With everything happening to Israel, I hope you’re ok

thank you :D i’m fortunately mostly safe from what’s happening. i only had a siren once and heard the booms only several times and i don’t live near the areas where the riots and lynches are happening.

here is my rant about the situation

sadly, though, i do have to read a lot of posts from ignorant people who clearly haven’t done any research into the situation (i.e. don’t live in it, didn’t watch the israeli news, or plain just believes whatever pallywood posts). i don’t have much influence sadly but i have to make things clear to people who might be confused - the situation began because of people unbelieving that they live in a society and do, in fact, have to act like it. it started in six houses where the residents were evicted because they weren’t paying rent for decades despite the agreements and somehow they turned it into a international thing. then rioters were throwing rocks from the mosque and running into it when the soldiers came and were like ‘how dare they go into a holy place’ while they cowardly threw rocks from a mosque* on ramadaan like, wow, talk about desecrating a holy place. 

and ofc the whole hamas shooting thousands of rockets into israel, with a third of its rockets landing in gaza killing many gazans. idf attacking high profile hamas operators and warning citizens of the buildings they were going to bomb because what a surprise, hamas hides behind its citizens and then blames it on israel. we literally have a history of giving medical treatment to gazans, i don’t know how else to tell people that we give a crap. because we could have literally erased gaza from the earth. also the reason they dont have electricity? one of the rockets hit the power line. karma is a bitch but sadly it harms the citizens more than the actual bastards in hamas. btw, those rockets? those tunnels that they built to get into israel? all those villas to the leaders? where do you think the money came from? they came from all the money that was given for the citizens. the citizens saw none of it.

also, anyone calling gaza an open air prison is an idiot who never opened an atlas because they think all gaza’s borders are in israel.

well, boo boo, wrong! its southern border is with *drums roll* egypt. which, btw, actually blocks the border from anything. so, like, once again, israel gets the heat for being pushovers, great.

we had sadly jews attacking and lynching on arabs and that something that should never have happened and i’ll never be happy that those things happened. but it didn’t happen in a bubble. it wasn’t also the only kind of attacks that happened. arabs attacking and lynching on cars, on people. they burned down synagogues! they burned down holy places with torah scrolls that were destroyed and the pictures literally look like the  Kristallnacht in 1938. one time, an arab saw it happening and managed to save the torah scrolls and omg, what an amazing guy. but still, so many holy scriptures were burnt and destroyed. the images are horrifying and i’m crying by just remembering. because israel is supposed to be the place jews would feel safe finally. we were supposed to be safe from progroms, from lynching, from our holy places being treated like firewood.

you have the right extremities attacking arabs, and you have jews unable to decide if they should stay at their homes during a siren and risk being hit by a rocket or brave the mamad (bunker) with their arab neighbors that are suddenly hostile to the point of attacking.

israel was never perfect. we have so much to improve and racism is still an issue. but also remember that we are less than 75 years old. it took the usa over 200 years to even begin to deal with its racism. we had to deal with so many wars just to exist and we don’t have the benefit of the sea as a barrier. you can literally drive down south and suddenly find yourself in jordan.

but the fact that the world immediately decided that we’re the bad guys no matter how much we strive to do good and for peace despite everyone wanting us gone (not in a different state, gone. dead. in the goddamn sea.).

the world is treating the palestinians like little babies who can do no harm. i hate to break it to them, but they can and did do a whole lot of harm. a lot of israeli arabs have helped israeli jews in so many cases in the past and present. a lot of medical professionals are arabs. they came to help after the tragedy in meron mountain. a lot of amazing stories of them being kind and true brethren. a lot of stories of co-existing. but they were literally crumbled down to nothing when suddenly the mixed cities began exploding with lynches and attacks and just pure terror. bedouins blocking one of the main roads to be’er sheba. electricity boxes being destroyed, leaving many people (mainly israeli jews) without it and no batteries or internet

i’m ranting now because if i have to read another post crying over palestinians children being harmed and then sneering at israeli people for existing and wishing for their deaths, i will literally go to them to shoot their legs myself (don’t know how, but i will) because children are already showing signs of extreme ptsd, of anxiety. the south (especially the area around the border with gaza) had been dealing with constant rockets for 20 years. children grow up so traumatized they can’t be soldiers because the sound of a gun going off sends them into a panic attack.

like, the usa is asking israel and hamas to have a cease fire, but it keeps basically looking at israel to back down and i’m so in the mood to say ‘no. i say, get the citizens out and just raze the place down’ even if it’s impossible to actively do. i’m done with sjw thinking they’re so woke and amazing for supporting the palestinians while they’re actually supporting the destruction of israel over all and the jews in particular.

because guess what? antisemitism have never been more in fashion.

(i’m sorry for going off on an adorable anon wanting to see me safe, but thank you for letting me go off like that. i needed to rant. also, anyone spreading hate should be ashamed)

p.s. anyone wanting to rant about apartheid or occupied territory, go open a dictionary or a history book on what actual apartheid is and then go check the archeological evidence of jews having occupied the land of israel before islam was a thing and even before christianity was a thing. especially how the dome of the rock was built on the temple mount. on top of what used to be the holy temples for the jews. you also always had jews living in israel in small numbers. we were never truly gone from the land of israel.

p.s.s. a good video i found that summarizes mostly well is ‘geography now-israel’. it’s not perfect but it gets the point across.

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته، أخوات

i have some bad coping mechanisms because of situations i’ve been through as a child. honestly, i’m trying to change & find better coping mechanisms - journaling, gym anything positive. but, it is a slow process because i’m still healing. ‎الحمد لله على كل حال

i think these coping mechanism are starting to influence those around me? for example, i shutdown a lot when i’m triggered by something or upset; now they do too. i purposefully distance myself from other when i’m upset; now they do too.

it’s sort of discouraging because i feel like i’m trying so hard to change. yet i can see them doing what i’m trying so hard to leave behind?

then i start to think what if they had always been like this. however, i’m only noticing now but, i feel like this is less likely because i’ve known them for years.

not once have i seen these negative traits in them. now, i see these traits in them more & more with each day.

i want to speak to them about it but, everytime i do they say ‘i have always been like this.’ i feel as though it’s not true because with me they have never been like that.

sometimes, i think it’s because my actions have hurt them? so, when i’m upset& i distance myself from them they are hurt. by copying what i do i end up feeling the same way they do. الله أعلم

these are only my thoughts. if you could offer some advice it’d be a great help too.

-🤍

و عليكم السلام و رحمة الله و بركاته beautiful soul 🍃

I hope you are in the best shape of health and Iman.

Reading your asks I had two seperate ideas pop up in my mind: it reminded me of a conversation I had with my therapist a few sessions ago about coping mechanisms, and of Mufti Menk's last khutbah this Friday that was posted on YouTube about heart breaks. I will start with the latter because it is a very brief idea. Mufti Menk said we do talk about being broken hearted but how much of our doing did break other people's hearts. - well this is about the part you mentioned about the thought that you might have hurt those people around you by isolating and distancing yourself in the past - I really don't mean anything with it, your words just reminded me of the khutbah and I wanted to share, you might want to check it, it's there on YouTube. I can link you the video if you want 😘

Moving on to the main point: coping mechanisms, and I quote my therapist (shhh don't tell her 😅) : coping mechanisms are tools that come with our personalities. They are not something we choose. They are related/ specific to each personality type, and we dont get to judge or evaluate if they are good or bad. /End quote. However, depending on the level of our self-awareness and knowledge, we can identify the patterns that are 'unhealthy' and try to replace them with healthier ones. Which is something you are already doing sis! You are finding your escape on journaling, gym, etc. That's great! I really congratulate you on this transformation. Proud of you! Allahuma barik ✨ The thing is, we can't always control our reactions? Because they are steaming from the emotional part in our brain, and the rational part needs a bit of buffering before it takes the wheel? So maybe sometimes we catch ourselves doing the unhealthy behaviors as an immediate response, then we take a break, we rationalize, and decide to break/ stop that pattern and opt for something healthier, with little damage? What I am saying is, it is not a work of magic, nor is it a software code, even if we try to condition our brain to work the heathier way, sometimes we find ourselves falling into our old traps, and when that happens, we shouldn't be upset or disappointed in ourselves (or in therapy for example), we should just take a breath, understand ourselves, understand our triggers, break the pattern and switch to the healthier coping mechanisms. I remember my therapist referring to them as " emotional paracetamol " pills, that should be always in our pocket and we should take them whenever necessary.

Now, I need to stop myself from deviating. Referring to your story, tbh, I do believe that these people in your life could be honest when they said that they have always been like that, maybe you really never noticed, because you lacked the self-awareness before? And when we don't know/ can't identify something, it is evident that we wouldn't see it in others, when we see it we can't identify it, we can't name it.. with that being said, maybe growing up and in your teen years with all the emotional tornment that comes with adolescence, you never really paid attention? So my advice on this matter is : let it go, don't give it heavier weight, and forgive yourself. Don't stay hung up on the past and what you can't change, rather invest all your energy on the present and how you can be there for them. Also, it is very normal if you find that person a bit reserved when you start trying to connect with them and get them to open up. Usually we tend to feel weird and wary when someone starts to behave differently towards us? Even if the new behavior is the healthier one, the behavior we had always waited for them to adopt and wished for..? It's confusing tbh, and we start doubting their intentions maybe because a part of us don't want to get our hopes up to be crashed again? Maybe because we have trust issues? Do you get my point? So I think you should be persistent even if they don't show compliance at first, you should show them that you are in it for the long run and that you really are there for them, you want to support them, fix whatever is wrong and help them heal and grow.. so basically what I am saying is don't be discouraged if they are still closed off, don't back down, keep trying.. in shaa Allah eventually they will open up and they will be grateful you didn't give up on them.. 🤍 And it's only then when they feel safe that you can start talking about the unhealthy coping mechanisms and the 'negative traits' like you said, because at any point before that trust is built, they will feel probably feel attacked and they will feel offended, yk? So be patient, and take it slow with them, nobody said this was easy, but it's only the 'special ones, the strong ones' do decide to break toxic cycles and unhealthy patterns, the average continue to exist randomly aimlessly and continue spreading and repeating those cycles, in vain. I am proud of you sis 🤍

May Allah swt help you break the cycle, and cross the bridge to a healthier stage of life. May Allah swt mend your heart and fill its cracks with light and Iman. Ameen. 🤍

P.s. A special thank you wa jazaki Allahu kulla Khayr for sending this as anonymous even tho we can (already had) have this conversation on DMs (or at least a bit of it), I feel like the reason behind your anon is that you are trying to spread awareness, encourage sisters who have problems to seek help and share their stories, and to actually take the first step and in shaa Allah more sisters will follow and the chain of comfort, help and support will start forming .. 😍 so thank you thank you thank you habibty, your encouragement and support to me and to this page means the world to me ❤️

- A. Z. 🍃

kinda went off the rail yesterday and made a dragon age elf oc called Micah, who is based on gwindor and I plan this elf’s story into finley lavellan’s story arc in inquisition and now i decided that after my lavellan and dorian breaks up one year post-trespasser in this fanfic arc i planned for them, they aren’t gonna get back together by the end of the fic. instead, my lavellan is gonna keep taking a break from this relationship and im gonna leave it open like that. like, im not sure if i wanna ship my lavellan with this Micah (whom i actually really love right now), but lavellan x dorian is making less and less sense the more i think about it. And honestly, i dont think any sort of development dorian can have would change anything substantially.

i always have a rough time writing lavellan x dorian, cause the fact that dorian is tevinter, the fact that he shares kinship with slavers and slave owners is just always fucking ridiculous on its own. And given that lavellan is an elf in dragon age universe and there is this history of tevinters enslaving his ancestors and enacting literal and cultural genocide against his people, i always have a hard time justifying lavellan falling in love with dorian and im pretty sure other ppl has that problem too. Also, even though dorian is the head of his house now, we still dont know if he dismisses the goddamn slaves his parents owned, so there is also this bullshit. Then there is dorian “i almost definitely slept with elven sex slaves in the elven slums--who are either socially marginalized people forced into sex work or victims of sex trafficking” pavus talking about how slavery isn’t that bad in tevinter, and then turn around and wax poetic about how same-gender relationships aren’t meant to be about love in tevinter wah wah wah. Anybody who read the codex entry on tevinter culture in da:i knows that same-gender relationships are only frowned upon in tevinter imperium when it disrupts the cis-heterosexual political marriages between noble mage houses, same-gender sex and relationships are in fact ENCOURAGED in tevinter when it happens between slave owners and their slaves. so yeah, i said dorian has never been a fucking victim before, well, this is why. sexuality and class privilege/oppression are intertwined in real world and in fictional universes that mirrored the real world and believe or not, being the top of social hierarchy means dorian got the better end of the bargain. he said, oh, “anything between two men, it’s about pleasure”. yeah, specifically a slaver owner’s pleasure in violating and further dehumanizing a person lol!!! but sure dorian you are so fucking oppressed.  im just. i have been wary before, of dorian. because of this slavery thing, and i never really talked abt why. and im just. i am even more wary now. and i still like dorian i guess, but, lmao. i just can’t make lavellan and dorian some sort of great love story, cause it really ain’t one. lavellan fell in love with dorian cause i insisted on having romance interests in every single one of my dragon age playthroughs--especially when it’s a canon one, but honestly he really shouldn’t have. in my fic, they broke up cause  finley lavellan knew dorian used to whore around in tevinter’s elven slums/alienages, and someone lied to lavellan and said that dorian is still doing that with lavellan living at his estate, and even though lavellan knew abt the truth later, he still felt gross about sharing a bed with someone who slept with potential victims of sex trafficking, so, they are taking a break for now. it’s just bad ok, lavellan is also in the right, ok. fuck knows whats gonna happen in da4, i doubt it’d change anything--and that’s speaking on the pretence that dorian will even be involved in da4.  i have this headcanon abt lavellan crafting a pair of rings for him and dorian in his forge as their engagement rings, i will retain that headcanon about the engagement rings, but the ring might not be for dorian.  anyways this is elf oc is based on gwindor, and gwindor’s story is that he was an elven lord (presumably a noldor elf) of hidden kingdom of nagathrond, and he was a valiant and fierce warrior who literally charged inside The Devil Himself (morgoth)’s stronghold with his company after his little brother was brutally executed (god. poor gelmlir) in front of the elven host, unfortunately for him, everybody in his company is killed and he alone was captured and enslaved and forced to work in morgoth’s mine for 14 years. apparently during the 14 years, he was “mutilated”, his hair turned grey during the process, and the experience “sapped his strength” (i think it’s like, spiritual strength, cause it seems elves in tolkien universe draws strength and power of all kinds from their fea aka their spirit). he eventually escaped and he lost his hand in the process, and almost died from losing the goddamn hand, but then he got rescued by another elf. BUT this elf (beleg) got accidentally stabbed to death by his disaster of a human best friend soon after. And gwindor, who’s already dealing with a truck load of trauma himself, was kind enough to comfort and and guide this disaster human dude (who went in shock cause he can’t accept what he did with his own damn hands) and brought him to nagthrond aka his home. but when gwindor needed love and support the most from his loved ones, they all stop listening to him and he lost his previous influence on his people and nobody is there to help him through his trauma, and he ended up feeling like he’s unfit to be loved, which is bullshit. eventually this disaster human dude’s dumbass advice got him and everybody he loved killed. And i was like it’s pretty bullshit that this obviously traumatized character is ostracized from his community for being traumatized, instead of getting the love and support he deserves and i said thats bullshit because in this house traumatized people get to have live happily ever after. so my desire to make gwindor happy inspires the creation of this elf oc.  now dragon age elves can’t really be lords or ladies or prince or princess, but the keeper and the keeper’s children are usually descendants of the elven nobilities of the dales, so, that should be close enough. Also i want more dalish mage characters anyways. This elf oc is a dalish mage, his name is Micah and he’s the First of his clan, as matter of fact. I wouldn’t say he’s exactly like merrill, but he does have merrill’s hair colour (dark raven hair but his hair is long), merrill’s eyes (more hazel than just green, but yeah) and merrill’s skin tone (light/pale). he’s also the more studio type, like merrill, and has a more bubbly personality than either of my lavellans. This dalish mage used to love the fade, and he loved the ancient songs he witnessed in the fade the most. Micah also has a beautiful voice and he’s very good at singing and he always carries a little lute with him to accompany his tunes. When he’s not nose deep in tomes about spells and magical theories and ancient texts, he’s out singing in the woods with his lute--he only performs in front of his family or his closest childhood friends since he’s not a people person. While finley lavellan has this appearance of gentleness, he can be quite ruthless and cold. And lavellan is more of a natural leader type of person. Micah, on the other hand, is truly a soft and gentle soul and is really not the kind to truly be a leader of any kind. 

so what happened is that, Micah is from a clan that’s always travelling around ferelden. they settled around denerium when the fifth blight broke out (that was events of da:o), but specifically he went to the denerium alienage to trade some goods with the shop keepers at least two weeks prior to the warden’s arrival at the alienage. However, he noticed the presences of the tevinters, become worried for the alienage’s safety since he suspects these are slavers, and he’s locked in the quarantine inside because of the spread of the plague. shianni found him trying to warn the sick alienage residents and shared her concern, but at the time shianni is just suspicious and not openly oppose to the tevinters’ presences. now in da:o, im pretty sure if you are an elf warden at least, you can feign sickness and get “admitted” in, but then you’d get stripped of your belongings and had to fight 14 tevinter enemies with literally no weapon so im pretty sure you weren’t supposed to do that (i did that cause i was a dumbass). so what happens is that Micah tried doing that, he ended up fighting a dozen and more soldiers with no weapon or any sort and was quickly subdued. And he was shipped away with the rest of alienage residents before the warden ever got to confront the tevinter slavers unfortunately. he just turned 20. Then after his disappearance, shianni becomes more openly oppose to the tevinters’ presences at the alienage since she’s more convinced that something fishy is going on.   so...a tevinter magister had him....for 10 years. that guy is a blood mage and he’s also like, basically danarius. so like, a demon. Not gonna go into detail about what happened because i dont like to talk too much about actual events that caused the traumas, i just wanna talk about the recovery and dealing with the trauma. but, basically, micah revealed right away that he is a mage, hoping the status of being a mage’d get him released in tevinter but that didn’t happen and the magister kept using his blood to fuel his spells, since his blood is potent with magic. later, the magister also experimented on him with semi-refined lyrium to make his blood even more potent but the experimentation failed and permanently blinded Micah and turned his hair white and he received a long scar from the left eye that goes straight down to his lips and continues down the right half of his torso. Basically, instead of losing a hand like gwindor, Micah lost his sight. And apparently, in canon, king maric got captured by this tevinter blood mage magister dude and alistair had to go and save him or whatever but king maric was hooked to this machine and trapped in this dream-state in the fade so that the blood mage can use his blood and life force to fuel spells. so after Micah is blinded and disfigured and deemed not as “useful” as he is before, what happened to king maric sort of happened to him, but he didn’t spend long enough time hook to the machine so he isn’t gonna die once he’s unhooked from the machine. for a while, Micah doesn’t even know he was trapped in a dream, and when he realizes he’s trapped in the fade, he couldn’t get out and back into his body. Events of inquisition start to happen, this tevinter magister is obviously a venatori, and he went south after the inquisition started to fight the venatori everywhere, probably as reinforcement. he brought Micah with him. And i think my lavellan either confronted this blood mage at hissing wastes (maybe it’s the moutaintop camp? maybe it’s after you cleared out the venatori at hissing waste and he came as reinforcement?). not to digress but i’d love to fight a blood mage in inquisition but that was not meant to be, so it’s happening in this oc fanfic scenario.  Inquisitor finley lavellan had a very hard time trying to get to this guy, and know he’s a quite a powerful mage, and he is forced to retreat with his companions and inquisiton soldiers to the camp. This time lavellan decided to sneak in while his party member created a distraction outside, and once inside the camp, he discovered poor micah hooked to a machine--presumably the source of the magister’s power. pegging the machine as something that traps the elf in the fade, lavellan connects himself to the machine and went to find micah in the fade. With lavellan’s help, micah is able to break away from the eternal dream and wake up. his body is obviously frail from spending a few years immobile, so lavellan tried to sneak out with micah in his arms but they were confronted by the magister who brought numerous archers and ambushed them at the lobby (inside some mountain at hissing waste), lavellan opened one or two rifts to suck in the archers, and petrified the magister with earth magic enhanced by the anchor’s connection to the fade (the magister is immobile and his flesh is slowly hardening from the earth magic but he’s alive and acutely and painfully aware of what’s happening to his body). Micah is the one who got the tear the magister from limb to limb with his own magic and explode him into chunks of meat, avenging the abuse that’s done to him. and finley brought micah with him to skyhold and there he rests and recovers. finley,  inquisition mages (not dorian though, him being tevinter mage and a mediocre healer and all, it’s more like, vivenne and solas actually) all help to nurture him back to health. he become healthy again, even though he is still blind and his hair remains the same grey white colour and the scar that disfigured his face is unremovable. Micah unfortunately becomes afraid of the fade and hates it when he dreams, sometime he’d wake up terrified, not knowing if he wakes up from a dream or if he just drops into one. It was with finley’s help that he become more aware of what’s dream and what’s reality. while Micah’s at skyhold, micah and finley becomes good friends as finley constantly visits him and even brings him a lute after knowing micah loves to play and sings. they become close enough that micah is comfortable singing to finley. micah didn’t get involved with inquisition business while he’s recovering, however, he did discover a way to “see” with the tap of his feet and sounds bouncing off object, kinda like how toph (btw i love toph) “see” with passive earth bending. i like to think micah always favours earth magic and telekinesis and rarely uses other elemental magic. Micah ends up combining his telekinesis skills with a form of weaponizing sounds (it’s sound bending lmao) and develops something very close to the force mage specialization in da 2. aka pushing people off with force of sound, manipulating gravity. And Micah uses sound to “see”, basically. And singing evolves from a hobby to necessity, since humming/singing or playing an instrument allows him to “see”, so that he’s not trapped in an eternal darkness.  with finley’s help, micah finds his way back to his clan still wandering around ferelden and they tearfully welcomed his return after presuming him dead for years. That was like, right after the events of inquisition main game concludes. Then three years later, micah crosses finley again in tevinter out of all places. turns out that micah has seen the dread wolf/solas in the fade and he was offered to join him but micah is loyal to finley and did not answer. More importantly, ever since micah is back, he hate it that everybody pities him. even though his clan loves him still, they treat him like a broken fragile thing who can’t take care of himself. And micah, is able to walk around and goes about his daily business as anybody who has their sights, is sick of people pitying him. The fact that he is no longer the First as he is seen incapable of becoming the keeper angers him (and micah is almost never angry), so he willingly left the clan and started his own journey to find out more about the dread wolf and that journey allows him to cross path with finley again. when micah met finley again, finley has already break up with dorian and now lived in the cottage he built somewhere in the woods at the outskirt of some city. There, they both devised the plan to venture out to ruins of Arlathan as companions to find out the truth about the blight and solas’ plan/stopping solas.