#life became a spectator sport.

[jamespaderamericanpsychongod]

Alex Turner really made the coolest song ever and no one gives a fuck

[leclucklerc]

Hard Carry CL16 - 02. Down Under

Pairings: Charles Leclerc x driver!reader

Summary: Conflict arises as a hotshot rookie decided that the current world champion is the next opponent to beat.

Word Count: 5.3k

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Y/n l/n is a superstar inside and outside of Formula One.

It's the way she smiles and crinkled eyes. It's the way she handle interviews with pr trained answers and cheeky quips here and there. It's the way that she always dress to impress, catching everyone attention, be it on the grid or even in fashion week.

It's the way she made winning looks so easy. How she made making into the podium is just a regular Sunday for her. How she would gave the spectators a race that can be remembered by them for the rest of their life.

By the time she finished up her first season, people had called her a superstar in the making. Awed by the sheer talent and grit that she seemed to have for the sport. Finishing third in the standings of 2012 Formula One season, people have to admit that they’re entering a new era in Formula One.

When she finished her second season in Formula One, she’s a certified superstar, evident from the driver championship that she had won that year. When she finished her third season in 2014, she became a legend as she won the driver championship for two straight times. 

It’s almost as if everyone forgets all the slurs and bad things that they had called the female just a few years prior. As if, all of the negative press and criticism being directed towards her are nothing but an old news.

Maybe it’s because she finally proven herself that she can conquer the world of motorsport with her talent. Or maybe it’s just because people found more exciting things to talked and shit about. Who knows? Y/n certainly don’t.

Though, that doesn’t mean that the female forgets all the shitty things that happened to her when she first entered Formula One.

“She’s going to fuck half the grid,” said one commentator, ignoring the fact that the female is seventeen years old, and most drivers are in their mid to late twenties. “She’s going to ruin the sport.”

“A fucking barbie,” said another one. “That’s what she is.”

There are more. More things being said that’s downright horrifying and disgusting. She knows that no one cares about her age, that one of the ugly consequences of her entering a male dominated sport as a girl is the sexualization that she will eventually receive. But still, hearing all these things is gross beyond words.

Her sex life seems to be a favorite topic of them. Talks about she’s dating or fucking who, how she is seen talking with one driver and the next day a news station will say that she’s fucking him and ruining his family. Talks about her being a slut who parties too hard and a raging alcoholic for drinking alcohols during her downtime.

As if, her life is nothing, but a trainwreck of a circus show for them to watch and laughed upon.

It was during that horrible first season when y/n realized, that to be a champion you need to be an overall asshole.

A sick and twisted personality of hers that she always kept under her bright smiles and friendly front. It’s more to always have that competitiveness – on the track or off the track. To always have that fire and determination to always be the best. To actually believe and have the confidence to say that yes, I am the best driver in the grid. Yes, I make no mistake.

Be the best or be nothing. Show the world your worth or you will be worthless. The black and white view that you have to be so fucking successful or be nothing at all.

(It took y/n awhile to recognize that.)

The first time she realized it was when she won her first race in China. It was a close race, with her almost hitting a Mercedes and her own teammate. Back then – way too drowned in the euphoria of winning her first race – she doesn’t realize what that means to the people around her. Mainly, to other drivers on the grid.

There are a lot of drivers that came from a different time period. A period where Formula One has a rigid structure and strict unseen rules. For them, who had lives in that time period, y/n arrival and all the changes that she had brought, looks like a threat for them. A challenger who appeared to challenge their authority.

“If you drive that Porsche, anyone can win.”

“I don’t get it, she drives dangerously. She should’ve received a penalty for that.”

“I just don’t understand what the hell FIA is thinking! I know they’re all about diversity and inclusivity lately but-“

Y/n turned off the tv in front of her, face blank.

The phrase ‘never meet your heroes’ rang true inside of her head. Because hearing all of those things from her own childhood heroes is a bit tragic beyond doubt.

After all, these men are the people she had looked up to. They’re the reason why she wants to race in Formula One. They’re the reason why she have such a deep love for motorsport and why she’s trying her hardest to show all of them her capabilities.

Knowing the horrible and degrading things they called her should saddened her.

Though, instead, she doesn’t feel anything.

For a moment, she felt empty, as she sat there inside of her empty hotel room. She could hear chatters from the hallway outside, no doubt from the Porsche team who’s staying in the same floor as her. Besides that, everything felt a bit empty. And silent.

She just sat there, staring at the dark screen of the television in front of her. The euphoria of her earlier win had left without any trace.

Maybe it's because that she had gotten used to it. That these kind of talks is nothing new for her and slowly - but surely - had become a part of their daily life.

But no one deserves to live like this. No one deserves to be judged just because of their gender. No one deserves to have their skills and talent to be dismissed just because they don't have an extra weight between their legs.

Y/n, doesn't deserve this.

And in one second, that empty feeling was replaced by anger.

What right do they have to say things like that?

What right do they have to judge her life and talent like that?

Some never even won a race in their life! Or even get into the podium! Some even drive for shitty teams that have a brick of a car. A mid-tier driver that doesn’t have enough talent for the bigger teams. Now, just because they lost to a girl almost half their age, they think they have the right to talk shit to her?

So fucking funny. It almost made her laugh.

Barbie, slut, whore, the downfall for Formula One.

Barbie, slut, whore, the downfall for Formula One.

Honestly, it was frustrating that there are some older drivers that won’t accept their loss. It was more frustrating to hear all of their declarations that if they were also put inside y/n’s Porsche, they can drive better than her.

All that talks that questioned her ability just because of her age and gender. All of the talks that keep underestimating her over and over again.

Maybe that’s why she turned up like this, to have this kind of twisted and sick personality.

“Y/n,” started Herman as he introduced the young man besides him. She almost get a sense of déjà vu at the image. After all, this happened almost every year. Herman calling her to a meeting room just before the pre-season testing. Herman, introducing her to her newest teammate of the year.

Tall, blond, blue eyes. Probably some kid they picked off of F2 or other racing category randomly. She wonder how long this kid will last. How long, will it take for him to blow his gasket off.

“This is Henry Santos, your newest teammate,” said the older man as he gestured towards the male. He looked around y/n age and got starry eyed as he stared at y/n.

Typical, y/n almost scoffed out. It’s the same routine every year.

Almost immediately, she plastered a smile. It was so wide and so immediate. To the point it’s almost fake. “Hi,” she grinned. “Nice to meet you, I’m y/n l/n.”

Henry also nodded, excitement radiating off of him. “I know,” he said. “I’m a big fan.”

“That’s sweet,” she answered before turning her head towards Herman. “So, team briefing?”

Herman as well as other employee for Porsche immediately ushered them inside one of their meeting room in their motorhome. Talks about plans, the cars, and the upcoming season began as y/n listened to it attentively.

The same thing could be said to Henry as the kid could be seen writing a lot of things on his notebook, from his gaze, she could see how serious he is.

It’s the same look that she sees every year.

Kids being picked by Porsche for the position of their second seat. Kids, who was hoping to be able to stay in Porsche – one of Formula One top team, contenders for the championship ��� for more than one year.

Kids, who salivated at the thought of taking y/n’s seat.

She always blame her horrible experiences in the grid for this twisted personality of her. This kind of competitiveness, the urgency to always see as if they’re her rivals. The ability to unable see anyone as anything but competitors for her seat as uncertainty eats up her heart and whispered words that made her doubt everyone.

Sometimes, she felt a bit guilty, considering a lot of these kids, when they first entered Porsche, are good kids. Someone that just want to left their marks in Formula One.

But everyone wants to leave their marks in Formula One.

Everyone, wants to be the world champion.

Y/n included.

With three world titles under her name, it only made her hungrier for the title of the world champion. Some called her greedy, some called her over ambitious, but y/n thinks that’s just normal. When you taste the taste of winning once, there’s no going back. She's sure that Lewis and Sebastian shared the same feeling.

After that high of being the world champion, there is no way they want to lose it. The taste of winning is addicting after all. It's a dangerous drug to every driver. Once you taste it, you will always want more.

The same thing could be said for her teammates for the past few years.

If you’re in a Porsche, you will be part of the top team. You will fight for wins and podiums. It’s hard, to let it go, for your teammate. No matter how amazing they are.

She guess she has to be grateful that she’s the number one driver in the team.

The Formula One season started soon after that, kicking it off in Australia. Just like every year, Herman will force her to get along with her teammate, shoving them inside of the same private plane and made them do various media activities together.

Contrary to popular belief, she really doesn’t mind. Henry seems like a good kid. A bit nervous, a bit starry eyed. Nothing that she can’t handle. All of their media responsibilities ended for the day before it was time for them to do their driver briefing.

“You seem to get along with your new teammate,” called out a new voice, effectively catching her attention during her journey towards the briefing room. Henry had said that he needs to take some things back in their motorhome first, making y/n doing the journey alone.

“Maxie,” greeted y/n with a grin.

The so called ‘Maxie’ frowned.  “Don’t call me that,” he said. She could see an entourage of Red Bull employees all around him, no doubt protecting Christian’s very own prodigy from whatever danger he could have inside a guarded area.

Daniel couldn't be seen near him. It made her remember all the hushed talks about the Aussie contract renewal with Red Bull.

The woman laughed. “Aw, is little Maxie mad?” she said as she slung an arm around his shoulder – which is a feat itself considering he’s taller than her. “Don’t be that way to your best friend.”

“You’re not my best friend.”

“We so are!”

Years ago, back in 2015, when a kid called Max Verstappen joined Formula One, y/n felt that it was her duty to guide the lost little lamb. Or maybe it’s just her excuse to bully the new rookie.

You really can’t blame her for that. After all, she had been the youngest kid on the grid for years. She debuted when she was barely 17, she doesn’t even have a normal driving license. So that’s why when she first saw Helmut Marko newest golden boy, she thought that it was her time to be the reliable guy on the grid and helped Max to adjust to the Formula One lifestyle.

Which had not been going pretty well, considering Max is not the cutest kid on the planet – he broods, like a lot. Also Christian is basically in love with the kid. He’ll probably sell his own family for Max. 

She was not even surprised the slightest when it was announced that he and Kyvat will do a driver swap back in 2016. Controversial but interesting. She likes it.

“Ah, is that the Netflix crew?” said y/n as she waved towards the camera near them as they walked towards the briefing room. “Sorry babes, no camera during the briefings.”

“They know that,” muttered Max. “They just like following us around.”

“Ooo, spicy, stalker much, eh?”

A Red Bull employee actually chocked out a laugh at that and y/n count that as a win. The walk towards the briefing room is uneventful and was filled with small talks between her and Max. Some of the employees would chimed in, giving their own opinion or remarks but it’s pretty boring mostly.

It didn’t take long for them to arrive at the room.

Surprisingly, the first thing that she saw is a familiar pair of green eyes.

“Ah,” she said, stopping a bit in order to not bump into the male in front of her. “Charles,” greeted the woman good-naturedly. “You’re pretty early.”

Charles who came from the opposite direction, flushed a bit at that. He still got his pretty face which is nice. “I- uh, I don’t want to be late,” he replied. 

“A good mindset,” she said, giving him a thumbs up. “Anyway, have you met-“

“Charles,” greeted Max, with a nod of his head.

Charles too, gave him a nod. “Max.”

Both of them stared at each other silently at that, as if they're in the middle of sizing up each other before a battle. And maybe they are.

Y/n blinked. There seems an odd tension between the pair. “You guys know each other?” she asked, as the three of them enter the room. The female immediately sat at front.

Max, who decided to sit next to her, shrugged. “We met a lot during karting,” he answered, as if that explained the thick tension between the two of them.

“Yes,” replied Charles as he sat at her other side. “We often race against each other.”

“Ah,” she said. “Rivals huh? Neat.”

The door opened again at that, signalling the arrival of another set of drivers.

“Playing nice with the babies, y/n?” laughed Sebastian Vettel, clad in the familiar but still obnoxious red of Ferrari. She could see Kimi walking in alongside him, though just as usual, the man merely greeted her with a nod of his head before he take a seat behind them.

“For real,” she answered. “Gotta protect these kids hopes and dreams.”

“This is my fourth season,” argued Max back.

“Babies,” said y/n again.

Sebastian answered that with a laugh before he greeted Charles with small greeting and a pat on his back. It’s obvious that they had met beforehand. 

Slowly after that, more and more drivers appeared as low chatters began amongst themselves. Y/n was mainly occupied with both Charles and Max, though sometimes other drivers would greet her or chimed their opinion or two.

“Okay ladies and gentlemen,” started the man from FIA as he stood at the front of the room. “Let’s start the briefing. Is there any concern?”

And that officially starts the 2018 Formula One season.

The first time Charles ever saw y/n, was back in 2012.

It was the year where many things happened. He was entering almost the end of his karting days, looking for sponsors and teams who would want to support him for the higher categories. It was the year where he almost questioned his decision to be a racing driver. 

It was the year, where he realized that a future in Formula One is something that not everyone can reach.

To Charles back then, 2012 was one of the hardest year for his racing career. At the end of 2011, his father had confide to him that they’re running low on funds. That supporting his very expensive hobby will be harder and harder to do. It had stumped him, a realization about the harsh reality of the world.

Charles will be always grateful for Jules and all of his help after that. After all, without the man, he’s not sure if he will able to continue racing.

It was also the year where he found himself idolizing a new driver in Formula One. 

He first noticed her in a magazine. Charles doesn’t even know why did he picked that magazine all those years back. Maybe it was because she’s the only female in the stack of motorsport magazines. Maybe it was because she’s standing in front of a Formula One car, her face plastered on the cover with a headline that he will never forget.

"Youngest Race Winner in Formula One, y/n l/n," could be seen staring back at him. Behind that, in a font that is a bit smaller, the magazine too had added, 'The First Female Driver to ever won a Formula One Race.'

There’s something fierce and intimidating on her face as she stared back at her. It was as if she’s telling the world that she’s a winner. That she had arrived in the Formula One scene with one goal in mind.

To win.

Charles flipped open the magazine and began reading the article being dedicated to the female. About her passion, about her journey so far, and about her team. It is safe to say, that he was hooked ever since then.

As someone that wants to become a Formula One driver, it's only normal to follow the latest news regarding the sport. About the teams, or maybe the junior programs and opportunities that they had that can help his karting career. The arrival of Porsche back in 2012 was a really big moment for any fans of motorsport, so is y/n's arrival at the paddock.

For months, or even for the whole season, what people could talked about in the karting track is about the female. Oftentimes, she's an object of awe and reverent. As someone that started to break many boundaries that's being placed on the sport. Other times, she's an object of mockery and disapproval. Mostly due to her unconventional way to get her seat.

Honestly, back then, he also felt a bit apprehensive at that. After all, wouldn’t it be nice if he also came from a wealthy family that can just buy a whole Formula One team to support his dream? He wouldn’t have to work as hard as he is now, he wouldn’t have to desperately try to find sponsors or teams who would give him a bit of their time.

Maybe, if he came from a wealthy family, Arthur won’t have to give up karting.

That subject is still a sore spot for him. He knows that karting is an expensive sport, he knows that there is no way that his family can support two people karting at the same time. He knows, that he should be grateful that he’s the one being chosen for the investment.

But still, even after years, the guilt just won’t left him.

It’s the way he could see Arthur’s eyes dimmed a bit when he came for his races. It’s the way he would sometimes brought Charles’s old kart and use it in a track late at nights – thinking that no one will notice. His little brother is still as supportive as ever, cheering for him and wholly opened for discussions about his races, but Charles is not stupid. He can see how hurt Arthur was. 

And well, that served as more than enough motivation for him to race as hard as he can.

That reservation that he has for y/n l/n instantly disappeared as he watch the course of Formula One 2012 season. To him back then, it was really amazing for someone so young – only two years older than him – to be able to enter the pinnacle of racing and absolutely dominates the scene.

He watched the videos of her maiden win at the Chinese Grand Prix. He had obsessed over the overtakes that she did in Bahrain Grand Prix. That’s why, when the Monaco Grand Prix came around, he found himself watching it from the balcony of his friend apartment. 

The Grand Prix weekend had always brought a lot of fanfare. From the literal reconstruction of roads to the festive mood that people in Monaco seems to have, the Grand Prix weekend is something that Charles had always looked forward to.

“You seems more excited than usual,” said his friend, leaning forwards to his balcony railings. From their position here, he can almost heard the loud cheering from the grandstand or even the hustle and bustle that the Grand Prix seems to always brought to Monaco.

I’m going to race there one day, he thought, just like the years before. I’m going to be a Ferrari driver and I’m going to win the Monaco Grand Prix.

“Well,” started the Monegasque. “I have a new favourite driver.”

His friend raised his eyebrow. “Alonso?” he asked. “No, is it Felipe Massa?”

Charles shook his head. “Nah,” he denied. “L/n.”

At that, his friend stared at him. “Huh,” he finally let out. “It’s kind of weird not seeing you cheer for Ferrari.”

“I always cheer for Ferrari,” corrected Charles. “It’s just that I have another favourite driver on the grid.” 

“Mhm,” hummed his friend. “Not surprised though.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Cause you’re active in karting and all,” said the male. 

Charles blinked. “What do you even mean by that?”

“Like she’s a female and she’s one of the top driver,” explained his friend. “I just think that it would be obvious for guys like you – those who actively pursue racing as their career – to have some kind of crush to her.”

Crush?

And- and that stumped him.

It almost made him remember all of the things being said towards y/n. All the weird comments about her being a female or her attractive appearance. How she is more marketable and can play with the male fantasy and that it gave her an advantage compared to her other male counterparts.

How sexualized she is by everyone in the media.

He doesn’t like that.

Why is people talking about her gender when she made that insane overtake last race? Why is people talking about her in such a sexualized way when she’s literally the youngest race winner that Formula One had ever had?

All of them saw her as if she’s an object. As if, she’s in Formula One just to fuck around the grid and leave. They didn’t see her as the driver who won the China Grand Prix. They didn’t see her as the driver who got P2 in her debut race. They didn’t see her as a driver that has any worth for their attention and respect.

It was a bit of a horrifying realization. 

He knows that the world of motorsport has its own values and ideals. How people think that it’s a sport only for men and a job as a racing driver is something exclusive to someone who has balls between their legs. 

“No,” he replied, hand tightening around the railing. “I don’t like her just because of that.”

Because the woman is more amazing than that. He knows that she’s attractive. Anyone who has a pair of working eyes can see that. But that’s not the only reason why he put her in a pedestal so high. 

He likes her because she’s only two years older than him and she’s already a race winner. He likes her because she won’t back down from all the shitty things that the media had said about her ever since her debut. He likes her because she fights for the championship against drivers with an infinite experience and skills. Charles likes her because she’s an amazing driver. Charles likes her, because she has the skills to back up her seat in Formula One.

Not because-

A black Porsche car zoomed past him.

Not because-

He watched her finishing the race at fourth in Monaco.

Charles likes her, because she’s someone that is changing the sport.

She’s someone more amazing than how the media is portraying her. A fighter, someone that’s fighting for her voice to be heard. 

His idol.

From that on, he followed her career attentively. His family called it obsession but he likes to call it admiration. From her maiden driver championship in 2013, to her third one in 2017, he had followed it all.

He watched her win three championships. He watched her break countless records. He watched her turned all of those criticisms into words of adorations and worships.

A legend. A superstar. The best driver on the grid.

It had served as an amazing motivation for him to pursue his career in Formula One. Especially during darker times in life where he had questioned his place in the sport so many times. After loss and loss, the female had always became some sort of motivation for him to continue his racing career.

So after winning F2 and being offered a seat in Sauber, he was excited.

That offer had been a testament of his skill, that someone finally acknowledge him. That offer had made the lie that he had told his dad before his passing a truth, that the guilt won’t eat him up once more. That offer had made the dream that he had held for so long a reality.

That offer had made him even closer to y/n.

When Fred had offered him to meet the female during the pre-season testing he had took up the offer in an instant.

The phrase ‘never meet your heroes’ is something that he would like to disagree because meeting y/n is like a dream come true. She’s Charming and witty. A hard worker and attentive to whatever nonsense he said during their meeting. Y/n is just so nice, just like how he imagine her to be.

Charles almost tripped himself when she asked for his number after that because holy shit- 

Somehow, after that meeting, he convinced himself that they stood at an equal ground. That after years and years of blood, sweat, and tears, Charles finally found himself on an equal ground with his idol.

He had never been so wrong.

He looked up, and he could see the female stood in front of the podium in front of him. Her smile bright, as she sprayed champagne towards Sebastian and Lewis who respectively stood at the second and third place.

It’s 2018 and it’s the Australian Grand Prix.

It’s 2018, and Charles saw the person that he had idolized for a long time won a race that Charles also participates in.

It was almost surreal to see her like this. To see the woman he had chatted with at the Porsche hospitality a few weeks ago to the woman who just won the first race of the season. The three of them – y/n, Sebastian, and Lewis – looks almost unreal to him.

The top drivers in the grid. The three world champions.

The best of the best.

His own 15th position on the grid stings a bit. Which is a bit unreasonable because he drives a Sauber. There is no way a Sauber could defeat cars from the top teams. Him, being a 15th position in a Sauber should be a pretty good achievement already.

But alas, it just doesn’t feel enough.

When they had chatted during the pre-session testing, it had gave him a fake illusion about them being an equal. After all, Charles is a Formula One driver now. He drives in the pinnacle of motorsport. He had shown the world that he’s capable to be a Formula One driver. Just like what he had dreamt of for years.

Today, is a harsh wake up call.

Y/n had looked so friendly and attainable that it gave him a false sense of hope that they stood on the same ground. Maybe it’s the euphoria of being promoted to F1 or maybe it’s the euphoria of managing to meet the woman that he had idolized for so many years.

Seeing this, her being at the top of the rankings while him, at the bottom, is a harsh reality check for him.

Because they’re not equal.

She’s still the faraway star that he can’t reach and he’s still the silent admirer that doesn’t have the courage to reach for her.

He’s still Charles Leclerc and she’s y/n l/n. Formula One superstar and legend. 

If he want her to look at him, to make sure that she remember his name, then he has to be better. He has to prove that he will worth her time.

Drive to Survive Season 1 Episode 3

It’s all about Porsche.

“It seems like a curse,” laughed Christian. “No one can hold off the second seat of Porsche for more than two years.”

A montage of past drivers could be seen. In some clips, a younger y/n could be seen standing or talking with the past drivers. It’s clear that these people are the previous holder of Porsche’s second seat.

“I think that it’s a known secret,” started Will as he stared at the camera. “While y/n portrays herself as a fun loving and charming woman, it’s clear that she is really strict and competitive towards her teammate.”

Y/n and Henry could be seen at that, the both of them entering a Porsche car. From how it looks, it seems that the both of them are going to the track together from their hotel. Henry could be seen wearing the standard Porsche polo shirt while y/n in wearing an oversized Porsche racing jacket and a sports bra underneath it.

“Are you driving?” asked the female, raising her eyebrows from behind her sunglasses.

“Sure,” said the male as they both entered the car, “I can drive.”

“Well if you can’t drive all of us are fucked,” answered the female as she sat on her seat. Y/n sitting at the front while two of their staff sat the back.

“Are you excited?” asked the staff as they made their way. “It’s your debut race.”

“I am,” laughed Henry. “There’s a lot of expectations that came with being a Porsche driver.”

During this conversation, y/n doesn’t seems interested in the conversation as she scrolled on her phone silently. The show made it more dramatic as they show a scene where there’s some kind of awkward silence inside the car.

After that, both y/n and Henry could be seen entering the grid. The female are laughing and taking pictures as well as giving autographs to her fans. From this image, we could see how much of a superstar the female is. Though, as they continue their way, the female could be seen greeting other employees and other drivers in a friendly way while Henry could be seen looking confused at the back.

A rookie and a superstar. A very different image.

“It’s not a bad trait to have,” clarified Will. “Because in order to be a world champion, you have to be competitive. In this sport, your first rival should always be your teammate. After all-“

Two Porsche could be seen racing against each other.

“-You have the exact same car-“

A team radio could be heard between Henry and the race engineer who’s ordering for the male to do a pitstop.

“-the same team strategy-“

A scene of two Porsche crashed into each other could be seen.

“And the same competitiveness to show that you’re the best driver on the team.”

The scene changed back into the interview room as Henry Santos appeared. His name could be seen besides him and his position as Porsche driver are written underneath it.

“My name is Henry Santos and I race for Porsche Royale Formula One team,” answered the male smoothly. A question was being asked offscreen as Henry could be seen listening and blinking before he let out a laugh. “Yes, there are a lot of pressure, considering this is my rookie year.”

On the screen, the standings from 2017 could be seen where Porsche won the constructor championship and y/n winning the driver championship. Henry voice too, could be seen as a voiceover, “Porsche is a winning team,” he said. “I want to be someone that can honour that ambition.”

“Do you think you can become the number one driver in Porsche?” asked the producer.

Henry’s smile froze as there’s a stretch of silence after that question.

It’s clear that Netflix wants some kind of drama from that question. The fight of Porsche’s number one driver position. A rookie versus the world champion.

“Yes,” he finally answered. “Yes I believe I can.”

It was almost like a declaration of war. After all, y/n is the reigning world champion. She’s the one that’s using the number one on her car this year. A consistent driver that always shows a remarkable performance each year.

For a rookie like Henry to say that, it’s a bold claim to have.

“A conflict,” said Christian as he appeared once again. “Will bound to happen in a team like that.”

Taglist!

@mellowarcadefun @glai1023-blog @jjkclub @newlifeforus @jpg3 @sp1cycurry @eternalharry @be-your-coffee-pot @itsjustkhaos @chanshintien @fairiesdowntheroad @not-laracroft @ilovegreengrapes @nzygftoji @reblog-princess @aaaooz @chasing-liberosis @thatgirlthatreadswattpad @reneny @hiraethrhapsody @stevesworld9 @miniboast @notleclerc @willowpains @lndonrris @laura-naruto-fan1998 @yaren23 @gills-lounge @asfaraslifegets @dl-yum @dessxoxsworld @goldenchemistry @vellicora @neoteez7 @lana-d3l-rey @mynameisangeloflife @fennecspage @yuriankasavchuk @hascrt-ay @kihc-zya @leilanixx @cha-hot @mafiulaputaama @hockeyboysarehot @stopeatread @lovewithmary @inloveallthetime

[thewaysomesciencefictiondoes505]

Listening to tbhc and falling in love with it all over again... what a masterpiece 🎶

"Life became a spectator sport / I launch my fragrance called integrity/ I sell the fact that I can't be bought"

- Batphone

Amazing lyrics, brilliant concept... a masterpiece of an album 🎶

[skywalker1dream]

Title: Lost and Found in Monaco

Note: Helloo guysss, I can't believe it's been so long and so much has happened!! I started working, met new people and now we are good friends. I hope everyone is well and i you all are having a great summer! And OH MY GOD? 125 FOLLOWERS?? THANK YOU SO MUCH!❤️❤️

Sebastian vettel x fem!reader

Warnings: none?

Summary: let's just say one word "Soulmate's"

[⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️]

[⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️]

Part one: The Soulmate's Myth

Sebastian Vettel had always known the stories. Everyone did. From the moment a child could comprehend language, they were told tales of the soulmates—a person born just for you, a perfect match that would make your heart sing. For most people, it happened quickly. A touch, a glance, sometimes even a name heard in passing, and you just *knew*. You��d feel the warmth in your chest, the invisible string tying you to someone else. It was as real and undeniable as gravity.

But for Sebastian, that connection had never come.

He was surrounded by stories of love and fate. He had watched with quiet envy as friends and family found their other halves. He heard about the rush of meeting your soulmate, the sudden certainty that you had found the one person who completed you in every way. But Sebastian, despite all his accomplishments and fame in Formula 1, despite being adored by fans around the world, was left with a growing emptiness.

As the years passed, Sebastian became increasingly convinced that something was wrong with him. Was he broken? Defective? He masked his worries with the thrill of racing, the roar of engines drowning out the silent fears that plagued him. But when the race was over, and the adrenaline faded, he was left with the cold, stark truth: he was alone.

The rumors started, whispers among the media and even within the paddock. "Why hasn’t Vettel found his soulmate?" they asked. Was it possible that one of the sport's brightest stars was meant to shine alone? Sebastian did his best to ignore the speculation, but it gnawed at him, deepening the void.

And then, there was you.

Part two: A Shared Loneliness

You were not so different from Sebastian. Born into a world where everyone had a destined partner, you had grown up with the same stories, the same hopes. But, like Sebastian, you had never felt that fateful connection. The years went by, and with each passing birthday, your hope dimmed.

It wasn't that you were unhappy; you had a good life, a solid career, friends who loved you. But there was a piece missing, a shadow that followed you no matter how bright the day. You were certain that you would never find your soulmate, that you would forever be the one left behind.

People tried to comfort you, to tell you that perhaps your soulmate was still out there, waiting to be found. But you had stopped believing in those words long ago. You went through the motions, attending weddings, celebrating friends' and siblings' soulmate connections, but inside, you were numb.

The idea of soulmates had once filled you with hope, but now it was a burden, a cruel joke that life had played on you. And so, you threw yourself into your work, into your passions, trying to fill the void with anything that could distract you from the painful truth.

It was your love of racing that brought you to Monaco that fateful weekend. As a lifelong fan of Formula 1, you had always dreamed of attending the Monaco Grand Prix, the crown jewel of the racing calendar. The glittering harbor, the streets transformed into a high-speed circuit, the world’s best drivers navigating the treacherous corners—it was everything you had imagined.

You were there to enjoy the race, to lose yourself in the speed and the spectacle. You had no idea that your life was about to change forever.

Part three: The Collision

Monaco was buzzing with excitement as the race weekend began. The narrow streets were packed with spectators, the air filled with the sounds of engines revving and fans cheering. You wandered through the paddock, trying to soak it all in, feeling a rare sense of peace as you lost yourself in the world of racing.

Sebastian, on the other hand, was in a foul mood. The track had always been one of his favorites, but this year, it felt different. The usual thrill was overshadowed by a persistent sense of unease. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something, something important. It gnawed at him, making him restless and irritable.

He was walking through the paddock, his mind elsewhere, when it happened. You were turning the corner, your attention caught by a display of racing memorabilia, when you collided with something—no, someone—solid. The impact sent you stumbling, your heart racing from the sudden jolt.

Sebastian barely registered the collision until he looked down and saw you. For a moment, time seemed to freeze. You were just a stranger, someone he had never seen before, and yet…

You felt it too. That strange, inexplicable pull, like a magnetic force drawing you closer to him. Your breath caught in your throat as you looked up into his eyes, eyes that seemed to hold the same shock, the same recognition that you were feeling.

Sebastian blinked, trying to make sense of the sudden rush of emotions. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen, was it? He had always imagined that meeting his soulmate—if it ever happened—would be a grand, cinematic moment. But this? This was something else entirely. It was messy and confusing and utterly real.

You didn’t say anything, neither did he. Words felt unnecessary, even impossible in that moment. But as you stood there, staring at each other, the crowd and noise of the paddock faded into the background. There was only you and him, and the undeniable connection that sparked between you.

Sebastian was the first to speak, his voice a low, uncertain murmur. “I’m sorry… are you okay?”

You nodded, still trying to process what was happening. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just… surprised, I guess.”

He chuckled, a soft, almost nervous sound. “Surprised would be an understatement.”

There was a pause, a beat of silence that felt loaded with meaning. You could see the wheels turning in his mind, the same questions swirling in your own thoughts. Could it be? Was this really happening?

Finally, Sebastian took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving yours. “I don’t know if this is crazy, but… do you want to get out of here? Maybe grab a coffee or something? I think we need to talk.”

You felt a smile tug at the corners of your lips. “I think you’re right.”

Part four: Discovering the Truth

The café was tucked away in a quiet corner of Monaco, far from the noise and chaos of the race weekend. It was the perfect place to talk, to try and make sense of the whirlwind of emotions that had taken you both by surprise.

You sat across from each other, two strangers bound by a connection you couldn’t explain. The initial awkwardness gave way to a tentative conversation, each of you sharing your stories, your fears, your doubts. It was surreal, how easy it was to open up to him, how natural it felt to be with him.

Sebastian listened intently as you told him about your life, your struggle to come to terms with the idea that you might never find your soulmate. It was a struggle he knew all too well, and as he shared his own experiences, you realized just how similar your journeys had been.

“So,” you said, stirring your coffee absently, “do you think this is it? That we’re… soulmates?”

Sebastian leaned back in his chair, his gaze thoughtful. “I don’t know. Everything I’ve been told about soulmates makes this seem… different. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re not meant to fit into the same mold as everyone else.”

You nodded, understanding what he meant. This connection, whatever it was, didn’t feel like the stories you had heard growing up. It was more complex, more real. It wasn’t about instant love or perfection. It was about finding someone who understood you, who shared your fears and your hopes.

As the conversation continued, you felt the walls you had built around yourself start to crumble. With Sebastian, there was no need to pretend, no need to hide your loneliness or your doubts. He saw you, truly saw you, in a way that no one else ever had.

And slowly, the fear that had been with you for so long began to fade, replaced by something new. It wasn’t the all-consuming, fairy-tale love that you had been led to expect. It was something quieter, something deeper—a connection built on shared experiences, on understanding and empathy.

By the time you left the café, the sun was beginning to set, casting a warm glow over the streets of Monaco. As you walked side by side, you felt a sense of peace that had eluded you for years. You didn’t know what the future held, but for the first time, you were okay with that.

Sebastian glanced at you, a small smile playing on his lips. “So… where do we go from here?”

You returned his smile, feeling lighter than you had in a long time. “Wherever we want, I guess. Together?”

He nodded, a look of quiet determination in his eyes. “Together.”

And with that, the two of you walked into the night, leaving behind the fears and doubts that had haunted you for so long. You didn’t have all the answers, but you had each other, and for now, that was enough.

**Bonus Chapter: Future Dreams**

A few years had passed since that magical time in Switzerland, and your life with Sebastian had become everything you’d ever hoped for. The two of you had settled into a rhythm that was both exciting and comforting, filled with laughter, love, and a sense of contentment that you’d never known before.

But recently, you had felt something shift inside you, a new longing that had taken root in your heart. It started out small, just a fleeting thought here and there, but it had grown stronger with each passing day.

The catalyst had been a simple moment—watching Sebastian interact with children at a charity event. He had always been good with kids, but that day, as you stood on the sidelines and watched him crouch down to talk to a little boy who couldn’t have been older than five, something inside you clicked. The way he smiled at the child, the gentle tone of his voice, the easy laughter they shared—it made your heart swell with love for him in a way that was almost overwhelming.

You could picture it so clearly: Sebastian as a father, his strong, gentle hands cradling a tiny baby, his eyes filled with the same warmth and love that he always showed you. The image was so vivid, so real, that it took your breath away.

From that moment on, you couldn’t stop thinking about it. The idea of having children with Sebastian, of starting a family together, consumed your thoughts. You imagined what it would be like to hold your own child in your arms, to see Sebastian’s smile reflected in their eyes, to build a future that included more than just the two of you.

Sebastian, ever intuitive, noticed the change in you almost immediately. He saw the way your gaze lingered on families when you were out together, the way your hand would rest on your stomach as if imagining what it would be like to carry a child. He didn’t say anything at first, wanting to give you space to sort through your feelings, but he was more attuned to you than ever.

One evening, after a particularly heartwarming day spent with friends and their children, Sebastian gently broached the subject as the two of you were getting ready for bed. You were brushing your hair in front of the mirror when you caught his reflection behind you, his eyes soft as he watched you.

“Hey,” he said quietly, stepping closer and wrapping his arms around your waist from behind. “Can we talk about something?”

You set down the brush, meeting his gaze in the mirror. “Of course. What’s on your mind?”

He pressed a kiss to the side of your neck, his breath warm against your skin. “I’ve noticed you’ve been different lately… thinking about something. I think I know what it is, but I want to hear it from you.”

You turned in his arms to face him, your heart pounding. “I’ve been thinking about us, about our future,” you admitted, your voice soft but steady. “About… starting a family.”

Sebastian’s eyes lit up with understanding, and he cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs gently brushing over your cheeks. “You’ve been thinking about having kids,” he said, not as a question, but as a statement of fact.

You nodded, a small smile tugging at your lips. “I have. I can’t stop thinking about it, actually. Seeing you with children, the way you are with them… it makes me want that for us. I want to give you that, Seb. I want to have a family with you.”

His expression softened even more, a look of pure love and adoration filling his eyes. “I’ve been thinking about it too,” he confessed, his voice tender. “I’ve been waiting for the right time to bring it up, but I wanted to make sure you were ready.”

Tears welled up in your eyes, and you reached up to hold his hands, squeezing them gently. “I’m ready, Sebastian. More than anything, I want to build a life with you that includes children, a family.”

He leaned in and kissed you, slow and deep, as if sealing the promise you had just made to each other. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, and he smiled, that soft, heart-melting smile that had made you fall in love with him all over again.

“Then let’s do it,” he whispered. “Let’s make a family together.”

That night, after your heartfelt conversation, you found yourselves wrapped up in each other, a sense of unity stronger than ever before. As you lay together in the quiet of your bedroom, Sebastian's fingers traced gentle patterns on your back, his touch both soothing and electrifying.

But there was something more in the air tonight—a different kind of intensity. The love between you had always been passionate, but this felt deeper, more purposeful, as if the shared dream of creating a family had added a new layer to your bond.

You turned to face him, your heart full as you looked into his eyes. "Sebastian," you whispered, your voice a little shaky from the emotions swirling inside you, "I want to start now. I don’t want to wait any longer."

His eyes darkened with understanding, and without a word, he pulled you closer, his lips finding yours in a kiss that was both tender and full of promise. The kiss quickly deepened, fueled by the desire that had been simmering between you all evening.

Sebastian rolled over, pinning you beneath him with a gentle but firm hold, his gaze locking onto yours. “Are you sure?” he murmured, his voice husky and filled with a raw emotion that sent shivers down your spine.

You nodded, your hands moving to slide under his shirt, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath your fingers. “More sure than I’ve ever been,” you replied, your voice breathless with anticipation.

That was all he needed to hear. He kissed you again, this time with a hunger that matched your own, his hands moving to explore your body with an urgency that made your pulse quicken. The world outside your little cocoon seemed to disappear as you lost yourselves in each other, every touch, every caress charged with the knowledge that you were creating something new, something beautiful together.

Clothes were shed quickly, almost frantically, as the desire between you became a tidal wave that you couldn’t hold back. Sebastian’s hands were everywhere, exploring, caressing, his touch leaving a trail of fire in its wake. The way he looked at you, with such reverence and need, made your heart swell with love for him.

When he finally settled above you, his body pressed against yours, the intensity of the moment hit you both. There was a brief pause, a shared breath as you both realized what this meant—this wasn’t just another night together, it was the beginning of a new chapter, the start of a journey you were both eager to embark on.

With a whispered “I love you,” Sebastian moved, and the two of you became one, your bodies moving together in perfect harmony. The passion between you was overwhelming, every touch, every kiss, every whispered word of love sending you spiraling higher. It was as if you could feel the future being written in that moment, your hearts beating in time as you both gave yourselves fully to each other.

As the intensity built, your hands gripped onto Sebastian’s shoulders, your body arching into his as you both reached the edge. And when you finally tipped over into bliss, it was like nothing you had ever felt before—deeper, more profound, a connection that went beyond the physical and into something almost spiritual.

You cried out his name, your voice filled with love and wonder, and Sebastian followed soon after, his own voice breaking as he whispered your name in return. The two of you held each other tightly as you rode out the waves of pleasure, your bodies trembling with the force of it, your hearts full to bursting.

When the world slowly came back into focus, you found yourselves still wrapped up in each other, your breathing heavy, your skin damp with sweat. But there was a sense of peace that settled over you, a deep, abiding contentment that came from knowing you were on this journey together.

Sebastian brushed a strand of hair away from your face, his eyes soft and full of love as he looked at you. “You’re going to be an amazing mother,” he whispered, his voice filled with certainty.

Tears welled up in your eyes at his words, and you smiled, reaching up to cup his face in your hands. “And you’re going to be the best father,” you replied, your voice thick with emotion.

He kissed you softly, and then pulled you into his arms, holding you close as you both basked in the afterglow of your lovemaking. You could feel the steady beat of his heart against your cheek, and it soothed you, lulling you into a state of blissful contentment.

——————–———————

Note: hope you like it leve the comments don't be shy tell me bout your day or how is your summer going so far..❤️ ; [AND LOOK AT HIM OH MY GOD HE IS SO HDDHJDDBFHDBGVD❤️❤️]

[holy-puckslibrary]

━ 𝐢𝐟 𝐰𝐞'𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐲.

──────────── 𝐰𝐜 — 1k 𝐜𝐰 — fanon!rafe on a one-way flight to simp city, some spice but nothing graphic or excessive, mention of drugs/being high (it's rafe, what did you expect?), 'kid' as a pet name bc he is that guy + cliffhanger? 𝐚/𝐧 — this was originally posted on @holy-pucks for my nov 23 slumber party, but i've decided to upload it here because it never showed in the tags. if you've already read this, i would very much appreciate you showing it some love here as well :) thx a mil in advance, besties! ────────────

main masterlist | MDNI

RAFE CAMERON knew the risk. He just couldn't be bothered to give a shit. 

if one of the loud-mouthed busybodies took issue with his behavior, that's their prerogative. they've been at it so long, drunk and overzealous, their flippant chatter is mere static in the background of his life. 

it isn't his fault their stale lives and expired marriages pale in comparison to the pocket of paradise he carved out of figure eight. rafe didn't ask for their attention, nor did he solicit their opinions — and he certainly didn't invite an audience; his girlfriend writhing in his lap will never be a spectator sport.  

it would be too generous to call it sympathy, but rafe can understand how they might get confused. once you catch a glimpse, you're as good as gone. a lost cause, irrevocable, and clear as day. beauty that effortlessly captivating is impossible to tear your eyes away from, and the original kook princess is bathed in excess. 

of all people, he knows the breadth of her magnetism and is just as weak for it, if not more. egotism drains along with reason when they're simply in the same room, his carnal preoccupation more than happy to fill the vacuum of power. 

rafe commands the island and its inhabitants — with one paramount exception. he wields power because she allows for it. she, who is his indisputable sovereign and to whom he pledges his undying allegiance with innate reverence. 

it was his wandering hands, after all, which led the pair to an empty veranda overlooking the bustling midsummer festivities. 

a laurel of fresh blooms became collateral damage soon after, having been unceremoniously knocked to his feet by her fervent desperation to feel his sun-kissed skin against her lips. 

rafe certainly had no objections. 

with a heap of silky fabric rucked up around her waist and her wrists pinned taut to the small of her back, rafe's girlfriend works him over with both teeth and tongue, the affection carefully choreographed to sync up with the sway of her hips. each nip, suck, or kiss accompanies her precise labors, and any marbled evidence left behind he'll wear with pride, much to the island's chagrin and his sisters' disgust. 

rafe previewed the evening's fireworks display as she bore down on his aching bulge, never once ceasing the light nibbling of his earlobe; it's the tell-tale, strained whimper diced by gritted teeth that incited action.

his hips jerk up in search of sweet relief, inadvertently finding her bare heat well beyond wet and wanting. 

rafe commends his past self for confiscating the lace as they neared the valet podium; the garment fares better as a pocket square. 

close proximity amplifies all those delicious, needy sounds, robbed of their potential prematurely; she is not yet immune to gossip.

it doesn't matter, rafe would know if his girl was close donning earplugs and a blindfold. her pathetic attempt at modesty is hardly an issue. much like how there isn't an inch of skin he hasn't traversed; there isn't a bluff of her's he can't immediately see through. no matter how soft or sudden, rafe can feel his girl teetering on the brink. 

the faint wobble of her bottom lip might as well be a formal declaration; she's trying and failing to keep herself from falling over the edge — the polite little thing knows the price of gluttony.

as he reclines in the stately patio chair, he pulls her down with him. in anticipation, rafe tips his mouth and angles his hips while relishing in the spoiled musings of a person who's never wanted for anything.

rafe relents, mercifully rutting into her as his thumb rubs a certain finger. 

"sooner or later, i'm putting a ring on this hand." 

giggling despite herself, she abruptly leans back to inspect his pupils.

"how high are you?" 

the friction of shifting pressure reluctantly betrays a soft spot in his chainmail cloak. the levity of the moment envelops them in warmth. a brilliant rarity peeks through between the velvety curtain of annoyance: contentment. 

even so, rafe doesn't allow the foreign state of mind or the white-hot burn of pleasure to distract him from his prior ambition. 

"kid, if i was high right now, we'd be halfway to the courthouse." 

she simply shakes her head and buries her face back into the crook of his neck.

rafe has an affinity for grandstanding. she hardly, if ever, took him at his word, simultaneously too smart and too skeptical to make his words into something more than he meant. sometimes, he said things because he needed to know how they tasted, and others, her on-again-off-again boyfriend just wanted to hear the sound of his own voice.

he is impulsive and unreliable, and no amount of love will change that.

rafe relinquishes her wrists in favor of her neck. his palm burns the nape as it keeps her a prisoner to his greedy, electric gaze.

the dull throb mounting under his touch cannot hold a candle to the heartbeat palpitating between her thighs. major and minor, the muscles twitch in anticipation as they, too, are overwhelmed by the casual display of dominance. 

he brings her forehead to rest against his. a novel softness in his voice fans across her gently parted lips. "i know you think i'm bullshitting you, but not this time. i'm so fucking serious, kid. the proof's at home in the top right drawer of my desk."

her disbelief persists, manifesting in an uncouth snort. 

"yeah, right." 

rafe scoffs at the sarcasm-dipped quip; the unwavering effort to make his life more difficult at every turn was actually sort of endearing, he hated to admit. 

"i've had it since our graduation... just never found the right moment, i guess," he shrugs, quieter now.

rafe knows a smidge of feigned ambivalence won't detract from the heated, earnest implication beaming behind his irises. 

the claim is substantiated by her quirked-brow baiting, an act that leaves him frantically fishing for his keys.

if they’re lucky, they might make it to the driveway. 

but the stars underestimate the proprietorial hunger of the kook prince, because they get three lights from the club before rafe parks the ford by the roadside. 

────────────

💌 if you liked it, pls lmk! 💌

⬸ back to the catalog  (masterlist) 

⬸ back to the main blog 

[apteryxparvus]

Love, found in the simplest of gestures.

Characters — Oikawa Tooru, Bokuto Koutarou, Kozume Kenma, Suna Rintarou, Miya Osamu

Word count — 912

Content warning — none

Summary — the Haikyuu!! boys and their love languages.

💕 Oikawa Tooru — words of affirmation

Tooru is the epitome of affection — he never misses a chance to show his love and care for you. Each day starts with a good morning text in which he declares his undying love, always accompanied by a blurry yet endearing selfie. Throughout the day, he showers you with little messages of encouragement, wishing you good luck, and ensuring you feel his presence even in your busiest moments. And whenever he manages to squeeze in some extra moments during his packed schedule, he takes the opportunity to send you lengthy voice messages, expressing how much you mean to him, and how grateful he is to have you in his life.

Despite his busy days, he always manages to find a way to let you know you’re always on his mind.

Whenever he graces your apartment with his presence, there’s always a trail of colorful sticky notes following his wake — from the fridge door and bathroom mirror, to the hidden nooks of your kitchen pantry and beneath your pillow. Each note contains a heartfelt message, a testament of his affection.

And as you accidentally stumble across these surprises, a blush spreads across your cheeks, your heart stirring.

💕 Bokuto Koutarou — physical touch

Koutarou has always had an inclination towards affection, even before you became an official couple. Yes, his touchy nature extends to teammates and friends, but with you, it has always been different.

When he embraces you, wrapping his strong arms around, a warm, comforting aura would envelop you. Even before the two of you became a couple, you couldn’t help but notice how his touch would linger, how he’d hold you more intensely, just a tad bit longer.

Now that you are together, you eagerly anticipate his touch, his tender gestures. His touches demonstrate his depth of love — whether it be by a gentle caress of your arms and neck as you prepare breakfast in the morning, or his offer of a soothing back rub and shoulder massage after a long day of work.

💕 Kozume Kenma — gift giving

Kenma loves to give you presents. Even in his days as a high school student with limited pocket money, he would surprise you with thoughtful gifts. He’d meticulously plan affordable dates, all revolving around your shared interests, hoping to create meaningful and lasting memories.

Now, with his thriving career(s) and increased financial stability, he takes pleasure in spoiling you even more. But rather than opting for generic luxury gifts — gold necklaces and ruby earrings — he continues to channel his thoughtfulness into personalized adventures. From romantic getaway weekends to nearby hot spring towns, where you can both unwind and enjoy each other’s company, to day trips to amusement parks, VIP access included and unlimited rides that would send your adrenaline soaring.

But it’s the little gifts that truly warm your heart. Such as the newest book from your favorite author, complete with their signature, or a carefully crafted scrapbook filled with cherished photos and memorabilia.

💕 Suna Rintaro — quality time

Time spent with Rintaro is precious, every moment is a treasure. You know how demanding his volleyball career is, yet he goes above and beyond to carve out as much time as possible to be with you.

Sometimes, it means embarking on intricately planned dates (oftentimes, with the help of his teammates). And in those moments, it’s just the two of you, savoring each blissful moment of peace, reveling in each other’s presence like there’s no tomorrow. Other times, you find yourself casually joining the half dozen spectators during his team’s practice sessions. Seated on the bench, you witness his display of talent and dedication to the sport.

Amidst the whirlpool of your busy lives, there are simple moments when you and Rintaro unwind after a grueling week filled with an endless stream of demanding clients (for you) and arduous training matches (for him). In those stolen moments, you find solace in each other's presence, and as the day draws to a close, you find yourself nestled close in a tender embrace while watching TikTok videos on his phone.

Despite everything, Rintaro ensures that every moment you spent together is filled with love and quality time.

💕 Miya Osamu — acts of service

Osamu’s genuine love and care manifests through the bento boxes he so lovingly assembles for you. Your little tradition began during your high school days, when, as the volleyball team’s manager and the representative of your class, you juggled a busy schedule. You’d attend the team’s practice with a rumbling stomach and an embarrassed face — you barely had time to prepare lunch, let alone queue up at the cafeteria in hopes of grabbing a sandwich or a curry. Osamu was quick to warm up to you, and within a week of you joining the team, he began bringing you lunches.

He was quick to learn your preferences, despite the few hiccups — like accidentally making something you were allergic to (more than once). Nevertheless, to this day, years later, he rises a bit earlier than you to prepare a colorful bento box. On occasion — once or twice a month — you return from a tiring day at work, met with a delicious and fragrant dinner at a candlelit table.

Sure, the majority of Osamu’s week is occupied by his culinary job, and of course, witnessing the smiles of satisfaction on his customers’ faces brings him joy. But seeing the way your face lights up and the twinkle in your eyes as you savor the meal he so carefully prepared… there’s nothing more precious than that.

Author's note: hiii, im back from the dead... for now... until university starts:))) hopefully i'll have some time to write a chapter or two of my smau

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

This is extremely long and apparently subject to change, which is part of why I'm copy-pasting this version below. I don't agree with significant parts of it (in particular, I take umbrage with some of the delegitimizing language she uses for the Jewish/Israeli narrative and history that she doesn't use with the Palestinian narrative and history), however, I think it's a really really important read, because she addresses a lot of the real problems with the current discourse and real-world impacts that has.

I think this paragraph in particular was something I needed to read:

Arguing with the far left is a waste of time. They have no self-awareness, they are delusional, and they will never stop. They are as fanatical as any of the mob. The only way to make them stop talking is to actually sort this problem once and for all and work for the freedom and dignity of all. And when all is said and done, the ones that will keep complaining will finally be exposed for what they truly are.

She also winds up positing the A Land For All solution as the most likely to succeed, which I do agree is probably correct, for the main reason she argues, which is that it is the option that gives the most people the greatest amount of what they want, the basics of what everyone needs, and hews most closely with answering the competing narratives that exist.

There is No Magic Peace Fairy. Version 2

For anyone who might have read the previous version of this piece of writing, this is quite different from the original. Its spirit and essence are the same, but much has been added. It is very long, but it seeks to understand some extremely complicated and difficult things.

I should have realised when I first wrote it, and then sought to follow its instruction — to listen and learn from a wide spectrum of other people — that it was only ever going to be a working and evolving piece of work. This is version 2. There may yet be a version 3, 4 or 5.

Why did I even write it? Initially — truthfully, and honestly — it has been for myself. It started as catharsis, and it has become a compulsion — the way to “make it make sense.” The way to cope with horrifying scenes across the television and social media, witnessed day after day, and feeling utterly powerless to stop it.

It comes from years of witnessing, and sometimes partaking in long and sometimes very bitter family arguments. Arguments that became spectator sport for friends who would come over especially because they knew they would happen. Arguments that, in retrospect were not actually remotely funny for those of us living through that constant emotional turmoil, nor considering the subject matter. It has been the way to work through those conflicted feelings, and some things that were never really reconciled.

So, yes, it started for myself. But now I have written it, I do want people to read it. I think it may help others to work through some of the same things. And then it would have been worthwhile, especially if it may help some people to find a way to salvage lost friendships and lost relationships from the last few months, because it seems there is a giant rift forming in our communities in Britain.

This has nothing to do with ‘both sidsing’ anything, and it has everything to do with problem-solving. As far as I am concerned, in all of life, you cannot solve a problem that you do not understand. And I really want to understand it. So, I look at both narratives that the Palestinians and Israelis know as the history of their peoples, and think about the lives of individual Palestinians and Israelis, and then I wonder, how could this ever actually be fixed? Is there really any hope for the future?

It is not meant to justify or apologise for anything anyone has done.

I am sure this writing will includes things that almost everybody will take issue with, but it is my hope that by doing my very best to do justice to our collective stories that people can read without anger what it is that I have to say — and please do read to the very the end if you are intending to pass judgement on what that is.

Most of all, I think this will interest people in the diaspora with family, friends, and personal links and connections to the region — Israel or the Occupied Palestinian territories — who wish nothing more than to see their friends and family living in freedom, with dignity and security.

If you have read version 1, the stories of the 15-year-olds have only minor additions, but the narratives and the rest of the article have changed a lot. If you get to a bit that sounds very familiar, skip a bit further down — it is very long to read it twice.

~~~~~

What is the most important narrative of the Palestinian people?

(You do not have to agree with this — I am just telling it how it is told).

Something like –

“The defining event of our history is the Nakba (Catastrophe)

Before 1948, we used to live in Palestine. We loved Palestine. We lived there for centuries. We lived peacefully. We had a deep spiritual and emotional connection to the land. Our ancestors are buried there. Religious sites — Christian, Muslim, Jewish — that had great meaning to all of us were there. It was a rich tapestry of different religions and cultures containing a beautiful and sacred shared heritage.

We had wonderful villages and beloved homes that we built with our own hands. We had gardens with trees and plants that our grandparents planted. We had treasured possessions. We had friends and families and good lives. We could go and come as we pleased.

We had neighbours of all faiths, including Jewish neighbours. We lived contendly together. Some of them had been there for centuries just like us and we liked them, we lived there together happily and in peace.

In the 1900s, more and more started to come. They were fleeing persecution. We gave them refuge. We had no problem with them coming. They were being hounded in Europe and they needed somewhere else to go. Where better for them to be but here in Palestine, where the history of their people was born? And many of them were respectful and we had good relationships with them. We liked them.

But some of them wanted a country. Some of them fought with us, and some of them attacked us, and terrorised us. How could they have had a country in our land? We had been there for generations, and what would have become of us if we had agreed to it? Where would they have stopped? The problem was never them. It was them trying to make a country. And if they hadn’t tried to make a country, everything would have been okay. We could have had a country all of us together. What a beautiful country it could have been. But the country they wanted did not include us.

Some of them were clear they would have kept going until they got more and more of our land, and there is no question they would always have driven us away. Some of their leaders where unashamed and brazen in the way they looked down on us, in their statements that dehumanised us, in their disdain for us, in their colonial intent. They under-estimated us.

The Nakba (catastrophe) was a disaster for our people. In 1948, there was a war. During that war, the Israelis attacked us, killed us, stole our property and ethnically cleansed us from our land in order to create their Jewish state. We left in fear of our lives. We were not the ones that started that fighting. We wanted nothing to do with it. That is why we left.

We didn’t think we would be gone for long, surely once the fighting had subsided we would be back. But then days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into years.

Then it finally sunk in — they weren’t going to let us back. And we realised we were divided and dispossessed. That nightmare was only the beginning for us. They have never, ever allowed us back for 75 years. We lost everything. Our human rights are denied to us. More and more of our land is taken every day. We are not free. Some of us have no freedom at all and no rights.

We want to stop being ethnically cleansed. We want to go home, to go back, to see our homeland, our ancient sites, to be back where we belong, where we have always belonged. We want our dignity, and we want our freedom."

~~~~~

You do not have to agree with the way this story is told, but it has, in some form, been passed down through generations and generations of Palestinians.

~~~~~

What is life like for a 15-year-old Palestinian who lives in the West Bank?

You are told this story of your people from the day you were born. You live under a military occupation. More and more violent religious settlers move into the lands around you. They build new homes and can do whatever they want. They come and go as they please, in and out of Israel. You are not allowed to go anywhere except the West Bank. Their soldiers are always there with guns. They are in charge.

The settlers terrorise you all the time. They stop people farming their land and so you struggle to survive. A few weeks ago, a settler shot one of your friends. They never get punished and they never go to prison. But recently your best friend went to prison for throwing rocks at the soldiers. You really miss him.

Your grandparents left Palestine in 1948 with four children, and very few possessions. Your grandmother thought she would be back in a few days or weeks. Your grandmother’s sister ended up in Gaza and they never saw one another other again. She died recently. You have a cousin who is the same age as you. You know you could have been close if only you had even met.

You see no future the way things are now. There is no hope. You want a different life. You want the things your grandparents had. You don’t want to be constantly afraid of being attacked. You dream of leaving. You dream of the day you go back to Palestine where the house you should have had is, even just to see it, to be truly home, to live the life that is rightfully yours.

What do you do? You resist. In the only way that you can, with the only things that you have. You throw rocks at the soldiers. One day, you get caught, and you get put in a prison. You are tried by a military court, and you stay in prison for a really long time. In prison, people do appalling things to you. Finally, they let you out. What do you do?

~~~~~

What was life like for a 15 year old living in Gaza?

You are also told the Palestinian story from the day you were born. There are good things about your life. You go to school, have friends, and family who you love, you can go out and do things. There are hospitals, and you can get a lot of things that you need. You love Gaza. But you can’t leave Gaza. You can’t go anywhere else in the land or the world except Gaza.

Your life is still hard. Your family struggle for money and to survive, to get the things that you all need. There are a lot of things that would make your life better and easier, but you can’t get them in Gaza. You know that if you lived in Israel, you could get whatever you wanted and needed. You have family in the West Bank you have never met, but you know about their struggles. You have a cousin the same age, who is enduring unimaginable hardships.

The people in charge of Gaza are not good leaders. They can be dangerous and violent if you oppose them. A lot of people in Gaza don’t like them, although some people support them. Your own parents really can’t stand them. These people have been in charge of Gaza since before you were even born. You have learned that there was a civil war in Gaza before that and hundreds of people were killed or wounded. There has never been an election since.

You know they fire rockets into Israel because they want to dismantle it. You want a different life, but it’s never really worked or got anywhere. It seems futile. And you know that every few years, the bombs will come. Everyone you know has lost someone or something from the Israeli bombs. You don’t remember that much about the last time, but you do remember being really terrified, and you remember that your Dad cried when his brother was killed.

Then one day you hear news. News that Israel has been attacked by Gaza. Israelis have been killed, and some are even being brought into Gaza. Your heart sinks. You have a funny feeling in your stomach. You know what is coming.

~~~~~

To these two children, these cousins, Zionism can and only ever will mean catastrophic dispossession, oppression, and Jewish supremacy. The only Jews or Israelis they have encountered have either bombed them or terrorised them. Israel is a colonial entity. It never had a right to exist. Israelis are settlers. All they ever do is steal land. How could you expect them to see it any other way? There can never be any nuance, or any grey area about it. It could never have any legitimacy in their eyes. How could you expect or ask them to empathise with Israelis when you consider what they have lived and are living through?

For them, anyone who describes themselves as a Zionist in any form, even a liberal Zionist, could only ever be perceived as somebody that cannot be reasoned with, is trying to justify and support the unjustifiable, and is nothing but a settler and a tool of their oppression.

~~~~~

What is the dominant narrative of Jewish/Israeli people?

(You do not have to agree with it — I am just telling it how it is told).

It may be slightly different for secular Israelis and Diaspora Jews, but it goes something along these lines:

“We are the people of Israel. This is where our religion and our language were born, where we built temples and our ancestors are buried. We have and always have been surrounded by enemies on all sides. For millennia, we have been scattered throughout the world. We were driven from Israel and we went to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Throughout history people have always tried to kill the Jewish people. They didn’t like us being Jewish. There were always pogroms and mass killings. In some places people would hide and pray together in secret. It is our duty to keep the Jewish religion alive in their honour.

In Europe the pogroms got worse and worse. A few of us left Europe for a better life in Palestine. But most of us stayed in Europe. And most of us died in Europe. Six million of us. They did it because they said we were responsible for everything bad that had ever happened in the world.

Most of our so-called friends and neighbours said nothing as we were terrorised and led away. They carefully planned and counted how they could get rid of each and every one of us. They tried to annihilate us completely from the face of the earth. But as a people we lived on.

Jewish people had been coming to Palestine from Europe for years before 1948 fleeing the persecution. We came and we bought land fairly and built our lives there. We were happy. We wanted to all be together again, in a place that had meaning to us, where we would be safe. We knew we needed freedom and independence, so that this time it would never, ever happen again.

People say that we never needed a country, but what do they know? Jewish history has taught us things that they can never possibly understand. Jewish history has taught us that the world will always betray us, and when that day comes, our friends and neighbours will walk on by. We are a minority, so we must stick together, protect one another, keep one another safe. We knew we needed freedom and independence, so that this time we would have a safeplace where we can go and live when the world finally turns us on again, as it always does.

And In 1947, the UN agreed we could finally have a state of our own. We were so proud and overjoyed. What an achievement for us after everything we had been through.

We never wanted to fight with the people already living in Palestine. Yes, before 1948, some of us lived together peacefully. But it wasn’t a Utopia. Some of the people welcomed us and provided us with a safe place to live. We had good relationships with them.

But some of the people didn’t want us there, we were outsiders and they never liked us. Some people went to the British to get them to stop us from coming to Palestine. And even before 1948, there was a lot of fighting between us, and some of us were massacred even in Palestine.

But we could have found a way to live together peacefully, in two states, and they could have lived in our state just as we could have lived in theirs, just so long as we had a State. That is all we ever wanted. We could have divided and shared the land.

But they could never let us have it. Never. And when the British finally left, we saw our opportunity, we declared our state. We had no intention of taking anything from anyone. We just wanted a state. And then every single one of our neighbours, all the countries around us invaded us, from every corner of the land. Enemies on all sides. They surrounded us and we found we were alone, again, just as we always have been.

But this time we fought back. We fought for our freedom and independence and dignity, and our right to live and exist and not just accept to be killed, and mainly, for most of us, because we actually had nowhere else to go. It was a war, yes, we took land yes, but we didn’t start that war. It was existential, because how else exactly do you expect we could have guaranteed our security and safety surrounded by neighbours who were baying for our blood? What would you have done?

Then after 1948 the Middle East erupted. The Jews in the Middle East had always experienced persecution. But this was worse than ever. It was intolerable. They blamed those Jews for Israel. Hundreds of thousands of us were ethnically cleansed out of homes we had lived in for centuries, from Ancient communities all across the continent, and we left to build new lives in Israel. Over half of Israelis today are descended from those Middle Eastern Jews.

Now we live together in Israel. We stick togehter and we fight together. We have fought war after war after war. They have tried to kill us from all sides, time after time. But each time, we fight back harder, and we win. We have and always will be surrounded by enemies, but we will always fight back.”

~~~~~

You might not agree with a single word of this story. But this story, in some form or another has been passed down through generations and generations of millions of Jewish and Israeli people.

~~~~~

Now imagine the life of this 15-year-old born and living in Israel

You have been taught this story since the day you were born.

You live in a Kibbutz. You have friends. You like the outdoors and sports. You get good grades in school.

Your grandparents live nearby. Your Grandad came from Yemen as a refugee, as a child. He told you that his family were being attacked and threatened after the 1948 war, so they left their possessions and homes behind in Yemen, and they came to Israel instead.

Mostly you are happy. You are so excited you have a new boyfriend or girlfriend who you really like, but your parents don’t know yet.

But you really hate the rockets. You have never known any life without rockets. You know that some of the rockets get intercepted, but they still get through all the time.

There are bomb shelters everywhere. At school, in the playgrounds, in the bus-shelters, and at home. The sirens can go off at any time and then you have to run to the shelter. Even if you are busy doing your homework, or asleep, or on the toilet. The noise of the sirens never stops making you jump. You are used to it, but you still get scared and you hate it, and the sounds of the rockets make you shake.

You know in a couple of years you will be conscripted into the army. Everybody goes. You do and you don’t want to go. You want to go because you know it is your duty to protect the State from its enemies, just as everyone in your family has always done. But you are scared about it, and you don’t know what it will really be like. People don’t talk about it.

One weekend, your parents agree you can spend the night with your cousin. They live 40 minutes away. She is like a sister to you. So, you go on Friday. You have fun, watch a movie, chat for ages, and you fall asleep late.

The next thing you know your Aunt is waking you both up. It is Saturday morning. She is in a panic. Something is happening. Your parents have messaged. Something is wrong. She says there are men everywhere in the Kibbutz with guns. You turn on your phone. There are messages from your parents and your brother. They are in the bomb shelter. You try to call them. You can’t get through. You feel the panic rising in your chest. No, please, no. You ring your boyfriend or girlfriend. No answer.

~~~~~

This child has never met a Palestinian that lives in any Occupied Palestinian territory. All he/she knows about them is that they fire rockets at Israel and have done his/her whole life, and once every couple of decades they commit extremely violent and horrific terrorist attacks. That is what he/she knows because that’s what they have been taught and also what their lived experience has taught them.

Many Jewish and Israeli people believe when they talk about Zionism they are talking about, “Somewhere safe for Jews to live where they will not be attacked, where they can call home, and where they have self-determination.” How is it possible for this 15 year old child, given the stories they have been told and the life they have led, to be anything other than a Zionist, when it is defined like that? And if they are told they are a ‘settler’, or an ‘evil oppressor’ and that that is why they deserve to die, they will look at you with wide eyed wonder and assume you are a lunatic.

The reason they can conceive of the Jewish people as settlers who live outside 1967 borders and not themselves is because they do not see them as being in the, ‘Right for somewhere safe to live’ group of Zionists. They are considered to be religious extremists and supremacists, what they see as a distorted and extremist form of Zionism, and they don’t consider it the same.

~~~~~

There are many incredibly sad and depressing things about all of these stories. But the part to me that makes it seem most tragically futile — is that for a very large number of individual human beings that ended up living in either Israel or in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the 1950s -1960s — their stories are almost the same. Most of them were running away from something, and most of the time, the people who are doing the running away are not the people doing the fighting or the massacring.

It is a story of being a refugee, of fighting for survival against all odds, of 20th century dispossession and mass displacement. A story of being blamed for things they did not do and being held to account for debts that they did not owe. The tumult of 20th century history created a shared heritage — that over a very short time hundreds upon thousands of people were displaced — Jews fleeing Europe to Palestine, Palestinians fleeing during the creation of Israel, and almost all the Jews across the Middle East then fleeing to Israel in the few years after it started.

Part of that shared heritage became about yearning to return to a Holy piece of land that carries promise and a deep spiritual connection. It really shouldn’t be that hard to explain to one another — and indeed the rest of the world, why we cannot just ‘let it go’.

I am not trying to rewrite history and say that every single person in the years leading up to and including events in 1948 was an innocent bystander. Absolutely not. I am just saying that, generally speaking, as is almost always the case — when it comes to atrocities, it is normally extremists that engage in it, that end up calling the shots for everyone, and it is them that end up dictating history.

And it is extremist ideologies that are plaguing us today. One is an ideology of Jewish supremacy. God’s chosen people, Israel is God’s gift and therefore comes with a right to take land off anyone and everyone. The other is an extreme, dangerous and corrupted version of Islam — a highly repressive ideology where human rights do not exist, and it exalts in the death of Jews.

These people — all of them — they are the mob. ‘Death to the Jew. Death to the Arab’ One or the other in their rightful place, subservient to the other, or better yet, dead in the ground.

Most people are not the mob. Most people are not sociopaths. Most people just want to live and get on with their lives, they want to have their basic needs met, their human rights, and they want their children to grow up happy and healthy with a bright future ahead.

It is important to understand though that the bonds of community and peoplehood are also part of a basic human need. The need to maintain relationships with brothers, sisters, cousins and friends who live in our communities together with us, who have a shared history with us, who support us, and to whom we are loyal — it is part of the human experience.

The stories of our own and our friend’s grandparents, the loss of livelihood and dreams for the future as they packed their bags and fled — these are the stories that make us peoples. And it is these stories that bind us together within our communities much more closely than any ancient religious text or any ancestral DNA test ever could.

And so when people say, “The Jews and Israelis are not a people. They are fakers, they are ‘Europeans’ pretending to have links to a land that has nothing to do with them.” Or people say, “The Palestinians are not a people. They are just ‘Arabs’ who could have gone anywhere, who have no real history and whose only goal in life is to terrorise Jews,” these will both only ever be seen as inherently anti-Semitic or Anti-Palestinian statements that erase and deny large parts of our collective heritage, and neither will lead to any kind of constructive dialogue. Who is anyone to make judgements about what another people is that they do not belong to?

And so we end up where we have got to today –

From the Palestinian side, what I think is difficult for somebody who is not Palestinian to understand, is that telling them that they should give up on the right to return — for many — is impossible. They can’t do it. Understanding and honouring Palestinian history, which is rich, and complicated, and is largely unknown to many people, for them it is part of their identity. Poetry, art, great thinkers, great writers — they are all there for the world to see if only they would bother to look.

And even worse for a Palestinian, to suggest that everything that has befallen them was somehow their fault because they refused to give up on their history, this could only ever be met with fury and be seen as gaslighting.

It is essential as well to remember that this land — it is not just any land. It is not so easy to walk away from it as any other place on earth. It is Holy Land. It has meaning to everyone associated with it, and everyone wishes to be able to walk free inside it.

Having an enduring determination to free themselves from a brutal occupation that does nothing but dehumanises them and steals from them — and a longing, ultimately, to return to their homeland, this is inherent to being a Palestinian. They cannot ‘Un-Palestinian’ themselves.

So the Palestinians will say, “What world would you have us do? You the world have done nothing to help us. You who have been silent and you care nothing for our oppression. You have abandoned us to unthinkable injustice and suffering for decades. You who sit comfortably in your homes have no right to moralise at us or criticise us and tell us what we should or shouldn’t do. We have no means whatsoever to fight for our freedom. No one is on our side. We are alone. We will do whatever must be done to fight for ourselves, our human rights, our land.”

The Palestinians are living in an impossible nightmare. There seems to be nothing they can do to free themselves that doesn’t make their situation worse. What exactly are they supposed to do when they live under an occupation, have no civil rights, no means to fight for themselves, and the people with power that could do something are not standing up for them? And when all means of civil and non-violent resistance are completely denied or futile, support for more violent resistance will become inevitable.

And it was indeed inevitable that 7th October would come. Warning after warning has been given about the Occupied Palestinian territories and the blockade. Warnings about human rights abuses have gone unheeded. Warnings that if Palestinians are not given their freedom what would happen. Warnings that it was totally unjust, immoral and illegal for Palestinians in the West Bank to be under military occupation. Time and again it has been said it is a danger to the security of Israel, and it was ignored.

But the problem for the Palestinians is that terror was never ever going to work — because the people in Israel believe it was established and is needed as security because of the risk of terror against them. So the idea that they could be terrorised into giving it back, or into leaving — this is an absurdity. People talk of ‘Hasbara’, but terror is and feeds Hasbara. October 7th has done nothing but make people believe in Zionism even more (a safe place to live in their eyes). Zionism burns greater than ever with the fuel of the fires from the Hamas rockets. All terror has and can ever achieve is further encroachment onto Palestinian territory — the literal opposite of a free Palestine.

What happened in 1948 is horrendous. But what of it, to that 15 year old Israeli child? Whose own grandparents had nothing to do with it, and were themselves dispossessed, as is the case now for so many people living in Israel. That child who has only ever known Israel as their home.

So Israelis will say, “World, what would you have us do after October 7th? People outside Israel, you can say whatever the hell you want, but we are here alone. We have and always have been surrounded by people on every side who wish to murder each and every one of us until we are annihilated, and in the most painful and brutal possible way, as has just been demonstrated plainly for all the world to see. You, who do not have any understanding whatsoever of what that is like, do not get to tell us what to do. We will do whatever we think is necessary to strengthen our position to ensure this cannot happen again.”

What people are missing is that this conflict is unique to any other case of the ‘coloniser and colonised’ in history, because the people doing the ‘colonising’ are half the people of the land, people who have a genuine existential fear of everybody around them that does not come from nowhere, and is deeply ingrained into most people’ psyche. Most do not have anywhere else to go, because most of their grandparents came to Israel as refugees, and so they cannot perceive themselves as a ‘colonial settler’ in any way. So they will never stop fighting back at terrorism for their right to live without fear of attack.

This links to the Jewish people in the diaspora who support Israel and is extremely difficult for non-Jewish people to understand.

For many Jewish people, memorialising the repeated attempts to eradicate Jews throughout history, most notably the Holocaust, and remembering and honouring ancestors who have died to keep the Jewish religion alive is considered essential.

Every festival, every prayer book, every cultural activity and a very large number of conversations includes this on some level. It is integral and inherent to most people’s identity. So if people feel that their Jewish counterparts, and very often family in Israel are in existential danger, they can and only ever will see it as a moral imperative that they must be supported.

Asking Jewish people to somehow disavow themselves of this notion is impossible. To tell most Jewish people they need to ‘get over it’ because, “they are a coloniser and their needs do not matter,” is completely meaningless to them.

It is not grounded in reality, and something that can and will only ever be perceived as an attempt to ‘UnJewish them’. I.e. to eradicate significant parts of Jewish history and day-to-day life and community, and thus could only ever be perceived as deeply antisemitic in its very nature. The more these things are denied as relevant, the more people will fight back against what they see as gaslighting.

But for those people in the diaspora who have blindly, unquestioningly, dutifully and uncritically supported Israel, while its government drifts ever further into the grip of right-wing extremism and corruption, must surely now see that was a mistake. If you had a friend or a loved one on a destructive path of self-sabotage, would you just let them carry on?

It is great tragedy of Jewish history for both Jews and Palestinians alike that self-determination and independence for the Jewish people, at a time when they needed and wanted it so badly would come at someone else’s expense. Something that is so freely and unquestioningly given to so many other peoples, but not the Jewish people. Yes, it is unfair. But it did come at their expense. I think that most Palestinians only opposed it, not because they oppose Jewish people — it is the bit about it being at their expense.

We can argue forever and eternity about, “Oh, but it never needed to be this way. If only you could have shared with us. If only in 1947 this or that. And if only in this peace agreement this year or that year,” or whatever.

But what of it to those 15 year olds living in Gaza and the West Bank? It is an irrelevance what was ever intended. What was intended bears no resemblance whatsoever to their lived reality. The Jewish dream of Zionism became their nightmare. I know this is an extremely painful and bitter pill for people to swallow, but Zionism since its inception has resulted in nothing other than subjugation for them. And it is not normal for a country to not have any proper borders, and for one people to control another in some parts of it.

And while it continues to happen, Zionism will continue to be seen as Jewish people being allowed to have control over other people. This was never ever how Zionism was originally intended for a lot of people, and it is not what they think it means. Far from it. But this is where it has come to, and intentions do not matter, because it is our actions that count. Once you understand this, it is really not difficult to see how this is fuelling dark and extremely dangerous conspiracy theories about Zionism, which are dragging us back to a place in history that we most definitely do not want to go, and it endangers us all.

We need to open our eyes to reality. As the bombs reign down in Gaza, destroying thousands of lives, after well over 100 days, there are people dying from starvation. This must end, immediately. It is abominable. The rockets are still coming. And even if you stop them today, while there is occupation in any part of the land, they will just come back tomorrow or the next day or the week or the year or the decade after that. And surely from the Israeli side, negotiating whatever terms to get as many of those hostages out alive, going through what must be unthinkable terror, at any cost, must be prioritised above all else.

And I am very sorry, because I know people will not like this. But this ‘war’ — it is not about destroying Hamas. It is becoming increasingly clear by the day that not only is destroying Hamas impossible, but Israel’s government are violent ethnonationalists. The far right threaten to collapse it at every mention of a ceasefire — the only thing that will get most of those hostages back alive — and so it carries on. And extreme ideology is much more widespread within the government than just the furthest right that are propping it up. The very leader of Israel himself is at the heart of it.

When you hear what they are saying, it is very clear that they have far more sinister intentions, and we must take them at their word. Allowing people to starve, making plans to drive them off their land into other places, destroying heritage sites, and yes, mass killing — that is ethnic cleansing. It is the definition of ethnic cleansing. It is illegal under international law, and it must stop.

People say, “Oh, but Hamas are stealing the aid.” Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. I don’t know. I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t care because it is an irrelevance at this moment in time to that woman looking into the eyes of her hungry child as they wither away and die. It is enough.

Could it ever be solved?

There are those of us that would be willing to give up on the dreams of our respective peoples, and not because we wish to throw them under the bus. But simply because we would just accept any solution, in whatever form, that would bring the suffering of all people to an end, and as quickly as possible. Because we believe that none of any of this is worth the blood of anyone’s children.

Because we look at those dreams of security through self-determination, rights to return, and we look at where we are today, and we see that none of any of it has delivered on its promise. We see that the world is a very different place to what it was in 1948. We recognise that there are people on the ‘other side’ that we would much rather share a country with than the ‘mob’ on our own side.

Because we know that our histories are worthless if they demand that we ‘unhuman’ ourselves.

Because we recognise that we have inherited the most Unholy mess.

But we are few in number, because the majority of most peoples cannot let go of their respective narratives, either in whole or in part. And so the solution that must be found is one that could satisfy the majority of the narrative of both peoples.

Israel already has half of what it wants — it has the state. But it does not have security, and any pretence of it has been an illusion, one that was violently shattered on October 7th.

The Palestinians meanwhile — they have nothing of what they want.

A one state solution — this does not satisfy the Israeli narrative, because it requires the undoing of Israel. It gives many Israelis nothing of what they think they want and everything they are afraid of. If you were that panicking aunt of that 15 year old Israeli child just now, would you be agreeing to open that border?

But I do not think the two-state solution really satisfies the Palestinian narrative. Because in that narrative, things were better before Israel, before Zionism, where everybody just lived together. And mainly because people want to able to walk free across the land — the right of return. The two-state solution may bring freedom and dignity, but I am not sure if it would give enough people what they really want.

Ultimately it comes down to one of the reasons this has been so intractable for so long. The Jewish State and the desire to control and ensure the continued right of Jewish immigration to Israel, and the presumed need to maintain a Jewish majority to enable that, vs the Right to Return of the Palestinians. ‘The War of Return’ as it has been called. The thing that neither side seems to be able to give up, that seem to be in direct conflict.

So what do we do? Throw our hands up, put it down to a bad job and just give up. (What the world has done). Keep blaming each side’s ‘propaganda’, each side’s education system, each side’s unwillingness to budge. But it won’t work, because it is asking people to let things go of things that they cannot let go of, things that are integral to the history of their peoples.

Human beings have been solving problems since we existed and there is no reason why we cannot solve this one.

There are many possible ways to solve it. The confederate two-state-solution is one example of a way to square the circle: https://www.alandforall.org/.

I suggest it not because I am wedded to it but because it seems to me that it would satisfy enough of both narratives to work. There may be multiple other ways to do it.

How do we get to it? As a possible example. We start with two states. Real states. Not a bit of a state or half a state with the other bit not connected to it and some people still being occupied that could never be acceptable, and was always going to be fought against. A real Palestinian state, whose borders are secured through international peacekeeping. But with that state must also come the promise and the goal that over a reasonably short period of time, everybody who wishes to cross that border gets to cross that border, until eventually, one day, ideally, there isn’t a border. People live wherever they want, but retain citizenship in their own state. And with regards specific land and homes that cannot be returned, real reparations are made. This is just one example of how it could be done.

As we keep hearing — 7 million Israelis, 7 million Palestinians. No one is going anywhere. But at some point, it is my opinion that, probably, for this to ever end, everyone must be able to go everywhere.

Two peoples living side by side. All free to live and move freely across this ancient and Holy land that is so special and meaningful to all and must be shared. Finally able to mix and become humanised in each other’s eyes. Christian, Jew, and Muslim, free to access their ancient and Holy sites. All of us united together in the spirit of mutual respect and tolerance.

Cooperating together to fight the only war that there should ever have been — the only war worth fighting.

Everybody vs the mob.

Not a religious war, not a war of the us or them, not a war over rights to the land and houses. But a war of the moderate and the just against the extremists that have desecrated our respective religions and turned them into something ugly. The lunatics marginalised, silenced and rejected. As opposed to what we have now — the sociopaths leading the charge and everyone else marching dutifully along behind.

People will say this is idealistic nonsense, a pipe dream. But what is the other option? Another twenty or thirty years of failed peace agreements and more of the same all over again? And with every round of violence, the violence gets more violent, the mob gets stronger and more popular on both sides as their ideas are seeded. And the mob is hard to fight, because the mob involves fanatic religion that cannot be reasoned with.

If we keep allowing them to get stronger and stronger, I think they will eventually set each other, themselves, and quite possibly the entire world, alight. Literal World War 3 with Jerusalem at the centre.

“How can you ask us to negotiate with them?” I hear you say. “Them, who are ethnically cleansing us,” or, “Them who wish to annihilate us,” depending on which side you are on. But here is the rub — you cannot terrorise people into leaving and you cannot bomb people into submission. Neither has ever worked. We cannot ethnically cleanse or genocide our way out of this for either people, one way or the other. Any other solution other than a diplomatic solution will lead us nowhere but the abyss.

Israelis and Palestinians are not all inherently genocidal oppressors or inherently genocidal terrorists. (As unfortunately lots of people are saying) Of course they are not. Maybe right now in Gaza most Palestinians do support Hamas in what they see as armed resistance, and most Israelis do support the actions of their government in what they see as a war. But both things have become intertwined with both mobs, and so they are not what each respective side thinks they are. The ‘armed resistance’ — a pogrom style massacre by the ‘death to the Jew’ mob, and the ‘war’ a flagrant breach of international law and an obvious attempt at ethnic cleansing by the ‘God gave us Israel, death to the Arab’ mob.

I am not very sure that most of any of them either know or believe exactly what has or hasn’t happened. The information they are receiving is very different to ours. And in times of heightened escalation of violence, people retract into the respective narratives of their people as they become reinforced. “If it’s a choice between us or them, I choose us. And for me to be able to look myself in the mirror, I must choose to believe what I choose to believe.”

Both believe so deeply within their heart and soul that they are on the side of righteous justice. For one it is ‘the right to just exist’, For the other, it is ‘the right to life, dignity, freedom from cruel and violent oppressors’. So they are both engaging in the collective delusion that because theirs is the side of the right and good, their soldiers/fighters must also be right and good.

Their people can’t possibly be the ones committing the crimes against humanity, and they cannot believe the worst things that are being said about their own side, only the other. But this is not the reality of wars and fighting, and definitely not in a conflict that has gone on for this long where this amount of hatred has become so entrenched, and most of all not ones which involve religion. To me it seems very likely that most of the worst things that are being said about both sides, are in fact, the true things.

As it turns out, many of them were always, are becoming, or have become, the mob.

I think almost everyone, whatever they say, would in fact be appalled if they were actually to see the violence that has happened, and is happening with their very own eyes. But they do not want to open their eyes to see it for what it really is, because they are on the side of the right and the good.

I know there are people of every colour and creed who no doubt I could become friends with, get along with, and love dearly. But also there are people of every colour and creed that I could not stand to be in the same room as. I know this because I am not a racist. Human beings are human beings, that is all we need to know. And if we find ourselves making any collective statements about all of a people, we are probably becoming the very thing we so vociferously claim to the world we are not.

I think that racism may well have become entrenched on ‘both sides’ but I am not sure that it is exactly racism — perhaps a better way to put it would be ‘othering’. “They did this, they did that. They support this, they support that.” And the only way to stop doing it is not to tell each other that we need to unlearn or erase our respective histories and ‘un-brain’ wash ourselves. It is the opposite.

We have to first human ourselves. And then we might have to temporarily UnJewish and UnPalestinian ourselves for short amounts of time. Then we learn each other’s history. Then we will be able to find solutions together.

How can we work together to solve this?

This part of this piece of writing — specifically — it is for us in the diaspora. Hardly anyone in the Middle East is in a place to hear any of this this right now, and too many of them are much too busy trying not to die or get killed.

We in the diaspora, we are trying very hard to do what we can to stop this, and to help. But how is it possible, that all of us who seemingly so desperately want the same thing — freedom and dignity for everyone, and yet still don’t seem to be able to get anywhere without offending and upsetting one another? How can we expect people in the Middle East to co-exist, if we cannot even have a conversation?

I believe we are talking to each other in languages we do not understand, and until we realise this, we will only ever talk past each other. Almost every conversation will have the opposite of its intended consequence, and make the other person believe they are even more right.

We will only ever find it inconceivable that people or friends or colleagues that we thought were ‘nice’ could have views that seem totally barbaric in our eyes. But if we could talk in languages each other could understand, it would get easier. Or at least if we can’t, if we tried to hear what the other is really saying.

We are not listening to, or being respectful of one another and as a collective we are so much weaker and so much less powerful for it. Because the discourse has become so toxic that we cannot work together to find solutions.

I know I myself have been done these things, but even as we try to so hard to understand and explain, it is so easy to offend. I think the reason we are offending each other is because the words in the mind of the speaker sound very different to the ears of the listener.

If the conversations are had respectfully in the spirit of achieving genuine mutual understanding, that is great. But if it is an argument to convince the other person that you are right, forget it.

Take the debate about whether shouting ‘Intifada’ is Anti-Semitic.

If you tell some Palestinians that shouting, what to them means ‘resistance’ against a state which is and has been exercising immense and disproportionate power against them and has done for three quarters of a century, is anti-Semitic, they will inevitably wonder what planet you are living on. How exactly it is that you expect they can possibly fight for their freedom? And why do you continue to engage in this collective delusion that just condemns them to suffer and die?

But if you try to tell most Jewish people, that what they perceive as the indiscriminate killing of Jews in terrorist attacks is not antisemitic, it is inevitable that they will not believe you. In fact, they will see you as yet another of the seemingly innumerable people in the ‘Death to the Jew’ mob.

Every conversation is having the opposition of its intended consequence. Convincing the other person they were more right than they were before.

Think about the way that we frequently use each other’s non-mainstream diaspora voices as a stick to beat each other with. (And this is not necessarily a criticism of those voices — some of them are very important — it’s just explaining how they are seen).

People say to Palestinians:-

“Look, this Palestinian is good, they think Zionism is okay, and you should just accept it. If only you could stop being so silly like them it would have all been over a long time ago. They agree that you haven’t exactly helped yourselves.”

How could a Palestinian ever consider this as a legitimate argument? Views that surely could only be perceived as incredibly anti-Palestinian. Surely they must think something along the lines of…

“You are privileged not to be in Gaza grieving incommensurate losses. You are one of the lucky ones whose entire family is not now dead. You who are not hungry and ill and exhausted and cold and terrified of being killed. All of your hopes and dreams do not lie in ruin before your eyes. You are enabling and emboldening our enemies. You are throwing us under the wheels of the bus of occupation all the while benefitting from living in the countries that side with our oppressors. You do not, and you will not ever, speak for us.”

Equally Jewish people are constantly bombarded with -

“Look at this Jewish person or that one. They are reasonable. They believe Israel is a colonial entity and should be entirely dismantled. They agree you are weaponising the Holocaust and playing the victim. Why are you not a good Jew, like them?”

This is not in any way a mainstream Jewish view because it is mostly perceived as -

“Lucky you, not to be one of almost half the Jews of the world that ended up living in Israel, to not have been born there, to not have a friend or family member that has been killed or taken or mutilated.

Lucky you, who can align yourself with the baying mob, and in so doing throw your Jewish Brothers and Sisters in Israel under the wheels of the bus of annihilation by the people that have demonstrated time and again that they hate them, because it is not your problem. You are not and never have been part of the community, and you do not speak for us.”

If we constantly tell both groups that we don’t hate them, just so long as they agree with something that is a total anathema to them, it will never wash. I am sure it is incredibly offensive to everyone.

“From the River to the Sea.” What do you mean? Genocide the Jews? Genocide the Palestinians? Arab Nationalism? Jewish Nationalism? Or simply freedom and equality for all?

And when it comes to ‘Zionism’. Forget about different languages. We are on completely different planets.

For everyone and anyone else watching the nightmare unfold, who can’t make sense of any of it, they must be thinking, “Surely none of any of this can be okay in the name of human decency?” But they do not know what to do. Because to ‘both sides’ it is to offend everyone and convince no one. ‘Both sidsing’ it has been declared not allowed. You will always be seen as a sell-out or a bus-thrower-under, one way or the other. So they are silenced, their voices not heard, reduced into a despondent, hand-wringing depression.

Yes, in the Middle East, one group has all the power. But in the diaspora, we are more equal. We have equal rights, we mostly live in countries where we are free to speak our minds.

Both sides are busy trying to expose each other’s mob. Both sides have “traitors” who are busy helping. The traitors have totally denounced their own side as either misogynistic, or racist, or both, and have joined the other team. And most of everybody else is on the scale of moderate, somewhere in between the views of the ‘mob’ from their own side, and ‘traitor’ for the other side. None of us even agree with each other on our ‘own side’, and very often, the people on our own side annoy us even more than the people on the other, and amazingly, sometimes the people we find the most annoying are the people we agree with the most.

In the first version of this I wrote, “We are mirror images of one another, yet it seems we mainly hold the mirror up at each other, not at the self.” So we never get to see what it is that we might have been missing.

Maybe is the other way around — we only hold the mirror up at the self and not the other. Something like that.

This is a long and, yes, very complicated story affecting and involving millions of different people across the world, across time and space, with millions of different stories to tell. For there to be any genuine hope of mutual understanding or respect, every single person is going to have to concede that most things about this story they can never truly understand because they have not lived them.

We cannot know, if we have not lived it, what it means to be born and live in a country that has only ever been at war. We cannot know, if we have not lived it, what it means to be born and live your whole life in a territory that is brutally occupied, or is under a blockade, by another people. Nor can we know, if we have not lived it, what it is like to have friends and family caught up on any side of this, whose safety and wellbeing you are desperately worried about.

We in the diaspora, so desperately worried for people in the Middle East, we are all working so hard, but we are not doing the right work. We are digging the hole deeper than ever. The magic peace fairy is not coming. They will not simply just descend from the sky, sprinkle us with magic fairy peace dust and make it all better.

When was the last time we tried to have a meaningful conversation with someone who is saying things that seem incredibly offensive to us? When was the last time we took the trouble to ask them why they think what they do? Or to ask why it is that we have offended them? To ask them about their lives, what happened to their grandparents, and their families and friends, and their parents and the stories that they were told growing up. About their hopes and dreams and aspirations. About their fears for the future.

Whenever the violence escalates, the historians cash in. Suddenly people have more motivation to understand, so we start reading and re-reading the history books. But mostly history will not give us the answers that we are looking for. It is people’s stories that will do it. And reading books that reinforce things that we already agree with will not give us the understanding that we need. It is the great writers from the other side that might.

Social media has many ills. But one huge positive is that it allows us to connect with all sorts of people whose thoughts and ideas we would never have been exposed to. We can observe fascinating conversations between other people we would never have been party to before. We can gain understanding, share ideas and solutions. It is definitely happenning. None of this was there in any previous attempts to fix this. It might just be the gamechanger that we need. We must make the most of it.

We cling to our positions like shells to a rock, not budging at all, so sure that we and we alone can see this for what it really is. I know I was. We could have been working together to stop this, but we never make any progress, and as a result, inadvertently, each and every one of us is complicit in the most unforgivable human suffering.

People say that there is no point talking about peaceful co-existence because it has never worked — but neither has violence. Ultimately there are only two choices — wait for the magic peace fairy, and die together. Or we can do the work to make the ‘peace’ that we all want, and maybe we can live together.

Addendum

And now I speak “as a British Jew,” to anyone in our community who is willing to listen.

I can tell the story of the Jewish story because I know that story. I have grown up listening to it. I was taught it in the Synagogue, in Sunday school and by family and friends. I have also tried, as best as I can, having not lived it, but by listening to the voices of Palestinians and with the help and feedback of allies, to do justice to their story. I hope that I have. It may not meet the mark, after all, this is only version 2. And anyway, neither ‘side’ is a monolith, we would all tell our histories a bit differently, so I definitely cannot satisfy all.

It is important to say that there is one thing yet unmentioned about these two stories. It may be the most important thing. I think it belies the biggest lack of understanding between us.

I have talked much of the similarities in our stories. But there is one very big difference.

The Israeli and Jewish story is about running away. It is about running away from terrible persecution, and of moving forward. It is about moving on and building a new life. The idea of wanting to go back in time, wanting to turn back the clock — it is unconscionable. There was never anything worth going back to. So, for example, when some of us are suddenly being offered citizenship in European countries because our grandparents lived there before the Holocaust, this is not something that we could ever comprehend wanting.

So many Israelis feel, “Why couldn’t they have just moved on like we did? Why did they spend all of their efforts ruining things for us when they could have just moved forward, let it go, made the best of a bad lot, and made new lives like we did?”

Apart from the multitude of reasons I have already explained as to why it was never that simple and why their material circumstances and the occupation has made that impossible for most people — what we need to realise is that their story is the other way around. Our story starts from a place of misery, and moves onto something better. Theirs starts from a place where they were happy enough, and moves onto something horrific. It starts from being at least content for hundreds of years, running away — something they thought was temporary — and never being allowed to go back.

And I say this part as gently as I possibly can. There is a very deep and particular sorrow that many Jewish people will know. It comes with realising that we do not want to look back, because looking back is much too painful. Knowing that for some of us there is no point going on ‘ancestry.com’ because there is no ancestry left to trace. And is it that sorrow that was felt so keenly after the atrocity that was October the 7th. People do not understand that something cannot be weaponised when it is so genuinely heartfelt — there is no intent behind it.

But for the Palestinians — seeing that people from other countries can go and visit, go on holiday, and walk around in a land where their grandparents built their homes, left with whatever they could carry only for them and their families to encounter ever more worsening horrors on their onward journey right up until this very day — and yet they can never set foot in that land — I think what they experience when they see that — it is a very similar sorrow. And I am sure that they have been feeling that sorrow most keenly with each and every passing day, and most particularly in these last months.

I do not believe, as I have argued, that is the case that Israel must cease to exist with all the people in it, to allow the Palestinians what they clearly want, need, and, I believe, are indeed entitled to. The idea that our millenia-old right of return is still in date but their 75-year-old right of return has somehow expired is completely logically incoherent.

And I am coming to understand that suggesting that it has somehow been indulged is a bit like telling us we are weaponising the Holocaust. I think that nothing could be more insulting.

The problem with our version of the story that we were taught — The story of the Jewish people, our losses, our sacrifices, our spilled blood — it is only half a story. It is history through only one lens.

And that story is not the only thing that is taught in our homes and in our Synagogues and in our Sunday schools. We are taught values. We are taught values of respect, justice, and ‘do unto others’. We are taught the words of the Talmud ‘Whoever saves a life, saves the world entire,” (words that can also be found in the Quran).

Most importantly of all, we are taught, “Do not stand idly by while the blood of your neighbour is shed.”

And because we are taught those values — there is a cognitive dissonance that so many people in our community feel — but don’t quite understand — that parts of this story don’t really make any sense, that what happened, and is happening, is definitely not okay. That dissonance — it will not hold forever. It will tear our families and our community apart. It already is.

Yes, there is a death to the Jew mob. Yes, they are a massive problem. But I think we have no right to make mention of that mob unless in the same breath and multiple times over we are making mention of our own mob. Because our own, ‘Death to the Arab’ mob — they have been running around the Occupied Territories unchecked for decades. And it is both mobs that need to be brought under control before there can ever be any hope of resolving this. The Death to the Jew mob will come back stronger than ever while the Death to the Arab mob roam free. And who are we to lecture Palestinians for not getting their house in order, when it is our side that has all the power and all the resources, and yet we have allowed it to carry on? We who demand that they condemn the “resistance” whilst refusing to condemn the “war”.

And we must understand this — If Gaza is allowed to be resettled — it is over. Ever more untold and unimaginable horror for the Palestinians, and in our silence we will have handed Israel on a plate to those ethnonationalists, to the people that should have had nothing to do with what Israel could have been — and in fact people that have nothing to do with us and our values.

People keep talking about the two-state solution like it is some kind of utopia that, like the magic peace fairy, it will just fall from the sky. It is not that easy. Trying to dismantle settlements in the West Bank to make that possible — it is probably almost undoable as it is. Some of them have been there so long now and the Palestinians have very little faith that it could or would ever be done. In fact a confederate version of the two state solution may in some ways be easier to implement because it does not necessarily require the dismantlement of all settlements, something that looks like it is getting harder to do.

And If we think antisemitism is bad now, it will be nothing compared to what is in store in years to come if the resettlement and reoccupation of Gaza were to happen. Israel, hated among nations like never before, until eventually the world will finally not tolerate it. It is dangerous and it leads I know not where, undoing it, I know not how. An epic holy war ahead of us, and in the process we will see what we are already seeing in Israel — free speech and dissent a thing of the past — and Israel’s democracy — burned to the ground.

We are doing our cousins and our friends no favours by parroting off the same old arguments, and ignoring the occupation that has been allowed to become normalised within Israel. It is high time for a different conversation. It was a long ago, and it is now or never.

We need to speak up, loud and clear. When it comes to armed Jewish settlers running around the West bank and terrorising Palestinians, we are anti — it, and we always have been. But how can we expect other people to know this if we do not have these conversations in the open? If we do not call a spade a spade. Our refusal to use particular words and talk about things in a particular way in front of other people even if we do it behind closed doors has led to a lack of education within our community — and I am sure that there will be some people when I talk about these things, that have literally no idea what I am even saying. This is a very big problem. I hope some of those people are reading this now.

And what exactly is it that we are so afraid will happen if we put our heads above the parapet? It is evidently clear that Israel has not been abandoned by its allies. Put yourself in the shoes of an ordinary Gazan just now. Heartbreakingly, it seems to me, that being abandoned by the world — that that has become their destiny.

And, “What of the far left?” people will say? How are we to do deal with their antisemitism?

Yes, the far left think they are supporting armed resistance but have in fact aligned themselves with the ‘death to the Jew’ mob. They bleat on about ‘Hasbara’ — something they clearly have no understanding of whatsoever because if they did they would realise that they are it. Or at least that they are feeding it. Literally they are walking, talking Hasbara.

But of the multiple problems with the far left — and there are many — to me the worst is that there are those of them who have no connection whatsoever to the lives of anyone in the region — no ordinary Israelis or ordinary Palestinians, and yet they cheer for ever more death and destruction. They cheer on “armed resistance” from their comfortable homes in their comfortable lives, and it is not them who will have to face the consequences.

And maybe this round of violence will be the last round, the round that ends it once and for all — I hope so. But it has come at the most appalling and unacceptable cost.

Who are they to think they have a right to declare that somebody else’s family, somebody else’s child — Israeli or Palestinian — even one — let alone thousands and counting — is an acceptable sacrifice?

Maybe it is because they did not understand that October 7th could only ever have been a suicide mission. Because as a consequence of the rigidness of far-left ideology that does not allow for self-critical thinking, they refuse to understand this problem in more than one way. That you cannot fight evil with evil. That yes, it is more complicated than just ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’, more complicated than their warped version of reality where even children are fair game.

Probably there are some of them that knew what would happen after October 7th, and just decided it was probably worth it if it would eventually ‘free Palestine.’ Either way it is unforgivable because it was not their decision to make. And all that has happened as far as I can see, all October 7th has achieved is all it would ever achieve — to enable an extremely racist, harmful, problematic and untrue stereotype that ‘Palestinians are genocidal terrorists’ to be reinforced in the eyes of Israelis and the rest of the world. Around 3,000 people crossed that border on October 7th, of a population of over 2 million. But undoing that sterotype will be extremely difficult, taking us further away from where we need to be.

You cannot help but wonder where we might be right now if only all those people had used all that effort to lobby for a real diplomatic solution. But we can’t turn back the clock.

Arguing with the far left is a waste of time. They have no self-awareness, they are delusional, and they will never stop. They are as fanatical as any of the mob. The only way to make them stop talking is to actually sort this problem once and for all and work for the freedom and dignity of all. And when all is said and done, the ones that will keep complaining will finally be exposed for what they truly are.

That there are outspoken people within our community that think that the correct response to these people is for us to align ourselves with far right Islamophobes — we who have traditionally been proud of being anti-fascist — this could not be more ludicrous. It will lead us into that abyss. “I think the Jewish Chronicle is the Daily Mail for Jews.” Yes Dad, we all finally agree.

So where do we go from here? We need to start doing that right work. It is incumbent upon us more than anyone. Because it is only us who can help our friends and family in Israel, because it us who share history with them, who love and care about them. It is us who can help them see this through another lens.

We need to change the conversation, and we need to do it fast. Because the Palestinians do not have the luxury of time, and as far as I am concerned, neither do we.

There are people in our communities — both Israeli and Jewish — that have already been doing that right work for a really long time. It is time to listen to them, and elevate their voices. We need to start to be willing to be offended and to listen to other points of view. And unfortunately some of the right work does sometimes involve wading through what feels like a massive steaming pile of anti-Semitic shit, in order to get to the heart of some of the problems. But we also have an opportunity to meet some incredible people, and hear some amazing and wonderful voices that we would never have had a chance to hear. We have to get this done, to fix this once and for all.

We cannot hand this legacy to our children. We have to fight (non-violently) for a different future. This is the chance to do it. The world’s eyes are on Israel, and the time is now.

[hrh-princessanne]

It is with great sadness that we announce the Magic Millions Festival of British Eventing at Gatcombe Park will not take place this year.

Despite great determination from the organising team, the current economic climate has made it unviable for the event to go ahead. Following the adverse weather experienced at Gatcombe last year, which led to the abandonment of the event, and due to the ever-increasing costs associated with operating on a green field site, it has made the event unfeasible to run.

Event Director, Peter Phillips comments, “It is with a heavy heart that The Festival, which has played a significant part in the British Eventing calendar since 1983, cannot run this year. The event has also been a huge part of my family’s lives and those of many others for 40 years.

“It has built up a large community that has enjoyed and celebrated The Festival each year. I would like to thank everyone who has been involved over the past four decades; our sponsors for their unwavering support, the large selection of trade stands and arena entertainment and our spectators who have loved coming to Gatcombe to watch the world-class equestrian sport from the famous Park Bowl.”

Event Chairman, Captain Mark Phillips adds, “The horse trials at Gatcombe and more recently the Festival of British Eventing have been a major part of my life for over 40 years when The Princess Royal and I first had the dream. The dream became reality, and with it, many special memories of the many riders, horses, volunteers, sponsors and spectators all of whom massively contributed to the history of the horse trials at Gatcombe Park.

“It’s truly a great sadness that the original model and indeed the sport has changed so much. Since Covid, costs, particularly insurance, have risen so much that the numbers no longer add up. It is an end of an era, the next 40 years of the sport will be different, let’s hope it can be equally special.”

Rosie Williams, Chief Executive of British Eventing said, “It is incredibly sad news for everyone involved in the sport. My focus this year is very much going to be on how we can implement a strategy that works for the sport going forward. We need to do everything we can to find a way to support our organisers, landowners and stakeholders to make events at wonderful venues like Gatcombe become viable. We will work hard as a governing body to assist in any way we can for the financial risk and burden to be minimised so that we can welcome Gatcombe, and others like it, back into the calendar.

“We will continue to be ongoing in discussions with Peter and the team at Gatcombe and will also be, as a matter of urgency, discussing a tender process for the national championships which will need to find a new home for this season and going forward.”

[scotianostra]

John Rattray, the Scottish Jacobite Surgeon and golfer was born on September 22nd 1707, at Craighall Castle, Rattray, Perthshire.Another extraordinary man from our history, it has become a 20th century cliché that the best business contacts and opportunities for professional promotions may be made on the golf course. For one 18th century Edinburgh surgeon, however, it was his golfing connections which literally saved his life.In 1731 he joined the Royal Company of Archers, the Sovereign’s bodyguard in Scotland to this day. He was a proficient archer winning the Archer’s Silver Bowl on four occasions. On two further occasions in 1735 and 1744 he won the Silver Arrow, presented each year to the champion archer.John Rattray also proved to be a proficient golfer, and was the winner of the first recorded open golf championship in April 1744, the month before he and several others formed The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, who put down on paper the first 13 rules of golf, which are more or less still adhered to, to this day. A contemporary poem ‘The Goff’ by Rev. Thomas Mathison published in 1743, the first poem devoted to the sport of golf, it mentions both Rattray, and the man who would later save him from being executed, Duncan Forbes of CullodenNorth from Edina eight furlongs and more,Lies that fam’d field, on Fortha’s sounding shore.Here Caledonian Chiefs for health resort,Confirm their sinews by the manly sport.Macdonald and unmatch’d Dalrymple plyTheir pond'rous weapons, and the green defy;Rattray for skill, and Corse for strength renown’d,Stewart and Lesly beat the sandy ground,And Brown and Alston, Chiefs well known to fame,And numbers more the Muse forbears to name.Gigantic Biggar here full oft is seen,Like huge behemoth on an Indian green;His bulk enormous scarce can 'scape the eyes,Amaz’d spectators wonder how he plies.Yea, here great Forbes, patron of the just,The dread of villains and the good man’s trust,When spent with toils in serving human kind,His body recreates, and unbends his mind.John’s father was an Episcopalian priest who became the Bishop of Dunkeld, then of Brechin and was elected Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church. On his death in 1743 his elder son James became clan chief and inherited the estate. As the second son John had no such inheritance and he trained as a surgeon in Edinburgh by apprenticeship to the surgeon John Semple between 1728 and 1735, when he began surgical practice in Edinburgh.Following the Battle of Prestonpans, Rattray treated the wounded on the battlefield and joined the Jacobite army travelling with them throughout the campaign.By the time of the Battle of Culloden in April 1746 he had become the personal physician to Bonnie Prince Charlie. Rattray was captured after the battle but was freed after a personal plea to the Duke of Cumberland from Rattray’s old golf playing partner, Duncan Forbes of Culloden, who was Scotland’s most senior judge and a supporter of the government.His intercession on Rattray’s behalf secured his release from prison and saved him from certain hanging, the fate of most Jacobite officers. He was re-arrested by the Hanoverians in Edinburgh and held under house arrest until the spring of 1747. Thereafter he returned to life in Edinburgh practicing as a surgeon and winning the Silver Club of the honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers in 1751. He continued to practice as a surgeon and died at his home in Leith Walk, Edinburgh, in July 1771.A relatively new statue and series of plaques honouring Rattray and the golfers now takes pride of place on Leith Links where the first golf tournament and meeting took place.

[museenkuss]

You don’t like tranquility base hotel & casino? This stunning documentary that no one else unfortunately saw? I found out the hard way that here ain’t no place for dolls like you and me? Warp speed chic? I must admit sometimes I fantasise about you too? Life became a spectator sport? Dance as if someone’s watching cause they are? My weekly chat with god on video call? I lost the money lost the keys but I’m still handcuffed to the briefcase? Vehicles will pass by but I’ll know when it’s you? It took the light forever to get to your eyes? I must admit momentarily you gave me something to believe but the hand of harsh reality’s ungloved? I launch my fragrance called integrity I sell the fact that I can’t be bought? They’ve got a film up on the wall and it’s dark enough to dance? Bear with me man, I lost my train of thought….? 🚬🌉🪩✨📽️🪐🍸🌌?

[depressedraisin]

"it's the big night in tinsel city. life became a spectator sport. i launch my fragrance called integrity. i sell the fact that i can't be bought" *chucks the nobel prize at him*

[world-of-wales]

∘₊✧ 𝙾𝙵𝙵𝙸𝙲𝙴 𝙾𝙵 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙿𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙲𝙴𝚂𝚂 𝙾𝙵 𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙴𝚂 ✧₊∘

⋆ All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, holds a prominent place in the world of sports. The historic institution is renowned for hosting the oldest and most prestigious tennis tournament in the world - Wimbledon Championships.

The Princess of Wales' presence in the Royal Box and normal seating has been a permanent fixture at the Tennis Championships since she married Prince William in 2011. Catherine who plays the Tennis herself and is an avid fan, became the Club's honourary member in 2013. She became its patron in 2016, when Queen Elizabeth passed down some of her patronages to younger royals.

Founded in 1868 as the 'All England Croquet Club', the establishment's initial focus was on the sport of croquet. However, the growing popularity of tennis led to the addition of tennis courts in 1875 and soon its name changed to the 'All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.' Croquet gradually disappeared from public life but the Club still retained its name.

The club's steadfast commitment to both tennis led to the creation of the Wimbledon Championships in 1877. The AELTC - its subsidiary body is responsible for the day-to-day working of Wimbledon and other smaller tournaments.

The club has 375 full members, 100 temporary playing members, and a number of honorary members. At Church Road, there are 18 tournament grass courts, eight American clay courts, two acrylic courts, and six indoor courts. There are also 22 Aorangi Park grass courts, which serve as competitors' practice courts before and during The Championships.

The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club stands as a testament to the enduring legacy of a sport that marries tradition with innovation. Its role in hosting the Wimbledon Championships cements its place in history and its continued relevance in the world of tennis. As players step onto its hallowed grass courts and spectators revel in the atmosphere, the club's significance as a hub of excellence and tradition remains steadfast.

[sagesolsticewrites]

hi honey! Can I have 11, 15 and 27 from the OC asks you posted? 😘 love you soooooo

Thanks so much for asking bestie!! Love youuuu 💕

From this oc ask list; inbox is open if y’all are curious about any of these!

11. what do they have in common with you? how are they different? would you get along with them?

Juliet:

Jules is very similar to me in regards to her love of reading and literature. She’s more outgoing than I am, but I feel like we’d absolutely get along, I’d love to be in a book club with her 🤭

Ruthvika:

Vika is very shy and soft spoken, like yours truly. She’s devoted to her family on a much deeper level than I am— she’s actually based more on my mom’s life than my own. But I feel like we’d absolutely get along, and I’d love talking Gujarati culture with her 🥰 (food in particular!!

15. how big or small is their family? who did they live with growing up? do they live with anyone now?

Juliet is an only child; it’s always been just her and her parents, until John comes along and she’s brought into the Brady family fold. She does the typical 40s thing of living with her parents until she’s married, then she starts a home with John.

Ruthvika grows up surrounded by her parents and aunts and uncles and younger cousins, not to mention all the neighbors that have become more like family. When she was little, she and her parents lived in a tiny apartment in the city next door to her uncle and his wife and children, and then when her parents moved to Lynbrook to start their hotel, she was surrounded by other Indian immigrants who became a new sort of extended family.

27. if applicable, do they have a favorite sport? do they play any sports or prefer to watch?

Neither Juliet nor Vika have a favorite sport, and when it comes to sports they very much prefer to be spectators (yet another thing we have in common lol) although later Vika’s favorite sport to watch does end up being [redacted iykyk] 🤭

[seniasworld]

Dream Interpretation #1

I had an interesting dream last night and instead of logging it in my dream journal like I usually do, I thought I'd share it with you if you're into that kinda thing. I want to give a little background to my experience with dreams and dream interpretation, but you can skip to the "***" if you just want to read about my funny dream, which will also be followed by my own interpretation.

Preface

I consider myself to be spiritual, but like woo-woo spiritual, not so much religious spiritual. Iykyk. And I have always had intense and vivid dreams that sparked curiosity, revealed truths, and inspired my imagination. At a young age, I decided to write them down so I could remember them a little better and maybe get something from them. At first, I just wanted to use events from my dreams for stories because I like to write, but a deeper curiosity of why I was having these dreams began to surface. Before I knew it, I had a Dream Dictionary from a witchy section at a Barnes & Noble and instead of just writing about my dreams to write about them, I began recording my dreams with intent to decipher them.

Writing about my dreams quickly became a way for me to connect with my subconscious, as I believed that my dreams were just way for my subconscious to connect with me. I’ve often had dreams that quite literally showed me things about my future. Some of my dreams were meant to help me cope with trauma, some even give me perspective on situations I face, or even give me insight on someone else's situation.

Long story long, I have been interpreting my dreams for over half my life and it has helped me with my mental health and self-awareness. Perhaps you could benefit by me sharing some of the more intimate moments in my own little world, so if you took the time to read my preface, thank you so much for being here! Please enjoy and feel free to share your thoughts! :D

***

I was standing in a stadium at night with what I assume were a bunch of classmates. When I say a bunch, I wanna estimate that there were a few hundred people in this stadium that felt like it was just floating through space and I think we had auditioned for something and were waiting to see whether our coach assigned us a role or had decided to leave us to be spectators. I was hoping to play a creative role, like singing during sports events or dancing on the space/dream-land-high-school POMS Squad. Lots of people were being assigned to fill roles on our athletic teams while others would be in band, cheerleaders, bookworms of various niche topics, etc. Just like actual high school, except, we didn't have a lot of choice in what we would do here.

I watched the crowd of people around me fade away and line up on the other side of the space stadium as each person received their role. I didn't care when this coach guy would get to me, I cared about what I would end up doing and my hope was thinning just as quickly as this crowd as I watched someone else get to be the singer. I watched plenty others get to be the dancers, the cheerleaders, the artists; the expressive and otherwise vocal ones. Before I knew it, all of the roles I was remotely interested in were filled up. What could possibly be left for me that I cared about?

Finally, our coach walked right up to me and handed me a red flag with a yellow stripe and the tiniest yellow stars on it. He stated I would be our flag girl and I immediately frowned up at him for giving me such a non-role. I'm not even sure if this kind of role exists in real life, why am I getting it in the space stadium?! I can do so much more! Why would he give me this? And also... what is that?

He noticed I wasn’t satisfied, and instantly took it back. “Fine,” he said, “You can be in charge of keeping everyone engaged.”

I was a little confused. If we all had a role to play, why wouldn’t those who were assigned to be in the audience actually commit to their role? And the dancers and everyone else? Why would I need to keep them engaged with what they know they're supposed to be doing? As I pondered why and how and what, Coach gave the flag to someone else who was already assigned a different role, and left me to carry on. It seemed like he was handing this flag to this other guy to just hold it for me and keep an eye on me, so that's what he ended up doing.

Once everyone else had their role, I wandered through the crowd to interact with people who were there to simply spectate. I didn't really know what it meant to keep everyone engaged and it seemed like everyone I talked to was getting less interested in this space stadium thing as I spoke with them. I was lost and just didn't understand and eventually, fell totally silent and once I fell totally silent, all eyes were suddenly on me.

I scanned the faces in hopes to find some sort of hint as to what I am intended to do, but I just didn't know and I became frustrated and confused. I began to get upset and sought out the coach, who was already silently watching me through the crowd with everyone else.

Now, I don't remember what was said if there was anything at all, I think I just became so overwhelmed with the pressure to do something that it eventually just clicked. I suddenly knew exactly what to do. I began to smile and laugh.

"How about let's get this thing started already?!" I exclaimed as loud as I could throughout the stadium and was immediately energized with the overwhelming response. Faces beamed so brightly at me, I would've believed that magical lights turned up throughout the whole space stadium. I ran through the small crowd of audience members, across the stadium to where the rest of the classmates were lined up and in their assigned uniform, ran straight to the guy who was cheering the loudest and waving what was supposed to be my flag at me. He cheered and high fived me the moment that flag was back in my hand, and everyone went wild!

I emerged from the crowd of assigned roles and into the space between them and the audience members, holding the flag high above my head in an attempt to match their volume with how high I could reach. I jumped up and sprinted along the space between these groups of hundreds of people, high-fiving them as I passed them, being carried by their cheerful exclamations. I felt so much relief that I was finally able to fulfill my oddly cryptic role within the space stadium, and it was short-lived.

Then, I woke up.

Interpretation

The idea of being in high school again and being assigned a role there was oddly unsettling at the start. I think I felt this way when I was in my teenage years: like I was supposed to fill this role but never seemed to actually be doing what I felt I was good at or even what I wanted to be doing. I was miserable for a few reasons in my youth, and the social pressure I felt was a big one. Plus, often times when I did attempt to go after something I did enjoy or was interested in, it never seemed to work out or fulfill me in a way I needed. It also didn't help that I was so curious about many things, most of them being creative outlets, and I was limited to one thing.

On top of that, if I didn't get a solo or when I didn't make the dance team, I felt like I was being forced to turn in a different direction. I think I felt like if someone else was already doing a thing and was being celebrated for it, that meant there was no room for me to also excel at that thing or to even try it/continue it. I don't feel this way anymore, but I have been thinking a lot about my role in this world as it stands versus what kind of contribution I want to be making moving forward. I think this curiosity and this frustration of wanting to do more was demonstrated in this dream by being assigned a role that I had never even heard of before and before I even knew or asked what it was, I was turning it down because it wasn't what I was expecting. Honestly, what I want to do with my life has no set path and I think that much autonomy and freedom tends to overwhelm me a bit.

I want to talk about the symbolism of the flag as well. If you remember in the dream description, it was a red flag with little yellow stars and a yellow stripe that ran through it, horizontally. Seeing red in a dream can be associated with great passion, and seeing yellow can indicate a sense of joy and creativity. Additionally, the symbol of the flag itself is heavily associated with one's sense of identity and belonging.

I was given this flag and told to keep everyone engaged because it was my way of feeling like I belonged. By immediately shunning away the flag and interacting one by one with only people who were in the audience, I was failing to fulfill my role. Because I was not embracing my passions and doing what made me happy, I was interacting with others in a way that communicated to them that I was miserable and unfulfilled. Whether they realized it or not, people could tell I was frustrated so much so that there was nothing to even be gained by interacting with me.

I find this really interesting because I really did not talk with many people in school and I was convinced everyone just hated me. But, that wasn't the case. I was insecure, undecided, and depressed and people could feel that, again, whether they realized it or not. I have always loved singing and writing, but I wasn't investing my energy into doing either, even though I would be celebrated anytime I did share those gifts of mine. Even though they would cheer when I would raise that flag.

So, I think it's funny that in real life when I was in high school, I wanted to stand out and be celebrated and here I am in this dream getting frustrated that I am standing out, but inevitably used that to my advantage and ended up being celebrated. My role was to keep everyone engaged with their roles and with each other and all I needed to do was stay committed to what I am meant to do and that was enough for me to connect with and inspire everyone around me.

My 28th birthday passed a little over one month ago, and my astrology girlies will understand this is my Saturn's Return. For those of you who aren't into that shit, it basically means that I am very seriously and critically thinking about what I am doing with my life. If you are in this stage of your life and you are not doing something that fulfills you, it will cause an upset and you will feel immense pressure to make a change.

I have been itching to write and to sing my entire life and am only now growing the balls to actually write and share it with people, which is why you are reading this right now. Very soon, I can share my music with the world, too.

To conclude my interpretation of this dream, I think it was a good way for me to reflect on how much I have changed since high school. I am much more confident and healthy minded. I know there is room for all of us to be good at everything we want to be good at. I also have learned that the most important role I will ever need to fill is literally just showing up as my true and authentic self, because that alone is inspiring for anyone I will ever interact with.

~

Thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to read and consider my thoughts! Please share any thoughts you may have, follow me, shoot me a message, and maybe we can talk about some dreams you've had as well.

Toodles,

Yesenia

[simslegacy5083]

NSB (Straud Legacy) Gen 9 Ep 92: A Captainly Conversation

While Luigi and Noemi were telling her family about their pregnancy, his co-captain’s gestation ended with the delivery of a healthy baby boy. 

The two had long ago arranged for Luigi to pick up the slack as sole team leader while his friend was recovering from surgery. Even though the extra work and his own baby prep stole the very last dregs of his free time, he jumped wholeheartedly into running the team. 

Luigi was feeling quite proud of his preparations, wishing that Beau was there to see how well his first solo meeting was going, when a text arrived. He followed the instructions for adding his buddy's laptop to the LAN remotely and soon his co-captain was spectating matches over voice chat.

It was clear Beau wasn’t just “phoning it in” either, as he popped in and out of games and private chats, mentoring their newest players all night.

“He certainly isn’t acting like someone still on painkillers” Luigi thought, right before another message popped up, this time asking for “the honor of an audience with His Highness tonight in my chambers (Post Birth Recovery Ward, Suite 3).” Sighing, Luigi let Noemi know he’d be home late.

Thanking his past self for the Seldom Sleepy trait that made that night’s visit bearable and the following day less of a concern, Luigi found Room 3 at last. He was surprised to see Beau still hard at play, rapidly pounding the life out of the opposing team of some random internet matchup.

“Your pardon, your grace, I’ll be with you as soon as these guys realize they’re completely outmatched and surrender.”

Sure enough, the game soon wrapped up, and Beau hit the restroom before gingerly lowering himself to join his friend on the small visitor couch.

Luigi couldn’t keep his curiosity in check. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking it easy? I thought they just got done gutting you like a fish!?”

“Eh, the surgery went off without a hitch, and honestly, the recovery isn’t nearly as painful as the BOREDOM! I’m stuck in this stupid room, and my wife is too busy between her job, her candle making, and taking care of baby Bruce to come visit. I’m dying in here!”, his friend whined.

Luigi suppressed a surge of annoyance. They could easily have caught up virtually, but clearly Beau was starved for company. Besides, now that he was here, with a new father eager to talk, maybe he could gain some insight into his own concerns about becoming a dad.

“Actually, since we’ve got some time to chat, I did have something I wanted your advice on.” Beau was by no means the first sim that came to Luigi’s mind as someone to confide in or dispense wisdom, but he did just get direct experience in juggling the demands of school, e-sports, and pregnancy. 

“Noemi and I haven’t told many folks other than our families yet, but…” he was interrupted by a sudden explosion of laughter as his friend exclaimed

“Oh my stars! You… I mean Noemi’s pregnant, isn’t she? His highness is going to have a little heir to the throne running around soon, huh?"

At Luigi’s confirming nod, Beau told him in a more serious tone “Well congratulations to you both, then. Adding a pregnancy on top of everything else was challenging, but nothing worth doing is ever easy. One foot in front of the other, over and over, is the only way to get to the finish line.”

He went on “Thanks for stepping up with all the prep work for tonight’s practice by the way. I’ll do the same for you when your little one comes.”

Luigi replied, “We’ll all be graduated before my baby arrives, but that’s the thing. I know how to prep for a game, for a class, for a meeting, but I feel lost when it comes to prepping for a child. I’m going from being a pro to being a complete noob, and I hate it. I don’t want to be a failure as a dad.”

“Well, I’ve only gotten to hold Bruce for a few hours so far, but you know he’s not really my first kid. When I married Brianne, I became a father to her daughter Bailey, much to her embarrassment. Parenting a teen isn’t easy, but I have a good partner, and got great advice.”

He looked firmly at Luigi and continued: “The number one thing you need to remember is that it isn’t about YOU. The only victory condition in parenting is when THEY win, and the best you can do is to help them along and don’t let your pride make it harder on them.”

They chatted a bit longer before Luigi eventually took his leave, thanking Beau for his advice and wishing him a speedy recovery. 

As he headed towards the exit, he reflected on what Beau had said. It wasn't all about him anymore, and Luigi realized why hearing that had hit a nerve. Although he'd always been happiest when he was in a relationship, managing to put his significant others first or, to be honest, even reliably near the top of his priority list, had always been a struggle. Someone brand new to the world would need a lot more from him! 

Could he shift his focus enough to provide his son or daughter with the care and attention they deserved and required? He honestly wasn't sure, but he knew that whether he liked it or not the time was fast approaching when he would have to give it his best shot.

View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

[limbuscompany-culture-is]

FOUND THIS BLOG ON ACCIDENT.. HI IT'S ONE OF THE SYSTEMS THAT PARTICIPATED IN THE DONGRANG DUEL [gachasystem].

SO, for context, OUR Dongrang, Greene, HATES the other system's Dongrang. Like, he always bickers with Dongrang, even though Dongrang mostly laughs it off, Greene is INVESTED. This man is his nemesis. Public enemy number one. I have to have a spray bottle on hand in case they start screaming at each other like rival cats. We have made memes of it.

And one day I suggested. The cage fight. And everyone said YES, even those who had no real 'stake' in this fight. We scheduled it and everything [had to postpone because the other Dongrang was stuck in a car at the initial timeframe].

I made Greene a custom minecraft skin just for the Dongrang Cage Fight. I was invested. I could not WAIT to see how it went down.

A mutual friend of ours made an entire cage and dropped both Dongrangs into it, and LITERALLY THE MOMENT THEY BOTH SPAWNED IN THEY STARTED HITTING EACH OTHER. AND KILLING EACH OTHER. Also for the first ten or so minutes there were also cows in the cage fight, which quickly became collateral damage in the carnage.

But it does not stop there.

No, dear reader.. the plot thickens. Our journey has only begun.

Every time one of them would spawn in, the other would IMMEDIATELY go back to fighting them. Hell or high water, the other Dongrang was simply going to die. One of the spectators- who had admin privileges- placed traps inside the cage. TNT traps. This went over about as well as one would hope.

Somewhere in the chaos we acquired SWORDS. And Dongrang killed Greene and immediately stole his sword, so poor Greene was running around practically defenseless for a while. It was like a Looney Tunes bit. Greene also got buried underneath the cage at some point, and then killed, and then Dongrang got killed in the same hole.

SOMEHOW some of the cage got damaged in the fight and our friend turned on Dongrang, and started hunting him for sport. Clearly, the admin privileges had gotten to people's heads, and it was every Dongrang for himself. Greene managed to hide away long enough to make himself some stone tools and a furnace, wandered back to the cage, fought AGAIN, and then our mutual friend turned on the day/night cycle and I'm pretty sure hunted Dongrang for sport again, this time with Greene attempting to intervene because there was now a temporary truce.

This evolved into everyone going more or less into survival mode [barring Dongrang and Greene, who were already stuck there], and we all ended up playing Minecraft normally for a bit.

The remains of the cage became our home base, by the way, if you were curious.

Dongrang won but Greene refuses to admit it.

ANYWAYS I HOPE THIS WAS A FUN READ!

@gachasystem

ive never been more entertained in my life i think