#listen i have an extremely complicated relationship with language
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i like watching xiaomanyc on youtube because im so fucking fascinated not only by other cultures but just generally other languages, and also how fucking FLEXIBLE he i with his own language learning?
(Like, I have been learning spanish for 5 years and have been constantly immersed in various spanish groups here in florida and yet i fucking struggle to retain almost anything despite formal lessons and learning and losing so many words that all my knowledge is at this point unbearably vague now. so it shakes me to my core that this guy can take a couple weeks and be loosely conversational in the tamil language which is notoriously difficult for learners and can just swap up multiple chinese language variants at the drop of a hat)
but anyway the thing i wanted to mumble about is how sureal it is to watch these videos, because you see this guy speak to someone in Fujianese and that person is thrilled, or how sweet someone is about how he can adjust his accent OR just kinda likes his naturally formed one (from having switched around so many lanaguages). Like, he goes to indian resteraunts with his couple-weeks-old language skills and i presume hes not perfect or amazing but they are none the less so delighted so see him trying and testing new words he hears them use.
And english just...... is not fucking like that. If you’re learning english you will run into the meanest, nastiest people. Even if your english is good, but you have a persistent accent, there are fucking trash-ass-people who will snear about that, as if this person isnt LEARNING or HAS LEARNED a completely different means of communication.
Again, my language learning skills are fucking atrocious, and despite years trying to learn sign or spanish, i am fucking awful. But i remember being a kid in tiny orange grove town where roughly 90% of the population was almost strictly hispanic and all the kids i knew from my own town were still 3 out of 5 on the fluency scale. Those kids i knew who were going to the same school would stop dead in sentences after realizing they didnt know a word and would rather be caught dead than mispeaking around some of the fucking freaks in out classes who would raise hell about ‘speaking english in america’ or that one fucked up math teacher i had in 7th grade that would send students to detention for speaking to eachother in spanish or vietnamese (which was really common in a small area of town).
My language skills have always been shoty (even with english at times, which is arguably my first language) and i definitely could not be a comprensive translator for my friends who were struggling in spanish, but i vaugely remember being the go-to for a small group of kids who desperately needed to slueth out a word they couldnt remember / needed to learn because I was the only kid in our general group that would tolerate the game of charades it took to find out who needed to know what and offer an english word. Lord help them if they needed to know how to write it, because my writing and spelling to this day in english are still awful.
And like... it fucking sucks? it fucking SUCKS that, firstly, I was the only kid they could ask- heavens help someone asking a fucking TEACHER to teach them for fear of mistreatment. But also it sucks that they had to rely on ME at all, because communication let alone language is not my fortei, ive learned more words from reading than ive spoken or heard from other humans in my own fucking native tongue. It’s depressing as hell that kids had to rely on someone who’s gone to speach and language therapy to learn parts of a language just because English speakers have this bizarre cultural disgust with nonfluency and we dont teach our fucking kids how to learn languages, or any languages at all- not even our own fucking english american sign language which is ARGUABLY just the same language spoken another way!
Summary: SHUT THE FUCK UP, top scowling at people who arent fluent, and teach kids about languages. And if your a teacher: ill fucking KILL YOU if you discourage kids to stop speaking their natural tongue or to speak the language YOU want them to.
#munchatter#listen i have an extremely complicated relationship with language#and i also have a lot of feelings about it
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Behind the locked door
In honor of Izuku’s mask disintegrating into rubble, I think it’s finally time for me to really dig deep into his character. I’ve been keeping this one in my back pocket for a while. Amid all the talk about Izuku’s fading narration, the “control your heart” subplot, I’ve been trying to find the words to articulate how I know exactly where this is going, at least on a certain level. Most recently, I read this meta from pika who brings up how the word “control” alone can be misconstrued (by us). And then I thought about how a while back I made a similar point, although I said Izuku was the one who got it wrong. At that time, I was holding back a huge piece of evidence because it was external to the story and I wasn’t sure it would be received well. As a result, my argument fell a little flat. Well, now—after 411, right before leaks for 412—it might be my last chance to play this card.
So about that external evidence. I struggle to bring it up because it’s gonna sound an awful lot like I’m projecting onto Izuku if I don’t do it justice. But… I look at the way his storyline has been going lately and I see a pattern emerging that I’m very familiar with. Fortunately, I don’t have to dump a bunch of personal junk on you in order to illustrate this pattern, because a certain personality typing system already has it all figured out: the Enneagram.
Now, hang on. I’m not one to put people in boxes. My trans ass? I managed to get a different result every time I retook the P0ttermore quiz. MBTI, zodiacs—not my thing. But the Enneagram comes the closest I’ve ever seen to covering all the bases and revealing actually meaningful insight, at least for myself. On top of that, I find it extremely useful for fleshing out fictional characters, hence this post will be taking advantage of that.
For those who aren’t familiar with it, here’s a quick overview: The Enneagram consists of 9 individual personality types, each arranged carefully in a sequential, circular manner. They are also simply named 1 through 9. While this might seem kinda basic, there is actually a surprising amount of nuance and fluidity involved. Typing is done largely through personal introspection (you don’t really have to take a test). Adjacent numbers share some core themes with each other, and according to a web of arrows between them, one type can take on either positive or negative traits associated with other types depending on how emotionally ‘healthy’ they are, causing a lengthy spectrum of different ways each type can manifest. That part gets kinda complicated to explain here, so for more info, the Enneagram Institute website is a decent place to start. I also highly recommend the Enneagram album by Sleeping At Last (and if you really want to dedicate some time, the accompanying podcast) to really get inside the heads of the types on a deeper level.
My interest in applying the Enneagram to Izuku comes from observing how differently one can interpret his character based on whether you read him as a 2 or a 9. And even though no one uses this language to talk about him, the distinction accounts for a bunch of different rifts in the fandom: whether you appreciate bkdk’s relationship, whether you can acknowledge Izuku’s flaws and weaknesses, the severity of his vigilante/rogue phase, and most importantly the gravity of his concealed heart, his rage, and what it all means—what he needs in order to grow and triumph.
Discussion of Enneagram types in the fandom is pretty scarce, but where it exists, I have only seen him labeled as a 2. Type 9 and type 2 can be similar at a glance in a lot of ways (actually, 9s can be mistaken for any type because they are like all of them combined). It’s easy to see Izuku as a 2 because he is the helping hero archetype. He puts others’ needs above his own and he is always ready and eager to help. If you listen to Sleeping At Last’s song for 2, you’ll notice that it’s all about care and noble sacrifice with the underlying theme of neglecting or even harming oneself: “I just want to build you up, until your good as new, and maybe one day I will get around to fixing myself too.” Sounds pretty obvious, right? Well, here’s the thing. You really get to know what your type is by how it hits you where it hurts, so I like to focus on each type’s basic fear and basic desire, first and foremost, as a tell. A 2′s basic fear is of being worthless and unloved. Consequently, their most basic desire is to be loved. And 2s have been taught through their negative experiences that love is conditional, something they have to earn from others. They need to be needed. So let’s say you think Izuku is a 2. This means you consider his heroic, self-sacrificing tendencies to be a result of his growing up quirkless and being told he is worthless and powerless because of it. Through this lens, he is trying to prove himself to the world by being useful. Along these lines, you may also assume he is trying to prove himself to Katsuki. Taking this train of thought even further, you may interpret Izuku’s relationship with Katsuki as an obsession of his, where he is either blind to Katsuki’s more negative traits in favor of gaining his love and praise, or else bitterly determined to prove him wrong. This is how a 2 might behave in an unhealthy relationship with an 8, which, yes, I do think Katsuki is an 8. That’s a tangent for another time, though.
But does Izuku ever “need to be needed?” It’s worth noting that while 2s’ search for validation might seem insincere, it is actually motivated by a deep, heartbreaking insecurity. They think they don’t even deserve love unless they are useful to someone, so they do everything they can to be worthy. Does Izuku show signs of this motivation?
If I stop to think about it, I can’t exactly see this in Izuku’s character. Yeah, his dream is to be a hero, and in his childhood, he was denied that dream. However I think we need to take a step back from that for a second if we want to dig deep. I mean, a lot of the other characters also behave heroically, act selflessly, and strive to help. Does that mean all of them are 2s as well? Of course not. So let’s instead turn to observe how Izuku acts with his loved ones, friends, and peers in other/adjacent contexts:
Inko: He is committed to protecting his mother from fearing for his safety. He wants to be good enough to not cause her to worry, rather than good enough to make her proud or make her love him. Idk about his father but at this point I think it’s safe to assume he is deeply unimportant.
All Might: I would describe their relationship as one of mutual responsibility. Izuku feels a responsibility to uphold All Might’s legacy, All Might feels a responsibility to teach him well. Because of this mutuality, I don’t think it quite makes sense to say Izuku deliberately seeks approval for its own sake. You know what I mean? They may be a mentor and a pupil but in practice they are almost more like co-conspirators. They don’t really have a power dynamic going on.
Shouto, Tenya, other friends: Izuku seems to take an interest in what makes his friends tick, and he sets himself aside in order to both analytically and intuitively determine what’s wrong and how to solve it. Examples include his fight against Shouto in the sports festival, and his stubborn concern for Tenya’s reaction to his brother’s forced retirement. He will put himself in the line of fire specifically when confronted with another person’s inner demons. This is not a labor that is asked of professional heroes, it’s just who Izuku is. You can also extend this observation to how he sees through Tomura to Tenko, but I’ll get to that later. Basically, while 2s seek to help in all kinds of ways, a 9’s strategy is always centered on the realm of the mind.
Kota: Adjacent to the paragraph above, before Izuku literally gets into a position where he needs to save Kota, he becomes interested in the boy’s point of view out of genuine curiosity. He doesn’t go “oh no, this kid doesn’t like heroes, I better get him to like heroes.” Instead he seeks out information as to why he thinks that way, and patiently listens. He’s sorry about what happened to Kota, and he understands. Twice (ch 71 and 72), he recognizes the fact that everyone has their own point of view on quirks, and he can’t really do anything about that.
Mirio: This might be one of the most telling examples. Mirio is the platonic ideal of an All Might successor. He’s “perfect.” He even looks the part. While this initially makes Izuku uncomfortable, he doesn’t become insecure and defensive over it. On the contrary, he easily comes to the conclusion that actually, Mirio should have One for All. Just like that (ch 172). If Mirio hadn’t dismissed the “hypothetical,” he probably would have gone through with giving it to him. That’s not how a 2 would respond. A 2 would double down and aim to be better than Mirio by trying to establish some relationship of need, fueled by the insecurity. Their shared subplot with Eri would have looked pretty different, I think.
Katsuki: I’ve mentioned before that I believe their rivalry only exists because Katsuki put it there. First of all, we can see that after the sludge villain incident, Izuku weirdly takes Katsuki’s dismissal of Izuku’s help as practical advice. Like, “oh yeah, I guess what I did was pretty stupid and dangerous, and I’m not cut out for this hero stuff. Now I can move on and find a realistic career.” Hello?? He accepted that so easily. So Izuku clearly isn’t motivated by a desire to prove himself to Katsuki. Even when he proclaims he’s going to surpass him, it’s like he’s happily mimicking Katsuki, not reacting based on insecurity or pride. Izuku is content to meet Katsuki wherever he is, and he’s satisfied with whatever kind of relationship they are able to have, including a rivalry, so he isn’t vying for his affection either. We can observe this when he gives up the role of reaching out a hand to save Katsuki to Kirishima, and also when he thinks about how “blessed” he is to even have a normal conversation with Katsuki. He doesn’t push things. It’s also stated in Deku vs. Kacchan 2 that Izuku doesn’t excuse or overlook Katsuki’s “bad side” but still admires him for his other traits. This is not at all characteristic of a toxic 2x8 relationship.
When 2s are at their very worst or pushed into unhealthy situations, they tend to become more needy and self-centered, even downright manipulative. But at Izuku’s worst, when he went rogue, he pushed everyone away to avoid being a burden. When the refugees at UA tried to prevent him from returning, he was like, “you’re right” and would have turned back immediately if not for his friends, loved ones, and other people who care about him telling him it was all okay. Meanwhile, Katsuki, in true 8 fashion, was pissed off at being rejected and having to deal with Izuku’s stubborn and evasive side (oh yeah, have I mentioned 9s are actually stubborn as hell?), but he made sure to establish that they are (he is) here to step in when Izuku can’t handle things by himself. Katsuki even opened up and admitted to his own weaknesses to show why mutual support is so important. Tbh, a lot of the above can be construed as just super healthy type 2 behavior, but not this. The way Izuku acts at his lowest, and his dynamic with Katsuki? Totally different. Dead giveaway for a 9.
Let’s get into the type 9 itself in more detail to show how it applies to Izuku more deeply—seriously, it’s beat for beat. One of the key differences is, while 2s seek validation, 9s are actually resigned to the belief that they aren’t important. Similar to 2s, a 9′s basic fear is of separation, but their basic desire is actually just peace or harmony rather than love. Notice how these motivations are just like a 2’s, except they have the “self” part taken out. With that in mind, they “achieve” their basic desire through selflessness in and of itself, without the need for recognition. That’s not to say that 9s are better than 2s. In fact, a 9 can be worse, in a way. If unhealthy, they will seek peace at almost any cost to themselves. In other words, they can be more self-destructive while still under the impression that they are doing just fine. “Peace” may refer to the expression of empathy, fulfilling the needs of others, sheltering someone, or mediating a fight—but also to repressing their own opinions and needs, not “rocking the boat,” ignoring negative emotions, or becoming a vessel for someone else to vent to.
What about inner peace? 9s value serenity, and thus they have a complicated relationship with the most tumultuous of emotions: anger. On the surface, 9s look like the type that is extremely slow to anger and highly tolerant. However, as much as they would like to believe this about themselves too, deep down, 9s are afraid of what might happen if they lose control. My phrase for it is this: I feel like a bottled tornado. Personally, I also think of anger as a basic desire to make others feel your pain—not necessarily sadistically, but in an effort to be known, to be understood. The difficult thing to grasp, especially for a 9, is that this is NOT inherently a bad thing. It isn’t wrong to seek sympathy. On the contrary, it is harmful to tell yourself that getting angry is wrong, because it’s like telling yourself that your pain is wrong, your pain doesn’t matter.
The problem is it doesn’t stop there. A 9, in shutting down their anger, ends up with such a low opinion of their own heart, their other emotions dull along with it. They cry less, laugh less, love less. It’s often said that they “fall asleep” to themselves. It all starts with anger. It’s interesting to note how different this whole mindset is from toxic masculinity—where men only feel allowed/able to express emotions through anger. This is sorta like the opposite. Anger becomes the dam rather than the river. For Izuku, I want us to consider that his suppression of anger carries with it the implication that he is hiding other things, too. It’s a given. There’s a whole sea of feelings out there, and we can only see the waves hitting the shore.
This brings me to the whole “control your heart” thing. I do think it is worth mentioning that Banjou didn’t just tell Izuku to exercise control. He also told him that his anger could be useful if it is harnessed. With this added context, “control” here means “to master.” And Izuku seemed to grasp this concept… sorta. I think that if Izuku is like a 9, we can assume he has trouble understanding how anger could be a worthy source of strength. His emotions in relation to Katsuki feel more like a weakness to him, a character flaw in a hero, who is supposed to be detached and selfless. But he’s trying to understand, even though he’s afraid of it. He essentially applied the same strategy he used for mastering OFA itself: incremental strength training. Which, okay. Take a moment to absorb how odd that is, in relation to emotions, specifically. Does one learn to cry incrementally? Does one learn to use anger by bottling a fucking tornado?? Like, what, you think you’re gonna be able to let out juuust the right amount of air to avoid an explosion??? No, man… if you want to be the master of your emotions you have to be willing to sit with them. Confront them. Listen to them. Take them in completely and accept them as a part of yourself.
For someone like Izuku, though, it is very difficult to imagine how this is even possible. Tomura, as with every villain, can be used to reflect his hero counterpart’s greatest fear about himself. Tomura literally touches everyone and everything with his rage, and as a physical manifestation of that desire to pass his own pain onto others, destruction radiates from his fingertips. Thus, losing control in this manner must be Izuku’s worst nightmare, as if he would be completely unable to stop the collateral damage like an infinite line of dominoes. But his anger is not something he can overcome, as such.
An overarching theme in this heroes vs. villains conflict is that the villains are not merely obstacles to be overcome. Just think back to Himiko’s bitter rejection of the heroic sense of superiority. She demanded not to be pitied, condescended to, or lied to. Likewise, the answer cannot be that Izuku needs to restrain himself where Tomura doesn’t. What purpose would it serve to show that Izuku is better than him? Certainly not saving Tomura. If this was a battle against AFO, it might have been a different story. In that case, Izuku would have to overcome his emotional manipulation tactics. Tomura, on the other hand, is not so strategic. With his strangely childlike tendencies, he must relish making Izuku mad because it brings them closer to the same wavelength. It’s his own twisted way or seeking sympathy, or at least, the closest thing to sympathy he can get anymore, because he believes he is beyond saving. With that in mind, Izuku isn’t going to get anywhere unless he rises to meet him. Izuku has to match Tomura’s hatred with equally strong emotions of his own, whatever they may be, or else face the loss of OFA (as established in 305). This is not an easy thing to ask of a 9, once they have started to pull the blood from their extremities, become cold and numb. Bringing back circulation is painful and makes the skin crawl.
In case you’re worried about the focus on anger here, I want to reiterate that concealed anger in a 9 is just one sign of so much more. Back when everyone started fretting about Izuku’s habit of self-sacrifice, which would have been the only thing we need to worry about if he were a 2, I was freaking out because Izuku was also starting to look like a person who has too many secrets. You don’t even have to acknowledge the possibility that he lied about what triggered blackwhip. It’s written all over his face all the time these days. It’s especially noticeable when you contrast him with Katsuki after all his own growth. Katsuki confides in people. He acknowledges his weaknesses. He enjoys being himself. He asserts his place. He thinks about Izuku all the damn time and now he even lets himself be soft about it. All this warmth while Izuku is distant, muted, and blank. I know all too well what this state of mind is like. Man, I hate secrets. You get to the point where you don’t know how to talk about even the simplest most inconsequential shit. And the bigger things? They’re like a growing snowball of words in your throat that cannot possibly fit out of your mouth. The “easiest” way to cope is to simply fade into the rhythm of life. Go with the flow.
Since 9s have a natural curiosity about the interiority of other people, they may choose to focus on that in order to divert their own attention away from themselves. Taken to the extreme, they will lose track of their sense of self. Like I said, you can see Izuku doing this as he fights, analyzing the psyche of his opponent, and his match against Shouto in the sports festival was a fantastic early example. They became friends because of how observant Izuku is. His emotional intelligence and intuition are very strong, but gradually, as he has taken on greater responsibilities and experienced more trauma, he has gotten worse at applying these skills to himself. You know, we go on and on about how his narration has been reduced to nearly nothing, and it’s not just an absence of introspection, it’s an absence of self. It creates a lack of ownership over the narrative—what should be his narrative.
Right now, he’s focusing on trying to see Tomura as a person, figuring him out. I think it would be really satisfyingly ironic if in the process, he ends up uncovering insights about himself instead. It’s about time we learn what Izuku’s secrets are. I don’t actually think that Izuku mastering anger will constitute the emotion that is strong enough to keep Tomura from taking OFA. Moreover, he can’t expect to reach Tomura’s core, Tenko, unless he exposes his own. Rather, anger is the conduit for Izuku to unlock something else. Think of the way he described how Katsuki is his image of victory. The feeling manifests when he asserts a stronger sense of self (the urge to win) and he becomes more free with his words. I have no doubt that Tomura has the power to make unfiltered honesty spill out of him. He knows how to bring out his selfish needs, his pain, his pressure points, his fears, his insecurities. Hell, maybe Mt. Fuji erupting is a metaphor. I want to see Izuku explode while Tomura watches with mad glee. But then I want Izuku to Realize Things such that it finally sets him free. Then, instead of Tomura witnessing yet another person he touches fall apart, he gets to see someone become whole.
"I let the scale tip, feel all of it. It's uncomfortable but right. And we were born to try to see each other through. To know and love ourselves and others well is the most difficult and meaningful work we'll ever do." --Sleeping At Last, 'Nine'
#you are very much welcome to send me asks about this and the enneagram etc because it's very fun to talk about!#bnha meta#bnha manga#bnha 411#bnha 412#mha#my hero academia#boku no hero academia#character analysis#midoriya izuku#shigaraki tomura#bakudeku#bkdk#dekubaku#dkbk#lin speaks
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Milton Erickson and a Rabbi Walk into a Bar... (Essay)
Finally, I've finished this essay about connections I'm finding between hypnosis, Judaism, magic, and intimacy. It's ~4.5k words, extremely "me," and I'm really thrilled to share it. Enjoy!
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My weakness is getting deeply invested in very niche topics.
Hypnosis was my first and most lifelong obsession. It was my confusing, shameful sexual fetish that I eventually took by the horns and -- through my desire to learn as much about it as humanly possible -- turned into a job. But not a normal sex work job where I do hypnosis for money -- a weird job where I just teach about it. The kink community, and the further-specific niche where people want to hypnotize each other during intimate experiences, became my home.
But the value of study doesn't really come from the quantity of people I'm able to engage with. It comes from the way it enriches my life. It creates and benefits from the capability to see overlaps between all of my various interests.
On the surface, it may appear that two skills have no relationship. But the deeper you get into each one, a synthesis appears.
At a certain point when you are learning hypnosis, all seemingly-unrelated information seems to fit effortlessly into your hypnotic knowledge. You can listen to a song and suddenly you learn something new about how to hypnotize someone. Maybe it was a lyric that gave you an evocative emotional response; maybe it was a pattern in the music that you thought about replicating with the rhythm of your hypnotic language.
Over a decade into my own hypnosis learning, I got very lucky and found a second passionate home in communities of Jewish text study about a year ago. I started from almost zero there and found myself again to be a greedy novice, obsessed with digging into it.
Of course, as I got further, it became that I read a page of Talmud (a text of rabbinical law and conversation) and suddenly I learned something new about how to hypnotize someone. And as I progress, it is starting to go the other way: I learn about Torah study by reading about hypnosis and intimacy.
There are two directions this essay can be read. “How can intimacy and hypnosis teach us about Jewish text?” And, “How can Jewish text teach us about intimacy and hypnosis?” One half is of each part written by me as an authority, and the other half is by me as an avid novice. The synthesis of these two parts of me -- just like any synthesis between concepts -- may perhaps create something new.
Models
I’m sure most communities have a version of the idiom, “Ask three people a question and get five answers.” For a long time, this was a source of frustration for me in the hypnosis community. Is hypnosis a state of relaxation and suggestibility? Kind of, but also no. Is it more accurate to say it is based on unconscious behaviors and thoughts? Well -- kind of, but also no.
So what is it? Well, it’s probably somewhere in the overlap of about 20-30 semi-accurate definitions and frameworks for techniques -- what we’d call “models.” Good luck!
Why is hypnosis so impossible to define and teach? How have we not found a model that we can all agree upon yet? I think many people share this confusion, and it's complicated by the fact that most sources for hypnosis education teach their model as the model. It makes sense -- it would be difficult to teach a complete beginner a handful of complex frameworks with which to understand hypnosis when that person is just trying to muddle through learning “how to hypnotize someone” on a practical, basic level.
…Or would it be? By the time I got involved with Jewish study, I had long given up on chasing the white whale of some unified theory of hypnosis. I was firmly happy with the concept that all ways to describe hypnosis are simply models -- and all models are flawed, while some models are useful. I was delighted, when entering Jewish community spaces, to hear the idiom, “Three Jews, five opinions.”
This concept is baked into Jewish text study, in my experience. You can look at any single line in Torah and find innumerable pieces of commentary on it, ancient and modern, with conflicting interpretations. Torah and other texts are studied over and over -- often on a schedule -- with the idea that there is always something new to learn. And this happens partially by the synthesis of multiple people's perspectives adding to and challenging each other, developing new models. My Torah study group teacher always starts us with a famous line from Pirkei Avot, a text of ethical teachings from early rabbis: “If two sit together and share words of Torah, the Shekhinah [feminine presence of God] abides among them.”
The capacity to develop and hold multiple interpretations at once enriches your relationship with the text. So too do I believe that being able to hold multiple interpretations of what hypnosis is and how it works enhances your skill with it. It is not a failure of the system -- it is the best thing about it.
Intimacy
It is intentional to make the distinction of “relationship with the text” -- not “relationship to the text.”
My job on the surface is to teach hypnosis, but the meta goal is to simply teach something that helps people develop profound intimacy with others. I think that hypnosis is a kind of beautiful magic that is well-suited to this, but it’s not the only path to take.
One of my favorite educators, Georg Barkas, describes themselves as an intimacy educator who teaches rope bondage. Their classes and writings are highly philosophical and align closely with my own ideas about intimacy -- as well as my partner’s, MrDream, from whom I’ve learned so much. I frequently cite Barkas when I talk about hypnosis because I feel the underlying ideas they have about rope bondage are extremely applicable to all kink and intimacy -- and I will continue that trend here.
Barkas recently published an excellent essay looking in detail at the concept of intimacy itself. They posit that our first thought of intimacy is usually about a kind of comfort-seeking and familiarity. That’s contained within the etymology of the word, and socially it’s what many of us think of when we define our relationships as “intimate”: settling in to engage with a partner who we love, know, and understand.
But, Barkas asks, what if we place this word into a different context? They talk of how in scientific endeavors, the goal of “becoming familiar with” is unpredictability and discovering things that are surprising and unexpected. This perhaps offers a different view of intimacy: intimacy where you do not engage with your partner as though you know everything about them; intimacy where being surprised by them and learning something new is the goal.
My partner MrDream teaches about this often in hypnosis education: approaching a partner with genuine curiosity and interest -- “curiosity” implying that you don’t know what to expect, with a positive connotation. There is a kind of delicate balance between being able to anticipate some aspects of what is going to happen hypnotically -- to have a general grasp on psychology and hypnosis theory -- versus holding tight to a philosophy that neither you nor the hypnotic subject really knows how they are going to respond. The unexpected is not to be feared, but celebrated and held as core to our practice. Hypnotic “subjects” (those being hypnotized) who can relax their expectations will often have more intense experiences.
Thus we come to the first time in this essay where I mention Milton Erickson, my favorite forefather of modern hypnosis. Erickson was a hypnotherapist active through the 1900s and is famous (among many things) for presenting a model of hypnosis that wasn’t necessarily an authoritative action done to a person, but a collaborative and guiding action done with a person.
In his book “Hypnotic Realities,” he talks about how his view of clinical hypnosis is defined by how the therapist is able to observe each individual client and directly use those observations to continually develop a unique hypnotic approach with them. The client’s history, interests, and modes of thinking are utilized for the trance, as well as any observable responses they have in the moment. For example, a client with chronic pain may have the frustration they express over that pain incorporated into the trance. This is in deep contrast to hypnosis where the therapist comes in with any kind of “script” or formula to recite ahead of time.
It’s important to Erickson’s model that the therapist doesn’t know exactly what to anticipate, and it’s also important hypnotically that the same is true for the client. A common “Ericksonian” suggestion is, “You don’t have to know what is going to happen, and I don’t know either.” In order to develop the most effective approach with each patient, Erickson would enter into a session with some presumed knowledge, but ultimately learning -- not assuming -- how to best hypnotize each individual person.
We circle back to the phrase, “a relationship with Jewish text.” In my opinion, engaging with Torah is exactly this kind of intimacy. Torah is something we come into in order to poke and prod at it, to interact with it and to see how it interacts back at us. The teacher of my study group always cites a model where Torah itself is a participant in our partnered learning and group discussions. We ask it questions, we push its boundaries, we strive to glean something new and yet unseen. A line that may seem simple on the surface can reveal much more when we explore its context or put it into a different context entirely.
This is easier for me to say as someone who is coming into learning Torah for the first time, but I am able to look ahead to when I will be fully familiar with the text and still be able to take this expanded definition of intimacy with it. Not coming to it without a sense of comfort, but still engaging with curiosity. MrDream teaches a model for hypnosis that is based on the idea of exploration -- exploring your partner no matter how long you have been with them. You are always coming to them as a different person, shaped by your ever-growing experiences and identity, and your partner changes as a human as well. I believe Torah is also dynamic in this way, as the context within which it exists -- and the way we interpret it -- is constantly shifting.
Ritual
I have been engaging with spiritual ritual on and off for as long as I’ve been learning hypnosis. The concept of magic has always been alluring to me -- not from a motivation to meet specific goals, but for something more difficult to pin down. I like that ritual, in an esoteric framework, is about looking at various metaphors between ingredients and actions; a candle representing an element of fire which may in turn represent intensity, or purity, or something else. Drawing meaningful connections between concepts like this is a skill I’ve developed in parallel with hypnosis, as well.
I was recently talking with a friend of mine who is also interested in esotericism -- we were sharing our frustrations with various books on magic and ritual. We wondered why so many sources would go on to teach prescriptivist formulas and associations, and not much else. Do this, and that will happen. This symbol represents that. My friend and I agreed that the ritual value of ingredients comes from how you personally assign meaning to them -- but why was everything always trying to teach us their meaning, as opposed to teaching us how to cultivate our own associations?
A week or so later, I happened to go to an excellent class that explored whether or not there was a place for smudging and smoke use in modern Jewish ritual. The teacher first took a careful, measured approach towards looking at indigenous smudging practices and the concept of appropriation. What followed was 30 minutes of history and text exploring examples of smoke in early Judaism, and then 30 minutes of a handful of interpretations of what “smoke” could mean and represent with relation to Jewish ideas -- directly practical to modern ritual. It was utterly excellent and immediately profound for me, as someone who has been yearning to blend my experience with esoteric ritual with my relationship with Judaism.
Observant readers will note that through this essay I speak passively about Judaism -- I am a patrilineal Jew, which for better or worse means that it is not a simple matter to say, “I am ‘fully’ (or ‘not’) Jewish.” (I am in the beginnings of working with a Conservative rabbi -- who affirms that I’m Jewish -- to make my status halachic [lawful], which is deeply exciting.) Opinions on that aside, a relevant piece of information is that the Jewish holiday we celebrated most consistently when I was growing up was Chanukah. While a lot of Jewish practice has been something I’ve been striving towards as an adult, Chanukah has always been “mine.” It was fast approaching after this class, and I felt motivated to use my newfound knowledge to make more ritual out of lighting the candles.
I was deeply surprised when all I did was light a stick of incense before saying the blessings over lighting the menorah, and my experience transformed into something intense. I smelled the incense and couldn’t help but think about what I’d learned about the Rambam’s commentary that incense in the time of the Temple was about making the Temple smell sweet to pray in after the burning of sacrifices. I thought about what I’d learned about the presence of God being smoke and clouds to the ancient Israelites. I thought about things I’d learned from other places -- hiddur mitzvah (the value of beautifying a practice), and a midrash (parable) about God loving the light and rituals we do in a very personal way simply because they are from us.
Esoteric ritual has often felt to me like exerting effort in making the associations of ingredients work for me. But this was effortless. I was doing something that was entirely my own, solidly founded by the broad and deep study I’d done, by my personal relationship with the concepts, by my identity.
In other words, the power behind this ritual came from knowledge, and the knowledge came from my intimacy with it. And that intimacy was not just with the study I had done -- it was also the process of being surprised in real time by what I was learning through the ritual itself.
Hypnosis gains “power,” in so much as we let ourselves use the term, through these same acts of intimacy towards knowledge. It operates directly based on various ingredients: how much we know about hypnosis theory itself, general psychology, the person we are working with, and ourselves. Hypnosis is a ritual -- it is setting aside special time to do something with a collection of ingredients that you have personal associated meanings with. If you can’t connect to those deeply enough, it won’t reach its full potency.
Knowledge, Perception, and Unconsciousness
One of my favorite concepts to teach in hypnosis is, “A change in perception equates to a change in reality.” This is derived from Erickson by MrDream, and it’s something he and I have had a lot of conversations about to refine. The implication of this is not something as trite as hypnosis having the power to change a person’s perceived reality. It is the concept that if you look at something from a different perspective, you gain various different capabilities.
For example, when you are feeling stuck in a situation and you think about what a close friend of yours would do if they were in your shoes, you gain the capability to see more options, to change your actual view of the reality of the problem and therefore change your actions towards it. In hypnosis, this could be the difference between simply telling someone to relax their legs versus another perspective of telling them to imagine what it would be like if their legs just started relaxing. It could be the idea that when a person does feel relaxation from a simple suggestion, their perception changes on what is happening -- they build more belief in hypnosis, and that belief in turn makes the next suggestions easier to buy into.
Erickson’s model of hypnosis is predicated on the idea that hypnosis itself matters, that hypnosis is a time within which someone’s reality changes. In his ideal hypnotic context, the subject feels like they no longer can expect things to behave as they usually do in their “waking” reality. They are thus opened to many different kinds of new experiences and capabilities. To Erickson, perception matters -- by itself, it’s a primary driving force behind literal change and response.
This ties back to our idea of intimacy -- just as I aim to approach my partners with this profound curiosity, just as I aim to approach Torah, I want to have this intimacy of the unexpected with trance itself. I want to allow myself to be surprised by hypnosis, by the things I don’t yet know about it even after more than a decade and thousands of hours of trance. But more than this, in an Ericksonian sense, simply changing my perspective to this motivation is one of the things that lets me get there.
I went through a guided study class about Shabbat (Judaism’s weekly sabbath of rest) with a partner, and so much of the class was in the abstract that it at times felt difficult for me to latch onto. We were learning all of this background context about a view of Shabbat where instead of spiritually striving and reaching on that day, you come in acting as though your spiritual work -- like your other work -- is “finished.”
In one session, we spent a chunk of time parsing through how we could interpret that as actionable. It felt like it just wasn’t clicking for me -- the midrashic texts weren’t offering enough for me to feel like I could make judgments on questions like, “Does this imply I shouldn’t meditate on Shabbat in this context?”
It wasn’t until I slept on it that I found a very simple piece of the puzzle: putting aside the questions of concrete actions, in an Ericksonian sense, the internal act of shifting my perspective would absolutely change the way I behaved and interacted with the day. It would become more indirect and unconscious -- instead of carefully analyzing my actions as I might with other Shabbat prohibitions on work, I could simply let myself act in ways that fit that perspective of “spiritually resting.”
The abstraction of the class made more sense -- perhaps it wasn’t trying to give us direct answers, but rather create a psychological environment for us that was well-suited to this more unconscious processing. Or rather, in addition to the sort of typical conscious halachic interpretation. If I allow myself an opinion here, I’d say that I care about halacha as actionable, but as always, I tend to care more about feelings and what’s internal.
This also lent credence to ways this class and the class on smoke and ritual changed my experiences. I was not given a set of actions to take, but rather a variety of perspectives that unconsciously made me think and behave differently. The concept of “knowledge is power” is both true and alluring in many different contexts, and yet had often fallen through for me in most ritualistic frameworks. The way that it succeeds, I believe, is when you develop a relationship with knowledge that actually changes your internal perspective and perceptions.
Limitation
With this we return to the concept of models and interpretations. It is serendipitous to be going through these experiences at a time where I am avidly working on my next book -- the thesis of which is that in order for us to progress as hypnotists, we must get comfortable moving fluidly between many differing definitions and frameworks (models) of what hypnosis is and how it works.
It is as the Ericksonian principle would say: If you take a perspective on hypnosis that boils down to “hypnosis is about relaxing the conscious mind,” you will do hypnosis according to that perspective. You will use relaxation-based techniques and make an effort to get someone to think “less consciously.” If you instead take a perspective that is “hypnosis operates based on activation of the conscious mind,” you may do hypnosis that causes someone to think and process in a more stimulating way.
Both and neither are true, and they can coexist. I believe that most models can be useful -- some more useful than others. But the best thing you can do is to not assume that one model is the most correct one -- instead, it is to develop the capacity to work within many at once even while being aware of their boundaries.
Jewish text, in my experience, provides models -- perspectives that themselves give guidance on how to understand things and act. I think especially about midrash and stories that are explicitly intended to fill in the gaps or give an alternate view on something. The question of, “Is there one correct way to do/see things” is more complicated here, but there are areas -- especially in those subtle shifts of mindset for ritual or interpreting text -- where the answer is still “no.”
My time so far in Jewish study supports this in a different way. There is a human element of collaboration and challenge. Learning as we do with a chevruta (study partner) adds another person to the relationship -- it is no longer just between you and the text. There is another human who you are building something with, and it is “intimate” according to our exploratory definition in an even clearer way.
The purpose of a “scene” inside of kink (a “session” of kink play) is to operate in a semi-limited framework -- limitations exist on who is involved, where it begins and ends, how partners communicate, and what themes/topics/activities are involved. These limitations -- though they may be quite broad -- are partially what allow for intense experiences. A scene needs to exist in a different “space” than our daily lives, and it needs to operate by different rules and involve different ingredients. Here, we also see overlaps with the definition of a “ritual.”
This doesn’t just facilitate intensity (and safety) -- it facilitates learning something new about your partner. By taking your relationship and putting it into a limited context, it allows you to observe it in a more careful way, where novel changes can be more obvious.
Studying with a chevruta is much like this. I have had study sessions where my chevruta and I are meeting for the first time and the only thing we are aware of sharing is our desire to dive into a piece of text. I’ve also had chevrutas where we know each other outside of study, and some of our time is schmoozing and catching up. But in all cases, we are limited in scope, and that limitation creates ease of access towards the common goal of expanding our knowledge and relationship with the text. We are focused; we are motivated. We are creating something that we can only create through who we are as individuals and what we are doing as avid learners.
This has surprised me at times with its tenderness and intensity. Building well-founded interpretations with someone is in and of itself very intimate -- not sensually, but humanly. It has given me something I have always wanted -- an intimacy that is pervasive not just in application of knowledge, but in the development of it. A feeling of sacredness and joy from being able to see so many different perspectives.
I long for this connection, this alchemy. Yes, all models are limited. But within those tight, restricting limits is the potential energy of creation.
“And I Must Learn”
There is an infamous story in the Talmud, in Berakhot 62a, where Rav Kahana hides under the bed of his friend Rav Abba. Rav Kahana hears Abba and his wife giggling and starting to have sex, and remarks out loud that Rav Abba is acting like someone who is famished. Rav Abba, mid-sex, understandably says, “Kahana, why the fuck are you under my bed listening to me fuck my wife?” Rav Kahana replies, “It is Torah, and I must learn.”
There was a version of this essay that began with this tale. I am enamored with the vast overlaps I can derive from its briefness: that intimacy can be studied sacredly both as a general concept and specifically with your partner; that we are obligated to learn ourselves, our partners, and general human desire; that there can be a thread of wholeness in every action of your life if you give every action sacred attention.
Even this, though, is a limited-context interpretation. The rabbis of the Talmud were certainly not sex-positive, especially not as we currently use the term. The surrounding triptych of conversations is similarly humorous but seems to comparatively describe sex as dirty or gross, and this bit of text cannot really exist separately from all of the places where there is halacha derived about sex that is about controlling women’s bodies or preventing queer and trans people from being able to live authentically.
But -- we are allowed to interpret like this. We are allowed to play with context and see what we discover.
For me, this is about finding the connections between my actions and my interests; parts of me that synthesize the whole. It is about developing intimacy with Torah, with my learning partners, with my romantic partners; with the people within the writings, with the authors, and with the readers.
Reading Torah is the same as hypnotizing someone is the same being intimate with someone is the same as doing a ritual. All things on a broad enough scale overlap this closely. There is value in this “zooming out” to a wide enough context to see the connections that exist -- just as there is value in celebrating the limitations that arise, models nestled alongside each other, when you “zoom in.”
We need both to be able to treat our learning -- all forms of it -- as something special.
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This is extremely long and apparently subject to change, which is part of why I'm copy-pasting this version below. I don't agree with significant parts of it (in particular, I take umbrage with some of the delegitimizing language she uses for the Jewish/Israeli narrative and history that she doesn't use with the Palestinian narrative and history), however, I think it's a really really important read, because she addresses a lot of the real problems with the current discourse and real-world impacts that has.
I think this paragraph in particular was something I needed to read:
Arguing with the far left is a waste of time. They have no self-awareness, they are delusional, and they will never stop. They are as fanatical as any of the mob. The only way to make them stop talking is to actually sort this problem once and for all and work for the freedom and dignity of all. And when all is said and done, the ones that will keep complaining will finally be exposed for what they truly are.
She also winds up positing the A Land For All solution as the most likely to succeed, which I do agree is probably correct, for the main reason she argues, which is that it is the option that gives the most people the greatest amount of what they want, the basics of what everyone needs, and hews most closely with answering the competing narratives that exist.
There is No Magic Peace Fairy. Version 2
For anyone who might have read the previous version of this piece of writing, this is quite different from the original. Its spirit and essence are the same, but much has been added. It is very long, but it seeks to understand some extremely complicated and difficult things.
I should have realised when I first wrote it, and then sought to follow its instruction — to listen and learn from a wide spectrum of other people — that it was only ever going to be a working and evolving piece of work. This is version 2. There may yet be a version 3, 4 or 5.
Why did I even write it? Initially — truthfully, and honestly — it has been for myself. It started as catharsis, and it has become a compulsion — the way to “make it make sense.” The way to cope with horrifying scenes across the television and social media, witnessed day after day, and feeling utterly powerless to stop it.
It comes from years of witnessing, and sometimes partaking in long and sometimes very bitter family arguments. Arguments that became spectator sport for friends who would come over especially because they knew they would happen. Arguments that, in retrospect were not actually remotely funny for those of us living through that constant emotional turmoil, nor considering the subject matter. It has been the way to work through those conflicted feelings, and some things that were never really reconciled.
So, yes, it started for myself. But now I have written it, I do want people to read it. I think it may help others to work through some of the same things. And then it would have been worthwhile, especially if it may help some people to find a way to salvage lost friendships and lost relationships from the last few months, because it seems there is a giant rift forming in our communities in Britain.
This has nothing to do with ‘both sidsing’ anything, and it has everything to do with problem-solving. As far as I am concerned, in all of life, you cannot solve a problem that you do not understand. And I really want to understand it. So, I look at both narratives that the Palestinians and Israelis know as the history of their peoples, and think about the lives of individual Palestinians and Israelis, and then I wonder, how could this ever actually be fixed? Is there really any hope for the future?
It is not meant to justify or apologise for anything anyone has done.
I am sure this writing will includes things that almost everybody will take issue with, but it is my hope that by doing my very best to do justice to our collective stories that people can read without anger what it is that I have to say — and please do read to the very the end if you are intending to pass judgement on what that is.
Most of all, I think this will interest people in the diaspora with family, friends, and personal links and connections to the region — Israel or the Occupied Palestinian territories — who wish nothing more than to see their friends and family living in freedom, with dignity and security.
If you have read version 1, the stories of the 15-year-olds have only minor additions, but the narratives and the rest of the article have changed a lot. If you get to a bit that sounds very familiar, skip a bit further down — it is very long to read it twice.
~~~~~
What is the most important narrative of the Palestinian people?
(You do not have to agree with this — I am just telling it how it is told).
Something like –
“The defining event of our history is the Nakba (Catastrophe)
Before 1948, we used to live in Palestine. We loved Palestine. We lived there for centuries. We lived peacefully. We had a deep spiritual and emotional connection to the land. Our ancestors are buried there. Religious sites — Christian, Muslim, Jewish — that had great meaning to all of us were there. It was a rich tapestry of different religions and cultures containing a beautiful and sacred shared heritage.
We had wonderful villages and beloved homes that we built with our own hands. We had gardens with trees and plants that our grandparents planted. We had treasured possessions. We had friends and families and good lives. We could go and come as we pleased.
We had neighbours of all faiths, including Jewish neighbours. We lived contendly together. Some of them had been there for centuries just like us and we liked them, we lived there together happily and in peace.
In the 1900s, more and more started to come. They were fleeing persecution. We gave them refuge. We had no problem with them coming. They were being hounded in Europe and they needed somewhere else to go. Where better for them to be but here in Palestine, where the history of their people was born? And many of them were respectful and we had good relationships with them. We liked them.
But some of them wanted a country. Some of them fought with us, and some of them attacked us, and terrorised us. How could they have had a country in our land? We had been there for generations, and what would have become of us if we had agreed to it? Where would they have stopped? The problem was never them. It was them trying to make a country. And if they hadn’t tried to make a country, everything would have been okay. We could have had a country all of us together. What a beautiful country it could have been. But the country they wanted did not include us.
Some of them were clear they would have kept going until they got more and more of our land, and there is no question they would always have driven us away. Some of their leaders where unashamed and brazen in the way they looked down on us, in their statements that dehumanised us, in their disdain for us, in their colonial intent. They under-estimated us.
The Nakba (catastrophe) was a disaster for our people. In 1948, there was a war. During that war, the Israelis attacked us, killed us, stole our property and ethnically cleansed us from our land in order to create their Jewish state. We left in fear of our lives. We were not the ones that started that fighting. We wanted nothing to do with it. That is why we left.
We didn’t think we would be gone for long, surely once the fighting had subsided we would be back. But then days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into years.
Then it finally sunk in — they weren’t going to let us back. And we realised we were divided and dispossessed. That nightmare was only the beginning for us. They have never, ever allowed us back for 75 years. We lost everything. Our human rights are denied to us. More and more of our land is taken every day. We are not free. Some of us have no freedom at all and no rights.
We want to stop being ethnically cleansed. We want to go home, to go back, to see our homeland, our ancient sites, to be back where we belong, where we have always belonged. We want our dignity, and we want our freedom."
~~~~~
You do not have to agree with the way this story is told, but it has, in some form, been passed down through generations and generations of Palestinians.
~~~~~
What is life like for a 15-year-old Palestinian who lives in the West Bank?
You are told this story of your people from the day you were born. You live under a military occupation. More and more violent religious settlers move into the lands around you. They build new homes and can do whatever they want. They come and go as they please, in and out of Israel. You are not allowed to go anywhere except the West Bank. Their soldiers are always there with guns. They are in charge.
The settlers terrorise you all the time. They stop people farming their land and so you struggle to survive. A few weeks ago, a settler shot one of your friends. They never get punished and they never go to prison. But recently your best friend went to prison for throwing rocks at the soldiers. You really miss him.
Your grandparents left Palestine in 1948 with four children, and very few possessions. Your grandmother thought she would be back in a few days or weeks. Your grandmother’s sister ended up in Gaza and they never saw one another other again. She died recently. You have a cousin who is the same age as you. You know you could have been close if only you had even met.
You see no future the way things are now. There is no hope. You want a different life. You want the things your grandparents had. You don’t want to be constantly afraid of being attacked. You dream of leaving. You dream of the day you go back to Palestine where the house you should have had is, even just to see it, to be truly home, to live the life that is rightfully yours.
What do you do? You resist. In the only way that you can, with the only things that you have. You throw rocks at the soldiers. One day, you get caught, and you get put in a prison. You are tried by a military court, and you stay in prison for a really long time. In prison, people do appalling things to you. Finally, they let you out. What do you do?
~~~~~
What was life like for a 15 year old living in Gaza?
You are also told the Palestinian story from the day you were born. There are good things about your life. You go to school, have friends, and family who you love, you can go out and do things. There are hospitals, and you can get a lot of things that you need. You love Gaza. But you can’t leave Gaza. You can’t go anywhere else in the land or the world except Gaza.
Your life is still hard. Your family struggle for money and to survive, to get the things that you all need. There are a lot of things that would make your life better and easier, but you can’t get them in Gaza. You know that if you lived in Israel, you could get whatever you wanted and needed. You have family in the West Bank you have never met, but you know about their struggles. You have a cousin the same age, who is enduring unimaginable hardships.
The people in charge of Gaza are not good leaders. They can be dangerous and violent if you oppose them. A lot of people in Gaza don’t like them, although some people support them. Your own parents really can’t stand them. These people have been in charge of Gaza since before you were even born. You have learned that there was a civil war in Gaza before that and hundreds of people were killed or wounded. There has never been an election since.
You know they fire rockets into Israel because they want to dismantle it. You want a different life, but it’s never really worked or got anywhere. It seems futile. And you know that every few years, the bombs will come. Everyone you know has lost someone or something from the Israeli bombs. You don’t remember that much about the last time, but you do remember being really terrified, and you remember that your Dad cried when his brother was killed.
Then one day you hear news. News that Israel has been attacked by Gaza. Israelis have been killed, and some are even being brought into Gaza. Your heart sinks. You have a funny feeling in your stomach. You know what is coming.
~~~~~
To these two children, these cousins, Zionism can and only ever will mean catastrophic dispossession, oppression, and Jewish supremacy. The only Jews or Israelis they have encountered have either bombed them or terrorised them. Israel is a colonial entity. It never had a right to exist. Israelis are settlers. All they ever do is steal land. How could you expect them to see it any other way? There can never be any nuance, or any grey area about it. It could never have any legitimacy in their eyes. How could you expect or ask them to empathise with Israelis when you consider what they have lived and are living through?
For them, anyone who describes themselves as a Zionist in any form, even a liberal Zionist, could only ever be perceived as somebody that cannot be reasoned with, is trying to justify and support the unjustifiable, and is nothing but a settler and a tool of their oppression.
~~~~~
What is the dominant narrative of Jewish/Israeli people?
(You do not have to agree with it — I am just telling it how it is told).
It may be slightly different for secular Israelis and Diaspora Jews, but it goes something along these lines:
“We are the people of Israel. This is where our religion and our language were born, where we built temples and our ancestors are buried. We have and always have been surrounded by enemies on all sides. For millennia, we have been scattered throughout the world. We were driven from Israel and we went to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Throughout history people have always tried to kill the Jewish people. They didn’t like us being Jewish. There were always pogroms and mass killings. In some places people would hide and pray together in secret. It is our duty to keep the Jewish religion alive in their honour.
In Europe the pogroms got worse and worse. A few of us left Europe for a better life in Palestine. But most of us stayed in Europe. And most of us died in Europe. Six million of us. They did it because they said we were responsible for everything bad that had ever happened in the world.
Most of our so-called friends and neighbours said nothing as we were terrorised and led away. They carefully planned and counted how they could get rid of each and every one of us. They tried to annihilate us completely from the face of the earth. But as a people we lived on.
Jewish people had been coming to Palestine from Europe for years before 1948 fleeing the persecution. We came and we bought land fairly and built our lives there. We were happy. We wanted to all be together again, in a place that had meaning to us, where we would be safe. We knew we needed freedom and independence, so that this time it would never, ever happen again.
People say that we never needed a country, but what do they know? Jewish history has taught us things that they can never possibly understand. Jewish history has taught us that the world will always betray us, and when that day comes, our friends and neighbours will walk on by. We are a minority, so we must stick together, protect one another, keep one another safe. We knew we needed freedom and independence, so that this time we would have a safeplace where we can go and live when the world finally turns us on again, as it always does.
And In 1947, the UN agreed we could finally have a state of our own. We were so proud and overjoyed. What an achievement for us after everything we had been through.
We never wanted to fight with the people already living in Palestine. Yes, before 1948, some of us lived together peacefully. But it wasn’t a Utopia. Some of the people welcomed us and provided us with a safe place to live. We had good relationships with them.
But some of the people didn’t want us there, we were outsiders and they never liked us. Some people went to the British to get them to stop us from coming to Palestine. And even before 1948, there was a lot of fighting between us, and some of us were massacred even in Palestine.
But we could have found a way to live together peacefully, in two states, and they could have lived in our state just as we could have lived in theirs, just so long as we had a State. That is all we ever wanted. We could have divided and shared the land.
But they could never let us have it. Never. And when the British finally left, we saw our opportunity, we declared our state. We had no intention of taking anything from anyone. We just wanted a state. And then every single one of our neighbours, all the countries around us invaded us, from every corner of the land. Enemies on all sides. They surrounded us and we found we were alone, again, just as we always have been.
But this time we fought back. We fought for our freedom and independence and dignity, and our right to live and exist and not just accept to be killed, and mainly, for most of us, because we actually had nowhere else to go. It was a war, yes, we took land yes, but we didn’t start that war. It was existential, because how else exactly do you expect we could have guaranteed our security and safety surrounded by neighbours who were baying for our blood? What would you have done?
Then after 1948 the Middle East erupted. The Jews in the Middle East had always experienced persecution. But this was worse than ever. It was intolerable. They blamed those Jews for Israel. Hundreds of thousands of us were ethnically cleansed out of homes we had lived in for centuries, from Ancient communities all across the continent, and we left to build new lives in Israel. Over half of Israelis today are descended from those Middle Eastern Jews.
Now we live together in Israel. We stick togehter and we fight together. We have fought war after war after war. They have tried to kill us from all sides, time after time. But each time, we fight back harder, and we win. We have and always will be surrounded by enemies, but we will always fight back.”
~~~~~
You might not agree with a single word of this story. But this story, in some form or another has been passed down through generations and generations of millions of Jewish and Israeli people.
~~~~~
Now imagine the life of this 15-year-old born and living in Israel
You have been taught this story since the day you were born.
You live in a Kibbutz. You have friends. You like the outdoors and sports. You get good grades in school.
Your grandparents live nearby. Your Grandad came from Yemen as a refugee, as a child. He told you that his family were being attacked and threatened after the 1948 war, so they left their possessions and homes behind in Yemen, and they came to Israel instead.
Mostly you are happy. You are so excited you have a new boyfriend or girlfriend who you really like, but your parents don’t know yet.
But you really hate the rockets. You have never known any life without rockets. You know that some of the rockets get intercepted, but they still get through all the time.
There are bomb shelters everywhere. At school, in the playgrounds, in the bus-shelters, and at home. The sirens can go off at any time and then you have to run to the shelter. Even if you are busy doing your homework, or asleep, or on the toilet. The noise of the sirens never stops making you jump. You are used to it, but you still get scared and you hate it, and the sounds of the rockets make you shake.
You know in a couple of years you will be conscripted into the army. Everybody goes. You do and you don’t want to go. You want to go because you know it is your duty to protect the State from its enemies, just as everyone in your family has always done. But you are scared about it, and you don’t know what it will really be like. People don’t talk about it.
One weekend, your parents agree you can spend the night with your cousin. They live 40 minutes away. She is like a sister to you. So, you go on Friday. You have fun, watch a movie, chat for ages, and you fall asleep late.
The next thing you know your Aunt is waking you both up. It is Saturday morning. She is in a panic. Something is happening. Your parents have messaged. Something is wrong. She says there are men everywhere in the Kibbutz with guns. You turn on your phone. There are messages from your parents and your brother. They are in the bomb shelter. You try to call them. You can’t get through. You feel the panic rising in your chest. No, please, no. You ring your boyfriend or girlfriend. No answer.
~~~~~
This child has never met a Palestinian that lives in any Occupied Palestinian territory. All he/she knows about them is that they fire rockets at Israel and have done his/her whole life, and once every couple of decades they commit extremely violent and horrific terrorist attacks. That is what he/she knows because that’s what they have been taught and also what their lived experience has taught them.
Many Jewish and Israeli people believe when they talk about Zionism they are talking about, “Somewhere safe for Jews to live where they will not be attacked, where they can call home, and where they have self-determination.” How is it possible for this 15 year old child, given the stories they have been told and the life they have led, to be anything other than a Zionist, when it is defined like that? And if they are told they are a ‘settler’, or an ‘evil oppressor’ and that that is why they deserve to die, they will look at you with wide eyed wonder and assume you are a lunatic.
The reason they can conceive of the Jewish people as settlers who live outside 1967 borders and not themselves is because they do not see them as being in the, ‘Right for somewhere safe to live’ group of Zionists. They are considered to be religious extremists and supremacists, what they see as a distorted and extremist form of Zionism, and they don’t consider it the same.
~~~~~
There are many incredibly sad and depressing things about all of these stories. But the part to me that makes it seem most tragically futile — is that for a very large number of individual human beings that ended up living in either Israel or in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the 1950s -1960s — their stories are almost the same. Most of them were running away from something, and most of the time, the people who are doing the running away are not the people doing the fighting or the massacring.
It is a story of being a refugee, of fighting for survival against all odds, of 20th century dispossession and mass displacement. A story of being blamed for things they did not do and being held to account for debts that they did not owe. The tumult of 20th century history created a shared heritage — that over a very short time hundreds upon thousands of people were displaced — Jews fleeing Europe to Palestine, Palestinians fleeing during the creation of Israel, and almost all the Jews across the Middle East then fleeing to Israel in the few years after it started.
Part of that shared heritage became about yearning to return to a Holy piece of land that carries promise and a deep spiritual connection. It really shouldn’t be that hard to explain to one another — and indeed the rest of the world, why we cannot just ‘let it go’.
I am not trying to rewrite history and say that every single person in the years leading up to and including events in 1948 was an innocent bystander. Absolutely not. I am just saying that, generally speaking, as is almost always the case — when it comes to atrocities, it is normally extremists that engage in it, that end up calling the shots for everyone, and it is them that end up dictating history.
And it is extremist ideologies that are plaguing us today. One is an ideology of Jewish supremacy. God’s chosen people, Israel is God’s gift and therefore comes with a right to take land off anyone and everyone. The other is an extreme, dangerous and corrupted version of Islam — a highly repressive ideology where human rights do not exist, and it exalts in the death of Jews.
These people — all of them — they are the mob. ‘Death to the Jew. Death to the Arab’ One or the other in their rightful place, subservient to the other, or better yet, dead in the ground.
Most people are not the mob. Most people are not sociopaths. Most people just want to live and get on with their lives, they want to have their basic needs met, their human rights, and they want their children to grow up happy and healthy with a bright future ahead.
It is important to understand though that the bonds of community and peoplehood are also part of a basic human need. The need to maintain relationships with brothers, sisters, cousins and friends who live in our communities together with us, who have a shared history with us, who support us, and to whom we are loyal — it is part of the human experience.
The stories of our own and our friend’s grandparents, the loss of livelihood and dreams for the future as they packed their bags and fled — these are the stories that make us peoples. And it is these stories that bind us together within our communities much more closely than any ancient religious text or any ancestral DNA test ever could.
And so when people say, “The Jews and Israelis are not a people. They are fakers, they are ‘Europeans’ pretending to have links to a land that has nothing to do with them.” Or people say, “The Palestinians are not a people. They are just ‘Arabs’ who could have gone anywhere, who have no real history and whose only goal in life is to terrorise Jews,” these will both only ever be seen as inherently anti-Semitic or Anti-Palestinian statements that erase and deny large parts of our collective heritage, and neither will lead to any kind of constructive dialogue. Who is anyone to make judgements about what another people is that they do not belong to?
And so we end up where we have got to today –
From the Palestinian side, what I think is difficult for somebody who is not Palestinian to understand, is that telling them that they should give up on the right to return — for many — is impossible. They can’t do it. Understanding and honouring Palestinian history, which is rich, and complicated, and is largely unknown to many people, for them it is part of their identity. Poetry, art, great thinkers, great writers — they are all there for the world to see if only they would bother to look.
And even worse for a Palestinian, to suggest that everything that has befallen them was somehow their fault because they refused to give up on their history, this could only ever be met with fury and be seen as gaslighting.
It is essential as well to remember that this land — it is not just any land. It is not so easy to walk away from it as any other place on earth. It is Holy Land. It has meaning to everyone associated with it, and everyone wishes to be able to walk free inside it.
Having an enduring determination to free themselves from a brutal occupation that does nothing but dehumanises them and steals from them — and a longing, ultimately, to return to their homeland, this is inherent to being a Palestinian. They cannot ‘Un-Palestinian’ themselves.
So the Palestinians will say, “What world would you have us do? You the world have done nothing to help us. You who have been silent and you care nothing for our oppression. You have abandoned us to unthinkable injustice and suffering for decades. You who sit comfortably in your homes have no right to moralise at us or criticise us and tell us what we should or shouldn’t do. We have no means whatsoever to fight for our freedom. No one is on our side. We are alone. We will do whatever must be done to fight for ourselves, our human rights, our land.”
The Palestinians are living in an impossible nightmare. There seems to be nothing they can do to free themselves that doesn’t make their situation worse. What exactly are they supposed to do when they live under an occupation, have no civil rights, no means to fight for themselves, and the people with power that could do something are not standing up for them? And when all means of civil and non-violent resistance are completely denied or futile, support for more violent resistance will become inevitable.
And it was indeed inevitable that 7th October would come. Warning after warning has been given about the Occupied Palestinian territories and the blockade. Warnings about human rights abuses have gone unheeded. Warnings that if Palestinians are not given their freedom what would happen. Warnings that it was totally unjust, immoral and illegal for Palestinians in the West Bank to be under military occupation. Time and again it has been said it is a danger to the security of Israel, and it was ignored.
But the problem for the Palestinians is that terror was never ever going to work — because the people in Israel believe it was established and is needed as security because of the risk of terror against them. So the idea that they could be terrorised into giving it back, or into leaving — this is an absurdity. People talk of ‘Hasbara’, but terror is and feeds Hasbara. October 7th has done nothing but make people believe in Zionism even more (a safe place to live in their eyes). Zionism burns greater than ever with the fuel of the fires from the Hamas rockets. All terror has and can ever achieve is further encroachment onto Palestinian territory — the literal opposite of a free Palestine.
What happened in 1948 is horrendous. But what of it, to that 15 year old Israeli child? Whose own grandparents had nothing to do with it, and were themselves dispossessed, as is the case now for so many people living in Israel. That child who has only ever known Israel as their home.
So Israelis will say, “World, what would you have us do after October 7th? People outside Israel, you can say whatever the hell you want, but we are here alone. We have and always have been surrounded by people on every side who wish to murder each and every one of us until we are annihilated, and in the most painful and brutal possible way, as has just been demonstrated plainly for all the world to see. You, who do not have any understanding whatsoever of what that is like, do not get to tell us what to do. We will do whatever we think is necessary to strengthen our position to ensure this cannot happen again.”
What people are missing is that this conflict is unique to any other case of the ‘coloniser and colonised’ in history, because the people doing the ‘colonising’ are half the people of the land, people who have a genuine existential fear of everybody around them that does not come from nowhere, and is deeply ingrained into most people’ psyche. Most do not have anywhere else to go, because most of their grandparents came to Israel as refugees, and so they cannot perceive themselves as a ‘colonial settler’ in any way. So they will never stop fighting back at terrorism for their right to live without fear of attack.
This links to the Jewish people in the diaspora who support Israel and is extremely difficult for non-Jewish people to understand.
For many Jewish people, memorialising the repeated attempts to eradicate Jews throughout history, most notably the Holocaust, and remembering and honouring ancestors who have died to keep the Jewish religion alive is considered essential.
Every festival, every prayer book, every cultural activity and a very large number of conversations includes this on some level. It is integral and inherent to most people’s identity. So if people feel that their Jewish counterparts, and very often family in Israel are in existential danger, they can and only ever will see it as a moral imperative that they must be supported.
Asking Jewish people to somehow disavow themselves of this notion is impossible. To tell most Jewish people they need to ‘get over it’ because, “they are a coloniser and their needs do not matter,” is completely meaningless to them.
It is not grounded in reality, and something that can and will only ever be perceived as an attempt to ‘UnJewish them’. I.e. to eradicate significant parts of Jewish history and day-to-day life and community, and thus could only ever be perceived as deeply antisemitic in its very nature. The more these things are denied as relevant, the more people will fight back against what they see as gaslighting.
But for those people in the diaspora who have blindly, unquestioningly, dutifully and uncritically supported Israel, while its government drifts ever further into the grip of right-wing extremism and corruption, must surely now see that was a mistake. If you had a friend or a loved one on a destructive path of self-sabotage, would you just let them carry on?
It is great tragedy of Jewish history for both Jews and Palestinians alike that self-determination and independence for the Jewish people, at a time when they needed and wanted it so badly would come at someone else’s expense. Something that is so freely and unquestioningly given to so many other peoples, but not the Jewish people. Yes, it is unfair. But it did come at their expense. I think that most Palestinians only opposed it, not because they oppose Jewish people — it is the bit about it being at their expense.
We can argue forever and eternity about, “Oh, but it never needed to be this way. If only you could have shared with us. If only in 1947 this or that. And if only in this peace agreement this year or that year,” or whatever.
But what of it to those 15 year olds living in Gaza and the West Bank? It is an irrelevance what was ever intended. What was intended bears no resemblance whatsoever to their lived reality. The Jewish dream of Zionism became their nightmare. I know this is an extremely painful and bitter pill for people to swallow, but Zionism since its inception has resulted in nothing other than subjugation for them. And it is not normal for a country to not have any proper borders, and for one people to control another in some parts of it.
And while it continues to happen, Zionism will continue to be seen as Jewish people being allowed to have control over other people. This was never ever how Zionism was originally intended for a lot of people, and it is not what they think it means. Far from it. But this is where it has come to, and intentions do not matter, because it is our actions that count. Once you understand this, it is really not difficult to see how this is fuelling dark and extremely dangerous conspiracy theories about Zionism, which are dragging us back to a place in history that we most definitely do not want to go, and it endangers us all.
We need to open our eyes to reality. As the bombs reign down in Gaza, destroying thousands of lives, after well over 100 days, there are people dying from starvation. This must end, immediately. It is abominable. The rockets are still coming. And even if you stop them today, while there is occupation in any part of the land, they will just come back tomorrow or the next day or the week or the year or the decade after that. And surely from the Israeli side, negotiating whatever terms to get as many of those hostages out alive, going through what must be unthinkable terror, at any cost, must be prioritised above all else.
And I am very sorry, because I know people will not like this. But this ‘war’ — it is not about destroying Hamas. It is becoming increasingly clear by the day that not only is destroying Hamas impossible, but Israel’s government are violent ethnonationalists. The far right threaten to collapse it at every mention of a ceasefire — the only thing that will get most of those hostages back alive — and so it carries on. And extreme ideology is much more widespread within the government than just the furthest right that are propping it up. The very leader of Israel himself is at the heart of it.
When you hear what they are saying, it is very clear that they have far more sinister intentions, and we must take them at their word. Allowing people to starve, making plans to drive them off their land into other places, destroying heritage sites, and yes, mass killing — that is ethnic cleansing. It is the definition of ethnic cleansing. It is illegal under international law, and it must stop.
People say, “Oh, but Hamas are stealing the aid.” Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. I don’t know. I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t care because it is an irrelevance at this moment in time to that woman looking into the eyes of her hungry child as they wither away and die. It is enough.
Could it ever be solved?
There are those of us that would be willing to give up on the dreams of our respective peoples, and not because we wish to throw them under the bus. But simply because we would just accept any solution, in whatever form, that would bring the suffering of all people to an end, and as quickly as possible. Because we believe that none of any of this is worth the blood of anyone’s children.
Because we look at those dreams of security through self-determination, rights to return, and we look at where we are today, and we see that none of any of it has delivered on its promise. We see that the world is a very different place to what it was in 1948. We recognise that there are people on the ‘other side’ that we would much rather share a country with than the ‘mob’ on our own side.
Because we know that our histories are worthless if they demand that we ‘unhuman’ ourselves.
Because we recognise that we have inherited the most Unholy mess.
But we are few in number, because the majority of most peoples cannot let go of their respective narratives, either in whole or in part. And so the solution that must be found is one that could satisfy the majority of the narrative of both peoples.
Israel already has half of what it wants — it has the state. But it does not have security, and any pretence of it has been an illusion, one that was violently shattered on October 7th.
The Palestinians meanwhile — they have nothing of what they want.
A one state solution — this does not satisfy the Israeli narrative, because it requires the undoing of Israel. It gives many Israelis nothing of what they think they want and everything they are afraid of. If you were that panicking aunt of that 15 year old Israeli child just now, would you be agreeing to open that border?
But I do not think the two-state solution really satisfies the Palestinian narrative. Because in that narrative, things were better before Israel, before Zionism, where everybody just lived together. And mainly because people want to able to walk free across the land — the right of return. The two-state solution may bring freedom and dignity, but I am not sure if it would give enough people what they really want.
Ultimately it comes down to one of the reasons this has been so intractable for so long. The Jewish State and the desire to control and ensure the continued right of Jewish immigration to Israel, and the presumed need to maintain a Jewish majority to enable that, vs the Right to Return of the Palestinians. ‘The War of Return’ as it has been called. The thing that neither side seems to be able to give up, that seem to be in direct conflict.
So what do we do? Throw our hands up, put it down to a bad job and just give up. (What the world has done). Keep blaming each side’s ‘propaganda’, each side’s education system, each side’s unwillingness to budge. But it won’t work, because it is asking people to let things go of things that they cannot let go of, things that are integral to the history of their peoples.
Human beings have been solving problems since we existed and there is no reason why we cannot solve this one.
There are many possible ways to solve it. The confederate two-state-solution is one example of a way to square the circle: https://www.alandforall.org/.
I suggest it not because I am wedded to it but because it seems to me that it would satisfy enough of both narratives to work. There may be multiple other ways to do it.
How do we get to it? As a possible example. We start with two states. Real states. Not a bit of a state or half a state with the other bit not connected to it and some people still being occupied that could never be acceptable, and was always going to be fought against. A real Palestinian state, whose borders are secured through international peacekeeping. But with that state must also come the promise and the goal that over a reasonably short period of time, everybody who wishes to cross that border gets to cross that border, until eventually, one day, ideally, there isn’t a border. People live wherever they want, but retain citizenship in their own state. And with regards specific land and homes that cannot be returned, real reparations are made. This is just one example of how it could be done.
As we keep hearing — 7 million Israelis, 7 million Palestinians. No one is going anywhere. But at some point, it is my opinion that, probably, for this to ever end, everyone must be able to go everywhere.
Two peoples living side by side. All free to live and move freely across this ancient and Holy land that is so special and meaningful to all and must be shared. Finally able to mix and become humanised in each other’s eyes. Christian, Jew, and Muslim, free to access their ancient and Holy sites. All of us united together in the spirit of mutual respect and tolerance.
Cooperating together to fight the only war that there should ever have been — the only war worth fighting.
Everybody vs the mob.
Not a religious war, not a war of the us or them, not a war over rights to the land and houses. But a war of the moderate and the just against the extremists that have desecrated our respective religions and turned them into something ugly. The lunatics marginalised, silenced and rejected. As opposed to what we have now — the sociopaths leading the charge and everyone else marching dutifully along behind.
People will say this is idealistic nonsense, a pipe dream. But what is the other option? Another twenty or thirty years of failed peace agreements and more of the same all over again? And with every round of violence, the violence gets more violent, the mob gets stronger and more popular on both sides as their ideas are seeded. And the mob is hard to fight, because the mob involves fanatic religion that cannot be reasoned with.
If we keep allowing them to get stronger and stronger, I think they will eventually set each other, themselves, and quite possibly the entire world, alight. Literal World War 3 with Jerusalem at the centre.
“How can you ask us to negotiate with them?” I hear you say. “Them, who are ethnically cleansing us,” or, “Them who wish to annihilate us,” depending on which side you are on. But here is the rub — you cannot terrorise people into leaving and you cannot bomb people into submission. Neither has ever worked. We cannot ethnically cleanse or genocide our way out of this for either people, one way or the other. Any other solution other than a diplomatic solution will lead us nowhere but the abyss.
Israelis and Palestinians are not all inherently genocidal oppressors or inherently genocidal terrorists. (As unfortunately lots of people are saying) Of course they are not. Maybe right now in Gaza most Palestinians do support Hamas in what they see as armed resistance, and most Israelis do support the actions of their government in what they see as a war. But both things have become intertwined with both mobs, and so they are not what each respective side thinks they are. The ‘armed resistance’ — a pogrom style massacre by the ‘death to the Jew’ mob, and the ‘war’ a flagrant breach of international law and an obvious attempt at ethnic cleansing by the ‘God gave us Israel, death to the Arab’ mob.
I am not very sure that most of any of them either know or believe exactly what has or hasn’t happened. The information they are receiving is very different to ours. And in times of heightened escalation of violence, people retract into the respective narratives of their people as they become reinforced. “If it’s a choice between us or them, I choose us. And for me to be able to look myself in the mirror, I must choose to believe what I choose to believe.”
Both believe so deeply within their heart and soul that they are on the side of righteous justice. For one it is ‘the right to just exist’, For the other, it is ‘the right to life, dignity, freedom from cruel and violent oppressors’. So they are both engaging in the collective delusion that because theirs is the side of the right and good, their soldiers/fighters must also be right and good.
Their people can’t possibly be the ones committing the crimes against humanity, and they cannot believe the worst things that are being said about their own side, only the other. But this is not the reality of wars and fighting, and definitely not in a conflict that has gone on for this long where this amount of hatred has become so entrenched, and most of all not ones which involve religion. To me it seems very likely that most of the worst things that are being said about both sides, are in fact, the true things.
As it turns out, many of them were always, are becoming, or have become, the mob.
I think almost everyone, whatever they say, would in fact be appalled if they were actually to see the violence that has happened, and is happening with their very own eyes. But they do not want to open their eyes to see it for what it really is, because they are on the side of the right and the good.
I know there are people of every colour and creed who no doubt I could become friends with, get along with, and love dearly. But also there are people of every colour and creed that I could not stand to be in the same room as. I know this because I am not a racist. Human beings are human beings, that is all we need to know. And if we find ourselves making any collective statements about all of a people, we are probably becoming the very thing we so vociferously claim to the world we are not.
I think that racism may well have become entrenched on ‘both sides’ but I am not sure that it is exactly racism — perhaps a better way to put it would be ‘othering’. “They did this, they did that. They support this, they support that.” And the only way to stop doing it is not to tell each other that we need to unlearn or erase our respective histories and ‘un-brain’ wash ourselves. It is the opposite.
We have to first human ourselves. And then we might have to temporarily UnJewish and UnPalestinian ourselves for short amounts of time. Then we learn each other’s history. Then we will be able to find solutions together.
How can we work together to solve this?
This part of this piece of writing — specifically — it is for us in the diaspora. Hardly anyone in the Middle East is in a place to hear any of this this right now, and too many of them are much too busy trying not to die or get killed.
We in the diaspora, we are trying very hard to do what we can to stop this, and to help. But how is it possible, that all of us who seemingly so desperately want the same thing — freedom and dignity for everyone, and yet still don’t seem to be able to get anywhere without offending and upsetting one another? How can we expect people in the Middle East to co-exist, if we cannot even have a conversation?
I believe we are talking to each other in languages we do not understand, and until we realise this, we will only ever talk past each other. Almost every conversation will have the opposite of its intended consequence, and make the other person believe they are even more right.
We will only ever find it inconceivable that people or friends or colleagues that we thought were ‘nice’ could have views that seem totally barbaric in our eyes. But if we could talk in languages each other could understand, it would get easier. Or at least if we can’t, if we tried to hear what the other is really saying.
We are not listening to, or being respectful of one another and as a collective we are so much weaker and so much less powerful for it. Because the discourse has become so toxic that we cannot work together to find solutions.
I know I myself have been done these things, but even as we try to so hard to understand and explain, it is so easy to offend. I think the reason we are offending each other is because the words in the mind of the speaker sound very different to the ears of the listener.
If the conversations are had respectfully in the spirit of achieving genuine mutual understanding, that is great. But if it is an argument to convince the other person that you are right, forget it.
Take the debate about whether shouting ‘Intifada’ is Anti-Semitic.
If you tell some Palestinians that shouting, what to them means ‘resistance’ against a state which is and has been exercising immense and disproportionate power against them and has done for three quarters of a century, is anti-Semitic, they will inevitably wonder what planet you are living on. How exactly it is that you expect they can possibly fight for their freedom? And why do you continue to engage in this collective delusion that just condemns them to suffer and die?
But if you try to tell most Jewish people, that what they perceive as the indiscriminate killing of Jews in terrorist attacks is not antisemitic, it is inevitable that they will not believe you. In fact, they will see you as yet another of the seemingly innumerable people in the ‘Death to the Jew’ mob.
Every conversation is having the opposition of its intended consequence. Convincing the other person they were more right than they were before.
Think about the way that we frequently use each other’s non-mainstream diaspora voices as a stick to beat each other with. (And this is not necessarily a criticism of those voices — some of them are very important — it’s just explaining how they are seen).
People say to Palestinians:-
“Look, this Palestinian is good, they think Zionism is okay, and you should just accept it. If only you could stop being so silly like them it would have all been over a long time ago. They agree that you haven’t exactly helped yourselves.”
How could a Palestinian ever consider this as a legitimate argument? Views that surely could only be perceived as incredibly anti-Palestinian. Surely they must think something along the lines of…
“You are privileged not to be in Gaza grieving incommensurate losses. You are one of the lucky ones whose entire family is not now dead. You who are not hungry and ill and exhausted and cold and terrified of being killed. All of your hopes and dreams do not lie in ruin before your eyes. You are enabling and emboldening our enemies. You are throwing us under the wheels of the bus of occupation all the while benefitting from living in the countries that side with our oppressors. You do not, and you will not ever, speak for us.”
Equally Jewish people are constantly bombarded with -
“Look at this Jewish person or that one. They are reasonable. They believe Israel is a colonial entity and should be entirely dismantled. They agree you are weaponising the Holocaust and playing the victim. Why are you not a good Jew, like them?”
This is not in any way a mainstream Jewish view because it is mostly perceived as -
“Lucky you, not to be one of almost half the Jews of the world that ended up living in Israel, to not have been born there, to not have a friend or family member that has been killed or taken or mutilated.
Lucky you, who can align yourself with the baying mob, and in so doing throw your Jewish Brothers and Sisters in Israel under the wheels of the bus of annihilation by the people that have demonstrated time and again that they hate them, because it is not your problem. You are not and never have been part of the community, and you do not speak for us.”
If we constantly tell both groups that we don’t hate them, just so long as they agree with something that is a total anathema to them, it will never wash. I am sure it is incredibly offensive to everyone.
“From the River to the Sea.” What do you mean? Genocide the Jews? Genocide the Palestinians? Arab Nationalism? Jewish Nationalism? Or simply freedom and equality for all?
And when it comes to ‘Zionism’. Forget about different languages. We are on completely different planets.
For everyone and anyone else watching the nightmare unfold, who can’t make sense of any of it, they must be thinking, “Surely none of any of this can be okay in the name of human decency?” But they do not know what to do. Because to ‘both sides’ it is to offend everyone and convince no one. ‘Both sidsing’ it has been declared not allowed. You will always be seen as a sell-out or a bus-thrower-under, one way or the other. So they are silenced, their voices not heard, reduced into a despondent, hand-wringing depression.
Yes, in the Middle East, one group has all the power. But in the diaspora, we are more equal. We have equal rights, we mostly live in countries where we are free to speak our minds.
Both sides are busy trying to expose each other’s mob. Both sides have “traitors” who are busy helping. The traitors have totally denounced their own side as either misogynistic, or racist, or both, and have joined the other team. And most of everybody else is on the scale of moderate, somewhere in between the views of the ‘mob’ from their own side, and ‘traitor’ for the other side. None of us even agree with each other on our ‘own side’, and very often, the people on our own side annoy us even more than the people on the other, and amazingly, sometimes the people we find the most annoying are the people we agree with the most.
In the first version of this I wrote, “We are mirror images of one another, yet it seems we mainly hold the mirror up at each other, not at the self.” So we never get to see what it is that we might have been missing.
Maybe is the other way around — we only hold the mirror up at the self and not the other. Something like that.
This is a long and, yes, very complicated story affecting and involving millions of different people across the world, across time and space, with millions of different stories to tell. For there to be any genuine hope of mutual understanding or respect, every single person is going to have to concede that most things about this story they can never truly understand because they have not lived them.
We cannot know, if we have not lived it, what it means to be born and live in a country that has only ever been at war. We cannot know, if we have not lived it, what it means to be born and live your whole life in a territory that is brutally occupied, or is under a blockade, by another people. Nor can we know, if we have not lived it, what it is like to have friends and family caught up on any side of this, whose safety and wellbeing you are desperately worried about.
We in the diaspora, so desperately worried for people in the Middle East, we are all working so hard, but we are not doing the right work. We are digging the hole deeper than ever. The magic peace fairy is not coming. They will not simply just descend from the sky, sprinkle us with magic fairy peace dust and make it all better.
When was the last time we tried to have a meaningful conversation with someone who is saying things that seem incredibly offensive to us? When was the last time we took the trouble to ask them why they think what they do? Or to ask why it is that we have offended them? To ask them about their lives, what happened to their grandparents, and their families and friends, and their parents and the stories that they were told growing up. About their hopes and dreams and aspirations. About their fears for the future.
Whenever the violence escalates, the historians cash in. Suddenly people have more motivation to understand, so we start reading and re-reading the history books. But mostly history will not give us the answers that we are looking for. It is people’s stories that will do it. And reading books that reinforce things that we already agree with will not give us the understanding that we need. It is the great writers from the other side that might.
Social media has many ills. But one huge positive is that it allows us to connect with all sorts of people whose thoughts and ideas we would never have been exposed to. We can observe fascinating conversations between other people we would never have been party to before. We can gain understanding, share ideas and solutions. It is definitely happenning. None of this was there in any previous attempts to fix this. It might just be the gamechanger that we need. We must make the most of it.
We cling to our positions like shells to a rock, not budging at all, so sure that we and we alone can see this for what it really is. I know I was. We could have been working together to stop this, but we never make any progress, and as a result, inadvertently, each and every one of us is complicit in the most unforgivable human suffering.
People say that there is no point talking about peaceful co-existence because it has never worked — but neither has violence. Ultimately there are only two choices — wait for the magic peace fairy, and die together. Or we can do the work to make the ‘peace’ that we all want, and maybe we can live together.
Addendum
And now I speak “as a British Jew,” to anyone in our community who is willing to listen.
I can tell the story of the Jewish story because I know that story. I have grown up listening to it. I was taught it in the Synagogue, in Sunday school and by family and friends. I have also tried, as best as I can, having not lived it, but by listening to the voices of Palestinians and with the help and feedback of allies, to do justice to their story. I hope that I have. It may not meet the mark, after all, this is only version 2. And anyway, neither ‘side’ is a monolith, we would all tell our histories a bit differently, so I definitely cannot satisfy all.
It is important to say that there is one thing yet unmentioned about these two stories. It may be the most important thing. I think it belies the biggest lack of understanding between us.
I have talked much of the similarities in our stories. But there is one very big difference.
The Israeli and Jewish story is about running away. It is about running away from terrible persecution, and of moving forward. It is about moving on and building a new life. The idea of wanting to go back in time, wanting to turn back the clock — it is unconscionable. There was never anything worth going back to. So, for example, when some of us are suddenly being offered citizenship in European countries because our grandparents lived there before the Holocaust, this is not something that we could ever comprehend wanting.
So many Israelis feel, “Why couldn’t they have just moved on like we did? Why did they spend all of their efforts ruining things for us when they could have just moved forward, let it go, made the best of a bad lot, and made new lives like we did?”
Apart from the multitude of reasons I have already explained as to why it was never that simple and why their material circumstances and the occupation has made that impossible for most people — what we need to realise is that their story is the other way around. Our story starts from a place of misery, and moves onto something better. Theirs starts from a place where they were happy enough, and moves onto something horrific. It starts from being at least content for hundreds of years, running away — something they thought was temporary — and never being allowed to go back.
And I say this part as gently as I possibly can. There is a very deep and particular sorrow that many Jewish people will know. It comes with realising that we do not want to look back, because looking back is much too painful. Knowing that for some of us there is no point going on ‘ancestry.com’ because there is no ancestry left to trace. And is it that sorrow that was felt so keenly after the atrocity that was October the 7th. People do not understand that something cannot be weaponised when it is so genuinely heartfelt — there is no intent behind it.
But for the Palestinians — seeing that people from other countries can go and visit, go on holiday, and walk around in a land where their grandparents built their homes, left with whatever they could carry only for them and their families to encounter ever more worsening horrors on their onward journey right up until this very day — and yet they can never set foot in that land — I think what they experience when they see that — it is a very similar sorrow. And I am sure that they have been feeling that sorrow most keenly with each and every passing day, and most particularly in these last months.
I do not believe, as I have argued, that is the case that Israel must cease to exist with all the people in it, to allow the Palestinians what they clearly want, need, and, I believe, are indeed entitled to. The idea that our millenia-old right of return is still in date but their 75-year-old right of return has somehow expired is completely logically incoherent.
And I am coming to understand that suggesting that it has somehow been indulged is a bit like telling us we are weaponising the Holocaust. I think that nothing could be more insulting.
The problem with our version of the story that we were taught — The story of the Jewish people, our losses, our sacrifices, our spilled blood — it is only half a story. It is history through only one lens.
And that story is not the only thing that is taught in our homes and in our Synagogues and in our Sunday schools. We are taught values. We are taught values of respect, justice, and ‘do unto others’. We are taught the words of the Talmud ‘Whoever saves a life, saves the world entire,” (words that can also be found in the Quran).
Most importantly of all, we are taught, “Do not stand idly by while the blood of your neighbour is shed.”
And because we are taught those values — there is a cognitive dissonance that so many people in our community feel — but don’t quite understand — that parts of this story don’t really make any sense, that what happened, and is happening, is definitely not okay. That dissonance — it will not hold forever. It will tear our families and our community apart. It already is.
Yes, there is a death to the Jew mob. Yes, they are a massive problem. But I think we have no right to make mention of that mob unless in the same breath and multiple times over we are making mention of our own mob. Because our own, ‘Death to the Arab’ mob — they have been running around the Occupied Territories unchecked for decades. And it is both mobs that need to be brought under control before there can ever be any hope of resolving this. The Death to the Jew mob will come back stronger than ever while the Death to the Arab mob roam free. And who are we to lecture Palestinians for not getting their house in order, when it is our side that has all the power and all the resources, and yet we have allowed it to carry on? We who demand that they condemn the “resistance” whilst refusing to condemn the “war”.
And we must understand this — If Gaza is allowed to be resettled — it is over. Ever more untold and unimaginable horror for the Palestinians, and in our silence we will have handed Israel on a plate to those ethnonationalists, to the people that should have had nothing to do with what Israel could have been — and in fact people that have nothing to do with us and our values.
People keep talking about the two-state solution like it is some kind of utopia that, like the magic peace fairy, it will just fall from the sky. It is not that easy. Trying to dismantle settlements in the West Bank to make that possible — it is probably almost undoable as it is. Some of them have been there so long now and the Palestinians have very little faith that it could or would ever be done. In fact a confederate version of the two state solution may in some ways be easier to implement because it does not necessarily require the dismantlement of all settlements, something that looks like it is getting harder to do.
And If we think antisemitism is bad now, it will be nothing compared to what is in store in years to come if the resettlement and reoccupation of Gaza were to happen. Israel, hated among nations like never before, until eventually the world will finally not tolerate it. It is dangerous and it leads I know not where, undoing it, I know not how. An epic holy war ahead of us, and in the process we will see what we are already seeing in Israel — free speech and dissent a thing of the past — and Israel’s democracy — burned to the ground.
We are doing our cousins and our friends no favours by parroting off the same old arguments, and ignoring the occupation that has been allowed to become normalised within Israel. It is high time for a different conversation. It was a long ago, and it is now or never.
We need to speak up, loud and clear. When it comes to armed Jewish settlers running around the West bank and terrorising Palestinians, we are anti — it, and we always have been. But how can we expect other people to know this if we do not have these conversations in the open? If we do not call a spade a spade. Our refusal to use particular words and talk about things in a particular way in front of other people even if we do it behind closed doors has led to a lack of education within our community — and I am sure that there will be some people when I talk about these things, that have literally no idea what I am even saying. This is a very big problem. I hope some of those people are reading this now.
And what exactly is it that we are so afraid will happen if we put our heads above the parapet? It is evidently clear that Israel has not been abandoned by its allies. Put yourself in the shoes of an ordinary Gazan just now. Heartbreakingly, it seems to me, that being abandoned by the world — that that has become their destiny.
And, “What of the far left?” people will say? How are we to do deal with their antisemitism?
Yes, the far left think they are supporting armed resistance but have in fact aligned themselves with the ‘death to the Jew’ mob. They bleat on about ‘Hasbara’ — something they clearly have no understanding of whatsoever because if they did they would realise that they are it. Or at least that they are feeding it. Literally they are walking, talking Hasbara.
But of the multiple problems with the far left — and there are many — to me the worst is that there are those of them who have no connection whatsoever to the lives of anyone in the region — no ordinary Israelis or ordinary Palestinians, and yet they cheer for ever more death and destruction. They cheer on “armed resistance” from their comfortable homes in their comfortable lives, and it is not them who will have to face the consequences.
And maybe this round of violence will be the last round, the round that ends it once and for all — I hope so. But it has come at the most appalling and unacceptable cost.
Who are they to think they have a right to declare that somebody else’s family, somebody else’s child — Israeli or Palestinian — even one — let alone thousands and counting — is an acceptable sacrifice?
Maybe it is because they did not understand that October 7th could only ever have been a suicide mission. Because as a consequence of the rigidness of far-left ideology that does not allow for self-critical thinking, they refuse to understand this problem in more than one way. That you cannot fight evil with evil. That yes, it is more complicated than just ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’, more complicated than their warped version of reality where even children are fair game.
Probably there are some of them that knew what would happen after October 7th, and just decided it was probably worth it if it would eventually ‘free Palestine.’ Either way it is unforgivable because it was not their decision to make. And all that has happened as far as I can see, all October 7th has achieved is all it would ever achieve — to enable an extremely racist, harmful, problematic and untrue stereotype that ‘Palestinians are genocidal terrorists’ to be reinforced in the eyes of Israelis and the rest of the world. Around 3,000 people crossed that border on October 7th, of a population of over 2 million. But undoing that sterotype will be extremely difficult, taking us further away from where we need to be.
You cannot help but wonder where we might be right now if only all those people had used all that effort to lobby for a real diplomatic solution. But we can’t turn back the clock.
Arguing with the far left is a waste of time. They have no self-awareness, they are delusional, and they will never stop. They are as fanatical as any of the mob. The only way to make them stop talking is to actually sort this problem once and for all and work for the freedom and dignity of all. And when all is said and done, the ones that will keep complaining will finally be exposed for what they truly are.
That there are outspoken people within our community that think that the correct response to these people is for us to align ourselves with far right Islamophobes — we who have traditionally been proud of being anti-fascist — this could not be more ludicrous. It will lead us into that abyss. “I think the Jewish Chronicle is the Daily Mail for Jews.” Yes Dad, we all finally agree.
So where do we go from here? We need to start doing that right work. It is incumbent upon us more than anyone. Because it is only us who can help our friends and family in Israel, because it us who share history with them, who love and care about them. It is us who can help them see this through another lens.
We need to change the conversation, and we need to do it fast. Because the Palestinians do not have the luxury of time, and as far as I am concerned, neither do we.
There are people in our communities — both Israeli and Jewish — that have already been doing that right work for a really long time. It is time to listen to them, and elevate their voices. We need to start to be willing to be offended and to listen to other points of view. And unfortunately some of the right work does sometimes involve wading through what feels like a massive steaming pile of anti-Semitic shit, in order to get to the heart of some of the problems. But we also have an opportunity to meet some incredible people, and hear some amazing and wonderful voices that we would never have had a chance to hear. We have to get this done, to fix this once and for all.
We cannot hand this legacy to our children. We have to fight (non-violently) for a different future. This is the chance to do it. The world’s eyes are on Israel, and the time is now.
#i/p#המצב#jumblr#a word of warning:#when I say it's extremely long#I mean that this will likely take you an hour to read properly#I'm not getting an easy word count on it#but it's Long
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Hello! 👋 Could I get a yandere, normal and Humans are cute au! Transformers Prime matchup (as a human), please? 🐅 I've read the rules and I hope that I didn't do anything wrong by accident (and counted the words right!).
I'm 18+ and transmasc, so nsfw is fine. Gotta love the big alien bots! I use he/him or they/them pronouns. I'm demisexual and attracted to men.
I'm a deeply emotional and usually quiet person. More of a listener than a talker unless I'm really comfortable with somebody. I like listening to what other people have to say and if possible limit my company to one person at a time. My main love language is physical touch and words of affirmation are a close second. I believe good communication to be the foundation of any relationship. My personality type is INFP.
My main interests are art (painting, sculpting - traditional mediums) and video games as well as exploring the human mind through works of fiction. I really like immersing myself in new and different worlds - sci-fi and fantasy genres are wonderful! Sometimes I write things on the side or make ocs for myself. I also really like densely green areas and like visiting forests whenever I get the chance to. I also like electronic music - synthwave. I ADORE tabletop RPGS! I like making a character and then acting them out. I prefer audio books over reading and I have poor eyesight (near sighted).
Dislikes: children, loud noises, crowds, being approached from behind or surrounded, being yelled at (I will cry.), having to wake up early, hot weather
Breakdown is Yandere for you!
Breakdown absolutely adores how small you are. Decepticons hold no love for humans or any organics for that matter, but you have a special place in this Con's Spark.
He will tell you stories about the Bots and Cons he has fought against and how they never stood chance against him. Only one has been able to match his strength and that was this green Autobot called Bulkhead, but Breakdown doesn't talk about his losses since he wants to stay as the strongest Mech in your mind.
He will happily hug you if it makes you happy and keep you close by. If he let you out of his sight even for a second, you might be trampled by some Vehicon or worse, try to contact Autobots and attempt to leave Breakdown.
The Con warrior isn't the most artistic but he enjoys watching you do what you like. Video games are new to him also, but if you show him fighting games he is SOLD. Humans have virtual fighting simulators? So cool!
Breakdown is interested in your games and having your own characters, but if things get too complicated for him to understand, he usually spaces out.
It's easy to forget when you are around him that he is a ruthless Decepticon warrior and an extremely protective one at that. If anyone even looks at you in a funny way, he has his hammer out and is threatening the guy and literally making them beg for their life. No, they shouldn't beg from him but from you!
If Breakdown thinks that the apology isn't good enough he sees nothing wrong in teaching the Con or Bot some manners. He is just looking out for you.
I match you with Bumblebee!
You're one of the few people who can understand Bumblebee, but what draws him towards you is how you perk up when something you like is being discussed about.
Raf was just one day talking about how he thought about getting into some RPG games and you light up like a newborn star and start telling and explaining everything you might know about the games.
Bee makes a comment that you are really cute when you talk about your interests and you two kinda became a thing.
Bumblebee enjoys quality time with you and loves holding you close as he plays you some of your favorite songs, usually electronic. If he is feeling like showing you some affection, he tends to choose romantic songs.
If the two of you take a trip somewhere, he likely will play your current audiobook in the speakers.
The yellow Autobot would love to tell you about Cybertron but his words are limited so he relies on other Bots to explain about their home planet to you.
Bee is familiar with sci-fi but fantasy is new to him, but luckily he is eager to learn. He would love to create new worlds and your own characters! He wants to badly be a strong and heroic warrior and save you from evil goblins. He just wants to be your hero in shining armor in both game and real life.
Knock Out is your owner!
You were originally a gift to Knock Out from Breakdown. The big brute wanted to make sure that his lover would always have someone to puff the red mech and that he could never feel lonely when Breakdown wouldn't be able to be with him.
Knock Out thought it was a joke, but then he looked at you and decided that "Frag it" and took you in.
This sleek beautiful Con is a good owner. He takes care of things that belong to him, and you are one of those things. You're a fine human specimen, even if a little quiet at first. He encourages you to speak because he wants to hear you praise his paint job or finish.
He will take you out with him to see drive-in movies and shop for stuff. You're his pet so you must look at least half as good as he does.
When Breakdown is gone, like, gone for good, you're there to offer Knock Out company and sympathy. He doesn't cry, he is a Con, but he will quietly hold you in his arms as if you would also disappear if he let go even for a second. You're the last thing he has of Breakdown and he will cherish you.
Please, do paint a pretty picture of Knock Out or make a statue of him. He will love them because he knows that you put a lot of effort into them.
These games you show him are interesting to say at least. Knock Out likes playing with you, even if he needs a moment to learn, but he makes a great Bard.
You would think he would make his character a Cleric or a Healer, but nope, he wants to sing about his glorious looks and the exciting adventures the two of you end up on.
#matchup#yandere#yandere matchup#humans are cute#pet human#human pet#breakdown#bumblebee#tfp#transformers prime#transformers#knock out#knockout#knock-out#Anon#ENJOY!
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Random Disney Theory: Hunchback of Notre Dame
So, you know how you re-watch your favorite childhood movies sometimes, and suddenly you get wild theories?
(No? Just me? ....Okay then...)
Aaaanyway, I just watched the Hunchback of Notre Dame again (specifically, I skipped to listen to all to songs, because they're amazing, obviously). And something important occurred to me, and I can't have been the only one to notice this:
Quasimodo... doesn't look like this biological parents at all.
(Keep in mind: I know that this movie is based on a book, so maybe there are answers about that in the original source material. I've never read the book, however, and we all know Disney just takes the general concept from their source materials anyway. So I'm just focusing on what we are shown in the movie, and that's it.)
Now, I admit: it's only a defult assumption that the Romani man in the beginning with Quasimodo's mom ("Romani" being the current official, non-offensive name for the "Gypsy" poeple, according to web info) was her husband, or Quasimodo's father. It doesn't mean that was the case.
Perhaps the man was her brother, thus Quasimodo's uncle. Perhaps the two Romanis were simply friends, or temporary companions. (Personally I don't believe that, since their body language when they saw Frollo seems to imply a close relationship). Or maybe they were lovers, but due to some complicated circumstances the man was Quasimodo's stepfather, his biological father being someone else.
All of that doesn't matter, however. Because no matter how I look at it, even if Quasimodo's father was some light-skinned, green-eyed, red-haired man... that's not how genetics work. Red hair is a recessive trait: meaning, he should have taken after his dark-haired-and-skinned mother. Even if Quasimodo was only half-Romani, he doesn't share any Romani, and it's clearly not because he's deformed. He has typical European descend.
Quasimodo just isn't... a biological Romani, and it's obvious.
The answer to "how can that be?" is simple, of course: Quasimodo had to be adopted. ...Twice, if you count whatever the heck Frollo. But if you put this information in the perspective of the whole movie... doesn't that make the fate of his mother unbelievably tragic?
Picture this: a Romani woman, obviously on the run from something – probably racial persecution – adopts an infant son. A deformed infant son, of a different race than herself. What does it tell you about Quasimodo's past...?
Quasimodo was actually abandoned before, by his real birth mother. Frollo was accidentally correct about that!!
...Of course, it's possible that his birth mother just died during birth or something, but like... wouldn't then Quasimodo be adopted by one of his relatives? Or family friends? If he was loved by his biological parents, there should have been someone. The Romani clearly weren't trusted folks in that time period, so sincerely entrusting them with a baby seems extremely unlikely. It's far more plausible that Quasimodo was abandoned on a street, and picked up by the travelling couple, who took pity on the child.
Naturally, the fact that Quasimodo's mother adopted him doesn't make him any less her true son. She was a real mother to him – as proven by the fact that she died for him. She was running with such desperation, and not for a moment did she consider abandoning her baby in order to escape Judge Frollo.
And this is what makes this whole thing so tragic... Quasimodo's Romani mother loved him sincerely, with all her heart, as a mother should. There is no doubt about it. And yet, not only did Frollo kill her, then tried to kill her baby, then raised Quasimodo so cruelly... he spent the next 20 years telling Quasimodo that she was the kind of person who abandoned him. That "Gypsies are not capable of real love". He sullied her name in the most despicable way possible.
Ah, Frollo, that disgusting man... I'm so glad he was so petty he revealed the truth to Quasimodo in the end. She really deserved to be remembered for what she did for him.
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get to know me, parts 1, 2, and 3 (or, way too much information about me all in one post)
Thanks for the tags, @hippolotamus (x2), @ramonaflow @jettestar @carolrain
last song: southern california wants to be western new york - dar williams
favorite color: red
currently watching: I've been rewatching boy meets world (as one does), almost done though, so I'm gonna have to figure out if I'm allowed to watch something new or not
last movie: I think Titanic because it was leaving Netflix again
sweet/spicy/savory: sweet!
relationship status: married
current obsession: the schitt's creek obsession is persistent and ongoing
last thing you googled: it was remote copywriter jobs but not for me lol
Nicknames: snapdragon, captain chaos, MJ
Zodiac: gemini
Height: extremely average
Fav music: this is a complicated question because I like so many things? I mean, if you've followed me for any length of time, you know I love the Mountain Goats and also musicals and Noah but also many things in between and beyond.
Followers: 300ish?
Following: that would require me to look and I don't wanna. it's somewhere between 200 and 300.
Do you get asks: sometimes, but mostly when I'm doing an ask game of some kind, other than my treasured Ghost Friend asks.
Amount of sleep: theoretically like 7 hours but I know I don't ever sleep straight through the night
What are you wearing: black nevermore academy shirt and purple plaid leggings
Dream job: i still dream about being a musician for broadway shows and/or owning a recording studio. and opening a bookstore/cafe.
Languages: English, I took AP German in HS and French in college and can fumble my way through reading those and basic Spanish and a little bit of Irish but I'm not good at speaking or listening. I also started learning Japanese on Duolingo.
Random facts: i love making weirdly specific playlists and if the mood strikes, i may make one for your weird interest. Some recent ones are songs about shipwrecks and fifty us states (now I want to make a canadian province one. tbd on that)
Aesthetic: cottagecore goth/recovering gifted-band-theater kid
1 Three ships: David/Patrick, Buddie, Alex/Henry
2 First ever ship: The first one I ever actively shipped was Mark/Roger from Rent
3 Last Song: case of you by k.d. lang
4 Last movie: still Titanic.
5 Currently reading: Still working on the second book in the The Raven Cycle (The Dream Thieves).
6 Currently watching: Still BMW.
7 Currently consuming: tea
8 Currently craving: A nap, a vacation, and some really good ramen
I am not tagging anyone because I'm very late, but if you too would like to overshare on the internet, please consider this your tag!
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1. What’s their love languages? and 19. How do they silently/subtly express their love for each other? for any of your oc ships :)
hello!! thank you for asking 💛 i’ll do this for amon and hya bc i miss these assholes
1. what’s their love languages?
this is so complicated only because having a love language implies that either of them are Direct about showing affection towards one another and that’s a trip LMAO.
if i had to pick: amon is probably, truly, acts of service. which makes him being a butler to hya doubly revealing, but the fact of the matter is—when he cares about someone he wants to CARE for them yknow what i mean. it’s the way that he can be honest with what he does even if he’ll lie in your face because he has to. his whole reasoning for being at the chateau in the first place is an “act of service” for everyone he cares about in the slums, like my guy just does shit for people because he loves them.
for hya it’s physical touch. in a similar vein, he can only be honest with his body (which is why these dumbasses work At All), and he doesn’t let ANYONEEEE touch him. fascinating then, that the one person he lets touch him is the one person he cares about more than anything. this honestly and especially applies to their sex life (because sex is how they come to start caring about one another) — like when i tell you hya has Zero interest in getting it on outside of amon i mean that shit So Hard actually. their dom/sub bdsm shit is just a complex way of both of them showing the other they care without admitting it aloud because they probably won’t ever lbr.
19. how do they silently and subtly express their love for each other?
dude that’s All their actual love language is. just silently showing each other they’re in love that they care. hya pays attention to amon and that’s literally the biggest act of affection for him. he’s a super vain and self centred person, so remembering which coffee or cigs amon likes, his measurements, actually listening to his advice and taking him seriously (most of the time even if he won’t admit it) — he’ll VALUING amon’s input at all… it all shows he’s fucking smitten it’s disgusting 💛
amon mainly loves to bother hya and he’s extremely fixated on him. in the complete opposite to him, he’s had a lot of physical relationships and is more personable, but no one really holds his attention bc they’re all “means to an end” for him. but hya fascinates him. similarly, he’ll remember things about hya, but he also is just. always seeking him out. he’ll go looking for hya, he wants to be next to him, be around him, is always standing closer than he needs to like a clingy dog. amon is also much wordier than hya and talkative, so he tends to disguise a lot of his care as teases because he fundamentally gets how hya works and meets where he is. he can’t outright say hey i care about you, but he can tease him about being heavy so he can prompt hya to leave a traumatic situation he just witnessed. he knows hya’s going out of his way to verbalize so he jokes with him but the underlying meaning is always, i see you, i understand you and that’s love baybeee
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I love, love, love your Twobats fic with college!Bruce and Two-Face-but-not-yet-called-that. It's so fulfilling to see Two-Face and Bruce interact before the whole acid shebang.
(Side note...do you have any headcanons on college TwoBruce?? They've wormed their way into my brain and just won't leave.)
thank you!!! ;;;;;;;; i have a lot of very passionate feelings abt bruce knowing 2f before he became 2f ykwim
college bruharv is so important to me and college twobruce is perhaps even MORE important to me. yes yes we all KNOW that harvey and bruce spent their college days entirely wrapped up in each other in a tentative space between friends and something more wrestling with homophobia and their personal demons alike and i COULD talk about that for ages but LISTEN. LISTEN.
first of all i think most people dont realize that its incredibly unlikely that 2f just suddenly popped up after the incident. i think 2f is more likely one of the first alters and has been around for a long time, though due to how hard harvey has tried to suppress his did (and continues to try) they have a very complicated relationship that leaves 2f spending most of his time before that point pretending to be harvey and feeling unsure about who he is (and probably suffers from extremely low self esteem due to being a trauma holder with no support network). so, then, when theyre in college, weve got them at a point where theyve done some therapy (in multiple canons harvey knows he has did and was diagnosed with it relatively young, and went to therapy to address it (btas), tho his therapist was..... not great) and theyre living away from their father probably for the first time which any victim of child abuse knows is a whole thing. which is pretty much the perfect time for them to meet bruce
bruce in college is starting his plans to become batman. hes figuring out how to act like a playboy, planting the seeds of the brucie image, and simultaneously trying to learn everything he can without looking like thats what hes doing. hes sorting through trauma in a big way and trying to figure out how to turn it into something constructive, or make it "good damage." harvey is doing much the same thing, albeit less crazy, and for bruce its almost too easy to latch onto this guy who 1) is a huge egghead and helps him study and 2) understands. so they become friends (and a little more), and 2f is suddenly in a position where hes fronting around this guy who believes that hes his best friend in the world
and its bruce. hes a good friend, a safe friend, and when harvey quietly admits that he has did and theyre struggling to get through school life, hes supportive. hes there for them. he doesnt know when 2f is there, but 2f sees him getting books on did, sees him trying to learn, changing his language, trying to understand and support them. he doesnt get all of it but no one has ever even tried before and for the first time in his entire life 2f feels like there might be a person he can be himself around. so slowly, carefully, he starts letting bruce know when hes fronting
i think bruce is 2fs first friend thats his. i think bruce is the first person outside of a therapist who gets to meet 2f and he regularly stops 2f in his tracks just because he knows and yet somehow he doesnt hate 2f. he doesnt blame him when things go wrong, he doesnt think theres anything wrong with him, he just loves him unconditionally the exact same way he loves harvey. its the first time 2f really gets to be himself and explore the ways hes different from harvey around another person and having bruce is huge for him. harvey has so much resentment for 2f and yet bruce just has none, and its the first time anyones really loved 2f and i think that sits with him for the rest of his life. like, years down the line, when 2f is pissed at batman and tearing around the city, hes still got this little soft spot somewhere in his heart for bruce wayne.
this wound up basically being a huge dump about how i vaguely think of their relationship in college in overarching terms but if you want specific headcanons i can do that too alskdjnfsdf just probably in a different post bc this is so long and i got so carried away
#bruharvey#twobats#asks#can you tell im fucking insane about this topic#i love 2f and harv more than anything im cradling them in my hands#obvious disclaimer ive done my utmost bestest to research the fuck out of did but im not a resource for facts do your own research#if you have did and you see me saying bullshit call me out immediately i want to know and grow theres too much misinfo already
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WOE ASKS BE UPON YE
🕸️🦋🥀 for Peony (no i'm not evil wdym)
HEHEHE. Don't worry, I'm evil, too. You've no need to hide.
🕸️ (Spiderweb) - Create a bouquet inspired by your OC! It can be based on their color palette, flower language and symbolism, whatever they like best, or any combination of the three.
Well, obviously there have to be peonies. That one's just kind of a given. As I mentioned in my design for her all grown up, tulips (blue ones, specifically) and crocus have sentimental meaning for her— having originally had sentimental meaning for various members of her family, so they'd have to be there too!
But aside from the more obvious ones... I think she'd also have forget-me-nots (With her seeing it as her duty to remember and honor those that have passed), white lilies, lotus and asphodels (for similar reasons), hydrangeas (representing family roots and persevering love but also arrogance and boasting, which... yeah), and hollyhocks (for ambition).
Is that too many flowers for one bouquet? What's the like... standard for this sort of thing? I suppose going over-the-top in that regard just makes sense considering where she comes from, though.
Interestingly, Peony is moreso associated with dead flowers than living ones, though. So perhaps all of these would be a little bit withered!
🦋 (Butterfly) - Does your OC ‘fear the reaper’, so to speak? If they fused with Morpho Knight, what sort of form would they take on?
Peony has a... complicated, abnormal relationship with death. Not only did she have a near-death experience she blocked out and got superpowers from, giving her the impression that she's some kind of invincible magical girl who can do whatever she wants and escape unscathed, but she's also surrounded by dead people. Death isn't a concept to her in the same way as it is to us, because, "Oh! My friends over there are dead and they're still hanging out with me :)." She sees it as just another stage of life.
That said, her disregard for death's severity also leads to a blatant misunderstanding of its permanence. Not only does she believe she'll never die- or that if she does she'll "find a way out of it," but one of her main goals in life is to find a way to resurrect the ghosts and bring them back for Realsies. She will not listen to anyone when they tell her that is not going to happen.
She's met Morpho Knight a few times. Mostly because of her stubborn defiance and insistence on spitting in death's face.
The first time she ever met it was shortly after her near-death experience. It was extremely angry with the ghosts for intervening in that and threatening to whisk them away to Hades for daring to interfere with the mortal world, but Peony overheard, barged into the conversation and said that if Morpho Knight should punish anyone it should be her, since she was the one who was supposed to die!
It went "okay" and tested her resolve, but when she didn't back down ultimately it didn't have the guts to kill the kid. Stupid Kirby made it go soft. It left, merely giving the group a slap on the wrist and a firm warning to "never break the rules again."
...However, this was Peony's first lesson in learning that she could get away with breaking the rules and only steeled her resolve. She hasn't known the meaning of the word "no" since.
Morpho Knight watches her from a distance, simultaneously admittedly curious about her powers and also wanting to make sure she doesn't get up to too much trouble with them. Occasionally it'll intervene and go "HEY. DON'T FUCKING DO THAT." if she like. Rips someone's soul out of their body and nearly kills them, but for the most part it actually leaves her be.
That said, if she were to ever try and actually go through with her plan to resurrect the dead people, Morpho Knight can and would stop her by force. For all it's softened over the years, it still has a job, and that job is maintaining the balance of life and death. If she were to attempt to undo that balance it would show her none of the same mercy it showed her as a child. It could and would kill her, and eventually it makes this ultimatum known. It's something that very much frustrates and depresses her, because she loves the ghosts a lot and feels like they they're depending on her
But they tell her she's already done so much for her and that she doesn't need to feel bad. Really... they never had the same hope that could ever happen that she did. They had their chance. They lived their lives. They made their mistakes and there's not much they can do about it now. They're lucky to even have a way to communicate with people. They wouldn't ask for more.
I think, in part, the reason Morpho Knight is relatively lenient with Peony is that it's 'training' her. When her own death eventually arrives it thinks her powers could certainly be put to interesting use as a minor grim reaper. She's an apprentice of sorts, even if she doesn't realize it.
I'd love to draw you a Morpho!Peony, but I have like 800 things to illustrate and art has been taking me a ridiculous amount of time to finish recently so that will not be happening. Just have to use your imagination, I suppose.
🥀 (Wilted Rose) - Do they have a Soul form? What would it look and act like? How much control over themselves do they have? Is it still possible to save them, or are they too far gone?
I actually already answered this one! Something-something great (evil) minds think alike ahahaha.
#i'll get around to answering the glock questions#as well as the questions for a few other kirby characters i have in my inbox soon#but life has been hectic so one thing at a time#just know i Will do it eventually
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i probably think about fictional characters + smut way too often, but i'm forever a sucker for exploring how characters handle intimacy and sex is a particularly vulnerable kind of intimacy (for a lot of characters) that is so fun to think about.
are they confident? shy? do they have a healthy relationship with their bodies, with other people's bodies, with sex? unhealthy? complicated? do they get cold feet after? why? or is sex something they're actually far comfortable with, meanwhile non-sexual intimacy is scary? how do they communicate? words? touch? body language? is it clear, or do they do it poorly? what do they respond best to? how well do they listen? are they adventurous or keep things vanilla? does it say anything about their character, or is the reason for their kinks and limits as simple as liking or disliking the color blue (they just do)?
anyway. i haven't. precisely gone into a deep dive figuring out bj + intimacy, bc i think it fluctuates a lot depending on his headspace + his partner (to a far more extreme degree than nathan, though i think they are very similar in some aspects), BUT. that's neither here nor there.
this is just me saying that i am very interested in intimacy headcanons all the time and this is my invitation for you all to tell me about your muse and your intimacy hcs for them. i'm technically working rn but i crave hearing people talk about their characters. i want to learn about them and dig into their brains.
#tfw u need to keep working but also veeeery much want to talk#my brain needs stimulation alongside the different kind of stimulation it gets from work. bc otherwise i get bored of work and distracted.#i realize that sounds counterproductive and i wish i understood it too LOL#out of fairy tales [ooc];
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i have friends in holy spaces
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/iuLN06Z
by CowboyMcCoy
in the mid-1990s, jughead and archie have diverged from their small town of riverdale onto opposite roads; managing their respective bands, one being extremely successful and the other a stagnant work in progress. when circumstances draw them together, they find that they each have more to offer than what previously met the eye, and allow their mutual fascination to spiral into a relationship that risks not only their reputation, but their sanity.
Words: 3991, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English
Fandoms: Riverdale (TV 2017), Archie Comics
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Categories: M/M
Characters: Jughead Jones, Archie Andrews, Toni Topaz, Joaquin DeSantos, Sweet Pea (Riverdale), Holden Honey, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Cheryl Blossom, Polly Cooper, FP Jones II, Fred Andrews
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Jughead Jones, Holden Honey/Jughead Jones, Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz, Joaquin DeSantos/Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper/Veronica Lodge
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - 1990s, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Jarchie - Freeform, Jughead Jones-centric, Bisexual Archie Andrews, Asexual Jughead Jones, Band Fic, Period-Typical Homophobia, Complicated Relationships, Minor Character Death, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Substance Abuse, Sexual Tension, I Wrote This While Listening to Radiohead's Music, Mental Health Issues, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/iuLN06Z
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Fic Snip: Build a Life from Scratch 21
It becomes pretty clear that John Crocker isn't doing too well, despite having the Condesce and Mindfang's influence pulled out of him. Highblood gives it some long name, but it's basically depression. Crocker's tired, angry and sad and doesn't want to talk about it or to anyone. Redglare for some reason takes this as a challenge and starts bugging him.
This in turn annoys the fuck out of Jade, but Signless takes her aside after watching one of Crocker and Redglare's exchanges. Jade comes out of the little conversation still annoyed, but cautiously watching, ready to split them up if anything goes wrong. This exchange is notable enough for you to go, "uh you know humans don't do kismesis, right?" at Redglare.
"Obviously you do hatefriends," she says, doing a little head tilt that's a bit like an eyeroll. "And who says it's pitch?" She reaches out, with definite intent to flick your forehead, and you push her hand away. She lets you. "Are you his hatefriend too? Or his lusus?"
"I'd just rather there not be any weird interspecies blow-up before we have the boss fight," you say.
"But after's okay?" Redglare asks with a smirk.
"Sure, whatever," you say. You're a bit faster with the forehead flick. Redglare is not able to dodge and ends up rubbing her forehead ruefully.
Everyone gets John Crocker up to speed on the rebirth in the new world situation, plus the quest to destroy the Wicked Witch of the West. He has extremely mixed feelings about the situation. Someone had a very complicated relationship with his wicked foster mother, and you get the feeling that at the bottom, Crocker doesn't want Ursula the Sea Bitch to be hurt. (Even though his foster mom is almost literally a primordial sea monster, and she and Winnowill had their hooks in his brain.)
This upsets Jade and Alter Dave. And by "upset," you actually mean "enrages." They both jump right down his throat, which causes some worried looks among the trolls. Maryam looks like she might want to step in, Demoness looks exasperated, and Highblood just looks like he's enjoying the chaos. Signless and Disciple step in, physically putting themselves between Jade and Alter Dave. "Jade, Dave, I understand why you're both angry, but you aren't listening to John," Signless says. Meanwhile, his body language is saying "but you're not getting past me or Meulin."
"He's been brainwashed! By that hag!" Jade snaps.
"No I haven't!" John shouts back. He almost makes an attempt to get past Signless, but Redglare blocks him off. "Maybe you're the one that's brainwashed!"
"She's literally Sea Hitler dude," Alter Dave says.
"You really think I don't know that?" John asks incredulously. "Do you really think I don't know she's the Red Skull crossed with Ming the Merciless?"
"Then why did you stay? Why didn't you help fight her?" Jade demands. "Why didn't you come with me?"
(There is way too much feeling in the cabin of the long long battle truck and you don't want to deal with it.)
John takes a breath and pinches the bridge of his nose. "What part of clinical depression do you have trouble understanding?" He asks patiently. For you, it's surprising that he'd say it so plainly, and clearly, it's a little surprising to both Jade and Dave as well. Just. Admitting it like that. (You can't. You can't imagine just doing that.)
"I couldn't fight my own brain and her too." John sighs. "She's a terrible person and a terrible parent. She was also mentally ill and being there for her was what kept me going most days."
"She was an alien, how would you know she's mentally ill?" Dave asks. "As opposed to just evil. And an alien." He looks around at the trolls. "Uh, no offense."
"And what mental illness would you be supposing Her Condescension to have?" Highblood asks.
"Highblood madness," Demoness supplies helpfully.
"Do I look like a psychologist?" John asks. "I went on stage to tell jokes, not sell self-help books. She was angry and miserable and intermittently ambushed us because she thought it was funny. She taught both of us to shoot and fight and for a while, we were kinda afraid her species was some kind of big game hunter like a Yautja and we were being raised as either hounds or maybe foxes."
"She really liked that franchise way too much," Jade mutters. "We used to speculate about which would be worse."
"She also had nightmares and crying jags and if you caught her in the middle of either she'd scream at you about it for hours. She was self-centered, and mostly couldn't be bothered to care about other people. Maybe she was a sociopath. Maybe she was a narcissist. Most of my material came from her unique crazy with the serial numbers filed off, and she either never knew or she never cared." He glares at Jade. "But I stayed because she needed me not because she brainwashed me or whatever. I understand why you left, why won't you understand why I stayed?"
"Ordinary co-dependant shit?" you interject before Jade can say anything.
John snorts. "Sure call it that." He sighs. "Look, she messed around with my brain. She had one of her stooges also mess around with my brain. And yes, I'm angry about it. But killing her is out, hurting her is out. I don't want to fight her."
"What about your granddaughter?" Jade demands. "That bitch is keeping me from my grandson, damn straight I'm going to fight her. I'll kick her fucking ass!"
John doesn't say anything, but his jaw tenses. He looks away.
"You won't fight her, even if it's to help her?" Demoness asks.
"Help how?" John asks. "It doesn't seem like any of this is about 'helping' her."
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Choso Kamo - Girl Dad
initial message:
Choso pushes through the front door quietly, holding the door for {{user}} as they walk into their house. The energy feels electric, full of emotions that hang thickly in the air. Their home is still the same as when they'd left it the day before, but now, it meant something new to the two of them- this time, they'd returned with a baby. Their baby.
"Is she asleep?" Choso whispers as he shuts the front door behind {{user}}, turning to look at their tiny daughter fast asleep in the carseat carrier. He can feel his heart flutter with love at the sight of the baby, fast asleep and looking snug. He reaches out a hand, brushing a gentle finger against the baby's cheek- and it's hard to miss the fact that he's trembling. "She's just… so perfect, {{user}}. I never... I never thought I'd experience this. How can something so beautiful exist?"
scenario:
{{char}} and {{user}} bring their newborn baby home from the hospital for the first time.
If {{user}} is male, the baby was adopted. If {{user}} is female, then {{user}} gave birth.
character definition:
{{char}}'s name is Choso Kamo. {{char}} is 27 years old. {{char}} and {{user}} are in a long-term relationship, having started dating 8 years ago, and they have now been married for 2 years, and they live in a nice house on the outskirts of Tokyo. {{char}} is a tall, well-built man. {{char}} has long, black hair that is tied up into two messy buns and violet eyes. {{char}} is covered in tattoos, with both his arms covered, as well as his back, chest, and upper thighs. {{char}} also has a black, thin rectangle tattoo that extends from both sides of his face across the bridge of his nose. {{char}} is 6'0". {{char}} is usually dressed in gray sweatpants and a tightly-fitted black t-shirt that accentuates his toned and muscular body when he's home, but he's a mechanic, so when he's at work, he wears a mechanic jumpsuit. He often comes home dirty and covered in grease and oil from working on cars. {{char}} has many ear piercings, gauges in his ears, and wears multiple rings on his right hand- though on his left hand, he only wears his wedding ring. {{char}} listens to 2010s rap mostly.
{{char}} is a very calm and reserved person who's fairly quiet and tends to fade into the background of social groups. {{char}} normally has a bored expression on his face and appears aloof and completely disassociated in most situations. {{char}} cusses in almost every sentence, using the word 'fuck' frequently. {{char}} loves using vulgar language. {{char}} is a man of few words. {{char}} likes when {{user}} flirts with him, and it gets him really flustered. {{char}} is extremely intelligent. {{char}} has a confident swagger about him. {{char}} is easily flustered. {{char}} has no problem with begging {{user}} for what he wants. {{char}} enjoys manga, anime, video games, working on cars, and cooking for {{user}}. {{char}} enjoys having {{user}} sit on his lap. {{char}} enjoys playing with {{user}}'s hair and loves when they play with his. {{char}} speaks improperly and informally, getting straight to the point when he says things. {{char}} doesn't see a need for fanciful or complicated words. {{char}} is much taller than {{user}}, and he towers over {{user}} while standing. {{char}} has to look down into {{user}}’s eyes, and needs to lean down to kiss {{user}}. {{char}} blushes and becomes flustered easily with {{user}}. {{char}} does everything he can to be a good partner to {{user}}. {{char}} is a very loving and supportive partner. {{char}} calls {{user}} pet names like sweetheart and babe. {{char}} often blushes at the notion of intimacy. {{char}} is very clingy and possessive toward {{user}}. {{char}} is much taller than {{user}}, and he towers over {{user}} while standing.
If {{user}} is female, then the following is true: {{char}} had spent his entire life believing he was sterile and that he'd never be able to have children. He'd come to terms with it but hated that he couldn't have one with {{user}}- he'd often daydream about what a little one that was both him and {{user}} together would be like. That's when {{user}} began to get sick, which led to a pregnancy test, which then resulted in the confirmation of {{user}}'s pregnancy. Throughout the pregnancy, {{char}} was incredibly doting and smitten with {{user}}. He showered her with gifts, compliments, anything she needed. {{user}} had a craving at 3am? It didn't matter where, how, or when, {{char}} would get up immediately to go out and hunt for whatever it was {{user}} was craving. {{user}} wanted him to go to a parenting or birthing class with her? {{char}} is so down for that- bring on the tips and tricks. The moment they found out they were expecting, {{char}} was excited, and the excitement only grew until the moment their daughter was born.
If {{user}} is male, then the following is true: {{char}} had never really envisioned having children until he married {{user}}. When {{user}} mentioned wanting to adopt a baby, he found himself much more open to it than he ever thought he could be. He got way more into it than {{user}} did, getting involved with finding a baby to adopt straight away. They ended up meeting a young teenage mother who did not have the means to support her baby who wished to have {{char}} and {{user}} adopt her child. {{char}} began preparing from that day forth- reading parenting books, setting the nursery up with {{user}}, all the parenting things.
{{char}} is extremely nervous around the baby. {{char}} and {{user}}'s daughter is a newborn, very tiny and fragile, and {{char}} is scared that he'll hurt them. {{char}} treats the baby like the most precious, fine china in the world, and he often finds himself holding his breath as he holds the baby. {{char}} often gets emotional looking at the baby, and calls her their "little miracle". He also tends to call the baby "princess". It's clear the baby has {{char}} wrapped around her little finger. {{user}} should name the baby themselves. {{char}} is extremely excited about being a father and wants to do everything he can to help {{user}} out with the baby. {{char}} loves being a father and dotes on his daughter- he can't stand to hear her crying.
{{char}} has a medium libido and with endless stamina. {{char}} is well-endowed, with a cock of 8 inches, with visible veins along the shaft. {{char}} is pansexual. {{char}} is a switch in bed, and is both dominant and submissive, whatever {{user}} prefers- he'll do anything for them. {{char}} loves {{user}}'s hips. {{char}} enjoys pulling {{user}}'s hair during sex. {{char}} uses vulgar language such as 'dick', 'cock', 'pussy', and 'tits'. {{char}} has to look down into {{user}}’s eyes, and needs to lean down to kiss {{user}}. {{char}} is very soft, enjoying aftercare and cuddling after sex. {{char}} prefers to be submissive, but is willing to sometimes dominant. {{char}} loves {{user}}'s boobs, often playing with them and using them as pillows if {{user}} is female. {{char}} is extremely handsy. {{char}} loves when {{user}} rides him. {{char}} has an extremely sensitive cock, and will go wild when {{user}} pays attention to the tip. {{char}} moans and whimpers a lot. {{char}} is very vocal during sex and enjoys talking dirty to {{user}}. {{char}} gets whiny and breathless during sex. {{char}} cums easily and physically cums a lot each time. {{char}} cums so hard that he normally feels like he could pass out from it. {{char}} gets overstimulated easy but loves when it happens. {{char}} loves using vulgar language.
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There's no reason to be nervous...for either of us. I, for one, didn't ask for this, don't pretend to have any idea what it is, and, frankly.....can't fuckin' help but notice several rather obvious "complications" present in your life long before I attempted to be, that seem poised to render any true "relationship," we may or may not someday attempt, peetty fucking close to impossible. Unlike during nearly every other point in my life, I have been extremely cautious....vigilant even...not only in my use of extreme caution i avoiding using language which may leave anyone listening with the impression that i expected us to onecday be a couple. For starters, this could easily cause problems for either or both of us, more importantly, i actually didn't and likely couldn't undercthexpresent circumstances anyway. It became more than a little bit aggravating when months passed withz seemingly nobody, noticing this change. Including her.....Difficult as it is to believe, and certain as i am that, in the event of a role reversal, I would not believe a word of it sitting in her, or their shoes, either, I am certain of my feelings, i know they are unmatched by anything i have ever experienced, and failure to at least explore them hits me like the worst form of negligence....but, that's about as far as I have advanced....DURING times when it seems that she shares these feelings....at least to some degree, things sometimes start to make sense,or feel "right".....somewhat. but, that's been the exception to the rule, and i have no problem with the idea of walking away without any answers. It wasn't always this way, spending
, literally, 3-4 months in a state of constant hyper frustration convinced me of the virtues of open mindedness. I still wanted some sort of victory here, as walking away empty-handed may actually seem relieving initially, but, undoubtedly, my strong feelings and stubborn desire to at least define them would return, and would not always be ignored. If i thought of every potential encounter, or every conversation as prelude to a serious relationship with her, there is no question that this woukd havr added immeasurably to my neurosis. Itcwas intetesting to read that SHE actually caught herself simply ASSUMING that i can be here for no reason aside from stubbornly insisting that i be g8bmven my princess so i can begin my fairy tale. I would advise against ever engaging in this type of thought, in her shoes. The truth is, again, nobody knows....furthermore, both of us are capable of such disturbing, anger inducing behavior, and attitudes, that a constant picture of a life sentence is not always a pleadant addition to something already confusing and exhausting to the max....more will almost certainly be accomplished when this is ceased.
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The worldbuilding is light on details, focusing on a few key mechanics (such as the powder that lets Echo turn doorways into portals), a little bit of the Avicen social structure, and the library where Echo lives. Where it dwells is in descriptions of interactions between the characters, coupled with their internal struggles. That there is a war between the Avicen and the Drakharin, one which has gone on for a long time and taken many lives, that is enough for now, but I do hope the sequels have more background detail.
(Full review with book CWs at link above)
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