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An incomplete list of TMA fics I adore
-beacuse of this ask
(If you liked the fics I previously recommended/made fanart for, I think you'll gonna like these as well, but you know, read the tags, know what you are going into)
Yesterday is Here by CirrusGrey @cirrus-grey
Time Travel Fix-it! Slow burn! So good! So much sass from future!Jon- I doubt I have to introduce anyone this amazing author, but if you somehow missed them till now, this is your time! I highly recommend all of their other fics as well, for example one of a more recent one, The Stranger I Know Best is also a lovely read.
enthralling by Prim_the_Amazing @primtheamazing
Vampire!Martin!! I have no words of how much I love this concept, this story, everything about this. I think I'm going to repeat myself through this list, but I also recommend everything else they've written!
to fill... my heart with music? by godshaper @godshaper so their Martin and Jon design are different from mine, also they made a way better art for this- but still, I wanted to include this really good fic in this list.
Do It All Anew by inkfingers_mcgee or @crit20art
You know the feeling when you read a book that makes you cry, and after that you recommend it to your friend? Well- there is no reason I mentioned this, I'm just so normal about this fic. Or any other fic from inkfingers_mcgee... like Strange Manner of what I made another fanart way back. Also, check out their art!
Anyway, here is Aamal- she is not going to cause emotional damage.
And they were sidekicks (oh my god, they were sidekicks) by arthureameslove @arthureameslove
A lighthearted series where Jon and Martin are sidekicks of supervillains- it's just a really fun fic, also recommend everyting from this author - I previously draw fanart here for an other fic of theirs Like a Lighthouse, Call Me Home
neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well by saintbleeding @saintbleeding
To quote the aurthour: "Post-divorce Jon and Martin in a wedding-based romcom" It's such a comfort read, also has a Tim/Sasha wedding, and lots of cameos! I realised most of these authors I made fanarts for before- like this one for some kind of miraculous bind, this one is oneshot and a bit more serious in tone.
Give Me the Words by rakel @rakel-on-ao3
"Jon and Martin try to make the most of a bad situation in the Scottish Highlands. The situation is worse than they realised." You know that one post about wanting to write PWP, but it keeps turning into character study? Well, this one comes to my mind each time I see that.
i wanna find a home (i wanna share it with you) by heartshapedguy @transgenderboobs
So what would have happened if instead of the cot (tm), Jon offered Martin his own flat to stay? There is no way it's going to change their relationship, right? Such a good read, if you want some fluff, I highly recommend it!
Lucky Stars by magnetarmadda @magnetarmadda
Martin has a lovely family (except his mother) but still, he needs a fake boyfriend, and Jon comes to the rescue. It's one of the first fics I remember reading after I finished the series. It is such a comfort read of mine~
(+enjoy a rare tall Jon from me)
There are so many more fics that also deserve the spotlight, these are just the ones I read multiple times and/or didn't made fanarts for before. If you find something here you like, give them some love! Kudos and comments! They deserve it. (Also, just an extra disclamier some of these are PWP or rated T- just mind the tags)
I tried to link and tag everything, I hope it works.
#occudo's art#tma fanart#jonathan sims#martin blackwood#fic rec#so many fic!#thanks for every author who made all of these#and sorry if I forgot to include someone#I tried my best#but sometimes my goldfish memory wins#anyway#good reading!#if you find something here you like give them some love#comments and kudos#long post
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i listen to fog lake too much
#falls through the ceiling with a mighty crash hello#it's been what...8 months?#I was too busy w uni and being mentally ill#thank u everyone so much for the tags on all prev posts.. i re-read them oaccasionally đ#they make me v happy thank u for giving me a moment of ur time#that means so much#anyway! vashwood!!#i hate them so much#i want to eat them#i want to ugly cry#i want an ideal world where they could've had something for a little bit#im eating drywall and pacing around the room in a cold sweat#so trimax-atypical overt intimacy it is#more coming...in maybe another year#It's a big project!#to me. yeah#my dream is to be put in a terrarium for a while#if only u knew how many wips I have w vashwood..#maybe i'll get tired and pile them into one post all unfinished and no less ok for it yk#whatever u r doing doesn't need to be perfect to make someone happy#didn't u experience a positive little zap from my imperfect colored doodle rn?#what a speedrun of a drawing that was#(<spent 10h on it. that's the minimum for anything ever)#hope today is treating you well! so long stranger!#vashwood#vash the stampede#nicholas d wolfwood#trimax#trigun#tzarrz
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spare some spy hcs? đ
OKAY. ok. so i have been putting off answering this ask because iâm admittedly very shy and very afraid of sharing my headcanons. and also because i have A LOT OF THEM.. but here we are!
here are my headcanon spies :) RenĂŠ works for RED and Jacques works for BLU!
where to start, where to start⌠i have a LOT of headcanons for them, iâll be talking for FOREVER here. iâll just start with story because why not! xP
RenĂŠâs parents were also agents/spies, so he was always destined to be one as well. And he lives up to his parentsâ legacies! Heâs most notorious for destroying gangs and mobs and the like from the outside in. He was brought to America years ago to take out a dangerous mob boss, but unfortunately found himself infatuated (and involved) with the bossâ daughter. Luckily for him, the bossâ daughter wanted the guy dead, too.
RenĂŠâs story is honestly a lot more fleshed out than Jacquesâ, but here goes anyway:
Jacquesâ father was a very rich and powerful man in politics. Jacques himself was the result of an affair, and to keep it hush-hush, his father decided to raise him. Raise is a strong word, thoughâ but he did help his father gain intelligence and blackmail on opposing political parties. Jacques proved to be a promising spy since childhood.
If anyone has any suggestions/ideas for Jacquesâ story, let me know haha x) he didnât have the greatest upbringing per seâŚ
last thing on this section i wanna talk about is the Scouts. RenĂŠ is related to both of the Scouts; heâs RED Scout (Jeremy)âs biological father, and heâs BLU Scout (James)â adoptive/step-father. Jacques has no relation to either scout, but acts as a guardian figure to BLU Scout.
anyway, this is the part where i continue talking about other miscellaneous headcanons! and these come with doodles :)
You couldnât catch RenĂŠ DEAD without his mask, or his suit! Heâd neeever take them off around other people (âother peopleâ is mainly just Scout. For obvious reasons.) Meanwhile, Jacques is pretty lenient in letting his teammates see his face! Everyone on BLUâs seen his face at least once.
A big part of why RenĂŠ refuses to strip down is also due to the fact he has a LOT of tattoos. No doodle for this one because Iâve yet to decide on what tattoos to put on him (ideas are very welcome!!), but yeah! Most of the tattoos were âforcedâ onto him/he had to get for jobs and âfitting inâ with bad crowds, but a good few of them were of his own accord, too.
Jacques doesnât have tattoos, but he has a myriad of another thing: scars! Lots and lots of scars on this guy. Faded and old, sure, but theyâre there. Most prominent ones are the one around his neck (from when the RED Medic beheaded him) and the ones on his forearms (those are from the LAST time he was imprisonedâ looong storyâŚ)
RenĂŠ doesnât cook very often for his team, but when he does, everyoneâs always BLOWN AWAY by this guyâs cooking! RenĂŠâs really bad at taking compliments, thoughâ (âCooking food thatâs remotely edible isnât a compliment, itâs basic survival.â) âbut rest assured heâll be thinking about it for the next month. Jacques, however⌠Do NOT let this guy into the kitchen. Ever. The BLU base has a special fire extinguisher âIn Case Spy Decides To Turn On The Stoveâ
oooh, this one is an hc and a HALF to me. RenĂŠ much prefers working alone. Itâs just in his nature, being isolated and whatnot. He likes to deal with things by himselfâ maybe he doesnât want to burden others? On the contrary, Jacques NEVER works alone. Itâs a trait heâs had even before being hired to BLU. You never know when things could go wrong, so itâs best to have someone else to fall back to⌠or someone else you can blame!
these hcs both have something to do with how RenĂŠ and Jacques show their trust in other people :) itâs a bit convoluted but it gets there:
RenĂŠ is, amusingly, very bad at remembering names. Almost laughably bad. There have been many-a-story of his days before RED where heâd get a targetâs name wrong, even after heâd repeated it in his head dozens of times over. Names are difficult for him, so if he remembers yours, it means you mean a lot to him! He prefers using his teammatesâ names rather than their titles. RenĂŠ is unaware of how charming this specifc trait is to his coworkers (they saw how much work and effort it took for him to memorize their names, theyâre just happy with how far heâs come!)
Jacques has a⌠to put simply, very complicated relationship with food. But the one thing heâll never turn down is sweets. His favorites especially being chocolate bonbons. Jacques has a hard time eating in front of others, let alone sharing his food! But if he genuinely likes and trusts you enough, heâd have half the mind to share with you. Admittedly, he hasnât brought himself to share with most of the members of his team yet, except for a select few. Mostly BLU Medic and BLU Sniper.
â
and of course, eventually, EVENTUALLY, these two also become friends! it took a little bit but believe me, they both respect each otherâs skill in their job :)
AHHg i could go sooo much longer about themâ from things like their physical traits (how much teeth they have? itâs a pressing question) or different periods of their life (why did renĂŠ have to leave his family? why was jacques imprisoned for the last time?) BUT this post is so⌠so, so long. My fingers hurt from typing
If youâve managed to read through this Beast, THANK YOU RAAHH!!! thanks so much for asking this, too. i hope to spare more hcs someday. hehe ^_^
#team fortress 2#tf2#spy tf2#tf2 spy#era.png#id in alt text#VERY LONG POST !!! very text heavy aaouhg#ok its taking all of my courage to make this post but i promised myself iâd get it out before i-#-turned nineteen LFJDKG. so. here they are :) renĂŠ and jacques my pookiesâŚ#UMM⌠idk what else to say here. thanks for asking and if you read this: THANK YOU ALSO ^_^#tumblr does NAWT want to format this post properly im going to pull my hair out#smoking#ask to tag#JUST IN CASE !!! thereâs some slight implications of stuff here and there so if anyone needs anything tagged then feel free to lmk!#i also evidently have. a LOT of hcs regarding the BLU team. coughs. dont worry about that right now. Dont worry about it#era.txt#anon
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I have encountered issues with JVP in the past in regards to not accommodating kashrut/shabbat observance (and wheelchairs), but previously hasnât heard about the Mikvah thing. Do you have any sources I can refer to?
Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. The noise I made when I saw this ask.
You are probably unaware but I have literally been working on a post on this topic since February. Bless you for asking me about it and giving me a reason to share it. Genuinely. I'm delighted.
Without further ado, now that I've finally finished:
On the JVP Mikveh BS
Some of you are no doubt aware of the Jewish Voice for Peace Mikveh Guide (on JVPâs website here, and here on the Wayback Machine in case that link breaks). You may have seen the post I reblogged about it, you may have seen the post about JVP in general on @is-the-thing-actually-Jewish, or you may have heard about it elsewhere. Or maybe youâve somehow managed to avoid all knowledge of its existence. (God I wish that were me.) Even if you know about it, even if youâve scanned through it, you probably havenât taken the time to read it through properly.
I have.
God help me.
I was originally looking through it to help draft the @is-the-thing-actually-Jewish post back in February, but some terrible combination of horror, indignation, and probably masochism compelled me to do a close reading, so that I could write this analysis and share it with you, dear readers. For those of you whoâve never heard of a mikvah, for those of you whoâve immersed in one, for those of you whoâve studied it intenselyâI give you this, the fruit of my suffering, so you too can understand why âMikveh: A Purification Ritual for Personal and Collective Transformation,â written by Zohar Lev Cunningham and Rebekah Erev for Jewish Voice for Peace has got so many people up in arms.
Brace yourselves. Itâs going to be a long journey.
First off, a disclaimer: When I say something is ârequired in Jewish lawâ or whatnot, Iâm talking about in traditional practice / Torah-observant communities; what is often called âOrthodox.â Thereâs a wide range of Jewish practice, and what is required in frum (observant) Judaism may not be required in Reform Judaism, etc. Donât at me.
Second note: I myself am Modern Orthodox, and come from that perspective. Iâm also very much more on the rationalist side than the mysticism side of things. I did run this past people from other communities. Still, if Iâve missed or misrepresented something, it was my error and was not meant maliciously.
Third: I am not a rabbi. I am a nerd who likes explaining things and doing deep dives. Again, I may have made errorsâplease let me know if you spot any, and Iâd be happy to discuss them.
Now then. Before we get into the text itself, letâs give some background.
WHAT IS THIS MIKVEH THING ANYWAY?
A mikveh (or mikvah, both they and I switch between spellings; plural mikvaâot) is a Jewish ritual bath, sometimes translated as an immersion pool. Some communities or organizations that run mikvaâot will have a single all-purpose all-purpose, some have separate human- and utensil-pools, and some have separate womenâs and menâs pools. The majority of the water in a mikvah has to be âliving waters,â i.e. naturally collected rather than from a tap or a bucket. Some natural bodies of water can also be used, such as the ocean and some rivers (ask your local rabbi). The construction is complicated and has extremely detailed requirements. Hereâs an example of a modern mikvah:
(By Wikimedia Commons (××ק××××××) - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17373540)
Whoever is being dunked (the scientific term) has to be entirely immersed, and the water has to be in direct contact with all of them. That means no clothes, no makeup, no hair floating on the top of the water, no feet touching the floor, no clenched fists. You have to be completely clean as well, so no dirt is obstructing you from the water.
In essence, a person or thing is immersed in a mikvah to change their/its state from tameh (ritually âimpureâ) to tahor (ritually âpureâ). I use quotes because âpure/impureâ arenât really good translationsâthey have value judgments that tameh/tahor donât. Thereâs nothing wrong with being tameh, you arenât lesser because you are tamehâitâs just a state one enters when one comes into contact with death and related concepts. (There are also different levels of both.) As a matter of fact, technically speaking even after going to a mikvah basically all people are tameh nowâthe tumâah (âimpurity,â sort of) that comes from contact with dead humans can only be removed by the Red Heifer offering (see Numbers 19), which we canât do without the Temple. (Why I say âallâ even if youâve never been to a funeral is a much much longer tangent that Iâll spare you for now.) To quote one of my editors on this, mikvah is âabout the natural oscillation between states of ritual purity and impurity. Men go to mikveh after having seminal emissions. Menstruating women go to mikveh on a monthly basis (emphasis added).â Itâs just states of life.
In the days of the Temple, one had to be tahor to enter it (the Temple). Archaeologists have found a ton of ancient mikvaâot in Jerusalem that were presumably used by people visiting the Temple, which personally I think is extremely cool.
Nowadays, there are three main traditionally required uses for a mikvah. First, and most importantly, observant married women will go about once a month as part of their niddah (menstrual) cycle, part of practice known as Taharat HaMishpacha, or âFamily âPurity,ââ which at its root is a way to sanctify the relationship between spouses. Until she immerses, a wife and husband cannot resume relations. And not just sexâin some communities, they canât sleep in the same bed or even have any physical contact at all.
The second use is for conversionâimmersion is a central part of the conversion ceremony. One enters the water a gentile, and emerges a Jew.
The third usage is a bit different as itâs not for people. Tablewareâplates, cups, etc.âmade of certain materials have to be immersed before they can be used. This isnât what the Guide is about, so Iâm not going to go into that as much, but felt remiss if I didnât mention it was a thing. If you want to know more, Chabad has an article on it here.
Aside from uses required by Jewish law, there is a strong tradition in some communities for men to go to the mikveh just before Yom Kippur, or sometimes every week before the Sabbath, to enter the holiday in as âpureâ a state as possible these days. (The things theyâre âpurifyingâ from still made them tameh, it just matters less without the Temple.) There is also a strong custom to immerse before oneâs wedding. Less traditional communities have also started using mikvah for other transitional moments, such as significant birthdays or remission from cancer. There has recently been an âopen mikvahâ movement, which âis committed to making mikveh accessible to Jews of all denominations, ages, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities (Rising Tide Network old website, âWhy Open Mikvahâ).â
To quote others:
No other religious establishment, structure or rite can affect the Jew in this way and, indeed, on such an essential level. âRebbetzen Rivkah Slonim, Total Immersion, as quoted on Chabad.org
The mikveh is one of the most important parts of a Jewish community. âKylie Ora Lobell, âWhat Is a Mikveh?â on Aish.com
How important? According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, one of the great American rabbis of the 20th century, one should build a mikveh before building a synagogue in a town that has neither, and even in a town where there is a mikveh but itâs an inconvenient distance away from the community (Igros Moshe: Choshen Mishpat Chelek 1 Siman 42).
A mikveh is more important than a synagogue.
Iâd say thatâs pretty important.
Tl;dr: A mikveh is the conduit through which a convert becomes a part of the Jewish people. It is traditionally used to sanctify the relationship between spouses. It was required for people to go to the Temple, back when we still had it. It is extremely central to Jewish practice.
So. What does JVP have to say about it?
THE JVP MIKVEH GUIDE
The document in question is titled âMikveh: A Purification Ritual for Personal and Collective Transformation,â by Zohar Lev Cunningham and Rebekah Erev. I am largely going to quote directly from the text and then analyze and explain it.
Now let me be clear. Iâm not trying to say the authors arenât Jewish. Iâm not saying theyâre bad people, or that you should attack them. I am not intending any of this as an ad hominem attack. But given the contents of this document, I do think it is fair to call this appropriative, even if it is of their own cultureâin the same way someone can have internalized racism, or twist feminism into being a TERF, I would argue that this is twisting Judaism into paganism. In fact, while I use âappropriationâ throughout this document, an extremely useful term thatâs been coined recently is âcultural expropriationâ--essentially, appropriative actions done by rogue members of the community in question. One example of this would be the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles, which is the source of a lot of the Madonna-style âpop Kabbalah.â It was founded by an Orthodox Jewish couple, but it and its followers are widely criticized by most Jewish communities. In much the same way, the Guide is expropriation.Â
We start off with a note from the authors.
Hello, Welcome to the Simple Mikveh Guide. This work comes out of many years of reclaiming and re-visioning mikveh. The intention of this guide is to acknowledge and give some context to what mikveh is, provide resources related to mainstream understanding of mikveh and also provide alternative mikveh ideas. Blessings for enjoyment of this wonderful, simple Jewish ritual! Zohar Lev Cunningham & Rebekah Erev
This is fairly normal, though âalternative mikveh ideasâ is a bit odd to say. I also find âblessings for enjoymentâ to be odd phrasing, somewhat reminiscent of the Wiccan âBlessed Be,â but it could be a typo.
The first main section is titled âIntro to Mikveh,â and begins as follows:
Mikveh is an ancient Jewish ritual practice of water immersion, traditionally used for cleansing, purification, and transformation. It's been conventionally used for conversion to Judaism, for brides, and for niddah, the practice of cleansing after menstruation.
This is relatively accurate, and credit where credit is due avoids making niddah out to be patriarchal BS. I do object slightly to âpurifyâ as a translation without further explanation, as I went into above, and âcleansingâ for similar reasonsâit implies âdirtiness,â which isnât really what tumâah is about. Also, though this is pretty minor, a bride going to the mikveh before her wedding is actually a part of the laws of niddah. Iâd also note that they entirely leave out that it was important for going to the Temple in ancient times, though given this is published by JVP Iâm not terribly surprised.
For Jews, water signifies the transformative moment from slavery in Egypt, through the parted Red Sea, and into freedom.
On the one hand, I suppose itâs not unreasonable to connect the Red Sea and mikveh, though I think Iâd be more likely to hear it the other way around (i.e. âgoing through the sea was like the people immersing in a mikveh and being âcleansed,â so to speakâ). Though they were, rather importantly, not actually immersed in the water. However I donât think Iâd say water as a whole signifies the Splitting of the Sea. In fact, water imagery is more often used to signify the Torah, see for instance Bava Kamma 82a.
There is also a mystical connection to mikveh as a metaphor for the womb of the divine.
A mikveh being like a womb is also not uncommon. Itâs found in the Reishis Chochmah (Shiaâar HaAhavah 11,58) and the writing of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (The Aryeh Kaplan Anthology, vol 2., p. 382; both as quoted in 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History, by Rabbi Ephraim Meth), see also âThe Mikvehâs Significance in Traditional Conversionâ by Rabbi Maurice Lamm on myjewishlearning. Filled with water, you float in it, you emerge a new being (at least for conversion); itâs not an absurd comparison to draw. Iâm not sure Iâve found anything for the Womb of the Divine specifically, though. (Also, Divine should definitely be capitalized.)
Entering a mikveh is a transformative and healing experience and we have long wondered why it is not available to more people, including the significant trans and queer populations in Jewish communities.
So. I am NOT going to say thereâs no problem with homophobia and/or transphobia in Jewish communities. Itâs definitely a community issue, and many communities are grappling with it in various ways as we speak. And Iâm certainly not going to say the authors didnât have the experience of not having a mikveh available to themâI donât know their lives, Iâm not going to police their experiences.
However, while Orthodox mikvahs are often still restricted to married women (who by virtue of the community will generally be cis and married to men) and potentially adult men (given the resources and customs, as mentioned above), there are plenty of more liberal mikvaâot these days. Some even explicitly offer rituals for queer events! The list of reasons to go to the mikvah linked up above, for instance, includes:
(Mayyim Hayyim, âImmersion Ceremoniesâ)
Again, thatâs not to say there arenât issues of queerphobia in the Jewish community, but if you are queer and want to go to the mikvah, there are options out there. If youâre looking, Iâve included some links at the end.
When we make ritual, we are working with the divine forces of presence and intention. The magic of mikveh comes in making contact with water. Contact with water marks a threshold and functions as a portal to bring closer our ritual intention/the world to come.
This isâŚa weird way to put things. I would say this is the start of the red flags. âWhen we make ritual,â first of all, is, to quote @the-library-alcove (who helped edit this), âa turn of phrase that is not typically associated with any branch of Jewish practice; we have a lot--a LOT--of rituals, and while it's certainly not completely outside of the realm of Jewish vernacular, the tone here, especially in light of the later sections, starts veering towards the vernacular of neo-paganism.â One might say âmake kiddushâ (the blessing over wine on Shabbos and holidays) or âmake motziâ (the blessing over bread), but not generally âmake ritual.â
The next section is titled âWho Gets to Do Mikveh?â Their answer:
Everyone! Mikveh practice is available to all of us as a healing tool at any time.
The healing tool part isnât the original purpose of mikveh, but there are some who have used it as a part of emotional recovery from something traumatic, by marking a new state of being free from whatever caused it, see for instance Mayyim Hayyimâs list linked above.
The âeveryoneâ bit is a little more complicated. To explain why, weâre going to skip ahead a little. (Some of these quotes will also be analyzed in full later.)
We want to make mikveh practice available as a tool to all Jews and non-Jews who want to heal wounds caused by white supremacy and colonialism. [..] To us, a queer mikveh welcomes anyone, regardless of spiritual background or not. [âŚ] Queer mikveh is accessible physically and spiritually to any and all people who are curious about it. You don't have to be a practicing Jew to enter queer mikveh. You don't have to be Jewish. (pg. 2, emphasis added)
Now, I am told there are mikvaâot that allow non-Jews to immerse. I have yet to find them, so I donât know what rituals they allow non-Jews to do. I also havenât been able to find any resources on non-Jews being allowed to immerse. I have found quite a few that explicitly prohibit it. If there are any sources you know of, please send them to me! Iâd love to see them! But so far everything I have come across has said that mikvah immersion is a closed practice that only Jews can participate in. (Technically, to quote the lovely @etz-ashashiot, any non-Jew can do mikvahâŚonce. And they wonât be non-Jews when they emerge. There is also one very extreme edge-case, which is absolutely not mainstream knowledge or practice, and basically isnât actually done. You can message me if youâre curious, but itâs really not relevant to thisâand even in that case, it is preferable to use a natural mikvah rather than a man-made one.)
If there are any legitimate sources that allow non-Jews to do a mikvah ritual, I would assume said non-Jews would be required to be respectful about it. Unfortunately, this is how the paragraph we began with continues:
Who Gets to Do Mikveh? Everyone! Mikveh practice is available to all of us as a healing tool at any time. You don't need any credentials. Your own wisdom is all the power you need to be a Jewish ritual leader. (emphasis added)
This is where we really go off the rails. First of all, you need more than âwisdomâ to lead a Jewish ritual. You need to actually know what youâre doing. You canât just say âoh you know what I feel like the right thing to do for morning prayers is to pray to the sun, because God created the sun so the sun is worth worshiping, and this is a Jewish ritual Iâm doing.â Thatâs just idolatry. Like straight up I stole that from a midrash (oral tradition) about how humanity went from speaking with God in the Garden of Eden to worshiping idols in the time of Noah (given here by Maimonides; note that it continues for a few paragraphs after the one this link sends you to).
Second of all, this is particularly bad given this guide is explicitly to Jews and non-Jews. As @daughter-of-stories put it when she was going over an earlier draft of this analysis, âthey are saying that non-Jews can just declare themselves Jewish ritual leaders based on nothing but their own âwisdom.ââ
I hope I donât need to explain why thatâs extremely bad and gross?
While weâre on the topic of non-Jews using a mikvah, letâs take a moment to address an accusation commonly mentioned alongside the mikvah guide: that JVP also encourages (or encouraged) self-conversion.
I have been unable to find a separate document where they explicitly said so, or an older version of this document that does. This leads me to believe that either a) the accusation came from a misreading of this document, or b) there was a previous document that contained it which has since been deleted but was not archived in the Wayback Machine. EITHER is possible.
Even in the case that there was no such document, however, I would point out that such a suggestion can be readâintentionally or notâas implicit in this document. This is a guide for mikvah use by both Jews and non-Jews, and includes an idea that non-Jews can perform Jewish rituals on their own without any guidance or even background knowledge, as quoted above. Why would a non-Jew, coming into Jewish practice with very little knowledge, go looking to perform a mikvah ritual?
I would wager that the most well-known purpose of immersing in a mikvah is for the purpose of conversion.
Nowhere in this guide is there any explicit statement that you can do a self-conversion, but it also doesnât say anywhere that you canât, or that doing so is an exception to âyou donât need any credentialsâ or âyour own wisdom is all the power you need to be a Jewish ritual leader.â It may not be their intention, but the phrasing clearly leaves it as an option.
Even if this were from a source that one otherwise loved, this would be upsetting and disappointing. The amount of exposure this document is getting may be at least in part because it comes from JVP, but the distress and dismay would be there regardless. If there is further vitriol, itâs only because JVP is often considered a legitimate source by outsiders, if no one elseâin other words, by the very people least likely to have the background to know that this document isnât trustworthy. Itâs like the difference between your cousin telling you âthe Aztecs were abducted by aliensâ versus a mainstream news program like Fox reporting it. Both are frustrating and wrong, but one has significantly more potential harm than the other, and therefore is more likely to get widespread criticism (even if you complain about your cousin online).
On the other hand, as one of my editors pointed out in a moment of dark humor, they do say you donât have to be Jewish to lead a Jewish ritual, so perhaps that mitigates this issue slightly by taking away a motivation to convert in the first place.
Returning to our document:
We do mikvahs in lakes, rivers, bathtubs, showers, outside in the rain, from teacups, and in our imaginations.
At this point the rails are but a distant memory.
In case youâve forgotten what I said about this at the beginning of this post (and honestly I wouldnât blame you, weâre on pg. 9 in my draft of this), there are extremely strict rules about what qualifies as a mikvah. Maimonidesâs Mishnah Torah, just about the most comprehensive codex of Jewish law, has eleven chapters on the topic of the mikvah (though that includes immersion in it as well as construction of it). Iâm not going to make you read through it, but letâs go through the list in this sentence:
Lakes and rivers: you might be able to use a river or lake as a mikvah, but you need to check with your local rabbinical authority, because not all of them qualify. In general, the waters must gather together naturally, from an underground spring or rainwater. In the latter case, the waters must be stationary rather than flowing. A river that dries up in a drought canât be used, for instance. (The ocean counts as a spring, for this purpose.)
Bathtubs and showers: No. A man-made mikveh must be built into the ground or as an essential part of a building, unlike most bathtubs, and contain of a minimum of 200 gallons of rainwater, gathered and siphoned in a very particular way so as not to let it legally become âgroundwater.â Also, it needs to be something you can immerse in, which a shower is not.
Outside in the rain: No? How would you even do that?? What??
Teacups: Even if you were Thumblina or Kâtonton (Jewish Tom Thumb), and could actually immerse your entire body in a teacup, it wouldnât be a kosher mikvah as a mivkah canât be portable.
In your imagination: Obviously not, what the heck are you even talking about
We will (unfortunately) be coming back to the teacup thing, but for now suffice it to say most of these are extremely Not A Thing.
Mikveh has been continually practiced since ancient Judaism. It is an offering of unbroken Jewish lineage that we have claimed/reclaimed as our own.
I find the use of âclaimed/reclaimedâ fascinating here, given this guide is explicitly for non-Jewsâwho, whether or not they are permitted to use a mikvah, certainly shouldnât be claiming it as their ownâas well as Jews. I find it particularly interesting given the lack of clarity of how much of JVPâs membership is actually Jewish and JVPâs history of encouraging non-Jewish members to post âas Jews.â Kind of telling on yourselves a bit, there.
(Once again, Iâm not commenting on the authors themselves, but the organization they represent here and the audience they are speaking to/for.)
We want to make mikveh practice available as a tool to all Jews and non-Jews who want to heal wounds caused by white supremacy and colonialism. We want to make mikveh practice available for healing our bodies, spirits, and the earth.
Setting aside the âJews and non-Jewsâ thing, since I talked about that earlier and this is already extremely long, I do want to highlight the end of the paragraph. While there are some modern uses of the mikvah to (sort of) heal the spirit, I havenât heard of anyone using a mikvah to heal the bodyâas a general rule Jews donât tend to do faith healing, though of course some sects are the exception. Healing the earth, however, is absolutely not a use of a mikvah. Mikvah rituals, as weâve now mentioned several times, are about tahara of a person or an object, and require immersion. You canât immerse the earth in a mikvah. The earth contains mikvaâot. Healing the earth with a mikvah is a very strange worship (IYKYK).
We acknowledge that not all beings have consistent access to water, including Palestinians.
This is a tragedy, no question. I don't mean to minimize that. However, it is also unrelated to the matter at hand. The Guide also doesnât give any recommendations on how we can help improve water access, so this lip service is all you get.
A lack of water does not make mikveh practice inaccessible.
Yes, in fact, it does. Without a kosher mikvah of one variety or another one cannot do anything that requires a mikvah. Thatâs why building a kosher one is so important. I havenât gone looking for it, but while Iâm sure thereâs lots (and lots and lots and lots) of Rabbinic responsa out there of what to do in drought situations, you definitely do need water in all but the most extreme cases. If you do not have water, AYLR (Ask Your Local Rabbi)--donât do whatever this is.
The spirit of water can be present with us if we choose to call for water, so even when water is not physically available to us we can engage in mikveh practice.
This is just straight up avodah zarah (âstrange worship,â i.e. idolatry) as far as I can tell. The âspirit of the waterâ? What? Weâre not Babylonians worshiping Tiamat. What source is there for this? Is there a source??
Like all material resources, the ways water is or is not available to us is shaped by our geographic and social locations. The ways we relate to water, what we decide is clean, treyf (dirty), drinkable, bathable, how much we use, how much we save, varies depending on our experiences. We invite you to decide what is clean and holy for your own body and spiritual practice.
This is going to require some breaking down.
To start with, letâs define âtreyf.â To quote myjewishlearning, âTreyf (sometimes spelled treif or treyfe) is a Yiddish word used for something that is not kosher [lit. "fit"]. The word treyf is derived from the Hebrew word treifah, which appears several times in the Bible and means 'flesh torn by beasts.' The Torah prohibits eating flesh torn by beasts, and so the word treifah came to stand in for all forbidden foods.â
You may note the lack of the word âdirtyâ in this definition, or any other value judgments. Myjewishlearning continues, âover time, the words kosher and treyf have been used colloquially beyond the world of food to describe anything that Jews deem fit or unfit.â While this does have something of a value judgment, itâs still not âdirty.â I canât say why the authors chose to translate the word this way, butâŚI donât like it.
Now, when it comes to what is kosher or treyf, food and drink are most certainly not based on âour experiences.â There are entire books on the rules of kashrut; it generally takes years of study to understand all the minutiae. Even as someone who was raised in a kosher household, when I worked as a mashgicha (kosher certification inspector) I needed special training. What is considered kadosh (âsacredâ or âholy,â though again thatâs not a perfect translation) or tahor is also determined by very strict rules. We donât just decide things based on âvibes.â Thatâs not how anything in Jewish practice works.
Water, in fact, is always kosher to drink unless it has bugs or something else treyf in it. And mikvehs arenât even always what Iâd consider âdrinkable;â I always wash utensils Iâve brought to the mikvah before I use them.
We come to our next heading: What is Queer Mikveh?
What is Queer Mikveh? To us, a queer mikveh welcomes anyone, regardless of spiritual background or not.
As Iâve said above, I have yet to find a single source (seriously if you have one please send it to me) that says non-Jews can go to a mikvah. As one of my editors for this put it, âto spin appropriation of Jewish closed practices as âqueerâ is not only icky but deeply disrespectful to actual queer Jews.â
Also, and this is not remotely the point, but âregardless of spiritual background or notâ is almost incoherently poor writing.
As Jews in diaspora we want to share and use our ritual practices for healing the land and waters we are visitors on for the liberation of all beings.
I have tried to be semi-professional about this analysis, but. âJews in the diaspora,â you say. Tell me, JVP, where are we in the diaspora from? Hm? Where are we in diaspora from? Which land do we come from? Which land are we indigenous to, JVP? Do tell.
Returning to the point, I would repeat that mikvah has nothing to do with âhealing the land and waters.â Itâs ritual purification of whatever is immersed in it. You want to heal the land and waters? Go to your local environmental group, and/or whoever maintains your local land and waters. Pick up trash. Start recycling. Weed invasive species. Call your government and tell them to support green energy. You want liberation for all beings? Fight bigotryâincluding antisemitism. Judaism believes in actionâgo act. Appropriating rituals from a closed religion doesnât liberate anyone.
We have come up with this working definition and welcome feedback!
Oh good, maybe I wonât be yelled at for posting this (she said dubiously).
Queer mikveh is a ritual of Jews in diaspora. We believe the way we work for freedom for all beings is by using the gifts of our ancestors for the greatest good. We bring our rituals as gifts.
I have nothing in particular new to say about this, except that I find the idea of âbringing our rituals as giftsâ for anyone to use deeply uncomfortable, given Judaism is a closed religion that strongly discourages non-Jews from joining us, and that has had literal millennia of people appropriating from us.
It acknowledges that our path is to live on lands that are not historically our peoples [sic] and we honor the Indigenous ancestors of the land we live on, doing mikveh as an anti-colonialist ritual for collective and personal liberation.
Again I would love so much for JVP to tell us which lands would historically be our peopleâs. What land do Jews come from, JVP? What land is it we do have a historical connection to? What land do our Indigenous ancestors come from??
And why does it have to be our path to live on lands other than that one?
Secondly, to quote the lovely @daughter-of-stories again when she was editing this, âMikveh as anti-colonialism, aside from not being what Mikveh is, kinda implies that you can cleanse the land of the sins of colonialism. So (a) thatâs just a weird bastardization of baptism since, mikveh isnât about cleansing from sin, and (b) so does that mean the colonialism is erased? Now we donât have to actually deal with how it affects actual indigenous people?â
Iâm sure that (b) isnât their intent, but I will say that once again they donât give any material suggestions for how to actually liberate any collectives or persons from colonialism in this document, including any links to other pages on their own website*, which surely would have been easy enough. It comes across as very performative.
*I disagree strongly with most of their methods, but at least they are suggesting something.
Queer mikveh is a physical or spiritual space that uses the technologies of water and the Jewish practice of mikveh to mark transitions. Transition to be interpreted by individuals and individual ritual.
I have no idea what the âtechnologies of waterâ are. Also usage of a mikvah to mark transitions beyond ritual states is a fairly new innovation, as mentioned above.
Queer mikveh in it's [sic] essence honors the story of the water. The historical stories of the water we immerse in, the stories of our own bodies as water and the future story we vision [sic].
This just sounds like a pagan spinoff of baptism to me, if Iâm being honest. Which would be non-Jewish in several ways.
Queer mikveh is accessible physically and spiritually to any and all people who are curious about it. You don't have to be a practicing Jew to enter queer mikveh. You don't have to be Jewish.
First off, once again whether or not non-Jews can use mikvah seems at best extremely iffy. Secondly, accessibility in mikvaâot is, as one of my editors put it, âa continual discussion.â We have records of discussions regarding access for those with physical disabilities going back at least to the 15th century (Shut Mahari Bruna, 106; as quoted in 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History by Rabbi Ephraim Meth), and in the modern era there are mikvaâot that have lifts or other accessibility aids. That said, many mikvaâot, especially older ones, are still not accessibleâand many mikvaâot donât have the money to retrofit or renovate. Mikvah.orgâs directory listings (linked at the end of this) notes whether various mikvaâot are accessible, if you are looking for one in your area. If you want to help make mikvaâot more accessible to the disabled, consider donating to an existing mikvah to help them pay for renovations or otherwise (respectfully) getting involved in the community. If you want to help make mikvaâot more accessible for non-Orthodox Jews, try donating to an open mikvah (see link to a map of Rising Tide members at the end of this essay) or other non-Orthodox mikvah.
Queer mikveh is an earth and water honoring ritual.
Not even a little. We do have (or had) rituals that honor the earth or water, at least to an extentâthe Simchat Beit HaShoâevah (explanations here and here) was a celebration surrounding water; most of our holidays are harvest festivals to some extent or another; there are a large number of agricultural mitzvahs (though most can only be done in Israel, which I suppose wouldnât work for JVP). (Note: mitzvahs are commandments and/or good deeds.) Even those, though, arenât about the water or earth on their own, per se, but rather about honoring them as Godâs gift to us. This description of mikvah sounds more Pagan or Wiccanâwhich is fine, but isnât Jewish.
Queer mikveh exists whenever a queer person or queers gather to do mikveh. Every person is their own spiritual authority and has the power to create their own ritual for individual or collective healing.
Absolutely, anyone can create their own rituals for anything they want. But it probably wonât be a mikvah ritual, and it probably wonât be Jewish.
Do you know what itâs called when you make up your own ritual and claim that itâs actually a completely valid part of an established closed practice of which you arenât part? (Rememberâthis document is aimed just as much at non-Jews as at Jews.)
Itâs called appropriation.
With the next section, âSome Ideas for Mikveh Preparation,â we begin page three.
(Yes, weâre only on page three of seven. Iâm so sorry.)
The most important part of mikveh preparation is setting an intention.
This isnât entirely wrong, as you do have to have in mind the intention of fulfilling a mitzvah when you perform one.
Because mikveh is a ritual most used to mark transitions, you can frame your intention in that way.
To quote myself above, âusage of a mikvah to mark transitions beyond ritual states is a fairly new innovation.â Iâd hardly say it is mostly used for marking transitions.
You can do journaling or talk with friends to connect with the Jewish month, Jewish holiday, Shabbat, the moon phase, and elements of the season that would support your intention.
If this were a guide for only Jews, or there was some sort of note saying this section was only for Jews, I would have less of a problem. But given neither is true, they are encouraging non-Jews to use the Jewish calendar for what is, from the rest of the descriptions in the Guide, a magical earth healing ritual.
This is 100% straight up appropriation.
The Jewish calendar is Jewish. Marking the new moon and creating a calendar was the first commandment given to us as a people, upon the exodus from Egypt. Nearly all our holidays are (aside from the harvest component, which is based on the Israeli agricultural seasons and required harvest offerings) based on specific parts of Jewish history. Passover celebrates the Exodus and our becoming a nation. Sukkot celebrates the Clouds of Glory that protected us in the desert. Shavuot celebrates being given the Torah.
According to some opinions, non-Jews literally arenât allowed to keep Shabbat.
If you are a non-Jew and you are basing the collective earth healing ritual you have created under your own spiritual authority around Jewish holidays and calling it âmikvah,â you are appropriating Judaism.
Full stop.
This isnât even taking into account the generally Pagan/witchy feel of the paragraph, with âmoon phasesâ and âelements of the season.â Again, if you want to be a Pagan be a Pagan, but donât call it Jewish.
Things only go further downhill with their next suggestion for preparation before you go to the mikvah.
Divination: A lot can be said about divination practices and Judaism.
There certainly is a lot to be said. First and foremost, thereâs the fact that divination is forbidden in Judaism.
(Screenshot of Leviticus 19:26 from sefaria.org)
One method of divination they suggest is Tarot, which is a European method of cartomancy that seems to have begun somewhere in the 19th century, though the cards start showing up around the 15th. While early occultists tried to tie it to various older forms of mysticism, including Kabbalah, this was, to put it lightly, complete nonsense. (Disclaimer: this information comes from wikipedia; Iâve already spent so much time researching the mikvah stuff that I do not have the energy or interest to do a deep dive into the origin of Tarot. It isnât Jewish, the rest is honestly just details.)
I have nothing against Tarot. I think itâs neat! The cards are often lovely! I have a couple of decks myself, and I use them for fun and card games. But divination via tarot is not Jewish. If I do any spreads, I make it very clear to anyone Iâm doing it with that it is for fun and/or as a self-reflection tool, not as magic. Because that is extremely not allowed in Judaism.
The authors suggest a few decks to use, one of which is by one of the authors themselves. Another is âThe Kabbalah Deck,â whichâholy appropriation, Batman!
In case anyone is unaware, Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) is an extremely closed Jewish practice, even within Judaism. Traditionally it shouldnât be studied by anyone who hasnât already studied every other Jewish text (of which there are, I remind you, a lot), because itâs so easy to misinterpret. I mentioned this above briefly when explaining cultural expropriation. Pop Kabbalah (what Madonna does, what you see when they talk about âAncient Kabbalistic Textsâ on shows like Supernatural, the nonsense occultists and New-Agers like to say is âancient Kabbalisticâ whatever, itâs a wide span of appropriative BS) is gross, combining Kabbalah with Tarot is extremely gross. Iâm not 100% sure, as the link in the pdf doesnât work, but I believe they are referring to this deck by Edward Hoffman. For those of you who donât want to click through, the Amazon description includes this:
(Screenshot from Amazon)
Returning to our text:
Another practice that's been used in Judaism for centuries is bibliomancy. You can use a book you find meaningful (or the Torah) and ask a question. Then, close your eyes, open the book to a page and place your finger down. Interpret the word or sentence you pointed at to help guide you to answer your question.
Bibliomancy with a chumash (Pentateuch) or tanach (Bible) in Jewish magic is kind of a thing, but the tradition of Jewish magic as a whole is very complicated and could be its own entirely different post. This one is already long enough. This usage of bibliomancy is clearly just appropriative new-age BS, though, especially given you can use â[any] book you find meaningful.â
Also, if you arenât Jewish, please donât use the Torah for ritual purposes unless you are doing it under very specific circumstances under the laws for Bânei Noach (âChildren of Noah,â also called Righteous Gentiles; non-Jews who follow the 7 Noachide Laws).
Sit with your general intention or if you aren't sure, pose a question to the divination tool you are using. "What should be my intention for this mikveh?" "What needs transforming in my life?" "How can I transform my relationship with my body?"
As I hope Iâve made clear, there are very specific times when one uses a mikvah, even with more modern Open Mikvah rituals. You always know what your intention is well before goingâto make yourself tahor, or mark a specific event. Iâm not here to police how someone prepares mentally before they immerseâmeditation is fine, even encouraged. But magic? Like this? Thatâs not a thing. And given the fact that divination specifically is not only discouraged but forbidden, this section in particular upset a lot of Jews who read it.
Those of us already upset by everything weâve already covered were not comforted by how the Guide continues.
How to Prepare Physically For Mikveh: Some people like to think about entering the mikveh in the way their body was when they were born. By this we mean naked, without jewelry, with clean fingernails and brushed hair. This framing can be meaningful for many people.
We went into this at the beginning of this essay (about 6500 words ago), but this is in fact how Jewish law mandates one is required to immerse. This is certainly the case in most communities, whether you are immersing due to an obligation (as a married woman or a bride about to be married) or due to custom (as men in post-Temple practice) or due to non-traditional immersion (as someone coming out); wherever on the spectrum of observance one falls (as far as I could find). A mikvah isnât a bath, itâs not about physical cleanlinessâyou must first thoroughly clean yourself, clip your nails, and brush your teeth. Nail polish and makeup are removed. There canât be any barriers between you and the water. Most mikvaâot these days, particularly womenâs mikvaâot, have preparation rooms so you can prep on site. When you immerse, you have to submerge completelyâyour hair canât be floating above the water, your mouth canât be pursed tightly, your hands canât be clenched so the water canât get to your palms. If you do it wrong, it doesnât count and you have to do it again. Itâs not a âframing,â itâs a ritual practice governed by ritual law.
We suggest you do mikveh in the way you feel comfortable for you and your experience.
This isnât how this works. If you have a particularly extreme case, you can talk to a rabbi to see if there are any workaroundsâfor example, if excessive embarrassment would distract you from the ritual, you may be able to wear clothes that are loose enough that the water still makes contact with every millimeter of skin. But you need to consult with someone who knows the minutiae of the laws and requirements so you know if any exceptions or workarounds apply to you. Thatâs what a rabbi is for. Thatâs why they need to go to rabbinical school and get ordination. They have to study. Thatâs why you need to find a rabbi whose knowledge and personality you trust. For someone calling themselves a religious authority in Judaism to say âyou can do whatever, no biggieâ with such a critical ritual isâŚIâm not sure what the word I want is.
The idea is to feel vulnerable but also to claim your body as a powerful site of change that has the power to move us close to our now unrecognizable futures.
The idea is to bathe in the living waters and enter a state of taharah. Though that could be an idea you have in mind while you are doing it, I suppose. I could see at least one writer I know of saying something like this to specifically menstrual married (presumably cis) women performing Taharat HaMishpacha (family taharah, see above).
For some people, doing mikveh in drag will feel most vulnerable, with all your make-up and best attire.
Absolutely not a thing. As I said last paragraph, the goal isnât to feel vulnerable or powerful or anything. It may feel vulnerable or powerful, but that is entirely besides the actual purpose of the ritual. What you get out of it on a personal emotional level has nothing to do with the religious goal of the religious practice.
And if you are wondering how one would submerge oneself in water in full drag, donât worry, weâll get there soon.
For some, wearing a cloth around your body until just before you dip is meaningful.
This is just how itâs usually done. Generally one is provided with a bathrobe, and one removes it before entering. You donât just wander around the building naked. Or the beach, if youâre using the ocean.
If you were born intersex and your genitalia was changed without your consent, thinking about your body as perfect, however you were born, can be loving.
Iâm not intersex, so Iâm not going to comment on the specifics here. If you are and thatâs meaningful to you, more power to you.
We enter a new section, at the top of page 4.
Where To Do Mikveh: There is much midrash around what constitutes a mikveh.
âMidrashâ is not the word they want here. The midrash is the non-legal side of the oral tradition, often taking the form of allegory or parable. This is as opposed to the mishna, which is the halachic (legal) side of the oral tradition. They were both written down around the same time, but most midrashim (plural) are in their own books, rather than incorporated in the mishna.
There is, however, a great deal of rabbinic discussion, in the form of mishna, gemara, teshuvot (responsa), legal codices, and various other genres of Jewish writing. More properly this could have just said âthere is much discussion around what constitutes a mikveh.â
Most mikvot currently exist in Orthodox synagogues[â]
This is perhaps a minor quibble, but I donât know that Iâd say theyâre generally in synagogues. They are frequently associated with a local congregation, but are often in a separate building.
[â]but there is a growing movement to create more diverse and inclusive spaces for mikveh. Mayyim Hayyim is a wonderful resource with a physical body of water mikveh space. Immerse NYC is a newer organization training people of all genders to be mikveh guides. They also work to find gender inclusive spaces for people to do mikveh in NYC.
This is true! Mayyim Hayyim is a wonderful organization Iâve never heard anything bad about, and ImmerseNYC also seems like an excellent organization. Both also only allow Jews (in which group I am including in-process converts) to immerse.
The mikveh guides thing I didnât explain above, so Iâll take a moment to do so here. Because the rules of immersion are so strict, and because itâs hard to tell if you are completely immersed when you are underwater, most mikvaâot have a guide helping you. Depending on the circumstance and the mikvah, and depending on the patronâs comfort, who and how they do their jobs can differ somewhat. For a woman immersing after niddah, it will usually be another woman who will hold up the towel or bathrobe for you while you get in the water, and will only look from behind it once you are immersed to make sure you are completely submerged. If you are converting, customs vary. Some communities require men to witness the immersion regardless of the convertâs gender, which is very much an ongoing discussion in those communities. Even in those cases, to my knowledge they will only look once the convert is in the water, and there will likely still be a female attendant if the convert is a woman. While there are negative experiences people have had, it is very much an intra-community issue. Weâre working on it.
Mikveh can be done in a natural body of water.
Again, this is true, though not all bodies of water work, so AYLR (Ask Your Local Rabbi).
Some people are also making swimming pools holy places of mikveh.
Weâve already explained above why this is nonsense.
In the Mishneh (the book that makes commentary on the torah [sic]) there are arguments as to what constitutes a mikveh and how much water from a spring or well or rainwater must be present.
The main issue in this section is their definition of the Mishneh. As I explained above, the Mishna (same thing, transliteration is not an exact science) is the major compilation of the Oral Torah, the oral tradition that was written down by Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi so it wouldnât be lost in the face of exile and assimilation. Itâs not so much a commentary on the (Written) Torah as an expansion of it to extrapolate the religious laws we follow. Itâs certainly not âthe book that makes commentary on the Torah.â We have literally hundreds of books of commentary. Thatâs probably underestimating. Jews have been around for a long time, and we have been analyzing and discussing the Torah for nearly as long. There are so many commentaries on the Torah.
The second issue is that while there are arguments in the Mishna and Gemara (the oral discussion on the Mishna that was written down even later), they do generally result in a final decision of some sort. Usually whichever side has the majority wins. Variations between communities are still very much a thing, and I can explain why in another post if people are interested, but there usually is a base agreement.
We are of the school that says you decide for yourself what works.
The phrasing they use here makes it sound as though thatâs a legitimate opinion in the Mishnah. I cannot emphasize how much that is not the case. While I myself have not finished learning the entire Mishnah, I would be willing to wager a great deal that âwhatever works for youâ isnât a stance on any legal matter there. Thatâs just not how it works. While some modern branches of Judaism may have that as a position, it is definitely not Mishnaic.
If you are concerned about Jewish law, the ocean is always a good choice. There are no conflicting arguments about the ocean as a mikveh. As the wise maggid Jhos Singer says in reference to the ocean, "It's [sic] becomes a mikveh when we call it a mikveh." Done.
(To clarify, I donât know if that typo was carried over from the source of the original quote or not.)
This is true. However if you are concerned about Jewish law I would very much urge you to look to other sources than this oneâbe that your local rabbi or rebbetzen, the staff at your local mikvah, or a reliable website that actually goes into the proper requirements. If you want to use a mikveh according to Jewish law, please do not use this document as your guide.
We recognize immersion in water does not work for every body. Therefore, a guiding principle for where to do a mikveh is: do a mikveh in a place that is sacred to you. Your body is always holy and your body is made of mostly water. Later in this guide there is more information on mikveh with no immersion required.
I cannot emphasize how much I have never once heard this before. This, to me, reads like New Age nonsense. If you are unable to immerse in a mikvah, talk to your rabbi. Donât doâŚwhatever this is.
Our next section is a short one.
Who To Do it With: Do mikveh with people you feel comfortable with and supported by.
This is fine, though many mikvaâot (perhaps even most) will only allow one person to immerse at a time.
Do a solo mikveh and ask the earth body to be your witness.
With this, we return to the strange smattering of neo-Paganism. The âearth bodyâ is not a thing. Yes, the Earth is called as a witness in the Bible at least once. Itâs poetic. You also, unless you are converting, donât actually need a witness anyway. A mikvah attendant or guide is there to help youâif you were somewhere without one, you could still immerse for niddah or various customary purposes.
Do mikveh with people who share some of your vision for collective healing.
As Iâve said before in this essay, collective healing is not the point of a mikvah. If you are Jewish and want to pray for healing, there are plenty of legitimate places for thisâthe Shemonah Esrei has a prayer for healing and a prayer where you can insert any personal prayers you want; thereâs a communal prayer for healing after the Torah reading. You can give charity or recite a psalm or do a mitzvah with the person in mind. You can also just do a personal private prayer with any words you like, a la Hannah, or if you want pre-written words find an appropriate techinah (not the sesame stuff). If you want to work towards collective liberation, volunteer. Learn the laws of interpersonal mitzvot, like lashon hara (literally âevil speech,â mostly gossip or libel). Connect fighting oppression to loving your neighbor or the Passover seder. We have tons of places for thisâmikvah isnât one of them.
Next segment.
What To Bring to A Mikveh: 1. Intentions for the ritual for yourself and/or the collective.
See previous points on intention.
2. Items for the altar from your cultural background[âŚ] (emphasis mine)
If I wasnât appalled by the âimmersing in makeupâ or the âdo divination first,â this would be the place that got me. This is wrong on so many levels.
One is not allowed to have an altar outside of The Temple in Jerusalem, the one we currently do not have. Itâs an extremely big deal. One is not allowed to make sacrifices outside of the Temple. Period. This is emphasized again and again in the Torah and other texts. Even when we had a Temple, there were no altars in a mikvah.
And you certainly couldnât offer anything in the Temple while naked, as one is required to be when immersing in the mikvah.
Even when we did bring offerings to altars (the Bronze Altar or the Gold Altar, both of which were in the Temple and which only qualified priests in a state of tahara could perform offerings on), the offerings were very specifically mandated, as per the Torah and those other texts. Even when non-Jews gave offerings (as did happen) they were required to comply. You couldnât just bring any item from your cultural background. This is paganism, plain and simple.
Now, again, let me be clear: if youâre pagan, I have no problem with you. My problem is when one tries to take a sacred practice from a closed religion and try to co-opt it as oneâs own. Itâs a problem when someone who isnât Native American decides to smudge their room with white sage, and itâs a problem when someone who isnât Jewish tries to turn a mikvah into a pagan cleansing rite. And even if the person doing it is Jewish--I have an issue when itâs Messianics who were born Jewish, and I have an issue when itâs pagans who were born the same. Either way, whether you intend to or not, you are participating in appropriation or expropriation.
Which makes the line that follows this point so deeply ironic I canât decide if Iâm furious or heartbroken.
After suggesting that the reader (who may or may not be Jewish) bring items for an altar to a mikvah, the Guide asks:
[âŚ] (please do not bring appropriated items from cultures that are not yours).
Which is simply just... beyond parody. To quote one of my editors, âThis is quickly approaching the level of being a new definition for the Yiddish word 'Chutzpah,' which is traditionally defined as 'absurdist audacity' in line with 'Chutzpah is a man who brutally murders both of his parents and then pleads with the judge for leniency because he is now an orphan bereft of parental guidance.' If not for the involved nature of explaining the full context, I would submit this as a potential new illustrative example.â
The next suggestion of what to bring is
3. Warm clothes, towels, warm drinks
All these are reasonable enough, though most mikvaâot provide towels. Some also provide snacks, for while you are preparing. They may also not allow you to bring in outside food.
4. Your spirit of love, healing, and resistance
This, again, has nothing to do with mikvah. The only spirit of resistance in a mikvah is the fact that we continue to do it despite millennia of attempts to stop us. Additionally, to me at least âa spirit of loveâ feels very culturally-Christian.
Our next section is titled âHow to Make Mikveh a Non-Zionist Ritual.â
Right off the bat, I have an issue with this concept. Putting aside for a moment whatever one may think of Zionism as a philosophy, my main problem here is that mikvah has nothing at all to do with Zionism. In Orthodoxy, at least, Jews who are against Zionism on religious grounds perform the mitzvah the same way passionately Zionist Jews do, with the same meanings and intentions behind it. It is performed the same way in Israel and out, and has been more or less the same for the last several thousand years. It is about ritual purification and sanctification of the mundane, no more and no less.
There is a word for saying anything and everything Jewish is actually about the modern Israel/Palestine conflict, simply because itâs Jewish.
That word is antisemitism.
How to Make Mikveh a Non-Zionist Ritual: Reject all colonial projects by learning about, naming & honoring, and materially supporting the communities indigenous to the land where you hold your mikveh. Name and thank the Indigenous people of the land you are going to do your mikveh on.
If you removed the ânon-Zionistâ description, this would be mostly unobjectionable. We should absolutely help indigenous communities. The framing of âreject all colonial projectsâ does seem to suggest that there is something colonial about the usual practice of going to the mikvah, though. I would argue that the mikvah is, in fact, anti-colonial if anythingâit is the practice of a consistently oppressed minority ethno-religion which has kept it in practice despite the best efforts of multiple empires. Additionally, while Zionism means many different things to those who believe in it, at its root most Zionists (myself included) define it as âthe belief that Jews have a right to self-determination in our indigenous homeland.â Our indigenous homeland being, of course, the land of Israel. (This is different from the State of Israel, which is the modern country on that land.) If you are a Jew in Israel, one of the indigenous peoples of the land your mikvah is on is your own. Thatâs not to say there arenât othersâbut to claim Jews arenât indigenous to the region is to be either misinformed or disingenuous.
Take the time to vision [sic] our world to come in which Palestine and all people are free.
I really, really dislike how they use the concept of The World To Come here. The Jewish idea of The World To Come (AKA the Messianic Age) is one where the Messiah has come, the Temple has been rebuilt, and the Davidic dynastic monarchy has been re-established in the land of Israel. Arguably thatâs the most Zionist vision imaginable. This isnât to say that all people, Palestinians included, wonât be freeâtrue peace and harmony are also generally accepted features of the Messianic Age. But using the phrase in making something ânon-Zionistâ is, at the very least, in extremely poor taste. (As a side note, even religious non-Zionists believe in thisâthatâs actually why most of them are against the State of Israel, as they believe we canât have sovereignty until the Messiah comes. They do generally believe we will eventually have sovereignty, just that now isnât the time for it.)
Hold and explore this vision intimately as you prepare to immerse. What is one action you can take to bring this future world closer? Trust that your vision is collaborating with countless others doing this work.
Having a âvisionâ of a world where all are free isnât doing any of the work to accomplish it. A âvisionâ canât collaborate. At least not in Judaism. This sounds like one is trying to manifest the change through force of will, which is something directly out of the New Age faith movement, where it is known as âCreative Visualization.â Even when we do have a concept of bringing about something positive through an unrelated actionâlike saying psalms for someone who is sickâthe idea is that you are doing a mitzvah on their behalf, to add to their merits counted in their favor. Itâs not a form of magic or invocation of some mystical energy.
(Once again: I have nothing against pagans. But paganism is incompatible with Judaism. You canât be both, any more than you can be Jewish and Christian.)
Use mikveh practice to ground into your contribution to the abundant work for liberation being done. We are many.
If you will once more pardon a brief switch to a casual tone:
Nothing says liberation like *checks notes* appropriating a minority cultural practice.
The next section of their document is titled âIdeas for Mikveh Ritual,â and this is where the Neo-Pagan and New Age influences of the authors truly shift from the background to the foreground. Â
We start off deceptively reasonably.
Mikveh ritual is potentially very simple. Generally people consider a mikveh to be a full immersion in water, where you are floating in the water, not touching the bottom, with no part of the body above the surface (including the hair).
Technically, most people consider a mikveh to be a ritual bath (noun) in which one performs various Jewish ritual immersions. But if we set this aside as a typo, this isâŚfairly true. What they are describing is how one is supposed to perform the mitzvah of mikveh immersion. However, in much the same way I wouldnât say âgenerally people consider baseball to be a game where you hit a ball with a bat and run around a diamond,â I wouldnât say itâs a case of âgenerally people considerâ so much as âthis is what it is.â
This works for some people. It doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't work for all bodies. Because of this, mikveh ritual can be expanded outside of these traditional confines in exciting, creative ways.
Once again, if you are incapable of performing mikvah immersion in the proper manner, please go speak with a rabbi. Please do not follow this guide.
Before we continue, I would just like to assure you that. whatever âexciting, creative waysâ you might be imagining the authors have come up with, this is so much worse.
Method One:
Sound Mikveh: One way that's felt very meaningful for many is a "sound mikveh." This can be a group of people toning, harmonizing, or chanting in a circle. One person at a time can be in the center of the circle and feel the vibrations of healing sound wash over their body. Another method of sound mikveh is to use a shofar or other instrument of your lineage to made [sic] sounds that reach a body of water and also wash over you.
This makes me so uncomfortable I barely have the words to describe it, and I know that I am not alone in this. This is not a mikvah. If someone wants to do some sort of sound-based healing ritual, by all means go ahead, but do not call it a mikvah. This is not Jewish. I donât know what this is, aside from deeply offensive.
And leave that poor shofar out of this. That ram did not give his horn for this nonsense.
(I could go on about the actual sacred purpose of a shofar and all the rules and reasons behind it that expand upon this, but this is already over 9000 words.)
Method Two is, if anything, worse. This is the one, if youâve seen social media posts about this topic, you have most likely seen people going nuts about.
Tea Cup Mikveh: Fill a special teacup. If you want, add flower essence, a small stone, or other special elements. Sing the teacup a sweet song, dance around it, cry in some tears, tell the cup a tender and hopeful story, hold the teacup above the body of your animal friend for extra blessing, balance it on your head to call in your highest self. Use the holy contents of this teacup to make contact with water.
This is absolutely 100% straight-up neo-pagan/New Age mysticism. Nothing about this is based on Jewish practice of any kind. Again, Iâm at a loss for words of how to explain just how antithetical this is. If you want to be a witch, go ahead and be a witch. But do not call it Jewish. Leave Judaism out of this.
They end this suggestion with the cute comment,
Mikveh to go. Weâve always been people on the move.
Let me explain why this âfunâ little comment fills me with rage.Â
As you may recall, this document was published by Jewish Voice for Peace. Among their various other acts of promoting and justifying antisemitism, JVP has repeatedly engaged in historical revisionism regarding Jews and Jewish history. In this context, they have repeatedly ignored the numerous expulsions of Jews from various countries, and blaming sinister Zionist plots to explain any movement of expelled Jews to Israel (âIn the early 1950s, starting two years after the Nakba, the Israeli government facilitated a mass immigration of Mizrahim,â from âOur Approach to Zionismâ on the JVP website; see @is-the-thing-actually-jewishâs post on JVP and the posts linked from there).
So a document published by JVP framing Jewish movement as some form of free spirited 1970s-esque Bohemian lifestyle or the result of us being busy movers-and-shakers is a direct slap in the face to the persecution weâve faced as a people and society. No, we arenât âon the moveâ because weâre hippies wandering where the wind takes us . Weâre always on the move because we keep getting kicked out and/or hate-crimed until we leave.
But there is no Jew-hatred in Ba Sing Se.
Method three:
Fermentation Mikveh: Some food goes through natural changes by being immersed in water. If we eat that food, we can symbolically go through a change similar to the one the food went through.
Again, this has no basis anywhere in halacha. We do have concepts of âyou are what you eat,â specifically with reference to what animals and birds are kosher, but there isnât any food that makes you tahor if you eat it. In the Temple days there were, in fact, foods you couldnât eat unless you were tahor.
Jews may like pickles, but that doesnât mean we think they purify you.
Also, the change from fermentation is, if anything, the opposite of the change we would want. Leavening (rising in dough or batter, due to the fermentation of yeast) is compared in rabbinic writings to arrogance and ego, as opposed to the humility of matza, the âpoor manâs breadâ (see here, for example). Is the suggestion here to become more egotistical?
As we wrap up this section, Iâd like to go back to their stated reason for using these âalternativeâ methods (âIt doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't work for all bodiesâ), and ask: if these really were the only options for immersion, would these really fill that same spiritual need/niche? These obviously arenât aimed at me, but from my perspective it seems almost condescending, almost worse. âYou canât do the real thing, so weâll make up something to make you feel better.â If any of them had an actual basis in Jewish practice, that would be one thing, but this just feelsâŚfake, to me. Even within more liberal / less traditional streams of Judaism, there is a connection to halacha:Â
âWe each (if we are knowledgeable about the tradition, if we confront it seriously and take its claims and its wisdom seriously) have the ability, the freedom, indeed the responsibility to come to a [potentially differing] personal understanding of what God wants us to do⌠[Halacha] is a record of how our people, in widely differing times, places and societal circumstances, experienced God's presence in their lives, and responded. Each aspect of halacha is a possible gateway to experience of the holy, the spiritual. Each aspect worked for some Jews, once upon a time, somewhere in our history. Each, therefore, has the potential to open up holiness for people in our time as well, and for me personally. However, each does not have equal claim on us, on meâŚPortions of the halacha whose main purpose seems to be to distance us from our surroundings no longer seem functional. Yet some parts of the halachic tradition seem perfect correctives to the imbalances of life in modernityâŚIn those parts of tradition, we are sometimes blessed to experience a sense of God's closeness. In my personal life, I emphasize those areas. And other areas of halacha, I de-emphasize, or sometimes abandon. Reform Judaism affirms my right, our right, to make those kinds of choices.â â Rabbi Ramie Arian
â[Traditional Reconstructionist Jews] believe that moral and spiritual faculties are actualized best when the individual makes conscious choicesâŚThe individualâs choices, however, can and should not be made alone. Our ethical values and ritual propensities are shaped by the culture and community in which we live. Living a Jewish life, according to the Reconstructionist understanding, means belonging to the Jewish people as a whole and to a particular community of Jews, through which our views of life are shaped. Thus, while Reconstructionist communities are neither authoritarian nor coercive, they aspire to influence the individualâs ethical and ritual choicesâthrough study of Jewish sources, through the sharing of values and experiences, and through the impact of the climate of communal opinion on the individual. âŚWhile we may share certain values and life situations, no two sets of circumstances are identical. We hope that the Reconstructionist process works to help people find the right answers for themselves, but we can only assist in helping individuals to ask the right questions so that their choices are made in an informed way within a Jewish context. To be true to ourselves we must understand the differences in perception between us and those who have gone before, while retaining a reverence for the traditions they fashioned. If we can juxtapose those things, we ensure that the past will have [in the phrase of Reconstructionismâs founder, Mordecai Kaplan,] a vote, but not a veto.â â Rabbi Jacob J. Straub (Note: the Reconstructionist movement was founded in the late 1920s, and has gone through a very large shift in the past decade or so. I use âTraditionalâ here to refer to the original version of the movement as opposed to those who have shifted. Both are still called Reconstructionist, so itâs a bit confusing. This is on the advice of one of my editors, who is themself Traditional Reconstructionist.)
You may note, neither of these talk about inventing things from whole cloth. To paraphrase one of my editors, âYou donât completely abandon [halacha], because if you did how would you have a cohesive community? Even in a âdo whatâs meaningfulâ framework, youâre taking from the buffet, not bringing something to a potluck. Even if you donât see halacha as binding, there are limits.â
(Again, disclaimer that the above knowledge of non-Orthodox movements comes from my editors, and any errors are mine.)
The next section is âPrayers for Mikveh.â
As a note, Iâm going to censor the names of God when I quote actual blessings, as per traditional/Halachic practice. Iâll be putting brackets to indicate my alterations.
Iâm not going to go much into detail here, because frankly my Hebrew isnât good enough, and the six different people I asked for help gave me at least six different answers, but I will touch on it a bit.
First, the Guide gives a link to an article on Traditional Mikveh Blessings from Ritualwell (here is a link on the Wayback Machine, since the original requires you to make an account). Ritualwell is a Reconstructionist Jewish website, and accepts reviewed submissions. Here is their about page. The blessings on this page, as far as I know, are in fact exactly what it says on the tin. Iâm not sure the first one, asher kidshanu bâmitzvotav vâtzivanu al ha-tâvilah, is said for non-obligatory immersions (i.e. not for niddah or conversion), as it is literally a blessing on the commandment. The second blessing at that link is Shehecheyanu, which the Guide also suggests as a good prayer. This is the traditional form of the blessing, given at Ritualwell:
Baruch Atah Ado[-]nai Elo[k]eynu Melech Ha-Olam shehekheyanu vâkiyimanu vâhigiyanu lazman hazeh.
Blessed are You, [LORD] our God, Monarch of the universe, Who has kept us alive and sustained us, and brought us to this season.
(As a quick note, you may notice this is not quite how they translate it on RitualwellâI have no idea why they say âkept me alive,â as itâs definitely âusâ in the Hebrew. Thereâs a long tradition, in fact, of praying for the community rather than ourselves as an individual, but thatâs not the point of this post.)
The Guide, however, gives an alternate form:
Bârucha At y[-]a Elo[k]eynu Ruakh haolam shehekheyatnu vâkiyimatnu vâhigiyatnu lazman hazeh. You are Blessed, Our God, Spirit of the World, who has kept us in life and sustained us, enabling us to reach this season.
Under the assumption that most of you donât know Hebrew, Iâm going to break this down further. The main difference between these two is grammatical genderâthe traditional blessing uses masculine forms, which is common when referring to God. However, while there are often masculine descriptions of God, it is worth noting that Hashem is very specifically not a âmanâ--God is genderless and beyond our comprehension, and masculine is also used in Hebrew for neutral or unspecified gender. A whole discussion of gender and language is also beyond the scope of this post, but for now letâs leave it at: changing the gender for God in prayer is pretty common among less traditional Jews, and thatâs fine. Some of the changes they make (or donât make) here are interesting, though. The two letter name of God they switch to isâdespite ending in a hey (the âhâ letter)ânot feminine grammatically feminine. Iâm told, however, that some progressive circles consider it neutral because it âsounds feminine.â âElo-keynuâ is also grammatically masculine, but a) thatâs used for neuter in Hebrew and b) itâs also technically plural, so maybe they didnât feel the need to change it. Though if thatâs the case I would also have thought that Ado-nai (the tetragrammaton) would be fine, as itâs also technically male in the same way. Iâm also not sure why they didnât just change âMelech HaOlamâ to âMalkah HaOlam,â which would be the feminine form of the original words, but perhaps they were avoiding language of monarchy. Itâs apparently a not uncommon thing to change.
One of the responses I got said the vowels in the verbs were slightly off, but I canât say much above that, for the reasons given at the beginning of this section.
Also, and this is comparatively minor, the capitalization in the transliteration is bizarre. They capitalize âAtâ (you) and âElo[k]eynuâ (our God), but not ây[-]aâŚâ which is the actual name of God in the blessing and should definitely be capitalized if you are capitalizing.
The Guide next gives a second blessing that can be used:
Bârucha at shekhinah eloteinu ruach ha-olam asher kid-shanu bi-tevilah bâmayyim hayyim. Blessed are You, Shekhinah, Source of Life, Who blesses us by embracing us in living waters. -Adapted by Dori MidnightÂ
The main thing I want to note about this is thatâŚthatâs not an accurate translation. It completely skips the word âeloteinu.â âRuach ha-olamâ means âspirit/breath of the universe/world,â not âSource of Life,â which would be âMâkor Ha-Olam,â as mentioned above. âKid-shanu,â as she transliterates it, means âhas sanctified us,â or âhas made us holy,â not âblesses usâ--both the tense and the word are wrong. âBi-tevilahâ doesnât mean âembracing us,â either, it means âwith immersing.â In full, the translation should be:
âBlessed are You, Shekhinah, our God, Spirit of the World, Who has sanctified us with immersion in living waters.â
The Shekhinah is an aspect/name of God(dess), though not a Name to the same level as the ones that canât be taken in vain. It refers to the hidden Presence of God(dess) in our world, and is the feminine aspect of God(dess), inasmuch as God(dess) has gendered aspectsâremember, our God(dess) is One. Itâs not an unreasonable Name to use if you are trying to make a prayer specifically feminine.
(Though do be careful if you see it used in a blessing in the wild, because Messianics use it to mean the holy ghost.)
âEloteinuâ is, grammatically, the feminine form of Elokeinu (according to the fluent speakers I asked, though again I got several responses).
It is, again, odd that they donât capitalize transliterated names of God, though here there is more of an argument that itâs a stylistic choice, Hebrew not having capital letters.
The Guide then repeats the link for Ritualwell.
Finally, we come to the last section, âResources and Our Sources:â
First, they credit the Kohenet Institute and two of its founders. I do not want to go on a deepdive into the Kohenet Institute also, as this is already long enough, but I suppose I should say a bit.
The Kohenet Institute was a âclergy ordination program, a sisterhood / siblinghood, and an organization working to change the face of Judaism. For 18 years, Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institutes founders, graduates and students reclaimed and innovated embodied, earth-based feminist Judaism, drawing from ways that women and other marginalized people led Jewish ritual across time and spaceâ (Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute Homepage). It closed in 2023.
I have difficulty explaining my feelings about the Kohenet Institute. On the one hand, the people who founded it and were involved in it, Iâm sure, were very invested in Judaism and very passionate in their belief. As with the authors of the Guide, I do not mean to attack themâIâm sure theyâre lovely people.
On the other, I have trouble finding a basis for any of their practices, and most of what practices I do find trouble meâagain, with the caveat that I am very much not into mysticism, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Of the three founders, only one (Rabbi Jill Hammer) seems to have much in the way of scholarly background. Rabbi Hammer, who was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary (a perfectly respectable school), has at least one article where she quotes the New Testament and a Roman satirist making fun of a Jewish begger who interpret dreams for money as proof âthat Jewish prophetesses existed in Roman times,â which to me at least seems like saying that the Roma have a tradition of seeresses based on racist caricatures of what they had to do to survive, if youâll pardon the comparison. In the same article, she says that Sarah and Abigail, who are listed in the Talmud as prophetesses âare not actually prophetesses as I conceptualize them here,â (pg 106) but that âabolitionist Ernestine Rose, anarchist Emma Goldman, and feminist Betty Friedan stand in the prophetic tradition.â Given God says explicitly in the text, âRegarding all that Sarah tells you, listen to her voiceâ (Genesis 21:12), I have no idea where she gets this.
The second founder, Taya Mâ Shere, describes the Institute on her website as âspiritual leadership training for women & genderqueer folk embracing the Goddess in a Jewish context,â which to me is blatantly what I and some of my editors have taken to calling Jews For Lilith. Now, it is possible this is a typo. However assuming it is not, and it would be a weird typo to have, this rather clearly reads as âthe Goddessâ being something one is adding a Jewish context toâwhich is exactly what I mean when I say this guide is taking Paganism and sprinkling a little Judaism on it. If it had said âembracing Goddess in a Jewish context,â Iâd have no problem (aside from weird phrasing)--but âthe Goddessâ is very much a âdivine feminine neo-paganâ kind of thing. We donât say âthe Godâ in Judaism, or at least Iâve never heard anyone do so. We just say God (or Goddess), because thereâs only the one. In fact, according to this article, she returned to Judaism from neo-Paganism, and âbegan to combine the Goddess-centered practices she had co-created in Philadelphia with what she was learning from teachers in the Jewish Renewal movement, applying her use of the term Goddess to Judaismâs deity.â The âGoddess-centered practicesâ and commune in Philadelphia are described earlier in the article as âinfluenced by Wiccan and Native American traditions, in ways that Shere now considers appropriative (âAfter Kohenet, Who Will Lead the Priestesses?â by Noah Phillips).â Iâm not sure how it suddenly isnât appropriative now, but taking the Pagan practices you were doing and now doing those exact same rituals âbut Jewishâ is, in fact, still Pagan.
Shere also sells âDivining Pleasure: An Oracle for SephErotic Liberation,â created by her and Bekah Starr, which is a âdivination card deck and an Omer counter inviting you more deeply into your body, your pleasure and your devotion to collective liberation.â
I hate this.
I hate this so much.
For those who donât know, the Omer is the period between the second day of Passover and the holiday of Shavuot, 50 days later. Itâs named for the Omer offering that was given on Passover, and which started the count of seven weeks (and a day, the day being Shavuot). The Omer, or at least part of it, is also traditionally a period of mourning, much like the Three Weeks between the fasts of the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Avâwe donât have weddings, we donât listen to live music, we donât cut our hair. It commemorates (primarily) the deaths of 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva in a plague (possibly a metaphor for persecution or the defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt). It is often used as a time for introspection and self-improvement, using seven of the Kabbalistic Sephirot as guides (each day of the week is given a Sephira, as is each week, so each day of the 49 is x of y, see here). Itâs not, as Shereâs class âSex and the Sephirot: A Pleasure Journey Through the Omerâ puts it, a time to âengageâŚtoward experiencing greater erotic presence, deepening our commitment to nourishing eros, and embracing ritual practices ofâŚpleasure.â
The final of the founders, Shoshana Jedwab, seems to be primarily a musician. In her bio on her website, scholarship and teaching are almost afterthoughts. I can find nothing about her background or classes. Sheâs also, from what Iâve found, the creator of the âsound mikvah.â
So all in all, while Iâm sure theyâre lovely people, I find it difficult to believe that they are basing their Institute on actual practices, particularly given they apparently include worship of Ashera as an âauthenticâ Jewish practice, see the above Phillips article and this tumblr post.
The institute also lists classes they offered, which âwere open to those across faith practices - no background in Judaism necessary.â If you scroll down the page, you will see one of these courses was titled âSefer Yetzirah: Meditation, Magic, & the Cosmic Architecture.â Sefer Yetzirah, for those of you unaware, âis an ancient and foundational work of Jewish mysticism.â
You may recall my saying something some 5700 (yikes) words ago about Jewish mysticism (i.e. Kabbalah) being a closed practice.
You may see why I find the Kohenet Institute problematic.
I will grant, however, that I have not listened to their podcasts nor read their books, so it is possible they do have a basis for what they teach. From articles Iâve read, and what Iâve found on their websites, I am unconvinced.
Returning to our original document, the Guide next gives several links from Ritualwell, which Iâve already discussed above. After those, they give links to two actual mikvah organizations: Mayyim Hayyim and Immerse NYC. Both are reputable organizations, and are Open Mikvahs. Neither (at least based on their websites) seem to recommend any of the nonsense in this Guide. In fact, Mayyim Hayyim explicitly does not allow non-Jews to immerse (unless itâs to convert). ImmerseNYC has advice to create a ritual in an actually Jewish way. I would say the link to these two groups are, perhaps, the only worthwhile information in this Guide.
They then list a few âmikveh related projects,â two of which are by the writers. The first, Queer Mikveh Project, is by one of the authors, Rebekah Erev. The link they give is old and no longer works, but on Erevâs website there is information about the project. Much of the language is similar to that in this guide. The page also mentions a âmikvahâ ritual done to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline, in which âthe mikvehâŚ[was] completely optional.â And, of course, there was an altar. The second project, the âGay Bathhouseâ by (I believe) the other author and Shelby Handler, is explicitly an art installation.
The final link is to this website (thanks to the tumblr anon who found it), which is the only source weâve been able to find on Shekinah Ministries (aside from a LOT of Messianic BS from unrelated organizations of the same name). So good newsâthis isnât a Messianic. Bad news, it also seems to have a shaky basis in actual Jewish practice at best. It is run by artist Reena Katz, aka Radiodress, whose MKV ritual is, like âGay Bathhouse,â a performance project. As you can see from the pictures on Radiodressâs website (cw for non-sexual nudity and mention of bodily fluids), it is done in a clearly portable tub in a gallery. As part of the process, participants are invited to âadd any material from their body,â including âspit, urine, ejaculate, menstrual blood,â âany medication, any hormones they might be taking,â and supplies Radiodress offers including something called âMalakh Shmundie,â âa healing tincture that translates to âangel pussyâ made by performance artist Nomy Lammâ (quotes from âAn Artistâs Ritual Bath for Trans and Queer Communitiesâ by Caoimhe Morgan-Feir). The bath is also filled by hand, which is very much not in line with halacha. Which, if youâre doing performance art, is fine.
But this Guide is ostensibly for authentic Jewish religious practice.
And with that (aside from the acknowledgements, which I donât feel the need to analyze), we are done. At last.
Thank you for reading this monster of a post. If you have made it this far, you and I are now Family. Grab a snack on your way out, you deserve it.
Further Reading and Resources:
https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/risingtide/members/
https://www.mikvah.org/directory
https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/
http://www.immersenyc.org/
https://aish.com/what-is-a-mikveh/
https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1541/jewish/The-Mikvah.htm
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1230791/jewish/Immersion-of-Vessels-Tevilat-Keilim.htm
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/why-immerse-in-the-mikveh/
Meth, Rabbi Ephraim. 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History. Feldheim Publishers, 2023.
#jvp#mikvah#mikveh#teacup mikveh#jewish#long post#I know so much more than I ever wanted to about this movement now#every time I did more research I found something worse#thank you very much to those of you who helped me with this#bless you all#and bless those of you who read through all of this#six months of my life#my ramblings#asked and answered#queerdo-mcjewface#I can't wait to see how my inbox is going to explode now hahahaha. haha.#will this be the post that finally gets me on the blocklists?
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Just a heads up to new artists who might not know this: tracing people's artwork and posting it as your own is not okay. With or without credit, its stolen if you don't have permission.
This is why I continue to stay out of the Octonauts fandom and now probably will not return. Even months after leaving the fandom I'm still getting new art tracers and thieves.
If you absolutely have to trace and post it, just ask the artist first. If they say no then don't trace their artwork.
#sorry if this post seems pretty salty#I had a really long day and I think I'm coming down with something#was going to unwind and check tumblr real fast before crashing#only to stumble upon yet another art tracer. And who would have thought. it was Octonauts#This might be the nail in the coffin for me#I don't have any confidence when it comes to returning to this fandom-#but I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and maybe they really don't know that it's not okay to do that#So that's what this hastily made and very drowsy post is for-#for new artists that might know that tracing people's artwork and posting it as if it was your own is theft#And it also keeps artists like me out of fandoms.#So apologies#this is a slightly salty yet gentle reminder to not trace peoples art without permission#thank you for reading đ#heres to hoping i don't wake up with a terrible cold tomorrow đ
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Holy shit I love your Dirk interpretations, it's so true and I could talk about this shit forever. I feel like another part of his character that people seem to forget (along with Roxy for some reason) is that he's from the future in solitude in an apocalyptic wasteland. I just see that part of his character always removed which is disappointing because I feel like that's a pretty big part, especially regarding his themes around technology, his brother's theme of Time, his own isolation, and how he plays in the vastness of the universe and spacetime.
Art I drew related to the subject because I like to respond to asks with art.
But absolutely. I certainly understand where the lack of discussion over his isolation + upbringing comes from, considering a majority of the fanbase that I have seen builds their ideas based on their own version of postcanon. Iâm not entirely sure how that would be fixed, but certainly even in the somewhat recent past I would see a lot more content regarding his upbringing both literally and symbolically. I donât have much to add regarding the things youâve mentioned, because they just are what they are. Dirk being confined to a singular room left to him by a father figure he never met, in a future where the only other person left on the planet is someone he cannot pursue a relationship of because of himself, with purely 3 robots to keep him companion, one being an exact replica of his own brain who is *also* trapped inside a pair of glasses, is about as literal as it gets to me.
The contrast to me involving the flooded, organic world in comparison to the little speckle of Dirkâs apartment packed with the dude and his technics is not only a representation of his isolation and entrapment within himself, but also of his lack of control. I think his obsession with & themes of control are a direct product in the case of Dirk specifically *of* this kind of upbringing. His themes of technology are also related to his themes around control. So much of his character is actually revolved around this to me like so much. Dirk is so deeply disconnected from humanity in every way and so much of his character + symbolism is based around that.
It doesnât even have to be about the symbolism or anything though. Itâs just pretty *interesting* in the literal sense that he lives in the middle of the ocean in the future. Thereâs not only a lot to theorise on to do with his young life there, but on how it might affect him in the way he acts for the rest of his life. The latter part is probably what I see mentioned the most by people talking about Dirk regarding this, Iâm surprised I donât see more discussion on the former too though. I really ought to actually talk more about Homestuck stuff on here. I will do it myself.
Roxy & Dirkâs relationship is largely ignored though because there is a narrative a certain demographic spreads that Dirk resented and blamed Roxy for her interest in him, and thus too many people believe that their relationship was or would continue to be an abusive one. Realistically, I believe itâs important to acknowledge that the way Roxy treated Dirk regarding his homosexuality wasnât right while still acknowledging the obvious amount of respect and admiration Dirk had for Roxy. I mean we have a huge piece of dialogue from their post trickster mode conversations on the quest beds from Dirk purely stating how he feels about Roxy that people completely ignore somehow. I think this usually happens to characters that are women though. I know everyone says it, but it is true. Jane gets the exact same treatment of boiling her down to solely her negative aspects. The things I see completely mischaracterising both of them are horrific.
I mean how much more explicit can it get that their relationship is obviously very important to Dirk? But I digress. I think the best or I should say âmost interestingâ interpretations of their relationship usually come from DirkRoxy shippers actually.
I would be interested to hear about Dirkâs relation to his brotherâs theme of time though. I donât have any thoughts on this and I donât recall ever hearing anyone talk about it before. If you or anyone else would be willing to enlighten me Iâd be thrilled.
#homestuck#homestuck fanart#hs fanart#dirk strider#blooby posting#ask#Sorry for taking so long to reply to you on this. Iâve been in more of a drawing than a speaking mood lately#which is very unusual for me. This is definitely not as much of a post as it could be but Iâm still not back on my thought and speech game#I know the Roxy mention was in brackets but good lord the treatment Roxy gets from fanbase is insane. Couldnât help myself#Sorry if anything is worded badly. Iâm tired per usual#I think (with no malice in my heart) people just tend to leave out what they donât like about characters though.#I was very briefly talking with Pomme johnegbertirl#and it got me thinking about how far a lot of peopleâs interpretations of characters stray from what would be realistic to canon#based on their own biases. Which I guess I probably do too to a certain degree.#Iâm not one to judge people for their characterisations at all#I tend to be very forgiving when it comes to reads#but⌠I admit that is indeed a little disappointing to see how completely ignored some parts of his characters are.#Sorry for tangent that is tenuously related. It is relevant enough to shove haphazardly into tags#Iâm glad you like my Dirk ramblings though. Thanks brother#We live on
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regarding dr ratio's team join voiceline with aventurine
idk where it originated from but i've been seeing this notion that the ENG voiceline is horribly mistranslated and ratio is much more caring and friendly in the original CN. THIS IS LITERALLY NOT TRUE HE IS JUST AS BITCHY IN BOTH LANGUAGES
as a native chinese speaker i actually really love hsr's localisation and i would like to clarify the misconception + explain the cultural nuance/context behind this particular voiceline
i think this tweet might've been the original source for this misconception? op's translation of the CN line is very literal and completely lacking in cultural nuance. while the sentence çŽĄĺĽ˝ä˝ čŞĺˇą does literally translate to "take care of yourself", it lacks the automatic positive connotation that this sentence has in ENG. CN is a high context language -- aka the meaning of a sentence can be totally different based on context clues like tone, body language, etc.
ratio's tone in this line is not the tone of someone who is concerned for a friend. it's standoffish. when said in this kind of tone, the meaning of çŽĄĺĽ˝ä˝ čŞĺˇą is closer to "mind your own business", making the ENG "keep to yourself" a more accurate localisation.
in addition, the word 玥 has connotations of controlling/managing something -- directly translating this to "take care of yourself" means it's missing a lot of important nuance.
granted, the second half of the line is a bit unnecessarily aggressive in ENG. the CN is more like "I have no need for your concern", and explicitly saying that he believes aven's concern to be "false" in ENG is definitely a lot ruder than the original line.
However. in my opinion it's not Too far off base. the way he emphasises the second half of that voiceline in CN carries an implication that he actually disdains aven's concern; we can extrapolate from context clues that he feels this way because aven's concern is just an act. tldr; eng line explicitly saying "false display" does make it ruder than CN but it didn't just come from nowhere -- the implication is already there in CN
this is not to say that ratio doesn't care about aven or see him as a friend. imo the reason ratio is so standoffish in this line is because any display of concern from aven here has the clear intention of teasing ratio. they both know ratio can take care of himself perfectly well. this is just how their dynamic works -- aven makes silly playful comments and ratio deflects them by acting cold.
in conclusion: ENG voiceline is not a mistranslation. hsr localisation is definitely not perfect but in this particular case i feel they've done a fairly good job of conveying the original meaning. thank you for coming to my ted talk
#SORRY FOR THE LONG ASS POST#Im just passionate about accurate localisation#if you read the whole thing thank you seriously#if anyone has other thoughts or questions please feel free to share under this post or in my inbox or wherever!#i did cross check all this with another native speaker but im open to hearing other ppl's interpretations too#dr ratio#aventurine#aventio#ratiorine#not necessarily ship but ill tag anyway#honkai star rail#hsr#long post
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My biggest flex will always be how I knew Neil was the more feral and dangerous one than Andrew this whole time even before tsc and seeing the entire fandom freaked out makes me want to kiss and hug Nora and just thank her for finally finally showing everyone and Iâm not just crazy
#seeing all the post about like omg Neil is so feral?! like brother did you not read aftg did yâall forget aftg is from Neilâs pov#ofc Neil wouldnât say heâs feral in his own pov tfđđđ#and remember in aftg Neil still has to hide part of himself BECASUE his father and eveyrhhing but now heâs literally free from his biggest#fear and he could do whatever the fuck he wants#Istg the fandom is like the foxes man idk why everyone is so shook#literally cant thank Nora enough for showing everyone finally#Idc if I sound proud or whatever but I fucking knew it this entire time and I have been shouting it for so long like finally#thatâs why so many fics annoyed me so much like#I just needed to say this because I finally felt seen and heard andFINALLY LIKE URGH#tsc and aftg supremacy#tsc#tsc spoilers#the sunshine court#the sunshine court spoilers#aftg#all for the game#tfc#the foxhole court#aftg series#aftg fandom#aftg incorrect quotes#neil josten#andrew minyard#andrew joseph minyard#neil abram josten#aftg neil#aftg thoughts#aftg textpost#aftg shitpost#incorrect tfc
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I desperately need people to understand that Franziska's whipping thing really isn't solely a silly character gimmick. Of course it is to a degree, just like Godot and coffee and Klavier and air guitar in court, but so often I see people dismiss Franziska's whipping trait as an annoying feature that adds nothing to her character and I cannot stand it. This is a bit of a rant and I touch on gender inequality and the way I see a lot of men treat her as a character a decent amount within this because I feel like the fact that she is a woman is actually very important to this element of her character, and her treatment is also a lot of the reason why I feel compelled to talk about this in the first place.
Firstly what you need to understand is that not only is Franziska a woman, she is also laughably young when she becomes a prosecutor. She's a 13 year old girl trying to hold the attention of a courtroom of mostly grown men and be taken seriously. It's no secret that misogyny does exist in the Ace Attorney universe of course (see: Godot), but aside from this, maybe it's just because I've been playing Ace Attorney Investigations recently, but she is just very small all around. It's a running gag in Turnabout Reminiscence that she is short, she's small, she can't see things Edgeworth can - although granted Edgeworth is definitely fairly tall, most estimates I've seen linger around 5'8-5'10 (around 170-180cm). And of course, she is only 13 here, she's not done growing, but it's at this age that she actually did begin to prosecute. Naturally, she'd often be underestimated, and we can see a strong desire to prove herself during Turnabout Reminiscence, even just to her father; I can only imagine that this would extend further into her trials as a young girl. Secondly, she's the daughter of Manfred von Karma, whom she idolises to a godlike status and who teaches her everything she knows about prosecuting, and also a lot about life in general - he's her father. There's a lot I could say about their dynamic, but I feel that much of it doesn't need to be said in this specific post if you're already here dedicated to Franziska enough to bother reading this post.
Manfred's courtroom (and often, regular) behaviour revolves a lot around him taking complete control of the entire courtroom, with him even speaking over the judge, overruling objections he does not like and sustaining his own, and instructing witnesses himself. He also often snaps his fingers to direct attention to himself and his point. Franziska learns this, but how does a literal 13 year old girl follow her father in this regard? Well, by force. Whipping someone is a very clear way to get their attention. Not only the person it hits but the people around - whips cracking are loud, they take up a lot of visual space, and they also obviously cause harm to the person they hit. These are all things you can't really ignore - it forces you to look at her and pay attention to her and gives her control of the room exactly like Manfred. I've also been thinking a lot about the end of Justice For All in relation to this. She's lost to Phoenix multiple times and she couldn't beat him even once just to prove that she was better than Edgeworth as she so desperately wanted to. This brings me to another point about her use of her whip. While I think control is a huge aspect and is my main focus here, I think it falls more under the umbrella of Franziska's own perceived shortcomings. We also know that she doesn't believe she lives up to her father's genius, and that she consistently feels like she's walking in Edgeworth's shadow, she says it herself:
I think at least some part of the reason her whip is so important is because she believes she could very well be less than equal to others in the room in terms of certain traits. She sees her father as a genius, knows she isn't equal to him, and internalises this (whether she is actually less intelligent or not I personally don't know what I believe, I haven't played Justice For All in over a year and a half and I would have to replay it to decide my thoughts).
In having to be perfect, there are many expectations she cannot live up to, and this leads to many ways in which she falls short of what she believes she should be. By using her whip, again, she can account for her perceived shortcomings in other areas - control, her intelligence, her ability as a prosecutor. I think this last scene of JFA actually introduces us to the idea that Franziska is somewhat self-doubting in some ways and compares herself a lot with others, not just Manfred, but also Edgeworth, which we see more of in Ace Attorney Investigations during Turnabout Reminiscence, where we see her at 13 attempting to prove that she can "out-logic" Edgeworth for the entire case, and essentially, that she is "more perfect" than he is.
But to come back to her whip, control, and the end of Justice For All.
She is left with little of who she was before and doesn't know how to move on - everything she was taught to be from the moment she was born, she no longer is. She is 18 here, prosecuting for 5 years already and desperate to be prosecuting for even longer. As far as her life was set out, this was basically it for her - become a perfect prosecutor and prosecute perfectly just like Manfred - the ideal prosecutor in her eyes.
A Von Karma is perfect, but she is not - she lost, just like Edgeworth, whom she shamed for the same thing. She gives up her whip here, and I feel that it's truly symbolic of how she feels like she's completely lost control of herself, her life, her relationship with her father and most obviously her occupation as a prosecutor. How could she continue being a prosecutor when she no longer lives up to the idea of it that she's had her entire life? What use is her whip if she will not need to hold the court's attention any longer?
I'm sure a million other people have thrown their coin in the pot on this exact topic, and I'm sure many have said the same thing as me and many have said something different, but I needed to write my thoughts out about it because I couldn't stop thinking about her. This is one big reason why I feel like I see a lot of men who don't understand Franziska and see her as very annoying, gimmicky, and my least favourite - a "female Edgeworth." She is a woman who steals attention and space forcibly; both from characters in-game, and also from the player with her animations that take up time in trials and a lot of the visual space. Of course this makes her unpopular with a lot of men. I'm not saying that if you dislike her or the whip it comes from a place of misogyny, I am saying that I think her whipping trait is reduced to a stupid, annoying gimmick more than, say, Godot and his coffee, because a lot of people don't really care to see that there is intention behind it that reveals a lot about her character, just like how Godot's coffee problem is relevant to his backstory.
#if you read all of this thanks for being insane about franziska just like me#long post#franziska von karma#ace attorney#ace attorney justice for all#justice for all#ace attorney spoilers#aa2 spoilers#justice for all spoilers#val thinks#ace attorney investigations spoilers#aai spoilers#ace attorney investigations#aa2#franziska ace attorney#ace attorney franziska
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An Well Made Excuse To Post My Specific Headcanons I've Had Since The Show Came Out
#bro fought his way thru those two only to burn the house down#anyway kdsjfsdf#that doodle and that comic werent actually made for eachother#i just wanted an excuse to post my oddly specific sleep headcanon lol#I like to think Uzi is so restless because shes always thinkin abt smth (whether that be stressful or not)#N sleeps like a rock and usually doesn't move; if its just him and Uzi he'll usually curl around her so she can't fall off the bed#V's had the habit since she was a worker#Tessa would always make excuses to have sleepovers w/ her fave drones#and it was usually J's problem of being cuddled to death by a sleeping V#nowadays the only way V gets peaceful sleep is the reassurance that Uzi or N are still there#hence the N dog plush in the comic dsklfjsldkfj#I have more headcanons of this variety (like for J) but i'll stop here#thanks for reading again! you guys really like to point out my tags and it makes me giggle everytime#anyway BYE :]#murder drones#serial designation n#serial designation v#uzi doorman#envuzi#enzi#violentbiscuitbites#< i seriously love that shipname btw. I love MD ship names#i love having been here so long I could tell you who made the og names everyone built off of. I think fandom is good sometimes (sometimes)
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You wake up due to a an odd discomfort around your groin, you feel around and touch something soft and plastic?
You turn on the lights and find yourself lock in a small, pink chastity cage
You panic a little, youâve never done this before, you try to pull it off and it wonât budge and you notice just how little you can touch your member now
You get hard
It hurts
You look around the room and see an envelope next to a small pile of clothes and some odd plastic?
You open the envelope
My dearest love,
You wronged me, the fact you wouldnât know who I am makes it that much worse
So I thought itâd only be right if I punished you
As you mightâve found out already Iâve securely locked you up and only I have the key
If you ever want it back youâll need to do some things for me first
Mod course you wonât be allowed to touch your memeber until I release you
Next you will need to wear the clothes, and insert the remote anal vibrator I provided to you
You will then need to watch any porngraphic content I send you over the course of the next 2 weeks, dressed up and wearing the plug
Iâve made a separate number where we can chat
I expect you to use the proper respect when talking to me
I expect you to thank me for teaching you how to be a good girl
And I expect you to drop whatever youâre doing whenever I send you a message, and if I so ask youâll put on the shuttle clothes I gave you, put in the plug, and watch whatever degrading smut I sent you while I control your ass
Do this like a good girl for 2 weeks and Iâll take off the cage
Mess up once, and Iâll flush the key down the drain
Oh and donât think to get it removed or anything, I got that onto you without you noticing once, and if you get it off Iâll know that means youâre ready for your second round!
And trust me you wouldnât like the second round, something tells me that youâd hate losing your freedom of movement
So now be a good girl and dress yourself up already love~
Iâm waiting
Oh! And one more thing!
I can and will change the rules at any time, for example one I thought of right now: the two weeks only count down if you spent the whole day in cute womanâs clothing, so if you ever put on those nasty clothes youâre wearing right now, the day doesnât count and you still have 2 weeks to go
Good luck cutie! Try to keep me happy~
#I hope you wonât disappoint me#if you do end up taking off the cage itâll be so sad#you wonât see the sun again for so long#but at least Iâll have my doll in my house#so it all has its up sides#so cutie do remember the choice is up to you for whether you keep it on or it gets removed#in all honesty Iâd prefer it if I had a life-in-doll#.#force#forcefem#i-like-talking#..#big post time!#hope yâall enjoyed!#sorry that I havenât been posting or responding as much lately#Iâve been *busy*#but still Iâve read all youâre messgages and theyâve all made me smile!#thank you all so much!#(youâre the reason I do this!)#(though sorry for still not thanking you one on one I need to get better at that)#(just know thereâs a pretty good chance *you* are the reason I made this post!)#(so thanks! and I hope you had a great day! and will have another one!)#(goodnight cutie!)
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totk rewrite- botw2 edition
been thinking about the other totk rewrite again (the one only based on botw in which the sonau stay a mystery while being expanded upon)
i talked about it before but heres a lil breakdown (im reusing alot of mechanics from the villain rauru rewrite bc they work too well to be discarded for this one)-
(edit, about five hours later .. its not a little breakdown, its a pretty complete summarized breakdown of the entire new rewrite that i didnt intend to spend the last hours of my sunday on but here we are .. long post, but with pics bc theres lots of concepts im reusing or reviving)
okay START:
zelda and link explore the caverns below hyrule castle bc the shiekah tech has been losing power and their research as to why lead them here
they discover ganondorf and through zeldas curiosity break the, already weak, seal on him (no enigma stone here, the seal was done by an ancient queen of hyrule)- he wakes up attacks them, breaks the mastersword and miasmas/malices links arm off (also idea is that you have to fight him but meant to lose horribly lol) and then have to play an escape sequence (or watch a cutscene of it) in which zelda drags link after herself running from gan
(remember this old first idea drawing i made when i started to think about a rewrite? yeah im reviving that, except theres no totk sonau in this anywhere)
they get out and immediately afterwards a heavy earthquake runs through the land, completely, and actually, changing the map (also using the idea of devastating the regions climates- gerudo desert is flooded, death mountain collapsed inwards, the zoras realm is dried up, rito village has completely frozen over - ACTUALLY frozen over, everything encased in thick ice, the temperature has a special new low point, the winds too strong to glide anywhere-, mountains and rivers shifted, caves are revealed- oh and most of the main villages have tried to flee somewhere saver so theres no literal 1 to 1 repeat of points of interest from botw; also no uh .. miasmas holes that are literally jsut like drilled out bc what?? i want the access to the underground be few and hidden to make it more special to discover)
links arm gets amputated and replaced with a shiekah tech one (maybe using the botw shiekah stone/slate since they still dont know how to make them and its the best self sufficient piece of tech left that doesnt rely on the breaking fuel structure) (reusing this concept from the villain rauru one, with the difference beign that theres no corruption of link -or maybe it does have an effect to have shiekah tech literally hooked up to yourself *thinking emoji*- the abilities remainign the same)
when link wakes up some time has passed (so its more logical that the other regions have tried to cope with everything happening) you get a tutorial by purah and other shiekah (bc with zelda in charge theres more shiekah doing tech stuff again! cool!) and now have a magic meter (functions like in the previous pic, recharges over time depending on environment! bc i find that idea so cool for interstign puzzles and storytelling- like i said in an older post, a place where lots of people died might be richer in spirit energy recharging your magic faster- others have been hollowed out of luminous stone which slows down the recharge) and you are left to decide where to go
both zelda and you have a shiekah stone/slate replica but its incomplete since as mentioned the knowledge on how to make it is still lost so it only has the basic functions, such as the map, journal, camera and teleport
zelda is your companion from the start, in the years since botw she trained in basic self defense and can use her sealing powers as a shield to protect herself (though reluctantly since she doesnt want to rely on them) so you dont need to babysit her- you can tell her to be aggressive in encounters, supporting you (occasionally shields you or heals you a little?) or stay out of it/only self defend if an enemy targets her (in case you dont want any help) - she also copies your movement in a way, when you glide around she will too etc- in cases where you go very fast to one thing, like the hookshot, she will grab onto you
zelda also acts as your mobile crafting station, to put it bluntly, as she can craft and repair weapons, which is at first limited but can be expanded upon by doing quests (like the options of spear crafting being hugely expanded by a zora quest- fitting their fight style), when she does it you need the material needed for it though it costs no money- theres new little smith shops around the world that can repair and craft as well in which you can spend money instead for material you are lacking (and a little fee for the work you know)
(one of the first rough concepts for a pair of smiths, one is at the shop (green lady, the scars on her arms are her missing fins bc she burned them or lost them in battle), the other walks around it like terry (beedle) does and from whom you can buy already crafted simple things, like arrow types-
oh yeah, arrow types return and get more options bc theres no way in hell id make anyone scroll through that awful menu just to fuse one arrow at a time (the old types return, but theres new ones and all are craftable in bulk, here and old rough sketch)
(also theres no new 'in the same location jsut a few steps to the left' towers that shoot you into the air bc it just destroys the entire world design- even if there is no sonau tech in this one so no gliders- i want the sky to feel as dangerous and mystical as the underground)
the sky has to be reached via the hookshot, its got big islands mostly with old shiekah ruins, including that broken titan prototype i drew before, and the bird mechanic (you can tame birds and register them at a location there, idk if im keeping the idea of a lone shiekah there, but the birds will stay)-which is if you tamed a bird you can call it when gliding to gain a little boost in height, enabling you to reach islands further away (since no building, yeah that mechanic is better used in a game actually built around it, which totk just isnt- do not argue with me about that- to really let it shine instead of just being a tiktok viral funney build simulator that adds nothing meaningful to the game and actively makes it worse due to its implementation just not fitting there) or save you from falling if you barely missed the edge of one - theres few points of teleportation up there so the world map isnt made skippable, theres no shrines there (and in general, there are no shrines, just minidungeons- ACTUAL minidungeons- integrated into the world, like really big caves that are each unique and filled with challenges- and much fewer of them) (the islands being mostly made nigh invisible from the surface bc clouds gather on their underside)
perhaps different glider types?! and you can switch their design via zelda too
the old botw shrines are non fucntional due to loss of power, either overgrown or broken into pieces due to the ground breaking open, some might be infested with malice/miasma and comes alive like a weird mix between guardian and miasma crab (which also goes for guardian wrecks that hadnt been taken apart for research yet), some are fallen into caves that got revealed or got swallowed by the ground with only the tip remaining- the titans (divine beasts) are all repurposed (like in the other rewrite ideas i had)- the rito tried to flee the blizzard using medoh but sicne no one has piloted it and unstable connection to them causes them to crash in the hebra mountains, unable to leave it due to the storm and thus on limited time; vah rudania was perhaps made into a temple, or training ground but fell into the underground when death mountain collapsed (imagine ... malice/miasma infested rudania being an actual boss itself, chasing after you in the underground); vah ruta was absolutely made into a place of worship and after their domain dried out a few remained there praying to it convinced their faith would save them- its not able to move but manages to produce a little water still; vah naboris might have been used as a stronghold/lookout but due to the desert flooding (which is in fact, bad) its one of the 'islands' people now reside in
new weather types, including storm and darkness caused by mushroom spores that are invasife to the surface
theres at least six dungeons, one for each region (but not in the exact place as in botw bc that is literally just plain stupid though i might use the zora sewer/water system idea for an actual dungeon instead of .. a single button- bc how cool would that have been?? no no lets put the fish people in the sky and put a single button in the coolest part of it that only activates a waterfalll .... coming out of a tiny island in the sky- all just by of the visual neatness of swimming up??- anyway) plus a yiga one that is in and below the akalla citadel- also might put hyrule castle into the underground and inaccessible for a good portion of the game- and one in the forest of the krogs that was corrupted (which i thought was the reaso nfor the backpack krogs, but no, they literally have no goal and serve no purpose than to make funney videos with em, and then even the forest is nothing more but a reused lame fight agaisnt phantom gan- im starting to rant, sorry)
the abilties of the champions will be similar but there are changes, as in tulins (who i might just change to teba bc lets be real he was the one you interacted with in botw really..) isnt a gust of wind, since its both contrary to revalis whole deal of how difficult it was for him to create the updraft and then tulin can just do an almost exactly the same thing as like, a 12 year old- also its little usefullness after me adding in the birds for the sky and different glider types- maybe ill make it a strong windcut forward like in the other rewrite, like the yiga officer windattack but on steriods id also consider most of them not having the innate ability for it anyway, except for yuno maybe since he literally inherited daruks shield and as my idea was could make a variation of it adding the roll an fire to it but still having the shield, bc it kinda makes them like a boring copy of the botw champions and also lessens both their impact in a way (perhaps bringing dungeon items back?? idk,so still working on that)
each dungeon has a unique boss, at least on of which being a corrupted friend (PROPERLY DONE not like poor yuno in totk >:I ) bc each being just some monster tm is kinda boring (like twilight princess was so cool for how it mixed its bosses tbh)- also want satori to have a dark (also nice) counterpart that you might have to fight first bc you are trespassing into its domain (an old sketch gonna revisit it at some point)
new armor sets of course, and you still own YOUR house in hateno, zelda either has her own one in the spot where landa (the funky building lad that you bought your house from in botw) had the 'example' houses or yours got an additional building added onto it for zelda (and you can customize like, trees around it and have a lil farm spot too!!) and in your house theres a chest you can store armor sets in so you dont have to sell them to avoid inventory clutter
POUCHES return!! you can find some but most are locked behind quests (since logically people likely would have pouches) making them a really good reward and dont force you to engange with krogs if you are tired of them, it also avoids making you go back to them over and over just to expand inventory (you can choose for which part you want to use the pouch for, weapon or shield slot etc)- krog seeds are now its own currency for a lil shop you unlock in the forest, one of the highest rewards being the eponator zero (the motorcycle from botw)
also BOTTLES return! the main way to store healing, which also has to be consumed in real time (like in skyward sword, select in on a wheel so link takes it in his hands and 'a' to use it) avoiding the pause and spam apples into your mouth problem-
now cooking is NOT removed, it has even better effects than potions BUT it cant be stored and has to be consumed where you cook it (hear me out-); the cookbook in totk i find pretty annoyingly useless so, the cookbook is now a proper book you can fill out and when you want to cook a recipe you select it there and cook it with what you have (it shows if you dont have it all and also if you wanna swap an ingredient that would end with a similar effect) AND since you cant store it, theres special NPCs that reappear throughout hyrule (like a group of chefs that have one in each region at least) that let you just cook whatever you want without it wasting your materials, and if you hit a recipe it unlocks and is saved in your cookbook (you have to have the materials you want to cook with but it wont consume them, so you cant jsut spam it and fill the entire book out in one go- maybe the chef can give you subtle hints with expressions if something might be good or not before you try it out so you dont waste ages just cooking the same shit over and over xD)
(also possible idea for an item or big quest reward, a portable pot you can set up to cook with -with wood and fire- on the go without having to rely on finding them in the wild, and zelda can act as you chef giving you hints ... honestly i love this idea, remember all the cute botw art of them travelling and cooking together?? make that real you idiots!)
to upgrade your health or stamina you have to get spirit orbs still, but this time you get big ones that each can be traded, since thers fewer minidungeons but they are 4 times bigger than shrines they also give you 4 times the reward- but still one where you can choose which one you want bc i find that an important bit of freedom (idea still is that you free trapped souls and they give you the orb as a reward, majority of which are in caves in the underground or in the surface caves) which encourages you to vary your gameplay and not focus just on one area bc you probably want all those things, go for quests for puches and bottles, for minidungeons for health/stamina etc
oh yeah, the underground houses several dungeons, the weird gravity effect is in either the entire underground or in parts of it- it does not span the entirety of the map, isntead its smaller and often enclosed areas that each are more detailed and 'finished', theres different bioms and enemies you dont find anywhere else, and some enemies on the surface (like the miasma hands but like .. less easy and no phantom ganon bc that got boring rly fast) that sport those hands can grab you and drag you underground- which can either mean doom for you or .. discovering a new area down there hmmmm a risk to take isnt it :3 (also wanted there to be a mount there but idk if i will use this old concept of the dongos or if i want it to be a crab like thing bc of the underwater theme i want to go for)
LORE/STORY
so as you explore you may discover caves and areas in the underground containing sonau architecture (the type from botw, not totk) most of which heavily damaged, but theres few that are in 'better' shape bc they have been in selaed off caverns that werent yet discovered-
you find out the sonau, which you only vaguely knew from ruins in the overworld, were in fact real (but no you dont suddendly know they fucked with hylians and even their names of untold thosuands of years ago that you just so happen to have read in a book all of the sudden like it was an always known fact and not at all a myste- .. rant alarm .. ), and given the ruins underground they must have originated from there, but there are no scriptures that survived and all sculptures are in very bad shape, alot of which seems intentionally destroyed- slowly you and zelda piece together through vague clues (VAGUE game VAGUE, let people THINK) that they had knowledge of the past and the nature of the ever repeating return of disaster to hyrule; the biggest reveal beign that they knew the cycle wasnt natural at all and that it keeps being repeated only through the structure of how this land operates, the beliefs of the people that rule it, altered history etc.
the ancient shiekah under the rule of hyrules royalty found out what the sonau had discovered/knew and persecuted them (parelells to what the king would do to them later on, anyone??) since the divinity of the kingdom must be upheld by all means necessary- which is why the sonau had disappeared so entirely, with little of their culture left and none of them, and by doing so the ancient shiekah also discovered the previously lost knowledge of the gerudo king having turned into the biggest threat to the kingdom in the past (which the sonau had kept secret, knowing what consequences it could have if not handled carefully), which starts up a whole other betrayal plot of the kingdom planning to imprison gan before he can become a true threat (im gonna guess the relations between the gerudo and hyrule havent been that great even before since hyrule was still the main empire)
gan finds out before the plan goes through and assasinates the king of hyrule, the ancient queen declares war (yes, the queen for once) and in the end sacrifices herself to seal him away, more for revenge than any prophecy, but it nevertheless leads to the cycle doing its thing yet again
calamity ganon is a product of ganondorf trying to break free of his seal- and perhaps in an attempt to weaken his unbreakable will the shiekah discover they can use his spirit as a powerful source to their newly invented tech- which previously ran with processed luminous stones (yes battery theory will never let me go idc) and essentially use his own power against him by beating the calamity with their tech
(this knowledge is also how you get the yiga to work with you, using your knowledge of the past as leverage and zeldas ability to negotiate - and bc i thinks it would be cool to see her develop that way, and no i dont mean it as they all gonan fix it uwu either, its hard to go into more nuance here, its already way longer than i wanted- and yes this also ties into the koga is one of the ancient monks that made himself basically immortal through malice experiments HC of mine)
he attacks the regions bc they too sided with hyrule, he drags you to the underground bc its where he has spent thousands of years in agony, hes only out for revenge, an understable one and one you can sympathize with, but one you cannot negotiate with, its been too long, too much, no amount of apology could sate the desire for payback (which keeps the whole link and zelda defeat ganon formular alive BUT gives it nuance, right?? more tragic really, i hope that comes across)
he attacks link and zelda, breaks the masterword bc he has seen it all before, the original calamity, through the eyes of malice, he knows what you will do, inevitably so, you too will come for him, again
at the midpoint of the game you will reach hyrule castle (underground? perhaps it depends on how much health you have, getting grabbed and dragged into its depths losing hearts and if you have enough you survive until you are inside the castle and let go, you cant teleport outside - oh and zelda is either absent for the fight bc you got separated or she held onto you and protected herself with her power- honeslty kinda like the seperation idea bc after having her around all the time its gotta be super creepy to be suddendly alone) and will have a fight with him, that you kinda lose but are saved by the rest of the crew that zelda had banded together and brought here after being seperated from you- maybe without koga yet bc he would be locked to late game i think
there will be a quest to reforge the mastersword, which if you havent already gone to the forest will now lead you there (oh also some of the krogs you find outside the forest now will tell you that they had to flee, but maybe warn you not to go there yet if you are still in early game, others might not know bc they left to plant new forests, windwaker style, maybe a quest there too! to give them purpose beyond being your plaything and then just disappearing- ahem .. )
(old concept for the krog forest/dekutree boss)
the dekutree will tell you to restore it it will need the blessings of the three dragons (who might not have appeared yet, or slowly disappeared one by one, they might need to be rescued bc gan probably knows you are gonna try and repair the sword) (oh look more old concepts still relevant!)
in the end it will .. end with you defeating ganon, just like always (unsure of the place where it will will be but OH LOOK old concepts- here it was still with hyrule castle in mind but that might be jsut for the midpoint fight now- maybe id put the end fight on the forgotten plateau, to round it up nicely, ending where botw began ... ;3
i really like this one .. even more than the villain rauru one, though that one is fun bc a twist like that is pretty neat and fighting with ganondorf is also rly cool- but sicne i just dont like the totk sonau and much prefer them remaining mostly a mystery im very fond of this (also .. im so sick of ancient people with high tech bs now..)
the aim with this is to .. make a botw2 that actually feels like a botw 2 (for me), shiekah tech is still there but little functions still, logically bc its main powersource is breaking off of it, the sonau are a mystery and kinda negatively talked about bc the shiekah persecuted them just like they would later be - also explains why there are shiekah things in every sonau building, of course they would overtake their places and try to erase a much as possible of them (the thunder plateau might have been a place of worship to farodra or for research- now look its a puzzle for a shrine to strengthen our hero to defeat the thing we caused :)) ), the sonau are expanded upon WITHOUT destroying their mystery (none of them are shown, there are NO memories in this game, everything happens in real time and what you can learn about the past is mostly vague clues pieced together by nerd zelda!)
it gives more depth to the shiekah as well as add an important ounce of nuance to the yiga and shiekah, to ganondorf as well while adressing and fixing the things that needed work in botw in ways i would find enjoyable (instead of making it WORSE)
i also dont want to go too hard on 'zelda is totally agaisnt the monarchy bc monarchy BAD', its not meant to come across like that, i just wanted to do sth interesting that does question everything and bc i like to think she could be lead to a different way of thinking, especially if so through her own research and discovery of previously buried history, being confronted with her own biased views by her passion for her interests
anyway, if you read through all of this, i probably forgot stuff, buts its very late and i spent alot of time writing this (bc i cant stop once i started i guess) and theres lots of things repeated that i already talked about BUT if yo actually read through it all, i cannot even begon to express just how much that means to me, and id i dare request, do tell if you like it!!! and thank you so much!!! it might not seem like much but this is also very important to me, i still dream of gamedev after all and i see this as a sort of practice, are my mechanics and stuff actually better os does it just seem like it to me etc -
(though keep in mind, this is in part self indulfent bc hey, its not real and is never gonna be so i might just do what i want- and yes i do believe it is doable, even if this all sounds alot, the magic lies in making it less but make that 'less' more dense and detailed, hence the underground being like at least cut in half in size and the building mechanic being removed (to give to a game where its better used than totk) alone should free alot of time and space for the things i described here)
-thanks again for reading, posts like these rarely get much attention so uh ... its pretty much never worth the time i spent typing designing and writing it (even if theres still lots missing here, like the dungeons and details to the champions ..) so every bit of commentary weighs alot more <3
#ganondoodles talks#ganondoodles#zelda#ganondoodles rewrites totk#botw2#loz#legend of zelda#tagging it as totk even if it might endanger it#totk#the legend of zelda#long post#but worht it! .. i hope#i think im best at the whole mechanical aspect thant the story#bc im a lil whimp and have trouble writing serious flaws etc#at least i feel like thats me#anyway- i cant look at the screen anymore i need a break#and if you read through it all and like it!#i wish i could thank you like you deserve ;_;#bc who reads through this mess really#gotta have nerves of steel- my respect
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Comics Masterpost (organised by collection)
Please heed relevant content warnings on each post. Completed collections have physical and digital copies available for purchase on my store.
Soliloquy Down to Three [COMPLETED]
Soliloquy down to Three is an anthology of dark sapphic comics, all of which are a mix of both old and new inspiration. Its title is a line from 'craters', indicating that the phrase "I love you" manages to fit a whole monologue worth of feeling into three words.
The compiled version contains exclusive illustrations for each couple, as well as a secret ending to 'craters'.
1. fishing twine 2. hook, line and sinker (sequel to 'fishing twine) cw: suggestive imagery 3. RED cw: suggestive imagery, blood, murder with an axe 4. RED - epilogue cw: blood 5. patchwork canary cw: mouth + neck mutilation, blood 6. craters cw: implications of suicide
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10PM [COMPLETED]
10pm is a collection of introspective comics that covers feelings of aimlessness, alienation and finding joy in creativity again. Its full title is "It's 10pm. Do you know who you are?" which is a twist on the old PSAs that used to play on American TVs reminding parents to check up on their children.
1. the parade
2. the elevator
3. the machine
4. the candle
5. the stone
6. the dredger
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Hearteaters [COMPLETED]
Heart-eaters is an anthology about the ugliest, gory-est, most heartfelt and most brutal parts of love. Sitting at a whopping 180 pages, Heart-eaters is the longest anthology I've made yet, and took over a year to finish in full.
The compiled books available for purchase on my store contain an exclusive joint-comic to "Shallow Grave" and poem named "Laozi's bowl", as well as 9 original full-page art splashes unique to their assigned stories.
1. the sunset cw: gun violence, death, blood 2. the calamity cw: eye scarring, blood, eye mutilation, gore (minimal) 3. seeing clearer (epilogue to 'the calamity') cw: biblical references 4. shallow grave cw: gravestone imagery 5. bite of winter (joint comic to 'scorched earth') cw: gore, blood, death, cannibalism, dismemberment 6. scorched earth (joint comic to 'bite of winter') cw: blood, death, burning alive, beheading 7. ashes to ashes (prequel comic to 'scorched earth') 8. little dove (prequel comic to 'scorched earth') 9. warmth 10. the fox god cw: emotional manipulation, animal abuse 11. the fields cw: blood, animal death, mild gore and blood
#took me far too long to make a post like this if im being honest#i hope this makes it easier for you all to find my stuff in the future#and ill update this as i go#thank you for your support#and as always#thank you for reading#sapphic art#comic art#queer art#stillindigo art#soliloquy down to three#its 10pm#hearteaters
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Ancient Loz AU Story
10,000 years before the events of BOTW the Princess of Hyrule and the Hero who wields the sword that seals the Darkness first fought off the Calamity. With the help of the Sheikah, Guardians, Champions and the Divine Beasts. However, the hero and her best friend; the Prince of the Gerudo, were now missing. The only one to return from the fight was the Princess⌠Bloodied and bruised. She emerged from the castle alone. No longer the energetic, and free spirited person she used to be. Now, she is filled with a sole dedication to her Kingdom. But cold, and filled with deep sorrow. She orders the Sheikah to create shrines to train the next hero.They prepare the towers, store the Guardians under the castle till they are needed. Research started on the slate where it can be used for building infrastructure and even battle. Anything to help prepare for another Calamity.
The Gerudo Prince wasn't seen again and the heroes identity was forgotten But, the Royal blood of Hylia lives onâŚ.
Link is from a traveling caravan. His family has blood from the ancient Zonai tribe. He travels with a decent size troupe along with his sister, father and grandmother.
He meets Zelda during a festival where he was entering an archery contest in castletown. Zelda, who was disguised as Sheik, was also entering. She beat him at the contest(barely), but was extremely bothered by how good he was.
The festival goes on for about 3 days and at the end there is the sword ceremony where all the people coming of age(18) can attempt to pull the sword. She was presiding over it and witnessed him pull the sword and his whole life change. Not long after they meet officially and Link is appointed as her Knight; She introduces him to Ganondorf, her best friend from childhood.
And the chaos and comrade-ere ensues~
Over 3 years they travel, train, fall in love and wait for the day when the evil is supposed to show itself. With no sign of the great evil, they start to relax a bit. But that is when it strikes. Ganon travelling by himself at this time. Explores a cave in the Gerudo desert and encounters something ominous. Whispers in the dark speak to him and his fears and wants and his distaste for the King of HyruleâŚ. The voice is familiar, much too familiar, and before he can fight back it consumes him. When he awakes he is alone. He isn't instantly âevilâ but over time it twists his thoughts and actions. His closest friends and mother grow concerned. He becomes harsher and radical. Cruel. During a secret meeting with the King, Ganon assassinates him. Zelda happens upon Ganon covered in blood. She thinks he's hurt and is concerned by his behavior the past year. He snaps. He tells her every dark thing he has been thinking, and that he killed her father. In shock, and devastated, she canât move as Ganon is about to strike her. But Link manages to get to her in time because the master sword was glowing, something he has never seen before but an instinct so old took over him. He races to escape with her. Ganon takes over the castle. But only as a steward because the King and the Princess are nowhere to be found. No one is the wiser to his malevolent plots. Yet. He knows she has to act fast since Zelda and Link escaped.
Zelda and Link make it all the way to Kakariko Village and Impa and they are all Informed that the Calamity is upon them. No one can believe it is their Ganondorf who is doing this but it is undeniable. They grieve, but they must act fast. With the help of the Sheikah they gather the guardians, monks and send word to the Races and Champions to prepare for battle. Zelda listens as Link hums an old Zonai Lullaby his mother used to sing to him. And it makes her remember something she read about. A story about there being an ancient Zonai device below the castle that would help defeat the Demon King.
Impa knows the tunnels She can help them sneak in. So they prepare to infiltrate the castle.
Under the castle they find the Zonai Artifacts that were left behind for sealing the great evil.
Ganon's followers saw them enter however and informed him. Knowing this is his chance he stops all pretenses and releases his power. Unleashing a mob of monsters and a cloud of malace into the castle and across Hyrule. But the Champions and Shekah are prepared to meet them.
Looking around for any clue. Trying to think of anything they read or that Link heard from his family that could be used to turn on the sealing jewelry. They donât know how to activate it, but Ganon is going to be upon them soon as they had to fight through hordes of monsters beforehand.
Out of the dark behind them he emerges.
Zelda and Link manage to avoid the surprise attack. They both go on the defensive. They fight and try to reason with him. They canât believe this is their friend, their lover. The fight is tough, because they all know each other's moves after training together for years along with the emotional turmoil. Zelda tells Link he needs to figure out how to activate the artifact if they are to succeed. She will hold him off. But by this point they are both exhausted.
Ganon manages to cut Link, spraying blood over the floor and the statue. Link falls to the floor and Ganon towers over him ready to strike him down, but Zelda blasts him away. Ganon turns his attention to her. Annoyed with her meddling and manages to land a blow on her also. Cutting the tip of her right ear off.
The statue lights up from the blood. The blood of a zonai. That was another part of the Lullaby from Links family Zelda realizes. The Jewelry glows and expands before flying off the wrists of the statue to Link. He is surrounded by a green glowing light that blasts Ganon and Zelda back. The bands constrict around his arms and legs disintegrating the clothing underneath. He screams. Zelda watches on in horror as Link transforms before her. His skin is turning black and his bones and skin stretch until he is 6 ft tall. What did she get him into? This was supposed to help them what was happening⌠She is living in a nightmare. What else will she have to give up. She cries as she looks at him, feeling his pain and fear. His hair band she had given him falls from his hair. Rolling across the floor towards her. â..ZeldaâŚ.â He saysÂ
She picks up the hair band and goes to him! But he is not really responding. He is restrained and struggling within himself. His head is filled with the spirits of the Zonai he knows what he must doâŚhe knows this is the last time he will see Zelda and Ganon. To seal the Demon King he must sacrifice himself. He says the last part of the Lullaby to Zelda and she knows. This is it. She kisses him. Though a bit strange now that he's so tall and his lips are cold. Ganon is getting up across the cavern from them, laughing. He mocks them and their weak attempts at thwarting him. One last clash. Zelda manages to get his weapon from him and Link plunges his arm into Ganons chest activating the sealing power. Glowing green. They both freeze in place and all is quiet. Entombed under the castle. The malice and monsters disappear. Zelda cautiously goes up to them. She doesn't touch them lest she break the spell somehow. The only thing she does is grab the hair bangle that fell to the floor in the final fight. It was the one from Ganonâs hair. And she left for the surface.
Alone.
Thanks for Reading! <3
#zelda#ancient loz au#zelda au#link#ganondorf#tloz#totk#legend of zelda#ganzelink#zelink#i finally wrote something!!! its not a fic but now you guys can fianally read mainly what i had in my head#thanks for liking my AU everyone i can say it enough#botw#there is probably so many issues and plot holes or contrivances but whatever im jsut having fun!#this doesnt even make sense now that totk is out but oh well#long post
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baekhyun + that cute move during r u ridin'? combined ver.
+ lonsdaleite [dot]
#baekhyun#baekhyunedit#exoedit#exosnet#exogif#exo#ultkpopnetwork#kpopccc#kpopedit#kpop#ksoloists#my gifs#ldseries#userbexrex#sunflowerchen#melontrack#lunacchy#bunnybbh#yoonkyoong#baekhyunsbestie#rumtumtag#long post#for those who might be reading this: which one is your fav? i'm curious#thank you to everyone who has been supporting this series <3
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2024 Japan Grand Prix Race Analysis
My analysis of the 2024 Japan Grand Prix. Table of contents below detailing the order of the post. We have a lot to cover as this was an eventful race so I am not going to waste time making introductions.
Table of Contents Ferrari â Race strategy: qualifying and tyre management â Charles: his qualifying and his race â Carlos: his race â In depth data and pace analysis Mclaren â Race strategy â Tyre management/Charles â Pace VCARB â Yuki: his race â Daniel: his crash with Alex Red Bull Mercedes Williams â Logan: his race â Team car problems Stake Concluding Thoughts
Ferrari
Ferrari had Carlos start in P4 and finish P3. Charles started P8 and finished P4. They both further secured Ferrari's lead for second in the constructors as well as keeping the WDC and WCC still competitive against Red Bull.
This race highlighted some areas that need to be improved on the SF-24 but more importantly it also showed some of the massive improvements that Ferrari has made in development and that is what made this race very exciting for Ferrari fans.
Once again the Ferrari strategy was great. It would have actually been good to mid if it were not for Charles having the skill and confidence to go for the one-stop strategy. But this is another race where I don't think they could have done anything better.
As it was with the starting grid positions Charles was looking at maybe getting P7 or P6 with a 2 stop strategy. And that strategy was most likely given the track and how much deg there usually is at Suzuka.
The reason Charles made it to P4 was because of his superior driving and tyre management, and Ferrari listening to him when he said he wanted to go for the one-stop strategy. They listened and it was 100% the right call on Charlesâ part.Â
Charles outperformed what should have been possible. If you donât believe me just look at what Max, Lando, Oscar, Checo, Mclaren, and Red Bull are saying about his tyre management. Charles in the SF-24 was the only one who could have pulled that one-stop off. Seriously, the fact that Max didnât think he could have done it is really all you need to know. They saw that and were genuinely impressed not only by the car but by Charles, because we saw that with Carlos he was struggling more with tyre deg and that was with a two-stop approach.Â
So not only was this the best strategy to maximize points for Charles this race given his starting grid position, it was also just a truly phenomenal drive from Charles himself.Â
And once again we are seeing incredible strides being made at the Ferrari pit wall in terms of timing and strategy. The pit stops for both drivers were on point. They listened to Charles and went with the strategy he wanted and it worked!Â
Everything I saw this race was so promising for the trajectory of Ferrari and Charlesâ season, and beyond into 2025 and 2026.
Charles: Race, Qualifying, and Free Practice
Charles ran a truly insane race. The only reason he gained all of the positions he did was because of his choice to do the one-stop and not only that but making it work! He gained every position it was possible for him to take and then some. His tyre management on this high degredation track was borderline supernatural.
Charles pulled off zero to negative tyre degradation on both sets of his tyres. (Negative deg is when faster laps are set as the tyres age) This was without question the best tyre management performance we have seen from a driver in 2024. It is something that no other driver could pull off (either due to skill, driving style, or machinery) and that is why Charles is Ferrari.Â
Have I waxed on long enough about Charles and his tyres? Just wait till you get to the Mclaren section.
I also have a lot more to say about his pace and tyres in the data section.
For now let's move on to some of the questions people might have about what happened to Charles in qualifying and FP3.
Charles qualifying position was decided in free practice. I want to try to be brief, so here is a quick timeline of why Charlesâ didnât have the optimal setup for qualifying (this also applies to Carlos because both Ferrariâs underperformed in qualifying, there was a difference of 1/10th between them so it really was just a matter of the field being so tight)
Suzuka is colder during the day than any race weâve had so far this year. With the SF-24 being so good with tyre deg that is actually a problem because it means that getting the tyres to warm up takes longer.Â
The loss of all of FP2 due to rain was a big blow to Ferrari and especially Charles.
Charles has been having more issues getting his qualifying settings right to manage the tyre warming issue. This is due to his personal setup choices and driving style. Being gentler on the tyres in a car with less deg is leading to him underperforming in qualifying.Â
So we lost valuable time when Ferrari really needed to understand the SF-24 behavior in the colder Suzuka temps.Â
FP3: Charles and Carlos both got in some race sim laps, but only got to squeeze in 1 or 2 flying lap tests at the very end. Charles especially was frustrated by this. I believe that this came from not having the time to complete all of the program they had outlined to prep for qualifying and the race.Â
Going into qualifying Charles didnât have enough data to guide his settings for Q1. They went with a certain setup they hadnât gotten to fully test and it didnât work. Which led to them having to send Charles out again in Q1 with a different setup on another set of softs to try to set a better lap in Q1.
In Q3 Charles only had 1 set of softs remaining to set his best lap. It was okay but not enough. I do think that over qualifying he did get settings better on the car and if heâd had another set of softs he might have made it up to P6 (possibly P5) the middle of the field was very close so I donât think this qualifying placement and time was as bad as it looks. It certainly isnât great, but compared to his teammate and the rest of the top teams it wasnât so concerning.Â
So the lack of enough free practice to figure out the best qualifying setup for Charles in the colder temps is really what cost them here. I think this is why we saw Charles very frustrated at not having the time to do more flying laps during FP3 and Fred also not happy with the program they ran during all free practice sessions.
All of this does apply to Carlos as well. Weâve seen him qualify better in 2024 too so this was just a matter of the SF-24 settings on flying laps given the colder temps and the track.Â
This is a current issue for the SF-24, but it is something that can be developed and I think there are certain upgrades that will address this. It is better to have a car base that is too gentle on the tyres than the other way around. The SF-24 tyre treatment is a good base to work with. This weekend just highlighted areas where improvements need to be made. The unfortunate part was the loss of FP2 because that was going to be important for colder temp data gathering.
I want to once again now take the time to shut down some narratives about Ferrari's race specifically relating to Carlos' lap 46 pass on Charles:
The reason Charles and Ferrari let Carlos pass was because Carlos was on newer tyres and thus had overall faster lap times.
Itâs insane to expect a team to keep the car that has faster pace behind. I could see it if it was a difference of 1/10th or something or if it was the last lap of the race, then itâs up for debate. That wasnât the case here, Carlos with the tyres that were 10 laps newer was almost 1 second faster. Keeping him behind would have not only compromised his race but also possibly Charlesâ. We donât want a car just hovering behind the other. As we heard on the radio the main concern was keeping Lando behind. As far as gaining significant placement this race goes we always knew Lando was going to be Charles' competition. If the cars were fighting over pace with this big of a discrepancy in the pace we would have seen disastrous results.Â
Charles knew this and this is why he let Carlos by. He was never intending to race Carlos(he literally said this in interviews after). With the way they started on the grid it was not going to be in the cards this race. Charles said as much and he isnât upset about it.Â
âCarlos overtook Charlesâ: No, Charles let him pass because that was strategically optimal for both Ferrari drivers.Â
âCarlosâ pace was betterâ: No, he was on a completely different tyre strategy, the only reason he was faster is because he did two stints on mediums and then finished on newer hards. Charles overall race pace and tyre management was better. This is just a result of 1. Different starting positions and 2. Different tyre strategies. Itâs very hard to do a driver-to driver comparison with blanket statements when they are on different strategies.
âFerrari gave the order to switch with Sainzâ: No, they just didnât do that, I donât know what race you were watching.
âThey should have told Carlos to defendâ: That would have been a bad strategy choice for both drivers. There is a lot more than current track position that goes into strategy calls.
"Ferrari strategy screwed Charles over again": No, Charles chose his strategy(and it was the right call). Ferrari did great in supporting him.
I don't understand why people want to run this narrative that we keep getting Silverstone 22' level strategy calls when that is just not happening.
Now Charles radio after the race may have sounded disappointed and in the heat of the moment he probably was. However in interviews after the race he was very happy with the car (I think he realized just what a good performance he put in) but also I think his big takeaway from this race was that Ferrari have given him a strong base to work with(finally) and he has been only saying more positive things since then.
Ferrari did amazing supporting both drivers. Especially Charles because it was his call to do the one-stop and they listened to him and supported him perfectly throughout running that strategy.
Carlos
Carlos ran a clean race. He gained the one position which is about what we'd expect from the car he was in and his starting position. His performance also gave us really good baseline data for the SF-24.
His race was mostly decided in qualifying and also the fact that Mclaren struggled far more than expected on this track. Ferrari initially thought he might have to fight Lando more for that position but Mclaren's struggle was Carlos' gain.
I also think that just this race in general from him and his driving style was really good data for the SF-24 to inform development and that is awesome!
I don't have a ton to add, it was good, got those WCC points for Ferrari and that's exactly what we want to see from him.
In Depth Data Analysis
The name of the game here is tyre wear. The SF-24 (especially in Charles' hands) has had phenomenal race pace and that is due to the fact that this car is so easy on the tyres. However Charles is the driver who has been able to pull this feature out of the car due to his driving style and tyre management skills.
We are going to look at a comparison of Charles' and Carlos' data to highlight exactly what was so interesting about Charles' pace. And then also adding in Max, because as the driver to beat he is a good benchmark(as well as showing the top performance of the RB-20)
Here is a comparison of lap times between Charles and Carlos, corrected for tyre age(because they were on different strategies)
For the medium tyre I used both their first medium stints. Carlos did two stints on mediums, I used his first stint for comparison because it means both tyres were subject to the same time of day and track temps and conditions.Â
Now the lap times themselves here arenât as important. Carlos and Charles were in different spots on the track and Carlos was in much cleaner air even on that first stint. The real thing to look at is the way Charles lap time stays consistent, and even gets faster as the age of the tyres progresses, while Carlos starts off with his best speed and then gradually gets slower. Carlosâ pace here is an example of what we expect to see - as tyres age they get slower so his pace on these tyres is perfectly normal, by the time he got to lap 14 before he pitted heâd lost more than a second of pace on those tyres (which is normal and expected). Then we can then look at Charles who is getting almost the exact same lap time out of his 11 lap old mediums as the first lap. Where Carlos has lost more than a second, Charles has lost nothing. Furthermore you can see multiple instances of an increased speed on his previous laps, which indicates negative tyre degradation. This goes against general tyre wear behavior and can only be attributed to Charlesâ skill in extending the pace of his tyres.
I want to add that both driverâs pace was excellent and that both their performances would not have been possible without the massive leap Ferrari has made with the SF-24 and race pace tyre degradation.Â
Again looking at the hards the actual lap time is not important here, Charles and Carlos were running very different strategies at this point. Charles was racing to extend the life of the tyres to pull off a one-stop and Carlos was trying to regain position near the front. What we are looking at is once again the way the lap times increase for Carlos steadily, and just donât for Charles.Â
Charles once again was pulling essentially the same lap time on 11 lap old hards, while Carlos had lost a full second. The sheer consistency here is what is scaring the other teams.Â
I want to note here that none of this is meant to make Carlos look bad. I think his runs and tyre treatment were pretty good overall, but when your teammate is defying the laws of physics in the same car it can even make a good drive look not as great. But I have no issues with how Carlos managed, he gave a good example of what I would say is the base deg for the SF-24.
Now I want to compare Charlesâ pace to Maxâs, again correcting for tyre age.Â
This is helpful because this is where we can get a look at match-ups for the future, the strengths of the SF-24 compared to the RB20.Â
Here is where it gets interesting. Max on the hards was managing degradation amazingly, right on par with Charles.Â
The big difference is on the mediums. After 11 laps Max had lost over a full second of pace on the mediums and Charles had not.Â
This gap is where we are going to see big results come in from the SF-24 in the future. If I were Red Bull Iâd be worried about this. And this is why they are also specifically worried about Charles, because we see that the SF-24 in Carlos hands is behaving as expected as far as tyre deg goes, the real threat based on the data is the combination of Charles Leclerc and the SF-24.Â
Deltas Î
Now let's take a look at what the change in pace lap to lap looks like for Charles, Max and Carlos. Again using those first 11 laps on the mediums.
Lap deltas are the change in lap time lap-to-lap, and this is a metric that shows if a driver is keeping pace, gaining pace or losing pace. Positive numbers mean a loss of pace, negative numbers are a gain. This is calculated by the equation of (Lap time B - Lap time A = change in pace or the delta Î) So it's just the time difference lap to lap. This is how we can take a look at the actual pace and correct for lap times (which are not important here)
On it's own this doesn't look like much, yes Charles is managing best, but Carlos is also ahead of Max. This is showing where the SF-24 is better than the RB-20. The fact that of these three drivers Max is the worst on this metric is notable.
However the impressive part of Charles' tyre deg is not in these first 11 laps. Because after these laps Max and Carlos had to pit because they were losing time and their tyres were done.
Charles kept going.
Here is what Charles' full stint on the mediums looked like.
Charles continued to achieve faster laps and negative deltas well into the life of the tyres, and that is what is setting him apart from Carlos and Max.
Not only was Charles achieving negative deltas, he was doing it more consistently as the tyres aged.
For comparison here is Carlos' and Max's data overlayed on Charles full medium stint.
While the first graph on the mediums shows that both Ferrari's were outperforming the RB20 in terms of deg(or at the very least Carlos was on a very similar delta to Max), this is where you see the difference in the drivers. Because Max and Carlos had to pit because they were rapidly losing performance on those tyres(see above time sheets) Charles was not, and he only improved. He more than doubled the life of his tyres in comparison to the other two.
This is the graph that really matters because it shows what each driver was able to do with one set of mediums. And as you can see it's not even close.
This is where you can see the impact of the negative deg over time. Compared to the normal deg we see with Max and Carlos it serves to highlight exactly how outside of the norm Charles was operating.
Charles only continued to improve well beyond the other two. That's what was insane about his tyre management.
Neither Carlos or Max were going to be able to continue their pace (hence the pit)
I feel like the data really speaks for itself. Max and Carlos are good comparisons here, Carlos is a good driver in the same car as Charles, and Max is the current top driver on the grid and is known for his tyre management.
I want to finish this section with the sentence that is chilling the blood of every other driver and TP on the grid: Charles set his fastest lap of his race on 25 lap old hards.
Mclaren
So what happened to Mclaren?
A lot of people were expecting Mclaren to be the second strongest team on this track. And qualifying certainly made it look like that might be the case. With Lando being ahead of Carlos in P3 and Oscar being ahead of Charles in P6 on the starting grid.
So why did both Mclarens get easily defeated by the Ferraris?
I think there are 2 main reasons.
The Mclaren car is not even close to the SF-24 when it comes to tyre deg, that car loses pace much faster so it just cannot fight when a Ferrari comes up behind it.
Charles 1 stop strategy really messed up the team's pit strategy with Lando.Â
In Mclarenâs defense no one thought anyone would be crazy enough to try a 1 stop around Suzuka, let alone have zero tyre deg on a high deg track.Â
They seemed to be managing their pit strategy with Lando under the assumption that Charles was going to pit twice, and I think they were very worried about an undercut in the pits (after they didnât get away with it in Australia I think they were very keen to make sure they kept their position)
But Charles didnât do a 2 stop strategy. He stayed out and his pace on the hards was unbelievable.Â
There was really no way for them to see that coming. Itâs kind of hard when your main competition decides this is the weekend heâs going to challenge the laws of physics.
(And you thought I was done talking about Charlesâ tyre strategy)
Here is a graph of Lando vs Carlos. That was the spot he lost, and you can see that the pit strategy is really what cost Lando the spot. Carlos came behind him on much fresher tyres and by then he'd lost the pace. He pitted too early, and that was due to Mclaren not understanding that Charles is on another level.
His pace was okay on newer tyres, but once they age the drop off was pretty bad. So the Mclaren car needs to improve in the tyre deg department if they want to see either of their drivers beat a Ferrari any time this year.
Furthermore Oscar once again struggled more because he is still the weaker of the two Mclarens when it comes to tyre deg, and on this track that really showed.Â
But I think the fact that Mclaren kept trying to figure out when Charles was going to pit for his second stint and then he just didnât really threw them off and had them making some weird pit calls.Â
VCARB
Yuki
Yuki ran what was in my opinion the second most impressive drive of the race. He qualified P10 and finished P10. However to keep that position he pulled of some truly perfect overtakes. He was fighting to finally get that home race point. I was so excited seeing him put on that good of a show for his home fans.
In this race he became the first Japanese driver to score home race points since 2012, and that is just so exciting for Yuki and his fans. It really made that single point mean a lot. I don't think I have ever been more excited for a P10!
Yuki has really been showing what the VCARB car is capable of and it looks really promising. He seems comfortable and I think we will be seeing a lot more points from him this season.
Daniel: Crash with Albon and DNF
Going to be covering Alex and Daniel's crash this section.
On lap 1, Daniel and Alex made contact going into turn 3, resulting in both cars going off the track and ending up in the barriers. Both drivers had to retire from the race.
To me this looked like a result of crowding into that turn in the mid field with neither driver at significant fault. I don't think Daniel was trying to push Alex wide, and I also don't think that Alex mistook that corner. The FIA and stewards agree and Alex and Daniel's story of what happened make sense.
Going into the turn Daniel had the outside line, and he was trying to give room to the Aston Martin(Lance) on his inside. He didn't see Alex on his outside and his wheel made contact with Alex's front wing, causing his car to spin and pushing Alex of the line and into the gravel.
Alex thought he had the outside line to overtake and was in the process of attempting that when Daniel went to give space on the inside, this resulted in the contact and Daniel forcing him wide.
This crash really just was a result of crowding in that corner, Daniel was trying to give space to one driver and inadvertently crowded out another. There wasn't space so he was kind of in a lose-lose situation there.
I agree with the stewards that no penalty for either driver was warranted and that this was the result of midfield crowding, and some bad luck for both drivers. It wasn't a result of bad driving on either Daniel or Alex's part. Even if Daniel had seen Alex I am not sure what he could have done if he also needed to give room to Lance.
Ultimately I am glad both drivers are uninjured. Hopefully they have some better luck in future races.
Red Bull
I don't have a ton to say about Red Bull. My comparison in the Ferrari data section is what was most interesting about this race from the data standpoint.
They didn't do much, the Red Bulls started ahead and finished ahead as expected. Max and Checo both ran a really clean race. Again showing the power of the RB-20.
I will add that this was a really good race for Checo(probably his best this year), and it was nice to see him have redemption after Suzuka 2023.
Nothing terribly exciting to add. Max won again, well done Max!
Mercedes
Mercedes didn't have a great race, but considering that both their drivers DNFed in Australia it was good for the team to get some points. Lewis started in P7 and finished P9, while George started P9 and finished P7. So they swapped positions.
It seems that the Mercedes car might be better on those qualifying laps than the race pace (and even then it's qualifying has been inconsistent)
The most notable thing about Mercedes' race was when Lewis asked if he should let George pass when George came up behind him, and George did in fact make the pass. This was done simply because George's pace was better. Lewis knew this so it was best for the team.
I think that so far we have seen that the W15 is struggling in a lot of areas, and as far as drivers go George has been more comfortable in the car(could be driving style, setup, a combo of the two) than Lewis.
Both are solid drivers, and hopefully they can guide Mercedes into making improvements to the car to get them closer to top points. At this point the car Mercedes has made seems to have fallen short of expectations. Make no mistake though, Lewis and George are both drivers who are much better than the car they are in at the moment.
Williams
I covered Alex's crash with Daniel already so we are going to talk about Logan.
Logan honestly did about the best he could do in the car he had. After damaging both his front and rear wing in free practice and still using the repaired chassis from Australia his car was not in the best shape already going into the race. Additionally the Williams really struggled with grip in the rears and has been all over the place. Suzuka especially seems to have not been suited to it.
Yes on lap 41 Logan went off track into a gravel trap, but that was on a corner that had given more skilled and experienced drivers trouble this weekend so I am not going to fault him too much for that in the car he had. Better cars were having problems there too.
He did have a really strong first stint and was pulling some overtakes. Most of his positions were lost when he did get undercut by some pit stops, and then of course losing time to the gravel trap.
The win is that he finished the race and the car is intact. That may not seem like much, but given the state of things at Williams it's important.
There were some highlights for his race and I will say in terms of raw performance he has not been far off Alex this year. That car of Williams is really hindering both drivers.
Stake
Stake actually had pretty good pace overall. The car is not as bad as it has looked on paper. The main issues has been their slow pit stops (caused by incompatibility between the bolters and the tyre covers apparently) Zhou and Valtteri both showed some pretty good pace and were in positions for overtakes.
Zhou unfortunately had to retire his car due to gearbox issues.
Stake has really been a mess and we have not seen what that car can actually do in terms of performance overall, or what what their drivers are capable of in that car.
They are making attempts to address the pit stop issue and I think if they do that, then we will see both drivers picking up some P10 points at the very least.
Final Thoughts
I think we can all agree that Suzuka was the best race of the year so far from a pure racing standpoint!
Whew, thatâs all I got on this race, so I will leave you with this final thought.Â
This race was a warning shot from Ferrari.
#lucis race analysis#japan gp 2024#suzuka gp 2024#formula 1#f1#scuderia ferrari#charles leclerc#long post#I am so serious this is a long post you've been warned#lot of good data though if you are into that <3#thank you for reading <3
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