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trickstercaptain · 1 year

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anonymous asked: I know this sounds so vague, but can you talk more about Jack's relationship with Teague? Whether canon, headcanon... anything really. I'm familiar with some books and I know Teague was a horrible parent, I just want to hear more about how it affects/ed Jack

not at all anon, i love random questions like these! so if you want actual canon examples of Teague’s stellar parenting skills, this is the go-to post that covers most of the core things that @thecodekeeper & I have gone on to flesh out in our own headcanons for their relationship ( because there are a lot of inconsistencies across books ). but if we’re talking about the effect that the childhood abuse has on Jack.... is it a cop out for me to say it explains everything about him? lmao. there are so many ways that you can connect trilogy-era Jack to the way he was treated as a child: it explains why Jack is fiercely independent to the point where he refuses to rely on other people, why he is also such an attention seeker who possesses a narcissistic ego in need of satisfaction, it explains a lot about his difficulty in forming healthy relationships with the other characters, why he struggles to trust people and open up, and when you analyse the Locker sequence in AWE in depth, a lot of the mental health struggles that it reveals about Jack have their roots in his unhappy childhood.

not all of this can be directly blamed on Teague: in his canon, Jack grew up both on Shipwreck Cove and crewing on pirate ships from the age of nine, which is absolutely not a safe or healthy environment for any child to be in. Jack was exposed to violence and danger from a very young age which has a noticeable psychological effect on him, but while Teague would meet Jack’s basic needs ( in the sense of ensuring that he was fed, clothed and housed on board his ship, and was taught a trade seeing as he did teach him a lot of the skills that shaped him into the capable pirate captain he later becomes ), meeting Jack’s emotional needs as a child who lost his mother ( and primary caregiver, seeing as Teague spent a lot of Jack’s early childhood away ) at the age of seven just... didn’t happen lmao. after his mother’s death, he was left at his grandmother’s manor in Madagascar for two years, where he was emotionally and physically abused ( she’s even worse than Teague, for the record ), and then when Teague did eventually pull himself together enough to come and get him, Jack began working on board Teague’s ship as cabin boy and therefore learned to treat him as his captain, rather than his father ( which is a forbidden phrase for Jack throughout the books ).

Teague abuses alcohol, has a temper, and has a fearsome reputation, so Jack learned to be afraid of him and walk on eggshells around him from a young age or face his wrath ( casual physical violence was common, though Teague only beat Jack once, which is detailed in that post above ). most of the abuse was verbal and emotional, however, and Jack was severely emotionally neglected. combined with the fact that children just do not live on Shipwreck Cove for good reason, Jack was extremely lonely and unhappy, and learned to bottle up and internalise his emotions ( especially as he was constantly criticised, by Teague and then later by Christophe, for being too soft — this is the root cause of Jack’s angst over being a good man and doing the right thing during the films ). it also caused him to run away from Shipwreck at the age of fifteen, where he was at his most conflicted over whether he actually even wanted to be a pirate himself, and unlike in canon where Teague just... lets him go, for some reason, Ace and I headcanon that Teague does track him down and drag him back to Shipwreck Cove against his will.

this controlling behaviour around what Jack can or can’t do is probably the single biggest reason why Jack is so resistant to being controlled later in life. it’s why he has a constant tug of war between wanting closeness and connection with other people, and resisting it out of a fear of feeling smothered because controlling behaviour is his primary experience within his closest familial relationship. then there’s the fact that survivors of child abuse are much more likely to find themselves in toxic and abusive relationships in their adult life — Jack’s dynamic with Christophe certainly skirts that line in canon ( and in modern verse Ace and I explore it more ), and I do personally think that Jack has had some less than healthy experiences with casual sexual partners over the years. it’s also why he favours casual, no strings attached dynamics rather than emotionally fulfilling relationships, because as a child he was never able to be vulnerable ( or was punished for expressing any vulnerability ), so he actively avoids being put in that position with a partner in his adult life.

the behaviour that we witness in Jack during the Brethren Court scene in AWE, when Teague is summoned by Barbossa, is a direct result of all of this experience as a child. Jack’s entire body language changes the moment that Teague appears, and he becomes much more submissive and uncomfortable. this will never change: Jack will always be afraid of Teague and will be at risk of spiralling into old patterns of behaviour and coping mechanisms when he is in close proximity. and even if, in his adult life, Jack is in a loving relationship with a partner who would maybe want to stand up for him ( since I have explored this quite a bit in my writing ), Jack would not want his partner to stand up to Teague either, and would actively try to prevent any kind of confrontation if he were aware of it.

#;anonymous #&. and you want to turn pirate yourself. is that it? ( answered. )#&. he plays things closer to the vest now ( headcanon. )#child abuse /#i hope this answered your question anon!#i need a headcanon section of the blog that is just for teague enquires lmao

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falling-camellias · 2 years

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whats mritunjoy's tragicomedy?

It’s a small webcomic you can find on webtoons under the creator Oratoreye and it’s one of my absolute favorite pieces of media.

The characters are incredibly charismatic despite being terrible people (although if you’re like me that’s most of the appeal) and the mystery is extremely compelling.

Admittedly though, the main reason it’s my absolute favorite is the art.

It’s about the aesthetics! It’s about the intricate line work! It’s about the taking advantage of the art form of comics!! I see more comics act like screenshots of an animation, which isn’t necessarily bad, but seeing Mritunjoy’s Tragicomedy take full advantage of the medium it is to tell its story is such a breath of fresh air

Look at how the panels interact with the characters! It adds so much more to the story, the only other comic I can think of that employs this same method is witch hat atelier which is another top fav for me

this was probably more of a rant than intended (I love this series so much) but it’s essentially a mystery comic on webtoons that’s one of the best webtoons on the platform

#Mritunjoy’s tragicomedy #I hope this answered your question anon!#can-talks

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yourlittlettoy · 7 months

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Have you ever tried to tickle yourself? And did it work?

(if you don't mind, explain the position you used, the way you tickled yourself, and where you tickled yourself)

… no shot I can explain so uhhhh here take a clip of a video I made of myself attempting to instead 🙈💀

#me #ask #anon #answered!#LISTEN I TRIED MY HARDEST #I HOPE THIS ANSWERS YOUR QUESTION LMAO #video #feet #self tickling #tease~#foot tease #ticklish

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lambment · 2 months

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How do you have the energy to post everyday……..how do you pace your time to draw spare tips please 🤲

okay first things first! this is absolutley not a sustainable pace to go at!! just want to make that expectation very clear, that this is not normal!! lol I will run out of energy

a reason why this is happening:

Im having a shit ton of fun (what hyperfixation does to a man/so many brainworms )

I work freelance from my house (I choose my hours)

I've been reintroduced to adhd meds (lol)

everyone is being v nice to me <:

I was extremely burnt-out and barely drawing when I left my job as an animator to pursue boarding, this is like one of the only times ive had fun w art since then.

for proper tips all I can honestly give is: let go of expectations, just draw what you want to see, someone else out there will also probably want to see it too. Im ngl 80% of my comics are literally just stream of thought of what I would think is funny, and some of you are finding it 'hehe haha' too! not policing what Im drawing is rlly helping.

I normally render the ever loving shit out of things, I have let go of that expectation here, im not putting that type of pressure on myself lol, my only job is to have fun with this, therefore Im drawing way more than I normally would! give it a try yourself!

#I hope this answered your question anon #art tips #speaketh

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simplydnp · 1 month

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okay what do you think, easter baking video?? april fools joke?? both???

dan and phil have made a point in their return to be like 'remember all the things you loved about the d&p era? they're all coming back! but this time more gay!' it was literally the focal point of their return: the tatinof dil head. and since then, they've proved this. sims revival, spooky week, halloween baking, google feud, calendar & calendar vlog, dan vs phil, gamingmas, wdapteo--these are all returning projects. the only 'traditions' they have left are pinof (not returning, though we did get pinof reacts), danandphilCRAFTS (which was intended for 3 years and completed them), and easter baking. ergo, why bring everything else back and not this? i won't be like, mad, if we don't get one, but i will be confused, given their all-or-nothing commitment to the revival of the gaming channel.

regarding april fools itself: dan and phil love april fools because they love fucking with us (earned) they plan their pranks out and i respect them for it. while there's been many good ones throughout the years, which other duo, who have been stuck in sexuality and relationship speculation for their entirety in the spotlight (and have finally gotten the nature of their relationship mostly out of the public eye), has ever or will ever do a joint fucking nude and post it. no context. no takebacks. no nothing. to me that is peak dan and phil shenanigans. i expect them to do something for it because they adore april fools. will it eclipse last years? who knows. to me, it doesn't need to, and almost shouldn't. cause that was such psychic damage and i think it should be perceived how it's perceived, but dan and phil are feeling ✌️🤪✌️ lately so i wouldn't put it past them.

#here is your essay anon. i hope you enjoy!! thank u for the question #dnp #c.text #dan and phil #answered #phan #<- for the fandometrics

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hakusins · 2 days

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If male Jordan looks female does female Jordan look like a male? … (let me fuck em both)

unfortunately anon you'll have to get in line - there's already someone by jordan's side and he ain't the sharing type

but on f!jordan design!! I actually didn't think much when making m!jordan cause i was just thinking of what my oc's type would be (pretty men) HBREHBFJHBERF but if i were to view f!jordan, it would just be m!jordan design but female? so they'd look something like this:

BUT YOU DID give me the Thought of .... short haired f!jordan so you also get a bonus brainrot doodle from yours truly <3

but same anon - same, i want to fuck em both

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softcitrus2345 · 6 months

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Hi, I absolutely love your art!! I wanted to ask about the latest kinktober prompt? When Damien woke up in Matt's body, Matt had what I think are claw marks? If they are, what happened to him? Again, I love your art and I hope you have a nice day!!

Congratulations, anon! You have unlocked: LEMON'S OC LORE

The difference in tone between their canon stories and what I share of them here is so funny to me XDD Sorry if I threw yall off with the sudden angst posting, it won't happen too often here-

Thank you so much for the ask anon! I really appreciate your sweet comments and curiosity about my silly little fictional guys ;;w;;

#Holy shit this took forever to finish #hope that answered your question anon XD #Sorry for the angst yall but I couldn't resist the urge to dump lore on here the second I'm prompted to-#softcitrus asks #softcitrus matt #softcitrus damien #softcitrus vanessa #bhm #oc lore

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bibuddie · 23 days

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In your opinion, how do you think is going to evolve Tommy/Buck relationship? What do you think is gonna happen?

hi anon!

okie dokie. so i think the first important thing to note is that we obviously know bucktommy isn't the intended end-goal - there's a few things that clue us in about this, but generally it's pretty widely accepted throughout the fandom space that this isn't the be all and end all for buck.

that being said, this relationship still has the opportunity to be extremely meaningful for buck, and i truly believe it will be.

i do believe that tommy will be around for a while to come, as buck begins to navigate coming to terms with his sexuality. as a man coming to terms with bisexuality in his thirties, he's going to have a lot of complex emotions to navigate, and maybe some unlearning and relearning to do too, and i think tommy's going to help him to do a lot of that. additionally, his dynamic with tommy is something fresh and something that we haven't seen before out of buck in a relationship. i can't remember the last time the flirting was this innocent, for want of a better word. the flirting in buck's apartment was just flirting for the sake of it, no expectation at the end of it and i really loved it and found it extremely refreshing. i honestly wouldn't mind seeing tommy stick around for a minute, and buck getting used to being in a relationship with a man, and learning what that's like and how to navigate both himself and his partner in that set of circumstances.

that being said, as i was saying, this isn't the intended end-game for buck, and i think we all know that. the biggest clue being that tommy is an amalgamation of different facets of eddie in many different ways. i think there will come a point - and i'm not entirely sure what the catalyst will be, although i definitely have some ideas - that tommy senses the dynamic between buck and eddie, if he hasn't already. i think the connection between buck and eddie will be undeniable to tommy, and i think through viewing his life through a slightly different lens, buck may begin to recontextualise his relationship with eddie, and what he wants from it, and i think that's where our line in the sand will be; once buck has that realisation, there's going to be a point of no return - an undeniable moment of reckoning that he's been in love with his best friend for years, and i think tommy will probably get there before buck does, and things will reach their natural end.

#anon #asks #bucktommy #buddie #i hope this answers your question!! (: feel free to ask anything else!!

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captainfern · 5 months

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Is it hard writing smut :0? Idk about you but I have to be really horny to read smut, and if I’m not I just feel completely ashamed and disgusted in myself, and I want to know if it’s like that writing smut

Idk I just feel like you sort of have to be in the mood to write smut if you know what I mean💀

I dunno I’ve never written it before

i read smut like the morning news

no but in all seriousness, i can honestly read it whenever (although certain topics/kinks i have to be in the mood for)— but i have to be in a certain mood to write smut. not necessarily horny, but idk how to describe it. that’s why i love taking asks and using other peoples posts as inspo. if i see a really good idea/ask, then it makes me really want to write something !!

also, there’s no need to be disgusted with yourself. exploring different aspects of your own sexual interests, and sexual writing/creations is completely normal and totally okay. as long as what you are choosing to engage in is safe for you as a person and doesn’t damage your idea of sexual boundaries/kinks, then you’re completely fine !!

and when i’m writing, sometimes i’ll like gain consciousness lmao and cringe myself out. that’s why most of the time i don’t proofread my stuff lol

until i got on tumblr, i’d never written smut before— i’d read it, but never wrote. so yeah, it was a learning experience, but i think i’m doing okay this far lol :)

#captainfern #captainfernsalutes #i actually enjoyed talking a bit about this so thank you anon i hope this answers your question <3

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fdelopera · 7 months

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Hi curious anon here. You mentioned in one of your posts (I think the sennek one? If I’m spelling it right) that the exodus from Egypt was metaphorical as the enslavement in Egypt didn’t happen, but I thought it did? Can you explain? (If you’re happy to of course)

Hi Anon! Thanks for your question. My response is looong lol (you got me going about a special interest), so buckle up!

Sooo I’m going to make a few guesses here, based on the way you’ve phrased your question. Judging from the fact that you’ve written Sukkot as “sennek” (I've looked through recent posts, and I think this is the post you're referring to), I’m going to guess that you’re not Jewish.

And judging from the fact that you think that Shemot, or “Names” (commonly written in Christian bibles as Exodus), is a literal historical account of Jewish history, I’m guessing that you have a Christian background.

You’re not alone in this. And I’m not saying this to pick on you. Many Christians have a literalist interpretation of the Bible, and most have zero knowledge of Jewish history (aside from maybe knowing some facts about the Holocaust). And so, what knowledge of Jewish history you have mostly comes from the Tanakh (what you call the Old Testament).

Tanakh is an acronym. It stands for Torah (the Five Books of Moses), Nevi’im (Prophets), Ketuvim (Writings). Also, the Tanakh and the “Old Testament” are not the same. The Tanakh has its own internal organization that makes sense for Jewish practice. The various Christian movements took the Tanakh, cut it up, reordered it, and then often mistranslated it as a way to justify the persecution of various groups of people — I’m looking at you, King James Bible.

But back to Shemot, the “Exodus” story. The story of Moshe leading the Israelites out of Egypt is more of a Canaanite cultural memory of the Late Bronze Age Collapse between around 1200 – 1150 BCE, which was preserved in oral history and passed down through the ages until it was written down in the form that we know it in the 6th century BCE by Jewish leaders from the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

Since the text is influenced by Babylonian culture and mythology, just as Bereshit is (which you know as Genesis), it is likely that some of the writing and editing of Shemot took place during and after the Babylonian exile in the 500s BCE.

Now, I’m guessing that what I’ve just written in these two paragraphs above sounds very strange to you.

Wait, you might say, didn’t the Israelites conquer the land of Canaan?

Wasn’t the "Exodus" written by Moses’s own hand during the 13th century BCE?

And wasn’t the Pharaoh in the Exodus Ramesses II (aka Ramesses the Great), who ruled in the 13th century BCE?

Actually, no. None of that happened.

The Israelites didn’t conquer Canaan. The Israelites were the same people as the Canaanites, and these are the same peoples as who later became the Jews, as I will explain. The Semitic peoples who would become the Jewish people have been in this area of the Levant since the Bronze Age.

Moshe was not a historical figure and did not write the Torah.

The “Pharaoh” in Exodus is not any specific Egyptian ruler (Ramesses the Great as the “Pharaoh” is mostly a pop culture theory from the 20th century).

Okay, now that I’ve said all that, let’s dive in.

The first ever mention of Israel was inscribed in the Merneptah Stele, somewhere between 1213 to 1203 BCE. Pharaoh Merneptah, who was the Pharaoh after Ramesses the Great, describes a campaign in Canaan to subdue a people called Israel. But there is no mention of plagues or an exodus because those things didn’t happen. The Canaanites were not slaves in Egypt. Canaan was a vassal state of Egypt.

In fact, the events that occurred during the reign of a later Pharaoh, Ramesses III, relate more to Jewish history. Ramesses III won a pyrrhic victory over the Peleset and other “Sea Peoples” who came to Egypt fighting for resources during a time of famine, earthquakes, and extreme societal turmoil. And Ramesses III would witness the beginning of the end of the Bronze Age.

The Canaanites, who were a Semitic people in the Levant, gradually evolved into the people who would become the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah (i.e., Jewish people), but during the 13th Century BCE, they were Canaanites, not Jews.

The Canaanites were polytheistic, worshiping a complex pantheon of gods; they didn’t follow the later Jewish dietary laws (i.e., they ate pork); and their religious practice bore little to no resemblance to the Jewish people of the Second Temple Period.

So, to reiterate, the people in Canaan who called themselves Israel during the Bronze Age were a Semitic people, but they were not recognizably Jewish, at least not to us Jews today. Canaan was a vassal state of Egypt, just as Ugarit and the Hittite Empire were.

Canaan was part of the vast trading alliance that allowed the Bronze Age to produce the metal that historians have named it for: bronze.

Bronze is a mixture of copper and tin (about 90% copper and 10% tin), and in order to make it, the kingdoms of the Bronze Age had to coordinate the mining, transportation, and smelting of these metals from all over the known world. This trading network allowed for the exchange of all sorts of goods, from grain to textiles to gold. Canaan was just one of these trading partners.

Well, between 1200 BCE and 1150 BCE, this entire trading alliance that allowed Bronze Age society to function went (pardon the expression) completely tits up. This is likely due to a large array of events, including famine and earthquakes, which led to an overall societal disarray.

Some of the people who were hardest hit by the famine, people from Sardinia and Sicily to Mycenae and Crete, came together in a loose organization of peoples, looking for greener pastures. These were all peoples who were known to Egypt, and many of them had either served Egypt directly or had traded with Egypt during better days. According to ancient records, this loose grouping of peoples would arrive at various cities, consume resources there, and then leave for the next city (sacking the city in the process).

Just to be clear, these people were just as much the victims of famine as the cities they sacked. There were no “good guys” or “bad guys” in this equation, just people trying as best as they could to survive in a world that was going to shit.

Well, these “Sea Peoples” (as they were much later dubbed in the 19th century CE) eventually made their way to Egypt, but Ramesses III defeated them in battle around 1175 BCE. He had the battle immortalized on his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu.

We don’t know much about these Sea Peoples, but we do know what the Egyptians called them. And from those names, we can figure out some of their origins. Peoples such as the Ekwesh and the Denyen. These were likely the Achaeans and the Danaans.

If you’re familiar with Homer’s Iliad, you’ll recognize these as some of the names that Homer gives to the Greek tribes. Many of the Sea Peoples were from city states that are now part of Greece and Italy.

Yes, the Late Bronze Age Collapse of the 12th Century BCE didn’t just get handed down as a cultural memory of the “Exodus” to the people who would centuries later become the Jews. That cataclysm also inspired the stories that “Homer” would later canonize as the Trojan War in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Exodus and the Trojan War are both ancient cultural memories of the same societal collapse.

And neither the Trojan War nor the Exodus are factual. However, despite having little to no historicity, they both capture a similar feeling of the world being turned upside down.

Well, back to the Sea Peoples. Remember the Peleset that I mentioned a few paragraphs ago? They were one of these “Sea Peoples” that Ramesses III defeated. They were likely Mycenaean in origin, and possibly originated from Crete. After Ramesses III defeated them, he needed a place to relocate them along with several other tribes, including the Denyen and Tjeker. It was a “you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here” situation.

So, Egypt rounded up the surviving Peleset and sent them north to settle — to the land of Canaan.

Now, if you have some Biblical background, let me ask you this. What does “Peleset” sound like? What if we start it with an aspirated consonant, more of a “Ph” instead of a “P”?

That’s right. The Peleset settled in Canaan and became the Philistines.

This is where the real story of the people who would become the Jews begins.

As the Mycenaean (aka Greek) Peleset settled in their new home, they clashed with the Semitic Israelite people of Canaan. Some of these Canaanites fought back. These Canaanites also organized themselves into different groups, or “tribes.” (See where this is going?) Some of these tribes were in the Northern area of Canaan, and some were in the South, but there was a delineation between North and South — aka they did not start out as one people and then split in two. They started as two separate groups.

If you’re following me so far, you’ll know that I’m now talking about what would in time become the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

Well, backtracking a bit. The Bronze Age was ending, and the Iron Age was about to begin. The Peleset/Philistines were experts at smelting iron, which was harder to work with than bronze due to it having a much higher smelting temperature. When the Peleset settled in Canaan, they brought this iron smelting knowledge with them, and they used it to make weapons to subdue the local Canaanite peoples. The Canaanites therefore had to fight back “with sticks and stones.”

Hmm. Does that sound familiar? Who is one of the most famous Philistines you can think of from the Tanakh (the Old Testament)? I’ll give you a guess. It’s in the Book of Samuel (in the Tanakh, that’s in the Nevi’im — The Prophets).

That’s right. Goliath.

The story of “David and Goliath” is likely a Jewish cultural memory that was transmitted orally from the time of the Canaanite struggles against the Peleset.

The man who would become King David used a well-slinged stone to fell the much greater Goliath, and then he used Goliath’s own iron sword to cut off Goliath’s head.

In this metaphor, we can see the struggle between the Canaanite tribes and the Peleset, as the Canaanites fought to hold off the Peleset’s greater military might.

Historically, the Peleset eventually intermarried with the Canaanites, and within several generations, they were all one people. Likewise, the Mycenaean Denyen tribe may have settled in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, intermarried with the Canaanites, and become the Tribe of Dan.

The Book of Samuel, containing the story of David and Goliath, was written down in the form we would recognize today in the 500s BCE during the Babylonian Exile. It is a cultural memory of the time that the Canaanites were unable to wield iron weapons against a much more technologically advanced society, and it would have resonated with the Jews held captive in Babylon.

And with this mention of the Babylonian Exile, I come to the question that remains. And I think the question that you are asking. Where did the story of Shemot, the “Exodus,” the “Going Out,” come from?

And more importantly, why was that story so important to canonize in the Torah — the Jewish people’s “Instruction”?

The Shemot was likely written down and edited in a form that we would recognize today during and after the Babylonian Exile.

So, what was the Babylonian Exile? And what was its impact on Judaism?

To answer that, I need to start this part of the story about 130 years before the Babylonian Exile, in around 730 BCE. We’re now about 450 years after the Late Bronze Age Collapse, when the Canaanites were fighting the Peleset tribe.

Between about 730 and 720 BCE, the Neo-Assyrian Empire conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Now, you may know this as the time when the “Ten Tribes of Israel were lost.”

In reality, the Assyrians didn’t capture the entire population of Israel. They did capture the Israelite elite and force them to relocate to Mesopotamia, but there were many people from the Israelite tribes left behind. The Ten Tribes were never “lost” because many of the remaining people in the Northern Kingdom migrated south to the Kingdom of Judah.

One such group of people from the Northern Kingdom of Israel maintained their distinct identity and still exist today: the Samaritans. These are the people who today are the Samaritan Israelites. They have their own Torah and their own Temple on Mount Gerizim, where they continue the tradition of animal sacrifice, as the Jews did in Jerusalem before the Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Samaritans keep the Sabbath, they observe Kashrut laws (i.e., they keep kosher), and they hold sacrifices on Yom Kippur and Pesach. In short, they have maintained religious practices that are similar to Judaism during the Second Temple period.

This mass migration into the Kingdom of Judah in the late 700s and early 600s BCE is where Judaism as we know it today really started to take shape.

At that time, the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel were polytheistic. They ate pork. They did many of the things that the writers of the Torah tell the Jews not to do.

This is where many of these commandments began, when the priests of Judah needed to define what it was to be a Jew (a member of the Tribe of Judah), in the face of this mass migration from the Kingdom of Israel.

You see, the Ancient Jews didn’t know about germ theory or recognize that trichinosis was caused by eating undercooked pork. That’s not why pigs are treyf. Pigs are treyf because eating pork began as a societal taboo. In short, pigs take a lot of resources to care for, and they eat people food, not grass (i.e. they don’t chew a cud). So if you kept pigs, you would be taking away resources from other people. When you are living in a precarious society that is constantly being raided and conquered by outsiders, you have to make sure that your people are fed, and if you’re competing with a particular livestock over food, that livestock has to be outlawed.

This time period is also likely when the Kingdom of Judah started to practice monolatry (worshiping one God without explicitly denying the existence of other Gods). The people of Judah worshiped YHWH (Adonai) as their God, and the Northern Kingdom of Israel worshiped El as the head of their polytheistic pantheon. The Jews put both of them together as the same G-d. That is why the Bereshit (Genesis) begins:

When Elohim (G-d) began to shape heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste, and darkness over Tehom (the Deep), and the breath of Elohim (G-d) hovering over the waters

NOTE: This is a modification to Robert Alter’s translation of the first two lines of Bereshit (Genesis) in the Tanakh. In a few paragraphs, I will explain the modification I’ve made of transliterating the Hebrew word “Tehom,” instead of (mis)translating this word as “the Deep” as in nearly every translation of Genesis.

Then over the next two hundred years, monolatry would gradually become monotheism. One of the Northern Kingdom’s gods, Baal, was especially popular, so the Judean leadership had to expressly forbid the worship of this god during the writing of the Tanakh.

The message was clear: If we’re going to be one people, we need to worship one G-d. And the importance of the Babylonian Exile cannot be overstated in this shift from monolatry to monotheism. The period during and after the Babylonian Exile is when most of the Tanakh was edited into a form that we would recognize today.

So, I come back to the question, what was the Babylonian Exile? It began, as many wars do, as a conflict over monetary tribute.

Around 598 BCE, the Judean King Jehoiakim refused to continue paying tribute to the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II. And so in around 597 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II’s troops besieged Jerusalem, killed King Jehoiakim, and captured much of the Judean leadership, holding them captive in Babylon. Over the next ten years, Nebuchadnezzar II continued his siege of Jerusalem, and in 587, he destroyed the First Temple, looted it for its treasures, and took more of the Jews captive. The deportation of the Jewish people to Babylon continued throughout the 580s BCE.

So, by the 570s BCE, the majority of the Jews were captives in a strange land. They were second-class citizens with few rights. The Jews feared that their people would start to assimilate into Babylonian society, intermarry so that they could secure greater freedom for their descendants, and then ultimately disappear as a unique people.

The Jewish leadership knew that this assimilation would begin by the Jews worshiping Babylonian gods.

So the Jewish leadership had a brilliant idea. They said, “We are not in danger of our people drifting into polytheism, assimilation, and cultural death, because we declare that the Babylonian gods do not exist. There is only one G-d, Adonai.”

Now we have left monolatry, and we are fully in monotheism.

And so, the Jews in captivity took Babylonian stories that their children heard around them, and they made these stories Jewish.

That is why the opening lines of Genesis sound so much like the opening lines of the Babylonian creation story, the Enuma Elish.

And remember when I mentioned that I had transliterated “Tehom” in the first two lines of Bereshit (Genesis) above, instead of using the standard translation of “the Deep”? That is because Tehom is a Hebrew cognate for the Babylonian sea goddess Tiamat, who the Babylonian god Marduk defeated and used to shape the heavens and the earth, just as Elohim shaped the heavens and the earth.

When you read the Enuma Elish, you can see the parallels to Genesis:

When the heavens above did not exist, And earth beneath had not come into being — There was Apsû, the first in order, their begetter, And demiurge Tiamat, who gave birth to them all; They had mingled their waters together Before meadow-land had coalesced and reed-bed was to be found — When not one of the gods had been formed Or had come into being, when no destinies had been decreed, The gods were created within them

That is also why the flood story of Noah and the Ark sounds so much like the flood story from the Epic of Gilgamesh.

That is why the story of Moshe’s mother saving him by placing him in a basket on the Nile River parallels the story of King Sargon of Akkad’s mother saving him by placing him in a basket on the Euphrates River.

In order to survive as a people, the Jews consolidated all gods into one G-d. Adonai. Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad. "Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One."

The Jews said, yes, we acknowledge that we are hearing these polytheistic Babylonian stories in our captivity, but we will make them our own so that we can continue to exist as a people.

But back to your question. What about the story told in Shemot, the “Exodus” from the Land of Egypt?

I think by now you can see the parallels between the Jewish people held as captives in Babylon and the story that they told, of the Israelites held as slaves in Egypt.

And so, the Exodus story, which had been told and retold in various ways as a means to process the cataclysmic trauma of the Late Bronze Age Collapse (similar to the oral retellings of the Trojan War epic before they were written down by “Homer”), now took on a new meaning.

The Exodus story now represented the Jewish people’s hope for escape from Babylon. It represented the Jewish people’s desire to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem that Nebuchadnezzar II had destroyed. It represented the acceptance that it would take at least a generation before the Jews would be able to return to Jerusalem.

And it represented a cautionary tale about leaders who become too powerful, no matter how beloved they may be.

At a Torah study this Sukkot, the Rabbi discussed why the writers of Devarim (Deuteronomy) said that Moshe couldn’t enter Canaan, even though he'd led the Israelites out of Egypt (which, again, didn't literally happen). And one interpretation is because the Jewish leaders were writing and editing the Exodus during and shortly after the Babylonian Exile, and after seeing the Kingdom of Judah fall because of bad leadership. And they were saying, “It doesn't matter how beloved a leader is. If they start becoming a demagogue, and start behaving as someone who is drunk on their own power, you can't trust them as a leader. And you need to find new leadership.” And damn if that isn't a lesson that we could all stand to learn from!

So, was the Exodus story historically true? No. But does it matter that the Exodus story isn’t historically true? No, it does not. It was and is and will continue to be deeply meaningful to the Jewish people. The Shemot, the Exodus, the breaking of chains, the escape from the “Pharaohs” that enslave us — these are still deeply meaningful to us as Jews.

Was Moshe a historical figure? No, he was not. Is he one of the most fascinating, inspiring, and deeply human figures in Jewish tradition, and in literature in general? Yes, he is. Moshe was an emergent leader, an everyman, a stutterer, and yet he was chosen to lead and speak for his people. He was chosen to write the Torah, the “Instruction,” that has guided us for thousands of years. It doesn't matter that he was not a historical person. What matters is what he stands for. He is the one who directed us in what it is to be Jewish.

Now, fast forward to 538 BCE, around 60 years after the Jews were first taken as captives to Babylon. The Jewish people’s prayers were answered when Persian King Cyrus the Great defeated Babylon in battle, and allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem, where they began construction on the Second Temple, which was completed around 515 BCE.

The Persian Zoroastrians were henotheistic (they worshiped one God, Ahura Mazda, but they recognized other gods as well). They also had a chief adversarial deity, Angra Mainyu, who was in direct opposition to Ahura Mazda.

Just as the Jews had incorporated Babylonian stories into their texts as a way to preserve their identity as a Jewish people, the Jews now incorporated this idea of “good versus evil” (i.e., It’s better to assimilate the foreign god to us, than to assimilate us to the foreign god).

This shift can be seen in the later story of the Book of Job, which is in the Ketuvim (Writings). Jews have no devil and no hell. There is no “eternal afterlife damnation," and there is no “original sin.” Jews believe in living a good life, right here on earth, and being buried in Jewish soil. Some Jews believe that we go to Sheol when we die, which is a shadowy place of peaceful rest, similar to the Greek realm of Hades. In the Book of Job, the Hebrew word “hassatan” (which Christians transliterate as “Satan”) is just a lawyerly adversary, like a “devil’s advocate” who debates for the other side of the argument. It’s certainly not anything akin to a Christian “devil.”

However, throughout the Second Temple period, various apocalyptic Jewish sects would arise in response to Greek and then Roman persecution, inspired by the Zoroastrian idea of a battle between “the light and the dark.”

In the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, this would lead to a search for the Moshiach: a human leader (not divine) who was descended from the line of King David, and who would restore Jerusalem. And that would not culminate in Jesus (Jews don’t recognize Jesus as Moshiach — for us, he's a really cool dude who said some very profound things, but he's not That Guy).

Rather, the search for Moshiach would stem from the events leading up to the Jewish War, which concluded in 70 CE with the Romans destroying the Second Temple and sacking Jerusalem, and it would culminate in the Bar Kochba revolt between 132 and 135 CE. The Bar Kochba revolt resulted in a Roman campaign of systematic Jewish slaughter and “ethnic cleansing” that nearly destroyed the Jewish people a second time. But that’s a story for another day!

In closing, I encourage you to learn more about Jewish history. And don’t just learn about us from the Holocaust, our darkest hour. Learn about our full history. I highly recommend Sam Aronow’s excellent series on YouTube, which is an ongoing Jewish history project. The YouTube channel Useful Charts also provides excellent overviews of Jewish history.

#tfw a simple ask compels you to write 4000 words #i hope i've answered your question anon!#jewish history #jewish studies #judaism tag

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lilyoffandoms · 2 months

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Sat on this a few days cuz I wasn’t sure how best to answer the question and I’ve been thinking of leaving the Choices app behind for good for a while now and this ask kinda opened my eyes.

@playchoices is either sticking their heads in the sand and pretending the artists they hire aren’t passing off AI-generated content as their own or they think we are too stupid to identify AI-generated/assisted content in their app. Either way, they are lying to us and are using stolen art to make a profit and that don’t sit right with me.

Given PB’s use of AI generation in the creation of their covers, I will no longer be utilizing the app, nor will I create anything for any of the newer books that utilize this technological theft. I will consider and most likely still create for the older books from before the app’s complete greedy cop-out era but it will be a case by case basis.

In addition, anyone in the Choices fandom (or any fandom for that matter) that uses AI-generators or reblogs AI-generated content will not be eligible to request or be gifted anything from me from here on out. Also, from this point forward, I will only take requests for fics & art if you are off anon to better ensure this.

[More on my stance on requests can be found here under the header, Fic & Art Requests/Commissions.]

Edit: This is not directed at anyone in particular. Yes, anon listed a few names and I have yet to look into those but what’s done is done. I can’t change the past and what I’ve done back then. This is simply talking about moving forward.

#hope this answers your question anon #forgive me for not posting the ask but i don’t want to call out individuals i’ve not looked into myself #ask #anon ask #question ask

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msmargaretmurry · 3 months

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Anon doing ratnovel reread again - it's an absolute pleasure to (re)immerse myself in this world and these characters, and I know I'm not the only one who loves these extra little insights into haw-verse! Rereading it and knowing the general shape of Leon's side (poor guy with his soft little heart that he gave to Matthew and then...) makes it so much more hurty. Which I love. And speaking of (and I promise I won't bombard you with questions for each moment, probably, but I am still immersed in the feels), what is Leon's side of things when Matthew tells him to leave after the kiss?? Obviously he is heartbroken, but does he cry about it, is he very stoic German, does McDavid take on look at him and facepalm because he KNEW Leon was too much of a softie for this...?

Leon is an idiot.

Sitting in the back of the car back to the hotel, that’s all he can think. He is an idiot. He’s so fucking stupid.

He could think about other things. Matthew’s mouth against his, finally. The hot, desperate way he kissed back. That moment, lying together afterward, when Leon thought, stupidly, idiotically, that he was getting what he wanted. But if he thinks about those things, his hands start to shake and his stomach turns and he is not paying the clean-up fee for throwing up in an Uber, so he stays focused.

He’s an idiot.

He needs another shower, and he’s an idiot.

Not an idiot for thinking Matthew was feeling something even remotely similar to what he felt. No, he’s still painfully sure about that. An idiot for thinking Matthew felt enough — cared enough — to get the fuck over whatever the fuck is wrong with him long enough to have one honest moment. To think he'd see Leon putting himself out there and meet him halfway — not even halfway, a third of the way. A quarter of the way would have been enough.

At least it’s a short ride.

The hotel lobby is mostly empty at this hour, which Leon is grateful for as he stalks to the elevator, mashes the unlock on the digital key on his phone until it takes him to his floor. If he ran into a teammate right now— he can’t fathom having a conversation. He’s still burning so hot with humiliation that he can hardly see straight. The real world feels far away. Everything is white noise and his own stubborn heart still thudding in his ears.

He needs a shower. He still has Matthew’s come on him, under his clothes, drying on his stomach, sticking to his shirt. The sensation makes him want to puke, but he’s not doing that in a hotel elevator any more than he’s doing it in an Uber.

He’s such a fucking idiot.

In his room, he goes straight to the bathroom, stripping his clothes off with such determination that he pops a button off his shirt, then another as he yanks it off in frustration. He’ll care later, maybe. More likely he’ll just trash the whole shirt. He does not wait for the water to get hot, and cringes when he steps under the cold spray, but it doesn’t deter him from scrubbing himself clean. And it doesn’t take long to warm up. Faster than the water in Matthew’s shower warms up.

He is not going to cry.

Leon’s not an easy crier. He’s emotional, yeah, and he gets choked up easier than some guys, but it’s pretty rare that actual tears fall. But he’s got this tightness in his chest, this pressure behind his eyes, like there’s a dam inside him that wants to break. He rubs his hands over his face as water pours over him, streaming down his back and shoulders, hot enough now that it’s surely turning his skin red. Better than his skin being red from Matthew’s fingers digging into it. A sob tries to push its way up and out of his throat; he bites hard on the heel of his hand, turning it into a sharp, muffled sound.

And he shouldn’t care, he shouldn’t care about what Matthew is doing right now, but, fuck, Leon hopes he feels like shit. He hopes he’s still sitting there alone on his bed, staring at the t-shirt folded on his dresser, feeling like shit.

He presses his palms to his eyes, his breaths coming too fast and too short.

“Fuck,” he yells, the word swallowed up by the steam.

He’s such a fucking idiot.

If he could, he would stand in the shower until the water ran cold. But this is a hotel, so it’s not going to get cold. So instead he stands there until he can breathe without it catching in his throat. Until the pressure behind his eyes eases just enough that the danger of crying is no longer imminent. Until it hits him how fucking exhausted he is and suddenly all he wants is to lie down.

He shuts off the water, towels off, and goes to collapse onto his bed. He nearly steps on his phone on the way, so he scoops it up to take with him, but he doesn’t look at it yet. If Matthew hasn’t texted, it’ll make him want to throw up. If Matthew has texted, that might also make him want to throw up.

At least his life will be a lot less complicated now, he thinks, and that also makes him want to throw up.

He lays there miserably for who knows how long. He’s been miserable before, after losses, after breakups. The entire time they were getting swept in the conference finals last year while his ankle throbbed so badly he could hardly stand. Could hardly think. He wishes he had some kind of real physical injury right now to explain away how much he hurts inside. He’s been miserable before, but not like this.

He’s so tired, but he can’t sleep. The idea of sleeping feels completely foreign, like it’s something he’s never done before and might never do again.

He swallows his nausea and picks up his phone.

Are u still up, he texts Connor, knowing he won’t be. Connor goes to bed at a reasonable hour unless there’s a very good reason not to. He sits and stares at his phone for a few more minutes anyway, scrolling aimlessly through his texts without looking too closely at the conversation with Matthew. The temptation to tap in and backread is there, but he’s not masochistic enough for that. Masochistic enough to get himself into this mess, but not masochistic enough for that. If Matthew texted him right now, maybe. Maybe he’d open the conversation then. Who is he kidding — if Matthew texted right now with an apology, he’d take it. He’d forgive him so fucking fast. But it would have to be tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But only if it’s a real apology. Only if it acknowledges, even a little, that they were doing something real. If Matthew can’t do that, then there’s no point to any of this.

Leon squeezes his eyes closed. He’s not going to fucking cry. He squeezes his phone, willing a text to come through. Nothing.

He can’t fucking do this. He can’t lay here all night thinking about it. He’ll drive himself crazy.

It only takes a moment to find sweatpants, a t-shirt, slides — the bare minimum for leaving the hotel room. He stalks down the hallway and raps on Connor’s door. Hopefully it wakes him up the first time. Leon will keep knocking if he needs to, but he doesn’t want anyone else to hear and come ask him what he’s doing.

There is a long, excruciating minute before the door opens just enough for Connor, tousled and grumpy, to squint into the hallway at him.

“Leo?” he says. “What are you— what’s wrong?”

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” Leon asks.

Maybe it’s the way his voice cracks, or maybe there’s something in the look on his face, but Connor’s brow creases and the sleepiness seems to dissipate.

“Yeah, come in,” he says, stepping back so Leon can do that. He’s wearing boxers and a t-shirt so old that there’s a big hole in one armpit. The ensemble makes him look strangely teenaged, like the shy, skinny kid Leon met when they first came into the league, and that for some reason makes him feel a little better about showing up pathetically in the middle of the night because some guy broke his heart.

Connor doesn’t turn on any lights, just crawls back into bed and turns the TV on with the remote. Leon follows, settling on top of the covers instead of under them. Clicking through channels, Connor eventually stops on one showing some sort of disaster action movie that Leon doesn’t recognize.

“Good enough,” Connor mutters. His eyes flick over to Leon. “What happened? You look like shit.”

“Feel like shit,” Leon says, trying for deadpan, but a lump rises up in his throat and all of a sudden he feels like crying again.

Connor looks at him for a long moment, the light from the television distorting the shadows on his face. “Weren’t you going to see Chucky tonight?”

“Yeah,” Leon croaks. He squeezes his eyes shut and is embarrassed to feel a hot tear slide down his cheek. Fuck. He scrubs it away, sniffling and sucking in a ragged breath. “Fuck, sorry.”

“Leo,” Connor says softly. “What happened?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Leon’s voice is tight, wobbly at the edges. “I just want to watch a movie.” Onscreen, some sort of storm is wreaking havoc. People are yelling, but the volume is down pretty low.

There’s another long pause.

“Okay,” Connor finally says. Then, hesitantly, “Do you want a hug?”

Leon kind of really fucking does, but he doesn’t want to open his mouth again, because he will definitely make some sort of awful crying sound. But Connor moves anyway, scooting up and over to wrap his arms around Leon’s shoulders. Leon slumps against him and tries to breathe through it, but the dam inside him feels like it’s about to crack down the middle.

Connor squeezes him, his cheek pressed to Leon’s damp hair.

“Just tell me if you want us to hate him now,” he says. “Because if he doesn’t want you, he’s an idiot.”

#ask #ratnovel #hockey for ts #i started to write a normal answer to this and then was like..... actually i think i just want to write this scene for real lol #hope this is a good answer to your question anon <3

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