti!” He called out.

       Donna looked ahead and grinned. “Barbarino!” She waved at him and then looked back to wave her friends along. “Come on I see Vinnie up ahead.”

       They followed Donna, weaving through the crowd, until they reached where her cousin and his friends stood. When they got there, Donna and Vinnie laughed and hugged, greeting each other. Vinnie put an arm around her shoulders and then they faced his friends.

       “Everybody I’d like you to meet my cousin Donna.”

       Epstein looked her up and down. His eyes were slightly widened and a smirk spread across his lips. “Hey Vinnie they sure grow them tall and good looking in your family. Don’t they?”

       “Yeah and they grow ‘em the opposite way in yours.” Freddie laughed.

       His laugh quickly grew scarce and his demeanor suddenly changed to become a bit more serious. He stepped closer to Donna and gave her a slick smile. “Hi there. The name’s Freddie Boom Boom Washington. And the pleasure is all mine.” He went to kiss her hand but stopped when he heard the next voice behind him.

       “Freddie you better keep that pleasure to yourself unless you want to be home in bed nursing your broken bones.” Vernajean, standing right behind him, said while looking none too pleased.

       Freddie dropped Donna’s hand, rose his own hands near his head and backed away from her. “Right, right.”

       Vinnie grinned and then looked toward the girls. “Yeah, and that’s Vernajean, Freddie’s girlfriend. And,” Vinnie took Rosalie by the hand and brought her forward. “This is Rosalie Totsy.”

       Donna smiled “Oh yeah you’ve told me about her.”

       “Hi Hotsy!” The four Point Place guys called out together.

       With a slight laugh, Donna shook Rosalie’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Hotsy.”

       Rosalie looked at Vinnie, frowning lightly. “What? You even told Wisconsin about that name?”

       “Not all of Wisconsin. Just Donna. And now her friends know too. But that part you can’t blame on me.” Vinnie said with a grin.

       “Yeah thanks a lot for nothin’.” She rolled her eyes.

       “Not like they weren’t thinking it already.” Epstein chimed in. He then looked over at Jackie, catching her eye. He smirked a little at her.

       Vinnie stepped closer to Epstein and used his shoulder as an arm rest. Epstein quickly moved it off. “This is Epstein.” Vinnie grinned

       Epstein stepped forward, closer to Jackie and took her by the hand. “That’s Juan Louis Pedro Felipo de Huevos Epstein. From San Juan.” He kissed her hand. “At your service.”

       Jackie pulled her hand away with a grimace. “Eeewww! He’s Mexican!”

       “Jackie, San Juan is in Puerto Rico.” Donna said

       “Whatever it’s still gross.”

       “Funny.” Said Hyde. “I never knew Epstein was a Puerto Rican name.”

       “It ain’t.” Epstein grinned. He placed one hand over his heart and held up the other hand. Before he spoke again, he dropped all traces of Hispanic tones from his speech and added more of a Jewish tone. “It is one of the oldest and proudest Jewish names in these parts.”

       Again, Jackie grimaced. “Eeew! He’s Puerto Rican and Jewish!”

       Epstein turned towards his friends, confused. “What I do?”

       “Please excuse my friend Jackie.” Said Donna. “She doesn’t know any better because she’s a bitch.

       “Jackie, eh?” Epstein smirked, looking at Jackie again. “Yeah I ain’t gettin’ anywhere with her while they’re here.”

       “Yeah, Kelso isn’t going to get anywhere with her either, and he dated her for two years.” Hyde spoke up before laughing a little.

       “And which one of you is Kelso?” Freddie asked

       “That would be me!” Kelso waved before stepping forward. “What a city, huh? This’ll be a great place to get discovered by a talent scout. Bet it would happen while I’m here with my whole Travolta vibe.”

       The Sweathogs gave him dirty looks, in disbelief over what he had said. Vinnie, unable to make sense of it, started laughing.

       “You? A Travolta vibe? Oh man.” He placed a hand on Kelso’s shoulder and laughed some more. “Listen, I’m practically the guy’s twin and I ain’t been discovered yet. There’s no way you will get discovered before me, especially when you’re walkin’ around my city.”

       The others laughed while Kelso took a disappointed step back. Letting his laughter fade, Vinnie then went over to Horshack.

       “Alright, alright let’s get back to introductions here. Well I guess the last one of my friends here is,“ he brought Horshack close and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, “Horshack.”

       Horshack looked at the others with a bit of a shy grin. “Hello. How are ya? I’m Arnold Horshack.” he finished his statement by entering his laugh.

       Eric giggled “Oh man!” he giggled again “That’s the nerdiest laugh I ever heard! How did all of you get to be friends with such a nerd?”

       Freddie looked him up and down with a disapproving frown. “Looks like we might be sayin’ the same ‘bout yo’ friends and you.”

       Epstein stepped forward towards Eric, and got right in his face. “Hey. You makin’ fun of my friend Horshack here?” he clenched his fists. “Because nobody does that and lives, long as I’m around.”

       “Hey!” Hyde stepped forward. “You leave Forman alone. He’s my Horshack.”

       Epstein looked at Hyde. “And who are you?”

       “I’m Hyde.”

       “What is this?” Rosalie asked “Battle of the body guards?”

       “Yeah.” Vernajean added “Why don’t you two turkeys break it up. We’re supposed to be making friends, not starting up some kind of turf war on the boardwalk.”

       Epstein stepped away from Eric, and then he and Hyde relaxed their tough attitudes and laughed. Epstein and Hyde even gave each other a slick handshake, declaring that they were going to like getting to know each other.

       “Oh well I guess that’s everybody.” Donna said

       “Everybody?” Fez asked, taking a step forward, offended. “So you’re going to forget Fez as always?”

       “Oh Fez! I’m sorry! Come here.” She brought him closer to her. “Everybody, this is Fez.”

       “What kind of name is Fez?” Vinnie asked

       “Well it’s not his real name.” Donna replied. “We can’t pronounce his real name so we call him Fez. Sort of… well short for foreign exchange student.”

       Fez grinned. “Yes my real name is-“

       Right as he was speaking, a nearby store blasted loud music out the door, so loud that it completely drowned out what Fez was saying. Coincidentally, as he finished, someone closed the door and the music no longer could be heard.

       “Yeah I ain’t going to remember that.” Vinnie said “Probably good that they call you Fez.”

       “What?” Epstein asked, confused and looking at the other Sweathogs. “He actually heard that?”

       “Ok good.” Donna said “looks like all the introductions are done. Vinnie, how about you and your friends show us around Coney Island? We’re all dyin’ to have some fun. Been a long trip from Wisconsin you know.”

       Vinnie grinned, flashing his dimples. “Sure. Let’s go. We know all the best places here.”

       The two groups joined together, talking as they headed down the boardwalk. The Sweathogs immediately jumped into the tour guide role, leading the others to their favorite spots in Coney island. As they went to their cherished spots together, they all felt the same thing. Even though they had all just met, they could tell that they would become great friends during the time that they would have together.  

[bisluthq]

I know you’ve said that you can pass as hetty - like you don’t look like what straight people imagine gay people to look like or whatever although I think you also said when you come out it’s a surprise to no one

Idk I’m that anon that got outed at work a few days ago and like it’s done and over with at this point lmao but I work with a gay guy... and he’s like flamboyant and like fits the stereotype and his coming out is so easy like no one expects anything from him and I just am so jealous. And I know it’s not fair and because he fits the stereotype he’s the target of so much more blatant homophobia than I ever will be bc I can pass as het to het people but like. I hate this so much

Like now I have coworkers I’ve worked with for like 3 years asking me “but weren’t you with a guy a year ago” and shit and like “I never thought YOU liked girls” and I mean no ones being a dick but like. And I know I don’t owe them explanations but this is just annoying af you know? I mean I’m sorry I don’t look like a butch lesbian and fit YOUR stereotype. It’s just so weird how narrow people are in what they think a a gay person looks like

It’s so funny tho Bc apparently legit 1/4 of the staff is lgbt tho so I found somewhat of a community here I mean I’m not mad I’m just like ...distraught. Like I always kept this close to my chest bc if was so personal to me and Ive had bad experiences coming out before but like... now people know... that I want to fuck girls. ??? I mean it could 100% be worse but also I hate this lol. I guess some of my coworkers are like offended I kept this from them this long lmao but like it’s none of their business tbh lmfao.

Yeah I mean look if you're femme the limit literally doesn't exist in terms of how many times you'll have to come out. And if you're a femme girl who mostly dates other femmes even when you're like "that's my girlfriend" a lot of people will hear that as platonic lmao. Like the ex I was harassed at the restaurant with is an interesting case study because we faced like the worst instance of homophobia I've ever been subject to but like we were being obnoxious wrt PDA like PROPER obnoxious we were like all over each other when those dudes lost their shit. But like aside from that incident we could like hold hands and go places and like nobody ever batted an eye because we presented as two girl friends. When I dated my ~complex~ longterm messy ex we were kinda more careful because while she isn't butch she's like butcher? Like she is very very athletic and dresses in a kind of androgynous way like KStew vibes idk. Like if we were holding hands we looked like a couple, but the other ex and I could hold hands without like anyone batting an eye. So like there is a lot of privilege in passing hetty idk.

Yes, it's annoying to have to keep coming out, but like at least it's safer.

Like I'm VERY proud to be Jewish, as y'all know, but there've been times I've tucked my Magen David necklace away and like not made a fuss about something that I'm a little uncomfy about - food things or whatever - because I get the sense it's not safe. And like I have that option right, in a way say Hasidic folk don't.

I feel the same way about sexuality. Like I'm VERY proud to be gay, but I also am grateful that there are times I can just keep my mouth shut and stay safe while still mostly being myself.

I think it's good that you're out now, and don't feel bad about taking your time or let them shame you for it. You're wonderful and they don't get to decide when you make those kinds of calls. Sending you love.