#doesn’t mean they actually speak Hebrew

[highlyillogicalandroid]

I love when shows with Jewish characters clearly aren’t written by Jewish people.

Jewish character: *mumbling a Hebrew prayer*

Coworker: I didn’t know you spoke Hebrew!

Y’all.

[sweetheartsofpanem]

Fragments of Home - Soft Things Survive

Previous Part

fun fact i actually did research for fiza and dewydd’s names! dewydd is a welsh name but a variant of the hebrew name david which means “beloved”, i figured it was perfect since he was Y/N’s first love. fiza is a muslim name that has multiple meanings, i chose it for the meaning “the feeling of being loved and cared for”. you’ll see later in the story how her name is significant 😗

warnings: refer to series masterlist

pairing(s): refer to series masterlist

word count: 2.28k

series masterlist | main masterlist

“Are you okay? You’re bleeding.”

You jerk your head up, your breath catching in your throat. Peeta Mellark stands in the doorway, concern etched into his features. His eyes flicker downward, and suddenly, you feel every sting and scrape on your legs. You glance down and see your shins and knees slick with blood, crimson trailing down your skin. You curse yourself for wearing shorts.

“I—I’m fine,” you rasp, though your voice barely carries.

Peeta doesn’t look convinced. His gaze lingers on your wounds before shifting briefly to the deep scars marking your thighs. You fight the urge to shrink away.

“That doesn’t look fine.” His voice is quiet but firm. When you don’t respond, he exhales, then turns back toward the house. “Come with me. I’ll clean you up so we can see how bad it really is.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. He simply walks inside, leaving the door open.

For a brief second, you consider bolting in the opposite direction. But your legs are shaking, and despite everything, the warmth spilling from the house is tempting. You swallow hard and follow, stepping through the threshold.

The moment you enter, your breath catches.

The interior is beautiful—too beautiful. Polished wood floors, elegant furniture, walls free of soot and grime. It smells of bread and herbs, a scent so unlike the charred remains of the district that it almost makes you dizzy. You feel like an intruder, like you don’t belong.

“Katniss had the same reaction the first time,” Peeta says with a small chuckle.

Embarrassment heats your cheeks. Before you can reply, movement draws your attention to the living room. Two figures sit near the fireplace, their gazes fixed on you.

Katniss Everdeen and Haymitch Abernathy.

You freeze, every muscle in your body tensing. The weight of their stares makes your stomach twist, and for a fleeting moment, the urge to turn and run surges through you again. But your feet stay planted.

“That noise was her opening the gate,” Peeta explains. “Her legs are all scraped up and need to be cleaned.”

Their eyes shift to your wounds. Katniss doesn’t say anything—just studies you, her expression unreadable. Then, without a word, she stands and disappears into another room.

Haymitch exhales, rubbing a hand over his face. “Jesus, kid,” he mutters, though there’s no bite in his tone. He gestures to the couch beside him. “Come sit.”

You hesitate before slowly moving forward, perching stiffly next to him. The couch is soft—too soft. You don’t know what to do with your hands, so you clasp them in your lap, pressing your fingers together until your knuckles turn white.

Katniss returns, a first aid kit in hand. She kneels in front of you, pulling out supplies with practiced efficiency. She doesn’t speak, but every so often, her eyes flicker up to yours.

And suddenly, you feel very small.

“You take one leg, I’ll take the other,” Katniss says, lowering herself onto the floor. Her voice is steady, matter-of-fact, like she’s done this a hundred times before.

Peeta follows suit, grabbing a gauze pad and soaking it in rubbing alcohol. The sharp scent stings your nose, and you brace yourself for the pain.

“What happened?” Katniss asks.

Her gray eyes catch yours, and for a fleeting moment, you see Dewydd in them—his warmth, his kindness, his quiet strength. Your throat tightens, and you have to look away before your grief swallows you whole.

“I—um.” Your voice wavers. You hate how small and weak you sound. You force yourself to continue. “I saw a lot of bodies. Then I found my old house, and my knees just… gave out.”

There’s no judgment, no awkward condolences—just understanding. They don’t press you for more, don’t try to fill the silence with empty reassurances. Instead, they focus on carefully cleaning the blood from your legs, their hands gentle despite the sting of the alcohol.

You stare at the wall, trying to ignore the shame curling in your gut. They’re three years younger than you, yet here you are, sitting like a wounded child while they take care of you.

“What’s your name, kid?”

You jump at the unexpected voice. Haymitch chuckles, clearly amused by your reaction. You fidget with your fingers, keeping your eyes down.

“Y/N,” you murmur, glancing at him for only a second before returning your gaze to your lap.

“I thought I recognized you,” Katniss says without looking up.

It makes sense. Your fathers had worked together, had been friends. You spent time together as kids, running through the woods while your parents talked and cooed over baby Primrose. You were never particularly close, but there was always an unspoken familiarity, a quiet understanding between you. Then life happened. She lost her dad, becoming tougher. You lost everyone, becoming weaker.

“There’s a lot of glass and rocks stuck in the cuts,” she mutters to Peeta. “We’ll have to pick out what we can and flush the rest.”

She grabs a pair of tweezers and gets to work. Peeta does the same. You inhale sharply when he pulls out a particularly large shard of glass lodged deep in your skin. He winces at your reaction.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, glancing up at you.

You shake your head, swallowing the pain. “It’s fine.”

Haymitch shifts beside you. “Why’d you come back, kid?” His voice is rough but not unkind. “I know there’s talk of folks coming back to rebuild, but that won’t be for months. Maybe even a year.”

You keep your eyes trained on your hands. “District 13 didn’t feel like home,” you admit, your voice barely above a whisper. “I grew up here. My dad and my friends are buried here. This was my home, even if there’s barely anything left of it.”

For a moment, there’s only silence. Then, softly, Katniss says, “I remember Fiza and Dewydd.”

Your head snaps down to look at her. You had almost forgotten that she knew them. The three of you had walked to school with her sometimes, though not often. After Dewydd was gone, Fiza and you still walked with her occasionally, but once she was taken too, you withdrew from everything. When your dad died, you disappeared completely.

“They were the best,” you whisper, your throat tight as you fight back tears.

“We got as much as we could out. Come to the bathroom—I’ll flush the rest.”

Katniss changes the subject, and you’ve never been more grateful. Dwelling on the past, on the ghosts that haunt this place, will break you if you let it. You push yourself up and follow her down the hall, your legs aching with every step.

The bathroom is pristine, untouched by war, and the sight of it unsettles you. Everything else in District 12 is rubble and ash, but here, the white porcelain gleams under the soft light, as if the Capitol’s destruction never touched it. It feels wrong.

You lower yourself onto the edge of the tub, turning to face the wall. Your feet dangle for a second before you let them rest inside, the cool porcelain sending a small shiver up your legs. Katniss moves around behind you, gathering supplies, and then sits beside you.

“Stretch your legs out,” she instructs, opening the cap of a rubbing alcohol bottle filled with water.

You do as she says, bracing yourself. She tilts the bottle at an angle over one of the deeper cuts, and the second the liquid touches your skin, pain flares sharp and hot. You hiss through your teeth, your fingers tightening against the porcelain as pink-tinged water pools at the bottom of the tub before swirling toward the drain.

Katniss glances up at you. “Did your mom make it to District 13?”

Your stomach twists. The image of her charred hand beneath the rubble flashes behind your eyes, and you squeeze them shut. You don’t trust your voice, so you just shake your head.

She hesitates. “I’m so—”

“Don’t be. She was a bitch,” you cut her off.

Katniss snorts, a small smirk tugging at her lips. “She was,” she agrees, “but I didn’t want to be the one to say it.”

You chuckle, and for a brief moment, the heaviness in your chest eases. Then guilt seeps in. You glance at her, the laughter fading. She lost them too—Fiza, Dewydd. Her father. And you just disappeared, drowning in your grief while she carried hers alone.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, wringing your hands together. “For disappearing back then. I never stopped to think that you must’ve been hurting too.”

She shakes her head. “I get it. You were closer to them than I was.” A pause. “Then our dads died, and I know you started drinking. You reeked of Ripper’s booze when we got our medals of honor.”

You let out a humorless chuckle, rubbing at your temple. “Yeah… I kinda went off the deep end for a while there. But I stopped drinking last year.”

She nods, and you can tell she wants to drop the subject. Instead of pressing, you let the silence settle between you. Some things don’t need to be said.

Katniss squeezes the last of the water over your cuts, and you barely register the sting. Your mind is elsewhere—on the ruins outside, on the ghosts that won’t stop following you.

She caps the bottle and tosses it into the sink. “That should do it,” she murmurs.

You watch her reach for a clean towel, noticing how different she looks from the last time you spoke. There’s something heavy in the way she moves, like she’s always bracing for an attack.

She dabs at the damp skin around the cuts before wrapping them in bandages. “So,” she says after a pause, not looking up. “Are you planning on staying?”

You swallow, your fingers curling around the edge of the tub. “I don’t know yet.”

She nods, like that’s the answer she expected. “Do you have anywhere to go?”

The truth is, you don’t. You have nowhere. No one.

“No,” you admit. “Not really.”

Katniss finishes tying the bandage and straightens her back. She watches you for a moment, like she’s deciding something. “You could stay here,” she says finally. “At least until you figure things out.”

You blink, surprised. “Here? In Victor’s Village?” You let out a humorless laugh, shaking your head. “I don’t belong here.”

She shrugs. “Neither do I.”

That catches you off guard. You finally meet her eyes, and for the first time in a long time, you see someone who might actually understand.

You exhale shakily. “District 13 didn’t feel like home,” you admit. “But this place doesn’t feel like home either. It’s… empty.”

Katniss exhales sharply through her nose. “Yeah. It is.” She looks down at her hands. “But it’s still ours.”

Her words settle deep in your chest, stirring something you can’t quite name.

“I keep expecting to hear them, you know?” Your voice is barely above a whisper. “Fiza and Dewydd. My dad. I thought maybe if I came back, some tangible part of them would still be here. But all I found was their ghosts and our final moments.”

She doesn’t say anything at first. When she finally speaks, her voice is softer than before. “That’s why I go to the woods,” she says. “I hear my dad there sometimes. In the birds, in the wind through the trees.” She swallows. “It’s not the same. But it’s something.”

You tighten your grip on the tub, your knuckles turning white. “I don’t know if I have something like that.”

Katniss is quiet for a long time before she stands up. She gathers the torn packaging from the bandages and tosses them into the trash. “Then maybe you’ll find it,” she says as she heads for the door. “If you stay long enough.”

You sit there, staring at the space where she’d been, your pulse thrumming in your ears. For the first time since you stepped off the train, you wonder if maybe—just maybe—you don’t have to keep running in search of home.

You don’t know how long you sit there, letting the quiet settle around you. The air is heavy but not suffocating. For once, the silence doesn’t feel like a threat.

You think about Katniss—how she barely knows you anymore, how years have passed since you last spoke, yet she treated you like you mattered. She didn’t hesitate to help, to sit with you while she patched up your wounds. It’s a kindness you hadn’t expected, especially from someone who has carried so much pain of her own.

Then there’s Peeta. He saw you, a stranger to him, and without hesitation, he offered help. No questions, no judgment. Just simple, quiet kindness. And Haymitch… he could’ve ignored you entirely. Instead, he asked questions—gruff, pointed ones—but there was something behind them. Not just curiosity. Something more.

They all cared, in their own way. And you’re not sure what to do with that.

You take a slow breath, letting the thought settle. You hadn’t realized how much you needed it—how much you needed people like them.

Your eyes drift around the bathroom, tracing the clean lines, the way it remains untouched by the destruction outside. The contrast is jarring. District 12 is nothing but ash and memory, and yet here, in this quiet pocket of Victor’s Village, it’s as if nothing ever happened. Like the world beyond these walls hasn’t crumbled.

You think about what Katniss said—about staying. She offered so easily, like it was the simplest thing in the world. Maybe it would be.

Maybe staying here wouldn’t be as strange as you’re imagining. At least for now. At least until you figure out what comes next.

Next Part

[thedwarrowscholar]

What do you think a persons accent would sound like if they grew up with Khuzdul as their first language? Like if that was what they grew up speaking and then they learned English as a second language? I’m genuinely curious, this has been on my mind for ages.

Well met!

A genuinely thought-provoking question! This sort of linguistic speculation always gets my scholarly heart humming, thank you for that. Before we begin, my sincerest apologies for the very long delay in replying — some questions linger far too long in the vaults of the mountain (often lost there, sadly) before they are unearthed again.

Now let’s dive in.

First of all, we need to look at the history and context of Khuzdul speakers. By the time Erebor was reclaimed in 2941 of the Third Age, the majority of Longbeard Dwarves were living in exile. Only those born before the fall of Erebor in 2770 would likely have had Khuzdul as a true first language. Dwarves live to around 250, so with 171, adding their childhood/young adult years, etc.. that would be a fair amount of Dwarves, but still wouldn't be the majority of them. Most others would have grown up speaking the language of the region in which they found themselves — whether Dalish, the Common Tongue (Westron), or something else — and Khuzdul would have been taught more like a ceremonial or ancestral tongue, spoken in specific contexts and (as usual) kept secret from outsiders.

So while it’s tempting to imagine Dwarves all growing up fluently speaking Khuzdul as their mother tongue, in reality, by the end of the Third Age, most would have acquired it much like one would learn Latin or Hebrew in some religious traditions — with reverence, structure, and secrecy, but not necessarily as a daily spoken vernacular.

Now, if we take your question in the hypothetical sense — imagining someone raised entirely in Khuzdul, who then learned Common Tongue (which did not actually sound like English, by the way) as a second language — what kind of accent would emerge?

Let’s first address a common assumption: the “Scottish Dwarf” trope. This is a modern addition, popularized by franchises such as Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer, and various adaptations of Tolkien's works (notably the Peter Jackson films). In Tolkien's own writings, however, there's little evidence to support the idea that Dwarves spoke with a Scottish brogue. For instance, the word “lad” — often associated with that dialect — only appears twice in The Hobbit, and even then it’s used in a rather generic fashion: once by Thorin ("a fine adventurous lad") and once by Balin ("lads").

Balin - in The Hobbit movies speaking with a distinct Scottish accent. (Coming easy for him, as the actor Ken Stott is Scottish)

As for Khuzdul itself — Tolkien based it structurally on Semitic languages like Hebrew and Arabic, particularly in its triconsonantal roots. However, that doesn’t mean the phonology (sound system) is identical. Far from it, in fact, as Khuzdul lacks some of the harsher guttural and emphatic consonants found in Arabic or Biblical Hebrew, often favouring aspirated variants instead. So while some might assume a Khuzdul speaker would sound Arabic or Israeli when speaking English, that comparison doesn’t quite hold up - at least not completely.

Instead, we might expect:

A more aspirated style of speech, with softer but clearly defined consonants. A distinctive r sound — likely a voiced alveolar trill  (rolled R) or voiced uvular trill  (depending on their clan), akin to that of Slavic language or French and Modern Hebrew.

Notable difficulty with the English "th" sound — which would be a very common hurdle for Khuzdul speakers. Tolkien himself noted that “th” in Khuzdul (and also in names like Tharkûn, the Dwarvish name for Gandalf) should be pronounced “more or less as in outhouse” — not the soft “th” from "things" or "path" (voiceless dental fricative). The same applies, for instance, to “kh,” which Tolkien compared to the “kh” in backhand, not the one seen in the word "Loch" (voiceless velar fricative).

A young dwarf apprentice learning Common Tongue pronunciation

So, to summarize: a Khuzdul-first speaker might sound to our ears like someone with a Semitic linguistic background — but one that lacks the stronger throaty consonants. Add to that the difficulty with “th,” a trilled “r,” and a cadence that reflects the rhythm of a language that places significant emphasis on consonantal roots and often compact syllables, and you’ve got a fairly distinct accent.

Imagine a Dwarvish foreman delivering a rousing speech in the Common Tongue, their speech would sound clear, grounded, deliberate, rhythmic and slightly percussive — in a way sounding somewhat like the sounds a master miner might produce with their tools.

Ever at your service, The Dwarrow Scholar

[foldedchip]

Things in Lackadaisy that I haven’t seen anyone talk about (starting with fun facts and ending with more serious topics)

Rocky was an escape artist for a traveling circus when he was a teenager. This is why he was able to escape the train tracks at the beginning of the story.

Horatio likes to sing, but only when no one is around.

Freckle is the only character to have a middle name in his character bio (Allen). Do the other characters have middle names?

Nicodeme used to be (or possibly still is) a wrestler known as the “Cajun Gator”.

Rocky speaks at least some French; the Savoys speak a mix of English, Creole, and French; Mordecai speaks English, Hebrew, and some German; Nina speaks English and Irish Gaelic; Viktor speaks Slovak and English; Mrs. Bapka speaks Slovak and some English.

Serafine likes practical jokes. The only one we’ve seen her play is the “hatchetman” thing with Mordecai, where she told him to kill a man with a hatchet and he actually did it. Has she played other practical jokes on him?

Ivy’s classmates know that she’s friends with gangsters, because they ask if Rocky is one of her “gangster friends” when she sneaks him into their dorm building. Ivy seems to like the attention.

Nicodeme doesn’t know his exact birthday, and he and Serafine don’t know their exact relation to each other. They could be half-siblings or cousins, or maybe not related at all.

Rocky is very knowledgeable about myths and folklore, and he’s also very well read. Considering he didn’t finish his primary education, he must have either picked this up from his mother, the McMurrays, or he developed an interest later in his life.

Rocky has frightened elderly people before, though he got along well with Mrs. Bapka.

Ivy’s father, Reuben Pepper, wasn’t just friends with Atlas— he owned a train station and helped him smuggle alcohol into the city. He must not do business with the Lackadaisy anymore, either because of Atlas’s death or for another reason. He was business partners with Atlas, but not Mitzi.

The name of Mordecai’s late baby sister, Hannah, is the combination to the safe he writes about in “Posthaste”.

Rocky doesn’t drink due to “past experience”. Did he drink before and then quit, or he see someone else drink and decide never to do it?

Mordecai shows a lot of the signs of autism. He comes across as very cold and unemotional, even with his own family members and closest friend. He doesn’t seem to feel empathy for people he doesn’t care about (often, autistic people will either feel far more empathy than is considered appropriate, or not nearly enough of it to be considered appropriate.) He has difficulty with social relationships and interaction, whether it’s casual flirting, working with others, negotiating with his boss, or developing and maintaining personal friendships. He is physically sensitive and can barely tolerate physical touch, crowded environments, or getting dirty or wet. He is very particular about the way he eats and dresses, to the point where other people point it out. He has an intense and unusual interest in geometry that confuses other people when he talks about it, but it seems to bring him comfort and excitement. (For the record, Rocky is the only one who rolls with it and asks him to tell him more.)

Both Elsa and Viktor have trauma from the war and show signs of PTSD. Viktor also used to stay at the Arbogast house to help keep them safe. When Ivy and Rocky arrive at her house, Elsa asks about Viktor and talks about him later on. This probably means that they were friends.

Corporal punishment was the standard for raising children in the early 20th century, especially in Ireland. Nina slaps Rocky and pushes him down the stairs in two different scenes. Rocky even mentions Nina caning (beating someone with a walking cane) him if he got mud on Freckle’s clothes— which might have been a joke, but it had to come from some truth. Rocky was shown to get into all kinds of trouble as a child, though we don’t see the consequences for it. At the time, “physical punishments” were considered normal, but there is now extensive, undeniable research that shows what kind of psychological damage it causes later in the child’s life. You’ve read the comic, and you know that Rocky is not mentally healthy.

[the-astronome]

Saw a post here about names of pathologic characters, and decided to share some thoughts regarding our beloathed Bachelor, because I realised something and have to share it with you.

So, what do we know? Well, his name is certainly Daniil and his surname is Dankovsky. “What about his patronymic?” you might ask. Here it’s a bit more complicated, but knowing that he once signed a letter with D.D.D. we can safely assume his patronymic starts with a D, and as a matter of fact, I’m quite sure that it’s actually Daniilovich (i.e. his father’s name was also Daniil), though my arguments in favour of this are rather funny

1)Name:

Daniil, what does this name mean? To begin with, the name comes from Hebrew (“Dānīyyēʾl” in romanised version) and literally means “God is my judge”. What is more interesting, in my opinion, is that this name is partially formed by another Jewish name, “Dan”. “Dan” literally means “judge” and its most known bearer is Dan, son of Jacob (also known as Israel, the angel-wrestling guy), who was (according to the Bible) the founder of the Tribe of Dan. Moreover, the symbol of this tribe is a serpent, because of Dan’s sly, scheming, and calculating character.

Apart from that, Bachelor’s a doctor, and one of the most famous symbols of medicine (at least in Russia) is a Bowl of Hygieia, see a simple example below

This also could be an intended symbolism, which probably started with IPL thinking how they would name their genius-doctor-character, and then spiralling down into all these snake-related topics, eventually choosing Daniil. It might have been just a funny coincidence. Someone can probably text them on Twitter and ask.

2)Surname:

Here it’s a bit tricky, and please do feel free to correct me, because the info I’ll give here might be false. Anyway. When I first started P1, I was a bit puzzled by Bachelor’s surname. You see, even though it is defo a Slavic surname (e.g. -sky ending), it doesn’t make much sense to a Russian speaking person, since what the hell is “Dankov”? A surname in a surname, now ending with “-ov”? Well, here is a potential explanation:

Western Slavs have a form of “Daniel”, namely “Danko”. As far as I understand, it can be a surname (and it is, in various forms, at least in Slovakia and Ukraine). This makes the surname “Dankovsky” mean something like “of the Danko” “son of Danko” “belonging to Danko” etc. All this suggests that, if we translate his surname to Russian in the literal manner, it would change to “Daniilov”. So you see where I’m going, right..?

3)Patronymic:

So. What do we have. “Daniil” as a name, and a surname which apparently (through numerous layers of linguistic irony) is also formed from the name “Daniil”. And we know that his patronymic starts with D. Do I dare suggest that his patronymic follows this silly pattern as well, so it would be “Daniilovich”?

This leaves us with a beautiful name of Daniil Daniilovich Daniilov, which sounds rather humorous and comical to russian-speaking folks (reminds us of the legendary Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov). As a close friend of mine suggested, that could have been a placeholder of sorts during the early development of the game and/or character, when IPL only came up with a name, but not with everything else. Then they decided not to over-invent things, and just obscure the surname via translating and adapting it to Western Slavic languages (Polish and apparently Slovak, I would guess), and basically never mentioning his patronymic. Ingenious if you ask me

4)Takeaways:

Not much, unless you see a sentence where I’m talking out of my ass, please I beg you speak up if messed up the Western Slavic part, I’m not native to those languages, so could’ve missed something there.

More importantly! For me, all these layers behind DDD name form a very concrete foundation for my headcanon that Bachelor is of Polish-Jewish origin. In general, his surname suggests lots of interesting stuff, so explore the linguistic opportunities my fellow patho people

[shmuel-ben-sarah-kcd2]

Samuel headcannons: specifically Jewish(ish) ones 

I think, despite him being worldly, despite all he has seen, despite him being far from the most observant, frum member of his community, Samuel still believes in G-d. In fact, the horrors he has scene only reinforce his faith in G-d. I know I know, cynicism as a result of trauma. And he certainly has those days, days where he wrestles with his faith. But that’s what being bene Yisrael means. He wrestles. It’s a part of our faith to argue, and so I think he has less (still some probably but less) guilt over those days. But I think he believes, he feels guilty when he can’t attend shul, the grief in his eyes as he whispers for G-d to forgive him as he must torch His temple. (That scene made me cry. I can’t guys I can’t)

Education. Obviously, Sammy boy is literate in at least two different scripts and languages. He can speak, read, and write medieval Czech, he can read and write Liturgical Hebrew, and he can speak Yiddish. Conversational Hebrew doesn’t exist at this point, and Yiddish didnt have a set standardization. Actually, pretty much no one had standardization for spelling. Point is moot, nvm. Also, it’s likely that he understands written Aramaic to some extent, given that is the language of the Talmud. He also can read trope, show that man a haftorah portion and he can do it with no prep. 

As for education, Samuel went to Cheder, first in Prague, then in Kuttenberg when his family moved back. He started learning his alef-bes by three, started Cheder at five, moved back at some point before he was ten, was a bright boy, and the grandson of a rabbi, so he stayed at it. He would even go on to briefly attend yeshiva back in Prague, but would return home a few years before the events of KCD2, dropping out before he could become a rabbi.  From this, he’s aquired an ability to make profound literary allusions, has a line or bit of wisdom for most circumstances from Pirke Avot or something of the like. Bro is dropping the Rambam and Maimonadies like it’s nothing. And he lives by his words. 

Why did he drop out? With the rise in political tensions, everyone wants someone to blame. And at home he can better keep his loved ones safe when the hammer drops. He wants to go back, but he has been made to forfeit the pen for the sword.

Also, kind of a non sequitar, but every single person at the siege of Suchdol belived in some kind of afterlife. Except for Sam. We Jews have idea's ish, but nothing as concrete as Christian heaven and hell, or Islam’s jannah and jahannam. In fact, the only thing mentioned is Sheol, simply the unending sleep, a state of non-being. In essence, there is one go at this if you are a Jew, and there is only this. So when Samuel volenteers for the suicide mission to get word out, he has no hope of heaven. And when he tells Henry to leave him behind? They both know sam will be made an example of, but sam knows that he will never see the ones he loves again. 

I think he’s Bi. No basis, just vibes. And also the mustache. I could see him with either of the two friends, with one of the women in Kuttenberg’s Jewish quarter, with John but only after he risks his head to help the Jews, could also see sam with OCs. Honestly though, I think faith matters more than gender to Sammy. I think he probably doesn’t sleep around a lot of at all, some of it is he’s just too busy. 

I think Samuel wants kids, and if he can’t have them the traditional way, he will adopt. After all, his father adopted, and his brother is his whole brother. Also, in Judaism, a convert is considered fully Jewish, with no legal or social distinction. His kids would be raised in the faith of his fathers. I also dont think he is very likely to wind up with a Christian, for that reason. If he is to marry, it will be under a canopy.

Sammy boy isn’t very superstitious, but I think he always keeps a red string tied around his left wrist, to keep away the evil eye. And he hands knives and weapons off in general by offering the hilt and holding the blade, so as to avoid a fight (proof: the scene where he hands Martin’s sword back to Henry. Small detail, but no one in the Jewish quarter who handles a weapon hands said weapon to anyone blade first.) 

Sammy follows Rabbi Johanan, Israel is Immune from Planitary Influence. He is NOT an astrology girly. Samuel probably does like gematria, but in the Mildly Autistic And Obsessed With Secret Codes kind of way. Yeah he’s definitely not neurotypical. But that’s another thing.

Wow. Lot of thoughts. And I’ve only been into him for like a week. Anyway.

I’m sure there will be more deranged loreposting. I have a lot of thoughts on being a Czech Jew. G-d, I love good representation. And if yall have questions about Jewish life or practices please reach out! I love talking.

[libraryofgage]

A Place Like Steve in a Boy Like This

Part of: Steve Deserves Good Parents, Actually

Debbie and Fester Addams One | Two | Three | Four Rick and Evelyn O'Connell One | Two | Three (you’re here!) Harley Quinn One 10th Doctor and Rose One | Two (on the way!) Scooby Gang (there are plans for this one lmao, so plz be patient with me orz) Jedidiah and Octavius (from Night at the Museum) One Queen Clarisse (also on the way and also a modern royalty au cuz I got the urge to write one so bad lmao)

This AU was line-jumped on Ko-Fi, which means y'all got it sooner!

If you want to line jump your favorite series, you can learn more here

I hope y'all enjoy this part! It was a lotta fun to write, actually, since I got to talk about folklore I'm more familiar with lol

As always, if you see any typos, no you didn't ;)

----

Steve huffs as he kicks a pebble down the street. It bounces a few times before settling on the sidewalk, doing nothing interesting enough to alleviate his boredom. He turns around, squinting against the sun shining in his eyes, and looks at his parents. His mother is speaking quietly to a woman with a shawl around her shoulders, both of them bent over some book that definitely should have been crumbling by now. His father idly taps at bricks on the building next to them, looking relaxed but alert.

Steve glances at the building his parents are avoiding, the one the woman with the shawl walked out of. It’s a pale, faded yellow, the kind that tells him the building is old, old enough to have seen wars and generations pass it by. Shingles line a low roof, but something that’s either incredibly durable wood or stone so old it’s turned brown makes up the vaguely mountain-shaped top that reaches to the sky. Steve studies the building, his eyes wandering until he sees the door cracked open on the side. 

He takes a slow step towards it, checks that neither of his parents noticed, and takes another. This continues until he’s in the shadow of the building, his fingers brushing against the wood. It’s cool against his skin, and the door isn’t nearly as heavy as it looks. He pushes lightly against it, an eager feeling building in the pit of his stomach as he slips inside.

A dimly lit hall made of stone sprawls out in front of him, and Steve hums softly as he passes by the paintings and scraps of scroll that are framed along the wall. He recognizes Hebrew on all the scrolls, but he doesn’t linger long enough to read any of it. Instead, he continues to walk, glancing through an opening that leads into a sanctuary. The opening is to the left of the bema, and he’s momentarily caught by the ark that contains the Torah. He can’t even see the holy scrolls, but something in his spine jerks and he’s overwhelmed by the urge to open the doors so he can gaze upon them. 

He’s already going to get in trouble for slipping inside, though. Maybe he shouldn’t make it worse. Steve grasps this thought tightly, holding it in his mind until he’s able to tear his gaze away and continue walking down the hall. Other than that opening, there’s only one door left at the very end. It, too, is made of wood and opens far easier than Steve expected.

Shafts of sunlight stream in through narrow windows, illuminating dust that floats in the still air of an undisturbed staircase. Steve looks down at the first steps, crouches, and drags his finger carefully over the stone. A layer of dust comes off, and Steve comes to the conclusion that nobody has been up these stairs in a long, long time. 

With a grin, Steve begins to climb. 

The stairs wind up and up, far higher than Steve thinks should be possible given the height of the building itself, but what does he know? He just focuses on climbing, on reaching the top as he passes narrow window after narrow window, breathing in stale air that stirs in his lungs and builds. Strangely enough, he’s not breathless from the climbing, but from something else entirely. He isn’t able to name that feeling until he finally (finally) reaches the top of the stairs. 

As he stands on the top step and looks over the loft spread out before him, he realizes it was anticipation. Like the stairs, this attic-loft is covered in dust, untouched by people for a very long time. A large window is opposite the stairs, allowing sunlight to stream into the area. The space holds a desk, a bed, more books than Steve has ever seen before, and a statue.

Steve stares at the statue, licks his lips nervously, and steps into the room. He doesn’t spare the books or anything else a second glance, instead making a beeline for the statue. It’s huge, towering over the twelve-years-old Steve even though it’s sitting. Its legs are crossed, and its hands are held palm-up just above its navel. The statue is round and smooth, not a straight edge in sight. It doesn’t have a neck, and its head is like a little bump on its shoulders, just big enough to hold triangle-shaped divots for eyes. Carefully placed next to the statue is a small clay jar and a paintbrush.

Without thinking, Steve picks up the jar and looks inside. Golden-hued paint shimmers inside, and Steve wonders how it hasn’t caked over or disintegrated after all this time. He tilts the clay pot a few times, watching the paint slide against the edges, and then looks up at the statue again. At second glance, he sees that the statue’s head is big enough for more than just its eyes. He could probably write on it, too. 

With that thought, Steve grabs the paintbrush and very carefully pokes his foot against the statue’s leg. It seems strong enough, so he climbs up, following the statue’s calf to its knee. From there, he carefully holds the paintbrush with his teeth so he can steady himself on the statue’s arm. Once he has, Steve pulls himself up onto the statue’s hands, finding himself at the perfect height to reach its forehead.

Steve holds the paintbrush and dips it into the jar. The brush comes out covered in the gold paint, and Steve pauses, looking at the statue’s forehead.

He remembers a story his mother once told him about this very city, this very building. It involved a statue like this one, a golem, that was brought to life to protect his mom’s ancestors. Steve hums softly and carefully paints aleph, mem, tav on the statue’s forehead. His mom will find it funny when he brings her up here to show her the “golem” he found. 

As he finishes off the tav, giving it a pretty little flourish just for the fun of it, the ground beneath him jerks. No, not the ground. The hands he’s standing on. Steve yelps, losing his balance and about to fall only to be cradled and carefully set on the ground.

Steve blinks, looking up at the golem to see it leaning down and staring at him expectantly. “Uh. Hi,” he says, breathless as he receives a small nod and wave in return. “Holy shit.”

Before he can say more, he hears a familiar voice in the distance shouting, “Steve! Where are you?”

Keeping his eyes on the golem, Steve sets the jar and paint down, scooting back along the floor until he reaches the top of the stairs. “I’m up here!” he shouts, hearing a muffled curse and the slam of a door far below. He sighs and stands, slowly approaching the golem.

“You’re really real,” he mumbles, stopping in front of the golem as he hears someone running up the steps.

He turns just in time to see his father reach the attic, guns at the ready, and panting from adrenaline and the climb. “What the fuck is that?!” he shouts, aiming the guns at the golem without thinking. 

“Don’t shoot it!” Steve yells, barely getting the words out before he’s scooped into the golem’s arms and completely covered by its hands. The world goes dark, and he’s pressed close enough to the golem’s chest that all he can smell is pomegranate and the old ink and paper of Talmud studies. 

“It’s holding you captive, and you’re telling me not to shoot it?!” his father asks. 

“It’s protecting him!” his mother shouts, her voice shrill and panicked enough about his father shooting a golem to make Steve almost laugh.

Steve wiggles around, tapping the golem’s chest. “Those are my parents,” he says, “Please let me down.”

After a few seconds of hesitation, the golem does, carefully and slowly placing Steve on his feet once more. Its hands stay on either side of him, looking ready to pull him back into its protective embrace. His father looks harried, but his mother looks awed as she steps forward. The golem allows her to approach, and she carefully runs her fingers over the golem’s arms. “This is amazing, Steve,” she says softly.

“Can we please step away from the dangerous statue now?” his father asks, taking a step forward only to stop when the golem suddenly stands and towers over him. “Uh, what’s it doing?”

“You’re not Jewish, Rick,” Steve’s mother says, looking over her shoulder. “The golem is a protective figure in Jewish folklore, among other things. It’s most famous stories are about keeping Jewish towns safe from pogroms. It’s wary of you.”

“I’m your husband!” Steve’s father protests, angrily shoving his guns back into their holsters, “And Steve’s father! We should be on the same team!”

“It’s okay,” Steve says, walking over to his father and taking his hand. “I just have to introduce you.” With that, Steve leads his father over to the golem, placing his father’s hand on its arm, and saying, “This is someone you should protect, too.”

----------

After explaining everything, with plenty of interruptions from the kids after they came running back into the living room to escape Uncle Jonathan’s gin, Steve’s parents demanded to see the lab where it all started. 

And now they’re here, standing in one of the lower levels, surrounded by dead vines that still haunt Steve’s nightmares on particularly bad nights. If he’s lucky, he won’t have one of those while his parents are home, but Steve has never really called himself lucky in situations that don’t involve life or death. 

The wall that once held a gate to the Upside Down is nothing more than charred cement, reduced to a jagged line of something Steve really hopes is soot and not, like, disintegrated demogorgon. He carefully makes his way through the vines, avoiding them when he can and holding his breath whenever he has to step on one. 

“Did you know this was a lab?” Rick asks, his voice echoing in the hall ahead of them. 

“Of course, not,” Evelyn replies, and Steve can picture the glare she’s aiming at him. “I wouldn’t have let our son live here if I’d known.”

“Well,” Eddie says, “I, for one, and very relieved Stevie lived here considering several of us would be dead without him.”

“Me, too,” Dustin says.

“Me three,” El says.

“I think Steve and I would’ve found each other even if he wasn’t in Hawkins,” Robin says, nudging Steve’s ribs with her elbow as she grins. “Platonic soulmates can’t he kept apart.”

Steve snorts and stops when he reaches the wall. He looks around and notices the corpse of a demodog a few feet away. Or, well, he thinks it’s a demodog corpse. “Stay here,” he says, tightening his grip on his bat as he takes a step closer to it.

“Hold it right there, young man,” his mother says, her tone bringing him to an immediate halt. “Your father will go towards the monster, and you will stay a safe distance away.”

“Gee, thanks for asking,” Rick mutters, rolling his shoulders as he makes his way over to the demodog corpse. He studies it for a second before just kicking the thing with his foot. Steve nearly jumps in to yank his father back, but stays frozen in place by Robin’s hand coming to rest on his shoulder.

His father kicks the corpse again, and Eddie suddenly asks, “Why do I feel like this is disrespectful?”

“Because it used to be alive,” El offers.

“It’s definitely not anymore,” Rick says, crouching down and using the barrel of his gun to push back one of the petals on its head. “Shit, what’s it need so many teeth for?”

“The better to eat you with,” Steve says, earning a snort from Robin and Eddie.

“And there were how many of these?” Evelyn asks.

“Dozens. Like, multiple packs, and they were all connected by this hive mind kinda thing,” Dustin explains, walking over to the corpse with no fear. “I mean, they weren’t all bad. Dart was okay.”

“He ate your cat,” Steve says.

“Yeah, and then he didn’t eat us in the tunnel.”

“I can’t believe you were facing these things and didn’t use your guns to spare some girl’s feelings,” Rick says, looking at Steve over his shoulder.

“I can’t believe you didn’t just use the golem,” his mother says, frowning as she turns to Steve. “I mean, you know where it is, dear. You know how to bring it to life.”

“A golem? Like…from Lord of the Rings?” Dustin asks.

“You had a golem? Why didn’t you tell me you had a golem?” Eddie asks.

“How did we not think of the golem? Holy shit, we’re dumb,” Robin says, smacking her forehead with her palm.

“I couldn’t trust that it wouldn’t hurt one of my friends,” Steve says, ignoring Dustin for now. “It would only protect me and Robin. If something happened to one of us, it would abandon the kids without question. What’s the point then?”

“Hello! Confused people over here!” Dustin shouts, getting their attention. “What golem?”

“You know,” Robin says, “like…of Prague.”

“No, still lost,” Dustin says.

Steve sighs, about to explain it when Eddie beats him to it. “The golem is from Jewish folklore,” he says, tilting his head as he looks at Steve, “It was created and brought to life by a rabbi in Prague to protect his congregation from pogroms and acts of antisemitism. There are debates on why he had to disintegrate the golem, though. Some stories say it started killing innocent people, others say it fell in love, and others say the congregation were using it to do chores instead of letting it focus on protecting them.”

“Yes, exactly,” Evelyn says, smiling at Eddie and nodding with approval, “The golem doesn’t speak much, but it can answer basic questions. According to it, Rabbi Loew removed its aleph because it requested to go to sleep.”

“Oh, so it just wanted a nap,” El says, nodding as though this makes perfect sense to her.

“You said you had the golem,” Eddie says. “Where?”

“At the house,” Steve replies, watching as his father stands from the corpse and drags Dustin away from it. “I keep it in the locked room downstairs.”

“You said that was your parents’ room,” Dustin says.

“No, you assumed it was, and I never corrected you.”

“Can I see it?” Eddie asks.

Steve looks up, meeting Eddie’s gaze. After a few seconds, he nods once and looks at his parents. “Did you see what you wanted?” he asks, “Can we head back?”

“Yeah,” Rick says, frowning as he nudges a vine with his foot. “I’ll come back later with Ardeth. See if he knows anything that might help.”

“What do we need help with?” Dustin asks. “The portal is closed for good. We closed it.”

“There’s nothing wrong with making sure,” Evelyn tells him, smiling reassuringly before turning back the way they came. “Now that Rick and I are here, we’ll do everything we can to make sure those gates never open again.”

“And if they do,” Rick says, bringing up the rear as the kids follow Evelyn, “we’ll take care of it. You kids don’t need to put yourselves in danger anymore.”

Something in Steve settles at hearing this, his next exhale taking all the stress that had made its home between his shoulders with it. For the first time in a long time, he thinks about something normal. He glances at Eddie and Robin and thinks about going to see a movie with them, drinking at the lake, and just being stupid teens that don’t have to worry about interdimensional monsters.

------

Tag List (there should be room still! So, if you’d like a tag, let me know!)

@trueghostqueen, @swimmingbirdrunningrock, @thoughtfulbreadpolice, @mogami13, @blcksh33p1987, @beawritingbooks, @remus-is-trans, @your-confused-friend, @estrellami-1, @nburkhardt, @vacantwatchers, @yeahhhh-suga, @phantomcat94

@blackpanzy, @ape31, @croatoan-like-its-hot, @plantzzsandpencilzzs, @flustratedcas, @anne-bennett-cosplayer, @just-a-tiny-void, @disrespectedgoatman, @fallingleavesinthewind, @nymime, @nectandra, @moomkin77, @nadenia, @resident-disappointment, @copper-arrows, @romanticdestruction, @rowanshadow26

@nadenia, @northernlight-witch, @steddie-as-they-go,

[cultkinkcoven]

Hello, I am the anon from that large post where I asked about demonolatry in regards to Judaism. I've read a lot of the reblogs and stuff, and I want to say that yes it was my fault for not reaching out to a Jewish blog about it.

However, I also want to point out that regardless of whatever I am told, demonolatry is going to offend someone anyway. I don't think religious people care if I'm worshipping the Mesopotamian or Sumerian or what-have-you roots of an entity that they have demonised, they are going to be offended either way. I've kind of understood what a lot of the reblogs are saying, and I've formed my own opinion on it. Though, I will continue to do research so that I can strengthen the foundations of that opinion and correct it should I discover anything new. But the basis is essentially just…that it was a stupid question for me to ask. Obviously people would be offended if you worship an entity their religion has regarded as negative, regardless of whether or not you are actually worshipping the demonised aspect of that entity.

These entities have many faces. They are multifaceted. They have survived through the ages, changed shape and form. It does not matter if you call to Lucifer as the fallen angel of the Bible, or to Iblis as the rebelling djinn of the Qur'an. They are the same, under different faces. Now, whether you choose to call to Iblis or to Lucifer under either name is your choice. You'll offend a religious community either way. But does worshipping Iblis mean the same thing as appropriating Arabian culture? It does not. I give this example specifically because I am ex Muslim.

In any case, thank you for answering. Thank you to the Jews who reblogged with their opinions. I apologise for my mistake, but I have a base to build on now. I apologise for the debate it caused. Have a nice day.

Thank you so much for writing this because I literally just deleted that post like 2 minutes ago lol. I’m not the type to do that, and it’s not because I was receiving too much criticism (I’m a Luciferian… I love criticism) but the long threads were taking up so much of my page that the conversation itself was getting backed up and hard to follow. The original post also doesn’t have any “hey I’m not Jewish so take this with a grain of salt” disclaimers, so no real productive conversations could be had with that considered.

You and I were both out of line, I’m glad you acknowledge that the question should have been directed at a Jewish blogger, and I acknowledge that it wasn’t my place to comment. I sought to share my opinions as a demonolater but my word choice conveyed that I was speaking on this with some kind of authority, which isn’t true at all.

I don’t think your question was stupid at all, it’s something many beginners have a lot of anxiety about. But yeah, you and I have basically reached the same conclusion. Demonolatry is offensive to religious people in general. People are always going to have a problem with it.

I genuinely do go out of my way to make my practice as harmless as possible, which is why I’m willing to go to the lengths of actually giving these demons with Hebrew names new names so we don’t have to keep using their archetypes as they were described by the Jews. They can have ownership over their own words, that is completely fine by me. But even then, they’re still not going to be happy that I’m worshiping demons, regardless of what I call them. there is no way to practice demonolatry without offending religious people.

I think your decision to use your discretion is wise. There is no one answer that is going to satisfy everyone. Decide what matters to you, and don’t let the rest bother you.

[quantumcartography]

Eventually I'm gonna do a deep dive on every name in the Locked Tomb series but I've been sitting on this dissection of The Emperor's chosen name for a long time and I want to put it into the world. So, here it is.

The Emperor John Gaius, His Celestial Kindliness, the First Reborn, King of the Nine Renewals, Necromancer Divine, our Resurrector, and The Necrolord Prime

“NOTE: He’s just some guy, you know?

NOTE II: Gaius was not the name John was born with. He picked it for himself circa Y100 of his reign.”

These two names have so much potential meaning tied up in them so buckle up.

First, the literal translations. John is a derivative of the Biblical Hebrew Yohanan which is in turn derived from the Yehohanan, which means literally “Yahweh has been gracious.” Gaius is a Latin name that likely derives from the latin gaudere “to rejoice.” This more or less makes the name say “Huzzah! God has been good!” Now, there is one other tweak to this. Gaia is the Greek personification of the Earth (Terra is the Roman equivalent) and if you slapped the Latin masculine ending on it, it would become Gaius. This does provide a tie to the planet Earth in his name (which is far more obvious in Gideon’s name of Kiriona Gaia) and would make sense if he picked it as a memorial to the dead Earth to which he could never return.

Next, modern social interpretation. John for a long time held the title of “most common name in the English speaking world.” I believe it’s since been surpassed by James, but it’s still up there. Gaius, funnily enough, was the Ancient Roman equivalent of John. It was one of the most common given names for so long that it became semi-synonymous with saying “some guy” similar to the phrase “Tom, Dick, and Harry” or “don’t know him from Adam.” These two names make his name something like “John John” or “Jon Doe” or “James Q. Public.”

Next: the strictly biblical interpretation. The most obvious link here is to the book of the New Testament, John 3. This is a letter by one of the many biblical Johns to a man named Gaius concerning some pretty mundane church business of the time and thanking Gaius for looking after some poor missionaries. It’s honestly a supremely drab book of the bible and doesn’t really get into doctrine or legends or exciting apocalypse stuff. It’s just a letter from a church leader to a rich patron. If someone more versed in Biblical history and literature can shed some light on this book, I’d be very thankful.

Next: some name associations. Being two of the most common names in history, we kinda have a wealth of options to pick from. Saint John the Apostle was the one who actually walked with Jesus and was the brother of the Apostle James with whom they made up the Boanerges, the Sons of Thunder. John of Patmos was the likely author of the Book of Revelation and maybe the same as John the Apostle (but probably not.) The author who wrote about the apocalypse seems pretty fitting. Gaius was also the praenomen (given name) of the two Caesars responsible for the death of the Roman Republic and the birth of the Roman Empire: Gaius Julius Caesar and Gaius Octavius who became Caesar Augustus.

Julius Caesar is definitely the most well known Emperor of Rome/salad inventor and also second dictator for life (Sulla was the first so Caesar can’t take that title.) He was an incredibly popular general who was part of an alliance of three figures (him, Pompey, and Crassus) to increase their own power, wealth, and standing. When Crassus died, tensions formed between Pompey and Caesar until Pompey had the senate recall Caesar from his war in Gaul to be removed from command. Caesar knew this would lead to his execution at the hands of his rival so he made his own play, marching his troops into Rome (an act tantamount to sacrilege) to try and capture Pompey which spoiler he didn’t. It sparked a civil war that raged all the way around the Mediterranean for four years and left Caesar as the de facto ruler of the Roman Republic up until an unfortunate accident in the senate where he fell into knives 23 times. He had it coming. This idea of attacking his enemy before they have a chance to attack you only to have your enemy slip away is a notable parallel.

Gaius Octavius had been named as Caesar’s successor in his will and would go on to become the first proper Roman Emperor. He used the newfound power from his great-uncle’s death to form a new three person alliance (him, Lepidus, and Mark Antony) and hunt down Julius Caesar’s assassins and rake in treasure while cementing their political power. Surprise surprise though because Caesar Augustus (the name given Gaius Octavius after he became the Emperor) managed to politically, militarily, and psychologically out maneuver his two fellow rulers and within seven years he had metaphorically put Lepidus in the ground and literally put Mark Antony in the ground. Now, while in life Julius Caesar made a lot of moves to imply that he wanted to be the king of Rome, not least of which was modeling himself as descended from the gods and enshrining himself alongside them as equals. Augustus doubled down on this by starting a massive and complex propaganda machine to make himself equally divine, even within his own lifetime and immediately afterwards.

Both of these men led the Romans into civil wars that ravaged the empire. Both of them committed acts of sacrilege in the ancient world to further their political games of revenge. Both of them lied, cheated, stole, killed, and manipulated to gain more power and remake the world to be what they wanted. They were geniuses who may have even had good intentions and put an end to a long period of political instability, but through blood and steel and no small part vengeance.

Now I would be remiss if I didn’t address the elephant in the room that is Homestuck. I will say that my adoration of The Locked Tomb series has sent me down innumerable rabbit holes. I have researched paper manufacturing, the magnetic forces of Jupiter, Catholic prayers, polygenic phenotyping, Ancient Greek and Roman poetry, national anthems of nations of the world, and the psychology of Among Us. But the rabbit hole that is the MS Paint Adventures Wiki is one too daunting for even me. But in any case, I have no doubt that these characters sharing a name is no coincidence.

Lastly, the use of a Hebrew and Latin name makes this fascinating marriage of opposites. To massively understate it, Romans and Christians did not get along for a long time. Obviously now, the Catholic Church is seated in Rome, but for a BIG portion of the early Christian ministry, the Romans were the ones who captured them and set them on fire or crucified them or other fun and exciting means of execution. More than that, an apostle to Jesus’ monotheistic peace-loving and merciful message being linked with two deified and bloody conquerors of Ancient Rome does create this interesting tension. This tension is something very interesting in modern Catholicism as well as the Locked Tomb’s Empire.

[mariacallous]

On March 11, Pramila Patten, the United Nations’ special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict, presented a report to the U.N. Security Council on her fact-finding mission to Israel and the Palestinian territories regarding the events of Oct. 7, 2023. Her mission, she stated, “threw light on the indiscriminate and coordinated attacks by Hamas and other armed groups against multiple military and civilian targets, aimed to kill, to inflict suffering and abduct the maximum number possible of men, women, and children—soldiers and civilians alike—in the minimum possible amount of time.”

According to the report, Patten and her team “conducted interviews according to UN standards and methodology, with a total of 34 interviewees, including with survivors and witnesses of the 7 October attacks, released hostages, first responders, health and service providers and others.” Further interviews were conducted with the families of hostages still held in captivity. Patten’s team also met with civil society organizations, went to a military base where bodies of those killed during the attack were brought for identification and release to families, and examined four locations in the Gaza periphery where attacks took place.

Based on this, Patten said in her remarks to the Security Council that her team had found “clear and convincing information” of “a catalogue of the most extreme and inhumane forms of killing, torture and other horrors” and other violations that had occurred, including “sexual violence, abduction of hostages and corpses, the public display of captives, both dead and alive, the mutilation of corpses, including decapitation and desecration of bodies as well as the looting and destruction of civilian property.”

Patten’s report joins an earlier statement made by U.N. human rights experts Alice Edwards and Morris Tidball-Binz that was also sent to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, calling for full accountability for the multitude of alleged crimes committed against civilians in Israel during the Oct. 7 attacks. It also corroborates other reports, most recently by the Association for Rape Crisis Centers in Israel as well as by the New York Times, Washington Post, Human Rights Watch, BBC, and others, regarding allegations of rape and ongoing sexual abuse of the hostages held in Gaza.

In late March, the New York Times published the first survivor testimony of an alleged sexual assault experienced by an Israeli hostage in Gaza. Amit Soussana, a 40-year-old Israeli lawyer held hostage in Gaza, recalled being chained to a bed and fondled by a guard who constantly inquired about the timing of her period. Two weeks after her abduction, she told the Times, she was beaten and groped while naked and held at gunpoint, and the guard, “with the gun pointed at me, forced me to commit a sexual act on him.”

The Israeli government and some Israeli officials, including IDF officers and members of the community volunteer organization ZAKA (the Hebrew acronym for Disaster Victim Identification, Extraction, and Rescue), have also issued statements and made allegations of sexual abuse by Hamas. However, some of that information has been proved to be false, including reports of alleged atrocities that actually never happened. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated and recirculated these tales and the veracity of an earlier New York Times report based on an Israeli soldier’s allegations has since been called into question by the paper’s own reporters.

However, the fact that the Israeli government has disseminated some disinformation about the events of Oct. 7 or misused the suffering of the victims and the hostages for its own purposes does not render all allegations made by Israeli victims and by other sources false.

Many of the acts described in reports by the U.N., rights groups, and media outlets may constitute war crimes, as defined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and subsequent protocols, and crimes against humanity, as defined by the 1998 Rome Statute. In addition, international law forbids the taking of hostages during an armed conflict, as defined by the International Committee of the Red Cross. A war crime is a war crime, and both sides should be held accountable for the crimes and human rights violations they have committed.

More than six months after Oct. 7, some media organizations and international groups remain unconvinced that any sexual violence actually occurred that day. Others issue general statements without specific reference to Hamas and Israel, or provide a reluctant acknowledgement that minimizes the scope and severity of the sexual abuse; others ignore or give only passing reference to the plight of the estimated 134 hostages still held in Gaza, at least 19 of whom are women and children, or issue general statements without specific references to Israel and Hamas.

The Intercept published a scathing critique of the earlier New York Times report, noting that “[r]ape is not uncommon in war.” The Intercept article presented the reporting of the Times article as flawed, noting that “at every turn, when the New York Times reporters ran into obstacles confirming tips, they turned to anonymous Israeli officials or witnesses who’d already been interviewed repeatedly in the press. Months after setting off on their assignment, the reporters found themselves exactly where they had begun, relying overwhelmingly on the word of Israeli officials, soldiers, and Zaka workers to substantiate their claim that more than 30 bodies of women and girls were discovered with signs of sexual abuse.” The Intercept implied that the rapes and abuse perpetrated against Israelis were not a systematic or deliberate act of war.

Elsewhere, Guardian columnist Owen Jones claimed on his YouTube channel that the video he watched, put together by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from Hamas’s own bodycam footage as well as dashboard and mobile phone footage, provided “no evidence” of war crimes.

More recently, articles in both the Grayzone and Mondoweiss analyze Patten’s report and claim, in the words of the latter, that she actually provided “no evidence of systematic rape.” The Grayzone also published a transcript of a discussion between Max Blumenthal and Chris Hedges in which they agree that Israel created a “shock-and-awe campaign of misinformation” in order to create “political space for its brutal assault on Gaza.” Other essays in the Middle East Eye and Zeteo focus primarily on the plight of women in Gaza, glossing over or failing to mention the plight of the Israeli women held hostage. Responses by certain women’s institutions at the United Nations and other feminist groups have also been muted.

On its website, U.N. Women refers to itself as “the global champion for gender equality,” but it has done little to seek justice for murdered Israeli women or resolve the plight of the hostages. In late November, U.N. Women Executive Director Sima Bahous did indeed brief U.N. Security Council members of the “dire situation of women in Gaza and the hostages.” And on Jan. 19, Bahous issued a statement saying, “I call again for accountability for all those affected by the 7 October attacks.” Bahous also condemned “the unparalleled destruction rained on the people of Gaza” along with a call for the release of the hostages.

But the response of U.N. Women as an organization has been less forthcoming. In late November, U.N. Women posted a condemnation of the “brutal attacks by Hamas on Israel on 7 October,” then replaced it with a statement that dropped the condemnation of the attacks and mention of Hamas, while calling for the release of the hostages. That latter statement was later deleted. Since then, its statements have condemned the deaths of Palestinian women in Gaza without any mention of the Israeli victims or the hostages remaining in Gaza, despite the testimony by released hostage Soussana in the New York Times and Israeli media.

Foreign officials and some advocacy organizations have been similarly equivocal. Interviewed on CNN in January, U.S. House Rep. Pramila Jayapal stated that while rape was “horrific,” it “happens in war situations. Terrorist organizations like Hamas obviously are using these as tools. However, I think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians.” (She later issued a statement unequivocally condemning “Hamas’ use of rape and sexual violence as an act of war.”)

In late March, a group of feminists wrote an open letter addressing the Israeli and U.S. governments, claiming that the Israeli government has “chosen to weaponize the issue of sexual violence for political outcome” to shield the IDF’s operations in Gaza amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

In the eyes of many Israeli women, these institutions and organizations have failed to advocate for Israeli victims of sexual violence and for the safety of the remaining hostages—an abdication of their responsibility to protect the lives of all women everywhere. Their inability to simultaneously condemn the gender-based crimes committed by Hamas and the rampant death and destruction caused by Israel in Gaza raises disturbing questions about their understanding of, and commitment to, their mission—and their future relevance.

The downplaying of sexual violence by Hamas is all the more perplexing given the amount of disturbing material already in the public domain. Some of what is known about the gender-based crimes on Oct. 7 comes from testimonies of survivors, the desperate text messages that the victims sent to their families, and recovered cellphones and cameras. And some was provided by journalists or by the attackers themselves, some of whom broadcast their gruesome acts to entire world in real time.

These images include the picture of Naama Levy, bloodied and bruised, as she was loaded onto a Hamas vehicle; the image of terrified Noa Argamani as she was kidnapped to be brought to Gaza; and the photo of Shani Louk, whose mostly naked, splayed body was driven around Gaza on the back of a pickup truck. It is unknown if Louk was dead or alive in the photo; she was reported dead nearly a month later when IDF troops operating in Gaza identified parts of her body. That photo was the first featured in the winning gallery of the team category of Pictures of the Year competition run by the Missouri School of Journalism.

“This has been one of the most documented atrocities in history,” said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari of Bar Ilan University, an expert in international women’s law who served three terms on the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. The denial of the crimes against women constitutes, she said, “a betrayal of everything that these feminist organizations claim to stand for.”

There are several explanations for why previously respected women’s rights organizations might refuse to publicly admit that Hamas is capable of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, or gloss over these crimes.

Some observers, such the ad hoc group Me Too Unless You’re a Jew, insist that antisemitism is at the heart of the anti-Israel bias. Some academics, such as prominent Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and historian Aviad Kleinberg of Tel Aviv University, argue that academics and human rights organizations—including the U.N.—have been and part of a far broader alliance between religious Islam and what Illouz refers to as the “‘post-colonial’ left” that has divided the world into victims and perpetrators, leading to a simplistic and distorted view of morality, according to which Palestinians can do no wrong—a view that Hamas has aggressively promoted.

One source—who previously held a high-ranking position at U.N. Women and is still employed by the United Nations, and therefore spoke to Foreign Policy on the condition of anonymity—pointed to bureaucratic and logistical issues as the cause of this disparity, rather than antisemitism or politicization. This source noted that unlike the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, the United States, and other developed Western countries are not considered “program areas for U.N. Women. … As a result, the U.N., a cumbersome, bureaucratic organization bound by all sorts of regulations and limitations, finds it difficult to even to really consider that Israel, or even any Israeli, might ever be a victim of the Palestinians.”

Furthermore, the source noted, Israel has often positioned itself as distant or even aloof from the U.N. and other international organizations. Indeed, Israel has long denigrated the U.N. and maintained that it is inherently hostile to Israel; as early as 1955, then-Prime Minister David Ben Gurion derisively used a made-up Hebrew rhyme, “Um-Shmum” to deny that the U.N. has any importance.

“This plays into an already-existing bias against Israel as an occupying country, and as a result, Israel may receive less understanding, compassion, or even attention from the U.N. and its affiliates,” the U.N. source said.

Based on her familiarity with the United Nations, Halperin-Kaddari—the international women’s law expert—also pointed to procedures and other limitations as a difficulty. But she noted that in comparison with other situations, such as the sexual violence in Foca, Bosnia, in 1992—during which large numbers of Muslims and Croats were tortured, disappeared, raped, or executed, and women were transferred to so-called rape camps—the responses of by U.N. Women and similar organizations has been “appalling slow and terribly inadequate.”

Daphna Hacker, a professor at Tel Aviv University’s faculties of law and gender studies and Israel’s current member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, acknowledged that the evidence from Oct. 7 may not meet the “usual criterion” of U.N. and other international investigations.

“The intensity and manner in which these crimes were perpetrated is unprecedented,” Hacker said. “Hamas murdered or kidnapped most of their victims; the hostages have not been released and, as feminist researchers, we know that if there are surviving eyewitnesses or survivors, they may not come forward for many years, if ever. But the testimony that we do have is horrific.”

Tal Hochman, the director-general of the Israel Women’s Network, Israel’s foremost feminist advocacy organization, also acknowledged that there are numerous difficulties surrounding the evidence. She said that ZAKA, the nongovernmental rescue and recovery organization tasked by the government to recover the bodies after the Oct. 7 attacks, did not prioritize forensic examinations.

“ZAKA gave priority to identifying the bodies and bringing them to rapid burial, which is a holy commandment in Judaism,” Hochman said. “We do not have all of the evidence that we could have had, but I also understand the families’ pain and need for burial and closure.”

In the days following the attack, Hochman added, she volunteered at the Shura military base, the forensic collection center and morgue to which bodies from the Oct. 7 attack were brought. “We did not have enough refrigerators to perform complete forensic examinations of all of the bodies,” she said.

“To honor these women, the U.N. and other organizations cannot hide behind protocols and logistics,” Hacker said. “The organizations must adapt to the reality that the victims suffered, and the hostages continue to suffer, in order to bring them the justice they deserve.”

Orit Sulitzeanu, the director of the Association for Rape Crisis Centers in Israel—which published the first comprehensive report regarding the attacks­—noted that the report produced by her organization “meets the highest standards of reporting. It is offensive that are findings are dismissed because of misuse by some Israeli individuals or officials. We are a nongovernmental agency—our report should be judged on its merits as an investigative report.”

Furthermore, she commented on the recent U.N. report: “What about the report by Patten? It is ludicrous to dismiss her report as if she were part of Israeli hasbara.”

Weaponizing the abuse of women and conflict-related sexual crimes to promote other agendas—whether the Israeli government’s or its opponents’—is a deliberate victimization of women and a betrayal of all women, everywhere.

Accusations of sexual-based war crimes must be investigated, no matter who the victim and the alleged perpetrator are. Sexual violence is abhorrent, no matter on which side of the border between Israel and Gaza the victims are and no matter if the victims are Israeli or Palestinian. Justifying or excusing the crimes of Oct. 7 as if they were acts of liberation and resistance implies that Israeli women are in some way complicit in their victimization, or perhaps deserved their fate, because they are citizens of an occupying power.

A position paper published in early December by a coalition of six Arab women’s organizations in Israel takes a more morally upstanding position. The coalition members clearly state that they do not question the reports of sexual assaults against Israeli women and “call upon the women [and] feminist activists … to boldly condemn all violations, including killings, demolitions, and displacements occurring in the relentless war against the Palestinian people, particularly affecting women and children in Gaza. … Our feminist values dictate that we cannot accept any excuses for violating human rights.”

In some future, we in this region will struggle to rebuild and create new societies predicated on freedom, security, and opportunity for all. To do so, we must learn to hold multiple, even contradictory, truths—and to feel pain for ourselves and our enemies simultaneously.

That means recognizing the anguish of the many thousands of women and children in Gaza who have been traumatized by the appalling deprivation, chaos, violence, and death at the hands of the IDF and the Israeli government and—at the same time—demanding justice for all of Hamas’s victims.

Justice is meant to be universal and indivisible. By minimizing the dehumanization of Israeli women and the hostages still in Gaza, many publications and organizations have undermined this crucial, seemingly self-evident axiom. And by denying the universalism of war crimes and crimes against humanity, they have abdicated their basic responsibility.

Instead of assuming positions of moral selectivity, U.N. institutions and all organizations and publications dedicated to human rights can and must apply their prestige, influence, and extensive funding to advocate for all women, investigate all credible allegations, bring all perpetrators to justice before an international court, and provide support for all victims.

[kindheart525]

Dottieverse Fun Facts

Just a list of random fun facts about the Dottieverse cast! I've done separate posts on some of these tidbits but I wanted to put all the info in one place and add some bits that might not warrant posts on their own

I’ll keep editing this post as I come up with more fun facts! This isn’t complete by any means so keep checking back for more. Please feel free to suggest some too and maybe they’ll be added to the list!

Dottie Dompler

Her favorite drink is boba tea

Writes film reviews on Letterboxd in her free time

Doesn’t remember what she studied in college as she spent most of her time there picking up dudes

Keeps two diaries: One for general thoughts and feelings and another exclusively for documenting her love life in detail

Has an OnlyFans

Actually has some ex-girlfriends (one or two from experimenting in college and a few trans lady exes who presented as male when she dated them)

Kip Pimling

Is left-handed

Loves Chappell Roan and other similar artists

Used to do musical theater in middle school and still loves to do karaoke

Likes making glittery sensory ASMR videos

Started seeing a therapist as an angsty preteen and still goes regularly for mental health upkeep

Was a VERY colicky baby

Sucked her thumb to self-soothe until she was 5 years old

Now she fidgets with her hair when stressed

She and Dottie dressed up for the Barbie movie 30th anniversary theater re-release (in 2053)

Got her B.A. in psychology fully online so she could stay in her hometown and intern for Smiling Friends

Whenever someone is bigoted or just plain mean in her presence she donates to corresponding charities in their name (ex: meeting a queerphobe and donating to an LGBTQ organization for them)

Ell Pimling

Giorno’s nickname for her is “Slowpoke”

Fucking horrible at driving; always goes way over the speed limit

Owns a bulldog named Beef in her young adulthood

When she wants to talk to a tall person she just climbs them

Her taste in women overlaps with Giorno's so they often bond by gushing over attractive female athletes together

Nee Pimling

Has a small, persistent bruise on his bicep where he pinches himself every time his conscience “acts up”

Dur Pimling

Secretly skilled in graphic design; all of the advertisements for his and Nee’s laundromat were made by him

Blep Simpson

Multilingual in Wingon, Latin, American Sign Language, Hebrew, and English (which she never speaks but can understand)

Gola Simpson

Talks with Allan’s inflection and pronunciation style

Wore a wig as a teenager out of insecurity

Giorno Simpson

Ell’s nickname for him is “Twiggy”

His social media is mostly full of videos of him doing various workouts but he also has a "making fun of short people" series which has featured Suzy, Eep, Chad, and Ell

Secretly very good at singing but he isn’t super open about it

Glorp Simpson

Suzy Simpson

Owns a vast collection of hats to wear for every occasion

Is a horse girl; she owns a little pony named Rapunzel with a long mane that matches hers

Really wants to do coordinated Halloween costumes with Eep, but since Eep will never go out with her she does it with her niece Royal instead

Eep Simpson

Has a collection of hair bows much like Suzy’s hat collection; they share a literal “hats and bows” closet

Very prone to anxiety-induced stomachaches

Terrified of Halloween

Chad Simpson

Enjoys collecting fancy watches, and also has some silly kid ones from his sisters

Likes horses like Suzy does, but he doesn't like dirt so he bonds with her over sharing facts and watching races rather than riding them

Crawdad Crustacean

Has a southern accent that comes and goes

Chucky Dompler II

His Zodiac sign is Cancer (born in July)

Was born a full two weeks past his due date

Very skilled in Dungeons and Dragons

Pim “Beef” Pimling-Simpson II

Lost his legs from getting them tangled in holiday lights and falling down the stairs

When strangers in public ask him why he doesn’t have legs, he makes up different horrible stories about how he lost them to make them regret asking

Royal Simpson-Crustacean

Writes Y/N self-insert fanfiction

[redbecomesher]

GRACE UPON GRACE E:10

The Danger Of Redefining Faith

Hi y’all today we are going to talk about a subject that’s been placed on my heart to speak about. There’s so many “Christian’s” who redefine Gods word (Bible), and excuse their sins but maybe don’t follow the other ones, but we shouldn’t be doing this, we can’t make sin a lifestyle. This subject may be ‘controversial’ in today’s world, but I am saying all this in a kind and loving manner. The truth is Christianity is not about picking and choosing what to believe. It’s about surrendering fully to Christ. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). True faith isn’t just believing God exists - it’s obeying Him (James 2:17). We are going to talk about 1. Following Christ means obedience, not just belief 2. Gods word is unchanging 3. Many today are living a false Christianity 4. Love means telling the truth 5. Are you truly following Christ?

Following Christ Means Obedience, Not Just Belief:

Many today call themselves Christian’s but live in ways that contradict God’s word. Some practice witchcraft while claiming to follow Christ. Others say faith is just about believing, not obedience. Many reject parts of the Bible that don’t align with their desires, even claiming that LGBTQ lifestyles are compatible with Christianity. But true Christianity isn’t about picking what feels right - it’s about surrendering to Christ completely. The modern world has normalised everything against God, like lust, witchcraft and homosexuality. God calls us to follow His commandments and love Him fully with our actions, He also lets us know not to live for the world but Him:)

God’s Word Is Unchanging:

Some say that certain Bible teachings are “outdated” or no longer apply. But God does not change (Hebrews 13:8), and neither does His word:

• The Bible condemns witchcraft:

(Deuteronomy 18:10-12, Galatians 5:19-21). Calling it “harmless” or “self-empowering” doesn’t make it any less sinful. Witchcraft is demotic (tarot cards, crystals and astrology) because it seeks power and knowledge from sources other than God. It opens the door to demonic forces and is a form of idolatry!

• Faith without obedience is dead:

(James 2:19-20). Even demons believe in God - that doesn’t mean they follow Him. I feel like I’m always seeing celebrities say they are Christian but then post inappropriate selfies afterwards posting a Bible verse. In no way am I judging, I just want everyone to be closer to Jesus and live by Him<3 Faith without work is dead.

• Homosexuality and gender confusion are against God’s design:

(Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10). God made us male and female on purpose (Genesis 1:27). God doesn’t make mistakes, people do. You can’t say you trust God, if you don’t even trust he made you the right gender or sexuality, our gender isn’t a mistake or a feeling - it’s a God-given identity. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 lists homosexuality among the sins that keep people from inheriting the Kingdom of God.

We don’t get to rewrite God’s commands to fit culture. Truth remains truth, no matter how many people reject it.

Many Today Are Living A False Christianity:

We are warned in the Bible that many will claim to follow Christ while actually rejecting Him: “They profess to know God, but they deny Him by their work” (Titus 1:16). Many today create their own versions of Christianity - one that doesn’t require repentance, doesn’t confront sin, and only preaches love without holiness. But Jesus Himself said “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father” (Matthew 7:21). True faith isn’t about labelling yourself as a Christian - it’s about actually following Christ. Like our cute dogs show us, love is from actions not words. We can’t say we have a relationship with God if we never open our Bible or pray to Him.

Love Means Telling The Truth:

Some argue, ‘But God loves everyone.” That’s true! But real love doesn’t affirm sin - it calls for repentance. Jesus didn’t tell sinners “Do whatever makes you happy.” He said, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). If we truly love others, we will lead them to the truth, not let them walk toward destruction (Ezekiel 3:18-19). It’s not hateful to speak biblical truth - it’s loving to help people turn back to God. It’s more selfish to keep quiet when you see those living in sin, instead of telling them about Christ and how this sin is hurting them.

Are You Truly Following Christ?:

It’s easy to claim Christianity, but Jesus said the path to life is narrow and few will find it (Matthew 7:13-14). Following Christ means obeying Him, even when it’s hard. So ask yourself: “Am I truly living for Christ, or just the version of Him that fits my lifestyle”, because real faith means surrender, not compromise. Get rid of any sinful things in your life like secular music, immodest clothing, lust, lgbtq+ lifestyle, and witchcraft etc. It can be hard to get rid of sin, so lean on God in prayer to help you through sin, trust me, you’ll have a distaste for the same sins you use to enjoy!

I hope y’all enjoyed this subject and learnt some new information. Lean on God for your struggles with sin! Remember God loves and wants to hear from you, pray/read your Bible today and God bless till next time. 🤍

HEBREWS 13:8-

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

JAMES 1:22-

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-11

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God.”

ACTS 3:19-

“Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out.”

[edenfenixblogs]

Attention Goy Friends!

I was recently asked by another goy friend on Facebook to explain something. And I thought I’d share it here for people who are not in the know.

This person wanted to know why we get SO upset when synagogues are defaced. It wasn’t like they were telling me they didn’t understand why we got upset at all. But they didn’t seem to understand where the depth of feeling came from, especially when there is actual genocide happening to Palestinians. This is a good person acting in good faith and is working on holding two truths at once, so I answered. Here’s what I told them:

First of all, of course, we can fight for Palestinian liberation shoulder to shoulder and feel as awful as you do about it! I hate this genocidal Likud party and their deranged evil leader just like anyone else would. This does not mean we don’t also carry our own pain. It doesn’t mute the pain we carry for Palestinians. We just feel EVEN WORSE on top of that.

Second, with regard to synagogues and other places of Jewish social gathering—I think those of us living in Christian-majority nations all know a fair bit about Christian history just by way of cultural exchange. But if you are not aware—The Protestant split in Europe led to the translation of Church services and texts into English/the primary spoken languages of the various Western European nations worshipping within various Jesus-centric religions. This was a huge and important milestone for poor and lower class people who had every right to participate equally and fully in their religion and could now understand the scriptures and services.

However, to this day, shul is conducted in Hebrew. Prayers are sung in Hebrew. In every Jewish synagogue regardless of denomination. Sure, there are often parts in the common tongue of the area too, but the prayers themselves are still in Hebrew. Usually the same melodies or selection of melodies too. And it’s not because we are some elitist group, as some might claim.

It’s because, even in diaspora, I can go to any Jewish community in the entire world. I may not speak the common tongue of whatever place I end up. But I can go there, listen for the sound of Jewish prayer. If I have nothing to my name and no money or food or home or safety I can look for some Hebrew on a door or a Jewish star and listen for someone singing Oseh Shalom or the Shema Yisrael or the V’ahavta in the same melody that I learned it growing up. And I will have found safety. I will have found community. I will have found people who understand me.

And the part of this that I think most goyim don’t understand is that because of our long history with Christianity there is statistically a more than 50% chance that I or other members of my generation will actually NEED to employ that Jewish community as a resource in the exact circumstance I described above. Because we become victims of genocide within 2-3 generation intervals like clockwork for the last 2000 years.

When a synagogue is attacked in a nation that allows antisemitic hatred to foment unchecked it is such a brutal emotional blow. Because every synagogue destroyed is a safe place for Jews that is no longer safe. Not for the people who go there regularly. And certainly not for the people who may need to go there—who will VERY LIKELY need to go there. And with each space eliminated, we are sent further into diaspora.

[dendrofiles]

requesting 💯, 🖊️, & 😊 for the ask meme! :)

hiiii!!! yippee!!! once again sorry for taking forever to answer these it has been a Long Fucking Day

💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.

niko- his favorite musician is sanah, and his favorite song of hers is szary świat. his first name, nikolaj, is not actually polish, but slovenian, and this is because his maternal grandmother was slovenian. she was the only good part of niko's childhood pre-orphanage. niko is very awful at video games (which he learned through spending tons of time with robin) but he's surprisingly incredible at tetris

callie- this is already known kind of, but callie is 5 foot nothing and is therefore short. when she's next to sydney or whitney the height difference is comical. her natural hair color is black but she died it crimson to be more dramatic. callie has a secret love for poetry, and her favorite poet is alda merini because she was her mom's favorite. but callie feels a bit guilty because she can only read the english translations

augustine- hinted at this in a recent percy post, but augustine is quite good at playing the piano. he speaks quite a few languages due to Angel Powers- so his brain has just kind of been injected with knowledge of ancient greek, latin, aramaic, and hebrew. augustine st. ambrose is his full name, he chose his last name as well so now his name has TWO saints in it. also, bonus fact because i'm in an augie mood, i guess- augustine's true form has approximately nine eyes and six wings. when he's not in true form the only remnant of this are his eyes, which are a deep, sparkly cobalt and have been accused of glowing in the dark

percy- he cannot eat dairy or gluten or else he feels really sick. his favorite song is i don't love you by mcr, but he also likes vocaloid, and he occasionally listens to sabrina carpenter, but you didn’t hear that from him. his first reaction upon seeing eden’s cabin for the first time was pretty much “bitch you live like this???” percy doesn’t mind housework and doing housewifey things, but he will always grumble while he’s doing it. like he’ll embroider pillows and mutter something at eden about how he can’t believe eden still has these boring ass pillows

🖊️ BALLPOINT PEN — does your oc have any tattoos? do they want any (more) tattoos?

callie- so none of my pcs really have tattoos except for callie who has a womb tattoo. she didn't even get it from the mirror on the blood moon. she went to the tattoo parlor and PAID for this shit. such a freak

niko- i mean older niko has a farm brand??? if that counts??

clem- BONUS!!! he has a little tattoo on his upper arm of a snake curled into a heart. hmm wonder what that could possibly mean

😊 SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES — what are your oc's career/general life desires? what do they want to get the most out of life?

niko- man. niko just wants a moment free from the torment. he is TIRED. he just wants a quiet life where nobody but the people he loves know him. he wants the farm to stay profitable forever, and he also wants remy to fucking die but he'll never say that out loud. he also wants wren to never leave him

callie- she wants to go to college so she can keep her studies going. she wants to be able to quit working at the brothel. she wants to make sydney and whitney throuple up so then they can spend forever together and all take care of each other. she wants an easy solution to the Kylar Problem

augustine- he wants to overthrow the children of auriga. that’s the goal that has been decided for him. in his heart, though, augustine just wants to spend the rest of his life with sydney, study ancient languages, and grow in his faith.

percy- man i dont even know. he just wants a fucking break from it all. can he get a fucking break from it all. (he likes his life and doesn't want anything to change, but he hopes that he can take up some kind of creative pursuit/occupation in the future so he doesn't get bored. also wants to help augie kill avery)

[hebrewbyinbal]

Learning to speak Hebrew can feel like you're swimming against the current.

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But the reality is, you end up wasting far more of your precious time, energy, and even money on ineffective methods and irrelevant content.

Not having a supportive teacher to answer your questions and provide you feedback can leave you in a constant state of uncertainty about your progress.

Learning from an app or program that focuses on Hebrew that doesn’t apply to your daily life or interests means you’re not getting the practical use out of your efforts.

This leads to memorizing phrases you'll never actually need, preventing your confidence from growing.

And when you don't pivot from paths that are not working for you, you end up doubting your ability to ever get the language.

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By avoiding these common mistakes, you can transform your learning experience, save valuable time, and thrive in Hebrew.

You deserve to feel confident, supported, and successful in your Hebrew learning journey.

Choose a proven path and watch your abilities soar 💪💙

[kitkatcabbit]

Venting about my own stupid brain after the cut

I’m trying to learn Korean. I’m not doing a very good job of learning Korean. There’s a number of reasons why (difficulty still in telling some of the vowels apart, recognizing words whole instead of reading them phonetically which means I forget what the letters sound like, which means I can’t read new words, etc), but of the reasons I’m having trouble, the ones that are the most prevalent are tied back to the gifted child problem. I never really learned how to study, because I didn’t have to learn how to study. I crammed before quizzes or tests, held the information just as long as necessary, and then poof, it was gone as soon as I didn’t need it anymore.

I’m also discovering I have inherent anxiety about being bad at things, even things that it’s perfectly reasonable for me to be bad at (like a new skill). I got so used to tying my worth/identity to how immediately good at things I was, that if I’m not immediately good at a thing, I just give up, because what’s the point? Just the idea of trying to speak Korean out loud- even in a room where I’m alone, even something simple- has me crying, because it’s like an ingrained response to not letting myself do something where there’s even a remote chance I’ll get it wrong. Trying to get myself to practice saying something out loud is like trying to get myself to put my hand on an active stove burner- technically, yeah I can do it, but it’s like my body/brain won’t let me out of a fucked-up sense of self-defense/preservation.

I don’t know how to get past it, I don’t know how to learn how to learn, how to learn to be okay with being bad at things without just giving up when it’s uncomfortable. If there was some way to know for certain that I had the capacity to learn it, it might be easier, but without actually trying to do it, there’s just no way to know, and the idea of trying to do it and then failing hurts enough it’s making it near impossible to try in the first place.

I’m frustrated. I don’t want to just give up, because that feels like failure, too, and so I’m in a place where no matter what I do, I feel like I’m failing. If I just stop trying, that’s failure. If I try and discover that no, I can’t actually learn it, that’s failure, too, and wasted time/energy on top of it. And sure, there’s the third option, the one where I can do it, but of course my brain doesn’t let that one enter the possibility list at all, because learning a second language and being able to retain it isn’t a thing I’ve ever managed to do before. I’ve had to try learning two other languages before (Hebrew and Spanish), and wasn’t especially good at managing either beyond what I absolutely had to. I was hoping that trying to learn a language I wanted to learn, as opposed to one I was being forced to learn/study would make a difference, but my brain doesn’t seem to read it any differently and I hate that I don’t know how to get around it.

Part of it is likely figuring out the way I learn best, but I have no idea what that is, since I feel like I don’t know how to learn things in the first place (or at least not things that don’t have a physical/hands-on component). I’m trying duolingo right now, but I’m at an impasse because I’ve figured out it’s not really working for me, but I also don’t want to just stop, because I worry if I do then I won’t continue with anything, which again equals failure. I downloaded Rocket Korean to try, but as soon as I got to the first point in the lesson where it wanted me to try to say something out loud, I ended up just closing the program in tears. For the same reason, I’m loathe to take an actual course, even if it would be helpful, because I can’t imagine trying to do it without having a meltdown every single class, or again, just proving I can’t actually do it.

I wish my brain would let me see an option other than just the different ways I can fail. I wish I’d known earlier that I had ADHD and needed better support in figuring out how to learn efficiently/correctly. I wish a lot of things, but don’t know how to make any of the things I have the potential to change actually change. How do you get a brain that survives on getting all the little scraps of dopamine it can find focus/work on a thing without the guarantee of reward? How do I get a brain that seems intent on only immediate gratification to work on a thing that might eventually give that but with no guarantee? Because I haven’t figured that out yet, and I have a feeling that until I can, I’m just fucked, and that feeling just sucks (all this on top of it feeling incredibly arrogant to say something like ‘I don’t know how to be bad at things’, because that feels shitty, too).