Let me start with clarifying Noe1 LOL, I’m borrowing the 1 inclusion from The Locked Tomb fandom and how we often refer to the original Gideon (G1deon) to distinguish him from the main character Gideon Nav. So Noe1 is just my distinguishing original Noel from Charlie-Noel! Perhaps I’m assuming too much TLT/Mal overlap…. But if you haven’t read TLT oh my god pls do (and my buddy @croweofthebog has a really fun crossover fic you can be rewarded with).

As for Jewish Noel, first and foremost he’s Jewish because I want him to be. Trans Jewish Butch headcanons a trans Jewish Butch wow fork found in kitchen. But I’m standing by it and doubling down.

I don’t have as much here because really I just think it would be fun. I’m imagining NY Polycule of a Catholic priest, a Jew, a fragment of an elder god beyond comprehension, and the staunch anti-religious guy they all revolve around. It’s just tasty whaaat can I say. I’m also thinking back to the comic from potato-lord that had Noel and Oscar praying together or doing religious rites together and I think that’s really fantastic and fun!

I also love the idea of Noel having drifted from practice with leaving family/the War/taking on Noe1’s identity and then finding his way back over time. Anytime I can get my hands on a character who is Jewish but their Judaism is downplayed or a character who could be Jewish it’s like… what would it look like for this guy to re-choose ritual and practice? (I have a superbat fic that will never escape my mind in part about this). This is actually just generally true for religion, I’m a big religion guy (not in a cult way, I was just a religious studies student and a JCS fan) and think it adds such a fun layer to stuff.

To get technical, I think Noel would maybe be born into a conservative family and then move to reform if not be born in reform. It sorta depends to me on where his folks immigrated from. Which leads me to….

Cracking my knuckles here and opening up the gaeilge side of things in his last name, so Dowd comes from Ó Dubhda (derived from dubh for black, meaning generally like grandson/descendent of dark or black). In contrast, Noe1’s last name Finley (which is more Scottish origin and I don’t have any Scottish Gaelic but) tied back to fairness, blondness. For sake of having fun we’re going to take those both literally as physical descriptors of their respective families and say the Dowds are darker haired and the Finleys are lighter. I’m going to round back out to the kibitz I swear but this is also fun. I think there’s something fun about Noel potentially coming from a Dark Features Family and then taking up his dead best friend’s name, Light Features, and having to like… use that name and look in the mirror and nothing match. Very haunting of the past. No one would really even think to point it out but it haunts him just a little bit.

But anyways. Thinking of the Dowds as at least half Irish immigrants, if we’re talking potential for interfaith marriage then we’re probably talking reform. I do have separately similar headcanoning around Daniel (and/or maybe the Saltzmans before him…?) being German immigrants to England who converted to Christianity to escape Jewish persecution (Saltzman often being a German-Jewish last name). This would add to why Daniel is so adamant and could bring a fun lens to Bella’s pushback! I also love the idea of people from Arthur’s future acting as reflections of those from his past, and I think having returning to Jewish practice Noel/withheld from Jewish heritage Bella and religious cult parents/Oscar declaring his devotion to Arthur as a religious purpose is tasty and I’m microwaving them.

So really it starts with I just love that archetype and thought he’d be so wonderful as a butch. But then… I was bewitched.

First and foremost, I’m interested in the early access to HRT that he could’ve had access to while abroad during the war. It’s maaybeee a little too early in our real timeline (from records we have it was like… 1910s/20s in Germany), but because this is FICTION I can do whatever I want. And lesbian bars/gathering spaces were present and accessible at the time, so picture if you will a young Charlie Dowd— pause wait.

Actual first and foremost, Charlie is just such a neutral name. This could be short for any manner of “girls” names that he then shortens to Charlie for passing sake. Likewise for Noel (Nole vs No-EL), which adds for me the fun of asking was Noel also a butch. I’m thinking here in line with Lee Mandelo’s butch mc in The Woods All Black, Leslie, who enlists as an army nurse in order to have a career while being butch (and playing around in European queer scenes, we’re looping back around). I could see Charlie & Noe1 being two butch childhood friends using the war as an opportunity to leave their hometown environment (especially since Charlie S4 doesn’t seem choked up about being cut off from family/spent all that time in Egypt no side comment about family).

WHICH! Then back to Europe! There would definitely be opportunity for two butch army nurses to access HRT (which would make living in the States again easier, passing as a man à la Jess in Stone Butch Blues and also…. Like me and a million dykes through history). I also though enjoy the idea of Charlie just pretending to be a dude from the jump and joining the army, but the vision is less practical. Easier maybe if Noe1 is a guy (and an ally!) and helps perhaps.

Easy enough either way to take your dead friend’s name and identity (and really, ultimately, it’s most fun to me if Noe1 is a cis man and Charlie enlists as a nurse so they stay together, then there’s easy army records to back up Charlie’s claiming to be a guy). He even alludes to looking younger than he is… hello transgender! In my heart of hearts he has something lesbian going on with John (as opposed to the gay thing John has going on with Arthur) given John’s gender business. I am partial to an Arthur/Noel old school fag4dyke situation for the ultimate benefit of John’s In There. Not as partial to Noel/Oscar though I enjoy their… one second of interaction in canon.