#part 8 of 16

[andnowanowl]

Since "Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under Occupation" is suspiciously not available in the US in the form of an e-book, I purchased a physical copy and wanted to share it here for anyone else also unable to get access.

GHASSAN ANDONI

Physics professor, 58

Born in Beit Sabour, West Bank

Interviewed in Beit Sabour, West Bank

Despite his slight frame, Ghasssan Andoni has a strong presence, and commands attention whenever he speaks. Ghassan is a physics professor and activist. He lives in the community of Beit Sahour, which is nestled in the hills just east of Bethlehem and one of the few mostly Christian communities in Palestine. In total, Christians make up around 2 percent of the total population of the West Bank. Legend has it that the residents of Beit Sabour are descended from the shepherds who visited Jesus on the night of his birth; Sahouris jokingly claim that it was their notorious talent for gossip that spread the story of Jesus so widely. We visit Ghassan often during the spring and summer of 2014 at the modest but cheerful apartment where he lives with his wife and twenty-four-year-old son. The family has decorated the apartment in purple and white, and Ghassan has used his metalworking skills to build a small elevator to take groceries from the first floor to the third.

Ghassan's life has taken him from a refugee camp in Jordan, to universities in Iraq and England, to a war in Lebanon. Even when home in Beit Sahour, he has been extremely active. He played a key role in the community's campaign of civil disobedience during the First Intifada, and be helped found the International Solidarity Movement, an organization that brought thousands of international volunteers to Palestine during the Second Intifada. His activism led to his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. These days be lives a relatively quiet life. commuting to and from Birzeit University where he teaches. Still, he has no doubts be will become active again when the time is right.

DO I BELONG HERE OR DO I BELONG THERE?

My family has been in Beit Sahour for many generations, as far back as we know. I was born here in 1956. I have two sisters and three brothers, and I'm the oldest male. I grew up in the home that my father built in the early 1950s. He was a teacher then. My mother worked in the home. When I was a child, if I looked out at the hills from my home, there was nothing there except trees and fields. I grew up in a fairly closed community. It's a society where if you run into someone in the street, that person is probably a cousin or an aunt or uncle. On the one hand, this made me feel very safe growing up. But on the other hand, I've always spent a lot of my time here on social obligations. Every week there are weddings, baptisms, and graduations. Since my family is connected to thousands of others here, we're expected to be there when others are celebrating or when they're sad. All of these gatherings can be exhausting.

In 1962, at the age of six, I left Beit Sahour. My father got a job as an accountant in Amman, Jordan, and so he bought a house there and we all went to live with him. In Amman, the paradox was that my family had ahome that was on the border between a middle-class neighborhood and the very poor Al-Hussein refugee camp.² So my home was at the border of two ways of life, and I was always wondering, Do I belong here or do I belong there?

At that time, conditions in the refugee camp were very bad. The houses were made of thin iron sheets with asbestos covering the outsides. There was sewage in the street, which was really just a narrow dirt path. Many of my friends were from the camp, so I spent real time in those slums. Of course, my family wasn't comfortable with that. In Beit Sahour, I can't remember having a fight with anyone. But in Jordan, I had to be ready every time I walked to the shop. I'd always meet a couple of people who wanted to bother me. I didn't like beating people up, but I also fought when I had to. I learned that it was not the size, it was not the muscles, it was the daring heart that won. I learned not to think of the consequences, just jump into a fight. Every time I came home, I had a new scar somewhere.

Three or four of our neighbors were Christian families. That's why my father bought our home where he did. But my father was very secular, so he didn't put me in a private Christian school. I was the only Christian kid in the government schools that I went to. The schools were not obliged to provide me with a Christian religion teacher, but I had the right to go out and play during religion class. But it's boring to play by yourself. So I asked to sit and listen in religion class.

I wanted to know more, so I started to read and memorize the Quran. Our religion teacher wanted to justify his own ideas by taking a verse from the Quran and throwing it in our faces. I started arguing with him and quoting my own memorized verses. He got annoyed and asked me to just go outside to play. I was much younger than others in my class, because I was accepted into second grade in Jordan at the age of six. I did well in school, but in fourth grade I was still a little kid, and there were people sitting beside me who were fourteen years old because they had failed classes. One of them, a Bedouin,³ was actually married. He was fifteen years old I think. I had to learn to stand up for myself.

I spent my summer vacations in Beit Sahour. In the camps, it was a struggle all the time, but in Beit Sahour, I felt safe and comfortable. I had lots of fun with cousins. It was like a respite for many years.

In 1967 when I was eleven, I traveled to Beit Sahour to visit my grandmother and aunt. It was an easy trip then, because there were no checkpoints at the time. My father could just put me on a bus. One day during my visit that year, I walked down the street to buy some coffee for my aunt. While I was walking back, the Israelis started shelling the village it was the start of the Six-Day War.⁴ There were no buildings where I was walking, so I had to jump into a field and cover myself until it was safe to move. I was probably crying. I remember maybe twelve or fifteen bombs exploding nearby. When I got back to my relatives' house, I learned that one of my neighbors had been killed.

I saw the soldiers coming into Beit Sahour with their weapons. Everybody was scared. Some people were saying the Israelis would kill us, we should leave, and others were saying we should stay. But it was over in a week. I still remember an injured bird that had been trapped in my relatives' house after the bombing ended. I caught it and cared for it while I was waiting to go home. After a couple of weeks, the Red Cross arranged a bus ride for me and others back to Jordan. I tried to take the bird with me back home. I held it in my hands on the trip back, but it died on the way.

A CIVIL WAR IS SOMETHING THAT YOU SHOULDN'T LIVE THROUGH

Struggle was the norm when I was young. I never lived a peaceful life. But the problem is, I started liking it. It started thrilling me. It was like someone throwing you into the sea and you have to find your way to the shore and you have to struggle hard, hard, hard. When I returned to Jordan, I continued hanging out with my friends in the refugee camp for the next few years. Things in the camp were changing, starting in 1970. When I was around fourteen, I started seeing weapons in the streets of the camp, and I started seeing banners of liberation organizations. I was seeing the birth of the Palestinian revolution. The environment changed dramatically. I saw people smiling, talking. I saw a sense of pride. When the guns appeared, everybody found himself. Suddenly, the kids stopped fighting each other. We started mostly playing with toy guns. Slowly the phenomenon spread all over, and I started seeing people with real guns and wearing the traditional keffiyeh.⁵

I started learning. I took every opportunity to go to the various offices of different organizations and just sit and listen to people talking about refugees and the origins of the camps. Then the friction started between the PLO and the King's Army.⁶ The line was drawn with Jordanians and Palestinians against each other, and Palestinians started getting fired from their jobs, including my father. Then we had gunfire in the streets, gunfire and bombs every single day. I went to school in the morning and then when the fighting started, the school would discharge us and we students would make our way back home, sometimes hiding and sometimes crawling to avoid fire.

Soon, there was destruction everywhere. It seemed like every single home in the neighborhood was hit by bombs and gunfire. It was even worse in the camps. One bomb would destroy four of those shacks. Our home got hit by shells as well, five or six times. It had holes in it, but it didn't fall down. But we lost our water tanks, and then we had to hunt for water, and that was risky. I think it was the Iraqi army that eventually started bringing water tanks on trucks. But they brought the water to a place very far from our home. We had to take a container, go to the distribution site, get the water, and then make our way home.

In the final days of September 1970, we suffered a severe bombardment. We were hiding in the basement and the ceiling started coming down on us. So we had to run and seek shelter in our neighbors' cellar. The cellar was actually a small rocky cave and protected, so there were about ten or twelve families from the neighborhood stuck in that place. It was summertime, so it was hot, and it was dark. We spent two nights there. Nobody slept. When the Jordanian army came, we were all in that cellar. A civil war is something that you shouldn't live through. I mean a war, okay, but a civil war, I don't think anyone should experience it.

After the PLO was defeated and the Jordanian army reoccupied Amman, all the men were asked to gather in a certain square. All of us were taken, everyone from the age of thirteen until the age of eighty. I was still fourteen, and that was my first experience of detention. They took us to a desert detention center in Jordan. I stayed there for fourteen days. It was ugly—really, really ugly—the way they treated us. We were rarely fed. I saw so many scenes of beatings and torture. I remember the guards examined our shoulders for marks that might be left from carrying a rifle.Anyone with a mark was taken, and we didn't see him again. After fourteen days they just started releasing us gradually, starting with elderly people and then very young people, and then I was released together with my father and we went back to our home.

When I came home, I cried. Everything that we owned in Jordan was destroyed. Our home was almost totally destroyed and our car was destroyed. We were a shattered family, and we thought we didn't have a future in Jordan. It reminded me of 1967. It was my second experience of being invaded and having someone take over.

A group from the Beit Sahour municipality managed to come to Jordan and give some assistance to the Beit Sahour families that had been living in Amman. My uncle was part of that assistance group. Seeing my uncle and getting some help was the first nice thing that had happened in a long time. My father asked him to try to get us a permit to go and visit Beit Sahour. And he did. It was probably three months after our detention that we came back to Beit Sahour. We were very lucky, because my family had property in Beit Sahour registered in our name, so we were able to get residency IDs to live in the West Bank. Otherwise we might have spent our lives in Jordan.

"IT'S LIKE A TINY TERRORIST"

I came back to Beit Sahour in 1970, when I was in the tenth grade. Beit Sahour as a community hadn't changed much since the occupation began in 1967. In fact, the occupation worked to strengthen the community. When you live under rules that don't represent you, you keep your traditions as a safeguard. If you have a problem, you solve it internally instead of going to court, because you don't trust the authorities. So, in a way, occupation actually strengthened some of the tribal aspects of our society—not just in Beit Sahour, but all of Palestine.

My father bought a knitting machine to manufacture clothes in our house. My parents would travel to Tel Aviv to sell the clothes they assembled. After some time, my dad opened a clothing shop. I think it was tiring for him and my mother. They didn't have any weekends, because they were always in Tel Aviv buying fabric or selling clothes. Meanwhile, I registered for school in the village. That was a period when I was studying, but I was also politically active. I started inciting demonstrations against the occupation with a few others, going to gatherings, and talking politics. And the violence inside me from spending so much time in the refugee camp was still there, so I caused trouble in school. The teachers liked me because I was smart and got good grades, but at the same time they were very annoyed by the way I treated them. My friends and I played a lot of tricks on our teachers to make fun of them. A few times I locked the headmaster in his office so that he wouldn't disrupt our demonstrations.

In 1972, my tawjihi exam year, I was arrested.⁷ The Israelis crashed their way into my home just after midnight and asked for me. My mother opened my room, and they looked at me. I was tiny. I was sixteen at that time, but I looked like I was fourteen, so the arresting officers didn't believe they had the right guy. One of them said, "What's that? It's like a tiny terrorist."

So I was taken and interrogated, and I spent four months in prison. I was the little kid there, and it was hard. I was a minor and I was put in jail with adults. The interrogators would beat me until I fainted. But in jail my world became much bigger. I met people from different places, from villages, from refugee camps, from cities, people with different accents, people with different cultures. Everybody took care of me. I was the little Christian. I liked the other prisoners very much, and I left prison feeling that I needed to do something for them.

When I was released, the tawjihi exam was in a month's time, and I had studied nothing. So I decided to do it the next year. But then one of my relatives sort of challenged me. He said, "You can't do it, you're not ready." I hated anybody telling me I couldn't do something, so I took the exam right away, and I earned higher marks than my classmates.

YOU DON'T SHUT UP IN TIMES OF WAR

After I passed my high school exams, I went to Baghdad to study physics. It was the most challenging topic in school, and I like challenges. Also, I learned about religions early in my life, but they never gave me answers. I started looking more to science as the way to understand what was around me. Iraq when I lived there was paradise. I lived the best times of my life there. Then in 1976, a couple of years after I started college, I volunteered to go to Lebanon during the civil war.⁸ I was twenty years old. I'd been raised as a committed nationalist, and I believed at the time that I needed to liberate Palestine through guns. I believed that I shouldn't stay silent about what was going on in Lebanon, the refugee camps, and the massacres. So I volunteered to go. I went with my best friends who I had met in Baghdad. My family didn't know. I actually wrote several letters and gave them to somebody to send—one every two weeks—saying that I was getting some training in one of the factories in Iraq and that was why I couldn't come back to visit that year. If my mother knew I was in Lebanon, she would have had a heart attack, so I thought, Why put her in that situation?

We were part of a unit and we got some weapons training because otherwise we would have probably died immediately. You have to understand the environment. The minute we stepped into Beirut, we were in a battlefield.⁹ If a Palestinian refugee camp was here, then a few meters over was a Phalangist Christian neighborhood.¹⁰ There was no place you could be where you were not part of the war. My group was supposed to protect Palestinian refugee camps if they were attacked and help the civilians cope by providing some medical aid and food. Sometimes we would go out and look for snipers. There was no clear long-term plan, but we had something to do. Every minute there was shooting, or someone every minute injured, or people trapped somewhere who needed to be evacuated.

One of the most tragic things that I faced was when Maronite militias managed to overrun a refugee camp called Tel Al-Zaatar.¹¹ Many of the men in the camp were killed. We met the women and children coming out of there after being under siege for eighty days. They were starving. They looked like ghosts. That scene shocked me. So after seeing those refugees, my friends took me to Al-Hamra Street, which was where all the nightclubs were. It was neutral territory. You could sit there and the one you had been fighting in the morning was sitting next to you with a drink.

I never killed someone as far as I know. I never saw someone, pointed a gun at him, and shot him. When there were enemies, what we would do is to engage in heavy shooting to prevent them from shooting In the fighting, my friends and I were pretty much useless. We weren't trained enough to protect anybody. But I think we compensated for that by helping people. I cannot stay silent when my flesh and blood is being attacked and killed. Otherwise I will not have peace inside knowing that happened and I did nothing.

After spending three months in Lebanon, I started thinking, What the hell are we doing here? It was obvious to me that in Lebanon, nobody could achieve any kind of victory. So why fight? I saw a few of my closest friends lose their lives. I was ready to die, but it was extremely hard to witness the death of my friends.

Also, my image of the ideal freedom fighter that I had developed in prison started to have cracks in it.

Being a soldier is a specific lifestyle. You have a gun, you fight, you kill and sometimes get killed, and you get a salary at the end of the month. As a soldier, you just do your job, but people like me who volunteered would sometimes ask a hell of a lot of questions. It seems as though people often think, In times of war, everybody should shut up. But no, in times of war, everybody should speak. That's what I believe. You shut up in times of peace, but you don't shut up in times of war. After three months, I decided that I wanted to continue my studies. I didn't want to be commanded by people who didn't accept questions and didn't answer them. So I went back to Baghdad.

By 1977, I was twenty-one years old and done with my bachelor's degree. I didn't want to stay in Baghdad or Lebanon. I was very committed to the Palestinian cause. I knew that the only places I could be effective in the Palestinian resistance was in the occupied territories or in Jordan, and so I decided to go back, even though I knew I could be arrested by the Israelis or the Jordanians because of my time in Lebanon.

We knew that because there were so many Jordanian students at our university- some of whom probably worked for the Jordanian secret service that the authorities knew about our trip to Lebanon. I was always back to the West Bank, and this time I suspected it would be worse. They took my passport at the airport in Amman and summoned me to interrogation. I lied, and I don't feel proud of that, but it was necessary. I almost got away with it, but then one of my friends came into Jordan earlier than expected and the intelligence connected our stories. The officer said, "I'm not going to arrest you. I'll give you one night of sleep and then tomorrow you come to my office, beg me to listen to your story, and tell me everything you know, and maybe I'll allow you to go home to Beit Sahour. Otherwise, I might arrest you." When he let me go, I just took off. With help from one of my uncles, I was able to bribe an officer at the bridge over the Jordan River and cross into the West Bank the next day.

WHEN IS THIS GOING TO STOP?

Ten days after I arrived in Beit Sahour, in the summer of 1977, I was arrested. Israeli soldiers came to my home at midnight and I was taken to Al-Muskubiya in Jerusalem.¹² I spent three months under interrogation. At nights, I would be taken to the old stables the police used as cells and there would be questioning with beatings. They had some information about the Lebanon trip, but they weren't sure about it. They asked about names that it wasn't possible for them to invent, two names in particular of individuals who had come to Lebanon with me but weren't part of my group of friends. But they didn't have enough information to know that I was in Lebanon. They were guessing. After the initial questioning, I spent at least forty-five days in solitary confinement, then they released me without asking me another question. I don't know why. It was eithera mistake and they forgot about me, or it was a punishment or some kind of revenge. I'm still puzzled about this.

I came back to Beit Sahour, but I had trouble settling in. I spent a couple of years trying to figure out what to do next. Then I was arrested again at age twenty-four. At this point, nobody in my family knew I had been to Lebanon—that was my secret.

I was taken back to Al-Muskubiya. Instead of taking me to one of the cells, I was taken to the yard. My hand was cuffed to a water pipe that was so high I couldn't sit. I had to be standing all the time, and they put a sack over my head. I was left there for five consecutive days and nights, standing, no sleep at all and without anybody talking to me. The pain in my legs was bad because all the blood sort of settled down there, and I got disoriented after five days and nights without sleeping. Every now and then I would collapse from exhaustion and I'd be dangling from my wrists. After that I was taken immediately to the interrogation office. I was afraid. Every now and then they'd strike me in the head without warning, so I was tense all the time. I remember the only thing in my mind was, When is this going to stop?

In the interrogation center they wasted no time. The interrogator told me about the confession of the man who had been with me in Lebanon. He said, "Listen, I don't need your confession." At that time, Israel had issued what was called the Tamir Law. Tamir Law was an amendment to the laws of the military court laws that allowed the judge to sentence people based on the confessions of other people, not the accused. If the judge was convinced that the informant was telling the truth, then he didn't need the confession of the accused. The interrogator told me, "Listen, you are going to court whether you confess or not. We have enough evidence to send you to jail for a long period of time. It's up to you to decide."

So I told them about my involvement. I said I'd volunteered to do humanitarian work in the refugee camps in Lebanon, and that, after spending three months there, I decided to go back and continue my studies. The interrogator said, "We know that you did more, but we'll accept your confession." And I signed my confession and it was sent to court. I was sentenced to two years in prison and three years of probation. After the sentencing, my family knew that I had been in Lebanon. My mother told me that she had sensed there had been something wrong and she never believed the letters that I sent, but she was happy that I was safe and that she saw me in front of her and not in a grave.

TOTAL CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

After I was released from prison around 1980, I got a job teaching at the Lutheran school in Beit Sahour.¹³ It was around that time that I met a woman named Selwa-she was studying at Bethlehem University then.¹⁴ We got to like each other. She was one of the prettiest girls in Beit Sahour. Before too long, Selwa and I got married.

Then in 1983, I managed to get a scholarship from the British Consulate and went to do my master's degree in physics at the University of Reading in England.¹⁶ I didn't like Reading. It's a very conservative town and there was a big drinking culture. I also don't like British tea. I got used to Iraqi tea where you get the tea and boil it until it's black like tar and then you pour some of the tea in a cup with some water and ten spoons of sugar. I got addicted to it, and so British tea seemed tasteless. But I completed my master's degree. My wife didn't come with me, but she visited two times.When I finished my master's, I returned to the West Bank. Then I

talked to a university in Amsterdam, and they invited me there to pursue my Ph.D. and do research with them. But when I applied to leave, I was refused. The Amsterdam university communicated directly with the foreign ministry in Israel and were sent a letter that said without any reservations, "If Mr. Andoni leaves the country, he will be a threat to the security of the state of Israel." So I was forced to stay. I was living an ordinary, frustrated life. Something inside me was boiling.

Not long after that, in 1987, the First Intifada erupted.¹⁶ Suddenly the environment changed. A few months before the Intifada, people in Beit Sahour had been busy going to parties and shopping. Suddenly, everybody was talking about occupation and politics. Everybody became a committed nationalist and a lover of Palestine. Yesterday, they were shopping in Tal Piyot and the day before they were in Eilat giving money to Israel.¹⁷ Now these same people were in the streets in the thousands. I had seen small demonstrations that started and ended, but I hadn't seen a whole nation standing on its toes as they were in 1987. I was inspired.

And then it really began-demonstrations, marches, occasional clashes with soldiers and settlers. Soldiers came and abused people. We started organizing, and I started to have meetings with my friends and community leaders. I didn't want the common way of doing things where somebody throws a stone and the soldiers come and attack them. To my understanding, we were trying to convince the Israelis that occupation was not sustainable. In the back of our minds, some of us thought—and I was one of them. I knew that we needed to move carefully towards total civil disobedience. I can't claim that I had done any reading on this. I knew about Gandhi and the civil rights movement in the United States, but I had never studied them in-depth. But it was obvious to me that with thousands of people, the approach could be powerful. There was almost a consensus in Beit Sahour that in order to ensure community involvement in the Intifada, we had to inject some democracy. And from that came the idea to let each neighborhood elect its own committee. And then out of those committees we would have a central committee that would have authority in town during this period. The elections were like the traditional Greek election. There were no ballots or boxes. It was out in the open. Each neighborhood gathered and agreed on the people to represent them. Then those committees decided on a group of four or five people to become the central committee. I was one of the members of the central committee. Since we didn't have courts, this committee had the power to determine law.

The business owners of Beit Sahour decided to stop paying their taxes to Israel. People were very enthusiastic about the tax strike. Almost everyone in town participated. The military government started confiscating people's cars as a way to pressure them to pay their taxes. Or they would confiscate everything in someone's shop or home.

One of the leaders of the strike, Elias Rishmawi lost around $100,000 worth of goods, and at that time $100,000 dollars was like $1 million today. But nobody gave into the pressure. Probably because Elias lost so much, others felt ashamed if they complained about losing $5,000. He set an example. It was during this time that the people of Beit Sahour gathered in front of the municipal building and threw out their identity cards. Our message was, we don't recognize Israeli authority, and if this ID represents their authority over us, then we don't want it.

The tax revolt led to a curfew for all of Beit Sahour. So schools wereclosed, universities were closed, kindergartens were closed, and we started realizing that this would go on for a long time. It wasn't going to be two or three weeks. So we established what we called underground schools. With little effort, different neighborhoods started organizing teachers and students and then opening schools in homes, apartments, any empty place, and students started going there. We realized that what our community was doing had to be reported so that it could spread to other communities. And that's why we started investing real effort in attracting the attention of media, people interested in the region, visiting groups, and fact-finding and human rights organizations. And this I can claim I played a major role in because I knew English, and I was a good communicator. We started an organization called the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between Peoples, a group designed to start a dialogue between Palestinians and people of other nationalities. International media started paying attention to our cause.

Perhaps as a consequence, the military started cracking down on our town. Beit Sahour was placed under a siege and nothing was allowed in or out. So then came the idea of victory gardens, just like in World War II. Suddenly each neighborhood had a garden. Beit Sahour was under siege, but everybody in town was sitting on balconies and having barbecues. That drove the soldiers crazy. And then came the idea of the cows.

EIGHTEEN WANTED COWS

I want to warn you that I've told this story so many times that probably each time something gets added in order to make it more funny. It's a community story, because everybody's added a bit to it. But the bulk of the story is true.

It goes like this. One of the hardships we faced during the First Intifada was a lack of milk. Most milk in the region was produced in Israel, and we were boycotting Israeli products. Some of the leaders of the Beit Sahour resistance decided to start a ranch, get cows, milk them, and provide milk to the community for free. In order to make it more symbolic, we wanted the milk to be distributed at three in the morning at the doorsteps of each family, and the bottle would be distributed by a young person masked with a keffiyeh. That was the concept. But we needed cows. Where would we find the cows? The only cows around were in an Israeli kibbutz.¹⁸ So we needed to buy cows from the kibbutz and bring them to Beit Sahour. Finally, a group of people who had some money volunteered to pay for eighteen cows. The group went together and bought the cows, loaded them in trucks, and brought them to Beit Sahour around midnight.

Now, the people who bought the cows were doctors, engineers, business people, university professors—not dairy farmers, okay? So the trucks arrive in Beit Sahour and someone says, "Guys, let's get the cows out of the trucks." But the cows didn't want to get out of the trucks. One clever man came up with the idea of making a loud noise to scare them. Unfortunately, the plan worked too well. The cows jumped out of the trucks and ran away into the hills. Imagine teachers, scholars, doctors, and business people in suits running after cows at midnight in the mountains. The story goes that one teacher—a small man—chased a cow and nearly cornered it before the cow turned around and started chasing him! So it was all chaos until neighbors were awakened by the noise and came out. They were Bedouin farmers and they knew about livestock, so they managed to control the cows and get them into pasture.

A few days after the cows arrived near Beit Sahour, the military governor of the region and a big force of soldiers came to town. Each cow from the kibbutz had a number branded on it to identify the cow. A soldier photographed each cow, a personal portrait with its face and number, like wanted criminals. The military governor said the cows were a security threat to the state of Israel, and if they were still there in twenty-four hours, he would arrest everyone. You would have to ask him why he was so upset. There was nothing we had done that was illegal. I think what bothered him was purely our defiance. Anyway we figured, Let's stick to our plan and see what he does. The military general didn't take the cows, but he arrested a few people for punishment and threatened the villagers who were providing water for the animals. So the pressure was mounting, and finally we decided to evacuate the place. There was a hidden cave that would be suitable for the eighteen cows, and we decided to move them there.

It happened that the owner of the land that the cave was on was a butcher, and if those cows were discovered, he would say that he'd bought them for slaughter. There was nothing illegal about this, so that was a good cover. And we kept up with our milk deliveries.

The military governor couldn't let go of the problem of the cows. He knew he was being disobeyed, and he wanted badly to know where the cows were. So he laid siege to the town, and he started a search from home to home, from hill to hill, from cave to cave in the entire area of Beit Sahour, searching for the cows. Even helicopters filled the air above the hills, trying to see if there was any strange movement. In town, soldiers walked around with photos of each cow, stopping people in the street and asking them, "Have you seen this cow?" The people they stopped would joke, "Well, the face is familiar. I'm not sure. The nose I remember was a little smaller."

The search continued for a couple of days. Finally the soldiers arrived at the butcher's place, but the cave was well hidden so you couldn't discover it easily. They looked carefully and found nothing and were about to leave when one of the cows made a noise. So the soldier who heard the noise went back to the cave, looked here and there-nothing. Then hefound another cave and stuck his flashlight into it and here were the eighteen wanted terrorist cows sitting there. So he started shouting “Eureka, eureka!" When the military governor arrived, he asked the butcher, if he had enough money to buy eighteen cows, why didn't he pay his taxes? At that time, the tax revolt was still in process. The law allowed the military to arrest anybody for forty-eight hours who didn't pay taxes. Then he had to be released, but they could arrest him again. So he started this procedure against the butcher. Forty-eight hours, released for a day, forty-eight hours, released for a day.

So we moved the cows to farms in Beit Sahour and in nearby villages. The cows were distributed at different homes, two in each place. That was less threatening than a single mob of cows, and the governor was finally satisfied that he should stop there.

But three or four years later I was summoned to the headquarters of the regional Israeli civil administration. When I arrived, a man stood to greet me. It was the military governor. He had done well with the cows, so he was promoted very quickly. I didn't know why I was summoned, but after he finished speaking about all sorts of things, he said, “Ghassan, I want to ask you a question. Where are the cows now?" I couldn't help but laugh. He was obsessed with the cows even years later.

WE MIGHT BE ANNOYING, BUT WE'RE GOOD-HEARTED PEOPLE

During the first two years of the First Intifada I was in and out of jail. I started getting arrested more and more under administrative detention,¹⁹ I was beaten frequently. I could figure out immediately that they didn't I have enough information to be able to squeeze me. So I didn't lie, butI didn't volunteer information. They would detain me for eighteen-day stretches, which was the legal limit at the time before receiving a military charge. Then two days later they would come and arrest me for eighteen days, and then release me.

Finally, the military governor's assistant wrote me a summons for "day arrest." I had to sit at the civil administration building from eight in the morning until eight in the evening, and was then released after the Beit Sahour curfew. I had to find my way back to my home from Bethlehem, so if any soldier saw me walking the streets, I might have been shot. It continued like that for about ten days. All of my brothers were jailed at some point, too. In total, I have been to jail nine times, around four years all together. I think the Israelis targeted me because I was very successful in bringing attention to the Intifada. In fact, at that time, Israel was upset about the focus on Beit Sahour, because any small activity in Beit Sahour was like a big explosion outside. We managed to do the tax resistance and to convey the image of the Boston Tea Party, and it was covered in the New York Times. We also managed to get a United Nations Security Council resolution proposed that called Israel to stop the siege on our town and return all the goods taken in tax seizures. We forced the Americans to use the veto against the proposal. So that was really probably one of the main reasons that I was targeted with those harsh imprisonment measures-they wanted to disrupt this work because it was really annoying to them.

Still, I managed to build relations with the Israeli society, so Beit Sahour became somewhat protected. We had a lower number of casualties because the army couldn't enter Beit Sahour without seeing many foreign and Israeli journalists and activists. I started establishing relations with Israeli peace groups, which have wide connections outside. Then I started working with Palestinians living in the United States and England. When the media focused on me, more people became interested in communicating with me. Suddenly, everybody who wanted to come to Palestine either on a fact-finding mission or in a delegation wanted to meet me. So I began to develop a huge network.

I LOOKED AROUND AND SAW GUNMEN, MILITIAS, TANKS, AND SUICIDE BOMBERS

I was very busy in the years after the First Intifada. My wife and I had a son in 1990. I felt thrilled, happy, and more responsible. I also started working as a physics professor at Birzeit University.²¹ And I was trying to carry forward with the sort of resistance we had established in Beit Sahour in the Intifada. I helped to start international outreach organizations such as the Alternative Tourism Group as well as a Palestinian economic development organization. My days were very long. I used to leave home at three in the morning to have time to answer e-mails for activist organizations I was involved in, and then go teach all day, then more activist work, and I wouldn't come home until midnight. By the late nineties, I was depressed all the time. Nothing much was changing, and I thought we as Palestinians were going in the wrong direction. And my activism was making it hard to spend as much time in my community as I wanted. Then the Second Intifada erupted in 2000, and it was different than the first. Everybody was shooting each other, and I had to reconsider how the principles we put in place in the First Intifada would apply to this new one, which was more violent, I looked around and saw gunmen, militias, tanks, and suicide bombers. What the hell could we do in such an environment? But then I thought, Why not try something? I had to find a way to engage. The hardest part of any conflict is when you feel trapped between two powers, waiting to be the victim. In 1970 in Jordan I was in the middle of a conflict, but I was young, so I couldn't engage. SoSo I didn't want to repeat that experience again. So during the Second Intifada I started working with other Palestinian, Israeli, and American activists. We invited people to join what we called at that time International Solidarity Campaigns.²¹ It was an experiment.

We started with a very big action that attracted attention to us-we took over an Israeli military camp in Beit Sahour that had been bombarding Palestinian homes. We gathered around a hundred people—Palestinians, some Italians, some Israeli anti-Zionist groups, a German delegation, and a few Canadians, and we marched into the camp. The soldiers were taken by surprise, especially since they saw some Israelis with us. They didn't know what to do. They moved to the back of the camp in order to get away from us. And then a Canadian removed the Israeli flag and put up a Palestinian flag, and we declared the place liberated. After three hours, we left. There was a huge reaction to our demonstration, and we started receiving more requests for people to join in similar protests.

We decided to expand and do a campaign every two weeks. We would remove roadblocks, conduct lie-ins in front of Israeli tanks, and other things like that. We were practicing non-violent protest even in the middle of great violence. I started working with an activist named Neta Golan, and then a month later, Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro came and wanted to join forces and we started planning for a big campaign. Then someone suggested calling it the International Solidarity Movement, and we thought, Why not? Every day I received forty or fifty applications from people who wanted to join. ISM raised no money—everyone paid their own expenses. We started screening people and doing trainings. I think we managed to get around 7,000 internationals to come and take part in the Palestinian struggle. Amazingly, people who were coming were university professors, lawyers, all different ages, not just young people and activists. During the First Intifada, I was jailed a lot. But, during the Second Intifada, I didn't go to jail. I benefitted a lot from the relations I established inside Israel, which provided some protection. There was an attempt within Israel to outlaw the ISM and arrest us all, but I met with members from the Labor Party in Israel and convinced them that the ISM might be annoying, but we were good-hearted people. But even if I was less vulnerable to arrest, we were all exposed to terrible violence. The army tolerated us until about 2003. That year, maybe twenty ISM volunteers reported to us that they'd been subjected to live ammunition fired very close to them. There came a point when it seemed like the soldiers started hunting us and trying to freak us out. And then Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall were killed. Brian Avery was shot in the face, but he survived.²²

The work with ISM was very tough. At different points, we were all, including myself, at risk of dying. I was away from my family all the time it was a round-the-clock job. There were lots of problems between the activists I had to solve, and I felt responsible for those who died. I trained Rachel Corrie here in Beit Sahour. The hardest part of my life was when I met Rachel's family, her mother and father. They came and had lunch at my home. They are great people and they started assuring me that I did nothing wrong. I faced a hard time with Tom Hurndall's parents at the beginning, but then we became very close friends. His mother is now the development director of Friends of Birzeit University, and she wrote a very powerful book called My Son Tom.

I'm proud of the work I've done with ISM and other organizations, but around 2005 or 2006 I suddenly felt that I should stop working with foreigners and Israelis and I should make the journey back to my own community. I'd been focused on reaching out to the world and traveling a lot since 1987. I was emotionally drained. So in 2006, I told the other co-founders of ISM that I was still with them, but I could no longer do administrative work. I went back to university life and became closer to my students and community. And that's what my life has been for the last ten years. When the time comes, I'll find my way to engage.

When we talk to Ghassan in July 2014, he is skeptical about the possibility of an emergent Third Intifada. He tells us, "I don't see an Intifada happening now. You smell the Intifada, you smell the emotions of people. I don't smell those emotions now. To have an Intifada, either you have glimpses of hope, or you are desperate enough to want to die. The First Intifada, hope moved us. The Second Intifada, desperation moved us."

---

Footnotes

¹ Beit Sahour is a city of around 15,000 located just east of Bethlehem. It's population is approximately 80 percent Christian.

² The Jabal Al-Hussein camp is located northwest of Amman. It was originally established in 1948 for 8,000 refugees. Today it houses nearly 30,000.

³ From the glossary -

Bedouin: An ethnic group with historical ties to the Arabian Peninsula. The Bedouin were traditionally nomadic, desert-dwelling, tribal peoples who speak Arabic. (Blogger's Note: Not sure why this is in past tense, some Bedouin are still nomadic.) Today, approximately 40,000 Bedouin live in Palestine, many in Area C of the West Bank.

⁴ From the glossary -

Six-Day War: A conflict in 1967 between Israel and Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. At the time, Gaza was administered by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan. Following heightened tensions, border skirmishes erupted between Israeli forces and Palestinian guerillas who launched assaults on Israeli military positions from Jordan. After Egypt built near its border with Israel, Israel launched an air-assault in June, destroying Egypt's air force. The conflict drew in other neighboring states and led to a land-war victory for Israel over six days of fighting. After the fighting ended, Israel occupied the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and Golan Heights.

⁵ The keffiyeh is a head scarf traditionally worn by Arabs. In the late 1960s, it was adopted as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.

⁶ The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan took control of the West Bank following 1948, and it also hosted over 400,000 refugees from the 1948 war. By 1970, approximately 60 percent of the population of the greater Jordanian-controlled territory was Palestinian. In 1970, tensions between the Kingdom of Jordan and representatives of the Palestinian people such as the PLO led to civil war.

⁷ An exit exam for high school.

⁸ The Lebanese Civil War broke out in 1975 between a number of factions, but especially the PLO and Palestinian refugee militias, Lebanese Muslim militias, and leftist militias on one side and Maronite Christians (with the support of both Israel and Syria) on the other side. The war was partly precipitated by the arrival of the PLO among the 400,000 Palestinian refugees living in southern Lebanon in 1975. Attempts to drive out the PLO led to massacres in Palestinian refugee camps.

⁹ Beirut is the capital of Lebanon and was the site of the most intense fighting during the Lebanese Civil War. Today, it is a city of 361,000.

¹⁰ The Lebanese Phalanges Party is a political party that grew out of a Christian paramilitary force formed in 1936 (a youth brigade inspired by fascist youth brigades in Europe at the time). The Phalangists were a major force in the Lebanese Civil War.

¹¹ Tel-Al Zaatar was a UNRWA camp in northeast Beirut with around 50,000 Palestinian refugees. Maronite Christian militias sieged and destroyed the camp in August 1976.

¹² Al-Muskubiya (the Russian Compound") is a large compound in Jerusalem that now houses a major interrogation center and lockup, as well as courthouses and other Israeli government buildings.

¹³ The Evangelical Lutheran School of Beit Sahour was established as a co-educational primary school in 1901.

¹⁴ Bethlehem University is a Catholic co-educational school founded in 1973.

¹⁵ Reading University is located in Reading in southern England. It serves over 20,000 students.

¹⁶ The First Intifada was an uprising throughout the West Bank and Gaza against Israeli military occupation. It began in December 1987 and lasted until 1993. Intifada in Arabic means "to shake off."

¹⁷ Tal Piyot is a shopping center in Jerusalem. Eilat is a city of 50,000 at the southern tip of Israel. Eilat is an important harbor town on the Red Sea and also a popular resort and travel destination.

¹⁸ A kibbutz is a collectively run farm.

¹⁹ From the glossary -

administrative detention: A legal procedure under which detainees are held without charges or trial. Some forms of administrative detention are legal under international law during times of war and while peace agreements are negotiated between opposing factions. Many of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are held by the United States in administrative detention indefinitely, and the procedure has also been employed in Northern Ireland against the Irish Republican Army and in South Africa during the apartheid era. Administrative detention was employed by the British against Jewish insurgents during the British Mandate of Palestine, and the Israeli military adopted the practice at the formation of Israel. In 2014, Israel has held as many as 300 Palestinians in administrative detention. Though each term of detention is limited to a set number of days (usually a single day to as many as six months), detention can be renewed in court, meaning detainees can be held indefinitely without trial or charges. Though article 78 of the Fourth Geneva Convention grants occupying powers the right to detain persons in occupied territories for security reasons, it stipulates that this procedure should only be used for "imperative security reasons" and not as punishment. During the Second Intifada, Israel arrested tens of thousands of males between the ages of fourteen and forty-five without charges.

²⁰ Birzeit University is a renowned public university located just outside Ramallah. It hosts approximately 8,500 undergraduates.

²¹ The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was founded by Ghassan Andoni and other Palestinian, Israeli, and American activists in 2001. The organization calls on citizens from around the world to engage in nonviolent protests against the military occupation of Palestine.

²² Rachel Corrie was an American ISM volunteer who was killed by the Israeli military in Rafah in 2003. She was crushed to death by a bulldozer while trying to defend a Palestinian man's home from demolition. Tom Hurndall was a British photography student who was shot by an Israeli sniper in Rafah in 2003 (after a nine month coma he died in 2004). Brian Avery was an ISM volunteer who was reportedly shot by Israeli soldiers while walking with friends in the West Bank city of Jenin.

[bairdthereader]

Intentional Touch, Respected Space: A By-Episode Study, Part 4.2

This is the space where their love grows in safety.

S1E4: Secret (Section 2 of 2)

[Analysis of the first part of the episode is here. Previous posts in series: S1E1; S1E2; S1E3]

Nick and Charlie have returned to their safe space together, and they understand, to some extent, the newest facet of what they are to each other. On the one hand, the relief of having their safe space reestablished is incredible; on the other hand, the outside world and all its challenges await on the other side of Charlie’s bedroom door. As he prepares to leave, Nick starts to ask a question that makes him visibly uncomfortable, so much so that he can’t even finish voicing it.

Charlie, his tentative, recently repaired smile faltering, knows exactly what Nick is trying to ask. He’s been here before. He responds with an (unfortunately) oft-practiced “yeah, it’s fine,” trying to reassure Nick even as memories of Ben’s secrecy must be plaguing him, and his own desires are shunted to the side.  

The difference here is that Nick clearly knows that what he’s asking is hard for Charlie. His face as Charlie turns to get the umbrella is full of remorse and distaste for the agreement he just exacted from Charlie. When Charlie hands him the umbrella—with just the slightest bit of attitude that recalls the “idiot” conversation from earlier, but nothing like his usual plucky sarcasm—Nick manages to find a way to laugh, though it’s shaky. The relief in that laugh and the gratefulness on his face isn’t just for the umbrella; it’s for Charlie’s understanding of what Nick needs at that moment, for the sacrifice he understands (incompletely, at this point) Charlie is making.

Neither of them is feeling sure-footed yet; both are attempting to figure out what kind of boundaries their altered shared space has and how it impacts their interactions going forward. They’re both trying to understand where touch comes into this scenario, in a semi-public space after Nick has just asked to keep their affection a secret. They both want a more tangible goodbye, a meaningful touch. It’s in Charlie’s toned-down smile and longing “bye,” and it’s in Nick’s aborted wave and slight downward look of regret. But then there’s Nick’s lopsided smile and his little huff of gladness and it’s clear he is also happy that he and Charlie found their way back to each other.

After a moment standing at the door looking dreamily after Nick, Charlie decides that, no, that goodbye was not sufficient after all. That they deserve something more authentic and reassuring to both of them. He rushes out into the rain—sans umbrella! These boys!—and calls after Nick.

Stopping under the incredibly insufficient umbrella, Nick and Charlie exchange hi’s (Charlie’s with a bracing gulp afterward) approximately 10 seconds after their goodbyes. After an initial moment of being happy to see Charlie (again, it’s been 10 seconds and they still want to greet each other), Nick asks if he forgot anything. He knows he didn’t, but Charlie’s brief silence has him worried, despite the fact that Charlie ran through the rain to get to him with a smile on his face. While Charlie glances around, carefully checking that their privacy and therefore Nick’s need for covertness are at least somewhat ensured, Nick gathers himself with a little, slightly panicked swallow. Is Charlie having second thoughts now that Nick has asked him to hide their relationship? Is he about to pull away, step out of their shared space?

But no. When Charlie turns back around, his intent is clear on his face, and Nick looks right down at Charlie’s lips—a silent, respectful request from Charlie and enthusiastic agreement from Nick, all in a second—and Charlie’s able to say with confidence that, yes, in fact, Nick did forget something.

Charlie knows what they both want, so he closes the space between them, holding Nick’s neck and face with one gentle, intentional, calming, claiming hand, watching as Nick’s eyes go once again to his lips in an unspoken language of both entreaty and agreement, and he leans in for a real goodbye kiss, eliminating the previously unsure space between them.

When they pull back, it’s like two magnets pulling apart—it takes force to separate them. Now that they’ve established that this kind of touch belongs in their relationship, parting is harder. To say Nick is stunned is an understatement, and this happy, confident Charlie knows it. He nods decisively—this is the goodbye they deserved—and says "okay" in a way that confirms for both of them that they're on stable ground together again.

And now Nick knows what it’s like to kiss Charlie when the terrain between them is mapped, when their safe space is secured, when he’s sure of Charlie’s affection. There’s joy and giddy euphoria and some disbelief on his face, an overwhelming recognition of the potential scope of this relationship and the completely staggering enormity of the emotions he’s feeling, as he turns back toward home and looks briefly up at the sky. He and Charlie are together.

Arriving at school the next day is a happy affair. Nick’s cheerfulness is so marked that Imogen comments that "something’s different." She attributes it to a hairstyle change, partially as an excuse to touch Nick (without permission), but what she’s really picking up on is that he seems happier and more contented than usual. Nick worries that Imogen knows he’s been kissing a boy. When it’s clear that Imogen suspects nothing, Nick’s carefree attitude returns and he endures the rest of her teasing good-naturedly, smiling to himself when she leaves. After all, he gets to see Charlie next.

Charlie, meanwhile, walks into school so fast he’s about to break into a jog, smiling exuberantly until he reaches the door to their form room. He pauses, taking a moment to gather and calm himself, to dim the smile just a bit, reminding himself that he and Nick are a secret to everyone but themselves.

He can’t tame that smile completely, though, once Nick is in view. Nick is waiting with poorly concealed impatience, looking at the door, sitting with his arms crossed to contain his exploding heart, characteristic lopsided smile in place. A smile that only gets bigger as Charlie gets closer. There’s a moment as Charlie is setting his things down, when Charlie is still trying to contain his own smile, and Nick’s smile falters just a bit in response as he watches Charlie intently, silently, waiting to make sure that things are still where they left them under the umbrella.

But when Charlie sits and looks at Nick, and his enthusiastic “hi” is out in the universe, Nick is comforted and reassured by the familiarity of their affectionate greeting. His “hi” is quiet, but filled with relief and satisfaction and simple gladness that Charlie is sitting next to him again; there’s even a deep breath followed by a small sigh of contented settledness. Charlie is nearly giddy with happiness, possibly recalling the way he felt the first time he sat down next to Nick months ago. Back then, the space between them was unknown and blank. Now that space is a sanctuary that, in public, conceals and protects their new private closeness. The familiar, comforting routines of friendship blend with the sparkling newness of their deeper relationship, setting that space between them aglow.

We next see a moderately concerned and suspicious Mr. Ajayi informing Charlie that there’s a “boy” waiting for him in the art room, giving Charlie a chance to let him know if this is a situation Charlie is not on board with (Mr. Ajayi, you saintly soul). But Charlie happily, even perhaps a little proudly (he is Charlie, after all, so this is muted) tells Mr. Ajayi that he’s meeting a rugby boy (code for straight boy crush). So Mr. Ajayi leaves Charlie and Nick with his tacit approval, and Charlie strides confidently into the art room, where Nick is sitting with the same barely contained eagerness he displayed in form. Now, however, they’re alone, and Nick can be true and honest; he can say “I missed you” with complete sincerity and unabashed enthusiasm.

Charlie, typically, responds with a bit of sarcasm, unable to fully accept the implication of Nick’s statement—that he likes Charlie enough to want to be with him, pretty much all the time, and that those four hours felt interminable. Nick has seen Charlie deflect positive attention enough times not to take this too personally (though we have to think he wishes that Charlie was able to verbally return or validate his feelings at least a little bit). Not only does Nick not take offense to this teasing, he then checks in with Charlie about his friends and whether spending time with Nick would upset them; he doesn’t want this hiding to cost Charlie more than it already is. Nick's also subtly confirming that Charlie would in fact rather be having lunch with Nick than with his friends. Charlie makes a bit light of this too, but he’s still reassuring Nick in his own way that this was a decision Charlie made willingly. Then, to make it all quite clear, Charlie reaches for Nick’s hand under the table, instigating the first intentional touch since their parting under the umbrella. It’s hidden from view—Charlie’s respecting Nick’s request, and honoring their understanding safe space, while still making grounding and affectionate contact. Nick returns the affection by swiping his thumb over Charlie’s fingers, confirmation that the touch is wanted and the meaning behind it understood.

With this reminder of the safe emotional space they have between them, Nick confesses (again) that he’s glad to be away from his usual friend group. That they’re nothing like Charlie. Yet again, Nick is offering Charlie proof that he admires and values the things in Charlie that make him different, proof that he’s choosing Charlie. (Note that there’s no concern over Nick’s friends missing him; it’s not even expected by Nick himself.)  Charlie clearly doesn’t even know how to respond to this, indeed can barely believe it or internalize it, but it’s good for him to hear nonetheless.

They continue to hold hands throughout their conversation, keeping that line of emotional connection firmly in place, bridging the physical space that the public nature of the school day forced on them. It has to be noted that this moment is different from Charlie’s meetings with Ben in almost every way that matters. There’s no skulking, no leaning against walls in dark corners, little, if any, real secrecy (open doors, Mr. Ajayi knows, anyone could theoretically come to the art block at any time), just a semblance of privacy. The room is bright and light, positive and filled with color. Charlie clearly chose the location and arranged the meeting, giving him more agency than he ever had with Ben. This is a safe and welcoming place for Charlie. Charlie’s comfort here is obvious, and his affection and respect for Mr. Ajayi make it clear to Nick that this is a safe space for him, too (despite Mr. Ajayi’s initial ‘evils’). With the comforting physical touch of the handhold and the knowledge of safety in both the actual space of the art room but also the safe space he’s built with Nick, Charlie speaks aloud about the bullying he experienced, which then leads, with a noted drop in mood, to talk of Ben and his "making" Charlie keep them a secret.

Charlie immediately realizes from the crestfallen look on Nick’s face, the slight additional slump to his shoulders, the breaking of eye contact, that Nick is reading more into Charlie’s comment than Charlie meant by it. Nick’s guilt over asking for secrecy is plain on his face, and the idea that he might be causing Charlie even a fraction of the pain Ben caused him is horrifying to Nick. It makes him feel like he’s tainting that trusted space between them, and he withdraws inward briefly. Charlie reaches out with his other hand and grasps Nick’s—which seems to have loosened a bit—in both of his, drawing Nick closer to himself, intentionally pulling Nick back into that safe space, making sure Nick is listening to him. Charlie tries to reassure Nick, both with this touch and with his words. As Nick’s fingers tighten slightly around Charlie’s hand in acknowledgment, Charlie states emphatically that their situation is different, that Nick is nothing like Ben.

In most ways this is true, and Nick tries to rally, but clearly, neither of them has managed to convince the other, or themselves, that the nature of their relationship is, in fact, completely different. Nick's responding "yeah" is stilted and unconvincing, but still he leans forward and, presumably, returns Charlie’s double handhold. Even if his own guilt is gnawing at him, and he still suspects he's harming Charlie in some way, he’s trying to stay connected and keep that space between them intact. Charlie’s subdued smile tells us he knows Nick doesn’t completely believe his own “yeah,” and that Charlie knows there’s little else he can say to improve the situation in the moment. He’s made sure that Nick knows Charlie still wants him there with him, and that they can take the time and space they need to figure out their new dynamic—how to be in the world—together.

---

The next space they have to navigate together is rugby, which has always held its challenges but now introduces an uncomfortable element of conflicting loyalties for Nick and added guilt for Charlie. Charlie’s been moved from reserve to active player for an upcoming match and struggles to work up the nerve to tackle other players in practice. This earns the ire and frustration of his teammates, who feel Charlie is letting them down. Nick has to walk a fine line between concern for Charlie, guilt at the knowledge that Charlie is going through this at least in part because Nick asked him to join the team in the first place, and some real sympathy with his teammates for their frustrations. At the end of practice, Nick walks back to the changing rooms with some of the lads, leaving Charlie lagging behind, and the space between them expands, becoming thin and brittle under the pressures of this environment. Charlie, likely feeling guilt about his performance and worried that Nick is more upset with him than he is in reality—again, Ben’s conditioning of Charlie to make him feel not only pathetic but complicit in his own humiliation asserts itself—internalizes the team’s (and Nick’s) frustrations and tries to work them out by practicing more. . . alone.

As Charlie and Nick jog around the track before the match, they’re ahead of the pack slightly and by themselves—apart, but not alone, as they often are—and there’s a socially acceptable bit of space between them as they talk. All of Charlie’s friends are supporting him, and while Charlie can’t seem to understand why his friends would choose to spend their time in this way—"I told them they didn’t have to, but Elle said they wanted to be supportive”—Nick is both pleased for Charlie and perhaps wondering if any of his mates would support him in the same way. But Charlie doesn’t recognize this, and instead interprets Nick’s slightly brusque response as concern about Charlie’s friends seeing them together and learning the secret truth. Charlie rushes to reassure Nick that he won’t tell his friends about their relationship, and Nick, who had not been thinking along those lines at all, responds with a brief head shake and gruff, offhand “yeah, good, thanks.” Nick then tries to check in with Charlie, to see how this is affecting him, asking “you sure it’s okay?” To which Charlie responds, almost automatically, “Yeah. Of course.” Nick frowns, once again not fully believing Charlie or at least continuing to feel badly about the situation. But before this (very needed) conversation can continue, Harry forcefully interrupts, as he is wont to do.

When Charlie sees his friends arrive, he gets out from under Harry’s grip and gives Nick a little (again, socially acceptable, rugby-laddish) back-of-the-hand tap to his upper arm to get his attention and let Nick know that Charlie is parting ways with the group. Nick stands for a while, indecisive, as the rugby lads peel off in one direction, and Charlie to his friends in the other, leaving Nick briefly (but sadly, not unusually) alone. Nick watches from behind a literal physical barrier, cut off from Charlie, as Charlie affectionately greets his friends, as Darcy blatantly asks Charlie about his relationship with Nick, and as Charlie struggles to hide the nature of that relationship from his friends with blatant and painfully delivered lies.

Charlie looks over at Nick and sees him frowning, then immediately checks in with Darcy to see if there are rumors circulating, the need to protect Nick and keep the secret always at the forefront of his mind. Charlie’s shoulders are pulled up, his hands tug at his shirt sleeves, and he generally gives off an air of intense discomfort as he has to deceive his friends with Nick nearby, looking morose and, from Charlie’s point of view, upset about how the conversation is proceeding. Nick is so focused on this interaction, on his position as an outsider looking in, on Charlie’s obvious unhappiness, that when his own friends walk by and greet him, he spares them only a brief wave and barely a smile, before turning his attention back to Charlie again. The whole situation is clearly chafing hard, and Nick is beginning to recognize that not only does it make Charlie unhappy and put strain on Charlie’s deeply important friendships, it makes Nick discontented as well. This is a moment when the space they have between them is involuntary, when it is required by secrecy and circumstance, and it no longer feels good or right; its shape is distorted and unfamiliar.

Once again, Nick and Charlie are standing together and apart from their teammates as they watch the opposing team file out onto the pitch. Charlie takes a completely warranted nervous step back and bumps Nick’s arm with his elbow, an unintentional touch from which he almost immediately recoils. It’s a touch that would look completely accidental from an outside perspective, but that represents, to Charlie, everything he thinks he’s not supposed to do and feel around Nick in public and even, to an extent, in private. His desire for comfort, closeness, and reassurance are all things he’s been taught he doesn’t deserve and shouldn’t want, and the rule of secrecy only compounds those suppressive feelings for Charlie. Nick is clearly a bit surprised and regretful that Charlie feels the need to apologize at all, but there’s no time for him to respond now.

Nick now has to navigate one of the most challenging instances yet of trying to walk the ever-thinner line between his rugby lad persona and the person he wants to be with Charlie. The space between Nick and Charlie is fully public right now, and in one of the least hospitable places it could be. All interaction between them here would be heavily scrutinized within a very narrow framework of accepted demonstrations of masculinity. So Nick, who is keenly aware of this in a much more visceral and personal way than he was before, is trying desperately to captain his team to victory (which requires equal attention to each of his teammates), keep an extra attentive eye on Charlie without appearing to do so, and manage lingering feelings of guilt about his culpability in Charlie’s pain during the game, all while a running loop of concern about how all his actions appear to everyone else—and to Charlie, who still often misinterprets Nick’s intentions—is running through his head. He doesn't quite manage to achieve all of these things.

At various points in the match we see Charlie’s concern for Nick—quiet, but visibly there. We also see Nick’s concern for Charlie, sometimes more vocal (certainly more vocal than with any other teammate) but always from a (necessary) distance, and often followed by self-suppressive facial expressions or body language. Charlie especially feels this distance, the stretching of the safe space between them and the lack of intentional, reassuring touch to ground him. He feels disconnected from this version of Nick who must be so many different things to so many different people. And while he feels this painful divide, he also knows that Nick has a lot of responsibilities outside of their relationship; he’s conscious of the secret they’re keeping and what kind of behavior Nick can display within that boundary; he’s aware, as Charlie always is, of their surroundings and how not only does he have to be a chameleon and become what he’s expected to be in this space, but now, because of their relationship, so too does Nick. While this act of blending in protects the space between them from the outside world, it also hides Nick and Charlie from each other; they can’t see each other clearly through the masks they’re both wearing. On top of and because of all of this, Charlie is harboring intense feelings of guilt for even wanting or expecting any kind of closeness at all with Nick in this scenario. His feelings that he’s not worth all the trouble Nick is going through intensify, and his spiral of self-blame and guilt continues.

---

When Charlie is tackled to the ground for the second time and injured enough not to get back up immediately, Nick is involuntarily, forcibly rooted to that line he walks. Charlie is hurting, and Nick feels trapped by his conflicted feelings about how he should act around Charlie in this arena, his own request for secrecy, and his misplaced guilt around Charlie’s injury. He wants to reinstate and enter the safe space between them, wants to reassure himself that Charlie is okay and to care for Charlie, but is held in place by the potential negative perception their audience would have of that kind of action.

These separate and equally misplaced guilt spirals continue when Nick visits Charlie in the infirmary after the match is cancelled. Charlie is happy to see Nick but almost entirely self-restrained, completely still, while Nick pauses in the doorway, already looking a bit chagrined and waiting for Charlie’s acknowledgment. Their exchanged “hey” is muted, with none of the usual enthusiasm, but Nick enters the room fully after Charlie greets him in return. Yet again, they’re having to reestablish the boundaries of their safe space, but now they’re doing it blindly, unaware of the silos of guilt they’ve each been in, with an incomplete understanding of the ways they’ve each been stretched thin by the pressures of not just the match but all the limits they’ve put on themselves; they only know that something isn’t right.

Nick scans Charlie’s body a couple of times, looking for additional injuries, asking Charlie if his nose is okay. When Charlie says he doesn’t know, Nick’s hands clench briefly before he carefully sits very close to Charlie on the infirmary table, intentionally allowing their legs to touch, showing Charlie that he wants to be near him in this way, that he wants the closeness back, that he cares more than he felt he was able to show on the pitch. Charlie, meanwhile, sits nearly completely still, hands clenched together in his lap; he wants that care and affection from Nick so badly, but he doesn’t believe he should want it, or that he deserves it, so he keeps his hands—and everything else—to himself.

When Nick has inspected Charlie’s nose and said, with relief, that he thinks it looks fine, he looks for another way to keep showing Charlie care and affection, another way to bridge the divide that has grown between them. Even though both boys are quite literally covered in mud, Nick tells Charlie, with a tiny huff of laughter, that he has mud on his face. Charlie returns the tiny laugh, as they both try to edge back to a place of ease together. As Nick wipes the mud off Charlie’s face—something Charlie could have done on his own but which Nick clearly chooses to do himself—he swallows repeatedly, opening and closing his mouth like there’s more he wants to say (or do). Leaves float around them, and the same pink glow surrounds them as during Charlie’s daydream about Nick declaring his eternal devotion. Nick is clearly feeling some of the things Charlie had hoped he would a few months ago, and for a just a little while, Charlie watches Nick’s eyes and enjoys this moment of tenderness. The physical space between them has closed, and they’re close, possibly, to entering their safe emotional space together as well.

But then when Nick is finished wiping Charlie’s face and his hand drops, the mesmerizing and comforting touch removed, Charlie’s compulsive guilt reasserts itself. He looks away, and down, breaking eye contact as he apologizes. Nick, clearly completely confused and thrown, says “What?,” frowning and looking intently at Charlie’s face. Charlie looks back, and as he begins to list all the ways he thinks he’s “messed up,” he rubs his hands together, repeatedly pinching his own palm, sinking into himself as he calls himself clingy and annoying.

Nick can’t understand how Charlie could think this—looking back at the day with any kind of objectivity shows a restrained, audience-conscious Charlie who did nothing to earn either of those adjectives. When he continues, “I’m making this so awkward,” Nick looks away, down at his own hands, frowning as Charlie continues “You wanted to keep us a secret and I’m messing it up.” Charlie is trying desperately to comply, to remain within the boundaries of their relationship as he perceives them, with all of his warped self-perception and negative expectations of Nick’s reactions based on Ben’s abusive treatment. He’s cracking under the self-imposed pressure, and the guilt comes flooding out. Nick, on the other hand, feels fully responsible for what happened to Charlie during the match, guilty that he didn’t help more both during the match itself and the practices that preceded it, and is now reminded again that his request for secrecy is causing Charlie distress.

Nick looks up toward the ceiling, just as he did after the kiss in Charlie’s room, preparing himself to say what’s on his mind, what he knows Charlie needs to hear. He shakes his head a little, at Charlie’s words and at himself. Charlie looks increasingly concerned at this gesture, steeling himself, but then Nick says “I’m the one who should be saying sorry.” There’s direct, sustained eye contact, a short, sharp sigh—this is intentional Nick—and extreme sincerity. It’s enough to at least get Charlie’s attention; there’s a blink and just the slightest hitch to his shoulders, a brief rising above his own thoughts, as he waits for Nick to say whatever else he needs to say.

Then Isaac walks in and the moment is broken. Nick is reminded immediately that it could have been anyone—a teammate, a coach, a medic—and though he’s clearly uncomfortable and shifts his body so it’s not turned toward Charlie anymore, he doesn’t actually get up. He decides to stay next to Charlie. As Isaac does absolutely nothing to hide the fact that he knows exactly what’s going on between Nick and Charlie, both boys’ discomfort increases—Nick’s out of a toxic mixture of fear, confusion, and lingering guilt, and Charlie’s from watching Nick withdraw and believing that his self-accusations have been proven true; someone outside of their safe space now knows the secret, and to Charlie, it’s his fault.

As soon as Isaac leaves, Nick gets up with a marked throat clearing, saying he’d “better” go, followed by a gulp-filled pause. The outside world has intruded on their shared space again, and Nick’s reminded that his absence from the rest of the team might be noticed. Half of him worries about that, while the other half feels guilty for caring what they think at all and how that caring in turn affects Charlie. Charlie assures Nick that Isaac won’t say anything—half of him wanting to reassure Nick, the other half feeling guilty that Nick needs reassurance in the first place. Nick gives a gruff “yeah . . . okay” in response, and with a conflicted, self-focused frown and look down, he hurriedly leaves without a goodbye. Charlie caves inward; in some ways, this went exactly the way he thought it would.

They're back in their silos.

[If you'd like more infirmary scene analysis, I recommend @stopper-my-heart's post here.]

[hooved]

quark would definitely get an abortion but odo wouldn't. just because i think odo personally would really want to be a mother if he was ever physically capable of getting pregnant

[flying-potato2]

made this thing for taking the average item flow of a plastanium conveyor over 64 seconds because im fed up with how short the sample time is for the built in item flow meter. Every second it measures how many items are in a conveyor tile and stores each measurement. It then sums all of those up and compares it to the maximum possible value that could have been made (being 10 items for every measurement, 640 items) and outputs how many items, on average, passed through that conveyor tile every second. schematic below cut

With debugging display (the large logic display w the green and red squares)

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

without debug display

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

[bugmistake]

sometimes its so crazy to realize that there's actually a lot of things i like. that i thought i didn't like because i was a depressed teenager. i love being outside! i love swimming! i love talking to people! even strangers sometimes! i love getting dressed in fun outfits and doing makeup! i love reading and going to art museums! i just thought i was doomed forever to a life of complete and total apathy and void! and now look at me! still a little shaky but i'm doing it!!!!!

[unopenablebox]

loom angst again sorry

>:( if that louet erica weren't 30cm it would be perfect. i could even go pick it up on the commuter rail line

is it stupid to buy a loom if i'm planning to replace it with the 50cm version of itself, possibly quite soon/as soon as i get frustrated with only making 9" wide fabric. i'd currently be getting a good deal on the loom + stand, but i'd have to resell the loom for pretty close to its original sale price in order to have meaningfully saved money on the accessories it comes with after buying a new one, & i really don't think that's realistic. so i'm going to go with "yes that is dumb" and may just buy a new loom at rhinebeck if no one's selling a table loom near here that i can get to and actually would want

[frantic-fuck]

Snakelet - Chapter 8

@augusnippets Day 16 - Humiliation

Word Count: 435

Masterpost

Content: NSFWhump (implied noncon afterwards), coercion, death threats, creepy whumper

~

A shock tears through Ziri's system, abruptly yanking him out of his quasi-hibernation. He wearily looks up at the figure towering above him.

"Good morning, pretty boy~"

He groans and looks at the floor.

"Oh, don't be like that. What, you think I'm just gonna hack at you with an iron axe or something?"

He cringes at the thought.

"Don't be silly. I don't like iron any more than you. And I'm sure you could use a break from the stuff anyway, hm~?"

He likes what they're saying. He doesn't like the way they're saying it.

It doesn't matter. They'll do whatever they want to him anyway. He just sighs in response, continuing to stare blankly at the floor.

"Mm. I'm gonna need a bit more cooperation than that today, pretty boy. That is, if you want to live to see your precious sibling, of course."

He locks eyes with them.

"Y-you.. can't.. kill me."

"Sure I can! All I gotta do is take you to the feywild and put a bullet between your eyes, right? Not like Nerium will care. It'll probably make things easier on them, honestly. No more silly little moral conundrum, they can just lob your body at Janessa and be done with it."

A pit forms in his stomach.

"Might.. come back.."

"I'll put a tracker in you, then. And then I'll find you and kill you again, and again, and again, slower and slower each time, until you finally die for good."

Trembles wrack his exhausted, broken body.

"...Please don't."

With a grin, they step on the base of his leash, forcing his face to stay pressed against their boot.

"That's it. Beg for your life, pretty boy."

"P-please. Please let me live. Please."

"Master. Call me master."

"Please, master." The word feels dirty on his tongue. "Please don't kill me, master."

"Ohh, that's it. Keep going."

He rasps out desperate pleas, terror jolting through him at the sound of a belt unbuckling.

"Ask what I want you to do for me."

"W-what you— what do you want me to do for you, master?"

They let out a breathy laugh. "Tell me you'll do anything."

He grimaces, the weight of his helplessness pressing down on him as he hears the belt pulled from the loops. "I'll.. I'll do anything, master."

"That's what I like to hear." He flinches at the sound of leather striking their palm. "A little birdie told me all you satyrs are sluts. I want you to prove it."

In an embarrassingly small voice, he whimpers, "I'm.. out of practice.."

"Then you better remember quick, huh?"

[yaboijakie]

context: i never watched rvb zero, i watched one episode and just never felt the desire to continue watching it

however i am currently rewatching the rvb series with a friend who is watching it for the first time, so i'm willing to give rvb zero a chance once we get to it. maybe it isn't as bad as i saw people say it was

but i got curious and decided to look into the reactions towards it and also learned a bit more about how the season was made and all i can say is

what the fuck were they thinking

[arctic-hands]

The subject came up today and I can't decide so I'm throwing it out there because I don't give a fuck and also having survived all of this kinda makes me sound like a badass

[irradiatedsnakes]

i think? it's been said there's going to be more exploration of the teen/aya vers of the characters in the pnf reboot and i am dreading that for a number of reasons but especially the relationship between a 17/18 year old and a 26 year old whose fucking idea was this

[dimalink]

Captain Moon – search for a engine and parts for Ufo Sausage

Pixel art for today based on videogame commander keen 4 secret of the for computer system Ibm Pc Ms Dos. Ega graphics. Adventures of Keen, which is flying, maybe, with his own space ship, and he has there a different adventures.

I play this game lots of times with my bro! And, we like this game a lot. So, in those days, we though it has lots of parts. And, that so exciting! Lots of interesting! All the games were some kind different from each other. And there were so a lot of them for Ms Dos, that Id like to say, that this game is better, then a Sonic for Sega! So, it is this way! So, it is sad, that later they stop do new parts.

And this is my drawing based on the same theme. A little moon, which has a big construction. It was abandoned by someone a lots of time ago.  And you fly to this place. Because of, there is a new engine for your space ship, in this place. You fly with Ufo sausage. So, another aliens left there not well done, not prepared, not properly calibrated new engine. But, it is good to search it though all the floors of these labyrinth.

Big construction. Out of floors. Dark. And that aliens likes chocolates. They are here every place. It levitates in the air.

But, it will be good to walk a lot here, by this stairs, and floors, to find a details for engine, and find and ready not prepared engines from the aliens. It is a main prize! In, any case, it is interesting place!

Dima Link is making retro videogames, apps, a little of music, write stories, and some retro more.

WEBSITE: http://www.dimalink.tv-games.ru/home_eng.html ITCHIO: https://dimalink.itch.io/

TUMBLR: https://dimalink.tumblr.com/ BLOGGER: https://dimalinkeng.blogspot.com/ MASTODON: https://mastodon.social/@DimaLink

[adriles]

Hrm. This is troubling. *sees that machaon has been injured in battle* This absolutely will not do. *finds that agamemnon has been wounded by a spear thrust* Ah, now this is not good for my exit strategy

[bairdthereader]

Intentional Touch, Respected Space: A By-Episode Study, Part 3

This is the space where their loves grows in safety.

S1E3: Kiss

[Note: Approx. 4K words here, so grab a snack first!]

Nick has been dealing with and processing quite a lot of newly acknowledged feelings in the days leading up to the events of episode 3. (See @stopper-my-heart’s excellent post analyzing Nick’s internet research.) When Harry asks how’s it, Nick’s “fine” is followed up with a totally untrue “everything’s normal," as he tries to push back the confusion he's feeling. After Harry invites Nick to his party, Nick has some interactions where his internal turmoil starts to affect his responses to the people around him: Imogen's thinly disguised effort to wrangle Nick into a date and the locker room teasing about Imogen and Tara. These are some of the places where we clearly see Nick beginning to struggle with the divide that's appearing between his previous self and the deeply buried truths he’s starting to recognize, saying things he doesn't quite mean and sliding back into the persona he's always held up with his friend group.

So, it’s a ways into this episode before Nick and Charlie are able to have a real conversation, and Nick takes the opportunity to ask Charlie to Harry’s party. Nick’s previous conversations about the party resulted in impulsive, pressured, or protectively ambiguous responses ("Yeah, sounds good," to Harry; "Fine, I guess I can invite you" to Imogen; "Yeah, maybe," to the rugby lads re: Tara), but this is a determined, intentional Nick. [I won’t belabor the point here, but see my previous post about this scene and Nick’s intentions if you’d enjoy more detail.] Suffice it to say that the space between Nick and Charlie has gotten visibly a bit smaller and emotionally very much smaller. Nick keeps his arms crossed during this conversation, but loosely, and he’s leaning forward. There’s some self-soothing and protection here as Nick bravely pushes forward and asks Charlie to go to Harry’s party, but at the end of the exchange Nick is still leaning toward Charlie, looking at him in a similar way as he did on the couch while considering holding Charlie's hand, but with more happiness.

On the flip side, Charlie’s hesitancy in saying yes to the party is obviously due to the fact that Harry’s party definitely is not his kind of thing, but also, I think we can assume, due to the locker room conversation referenced above where Nick (from Charlie’s perspective) has just contradicted all the signals he sent Charlie during the hug at his house. Charlie can’t imagine enjoying a party where Nick has his “chance with Tara.” But then Nick says “I want you to be there” and Charlie takes a moment to really look at Nick’s face, which is, it must be said, pretty close to his own in this moment. Charlie’s expression runs the gamut in just a second (Joe, you genius). There is the briefest moment when he looks like he might decline again, then a moment when his gaze roves around Nick’s face, and then Charlie clearly changes his mind. Something he sees reassures him that Nick means what he says, and so Charlie says “okay.”

On the night of the party, we see that Nick has been spending time with the rugby lads and other people from his friend group, enjoying himself generally, but not fully present. Imogen makes a grabby appearance, demands a hug and a compliment on her dress. Nick turns away almost immediately, looking for Charlie, whom, he’s beginning to realize on some level, he’s more comfortable with than any of these people. Charlie, on the other hand, is essentially entering what must feel to him and his PTSD like a gladiator’s ring. He’s surrounded by either strangers, bullies, or people he knows only superficially, with chaotic sound and strobing lights. He needs a grounding force and comfort.

So when they see each other, cross the room and enter their shared space, there’s clear relief and gladness, a mutual clicking into place.

Nick, likely recalling the hug at Charlie’s house, approaches Charlie with arms raised, possibly wishing to repeat that gesture of honest affection. So perhaps the original intent was a hug, perhaps not, but either way Nick remembers the public setting and that Charlie has not been privy to the progression of Nick’s thoughts around touch between them and so wouldn’t understand the motivation behind the hug. He settles instead for a two-shoulder grasp, continuing to respect the space between them—both the physical space required by the public setting and Nick’s concern about Charlie’s potentially negative feelings toward touch in general, and the emotional space required by the fact that they are both still unsure of what any touch beyond the purely platonic might mean. And here that space is literally brightly illuminated.

Meanwhile Charlie, a veteran of hiding in plain sight, with reactions and instincts hammered into place by physical, social, and emotional abuse, keeps his hands down by his sides. He stops approaching Nick just a split second sooner than Nick stops approaching him. His primary thought here has to be protecting Nick (and himself, but mostly Nick) from the potential speculation of the people around them, followed by continued uncertainty about what Nick’s touch actually means (see: long hug followed by locker room talk), and finally trying to keep himself from falling even harder for a likely (in Charlie’s view) unavailable Nick. Despite all this internal conflict, Charlie is clearly ecstatic to see Nick and doesn’t try to shrug off this very deliberate and affectionate touch. Nick’s hands start out tight, then loosen just a bit before reluctantly sliding off Charlie’s arms. They spend a long moment just smiling blissfully at each other while the light continues to shine between them. It’s right there on their faces, but there’s still too much uncertainty for either of them to fully recognize it.

The camera pulls away to show us Nick and Charlie in the center of the melee, with a still and peaceful space between them and bright light illuminating them. They’ve created safety and calm for each other, no matter what is going on around them.

Next we find Nick and Charlie couching it up in a random hallway discussing, once again, Mario Kart. As on the couch at Charlie’s house, Charlie is squarely in the middle of his half of the couch, a few pillows on one side, while Nick is closer to Charlie’s side of the couch (after all, he's left enough room for Harry to sit down on his other side, unfortunately). His arm is crossed across his chest in a self-soothing and containing gesture, trying to be as close as possible while still maintaining that little bit of space. Charlie actually seems less nervous, leaned back into the couch and loosely holding on to his drink while his face is turned to Nick. He’s thoroughly enjoying Nick’s company and closeness without too much worry.

When Harry approaches, Nick’s face conveys irritation and reluctance, while Charlie immediately starts scanning the group for potential danger, face closed off but eyes alert. When Harry sits down, Nick’s arm lowers next to Charlie, possibly to offer subtle comfort while someone so antagonistic toward Charlie is so physically close to him, possibly to prepare to stand up and get away from Harry if he gets too obnoxious. Either way, Nick is eliminating that space and allowing touch to happen for a caring reason; respect is still there.

The next few scenes are filled to the brim with nonconsensual, uncomfortable, or disrespectful touch.

Nick is clearly annoyed by, if not outright uncomfortable with, Harry’s yoking him and dragging him bodily away from Charlie and toward Tara. Harry’s always been a grabby guy and Nick usually puts up with it good-naturedly, but this is too aggressive even for Nick. He could fight back, of course, and push Harry away, but not without causing a bit of a scene; he looks almost ill by the time he’s finally in front of Tara.

Ben and Charlie collide fairly forcefully in yet another weird, random hallway, this one ominously dark. Ben starts with a disingenuous apology while Charlie backs into a literal corner, clearly signaling that he does not want Ben anywhere near him, much less any kind of touch. He even starts to walk away. But this is Ben, so of course he does the thing he knows will bother Charlie most in that moment and grabs Charlie’s arm. Ben regularly ignores, disrespects, and obliterates the space Charlie puts around himself, but this time, Charlie pushes back, literally and figuratively. While his strength here does him credit and takes him another step toward freedom from Ben, the fact remains that Charlie just experienced a very unpleasant, disrespectful, nonconsensual touch.

Imogen, though less negatively intentioned than Harry and Ben, also subjects Nick to touch he clearly does not want. He’s visibly uncomfortable—not nervous, not shy—but unwilling and reluctant. He tries to disengage kindly ("I can’t dance"; "I need to find a friend.) because he doesn’t want to hurt Imogen’s feelings, but she doesn’t take the hint. Or, if she does, she responds by grabbing even tighter, resulting in this massively distressing moment for Nick. [You have to wonder if Nick feels like his own neck even belongs to him after this party.]

Then, thank goodness, Nick gets to witness consensual, joyful touch between Tara and Darcy. Tara’s nod before their kiss is clear in the shot; obviously they’ve both agreed to this moment, and that agreement is what lends freedom and joy to their public affection. Not only are they bravely declaring their feelings in this intensely crowded setting, but they’re doing it with mutual, reciprocated care and respect for their individual feelings.  

So we now have a Nick who has Been. Though. Some. Things. in a very short space of time finally finding his best friend, his person, and settling in—close—to a Charlie who has also Been. Through. Some. Things. and wants nothing more than to be with his best friend again too. The space between them at this point is negligible. Nick once again leaves a good bit of room on his side of the couch in favor of being close to Charlie, their knees are touching, they’re turned in to each other, and neither of them are pulling away or displaying the need for a buffer against judgmental gazes as they did earlier in the evening. They both want comfort, and they want it from the person who they know has a caring understanding of them.

It’s in this safe, mutually (if silently) agreed upon closeness (read: lack of space) that Charlie tells Nick the truth, or at least part of the truth, about how Nick’s friends make him feel; Nick is clearly upset by this, not on his friends’ behalf but on Charlie’s. Nick returns Charlie’s honesty and validates Charlie’s feeling when he admits, out loud for the first time, that he doesn’t like his friends very much and says that he’d rather be with Charlie. This is Nick telling Charlie “I choose you” in a concrete way, even if he doesn’t mean it in a fully romantic way just yet. There’s an expression of hope, almost of expectation, on his face after he says it, hope that Charlie will understand. Charlie, being Charlie, doesn’t seem to entirely believe the depth of meaning behind Nick’s words, and changes the subject to his confrontation with Ben.

If Nick was ever going to cross not only the intentional touch divide but also the platonic-to-more-than-platonic touch divide in a public place, this moment of worry and protectiveness over Charlie facing off with Ben would be it. Nick clearly considers taking Charlie’s hand while Charlie is explaining what happened, but he doesn’t, and refocuses on Charlie’s face and words. Then, when the story is done, there’s a second of hesitation on Nick’s part as he glances at Charlie’s hand a couple of times—he’s extremely aware, especially after the sparkly hand hovering on Charlie’s couch, that this touch means more to him now than just a show of solidarity—but the hesitation is quickly overcome, and Nick commits to his intention. He is genuinely proud of Charlie, vastly relieved that the Ben situation wasn’t worse, perhaps a bit guilty that he wasn’t there to intervene this time, and wants a grounding touch to reassure himself Charlie is okay. Holding Charlie’s hand now is just as much about being his friend—his real, closest friend—as it is about romantic feeling or physical chemistry.

Charlie’s intense gulp, on the other hand, shows us that he really wants this to mean more. He stares down at their hands like he’s having an out of body experience (and for him, after the treatment he received from Ben, this considered and caring touch probably does feel that way). Notably, he does not pull away at all. Charlie has always been intensely aware of how any physical contact between himself and Nick would be perceived, both by Nick himself and by the people around them. The fact that Nick initiated this contact, likely combined with the lingering memory of the doorway hug and Tori’s speculation that Nick is not straight, plus Charlie’s hope outweighing his self-preservation instincts, keeps Charlie happily in what I’ll call the zero-space zone. Nick suggests finding somewhere quieter to hang out, and Charlie, looking again like he can’t believe it, agrees.

Nick keeps hold of Charlie’s hand, pulling him off the couch. This is in direct contrast to the way Harry pulled Nick off the couch earlier; Nick was verbally protesting and physically pulling back a bit, yet Harry still forced the issue, but here, Nick asks and receives Charlie’s agreement before he does anything to move Charlie. Charlie’s surprise increases as Nick maintains the hand hold even when they exit the pseudo-private bubble of the couch and move into the crowd. The zero-space zone is out in the open now. But this is Nick on a mission, fully realizing that he doesn’t want to be part of the melee anymore, that being with Charlie is what he wants; he’s unwilling to let Charlie go, partly because he just doesn’t want to, and partly so they won't be separated again. Nick proposes a race—all the quicker to get away—and lots of flirty running ensues.

Nick sits to catch his breath and Charlie, after a slight hesitation—whether from not being sure, even after the last few minutes, that Nick actually wants Charlie near him, or just to center himself a bit—joins him, but leaves more space than they had had between them on the couch. He needs that bit of space to prepare himself, to feel clear and steadied, for the conversation ahead. Because being truly alone with Nick for the first time in what have been some very confusing days for Charlie makes him simultaneously brave (he has to ask about Tara and get the answer from Nick, rather than secondhand) and frightened (he doesn’t really want to have his worst fears confirmed). He knows he has to get the question out, because not knowing is causing him pain. Again, the physical space between them represents emotional space for Charlie to maneuver.

Nick’s hand is on the floor during this entire conversation, but Charlie keeps his on his knees, possibly to resist temptation, possibly to preemptively protect himself from what he thinks will be more hurt. When he asks about Tara, Nick bodily turns toward Charlie, rushing to emphatically to deny any kind of attraction to her, seeming surprised that Charlie would even ask. Charlie takes a minute to reorient his thoughts around this new, or at least clarified, information, while Nick takes a second to acknowledge why Charlie’s question bothered him so much—both of them navigating their feelings in that shared, respectful space.

Charlie’s next question—so you don’t have a crush on anyone at the moment?—is even more personal (and takes even more bravery for Charlie), but could still possibly be construed as just friendly interest in Nick’s romantic life. It’s a fine line, but Charlie is both asking Nick a forthright question and giving him a little room to get out of answering it in any meaningful way if he’s uncomfortable. But that’s not Nick’s way, so of course he does answer, even if his uncertainty and fear keep him from naming his crush. “Well… I didn’t say that,” and “You’re just going to assume they’re a she.”

Nick is being brave too—each answer he gives is as honest as he can manage in the moment, and followed by a look of intense fear combined with an almost desperate desire for Charlie to read between the lines so Nick doesn’t have to name the thing that is scaring him so much . . . but he’s still answering. Charlie is so strong in this sequence, confronting his own fears, taking care of his own emotional needs, processing each monumental revelation from his best friend, while simultaneously guiding Nick gently through speaking out loud for the first time many of the conflicting emotions that have been wreaking havoc with his life. The emotional intuition and sustained nerve required to do this is frankly astounding.

Charlie asks, “Would you go out with someone who wasn’t a girl?” and even now this could just barely, the tiniest bit, be considered a question asked out of curiosity rather than from a point of personal attraction (after all, just because Charlie’s gay doesn’t mean he’s automatically attracted to Nick). But when Nick offers up the first “maybe,” you see Charlie visibly react. There’s just the slightest pull back of his shoulders as his eyes rove quickly around Nick’s face, assessing both Nick’s statement and his feelings while saying it. Charlie thinks for a moment, then starts to narrow that nurtured space between them. He does it carefully, moving one foot closer to Nick’s and placing his hand on the floor next to, but not touching, Nick’s. This is Charlie acting on his wishes while still giving Nick the room he needs, the time he needs, to think about what comes next, without any pressure or obligation.

Charlie’s next question—“would you kiss someone who wasn’t a girl?”—takes their conversation firmly out of the realm of friendly speculation and into that of romantic interest. It’s clear now what he’s getting at. He watches Nick’s reaction very carefully, probably on some level for signs of disgust because Charlie’s brain is always working against him, but mostly he registers Nick’s fearful excitement. He’s checking in on Nick every single second of this conversation. What Charlie sees propels him to carefully but very intentionally close that space and instigate romantic touch for the first time, understanding that it’s safe for both him and Nick to do so. Still, he keeps the touch absolutely minimal, continuing to watch Nick’s facial expressions, with the utmost care for Nick’s fraught emotions and respect for his right to pull away.

He doesn’t.

And we have Charlie the lionheart, putting it all on the line with one, final question. “Would you kiss me?” The physical space between them has narrowed, their shoulders closer together and pinky fingers touching, and the emotional distance has narrowed as well. Despite the way they both feel like they’re standing on the edge of a cliff, they’re reaching a clearer understanding of each other than they’ve yet had. Nick knows now that Charlie definitely feels attracted to him, and Charlie can see that there’s a chance that at least some of his feelings are reciprocated. There’s no going back from this moment for them, for their friendship, and both boys know it. But they’ve built this space of trust between them, so here they can both be brave. Nick gathers the courage he needs to return Charlie’s touch and twine their fingers together.

Charlie once again looks steadfastly at Nick’s face as he gives an almost imperceptible nod then pushes through his nerves to get out his answering “yeah” (accompanied by a very brief, very Nick Nelson-style frown of determination). Charlie waits . . . and waits, still making sure Nick is okay, before finally leaning in. And even when he does, his eyes stay open, locked on Nick’s eyes, not his lips, still watching even in this charged moment for any sign of discomfort or unwillingness on Nick’s part. It’s only when Nick’s own eyes close that Charlie allows his gaze to relax too. He can be sure, for the moment, that this massively important, life-changing touch, this kiss, is something Nick wants and that it is occurring within their shared space of safety.

They pull back, reinstating some physical space and trying to regain a bit of equilibrium. Charlie sees the panic-adjacent expression on Nick’s face and fears that maybe this went too far, while at the same time still feeling shocked that it happened at all, a bit dazed and overwhelmed. Nick uses this space between them to check in with himself, to make sure that what he felt was true, that he understands himself in this moment, and to decide what he wants to do next. While they figure these things out individually, their hands are still connected, grounding and reassuring—either of them could pull away completely, but they don’t. When Nick looks back over at Charlie, a magical little bit of rainbow reflected on his face, his expression conveys some surprise, some lingering fear and confusion, but also hope. Hope that Charlie is still with him in their shared space, hope that their friendship is still intact, hope that Charlie feels as strongly about this new thing between them, whatever shape it takes, as he does. Charlie looks back at him with trepidation, worry that Nick is going to pull away or put up walls or push Charlie away, but there’s also tentative hope in him as well. He doesn’t act on it, though—he’s still respecting the fact that this is completely uncharted territory for Nick.

But then Nick makes a completely unprompted, voluntary choice and takes Charlie’s hand with obvious intention (and a comforting thumb swipe). Now there is absolutely no room for misunderstanding or dismissing the gesture as anything other than what it is; Nick is giving truth to Charlie’s hopes and easing some of his fears with this touch.

They have once again established that they are still in the same space, still honoring each other’s fears and hopes and respecting each other’s desires. So from that place of assurance, Charlie leans into Nick again. Again, Charlie keeps his eyes on Nick’s for the entire time he’s closing the distance between them (he barely moves until he sees Nick look down at his mouth), doesn’t raise his hand to Nick’s neck until Nick’s desire for touch is clear, and again he doesn’t let his own eyes close until Nick’s do. Charlie’s hand on Nick’s neck is firm, but not restrictive, grounding and affectionate, but not pressuring. Charlie’s extreme and nuanced care for Nick is the exact opposite of how he himself has been treated in the past; he is making absolutely sure that there is nothing he’s doing that might hurt Nick, even in this moment that is just as charged and monumental for him as it is for Nick.

This kiss is much less tentative for both of them, a much clearer expression of their feelings and desires, as Nick also firmly but carefully grips Charlie’s shoulder and pulls him a bit closer, and Charlie hangs on to Nick’s shirt with his other hand. As soon as the kiss ends, they’re studying each other (and of course thinking about more kissing). Nick’s hand on Charlie’s shoulder loosens a bit and Charlie’s hand moves away from Nick’s neck to his shirt collar, giving each other just the tiniest bit of breathing room, but they both still want closeness as they acknowledge what just happened. Charlie sees Nick repeatedly glance back down at his mouth, something that gives him enough confidence for a small smile as he asks Nick if he’s alright. We’ll probably never know what Nick would have said here—there’s a good chance Nick himself didn’t know—but there is just the barest hint of a returning smile hovering at the corner of his mouth.

Until Harry. Harry’s voice reminding them that they aren’t truly alone, reminding Nick of all the ramifications of his attraction to Charlie, reminding Charlie that this is far from settled between them.

And suddenly that space between them that was safe and solid and contained is a yawning chasm.

For now.

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

Throwback to the first time I saw my friend in like a year, after only texting for that year, and she said, "My soul hurts. My grandfather got in a blood feud with a witch and now I only have 7/8 of a soul," and she said it with such sincerity, and I didn't know her sense of humor that well yet, so I fully believed that she believed she only had 7/8 of a soul. And I sat on that for three weeks, until I finally got up the courage to ask her if she was serious or if it was a bit and she IMMEDIATELY laughed at me because of course it was a bit. But in my defense, she said it with such sincerity that all of the others that heard it believed she was serious too

[sunny-makes-doodles]

Good morning chat the new legends story mode makes me want to Kill Myself.

I love this stupid mobile game but my GOODNESS does it leave me in SHAMBLES. I went to work the next day and literally never stopped thinking abt it. theorizing with my friends is so fun bc then I’m just dead on the floor hoping its true bc hey more writing material!!!

without spoiling it I will just say. poor Shallot.

Zahha’s just jealous he moved on and started dating Broly tbh…

Anyway, art time! hi hi again!

I like referring to the future warrior x Fu ship as future science. They’re so cutie.

Love you guys!!!!

[kiwibirdlafayette]

wherever I go, there you are.

a little syndisparklez freewrite oneshot, takes place in the earlier half of Isles/where I've watched up to and a follows this drawing

enjoy :] Havent written fic in a while, but i needed a change of pace from arting for a little

(edited 11/17/24 for fun)

“I just want you to be happy.”

The waves lapped up against the shore of the lighthouse atop Tom’s island, a soft and steady rhythm alike to the delicate tap of drumsticks against cymbals. Contrary to what they had thought would happen, the god’s arrivals had brought with them an almost uncharacteristic silence about the land- the kind of one that might force people to face truths and emotions that had long been left unaddressed since they had arrived on the island.

Tom looked up to the soft oranges, pinks and blues of the setting sun, running his hand through his dark amber blonde hair. He had burnt it to that color from its typical blue before coming into the past- a practice reminiscent of the way it had been when Dianite was around and would use it as a cruel indication of the power he held over him, or perhaps a punishment meant to remind him of a state which he had not been in since he was human.

A state where, according to all he had known until recently, he had not been anyone.

Tom bit his lip. “What do you mean by that?"

Tom turned to the man sitting up on the rock beside the staircase he sat on. He stared out to sea with tired and worn dull purple eyes he had gotten lost in more times than he could count, running a hand through scraggly black hair that always felt soft between his fingertips, wearing a velvet red coat no longer imbued with its blood magic sigils that he loved to run his hands across to feel its power, to pull off and-

Tom stopped himself. It was all too easy sometimes.

Jordan sighed, turning his gaze down to the weathered stone. “I want you to be happy with where you are I mean, its pretty simple. There’s not much else to it."

Happiness.

The last day they spoke before Tom had left back to Astrakheins, for them to take a break from each other, Tom had said he wasn’t happy where he was. And Jordan had agreed.

And so he was certain they left all they had behind.

After falling through the void, they had, to Tom’s initial surmise, landed back in their first realm. A familiar place, carrying a nostalgia that both welcomed you with open arms, but exposed scars of battles fought long ago.

Back to the first place he had called home post-revival, back to the land of finding his friendships, back to the world where had left behind the corpse of the god that had saved him in the first place.

To Jordan it was home, but to Tom it was just a cruel reminder of what had been. His heart was his home, he carried that with him. He had tried so long to be the Dianite the realm needed him to be. But he knew it wasn’t where he belonged. It wasn't a place he could settle down for good

And maybe it just wasn’t the right time.

Tom fiddled with the epaulets on his shoulders. “But I am.. Now! Like, I get to hang with you and Kyle, and sure the Dianite here’s not perfect, but-”

Jordan scoffed watching Tom count off things on his fingers. "C’mon man, you and I both know that's not what I’m talking about.”

“It’s not?”

For the first time in this particular conversation, Jordan looked up and stared Tom down dead in the eyes. While the outward expression spoke of an irritation over him not getting what he was trying to imply, there was a violent yearning behind it, something so familiar of what Jordan had always been like towards him. Possessing a kind of reaching, grasping for any semblance of the connection he was seeking ever since he had come to the island. Yet at the same time, still avoiding closeness the best he could, hiding his truest desire behind a state of pretending to be absolutely annoyed and perturbed by the zombie’s presence.

And Tom used to have believed that they through for good until he had come to recognize that, even way before Jordan had come over to his house in the dead of night to confess in a sleep deprived stupor that he had missing Tom all this time. That he was tired of dancing around what had been, and what he so desperately wants back, but feels like can’t because it isn’t what Tom wants.

Selfish, was the word he had used. Him wanting to be with, to have Tom, was selfish of him.

Unfortunately, Tom hadn’t gotten a chance to clarify himself. Maybe now was meant to be his chance.

He watched Jordan continue to fidget with the collar of his shirt, and run his hand around his neck, just like he had the first time Capsize had suggested they had a thing for each other. Nothing like a habit you can’t quit, clearly.

Jordan’s nervousness came through in the strained tone of his voice as he spoke undeniably what it was he was again dancing around this whole time. “I want you to be happy.. with me, ok? It’s like I've said before, it’s selfish because I don’t know if you can be.”

“Jordan-” Tom stood, climbing up the side of the rock to put himself right next to Jordan, who swung his legs around as if he was ready to jump off the weathered stones that made up the base of the lighthouse, and run away from an answer he might not like.

Tom wouldn’t let him. He reached out to grab the captain’s hand, who swatted it away.

“You deserve someone who can make you feel unconditionally loved, Tom.” He curled his hand into a loose fist. “Especially after all you’ve.. maybe we've been through and.. I don’t know if I can be that for you anymore."

If Tom hadn’t known any better he’d think Jordan had found someone else and this was his last attempt at making their temporary separation a permanent one. But the desperation in his voice was so strong to Tom it was almost like he was waiting for him to just kiss him again right then and there.

Jordan paused to look at Tom before turning his back to him. “I know there’s so much more out there for you, but I don’t want to accept it, or heck, even think about it.” His voice becomes more strained as he looks back over his shoulder. “I want to keep fighting for you, to be the light that brings you to a place that makes you, safe, and feel like you’re home.”

Tom watched as Jordan’s gaze rose past him to take in the sight of the completed lighthouse to the light at the precipice, the part he had owned after Tom had begged him to build it for him.

He had the light, Tom had the house.

Much to Tom’s surprise, when he tried to reach for Jordan, this time he didn’t lean away. He let the zombie rest his hand softly on his shoulder, almost leaning into the touch.

Jordan shifted himself back around to face Tom more, and spoke under his breath as if he was scared of what he had wanted to admit. “Thing is, I so desperately wish I still was. I know I’ve changed and so have you, but-,” His hand floated up from his neck to his other shoulder to gently take Tom’s hand. “I don’t want to just leave what we had all behind because of that… like hell, you mean more to me than you’ll ever know. And I don’t know if you’ll ever get it.”

“No man, I don’t think you get it.” Tom floated their hands down and squeezed it gently as it hovered in the space between them just above the rock. No matter how many times it had fallen apart or tore at the seams they always seemed to fit perfectly together. Aside from the soft song of the sea breeze, and the mechanical clink of the rotating light of the house coming to life in the fading sun as evening arrived, there was a silence that if the gods had listened closely, they could hear perhaps a reawakened spark, a newfound life in the forces of chaos and balance within their champions that had been long since ignored.

“Y’know if you weren’t always so damn dramatic, and just given me the chance to yknow, answer you that night I could’ve fucking told you.” Tom met Jordan’s eyes with a soft smile. “There’s nothing else I need to feel loved or whatever."

He drifts closer to Jordan, who allows the closeness in with an openess he hasn’t seen from the captain in a while. “I get we’ve changed, but here’s the thing. I’ve done a lot of thinking right?”

He feels his voice start to falter slightly when Jordan raises a doubtful eyebrow, yet doesn’t entirely cut him off. His eyes meet Tom’s again, but this time, the sharp of annoyance has all but fallen into the sea below them, replaced with a sense of reassurance, and an invitation to go on. Tom sighs. “And while I was gone I realized something.”

He began tracing cautious circles on the back of Jordan’s hand with his fingers. “There’s no one else who gets me like you do. Makes me laugh, makes me feel at home.” With his other hand, he reaches up to brush a lock of hair behind Jordan’s ear as he watches him blush a deep red. “Who I care about more than man I think you could ever know.”

“Awe dude-“ Jordan chuckles, Tom reveling in the sweetness that overwhelms his face.

It was a rare vulnerability, and for the first time in a while, Jordan doesn’t try to fight it.

Tom cups Jordan’s face in his hand, and he feels the captain sink into the touch. “I mean this in all seriousness when I say this. You want me to be happy, and I am.” He feels his own face begin to warm up as well. “And as long as you stay with me, I’m sure I’ll keep feeling that way.”

“Because I’m the happiest here with you.”