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siempre-bucky · 2 years

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Tutor

Eddie Munson x fem!Reader

Summary: After your teacher told you that you were failing your math class, you took every opportunity to study, and that included studying on an abandonded bench in the woods. Turns out it wasn't as abandoned as you thought, and it also turns out Eddie Munson is good at math.

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A/N: eddie munson is good at math and i will not be taking any criticism at this time. I didn't think i would be writing for him but i fell in love! please enjoy the fluff!

Since when did a subject with numbers have letters? Since when did they have imaginary numbers? They were all right there on the chalkboard, taunting you in faded white chalk. Glancing down at your notes, none of it made sense. “Does everyone understand that concept before we move on?” Mr. Davids asked as he turned to look at the group of sleepy-eyed teens. Clearly not. He let out a slow drawn-out sigh and returned to his desk to gather the graded quizzes.

Fuck, you thought as you sunk into your seat. You couldn’t help but watch everyone’s reactions to their grades, some of them looked excited and high-fived their friends while others shook their heads and gave sad faces to the teacher who gave them a disapproving face in return.

“Miss Y/L/N, can I see you after class?” Shit. Your teacher looked at you sympathetically as he passed your desk, his hands empty.

Once the bell rang, your anxiety only heightened as the class quickly dispersed. They didn’t look at you, but in your mind, they were all laughing and pointing at your failure. “You wanted to see me?” you questioned as you approached his desk. The older man nodded and took out your last few tests from the class. Cs and Ds were written in bold red ink at the top, now those were taunting you.

“I didn’t want to announce it during class, but I’m worried about your grade,” he sighed as he looked up at you, folding his hands and placing them on his desk. You nervously scratched your textbook, the already faded cover chipping and falling to the ground below you. “You’re a star student at Hawkins and I don’t want your math grade to put you behind.”

“I-I’m sorry. I promise I’ll do better,” you managed.

“I know you will and I’m here to help… and there’s no shame in getting a tutor.”

A tutor? In your academic career you never once needed a tutor! So here you were during lunch with your notes and math books sprawled out on the worn-down table. Your forgotten lunch was just a testament to your commitment to study more. It was just math, it shouldn’t be this hard for you. You forced yourself to be good at every subject, this one was no different. “Plus or minus B…” you mumbled to yourself as you fiddled with your neon yellow earring.

“Madam VP!” Your best friend called as she approached you, clutching tightly onto her lunch tray. “Please tell me you’re going to join the dance committee,” she whined, slapping the tray onto the table and sitting across from you.

“In between yearbook, debate, government, and science club? No way,” you responded with a forced laugh, listing off just some of your activities. You could feel her eyes burn holes into your skin as you kept your eyes on Mr. Davids’ practice test.

“Come on, this is a no-study zone,” she told you in between bites of her sandwich.

“No. Gotta pass this class,” you grumbled, clutching your pencil tighter.

Your concentration was broken yet again by the sounds of roaring laughter. You looked up to see the D&D group standing up from their seats and banging on the table, their leader Eddie holding up a newspaper and his tongue sticking out of his mouth. “God they’re such freaks,” Rachel groaned, “and Eddie Munson? Super freak.”

You smiled in their direction, drowning out Rachel’s mean words. The members from all grades just looked so carefree and enjoyed their time together. You always admired their leader, and on a few occasions thought he was rather handsome. You loved how he smiled when he stood on the table and battled it out with the jocks and how passionate he was about the fantasy game you’d only heard about from the kids you babysat. “You don’t want them to hear you say mean things do you, Madam President? Wasn’t kindness your whole platform?” You smirked, peeling your eyes off the long-haired man.

The class president huffed and went back to her lunch as the commotion died down, “Fine,” she huffed, “Are you coming over after school?”

“No, I’m going to study more.”

You had heard about this abandoned spot in the woods just outside the football field. One person said it was haunted, someone else has said a monster lives there. It sounded like the most peaceful spot near Hawkins High. A cold chill from the autumn air went through you as soon as you walked through the gate and your feet stepped on the leaf-covered ground.

It was how you pictured it in your head, a small wooden bench in the middle of the woods and large trees covering the cloudy sky above you, a beautiful light fog surrounding the space. It was the perfect place to study. After brushing the leaves off the bench you placed all your books on the table and placed a spare pen in your hair. You even placed your last ‘F’ grade in the middle for motivation.

It took 20 minutes for your head to hurt and the feeling of being overwhelmed racked your nerves. Bitterly, you wadded up one of your papers and threw it across the table, letting it join the fallen golden leaves. “Well, well, well,” a smooth voice scoffed. It didn’t help that the birds screeched and flew through the trees at the same time.

“Shit,” you gasped as you jumped a mile high, placing your hand over your rapidly beating heart. You turned your head to see Eddie Munson sauntering over with a smirk plastered on his plump lips, his silver ring-clad hand clutching a dingy silver box.

“I certainly didn’t expect to see the Princess of Hawkins High so far from her palace,” Eddie joked, keeping his distance just in case you were nervous around him. He always figured you were. You never spoke, but sometimes you’d pass in the hall and he couldn’t lie and say he didn’t look behind him to catch a glimpse, and you couldn’t say you didn’t do the same.

You chuckled and placed your pencil down on your notebook, “I’m no princess,” you corrected, “I’m sorry I thought this place was abandoned.” His lips parted as he watched you quickly stand from the bench, gathering your things and stacking them into a small chaotic pile.

“Stay!” he encouraged, waving his hand in a shooting motion. You instantly sat, squinting your eyes at how easily you listened to the metal head. He walked over and sat across from you, his brown eyes peering down as you nonchalantly tucked your marked test under your book. “What do I call you then? Queen, Grand Duchess, Viscountess, Your Highness?”

“Just Y/N.”

“Y/N.”

Heat rose to your face as he said your name, it fell off his tongue so nicely and you wanted to beg him to say it again. People said your name all the time, but it didn’t make you feel the way you did when Eddie said it. It made your heart skip a beat.

You fell into silence after you opened your workbook back up, it was comfortable even though you knew his deep brown eyes were staring at your work. He opened his box and took out a rolled joint. “Want some?” he asked, taking it between his fingers and placing it in your view.

“No thank you, but I don’t mind if you do,” you denied kindly, briefly looking up from your work.

He smiled and ducked his head, normally girls that weren’t buying from him thought it was disgusting. Your lack of judgment towards him made him blush and giggle like a schoolboy, hiding behind his wavy brown hair. Eddie got comfortable in his seat, watching the smoke rise to the sky while you mumbled out equations.

“It’s 42,” he answered after hearing you repeat the same equation ten times and erasing all your work over and over till there was no eraser left.

“Oh,” you whispered after looking at the faded equation, “thanks, Eddie.”

“Tell me a secret,” he said after a while. He’d gotten comfortable and leaned forward, placing his head inside his palms, his big brown eyes staring at you.

You looked up and knitted your eyebrows together, and he just looked at you in amusement. “A secret?”

“Yeah, I mean, just so I know you won’t tell anyone about my secret spot.”

“Your spot?” you scoffed playfully.

Eddie nodded and looked at his box, “Yeah, until today I didn’t know anyone knew about it.”

You giggled and cocked your head, “Fine,” you sighed, “ I’m really bad at math.”

The man puffed his cheeks, his eyes squinting as he held back his laughter. He couldn’t fight it off for long, a loud cackle escaped his lips and he threw his head back. The laughter continued until he looked at your solemn expression and how your eyes avoided his gaze, oh fuck, it wasn’t a joke to you. “Fuck. Y/N, I’m so sorry I didn’t- shit. Look… I’m bad at everything, no worries here,” he stammered his apology.

You swallowed and looked back up, “Tell me a secret,” you instructed timidly.

“No, sweetheart. That was only for me,” he responded with his smirk returning to his face.

“You made me feel bad,” you smirked back.

His face fell most adorably. Eddie leaned in and looked down at your paper before looking back at you. “I’m really good at math.”

In a way you weren’t surprised, he seemed smarter than he was showing other people. You even heard one of your teachers praise him on a literature assignment once. The confident, playful Eddie made you smile but now knowing there was another layer to him made your stomach do flips inside you.

Your eyes went wide as you got an idea, your teacher's words coming back to haunt you and remembering Eddie answering the problems just mere minutes ago. “Eddie,” you exhaled, “would you tutor me? I-I just need a couple of sessions and I’ll be out of your hair! I can’t take failing grades.”

His jaw dropped and started to laugh nervously as he stood up to pace back and forth in front of you. “Me? Tutor you? You know what your friends will think about the school freak tutoring someone like you.”

“I don’t think you’re a freak,” you reassured him as you stood up. “And I can pay you! Eddie, I really need help.”

He thought about it for a long moment as he continued to pace. There was a lot to consider here! A pretty girl asking him for help, the Hellfire Club, his own personal time… he had a lot going on. Then he looked at you, he thought you looked so beautiful amongst the fall tones of the woods, your hopeful glare, wide innocent eyes staring back at him. He was sure you were doing that on purpose. “Fine. I have time before my campaigns,” he sighed, dramatically giving in, placing his weed back in its box, closing it with a loud clunk.

You squealed and jumped up from your seat to pack your things, “Eddie you have no idea what this means to me. I can’t thank you enough,” you cheered as you put your backpack on, adjusting the straps on your shoulders. In a moment of spontaneity, you moved to the same side of the table, threw your arms around him, and placed your head on his chest.

The man stilled at the abrupt contact, but he didn’t flinch or move to pull you off of him. He liked this, he liked that in your hour of interaction you felt comfortable enough to thank him with a hug. You didn’t cower like the other students. Eddie could just feel your smile on him and he prayed to whoever was out there that you couldn’t feel how strong his heart was thumping against his ribs. His skittish hands rose to place them on your clothed biceps, tapping him lightly. “Y-you’re welcome, Y/N.” There it was again… the fluttering of a swarm of butterflies in your chest as he said your name.

You two walked back side by side, telling him what you needed the most help with and him telling you about meeting times. He made you chuckle and you made him blush, a beautiful even exchange. Eddie clammed up as you pushed past a few branches, the gate to the football field taunting him. Back to the reality of high school hierarchy. "You should go before me," he suggested, swallowing his disappointment.

You scrunch your nose and look up at him confused. "Why would I do that?"

Eddie tucked his hands in his jeans pockets and shifted back and forth on his heels, "You don't want the freak and the princess to be seen walking together. Right, sweetheart?"

"I don't care what they think of me, Eddie," you correct him instantly after the words fled from his mouth. "This is fucking high school. Frankly, I don't give a shit and I'm surprised you do."

The guitarist was swooning at your blunt comment. The foul language he didn't know you even knew just fueled his excitement and added another thing to the long list of things he adored about you. “I just don’t want anyone calling our Vice President a freak, ok?”

A bashful smile spread across your face. “Did you vote for me, Munson?” you asked teasingly.

Eddie clicked his tongue and started to walk again, “Maybe,” he muttered, sending a wink your way. There was a noticeable spring in his step and it made you giggle as you followed behind him. You could tell there were a few students by the bleachers and by the building but they didn’t matter, Eddie’s laugh and his bright smile made them fade to the background.

A month and a half later, you nervously sat in your seat in the back of your math class, your brain suddenly losing everything you had ever learned in your tutoring sessions. “Not to scare you guys,” Mr. Davids started as he began to pass out the papers, “this test does count for a significant amount of your semester grade.”

Taking in a deep breath, you fidgeted with the bracelet tied nicely around your wrist. A pink die sat in the center and was wrapped intricately with pink rope. Eddie gave it to you after acing a practice test, telling you he made it from the set you complimented him on after a Hellfire Club session you sat in on. You wore it every day, and he noticed. “It’ll be ok,” you whispered to yourself as you began to tap your pencil on your desk.

“But I have confidence in all of you,” Mr. Davids said brightly, placing your test on the desk. “Your time begins now.”

“Eddie!” You shouted excitedly as you rushed into the crowded hallway, “Eddie!” You hurried, pushing past disgruntled students who were muttering under their breaths. You found him lost in one of the stories he was telling to his friends by his locker.

“H-hey, Y/N? You ok?” he asked nervously as you stood in front of him, checking to see who was around to see you talk to him. You had small beads of sweat on your forehead from rushing through the halls, your chest was heaving and you were clutching your test in your hand.

“I got an A!” you cheered.

A huge smile broke out on his face. In a fleeting moment, he wrapped his arms around your waist and spun you around. “I knew you could, princess!” he laughed as he sat you back on the ground.

Still wrapped in his arms, you looked up at him as your giggles calmed. “It was all thanks to you, Eddie. I-I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I feel like you could though,” he winced.

You had a fleeting moment of your own as you gripped his biceps and lifted yourself on your tippy-toes to kiss his cheek. “No. I couldn’t,” you whispered against his skin. After pulling away you looked at the shocked expressions of his friends before returning your attention to him. “Will I still see you tonight? I still have more to learn?” you asked, biting your lip.

Eddie nodded and fell back onto his locker, his cheeks as red as roses. “Of course, you will, sweetheart.”

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #joseph quinn

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centrally-unplanned · 8 months

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Biden age discourse is extremely funny because he is too old to run again. His odds-of-death during his next term would be ludicrously high, and while that isn't some disaster or anything no one wants that, you want to vote for a single candidate who isn't going to have a death transition to deal with. This is completely objective, its obviously true, and not really debatable.

And then you have a ton of people just...trying to pretend it isn't? Because Biden screwed up by deciding to run again, and screwed up by choosing an unpopular VP, so she isn't a great option either. But you cant say that, right? "Well hes an idiot but we aren't gonna primary him because that is also stupid, so what ya gonna do". So instead you get people trying to argue 'voters don't care about his age' (they do, a ton) or 'its really more about the team' (not 100% false but who is president does actually matter and they know this) or other silly ideas. Its a completely fake debate as only politics and the internet provide, there is not actually another side. Just people whose job it is to pretend there is another side because they don't have a choice.

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lil-als · 3 months

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Some of my favorite moments from the 1992 vice presidential debate.

#al gore #dan quayle #admiral stockdale #james stockdale #1992 vp debate #my favorite line has to be INHALE #luca makes compilations

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confusedgoldenflower · 2 months

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The Free and Equal debate when landback came up.

Everyone: land back. Ppl hurt. Land back. Land back.

Jasmine: here’s what it means, I got a native vp, I’m hosting a PANEL of INDIGENOUS ppl for CREATE this policy. If you want in, hit me up

#free and equal debate #the third party presidential debate #jasmine Sherman #jasmine Sherman 2024 #Sherman Blubear 2024 #jasmine Sherman for President #fat socialist #presidential candidate 2024 #presidential election #presidential election 2024 #land back

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chromecries · 11 months

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jaiden runs for president with her vp roier and their advisor cellbit does anyone else see the vision. cellbit and roier makes sure shes protected from strange federation happenings and assassinations. she wins all the debate nights. her first rule brings back bobby and she adds another woman to the island. can anyone hear me

#qsmp

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somehow-a-human · 30 days

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The Changing Bentley

DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY

Noticed something when reading through this article again.

Finney took advantage of virtual production (VP) technology for the driving scenes in Crowley’s classic Bentley. The volume was built on their Scottish set: a 4x7m cube with a roof that could go up and down on motorised winches as needed. “We pulled the cars in and out on skates – they went up on little jacks, which you could then rotate and move the car around within the volume,” he explains.

Multiple cars? Maybe he's just referring to the Full!Bentley and the Shell!Bentley? Not sure, but it did prompt me to loop around and take another look at the Bentley throughout season 2...

I know there has been A LOT of debate about the bentley in season two, and Neil has answered quite a few asks on the topic, I feel bad for the poor man we should leave him out of these debates lol. However, his answer here is weirdly worded.

Look at these two photos. I think it's clearest to see the color differences if you just look at the door panels.

SO, let's pick apart Neils answer then yes?

The Shell!Bentley had different color seat covers (brown).

The car Aziraphale drives to Edinburgh was not the Shell!Bentley, there were many photos taken from people around this shoot, so the Full!Bentley must have the black/blue interior yes?

The Shell!Bentley must have the brown interior, and must've been what they used to shoot Crowley's London alleyway scenes?

So the Shell!Bentley has the "correct Bentley exterior" and "correct seats"? Are the blue/black seats "incorrect"?

But we know they did film with the Full!Bentley on Circus Lane for at least some of Crowley's London alley scenes as well as the Shell!Bentley. Or at least there are photos of both on location there.

I then did the normal thing and went back and looked at each scene where Crowley is in the alleyway, and looked for two distinct things.

Presence of the rear door handle. The Shell!Bentley does not have one, the Season 1 Bentley did not have one as it was a 2-door and the Full!Bentley in season two doesn't have one until AFTER Aziraphale returns from Edinburgh

Seat color.

If they were filming with both the full and shell Bentleys and are as bad at continuity as some people would like to believe, then there should be some discrepancies in scenes between which cars have rear door handles and brown seats, right? Realistically if they're having all these continuity errors with color grading seat covers and such then there's got to be something here.

Shax calls Crowley and shows up: No rear handle, brown interior

Crowley after refusing to hide Gabriel: No rear handle, brown interior

Crowley sleeping in tactical turtleneck: No rear handle, brown interior

So, maybe they only used the Full!Bentley for scenes where the car is driving on Circus Lane? Well even if that's the case they had the continuity forethought to remove the rear door handles from the Full!Bentley in post because in all scenes in that location it has no rear door handles, and a brown interior, even when in motion.

We are given this lovely wide shot of the Bentley at the end of episode 2, just before Aziraphale takes it to Edinburgh and permanently changes the Bentley. No rear handles, almost looks like it may have the grey side detailing like in season 1. I think the intention with this shot is exactly to give us a good look at the car. Even the 1941 flashback shows us that the car then has no rear door handles and a brown interior.

When Aziraphale leaves Whickber street we get a clear shot of him in the driver's seat with brown seats and when the car drives away you can see it has no rear door handles. Then the next time we see the car we get this:

We get an adorable Yellow!Bentley moment, again no rear door handles, but when our angel changes it back, the car is a solid black 4-door with a blue/black interior. You can clearly see the rear door handle for the remainder of season 2, and from here on out the interior is always black.

And if you think I'm a nutter for going on about the presence/absence of the rear door handles, take a look at these photos of the actual Bentley that was purchased for season 2, before it was painted/modified for the show. Seems a lot of trouble to go through to make a point of omitting them consistently via editing for half the season for no reason?

What's mah point? Mah point...

Is that maybe there weren't two different cars, but the Bentley definitely permanently changed during Aziraphale's Edinburgh excursion and Crowley not only doesn't mention it, he doesn't even seem to notice.

It seems an awful big oversight to use two completely different colored interiors and not notice it or change it in post. I mean, It really wouldn't have even been that hard to just get some different colored seat covers if that was truly what was going on here.

I think the Bentley clearly changes and now the only questions I have are why, and why is it not mentioned. I am slowly falling into an abyss of differing POV's, that we are being told this story from changing perspectives, and I'm currently working on writing a few different writings detailing those ideas. If you haven't checked out my bit on the different lens filters used for filming, check that out, because it was definitely another stepping stone on the path I'm headed down.

Is the Bentley's change evidence of a perspective change/change in narrator? Is it simply that "our car" appears physically different and Crowley doesn't have any objections, so he doesn't mention it? And why is Neil being weird about it?

Let me know your thoughts!

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walks-the-ages · 5 months

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ah, can't find the original post to respond to it, and tumblr was refusing to let me actually post with the usual bullshit of "sorry there was an error processing your post" . anyways.

If you see a post going around about Jewish restaurants being targeted for harassment by pro-palestine protestors "solely for being Jewish", stop what you are doing and actually look up the incident in question, because that is not what happened at Goldie's restaurant!

Full article below for accessiblity, and because we all know Tumblr only looks at headlines and doesn't click links to news articles.

Long post!

Bolding is my own for emphasis.

A protest against a top Israel-born chef was called antisemitic. Staff tell a different story

Wilfred ChanFri 8 Dec 2023 16.55 GMTFirst published on Fri 8 Dec 2023 12.00 GMT

The 21-second clip went viral almost as soon as it was posted early on Sunday evening. It showed hundreds of protesters, some with Palestinian flags, united in a rhyming chant: “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”

They were protesting outside Goldie, a vegan falafel restaurant owned by Michael Solomonov, the Israel-born celebrity chef best known for Zahav, an Israeli-themed restaurant widely considered one of the United States’ finest eateries. It was one brief stop along a march traversing Philadelphia that lasted about three hours.

Many of the protesters hadn’t even returned home from the march when the condemnations began to pour in. The Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, posted on X: “Tonight in Philly, we saw a blatant act of antisemitism – not a peaceful protest. A restaurant was targeted and mobbed because its owner is Jewish and Israeli. This hate and bigotry is reminiscent of a dark time in history.”

Even the White House piled on: it was “antisemitic and completely unjustifiable to target restaurants that serve Israeli food over disagreements with Israeli policy”, said the deputy press secretary, Andrew Bates. Douglas Emhoff, husband of Vice-President Kamala Harris, wrote on X that he had spoken with Solomonov and “told him @POTUS, @VP, and the entire Biden-Harris Administration will continue to have his back”.

It was the apex of a saga that has resulted in at least three workers fired from Solomonov’s restaurants over, as they see it, their pro-Palestine activism coming into conflict with their bosses’ views and policies, and at least one other worker who has resigned in protest – thrusting the renowned Israeli eateries into the thick of bitter US disagreements over the Israel-Hamas war.

The street protest against Goldie has sparked heated debate. As the war on Gaza rages on, with over 17,000 people killed in Gaza since 7 October – 70% of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry – are Israel-linked businesses in the US implicated? Was Solomonov, a chef who has credited Palestinian influences in his cooking, an appropriate target?

Interviews with protesters and current and former employees at Solomonov’s restaurants paint a more complex version of events than what the video clip may have suggested. They reject the notion that Goldie was singled out because of the owners’ ethnicity, arguing that their objections stem from management using the restaurants to fundraise for Israel after 7 October in spite of worker concerns. Activists also say their protest shines a necessary spotlight on the political commitments of one of the highest-profile restaurateurs in the United States.

Tensions at work

There were political tensions simmering at Solomonov’s restaurants before Sunday’s march. The Guardian spoke to three Goldie workers who say they were fired due to their pro-Palestine advocacy: two who wore Palestinian flag pins in violation of a newly announced dress code that forbade non-Goldie branded adornments, and another who tweeted in support of Sunday’s street protest.

Their discomfort at work began following a fundraiser in October, during which Solomonov and his business partner Steve Cook announced they would donate all of the restaurant group’s profits from one day, over $100,000, to United Hatzalah, an Israeli medical non-profit that has supplied the Israel Defense Forces with protective and medical gear during the current war against Hamas.

And in early November, Solomonov’s Zahav hosted a private fundraiser by a prominent political action committee dedicated to supporting political candidates “who reflect Jewish values”. Attendees at the event, which has not been previously reported, included the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer; and dozens of other pro-Israel officials and lobbyists, according to a current Zahav employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The employee said that in recent weeks, Solomonov had also booked and paid for multiple, lavish private dinners at Zahav for IDF members preparing to deploy to fight for Israel.

“The amount of material support that we’ve lended to pro-Israel causes and Israeli military personnel has been really discomforting,” the Zahav worker told the Guardian.

In an email to workers on Wednesday, Solomonov and Cook apologized for not communicating about their political stances with staff more directly. The pair had sought to “avoid discussing politics at work … to make everyone as comfortable as possible in the restaurant,” the owners wrote. “But perhaps we created a void that had the opposite effect. For that, we are sorry.”

The fraught politics of food

The protest and its fallout have produced the biggest controversy ever faced by Solomonov, one of America’s most prominent Israeli cultural figures and someone who for years has cast himself as a culinary bridge between Israel, Palestine, and the United States.

Solomonov’s brother, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, was killed in 2003 by Hezbollah snipers; Solomonov wrote in his first cookbook, Zahav, that the tragedy made him briefly consider joining Israel’s army. Instead, he decided to channel his emotion into food, something he found allowed him to “expose people to a side of Israel that had nothing to do with politics”. That led him and Cook, an investment banker-turned-restaurateur, to found Zahav in 2008, followed by other prominent Israeli-themed eateries: Dizengoff, Goldie, K’Far, and Laser Wolf, under a restaurant group called CookNSolo. In 2017, Israel’s ministry of tourism named him a culinary ambassador.

The restaurants have never been completely free from controversy. Debates over the origins and ownership of Middle Eastern food have raged for years; many culinary experts have argued that Palestinian contributions to Mediterranean cuisine have been used by Israeli chefs without sufficient respect or acknowledgement. Yet while Solomonov and Cook have always branded their food as Israeli, their menus and cookbooks cite Palestinian influences on many dishes. For years, Solomonov also spoke of his friendship with the Palestinian writer and cookbook author Reem Kassis – though the two are no longer speaking, according to the New York Times.

But the conflicts aren’t just over cultural appropriation. They’re about “the way Israel as a state has weaponized food against the Palestinian people”, says the Palestinian American chef Reem Assil, who owns Reem’s, a Arab street food joint in San Francisco. “Even before these last 60 days, Israel has restricted what Gazans can access in terms of food and water. They target bakeries, they target farms, they target markets. They uproot our olive trees, they make it illegal for us to forge our own ingredients, like za’atar.” The UN warned last month that Israel’s military operations in Gaza had put residents there at “immediate” risk of starvation.

A controversial fundraiser

Since the 7 October attacks, Solomonov has publicly sought to caveat his support for Israel. “I personally believe in the right of Palestinians to have their own state, and the right for self-determination, and I don’t deny those things,” he said at an event last month in New Jersey, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “And I believe the Israeli government oftentimes does things that I would not do at all … and it can be quite damaging.”

But internally, Solomonov and Cook were using their restaurants to steer resources toward Israel.

On 10 October, Solomonov and Cook announced a fundraiser that would donate all the profits across CookNSolo restaurants on 12 October to United Hatzalah. “It is not associated with any military,” the restaurant group assured staff in a Slack message – something that simply wasn’t true, workers soon realized with alarm.

Goldie staff were caught off guard because they considered the restaurant a politically progressive institution. The vegan falafel restaurant proudly displayed an LGBTQ flag and Black Lives Matter flag on its wall. Many of the workers were young and identified as queer. There was a casual dress code: Noah Wood, a 25-year-old who uses they/them pronouns, said they did shifts at Goldie while wearing hats with slogans supporting indigenous rights.

The night before CookNSolo’s fundraiser, Goldie’s store manager at the time, 24-year-old Sophie Hamilton, says she discovered public videos by United Hatzalah about how the non-profit supplied protective gear to IDF soldiers. She rushed off an email to Goldie’s general manager, Emma Richards, saying she felt “deeply betrayed and misled”. “I feel like I’ve been left with no choice but to refuse to come to work tomorrow unless [CookNSolo] commits to also raising donations for a Palestinian humanitarian organization, of course with no connection to any military.”

But Hamilton’s suggestion was ignored, and Richards simply told her someone would cover her shift the next day.

When Hamilton returned to work, she decided to keep working but while wearing a small Palestinian flag pin. “There’s just a point where you can’t leave your humanity at the door,” she said. No customers complained, but two weeks later, management announced a new rule: staff were not to wear stickers, pins, or patches that were not Goldie-branded.

Wood, the other server, started wearing a Palestinian flag pin in open defiance of the new rule. Another worker, June, 24, wore a green shirt, black pants, and a red bandana – a reference to the colors of Palestinian flag.

On 15 November, the restaurant asked Hamilton to send Wood home for violating the dress code. Hamilton refused, and the next day they were both fired, Hamilton for “poor performance for failing to enforce the uniform policy”. Wood was not given any official reason, they say.

In the Wednesday email to staff, the owners wrote: “We recognize that people have different views on the war between Israel and Hamas, and we respect your rights to your own views. Many of our guests have passionate feelings about the current conflict and, knowing that not all of you feel the same way, our approach is to simply avoid discussing politics at work.”

They did not provide details on the firings beyond writing: “It is also important for you to hear directly from us that we have never terminated employees based on their support for Palestine.”

The owners added: “We think it’s important to say that our support of Israel is not unqualified. We have plenty of criticisms, particularly in the way that the government has stymied the prospects for Palestinian statehood in recent years.”

In a statement shared with the Guardian, United Hatzalah’s senior vice-president for international operations, Michael Brown, said that the nonprofit and the IDF “often train together, especially when conducting mass casualty training drills, or search and rescue training drills in order to hone our skills and help the IDF sharpen theirs, as well as to allow for an easier flow of collaborative life saving efforts should the need ever arise in the field, similar to what happened during October 7th.”

The restaurant group declined to respond to a detailed list of questions by the Guardian about the fired workers, but a spokeswoman said in a statement: “CookNSolo exists to create community through food. We are committed to fostering an open, safe, and supportive workplace for all of our employees who have varying backgrounds and political views. Like many hospitality companies, we have standard policies for our employees, which we consistently enforce.” Solomonov declined, through a representative, a direct request for an interview.

Justin Sadowsky, an attorney at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights non-profit, says the firings of Goldie workers are the first time he’s heard of restaurant workers allegedly fired for supporting Palestine since 7 October. “We’ve seen it in hospitals, we’ve seen it at large corporations, we’ve seen it in law firms, but it’s sort of spilling into everywhere,” he said. The organization says it’s received a “staggering” 2,171 requests for help and reports of bias in the 57 days since the Israel-Hamas war began, equalling nearly half of the total complaints it handled in all of 2022.

Call for a boycott

Meanwhile, CookNSolo’s fundraiser for United Hatzalah had caught the attention of local activists in a group called the Philadelphia Free Palestine Coalition. The activists weren’t in touch with the restaurant workers, but drew the same conclusion: by funneling restaurant proceeds toward a group associated with the IDF, CookNSolo was complicit in Israel’s war crimes.

In mid-October, the activists called for a boycott. Natalie Abulhawa, a Palestinian American organizer at the Free Palestine Coalition, helped write an Instagram post for the boycott that named three of Solomonov’s restaurants – Goldie, Zahav, and Laser Wolf – as well as a number of other Middle Eastern restaurants in the city. “Restaurants and businesses claiming to sell ‘Israeli’ food, fruits, vegetables, and products are part of an ongoing colonial campaign of stealing, appropriating, and profiting off of Palestinian food and culture as a means of erasing Palestinian existence,” the call read.

The boycott made waves in the food world, and Solomonov addressed it at a closed-door event in November at a New Jersey Jewish Community Center. Speaking to the crowd of several hundred, he called the boycott misguided, adding that it wasn’t affecting his sales, according to the Inquirer. While acknowledging that “part of Israeli food is Palestinian influenced”, he argued that any suggestion that Israeli food was stolen from Palestinians was akin to saying Israelis “don’t have a right to be there”. Solomonov added that his restaurants credited Palestinian influences on their menus and claimed Zahav imported more Palestinian wines than any other Philadelphia eatery.

But privately, Solomonov and Cook were using their restaurants to platform Israel’s war effort. On 1 November, Zahav hosted a fundraiser by a major political action committee called Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania, whose guests included Whitmer and as many as 80 other pro-Israel officials and lobbyists, according to the unnamed Zahav employee. “It was an explicitly pro-Israel reception and speeches made were about that support,” the employee said.

The employee said that Whitmer, who delivered a keynote, opened with the Jewish expression of solidarity “Am Yisrael Chai”, or “the people of Israel live”, and called for providing material support to Israel, and that Solomonov, who was in the audience, was afterward “emphatically talking and thanking all of the attendees”.

In the following weeks, the employee became even more disturbed as Solomonov hosted and paid for at least two private dinners at Zahav for small groups of Israelis, including soldiers who were preparing to fly home to fight the Gaza war. Solomonov explained with “a level of reverence” that the restaurant would cover the bill because of the diners’ roles in the Israeli military, the employee says.

These events, in addition to the firings of Goldie staff, have made many of Zahav’s staff deeply uncomfortable. “Most of the employees here are not particularly interested in the support of Israel,” the employee said, but the workers fear retaliation if they speak out. CookNSolo declined to comment on the events at Zahav.

A clip goes viral

Pennsylvania’s Jewish and Muslim communities have been on edge since the Israel-Hamas war began. On Monday, a Jewish daycare in Philadelphia reported that vandals had spray-painted “Free Palestine” and other graffiti on its windows. On Tuesday, a pair of students sued the University of Pennsylvania, claiming it had become an “incubation lab for virulent anti-Jewish hatred”. Last week, a South Philadelphia mosque reported that it had been vandalized by anti-Muslim graffiti. And last month, a man was arrested for pointing a gun and yelling racial slurs against a group of pro-Palestine demonstrators at the state’s capitol.

The Goldie protest also followed a growing number of incidents that have entangled Middle Eastern food businesses. Palestinian restaurants such as New York City’s Ayat have reported being flooded with negative reviews since the war began; last month, an ex-Obama aide was charged with a hate crime for harassing a halal food street vendor.

But Goldie’s attempts to head off pro-Palestinian activism were futile.

On 3 December, the Free Palestine Coalition led hundreds of protesters in an evening of marches around Philadelphia to renew calls for a ceasefire. Starting from Rittenhouse Square in Philly’s Center City neighborhood, the march took a wrong turn, which brought it past Goldie, says Abulhawa. The encounter with the falafel restaurant wasn’t planned, she says, “but we ran with it”.

June, who is Jewish, was one of the employees working inside Goldie that night, and said the protest – which lasted just a few minutes – was completely peaceful: “There was nothing violent, no hint of antisemitism.” The store was devoid of guests when the marchers arrived, though one customer came in partway through to pickup an online order and displayed no reaction. June even thought about going outside to join the protest, but thought better of it and instead quietly chanted along to the slogans from inside the store.

Someone placed two small stickers on Goldie’s door and window. One read, “Free Palestine,” and another contained a statistic about the number of children Israel had killed in Gaza (Abulhawa says that whoever placed the stickers were not asked to do so by protest organizers). One protester briefly posed in front of the door with a Palestine flag. Then the protest shuffled on.

A few minutes later, a user named Jordan Van Glish posted a 21-second clip of the protest to X, where it quickly went viral. Comments flooded in: “Once again proving that this is about hating Jews,” one user wrote. Stop Antisemitism, a prominent pro-Israel group, posted that it was a “failure” that no anti-riot police were dispatched and no protesters were arrested.

But Philadelphia’s police force told the Guardian that officers observing the march “did not see, hear, or record any threats to persons inside or outside Goldie”, and the department received “no 911 calls or complaints” during the event.

Some marchers have acknowledged how the clip, taken out of context, could have been misinterpreted. “I’d say in hindsight, maybe [the organizers] should have spent another minute explaining why we were stopping there,” says Joe Piette, a photographer who joined the protest. “It would have been better to explain some of the details of the owner of that restaurant. Our mistake was not explaining it on the spot.”

June felt that frustration when they got home that night and saw the clip gaining traction. “So I felt like I should give the context that was missing from that tweet,” they said. June published a post explaining that the restaurant group had raised money for Israel-linked causes and punished pro-Palestine employees. “If you don’t want to be directly funding genocide, you should probably stay away from Goldie” and other CookNSolo restaurants, they wrote.

On Monday, June got a phone call while on the bus to work: they were fired as well. The manager gave no explanation, but June didn’t need to ask why. “Honestly, I didn’t really feel that bad or surprised,” they said. “I had no pride in this job.”

High-profile officials have continued to argue that the protesters were motivated by antisemitism. Governor Shapiro doubled down on his tweet after visiting Goldie and meeting with Solomonov on Wednesday. “A mob protested a restaurant simply because it’s owned by a Jewish person,” the governor claimed. “That is the kind of antisemitic tropes that we saw in 1930s Germany, and it’s the kind of thing we should not tolerate.” In a statement to the Guardian, his office reiterated: “This was not a peaceful protest”.

Two days after the march, Tess Rauscher, a 25-year-old barista at the CookNSolo-owned Israeli cafe K’Far, resigned, citing the company’s fundraiser and firing of Goldie workers, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It was these actions, not the identity of the owner, that changed the nature of my job,” she said.

This article was amended on 8 December 2023 to delete an incorrect reference to a manager taking down an LGBTQ+ flag. Also references to Governor Josh Shapiro attending an event at Zahav on 1 November were deleted. Governor Shapiro’s office have said he was not at the event.

[end article]

TL;DR:

Goldie's restaurant and 2 other restaurants owned by the same famous Israeli chef were part of a general boycott starting in October.

The famous israeli chef, Michael Solomonov, has been directly funding the Israeli military with fundraisers at his various owned resteraunts (including donating over $100,000 in a single day)

Michael Solomonov has also hosted multiple, lavish "going away parties" free of charge for people deploying to go fight in Gaza (you know, just, going on over to help commit genocide!)

Multiple staff were fired for being pro-palestine, including for wearing pins with the Palestinian flag, or wearing the colors of the palestinian flag to work.

June, A jewish staff member who was working when the protestors arrived outside the restaurant, did not feel threatened in any way, affirmed it was a completely peaceful protest, and actually considered stopping their work to go out and join the march, but ultimately decided to stay for the rest of their shift and quietly chant along with the protestors. They were fired a few days later, and not given any explanation.

#long post #bold text #large text #free palestine #palestine #israel #free gaza #michael solomonov #zionism #anti-zionism #signal boost

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sentence-arborist · 9 months

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what is a syntax tree and how did you construct that, that is fascinating

A syntax tree is a way of representing the constituent structure of a sentence (i.e. how it can be broken up into parts) as a graph. It's one of the most common representations used in contemporary syntactic theory.

As for how you construct it, there are various both general and language specific rules but the simplest explanation would be that you "split" the tree each time you reach a unit of syntax that could be replaced by a simpler atom.

For example:

The sentence "I knew that guy" can be split into a subject "I" and verb phrase "knew that guy", which you could replace with a simple verb (e.g. "I ran"), so you split these two parts into an NP and a VP (under an IP for complicated theoretical reasons).

"knew that guy" can be broken up into a verb "knew" and an object "that guy", which you could replace with a simpler noun phrase (e.g. "I knew him"), so you split these two parts into a V and an NP.

"that guy" can be split into a determiner "that" and a head noun "guy", both of which are substitutable ("the guy", "that dog"), so you split these two parts into a D and an N.

Add some extra details that are required for theoretical reasons that I can't easily go into here, and boom!

[ID: Syntax tree for the sentence "I knew that guy".]

Of course, nothing's ever quite that simple.

For one, substitution isn't really the only test that goes into making the divisions on the tree. For example, there's active debate among different syntacticians over whether you should split ditransitive verb phrases like "give me a cake" into [[give] [me] [a cake]] or into [[give me] [a cake]]. The substitution test I gave above would suggest the latter, but I personally believe the former is better suited to account for the data in object symmetric languages like the Kordofanian language Moro. So I would represent the verb phrase "give me a cake" with a trinary branching tree like below, but other syntacticians would hate this.

[ID: A syntax tree for the verb phrase "give me a cake"; it shows a trinary branching structure, where the V-bar node dominates a V node and two NPs.]

For another, almost any actual syntactic framework is going to require more in your trees than I'm including here. A proper LFG c-structure, for example, would require at least node annotations (and possibly lexical entries on the leaves), resulting in a tree that looks more like:

[ID: The same syntax tree for "I knew that guy", but now each node is anotated with an equation. Most nodes have an "up arrow equals down arrow" equation, but the NP node that dominates "I" has a "down arrow equals up arrow SUBJ" equation and the NP that dominates "that guy" has an equation "down arrow equals up arrow OBJ".]

And that's without getting into whatever the hell the cartographic Minimalists are off there doing with their hundreds of functional projections... But I digress. Main point being: a properly done syntax tree is much more complex of a beast than the instructions above would suggest, but they're still a good place to start!

#asks #trees #syntax #syntax tree #meta #how to #about trees #linguistics #yes I am not afraid to throw shade at the minimalists don't @ me

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zingaplanet · 7 months

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hi new tennis fan here, do you mind explaining the 2011 fedal fallout? I tried looking around but couldn't find much. Thanks in advance!

Oh ho ho mutual, thanks for the question altho I fear this might get too complicated too political too quickly hahaha I'll try to keep my answer neutral. Tennis politics is an underworld of nasty nasty business and as much as it is fascinating, it is unfortunately very different from the clean, elegant, prestigious look the sport is presented as at front, as is expected when big prize money is on the line. This is going to be quite long, as usual, so be prepared hahaha

There's a good NYT article about this whole Nadal-Federer-Djokovic council debacle which I highly reccommend (around their 2019 return to the council), but let me provide a bit of a back story to that as well.

Now this all started back in the early 2010s, Federer and Nadal were still world number 1 and 2 (oh the good old days), and they were also the leaders at the players' council (Nadal was Federer's VP). So the gist of it by end of 2011, there was a bit of a dispute, esentially about prize money, but quickly turned into a bit of everything.

Basically, after the ATP finals of that year, there was talk of changing ATP into a 2 year ranking system. This is a bit unconventional but it's actually related to how points are accumulated throughout the whole tour and the accessibility of the sports to newcomers.

Everyone kinda knows that tennis is one of the most difficult sports to break into, not only because tournament seedings are based on rankings (unlike in football for instance where it's random), meaning top players will always have preference to go all the way to the final, but also because prize money has also been reported as highly unequal. Players at the top level like Serena, Federer, Sharapova, Nadal etc earned a gazillion times more than even the top 20 players, this is because of sponsorship, but also because of the gap in prize money. More reports have been coming out on this recently, where the top 5 players in India and other countries can't even sustain themselves with prize money alone and has to take up side jobs.

The idea is that with a 2 year ranking, points will be distributed more evenly, rankings will be much more accessible and players in the top 50 will have access to better prize money. It's a bit complicated to explain technically but that's the gist of it as far as I understand.

Now the problem starts when in November that year, the players meeting saw all players (including Nadal) except Federer, the president, support the 2 year system. They were also planning to boycott the Australian Open, that they deemed were far too unfair in terms of prize money distribution as all other Grand Slams.

The dispute between the two of them also has another layer into it however. Unsurprisignly, the ranking debate is related to discussions about scheduling, in which Nadal has been strongly advocating for change since the beginning of his career.

I managed to dig up some quotes on this, it's pretty nasty (hmu if you want sources):

“"For him, it's good to say nothing, (His attitude is) "Everything is positive. It's all well and good for me, I look like a gentleman,' and the rest can burn themselves. He likes the circuit. I like the circuit. It's better than many other sports, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be better.”

Rafa and some other players are protesting about the number of mandatory events a pro player is required to compete in during the year, arguing this is not actually sustainable for an athlete's physical condition which he himself has felt the brunt too many times.

"I love the game and there are a lot of things I'm grateful for,” Nadal said. “The game has allowed me to lead a fantastic lifestyle. But to finish your career with pain all over your body, is that a positive? No. Maybe (Federer) has got a super body and he'll finish his career like a rose. Neither myself, nor (Andy) Murray, nor (Novak) Djokovic are going to finish our careers like a rose. Tennis is an important part of my life, but it's a tough sport. We're not like him, where it's effortless to play. For all of us, it's a battle."

I believe this is the period Federer was referring to when he said "He used to follow me around with everything but then he grew to be his own person," etc.

Federer and Nadal before this period were strangely civil towards each other, even after those French Open and Wimbledon finals back to back - but this seemed to be the beginning of their souring relations. Federer handled it very discretely and only said he had “no hard feelings” toward Nadal for the comments, and Nadal also later admitted that his comments “must stay in the locker room.”

I'm not saying one player is right and the other is wrong, there is always 2 sides of the coin. A 2 year ranking system will mess a lot of things up in terms of the sport's competitiveness and spectatorship, but there is also a real pay gap problem in tennis, especially in Grand Slams, it's a very top heavy sport. It's very evident that Nadal and Federer's frustrations with each other relate a lot to their different career trajectories and playing style. Nadal said many times from the beginning that his style of play is too physicaly disruptive and I remember him saying he'd be very surprised if he's still playing in his 30s and it's obvious that Federer's injury-free career bothered him a bit, while Federer, I think is always the perfect middle-man between the players and the tournament organisers (he has very good relationship with all of them), and he understood nuances of the sports' politics and that it's never that simple to change everything, something a lot of young players don't really get I think (Nadal is a bit more politically diplomatic nowadays).

The story of the 2019 council dispute is a bit more complicated, and it actually shows how much they've built bridges over their differences as this time it was more the case of Novak vs the two of them, quite literally haha. Nadal and Federer were no longer part of the council then. I think it started with the firing of the ATP chief executive, Chris Kermode (Djokovic was the president at that time I think). Nadal and Federer were very unhappy about this and that they weren't consulted on the decision.

Federer said: “I tried to meet Novak on the deadline; unfortunately, he had no time, That’s hard to understand for me.” Nadal, who met with Federer at that tournament to discuss tour business, also echoed his displeasure.

Very spicy, huh? This actually ended up bringing both Nadal and Federer back together into the council. Federer agreed to rejoin, and he talked about it with Nadal: "I would only do it if you were going too. And he said: I also only participate if you are there too."

See his cute full interview here:

The sweetest cherry on top is actually Andy Murray, bless his little heart (he is unsurprisingly quite uninvolved with the drama hahaha). He also left the council recently and actually was really happy Federer and Nadal the duo managed to get back together into the fray. “Despite the sport’s current success we live in chaotic times,” Murray wrote on Twitter. “My biggest achievement on the council may well prove to be being part of the group of resignations that presented the opportunity for this to happen. Good luck!!!”

Anyhow, there you go, a few thousand? words on tennis politics that you clearly did not ask for but hey! nothing better to start saturday morning than some spicy drama between the world's top athletes, eh?

#was actually fun to look back and dig into the history books a bit #ooh this period was soo nasty #federer #nadal #fedal #tennis #novak djojovic #andy murray #politics #atp tour #australian open

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kindnessisweakness2 · 10 months

Text

Delusional -Part 22

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Delaney questioned Alex as he stood from the table and made his way towards her. “Ah Ah Ah...” He sarcastically wagged his finger at her. “Wow, Teller really has re lit the fire in you. Think your untouchable?” He challenged her, the look in his eye begging her to say something, to fight back. "Your Mom called me. She wants me to take you back. Begged me pretty much.” Delaney scowled at him. “What is it you want Alex? Im done playing this fucking game with you.” Alex smirked at her. “Isnt it obvious? I want you dead. i just want to enjoy fucking with you first. By the time im done you’ll be begging me for death. It’ll be a mercy.” Tears stung at Delaneys eyes. "Why? What have I done to deserve this, any of it?" Alex studied the broken woman in front of him. She looked tired and scared. Part of him debated just giving in and killing her quickly. Maybe he had put her through enough. But despite any reason he could think of to give her mercy, he knew he wouldn't be fully satisfied until he had her blood on his hands. Soaking in his skin, the spray of it coating his face. Oh he couldn't explain how bad he craved it. A knock on the door pulled him from his thoughts. Pointing the gun at her again he nudged his head towards the door. “Get rid of them. If you say anything, hint at anything being wrong i will kill them and you.” Delaney shuffled towards the door with Alex at her back, digging the barrell of the gun into her side. She was trying her best to stay calm, but all she wanted to do was break down. Let it all out, the screams, the tears. Fear and Anger weighed heavy on her chest. Opening the door just enough to pop her head out, her worried eyes fell on Halfsack. Trying to keep a neutral face, but secretly hoping he would notice something off and tell Jax, Delaney managed a small smile. “Hey, Jax sent me just to check on you, Make sure you didnt need anything. I know you guys arent in the best place right now, but he cares Ya’know.” Kip started to Ramble. Delaney’s eyes filled with tears she couldnt stop. Clearing her throat trying to move the fast growing lump, she tried not to think that this would possibly be the last time she laid eyes on someone in her family. If she knew yesterday would be the last time she saw Jax, she wouldnt of wasted it arguing. The issue of Tara seemed stupid now. Now that today would be her last day. Tried not to think of their little baby tucked away in her belly, another one they wont get the chance to raise. Death would be a blessing in that regard, she wouldnt have to feel the pain of losing another child. “I-Im Fine. Thank you. P-Please tell Jax, that i love him, m-more than a-anything.” Halfsack smiled but looked at his VP’s old Lady quizzically. She was weird,But he couldnt put his finger on it. Is this what pregnancy hormones does to women? Kip nodded at her anyway and started to head back towards his bike. “Oh and Kip?” He turned as she called. “Please can you tell him I’m Sorry?” Kip couldnt hide the confused look on his face but before he could question what she was sorry for the door was shut. Getting on his bike, He headed straight towards Gemma’s. He couldnt shake the feeling something was off.

“Jax i think you need to go home.” Halfsack walked straight into Gemmas Kitchen, finding his VP sat at the table drinking a coffee. He looked like he had been up all night with the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Is she okay?” Gemma questioned worriedly. The last thing her son needed was anything to happen to Delaney and the baby. “Shes weird, i dont know how to explain it. Somethings off Jax. She said to tell you she loves you more than anything, but she was all stuttery and was trying to stop herself from crying. And then i was about to leave she called my name and said to tell you she was sorry.” Kip really couldnt explain the panicked feeling it left him with, but he needed Jax to go home. “So do you think she was just upset about the argument we had? Crying is normal right? Shes pregnant and hormonal.” Jax tried to think logically. Maybe Halfsack was overthinking this. “No baby, i think we should go check on her. If he thinks something is off, its worth checking out. Shes been through alot recently, lets just go make sure she is fine.” Jax nodded at his mother. He didnt want to wait till Monday to go home anyway. This thing with Tara was sorted, he’s handled it, so he was hoping they could move on. He could go home and start getting ready for their little miracle baby. Their boy. Even thinking about the baby made a smile stretch on his face. The three of them. Their own little family. Grabbing his Kutte, Jax followed his mom out the door and headed to his bike. He was going home.

There were many times in her life that Delaney pictured her death. Planned it, hoped for it even. Part of her always knew Alex would one day be the cause of it. But one thing she didnt imagine, was that it would happen in Jax’s house. There she was, on her knees infront of Alex, in Jax’s living room. Gun only a few inches from her forehead. 1 Shot. Clean. Execution Style. Thats all it would take, and she would no longer exist. Would Jax be the one to find her? No, she didnt want that image left for him. She didnt want him to see her like that. It would haunt him. How long would he wait before seeking comfort from another woman? Would it be Tara’s arms he fell back into? She hoped not. But the thought of him running to a crow eater for comfort didnt make her feel any better. She could see the front door in her peripheral vision, like it was taunting her. Her only escape route and she couldnt take it. A punch to the side of the head brought her out of her thoughts. Fuck. “Are you even listening?” Alex spat at her. She winced as pain shot down her face and through her jaw. “Yeah, some shit about your gonna kill me. Leave my body for Jax. Whatever. I told you earlier. Im done with your games. You wanna kill me? Get it fucking over with.” Another smack split her cheek and had her seeing stars. Her ears were ringing with the force of the smack and she blinked hard trying to come to her senses. She heard the safety click off on the gun and her stomach dropped. “Are you gonna cry?” He taunted. Gritting her teeth, Delaney looked forward. Was she fuck going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her panic. No if she was being taken from this earth, she was doing it swinging. She was fighting. She wasnt going to make it easy for this bastard. “Any Last words my love?” He grinned as he looked down at her. So scared, but trying to be so strong. He could see it in her eyes, the fear, and he would be lying if he said it didnt make him happy. “Yeah, I hope that Jax tortures you before he kills you. I hope he hurts you so fucking bad. Makes you cry like the pathetic little boy you really are on the inside. Theres a reason you are the way you are Alex. What is it huh? Mommy didnt love you enough? Did she not hug you? Did Daddy beat you? Was he never proud? Were you never good enough Alex Reid? Tried your hardest but never got daddy and mommy’s approval.” She could see the rage flicker in his eyes. It was working, she was getting to him. With any luck he would kill her quickly.

Pulling up to the unusually quiet house, Jax was instantly worried. Usually the music Delaney played could be heard in the street it was that loud. And if you stood at the bottom of the drive you could see her dancing and swaying about the kitchen to the beat as she cleaned or cooked. There was always movement in their home, but now it was eerily quiet. Deciding instantly they needed to be careful Jax walked to where his mom sat in her car. “Prospect was right. Somethings off. Stay here, call the rest of the guys.” Gemma’s face showed her worry instantly. “Ya’know shes probably in bed getting rest like the doctor told her yesterday. You should probably leave her alone, let her rest. The doors not smashed off, its not trashed and theres no sign of an intruder. Jax maybe give her time.” Gemma tried to reason with her son, there was no sign of anything being wrong apart from the house being quiet. Sleeping people dont make much noise. Jax shook his head as he thought about what his mom said. He had the same feeling as Halfsack now he was here. His stomach twisted painfully. He just had to see her. Once he saw with his own eyes he would know she was okay and he would leave her to rest. “Okay, your probably right. I’ll go in through the garage and just check on her.” Knowing her son wasnt going to rest until he saw her in the flesh, Gemma agreed. Lighting a cigarette, she sat back and waited for Jax to come back.

#sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy fanfiction #sons of anarchy imagine #Jax Teller #jax teller fanfiction #jax teller imagine #jax teller x reader #jax teller x oc

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