#COME BACK TO ME WAYBACK PLEASE

[resplendent-ragamuffin]

I have encountered issues with JVP in the past in regards to not accommodating kashrut/shabbat observance (and wheelchairs), but previously hasn’t heard about the Mikvah thing. Do you have any sources I can refer to?

Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. The noise I made when I saw this ask.

You are probably unaware but I have literally been working on a post on this topic since February. Bless you for asking me about it and giving me a reason to share it. Genuinely. I'm delighted.

Without further ado, now that I've finally finished:

On the JVP Mikveh BS

Some of you are no doubt aware of the Jewish Voice for Peace Mikveh Guide (on JVP’s website here, and here on the Wayback Machine in case that link breaks). You may have seen the post I reblogged about it, you may have seen the post about JVP in general on @is-the-thing-actually-Jewish, or you may have heard about it elsewhere. Or maybe you’ve somehow managed to avoid all knowledge of its existence. (God I wish that were me.) Even if you know about it, even if you’ve scanned through it, you probably haven’t taken the time to read it through properly.

I have.

God help me.

I was originally looking through it to help draft the @is-the-thing-actually-Jewish post back in February, but some terrible combination of horror, indignation, and probably masochism compelled me to do a close reading, so that I could write this analysis and share it with you, dear readers. For those of you who’ve never heard of a mikvah, for those of you who’ve immersed in one, for those of you who’ve studied it intensely—I give you this, the fruit of my suffering, so you too can understand why “Mikveh: A Purification Ritual for Personal and Collective Transformation,” written by Zohar Lev Cunningham and Rebekah Erev for Jewish Voice for Peace has got so many people up in arms.

Brace yourselves. It’s going to be a long journey.

First off, a disclaimer: When I say something is “required in Jewish law” or whatnot, I’m talking about in traditional practice / Torah-observant communities; what is often called “Orthodox.” There’s a wide range of Jewish practice, and what is required in frum (observant) Judaism may not be required in Reform Judaism, etc. Don’t at me.

Second note: I myself am Modern Orthodox, and come from that perspective. I’m also very much more on the rationalist side than the mysticism side of things. I did run this past people from other communities. Still, if I’ve missed or misrepresented something, it was my error and was not meant maliciously.

Third: I am not a rabbi. I am a nerd who likes explaining things and doing deep dives. Again, I may have made errors–please let me know if you spot any, and I’d be happy to discuss them.

Now then. Before we get into the text itself, let’s give some background.

WHAT IS THIS MIKVEH THING ANYWAY?

A mikveh (or mikvah, both they and I switch between spellings; plural mikva’ot) is a Jewish ritual bath, sometimes translated as an immersion pool. Some communities or organizations that run mikva’ot will have a single all-purpose all-purpose, some have separate human- and utensil-pools, and some have separate women’s and men’s pools. The majority of the water in a mikvah has to be “living waters,” i.e. naturally collected rather than from a tap or a bucket. Some natural bodies of water can also be used, such as the ocean and some rivers (ask your local rabbi). The construction is complicated and has extremely detailed requirements. Here’s an example of a modern mikvah:

(By Wikimedia Commons (ויקיגמדון) - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17373540)

Whoever is being dunked (the scientific term) has to be entirely immersed, and the water has to be in direct contact with all of them. That means no clothes, no makeup, no hair floating on the top of the water, no feet touching the floor, no clenched fists. You have to be completely clean as well, so no dirt is obstructing you from the water.

In essence, a person or thing is immersed in a mikvah to change their/its state from tameh (ritually “impure”) to tahor (ritually “pure”). I use quotes because “pure/impure” aren’t really good translations—they have value judgments that tameh/tahor don’t. There’s nothing wrong with being tameh, you aren’t lesser because you are tameh—it’s just a state one enters when one comes into contact with death and related concepts. (There are also different levels of both.) As a matter of fact, technically speaking even after going to a mikvah basically all people are tameh now—the tum’ah (“impurity,” sort of) that comes from contact with dead humans can only be removed by the Red Heifer offering (see Numbers 19), which we can’t do without the Temple. (Why I say “all” even if you’ve never been to a funeral is a much much longer tangent that I’ll spare you for now.) To quote one of my editors on this, mikvah is “about the natural oscillation between states of ritual purity and impurity. Men go to mikveh after having seminal emissions. Menstruating women go to mikveh on a monthly basis (emphasis added).” It’s just states of life.

In the days of the Temple, one had to be tahor to enter it (the Temple). Archaeologists have found a ton of ancient mikva’ot in Jerusalem that were presumably used by people visiting the Temple, which personally I think is extremely cool.

Nowadays, there are three main traditionally required uses for a mikvah. First, and most importantly, observant married women will go about once a month as part of their niddah (menstrual) cycle, part of practice known as Taharat HaMishpacha, or “Family ‘Purity,’” which at its root is a way to sanctify the relationship between spouses. Until she immerses, a wife and husband cannot resume relations. And not just sex—in some communities, they can’t sleep in the same bed or even have any physical contact at all.

The second use is for conversion—immersion is a central part of the conversion ceremony. One enters the water a gentile, and emerges a Jew.

The third usage is a bit different as it’s not for people. Tableware—plates, cups, etc.—made of certain materials have to be immersed before they can be used. This isn’t what the Guide is about, so I’m not going to go into that as much, but felt remiss if I didn’t mention it was a thing. If you want to know more, Chabad has an article on it here.

Aside from uses required by Jewish law, there is a strong tradition in some communities for men to go to the mikveh just before Yom Kippur, or sometimes every week before the Sabbath, to enter the holiday in as “pure” a state as possible these days. (The things they’re “purifying” from still made them tameh, it just matters less without the Temple.) There is also a strong custom to immerse before one’s wedding. Less traditional communities have also started using mikvah for other transitional moments, such as significant birthdays or remission from cancer. There has recently been an “open mikvah” movement, which “is committed to making mikveh accessible to Jews of all denominations, ages, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities (Rising Tide Network old website, “Why Open Mikvah”).”

To quote others:

No other religious establishment, structure or rite can affect the Jew in this way and, indeed, on such an essential level. —Rebbetzen Rivkah Slonim, Total Immersion, as quoted on Chabad.org

The mikveh is one of the most important parts of a Jewish community. —Kylie Ora Lobell, “What Is a Mikveh?” on Aish.com

How important? According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, one of the great American rabbis of the 20th century, one should build a mikveh before building a synagogue in a town that has neither, and even in a town where there is a mikveh but it’s an inconvenient distance away from the community (Igros Moshe: Choshen Mishpat Chelek 1 Siman 42).

A mikveh is more important than a synagogue.

I’d say that’s pretty important.

Tl;dr: A mikveh is the conduit through which a convert becomes a part of the Jewish people. It is traditionally used to sanctify the relationship between spouses. It was required for people to go to the Temple, back when we still had it. It is extremely central to Jewish practice.

So. What does JVP have to say about it?

THE JVP MIKVEH GUIDE

The document in question is titled “Mikveh: A Purification Ritual for Personal and Collective Transformation,” by Zohar Lev Cunningham and Rebekah Erev. I am largely going to quote directly from the text and then analyze and explain it.

Now let me be clear. I’m not trying to say the authors aren’t Jewish. I’m not saying they’re bad people, or that you should attack them. I am not intending any of this as an ad hominem attack. But given the contents of this document, I do think it is fair to call this appropriative, even if it is of their own culture—in the same way someone can have internalized racism, or twist feminism into being a TERF, I would argue that this is twisting Judaism into paganism. In fact, while I use “appropriation” throughout this document, an extremely useful term that’s been coined recently is “cultural expropriation”--essentially, appropriative actions done by rogue members of the community in question. One example of this would be the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles, which is the source of a lot of the Madonna-style “pop Kabbalah.” It was founded by an Orthodox Jewish couple, but it and its followers are widely criticized by most Jewish communities. In much the same way, the Guide is expropriation. 

We start off with a note from the authors.

Hello, Welcome to the Simple Mikveh Guide. This work comes out of many years of reclaiming and re-visioning mikveh. The intention of this guide is to acknowledge and give some context to what mikveh is, provide resources related to mainstream understanding of mikveh and also provide alternative mikveh ideas. Blessings for enjoyment of this wonderful, simple Jewish ritual! Zohar Lev Cunningham & Rebekah Erev

This is fairly normal, though “alternative mikveh ideas” is a bit odd to say. I also find “blessings for enjoyment” to be odd phrasing, somewhat reminiscent of the Wiccan “Blessed Be,” but it could be a typo.

The first main section is titled “Intro to Mikveh,” and begins as follows:

Mikveh is an ancient Jewish ritual practice of water immersion, traditionally used for cleansing, purification, and transformation. It's been conventionally used for conversion to Judaism, for brides, and for niddah, the practice of cleansing after menstruation.

This is relatively accurate, and credit where credit is due avoids making niddah out to be patriarchal BS. I do object slightly to “purify” as a translation without further explanation, as I went into above, and “cleansing” for similar reasons—it implies “dirtiness,’ which isn’t really what tum’ah is about. Also, though this is pretty minor, a bride going to the mikveh before her wedding is actually a part of the laws of niddah. I’d also note that they entirely leave out that it was important for going to the Temple in ancient times, though given this is published by JVP I’m not terribly surprised.

For Jews, water signifies the transformative moment from slavery in Egypt, through the parted Red Sea, and into freedom.

On the one hand, I suppose it’s not unreasonable to connect the Red Sea and mikveh, though I think I’d be more likely to hear it the other way around (i.e. “going through the sea was like the people immersing in a mikveh and being ‘cleansed,’ so to speak”). Though they were, rather importantly, not actually immersed in the water. However I don’t think I’d say water as a whole signifies the Splitting of the Sea. In fact, water imagery is more often used to signify the Torah, see for instance Bava Kamma 82a.

There is also a mystical connection to mikveh as a metaphor for the womb of the divine.

A mikveh being like a womb is also not uncommon. It’s found in the Reishis Chochmah (Shia’ar HaAhavah 11,58) and the writing of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (The Aryeh Kaplan Anthology, vol 2., p. 382; both as quoted in 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History, by Rabbi Ephraim Meth), see also “The Mikveh’s Significance in Traditional Conversion” by Rabbi Maurice Lamm on myjewishlearning. Filled with water, you float in it, you emerge a new being (at least for conversion); it’s not an absurd comparison to draw. I’m not sure I’ve found anything for the Womb of the Divine specifically, though. (Also, Divine should definitely be capitalized.)

Entering a mikveh is a transformative and healing experience and we have long wondered why it is not available to more people, including the significant trans and queer populations in Jewish communities.

So. I am NOT going to say there’s no problem with homophobia and/or transphobia in Jewish communities. It’s definitely a community issue, and many communities are grappling with it in various ways as we speak. And I’m certainly not going to say the authors didn’t have the experience of not having a mikveh available to them—I don’t know their lives, I’m not going to police their experiences.

However, while Orthodox mikvahs are often still restricted to married women (who by virtue of the community will generally be cis and married to men) and potentially adult men (given the resources and customs, as mentioned above), there are plenty of more liberal mikva’ot these days. Some even explicitly offer rituals for queer events! The list of reasons to go to the mikvah linked up above, for instance, includes:

(Mayyim Hayyim, “Immersion Ceremonies”)

Again, that’s not to say there aren’t issues of queerphobia in the Jewish community, but if you are queer and want to go to the mikvah, there are options out there. If you’re looking, I’ve included some links at the end.

When we make ritual, we are working with the divine forces of presence and intention. The magic of mikveh comes in making contact with water. Contact with water marks a threshold and functions as a portal to bring closer our ritual intention/the world to come.

This is…a weird way to put things. I would say this is the start of the red flags. “When we make ritual,” first of all, is, to quote @the-library-alcove (who helped edit this), “a turn of phrase that is not typically associated with any branch of Jewish practice; we have a lot--a LOT--of rituals, and while it's certainly not completely outside of the realm of Jewish vernacular, the tone here, especially in light of the later sections, starts veering towards the vernacular of neo-paganism.” One might say “make kiddush” (the blessing over wine on Shabbos and holidays) or “make motzi” (the blessing over bread), but not generally “make ritual.”

The next section is titled “Who Gets to Do Mikveh?” Their answer:

Everyone! Mikveh practice is available to all of us as a healing tool at any time.

The healing tool part isn’t the original purpose of mikveh, but there are some who have used it as a part of emotional recovery from something traumatic, by marking a new state of being free from whatever caused it, see for instance Mayyim Hayyim’s list linked above.

The “everyone” bit is a little more complicated. To explain why, we’re going to skip ahead a little. (Some of these quotes will also be analyzed in full later.)

We want to make mikveh practice available as a tool to all Jews and non-Jews who want to heal wounds caused by white supremacy and colonialism. [..] To us, a queer mikveh welcomes anyone, regardless of spiritual background or not. […] Queer mikveh is accessible physically and spiritually to any and all people who are curious about it. You don't have to be a practicing Jew to enter queer mikveh. You don't have to be Jewish. (pg. 2, emphasis added)

Now, I am told there are mikva’ot that allow non-Jews to immerse. I have yet to find them, so I don’t know what rituals they allow non-Jews to do. I also haven’t been able to find any resources on non-Jews being allowed to immerse. I have found quite a few that explicitly prohibit it. If there are any sources you know of, please send them to me! I’d love to see them! But so far everything I have come across has said that mikvah immersion is a closed practice that only Jews can participate in. (Technically, to quote the lovely @etz-ashashiot, any non-Jew can do mikvah…once. And they won’t be non-Jews when they emerge. There is also one very extreme edge-case, which is absolutely not mainstream knowledge or practice, and basically isn’t actually done. You can message me if you’re curious, but it’s really not relevant to this–and even in that case, it is preferable to use a natural mikvah rather than a man-made one.)

If there are any legitimate sources that allow non-Jews to do a mikvah ritual, I would assume said non-Jews would be required to be respectful about it. Unfortunately, this is how the paragraph we began with continues:

Who Gets to Do Mikveh? Everyone! Mikveh practice is available to all of us as a healing tool at any time. You don't need any credentials. Your own wisdom is all the power you need to be a Jewish ritual leader. (emphasis added)

This is where we really go off the rails. First of all, you need more than “wisdom” to lead a Jewish ritual. You need to actually know what you’re doing. You can’t just say “oh you know what I feel like the right thing to do for morning prayers is to pray to the sun, because God created the sun so the sun is worth worshiping, and this is a Jewish ritual I’m doing.” That’s just idolatry. Like straight up I stole that from a midrash (oral tradition) about how humanity went from speaking with God in the Garden of Eden to worshiping idols in the time of Noah (given here by Maimonides; note that it continues for a few paragraphs after the one this link sends you to).

Second of all, this is particularly bad given this guide is explicitly to Jews and non-Jews. As @daughter-of-stories put it when she was going over an earlier draft of this analysis, “they are saying that non-Jews can just declare themselves Jewish ritual leaders based on nothing but their own ‘wisdom.’”

I hope I don’t need to explain why that’s extremely bad and gross?

While we’re on the topic of non-Jews using a mikvah, let’s take a moment to address an accusation commonly mentioned alongside the mikvah guide: that JVP also encourages (or encouraged) self-conversion.

I have been unable to find a separate document where they explicitly said so, or an older version of this document that does. This leads me to believe that either a) the accusation came from a misreading of this document, or b) there was a previous document that contained it which has since been deleted but was not archived in the Wayback Machine. EITHER is possible.

Even in the case that there was no such document, however, I would point out that such a suggestion can be read–intentionally or not–as implicit in this document. This is a guide for mikvah use by both Jews and non-Jews, and includes an idea that non-Jews can perform Jewish rituals on their own without any guidance or even background knowledge, as quoted above. Why would a non-Jew, coming into Jewish practice with very little knowledge, go looking to perform a mikvah ritual?

I would wager that the most well-known purpose of immersing in a mikvah is for the purpose of conversion.

Nowhere in this guide is there any explicit statement that you can do a self-conversion, but it also doesn’t say anywhere that you can’t, or that doing so is an exception to “you don’t need any credentials” or “your own wisdom is all the power you need to be a Jewish ritual leader.” It may not be their intention, but the phrasing clearly leaves it as an option.

Even if this were from a source that one otherwise loved, this would be upsetting and disappointing. The amount of exposure this document is getting may be at least in part because it comes from JVP, but the distress and dismay would be there regardless. If there is further vitriol, it’s only because JVP is often considered a legitimate source by outsiders, if no one else–in other words, by the very people least likely to have the background to know that this document isn’t trustworthy. It’s like the difference between your cousin telling you “the Aztecs were abducted by aliens” versus a mainstream news program like Fox reporting it. Both are frustrating and wrong, but one has significantly more potential harm than the other, and therefore is more likely to get widespread criticism (even if you complain about your cousin online).

On the other hand, as one of my editors pointed out in a moment of dark humor, they do say you don’t have to be Jewish to lead a Jewish ritual, so perhaps that mitigates this issue slightly by taking away a motivation to convert in the first place.

Returning to our document:

We do mikvahs in lakes, rivers, bathtubs, showers, outside in the rain, from teacups, and in our imaginations.

At this point the rails are but a distant memory.

In case you’ve forgotten what I said about this at the beginning of this post (and honestly I wouldn’t blame you, we’re on pg. 9 in my draft of this), there are extremely strict rules about what qualifies as a mikvah. Maimonides’s Mishnah Torah, just about the most comprehensive codex of Jewish law, has eleven chapters on the topic of the mikvah (though that includes immersion in it as well as construction of it). I’m not going to make you read through it, but let’s go through the list in this sentence:

Lakes and rivers: you might be able to use a river or lake as a mikvah, but you need to check with your local rabbinical authority, because not all of them qualify. In general, the waters must gather together naturally, from an underground spring or rainwater. In the latter case, the waters must be stationary rather than flowing. A river that dries up in a drought can’t be used, for instance. (The ocean counts as a spring, for this purpose.)

Bathtubs and showers: No. A man-made mikveh must be built into the ground or as an essential part of a building, unlike most bathtubs, and contain of a minimum of 200 gallons of rainwater, gathered and siphoned in a very particular way so as not to let it legally become “groundwater.” Also, it needs to be something you can immerse in, which a shower is not.

Outside in the rain: No? How would you even do that?? What??

Teacups: Even if you were Thumblina or K’tonton (Jewish Tom Thumb), and could actually immerse your entire body in a teacup, it wouldn’t be a kosher mikvah as a mivkah can’t be portable.

In your imagination: Obviously not, what the heck are you even talking about

We will (unfortunately) be coming back to the teacup thing, but for now suffice it to say most of these are extremely Not A Thing.

Mikveh has been continually practiced since ancient Judaism. It is an offering of unbroken Jewish lineage that we have claimed/reclaimed as our own.

I find the use of “claimed/reclaimed” fascinating here, given this guide is explicitly for non-Jews—who, whether or not they are permitted to use a mikvah, certainly shouldn’t be claiming it as their own—as well as Jews. I find it particularly interesting given the lack of clarity of how much of JVP’s membership is actually Jewish and JVP’s history of encouraging non-Jewish members to post “as Jews.” Kind of telling on yourselves a bit, there.

(Once again, I’m not commenting on the authors themselves, but the organization they represent here and the audience they are speaking to/for.)

We want to make mikveh practice available as a tool to all Jews and non-Jews who want to heal wounds caused by white supremacy and colonialism. We want to make mikveh practice available for healing our bodies, spirits, and the earth.

Setting aside the “Jews and non-Jews” thing, since I talked about that earlier and this is already extremely long, I do want to highlight the end of the paragraph. While there are some modern uses of the mikvah to (sort of) heal the spirit, I haven’t heard of anyone using a mikvah to heal the body—as a general rule Jews don’t tend to do faith healing, though of course some sects are the exception. Healing the earth, however, is absolutely not a use of a mikvah. Mikvah rituals, as we’ve now mentioned several times, are about tahara of a person or an object, and require immersion. You can’t immerse the earth in a mikvah. The earth contains mikva’ot. Healing the earth with a mikvah is a very strange worship (IYKYK).

We acknowledge that not all beings have consistent access to water, including Palestinians.

This is a tragedy, no question. I don't mean to minimize that. However, it is also unrelated to the matter at hand. The Guide also doesn’t give any recommendations on how we can help improve water access, so this lip service is all you get.

A lack of water does not make mikveh practice inaccessible.

Yes, in fact, it does. Without a kosher mikvah of one variety or another one cannot do anything that requires a mikvah. That’s why building a kosher one is so important. I haven’t gone looking for it, but while I’m sure there’s lots (and lots and lots and lots) of Rabbinic responsa out there of what to do in drought situations, you definitely do need water in all but the most extreme cases. If you do not have water, AYLR (Ask Your Local Rabbi)--don’t do whatever this is.

The spirit of water can be present with us if we choose to call for water, so even when water is not physically available to us we can engage in mikveh practice.

This is just straight up avodah zarah (“strange worship,” i.e. idolatry) as far as I can tell. The “spirit of the water”? What? We’re not Babylonians worshiping Tiamat. What source is there for this? Is there a source??

Like all material resources, the ways water is or is not available to us is shaped by our geographic and social locations. The ways we relate to water, what we decide is clean, treyf (dirty), drinkable, bathable, how much we use, how much we save, varies depending on our experiences. We invite you to decide what is clean and holy for your own body and spiritual practice.

This is going to require some breaking down.

To start with, let’s define “treyf.” To quote myjewishlearning, “Treyf (sometimes spelled treif or treyfe) is a Yiddish word used for something that is not kosher [lit. "fit"]. The word treyf is derived from the Hebrew word treifah, which appears several times in the Bible and means 'flesh torn by beasts.' The Torah prohibits eating flesh torn by beasts, and so the word treifah came to stand in for all forbidden foods.”

You may note the lack of the word “dirty” in this definition, or any other value judgments. Myjewishlearning continues, “over time, the words kosher and treyf have been used colloquially beyond the world of food to describe anything that Jews deem fit or unfit.” While this does have something of a value judgment, it’s still not “dirty.” I can’t say why the authors chose to translate the word this way, but…I don’t like it.

Now, when it comes to what is kosher or treyf, food and drink are most certainly not based on “our experiences.” There are entire books on the rules of kashrut; it generally takes years of study to understand all the minutiae. Even as someone who was raised in a kosher household, when I worked as a mashgicha (kosher certification inspector) I needed special training. What is considered kadosh (“sacred” or “holy,”  though again that’s not a perfect translation) or tahor is also determined by very strict rules. We don’t just decide things based on “vibes.” That’s not how anything in Jewish practice works.

Water, in fact, is always kosher to drink unless it has bugs or something else treyf in it. And mikvehs aren’t even always what I’d consider “drinkable;” I always wash utensils I’ve brought to the mikvah before I use them.

We come to our next heading: What is Queer Mikveh?

What is Queer Mikveh? To us, a queer mikveh welcomes anyone, regardless of spiritual background or not.

As I’ve said above, I have yet to find a single source (seriously if you have one please send it to me) that says non-Jews can go to a mikvah. As one of my editors for this put it, “to spin appropriation of Jewish closed practices as ‘queer’ is not only icky but deeply disrespectful to actual queer Jews.”

Also, and this is not remotely the point, but “regardless of spiritual background or not” is almost incoherently poor writing.

As Jews in diaspora we want to share and use our ritual practices for healing the land and waters we are visitors on for the liberation of all beings.

I have tried to be semi-professional about this analysis, but. “Jews in the diaspora,” you say. Tell me, JVP, where are we in the diaspora from? Hm? Where are we in diaspora from? Which land do we come from? Which land are we indigenous to, JVP? Do tell.

Returning to the point, I would repeat that mikvah has nothing to do with “healing the land and waters.” It’s ritual purification of whatever is immersed in it. You want to heal the land and waters? Go to your local environmental group, and/or whoever maintains your local land and waters. Pick up trash. Start recycling. Weed invasive species. Call your government and tell them to support green energy. You want liberation for all beings? Fight bigotry—including antisemitism. Judaism believes in action—go act. Appropriating rituals from a closed religion doesn’t liberate anyone.

We have come up with this working definition and welcome feedback!

Oh good, maybe I won’t be yelled at for posting this (she said dubiously).

Queer mikveh is a ritual of Jews in diaspora. We believe the way we work for freedom for all beings is by using the gifts of our ancestors for the greatest good. We bring our rituals as gifts.

I have nothing in particular new to say about this, except that I find the idea of “bringing our rituals as gifts” for anyone to use deeply uncomfortable, given Judaism is a closed religion that strongly discourages non-Jews from joining us, and that has had literal millennia of people appropriating from us.

It acknowledges that our path is to live on lands that are not historically our peoples [sic] and we honor the Indigenous ancestors of the land we live on, doing mikveh as an anti-colonialist ritual for collective and personal liberation.

Again I would love so much for JVP to tell us which lands would historically be our people’s. What land do Jews come from, JVP? What land is it we do have a historical connection to? What land do our Indigenous ancestors come from??

And why does it have to be our path to live on lands other than that one?

Secondly, to quote the lovely @daughter-of-stories again when she was editing this, “Mikveh as anti-colonialism, aside from not being what Mikveh is, kinda implies that you can cleanse the land of the sins of colonialism. So (a) that’s just a weird bastardization of baptism since, mikveh isn’t about cleansing from sin, and (b) so does that mean the colonialism is erased? Now we don’t have to actually deal with how it affects actual indigenous people?”

I’m sure that (b) isn’t their intent, but I will say that once again they don’t give any material suggestions for how to actually liberate any collectives or persons from colonialism in this document, including any links to other pages on their own website*, which surely would have been easy enough. It comes across as very performative.

*I disagree strongly with most of their methods, but at least they are suggesting something.

Queer mikveh is a physical or spiritual space that uses the technologies of water and the Jewish practice of mikveh to mark transitions. Transition to be interpreted by individuals and individual ritual.

I have no idea what the “technologies of water” are. Also usage of a mikvah to mark transitions beyond ritual states is a fairly new innovation, as mentioned above.

Queer mikveh in it's [sic] essence honors the story of the water. The historical stories of the water we immerse in, the stories of our own bodies as water and the future story we vision [sic].

This just sounds like a pagan spinoff of baptism to me, if I’m being honest. Which would be non-Jewish in several ways.

Queer mikveh is accessible physically and spiritually to any and all people who are curious about it. You don't have to be a practicing Jew to enter queer mikveh. You don't have to be Jewish.

First off, once again whether or not non-Jews can use mikvah seems at best extremely iffy. Secondly, accessibility in mikva’ot is, as one of my editors put it, “a continual discussion.” We have records of discussions regarding access for those with physical disabilities going back at least to the 15th century (Shut Mahari Bruna, 106; as quoted in 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History by Rabbi Ephraim Meth), and in the modern era there are mikva’ot that have lifts or other accessibility aids. That said, many mikva’ot, especially older ones, are still not accessible–and many mikva’ot don’t have the money to retrofit or renovate. Mikvah.org’s directory listings (linked at the end of this) notes whether various mikva’ot are accessible, if you are looking for one in your area.  If you want to help make mikva’ot more accessible to the disabled, consider donating to an existing mikvah to help them pay for renovations or otherwise (respectfully) getting involved in the community. If you want to help make mikva’ot more accessible for non-Orthodox Jews, try donating to an open mikvah (see link to a map of Rising Tide members at the end of this essay) or other non-Orthodox mikvah.

Queer mikveh is an earth and water honoring ritual.

Not even a little. We do have (or had) rituals that honor the earth or water, at least to an extent–the Simchat Beit HaSho’evah (explanations here and here) was a celebration surrounding water; most of our holidays are harvest festivals to some extent or another; there are a large number of agricultural mitzvahs (though most can only be done in Israel, which I suppose wouldn’t work for JVP). (Note: mitzvahs are commandments and/or good deeds.) Even those, though, aren’t about the water or earth on their own, per se, but rather about honoring them as God’s gift to us. This description of mikvah sounds more Pagan or Wiccan–which is fine, but isn’t Jewish.

Queer mikveh exists whenever a queer person or queers gather to do mikveh. Every person is their own spiritual authority and has the power to create their own ritual for individual or collective healing.

Absolutely, anyone can create their own rituals for anything they want. But it probably won’t be a mikvah ritual, and it probably won’t be Jewish.

Do you know what it’s called when you make up your own ritual and claim that it’s actually a completely valid part of an established closed practice of which you aren’t part? (Remember—this document is aimed just as much at non-Jews as at Jews.)

It’s called appropriation.

With the next section, “Some Ideas for Mikveh Preparation,” we begin page three.

(Yes, we’re only on page three of seven. I’m so sorry.)

The most important part of mikveh preparation is setting an intention.

This isn’t entirely wrong, as you do have to have in mind the intention of fulfilling a mitzvah when you perform one.

Because mikveh is a ritual most used to mark transitions, you can frame your intention in that way.

To quote myself above, “usage of a mikvah to mark transitions beyond ritual states is a fairly new innovation.” I’d hardly say it is mostly used for marking transitions.

You can do journaling or talk with friends to connect with the Jewish month, Jewish holiday, Shabbat, the moon phase, and elements of the season that would support your intention.

If this were a guide for only Jews, or there was some sort of note saying this section was only for Jews, I would have less of a problem. But given neither is true, they are encouraging non-Jews to use the Jewish calendar for what is, from the rest of the descriptions in the Guide, a magical earth healing ritual.

This is 100% straight up appropriation.

The Jewish calendar is Jewish. Marking the new moon and creating a calendar was the first commandment given to us as a people, upon the exodus from Egypt. Nearly all our holidays are (aside from the harvest component, which is based on the Israeli agricultural seasons and required harvest offerings) based on specific parts of Jewish history. Passover celebrates the Exodus and our becoming a nation. Sukkot celebrates the Clouds of Glory that protected us in the desert. Shavuot celebrates being given the Torah.

According to some opinions, non-Jews literally aren’t allowed to keep Shabbat.

If you are a non-Jew and you are basing the collective earth healing ritual you have created under your own spiritual authority around Jewish holidays and calling it “mikvah,” you are appropriating Judaism.

Full stop.

This isn’t even taking into account the generally Pagan/witchy feel of the paragraph, with “moon phases” and “elements of the season.” Again, if you want to be a Pagan be a Pagan, but don’t call it Jewish.

Things only go further downhill with their next suggestion for preparation before you go to the mikvah.

Divination: A lot can be said about divination practices and Judaism.

There certainly is a lot to be said. First and foremost, there’s the fact that divination is forbidden in Judaism.

(Screenshot of Leviticus 19:26 from sefaria.org)

One method of divination they suggest is Tarot, which is a European method of cartomancy that seems to have begun somewhere in the 19th century, though the cards start showing up around the 15th. While early occultists tried to tie it to various older forms of mysticism, including Kabbalah, this was, to put it lightly, complete nonsense. (Disclaimer: this information comes from wikipedia; I’ve already spent so much time researching the mikvah stuff that I do not have the energy or interest to do a deep dive into the origin of Tarot. It isn’t Jewish, the rest is honestly just details.)

I have nothing against Tarot. I think it’s neat! The cards are often lovely! I have a couple of decks myself, and I use them for fun and card games. But divination via tarot is not Jewish. If I do any spreads, I make it very clear to anyone I’m doing it with that it is for fun and/or as a self-reflection tool, not as magic. Because that is extremely not allowed in Judaism.

The authors suggest a few decks to use, one of which is by one of the authors themselves. Another is “The Kabbalah Deck,” which—holy appropriation, Batman!

In case anyone is unaware, Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) is an extremely closed Jewish practice, even within Judaism. Traditionally it shouldn’t be studied by anyone who hasn’t already studied every other Jewish text (of which there are, I remind you, a lot), because it’s so easy to misinterpret. I mentioned this above briefly when explaining cultural expropriation. Pop Kabbalah (what Madonna does, what you see when they talk about “Ancient Kabbalistic Texts” on shows like Supernatural, the nonsense occultists and New-Agers like to say is “ancient Kabbalistic” whatever, it’s a wide span of appropriative BS) is gross, combining Kabbalah with Tarot is extremely gross. I’m not 100% sure, as the link in the pdf doesn’t work, but I believe they are referring to this deck by Edward Hoffman. For those of you who don’t want to click through, the Amazon description includes this:

(Screenshot from Amazon)

Returning to our text:

Another practice that's been used in Judaism for centuries is bibliomancy. You can use a book you find meaningful (or the Torah) and ask a question. Then, close your eyes, open the book to a page and place your finger down. Interpret the word or sentence you pointed at to help guide you to answer your question.

Bibliomancy with a chumash (Pentateuch) or tanach (Bible) in Jewish magic is kind of a thing, but the tradition of Jewish magic as a whole is very complicated and could be its own entirely different post. This one is already long enough. This usage of bibliomancy is clearly just appropriative new-age BS, though, especially given you can use “[any] book you find meaningful.”

Also, if you aren’t Jewish, please don’t use the Torah for ritual purposes unless you are doing it under very specific circumstances under the laws for B’nei Noach (“Children of Noah,” also called Righteous Gentiles; non-Jews who follow the 7 Noachide Laws).

Sit with your general intention or if you aren't sure, pose a question to the divination tool you are using. "What should be my intention for this mikveh?" "What needs transforming in my life?" "How can I transform my relationship with my body?"

As I hope I’ve made clear, there are very specific times when one uses a mikvah, even with more modern Open Mikvah rituals. You always know what your intention is well before going—to make yourself tahor, or mark a specific event. I’m not here to police how someone prepares mentally before they immerse—meditation is fine, even encouraged. But magic? Like this? That’s not a thing. And given the fact that divination specifically is not only discouraged but forbidden, this section in particular upset a lot of Jews who read it.

Those of us already upset by everything we’ve already covered were not comforted by how the Guide continues.

How to Prepare Physically For Mikveh: Some people like to think about entering the mikveh in the way their body was when they were born. By this we mean naked, without jewelry, with clean fingernails and brushed hair. This framing can be meaningful for many people.

We went into this at the beginning of this essay (about 6500 words ago), but this is in fact how Jewish law mandates one is required to immerse. This is certainly the case in most communities, whether you are immersing due to an obligation (as a married woman or a bride about to be married) or due to custom (as men in post-Temple practice) or due to non-traditional immersion (as someone coming out); wherever on the spectrum of observance one falls (as far as I could find). A mikvah isn’t a bath, it’s not about physical cleanliness—you must first thoroughly clean yourself, clip your nails, and brush your teeth. Nail polish and makeup are removed. There can’t be any barriers between you and the water. Most mikva’ot these days, particularly women’s mikva’ot, have preparation rooms so you can prep on site. When you immerse, you have to submerge completely—your hair can’t be floating above the water, your mouth can’t be pursed tightly, your hands can’t be clenched so the water can’t get to your palms. If you do it wrong, it doesn’t count and you have to do it again. It’s not a “framing,” it’s a ritual practice governed by ritual law.

We suggest you do mikveh in the way you feel comfortable for you and your experience.

This isn’t how this works. If you have a particularly extreme case, you can talk to a rabbi to see if there are any workarounds—for example, if excessive embarrassment would distract you from the ritual, you may be able to wear clothes that are loose enough that the water still makes contact with every millimeter of skin. But you need to consult with someone who knows the minutiae of the laws and requirements so you know if any exceptions or workarounds apply to you. That’s what a rabbi is for. That’s why they need to go to rabbinical school and get ordination. They have to study. That’s why you need to find a rabbi whose knowledge and personality you trust. For someone calling themselves a religious authority in Judaism to say “you can do whatever, no biggie” with such a critical ritual is…I’m not sure what the word I want is.

The idea is to feel vulnerable but also to claim your body as a powerful site of change that has the power to move us close to our now unrecognizable futures.

The idea is to bathe in the living waters and enter a state of taharah. Though that could be an idea you have in mind while you are doing it, I suppose. I could see at least one writer I know of saying something like this to specifically menstrual married (presumably cis) women performing Taharat HaMishpacha (family taharah, see above).

For some people, doing mikveh in drag will feel most vulnerable, with all your make-up and best attire.

Absolutely not a thing. As I said last paragraph, the goal isn’t to feel vulnerable or powerful or anything. It may feel vulnerable or powerful, but that is entirely besides the actual purpose of the ritual. What you get out of it on a personal emotional level has nothing to do with the religious goal of the religious practice.

And if you are wondering how one would submerge oneself in water in full drag, don’t worry, we’ll get there soon.

For some, wearing a cloth around your body until just before you dip is meaningful.

This is just how it’s usually done. Generally one is provided with a bathrobe, and one removes it before entering. You don’t just wander around the building naked. Or the beach, if you’re using the ocean.

If you were born intersex and your genitalia was changed without your consent, thinking about your body as perfect, however you were born, can be loving.

I’m not intersex, so I’m not going to comment on the specifics here. If you are and that’s meaningful to you, more power to you.

We enter a new section, at the top of page 4.

Where To Do Mikveh: There is much midrash around what constitutes a mikveh.

“Midrash” is not the word they want here. The midrash is the non-legal side of the oral tradition, often taking the form of allegory or parable. This is as opposed to the mishna, which is the halachic (legal) side of the oral tradition. They were both written down around the same time, but most midrashim (plural) are in their own books, rather than incorporated in the mishna.

There is, however, a great deal of rabbinic discussion, in the form of mishna, gemara, teshuvot (responsa), legal codices, and various other genres of Jewish writing. More properly this could have just said “there is much discussion around what constitutes a mikveh.”

Most mikvot currently exist in Orthodox synagogues[—]

This is perhaps a minor quibble, but I don’t know that I’d say they’re generally in synagogues. They are frequently associated with a local congregation, but are often in a separate building.

[—]but there is a growing movement to create more diverse and inclusive spaces for mikveh. Mayyim Hayyim is a wonderful resource with a physical body of water mikveh space. Immerse NYC is a newer organization training people of all genders to be mikveh guides. They also work to find gender inclusive spaces for people to do mikveh in NYC.

This is true! Mayyim Hayyim is a wonderful organization I’ve never heard anything bad about, and ImmerseNYC also seems like an excellent organization. Both also only allow Jews (in which group I am including in-process converts) to immerse.

The mikveh guides thing I didn’t explain above, so I’ll take a moment to do so here. Because the rules of immersion are so strict, and because it’s hard to tell if you are completely immersed when you are underwater, most mikva’ot have a guide helping you. Depending on the circumstance and the mikvah, and depending on the patron’s comfort, who and how they do their jobs can differ somewhat. For a woman immersing after niddah, it will usually be another woman who will hold up the towel or bathrobe for you while you get in the water, and will only look from behind it once you are immersed to make sure you are completely submerged. If you are converting, customs vary. Some communities require men to witness the immersion regardless of the convert’s gender, which is very much an ongoing discussion in those communities. Even in those cases, to my knowledge they will only look once the convert is in the water, and there will likely still be a female attendant if the convert is a woman. While there are negative experiences people have had, it is very much an intra-community issue. We’re working on it.

Mikveh can be done in a natural body of water.

Again, this is true, though not all bodies of water work, so AYLR (Ask Your Local Rabbi).

Some people are also making swimming pools holy places of mikveh.

We’ve already explained above why this is nonsense.

In the Mishneh (the book that makes commentary on the torah [sic]) there are arguments as to what constitutes a mikveh and how much water from a spring or well or rainwater must be present.

The main issue in this section is their definition of the Mishneh. As I explained above, the Mishna (same thing, transliteration is not an exact science) is the major compilation of the Oral Torah, the oral tradition that was written down by Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi so it wouldn’t be lost in the face of exile and assimilation. It’s not so much a commentary on the (Written) Torah as an expansion of it to extrapolate the religious laws we follow. It’s certainly not “the book that makes commentary on the Torah.” We have literally hundreds of books of commentary. That’s probably underestimating. Jews have been around for a long time, and we have been analyzing and discussing the Torah for nearly as long. There are so many commentaries on the Torah.

The second issue is that while there are arguments in the Mishna and Gemara (the oral discussion on the Mishna that was written down even later), they do generally result in a final decision of some sort. Usually whichever side has the majority wins. Variations between communities are still very much a thing, and I can explain why in another post if people are interested, but there usually is a base agreement.

We are of the school that says you decide for yourself what works.

The phrasing they use here makes it sound as though that’s a legitimate opinion in the Mishnah. I cannot emphasize how much that is not the case. While I myself have not finished learning the entire Mishnah, I would be willing to wager a great deal that “whatever works for you” isn’t a stance on any legal matter there. That’s just not how it works. While some modern branches of Judaism may have that as a position, it is definitely not Mishnaic.

If you are concerned about Jewish law, the ocean is always a good choice. There are no conflicting arguments about the ocean as a mikveh. As the wise maggid Jhos Singer says in reference to the ocean, "It's [sic] becomes a mikveh when we call it a mikveh." Done.

(To clarify, I don’t know if that typo was carried over from the source of the original quote or not.)

This is true. However if you are concerned about Jewish law I would very much urge you to look to other sources than this one—be that your local rabbi or rebbetzen, the staff at your local mikvah, or a reliable website that actually goes into the proper requirements. If you want to use a mikveh according to Jewish law, please do not use this document as your guide.

We recognize immersion in water does not work for every body. Therefore, a guiding principle for where to do a mikveh is: do a mikveh in a place that is sacred to you. Your body is always holy and your body is made of mostly water. Later in this guide there is more information on mikveh with no immersion required.

I cannot emphasize how much I have never once heard this before. This, to me, reads like New Age nonsense. If you are unable to immerse in a mikvah, talk to your rabbi. Don’t do…whatever this is.

Our next section is a short one.

Who To Do it With: Do mikveh with people you feel comfortable with and supported by.

This is fine, though many mikva’ot (perhaps even most) will only allow one person to immerse at a time.

Do a solo mikveh and ask the earth body to be your witness.

With this, we return to the strange smattering of neo-Paganism. The “earth body” is not a thing. Yes, the Earth is called as a witness in the Bible at least once. It’s poetic. You also, unless you are converting, don’t actually need a witness anyway. A mikvah attendant or guide is there to help you—if you were somewhere without one, you could still immerse for niddah or various customary purposes.

Do mikveh with people who share some of your vision for collective healing.

As I’ve said before in this essay, collective healing is not the point of a mikvah. If you are Jewish and want to pray for healing, there are plenty of legitimate places for this–the Shemonah Esrei has a prayer for healing and a prayer where you can insert any personal prayers you want; there’s a communal prayer for healing after the Torah reading. You can give charity or recite a psalm or do a mitzvah with the person in mind. You can also just do a personal private prayer with any words you like, a la Hannah, or if you want pre-written words find an appropriate techinah (not the sesame stuff). If you want to work towards collective liberation, volunteer. Learn the laws of interpersonal mitzvot, like lashon hara (literally “evil speech,” mostly gossip or libel). Connect fighting oppression to loving your neighbor or the Passover seder. We have tons of places for this–mikvah isn’t one of them.

Next segment.

What To Bring to A Mikveh: 1. Intentions for the ritual for yourself and/or the collective.

See previous points on intention.

2. Items for the altar from your cultural background[…] (emphasis mine)

If I wasn’t appalled by the “immersing in makeup” or the “do divination first,” this would be the place that got me. This is wrong on so many levels.

One is not allowed to have an altar outside of The Temple in Jerusalem, the one we currently do not have. It’s an extremely big deal. One is not allowed to make sacrifices outside of the Temple. Period. This is emphasized again and again in the Torah and other texts. Even when we had a Temple, there were no altars in a mikvah.

And you certainly couldn’t offer anything in the Temple while naked, as one is required to be when immersing in the mikvah.

Even when we did bring offerings to altars (the Bronze Altar or the Gold Altar, both of which were in the Temple and which only qualified priests in a state of tahara could perform offerings on), the offerings were very specifically mandated, as per the Torah and those other texts. Even when non-Jews gave offerings (as did happen) they were required to comply. You couldn’t just bring any item from your cultural background. This is paganism, plain and simple.

Now, again, let me be clear: if you’re pagan, I have no problem with you. My problem is when one tries to take a sacred practice from a closed religion and try to co-opt it as one’s own. It’s a problem when someone who isn’t Native American decides to smudge their room with white sage, and it’s a problem when someone who isn’t Jewish tries to turn a mikvah into a pagan cleansing rite. And even if the person doing it is Jewish--I have an issue when it’s Messianics who were born Jewish, and I have an issue when it’s pagans who were born the same. Either way, whether you intend to or not, you are participating in appropriation or expropriation.

Which makes the line that follows this point so deeply ironic I can’t decide if I’m furious or heartbroken.

After suggesting that the reader (who may or may not be Jewish) bring items for an altar to a mikvah, the Guide asks:

[…] (please do not bring appropriated items from cultures that are not yours).

Which is simply just... beyond parody. To quote one of my editors, “This is quickly approaching the level of being a new definition for the Yiddish word 'Chutzpah,' which is traditionally defined as 'absurdist audacity' in line with 'Chutzpah is a man who brutally murders both of his parents and then pleads with the judge for leniency because he is now an orphan bereft of parental guidance.' If not for the involved nature of explaining the full context, I would submit this as a potential new illustrative example.”

The next suggestion of what to bring is

3. Warm clothes, towels, warm drinks

All these are reasonable enough, though most mikva’ot provide towels. Some also provide snacks, for while you are preparing. They may also not allow you to bring in outside food.

4. Your spirit of love, healing, and resistance

This, again, has nothing to do with mikvah. The only spirit of resistance in a mikvah is the fact that we continue to do it despite millennia of attempts to stop us. Additionally, to me at least “a spirit of love” feels very culturally-Christian.

Our next section is titled “How to Make Mikveh a Non-Zionist Ritual.”

Right off the bat, I have an issue with this concept. Putting aside for a moment whatever one may think of Zionism as a philosophy, my main problem here is that mikvah has nothing at all to do with Zionism. In Orthodoxy, at least, Jews who are against Zionism on religious grounds perform the mitzvah the same way passionately Zionist Jews do, with the same meanings and intentions behind it. It is performed the same way in Israel and out, and has been more or less the same for the last several thousand years. It is about ritual purification and sanctification of the mundane, no more and no less.

There is a word for saying anything and everything Jewish is actually about the modern Israel/Palestine conflict, simply because it’s Jewish.

That word is antisemitism.

How to Make Mikveh a Non-Zionist Ritual: Reject all colonial projects by learning about, naming & honoring, and materially supporting the communities indigenous to the land where you hold your mikveh. Name and thank the Indigenous people of the land you are going to do your mikveh on.

If you removed the “non-Zionist” description, this would be mostly unobjectionable. We should absolutely help indigenous communities. The framing of “reject all colonial projects” does seem to suggest that there is something colonial about the usual practice of going to the mikvah, though. I would argue that the mikvah is, in fact, anti-colonial if anything—it is the practice of a consistently oppressed minority ethno-religion which has kept it in practice despite the best efforts of multiple empires. Additionally, while Zionism means many different things to those who believe in it, at its root most Zionists (myself included) define it as “the belief that Jews have a right to self-determination in our indigenous homeland.” Our indigenous homeland being, of course, the land of Israel. (This is different from the State of Israel, which is the modern country on that land.) If you are a Jew in Israel, one of the indigenous peoples of the land your mikvah is on is your own. That’s not to say there aren’t others—but to claim Jews aren’t indigenous to the region is to be either misinformed or disingenuous.

Take the time to vision [sic] our world to come in which Palestine and all people are free.

I really, really dislike how they use the concept of The World To Come here. The Jewish idea of The World To Come (AKA the Messianic Age) is one where the Messiah has come, the Temple has been rebuilt, and the Davidic dynastic monarchy has been re-established in the land of Israel. Arguably that’s the most Zionist vision imaginable. This isn’t to say that all people, Palestinians included, won’t be free—true peace and harmony are also generally accepted features of the Messianic Age. But using the phrase in making something “non-Zionist” is, at the very least, in extremely poor taste. (As a side note, even religious non-Zionists believe in this–that’s actually why most of them are against the State of Israel, as they believe we can’t have sovereignty until the Messiah comes. They do generally believe we will eventually have sovereignty, just that now isn’t the time for it.)

Hold and explore this vision intimately as you prepare to immerse. What is one action you can take to bring this future world closer? Trust that your vision is collaborating with countless others doing this work.

Having a “vision” of a world where all are free isn’t doing any of the work to accomplish it. A “vision” can’t collaborate. At least not in Judaism. This sounds like one is trying to manifest the change through force of will, which is something directly out of the New Age faith movement, where it is known as “Creative Visualization.” Even when we do have a concept of bringing about something positive through an unrelated action–like saying psalms for someone who is sick–the idea is that you are doing a mitzvah on their behalf, to add to their merits counted in their favor. It’s not a form of magic or invocation of some mystical energy.

(Once again: I have nothing against pagans. But paganism is incompatible with Judaism. You can’t be both, any more than you can be Jewish and Christian.)

Use mikveh practice to ground into your contribution to the abundant work for liberation being done. We are many.

If you will once more pardon a brief switch to a casual tone:

Nothing says liberation like *checks notes* appropriating a minority cultural practice.

The next section of their document is titled “Ideas for Mikveh Ritual,” and this is where the Neo-Pagan and New Age influences of the authors truly shift from the background to the foreground.  

We start off deceptively reasonably.

Mikveh ritual is potentially very simple. Generally people consider a mikveh to be a full immersion in water, where you are floating in the water, not touching the bottom, with no part of the body above the surface (including the hair).

Technically, most people consider a mikveh to be a ritual bath (noun) in which one performs various Jewish ritual immersions. But if we set this aside as a typo, this is…fairly true. What they are describing is how one is supposed to perform the mitzvah of mikveh immersion. However, in much the same way I wouldn’t say “generally people consider baseball to be a game where you hit a ball with a bat and run around a diamond,” I wouldn’t say it’s a case of “generally people consider” so much as “this is what it is.”

This works for some people. It doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't work for all bodies. Because of this, mikveh ritual can be expanded outside of these traditional confines in exciting, creative ways.

Once again, if you are incapable of performing mikvah immersion in the proper manner, please go speak with a rabbi. Please do not follow this guide.

Before we continue, I would just like to assure you that. whatever “exciting, creative ways” you might be imagining the authors have come up with, this is so much worse.

Method One:

Sound Mikveh: One way that's felt very meaningful for many is a "sound mikveh." This can be a group of people toning, harmonizing, or chanting in a circle. One person at a time can be in the center of the circle and feel the vibrations of healing sound wash over their body. Another method of sound mikveh is to use a shofar or other instrument of your lineage to made [sic] sounds that reach a body of water and also wash over you.

This makes me so uncomfortable I barely have the words to describe it, and I know that I am not alone in this. This is not a mikvah. If someone wants to do some sort of sound-based healing ritual, by all means go ahead, but do not call it a mikvah. This is not Jewish. I don’t know what this is, aside from deeply offensive.

And leave that poor shofar out of this. That ram did not give his horn for this nonsense.

(I could go on about the actual sacred purpose of a shofar and all the rules and reasons behind it that expand upon this, but this is already over 9000 words.)

Method Two is, if anything, worse. This is the one, if you’ve seen social media posts about this topic, you have most likely seen people going nuts about.

Tea Cup Mikveh: Fill a special teacup. If you want, add flower essence, a small stone, or other special elements. Sing the teacup a sweet song, dance around it, cry in some tears, tell the cup a tender and hopeful story, hold the teacup above the body of your animal friend for extra blessing, balance it on your head to call in your highest self. Use the holy contents of this teacup to make contact with water.

This is absolutely 100% straight-up neo-pagan/New Age mysticism. Nothing about this is based on Jewish practice of any kind. Again, I’m at a loss for words of how to explain just how antithetical this is. If you want to be a witch, go ahead and be a witch. But do not call it Jewish. Leave Judaism out of this.

They end this suggestion with the cute comment,

Mikveh to go. We’ve always been people on the move.

Let me explain why this “fun” little comment fills me with rage. 

As you may recall, this document was published by Jewish Voice for Peace. Among their various other acts of promoting and justifying antisemitism, JVP has repeatedly engaged in historical revisionism regarding Jews and Jewish history. In this context, they have repeatedly ignored the numerous expulsions of Jews from various countries, and blaming sinister Zionist plots to explain any movement of expelled Jews to Israel (“In the early 1950s, starting two years after the Nakba, the Israeli government facilitated a mass immigration of Mizrahim,” from “Our Approach to Zionism” on the JVP website; see @is-the-thing-actually-jewish’s post on JVP and the posts linked from there).

So a document published by JVP framing Jewish movement as some form of free spirited 1970s-esque Bohemian lifestyle or the result of us being busy movers-and-shakers is a direct slap in the face to the persecution we’ve faced as a people and society.  No, we aren’t “on the move” because we’re hippies wandering where the wind takes us . We’re always on the move because we keep getting kicked out and/or hate-crimed until we leave.

But there is no Jew-hatred in Ba Sing Se.

Method three:

Fermentation Mikveh: Some food goes through natural changes by being immersed in water. If we eat that food, we can symbolically go through a change similar to the one the food went through.

Again, this has no basis anywhere in halacha. We do have concepts of “you are what you eat,” specifically with reference to what animals and birds are kosher, but there isn’t any food that makes you tahor if you eat it. In the Temple days there were, in fact, foods you couldn’t eat unless you were tahor.

Jews may like pickles, but that doesn’t mean we think they purify you.

Also, the change from fermentation is, if anything, the opposite of the change we would want. Leavening (rising in dough or batter, due to the fermentation of yeast) is compared in rabbinic writings to arrogance and ego, as opposed to the humility of matza, the “poor man’s bread” (see here, for example). Is the suggestion here to become more egotistical?

As we wrap up this section, I’d like to go back to their stated reason for using these “alternative” methods (“It doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't work for all bodies”), and ask: if these really were the only options for immersion, would these really fill that same spiritual need/niche? These obviously aren’t aimed at me, but from my perspective it seems almost condescending, almost worse. “You can’t do the real thing, so we’ll make up something to make you feel better.” If any of them had an actual basis in Jewish practice, that would be one thing, but this just feels…fake, to me. Even within more liberal / less traditional streams of Judaism, there is a connection to halacha: 

“We each (if we are knowledgeable about the tradition, if we confront it seriously and take its claims and its wisdom seriously) have the ability, the freedom, indeed the responsibility to come to a [potentially differing] personal understanding of what God wants us to do… [Halacha] is a record of how our people, in widely differing times, places and societal circumstances, experienced God's presence in their lives, and responded. Each aspect of halacha is a possible gateway to experience of the holy, the spiritual. Each aspect worked for some Jews, once upon a time, somewhere in our history. Each, therefore, has the potential to open up holiness for people in our time as well, and for me personally. However, each does not have equal claim on us, on me…Portions of the halacha whose main purpose seems to be to distance us from our surroundings no longer seem functional. Yet some parts of the halachic tradition seem perfect correctives to the imbalances of life in modernity…In those parts of tradition, we are sometimes blessed to experience a sense of God's closeness. In my personal life, I emphasize those areas. And other areas of halacha, I de-emphasize, or sometimes abandon. Reform Judaism affirms my right, our right, to make those kinds of choices.” – Rabbi Ramie Arian

“[Traditional Reconstructionist Jews] believe that moral and spiritual faculties are actualized best when the individual makes conscious choices…The individual’s choices, however, can and should not be made alone. Our ethical values and ritual propensities are shaped by the culture and community in which we live. Living a Jewish life, according to the Reconstructionist understanding, means belonging to the Jewish people as a whole and to a particular community of Jews, through which our views of life are shaped. Thus, while Reconstructionist communities are neither authoritarian nor coercive, they aspire to influence the individual’s ethical and ritual choices–through study of Jewish sources, through the sharing of values and experiences, and through the impact of the climate of communal opinion on the individual. …While we may share certain values and life situations, no two sets of circumstances are identical. We hope that the Reconstructionist process works to help people find the right answers for themselves, but we can only assist in helping individuals to ask the right questions so that their choices are made in an informed way within a Jewish context. To be true to ourselves we must understand the differences in perception between us and those who have gone before, while retaining a reverence for the traditions they fashioned. If we can juxtapose those things, we ensure that the past will have [in the phrase of Reconstructionism’s founder, Mordecai Kaplan,] a vote, but not a veto.” – Rabbi Jacob J. Straub (Note: the Reconstructionist movement was founded in the late 1920s, and has gone through a very large shift in the past decade or so. I use “Traditional” here to refer to the original version of the movement as opposed to those who have shifted. Both are still called Reconstructionist, so it’s a bit confusing. This is on the advice of one of my editors, who is themself Traditional Reconstructionist.)

You may note, neither of these talk about inventing things from whole cloth. To paraphrase one of my editors, “You don’t completely abandon [halacha], because if you did how would you have a cohesive community? Even in a ‘do what’s meaningful’ framework, you’re taking from the buffet, not bringing something to a potluck. Even if you don’t see halacha as binding, there are limits.”

(Again, disclaimer that the above knowledge of non-Orthodox movements comes from my editors, and any errors are mine.)

The next section is “Prayers for Mikveh.”

As a note, I’m going to censor the names of God when I quote actual blessings, as per traditional/Halachic practice. I’ll be putting brackets to indicate my alterations.

I’m not going to go much into detail here, because frankly my Hebrew isn’t good enough, and the six different people I asked for help gave me at least six different answers, but I will touch on it a bit.

First, the Guide gives a link to an article on Traditional Mikveh Blessings from Ritualwell (here is a link on the Wayback Machine, since the original requires you to make an account). Ritualwell is a Reconstructionist Jewish website, and accepts reviewed submissions. Here is their about page. The blessings on this page, as far as I know, are in fact exactly what it says on the tin. I’m not sure the first one, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al ha-t’vilah, is said for non-obligatory immersions (i.e. not for niddah or conversion), as it is literally a blessing on the commandment. The second blessing at that link is Shehecheyanu, which the Guide also suggests as a good prayer. This is the traditional form of the blessing, given at Ritualwell:

Baruch Atah Ado[-]nai Elo[k]eynu Melech Ha-Olam shehekheyanu v’kiyimanu v’higiyanu lazman hazeh.

Blessed are You, [LORD] our God, Monarch of the universe, Who has kept us alive and sustained us, and brought us to this season.

(As a quick note, you may notice this is not quite how they translate it on Ritualwell–I have no idea why they say “kept me alive,” as it’s definitely “us” in the Hebrew. There’s a long tradition, in fact, of praying for the community rather than ourselves as an individual, but that’s not the point of this post.)

The Guide, however, gives an alternate form:

B’rucha At y[-]a Elo[k]eynu Ruakh haolam shehekheyatnu v’kiyimatnu v’higiyatnu lazman hazeh. You are Blessed, Our God, Spirit of the World, who has kept us in life and sustained us, enabling us to reach this season.

Under the assumption that most of you don’t know Hebrew, I’m going to break this down further. The main difference between these two is grammatical gender–the traditional blessing uses masculine forms, which is common when referring to God. However, while there are often masculine descriptions of God, it is worth noting that Hashem is very specifically not a “man”--God is genderless and beyond our comprehension, and masculine is also used in Hebrew for neutral or unspecified gender. A whole discussion of gender and language is also beyond the scope of this post, but for now let’s leave it at: changing the gender for God in prayer is pretty common among less traditional Jews, and that’s fine. Some of the changes they make (or don’t make) here are interesting, though. The two letter name of God they switch to is–despite ending in a hey (the “h” letter)–not feminine grammatically feminine. I’m told, however, that some progressive circles consider it neutral because it “sounds feminine.” “Elo-keynu” is also grammatically masculine, but a) that’s used for neuter in Hebrew and b) it’s also technically plural, so maybe they didn’t feel the need to change it. Though if that’s the case I would also have thought that Ado-nai (the tetragrammaton) would be fine, as it’s also technically male in the same way. I’m also not sure why they didn’t just change ”Melech HaOlam” to “Malkah HaOlam,” which would be the feminine form of the original words, but perhaps they were avoiding language of monarchy. It’s apparently a not uncommon thing to change.

One of the responses I got said the vowels in the verbs were slightly off, but I can’t say much above that, for the reasons given at the beginning of this section.

Also, and this is comparatively minor, the capitalization in the transliteration is bizarre. They capitalize “At” (you) and “Elo[k]eynu” (our God), but not “y[-]a…” which is the actual name of God in the blessing and should definitely be capitalized if you are capitalizing.

The Guide next gives a second blessing that can be used:

B’rucha at shekhinah eloteinu ruach ha-olam asher kid-shanu bi-tevilah b’mayyim hayyim. Blessed are You, Shekhinah, Source of Life, Who blesses us by embracing us in living waters. -Adapted by Dori Midnight 

The main thing I want to note about this is that…that’s not an accurate translation. It completely skips the word “eloteinu.” “Ruach ha-olam” means “spirit/breath of the universe/world,” not “Source of Life,” which would be “M’kor Ha-Olam,” as mentioned above. “Kid-shanu,” as she transliterates it, means “has sanctified us,” or “has made us holy,” not “blesses us”--both the tense and the word are wrong. “Bi-tevilah” doesn’t mean “embracing us,” either, it means “with immersing.” In full, the translation should be:

“Blessed are You, Shekhinah, our God, Spirit of the World, Who has sanctified us with immersion in living waters.”

The Shekhinah is an aspect/name of God(dess), though not a Name to the same level as the ones that can’t be taken in vain. It refers to the hidden Presence of God(dess) in our world, and is the feminine aspect of God(dess), inasmuch as God(dess) has gendered aspects–remember, our God(dess) is One. It’s not an unreasonable Name to use if you are trying to make a prayer specifically feminine.

(Though do be careful if you see it used in a blessing in the wild, because Messianics use it to mean the holy ghost.)

“Eloteinu” is, grammatically, the feminine form of Elokeinu (according to the fluent speakers I asked, though again I got several responses).

It is, again, odd that they don’t capitalize transliterated names of God, though here there is more of an argument that it’s a stylistic choice, Hebrew not having capital letters.

The Guide then repeats the link for Ritualwell.

Finally, we come to the last section, “Resources and Our Sources:”

First, they credit the Kohenet Institute and two of its founders. I do not want to go on a deepdive into the Kohenet Institute also, as this is already long enough, but I suppose I should say a bit.

The Kohenet Institute was a “clergy ordination program, a sisterhood / siblinghood, and an organization working to change the face of Judaism. For 18 years, Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institutes founders, graduates and students reclaimed and innovated embodied, earth-based feminist Judaism, drawing from ways that women and other marginalized people led Jewish ritual across time and space” (Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute Homepage). It closed in 2023.

I have difficulty explaining my feelings about the Kohenet Institute. On the one hand, the people who founded it and were involved in it, I’m sure, were very invested in Judaism and very passionate in their belief. As with the authors of the Guide, I do not mean to attack them–I’m sure they’re lovely people.

On the other, I have trouble finding a basis for any of their practices, and most of what practices I do find trouble me–again, with the caveat that I am very much not into mysticism, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Of the three founders, only one (Rabbi Jill Hammer) seems to have much in the way of scholarly background. Rabbi Hammer, who was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary (a perfectly respectable school), has at least one article where she quotes the New Testament and a Roman satirist making fun of a Jewish begger who interpret dreams for money as proof “that Jewish prophetesses existed in Roman times,” which to me at least seems like saying that the Roma have a tradition of seeresses based on racist caricatures of what they had to do to survive, if you’ll pardon the comparison. In the same article, she says that Sarah and Abigail, who are listed in the Talmud as prophetesses “are not actually prophetesses as I conceptualize them here,” (pg 106) but that “abolitionist Ernestine Rose, anarchist Emma Goldman, and feminist Betty Friedan stand in the prophetic tradition.” Given God says explicitly in the text, “Regarding all that Sarah tells you, listen to her voice” (Genesis 21:12), I have no idea where she gets this.

The second founder, Taya Mâ Shere, describes the Institute on her website as “spiritual leadership training for women & genderqueer folk embracing the Goddess in a Jewish context,” which to me is blatantly what I and some of my editors have taken to calling Jews For Lilith. Now, it is possible this is a typo. However assuming it is not, and it would be a weird typo to have, this rather clearly reads as “the Goddess” being something one is adding a Jewish context to–which is exactly what I mean when I say this guide is taking Paganism and sprinkling a little Judaism on it. If it had said “embracing Goddess in a Jewish context,” I’d have no problem (aside from weird phrasing)--but “the Goddess” is very much a “divine feminine neo-pagan” kind of thing. We don’t say “the God” in Judaism, or at least I’ve never heard anyone do so. We just say God (or Goddess), because there’s only the one. In fact, according to this article, she returned to Judaism from neo-Paganism, and “began to combine the Goddess-centered practices she had co-created in Philadelphia with what she was learning from teachers in the Jewish Renewal movement, applying her use of the term Goddess to Judaism’s deity.” The “Goddess-centered practices” and commune in Philadelphia are described earlier in the article as “influenced by Wiccan and Native American traditions, in ways that Shere now considers appropriative (“After Kohenet, Who Will Lead the Priestesses?” by Noah Phillips).” I’m not sure how it suddenly isn’t appropriative now, but taking the Pagan practices you were doing and now doing those exact same rituals “but Jewish” is, in fact, still Pagan.

Shere also sells “Divining Pleasure: An Oracle for SephErotic Liberation,” created by her and Bekah Starr, which is a “divination card deck and an Omer counter inviting you more deeply into your body, your pleasure and your devotion to collective liberation.”

I hate this.

I hate this so much.

For those who don’t know, the Omer is the period between the second day of Passover and the holiday of Shavuot, 50 days later. It’s named for the Omer offering that was given on Passover, and which started the count of seven weeks (and a day, the day being Shavuot). The Omer, or at least part of it, is also traditionally a period of mourning, much like the Three Weeks between the fasts of the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av–we don’t have weddings, we don’t listen to live music, we don’t cut our hair. It commemorates (primarily) the deaths of 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva in a plague (possibly a metaphor for persecution or the defeat of the Bar Kochba revolt). It is often used as a time for introspection and self-improvement, using seven of the Kabbalistic Sephirot as guides (each day of the week is given a Sephira, as is each week, so each day of the 49 is x of y, see here). It’s not, as Shere’s class “Sex and the Sephirot: A Pleasure Journey Through the Omer” puts it, a time to “engage…toward experiencing greater erotic presence, deepening our commitment to nourishing eros, and embracing ritual practices of…pleasure.”

The final of the founders, Shoshana Jedwab, seems to be primarily a musician. In her bio on her website, scholarship and teaching are almost afterthoughts. I can find nothing about her background or classes. She’s also, from what I’ve found, the creator of the “sound mikvah.”

So all in all, while I’m sure they’re lovely people, I find it difficult to believe that they are basing their Institute on actual practices, particularly given they apparently include worship of Ashera as an “authentic” Jewish practice, see the above Phillips article and this tumblr post.

The institute also lists classes they offered, which “were open to those across faith practices - no background in Judaism necessary.” If you scroll down the page, you will see one of these courses was titled “Sefer Yetzirah: Meditation, Magic, & the Cosmic Architecture.” Sefer Yetzirah, for those of you unaware, “is an ancient and foundational work of Jewish mysticism.”

You may recall my saying something some 5700 (yikes) words ago about Jewish mysticism (i.e. Kabbalah) being a closed practice.

You may see why I find the Kohenet Institute problematic.

I will grant, however, that I have not listened to their podcasts nor read their books, so it is possible they do have a basis for what they teach. From articles I’ve read, and what I’ve found on their websites, I am unconvinced.

Returning to our original document, the Guide next gives several links from Ritualwell, which I’ve already discussed above. After those, they give links to two actual mikvah organizations: Mayyim Hayyim and Immerse NYC. Both are reputable organizations, and are Open Mikvahs. Neither (at least based on their websites) seem to recommend any of the nonsense in this Guide. In fact, Mayyim Hayyim explicitly does not allow non-Jews to immerse (unless it’s to convert). ImmerseNYC has advice to create a ritual in an actually Jewish way. I would say the link to these two groups are, perhaps, the only worthwhile information in this Guide.

They then list a few “mikveh related projects,” two of which are by the writers. The first, Queer Mikveh Project, is by one of the authors, Rebekah Erev. The link they give is old and no longer works, but on Erev’s website there is information about the project. Much of the language is similar to that in this guide. The page also mentions a “mikvah” ritual done to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline, in which “the mikveh…[was] completely optional.” And, of course, there was an altar. The second project, the “Gay Bathhouse” by (I believe) the other author and Shelby Handler, is explicitly an art installation.

The final link is to this website (thanks to the tumblr anon who found it), which is the only source we’ve been able to find on Shekinah Ministries (aside from a LOT of Messianic BS from unrelated organizations of the same name). So good news–this isn’t a Messianic. Bad news, it also seems to have a shaky basis in actual Jewish practice at best. It is run by artist Reena Katz, aka Radiodress, whose MKV ritual is, like “Gay Bathhouse,” a performance project. As you can see from the pictures on Radiodress’s website (cw for non-sexual nudity and mention of bodily fluids), it is done in a clearly portable tub in a gallery. As part of the process, participants are invited to “add any material from their body,” including “spit, urine, ejaculate, menstrual blood,” “any medication, any hormones they might be taking,” and supplies Radiodress offers including something called “Malakh Shmundie,” “a healing tincture that translates to “angel pussy” made by performance artist Nomy Lamm” (quotes from “An Artist’s Ritual Bath for Trans and Queer Communities” by Caoimhe Morgan-Feir). The bath is also filled by hand, which is very much not in line with halacha. Which, if you’re doing performance art, is fine.

But this Guide is ostensibly for authentic Jewish religious practice.

And with that (aside from the acknowledgements, which I don’t feel the need to analyze), we are done. At last.

Thank you for reading this monster of a post. If you have made it this far, you and I are now Family. Grab a snack on your way out, you deserve it.

Further Reading and Resources:

https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/risingtide/members/

https://www.mikvah.org/directory

https://www.mayyimhayyim.org/

http://www.immersenyc.org/

https://aish.com/what-is-a-mikveh/

https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1541/jewish/The-Mikvah.htm

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1230791/jewish/Immersion-of-Vessels-Tevilat-Keilim.htm

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/why-immerse-in-the-mikveh/

Meth, Rabbi Ephraim. 50 Mikvahs That Shaped History. Feldheim Publishers, 2023.

[arabianbaby53]

TEAM DELUSIONAL MASTER POST

I've noticed that a lot of information about Bethyl has been lost over time, so I’ve decided to gather everything I could find and compile it into one comprehensive mega dump of content.

We’re diving deep into fan theories, lost footage, rare screenshots, behind-the-scenes interviews the whole nine yards. So grab a seat, because this is gonna be one long-ass post.

MAIN POINTS ================================

was Beth and Daryl’s relationship romantic?

Beth is alive and how we know (cut footage ect.)

17 days theory

How Beth could've survived the gunshot wound

parallels and references.

CREDIT'S ===============================

Note: Some sources I won’t be able to link directly since a lot of this comes from deep dives into the Wayback Machine, but I’ll credit where I can. I’ll also keep updating and editing this as I uncover more info. If you'd prefer your info not be included in this post, just send me a DM—I'm happy to take your part down! Also one more thing a ton of this information has been stored on the youtube channel @TWDMusicBoxMystery so please check out her videos whenever you get the chance

Most of this information was originally gathered by @bethgreeneishopeunseen. Their account is currently locked, and I’m only sharing this to preserve the content in case they don’t return. Once the account is public again, I’ll take this thread down—I just don’t want to risk losing any of this valuable info in the meantime. P.S. @bethgreeneishopeunseen — KWEEN, PLEASE COME BACK!! We miss you and love you <3 You’ve gathered so much more than this thread could ever hope to cover. But if you’re not planning to return… bb please DM me the password so I can help archive everything properly. </3

================ Let’s start simple: was Beth and Daryl’s relationship romantic from the beginning? The short answer is yes. ================

the oringal episode summary for Alone, before it was changed due to backlash

Daryl and Beth's character bio's before they were changed

Norman responding to reddit post's two weeks after Coda aired

Cast and crew

Emily’s thoughts on Beth and Daryl’s changing relationship after Still (March 2014) “I do feel like now, after [Still], that Beth and Daryl know each other on a much deeper level, in an intimate way. I don’t think they feel alone the way they did before.”

Emily agrees with an interviewer at WSC on romantic feelings (March 2014): “So in this last episode, you were asking Daryl ‘how do you know there’s— you still think there’s good people out there? Why?’ And then you had a realization. Was it that he knew because of Beth? Do you know what I’m saying?” Emily Kinney: Yeah, I think she realized how much he cares about her.

“I don’t know, my theory is— I definitely think Beth was having a ro— felt romantically inclined towards Daryl. That’s the way it came across to me, at least.”  Emily Kinney: Yeah, I think there’s realizing that there’s something else there.”

Greg Nicotero’s thoughts on Alone at SDCC 2014: When they pitched Season 4, they were talking about when the prison goes down and having Daryl and Beth be bunkered together. And it’s interesting because I get to see all the cuts and I see all the edits from the director’s cuts onward. And I loved the scene in the kitchen when they’re talking, and I got the sense that Daryl was starting to kind of fall in love with Beth a little.”

Emily’s thoughts on Bethyl for Insider October 2014: “Last year, I definitely felt like there was a really special connection between Daryl and Beth that happened. My take on it was that there was a very deep growing connection that could become something more romantic or could become just … you know that was my personal understanding of it. I do feel like Beth has opened up to Daryl in a way that she hasn’t with other people and I do feel like Beth has never been really in love even though you’ve seen her with the two different boyfriends. I don’t think she’s ever been like, ‘grownup in love’ in the way that you feel like someone actually understands you and in sort of that special intimate way. And I do feel like she’s been closer to that with Daryl then with anyone else.”

Emily wrote a song from Beth’s POV for alone called Last Chance, and it’s a love song with sexual overtones. lyrics

You've got bad dreams from the broken wedding rings That you keep under your pillow while you sleep And there's open spaces, blank faces When you search for answers on the street

[Pre-Chorus] Oh, there's no one left to call Nothin' much to say Pretty sure the world is gonna end today Drink up one last whiskey, head to the dance Baby, this is our last chance Baby, this is our last chance

[Chorus] So gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha got tonight Packin' cigarettes Baby, I'm your light Gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha can I'm the last pretty girl You're the last decent man

[Verse 2] I've got broken heart pieces swimming in my bed Broken conversations floatin' in my head A let down little mermaid trying to find air at the top Pretty sure this spinning world's about to stop So I cover up in glitter, head to the dance Baby, this is our last chance Baby, this is our last chance

[Chorus] So gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha got tonight Packin' cigarettes Baby, I'm your light Gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha can I'm the last pretty girl You're the last decent man

[Verse 3] When the world is on fire But your heart is on ice It's hard to know what's wrong and what's right But if you wanna feel your blood burn, get to the floor Scream to God, "I want it more!" More hurricanes, snow storm, rain in my face More midnights drunk and dizzy dancin' at your place A life of fame and fortune and the star of some show Now it's almost over, almost time to go, oh, go, oh, go oh, go, oh oh, oh…

[Chorus] So gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha got tonight Packin' cigarettes Baby, I'm your light Gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha can Baby, this is our last chance Baby, this is our last chance

[Verse 3] When the world is on fire But your heart is on ice It's hard to know what's wrong and what's right But if you wanna feel your blood burn, get to the floor Scream to God, "I want it more!" More hurricanes, snow storm, rain in my face More midnights drunk and dizzy dancin' at your place A life of fame and fortune and the star of some show Now it's almost over, almost time to go, oh, go, oh, go oh, go, oh oh, oh…

[Chorus] So gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha got tonight Packin' cigarettes Baby, I'm your light Gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha, gimme whatcha can Baby, this is our last chance Baby, this is our last chance

While filming Still, Norman listened to Very Nervous and Love by J. Mascis for Daryl’s character and even pitched for the episode’s closing song.

“Beth realizes Daryl has feelings for her.” - AMC

“Okay, so they’re kind of together.” - Emily Kinney

“I’m enjoying, as an audience member, watching this..happen. - Lauren Cohan “I got the sense that Daryl was starting to fall in love with Beth a little bit.” - Greg N.

“I would say that Daryl has already found familial love. If you’re talking romantic love, I’m going to say, ‘I think so.’” - Scott Gimple

“Daryl implies that he has feelings for her.” - AMC

Media

credit to @emsee22 link to post x

30 Days Without An Accident 4x1, Daryl's "It's a damn romance novel" comment. Sure, can be played off like teasing, a little bit of jealousy. But the point is, he notices Beth's relationship with Zach. And for some reason cares enough to comment on it.

30 Days Without An Accident 4x1, the hug. Not just that there was a hug, but that they didn't end the scene with the hug. They ended the scene with Beth's sleeve falling off her shoulder and show her putting it back on, and end with their eye contact after that. If this was meant to be brother/sister, or platonic, vibes then why emphasize an erogenous zone like that? That would be creepy. The writers intended it to be romantic.

I don't find Still 4x12 to be a romantic episode, necessarily. I think that one is just building on their intimacy as friends. I do appreciate their openness with each other on the porch and there are elements of that conversation that I view as romantic (namely, Daryl's expression and nervous fiddling with the knife). However, I can understand how people view their pairing as platonic if they only base that view on this episode.

Alone 4x13 is where they really start hammering in the romance. For starters, Daryl's reaction to Beth stepping in the bear trap. Yes, of course you can say he just didn't want her to get eaten by the walker, but compare how he gets down to the ground with her, rubs her foot, and gives her his body for support - even giving her a piggyback ride - to Carol's foot cramp in 10x18 Find Me. He first eliminates the threat, then he checks on her and shows genuine concern for her injury, and offers her physical support. Daryl loves Carol, she's his best friend, but in Find Me, he just teases her and tells her that she shouldn't have come along.

Alone 4x13 when Beth stops to look at the "Beloved Father" grave, Daryl compassionately picks some flowers and lays it on top of the grave for her, to commemorate Herschel. That is not inherently romantic. He also compassionately gave Carol a Cherokee Rose when she lost Sophia. I just think it is sweet. In the same scene, Beth and Daryl hold hands (admittedly, a little awkwardly, but that is primarily on Daryl) and Beth puts her head on his shoulder.

Alone 4x13 when they are looking at the bodies that are made to look very human (although they're walkers) and Beth argues back at Daryl's joke about dolls with why it's beautiful. She looks at him and asks "Don't you think that's beautiful" and all he does is pensively stare back at her. It's a romantic cliche and the pause with the intense eye contact seems to imply that his thoughts are that she is beautiful. At the very least, he sees something in the way she thinks about the world that is beautiful.

Alone 4x13 Daryl breaks his silence thinking about telling Beth that she's beautiful with the shiptease after action patch-up tv trope with "C'mon, let's get you patched up." She sits on the table and he wraps her foot up from the bear trap.

Alone 4x13 how he watches her sing in the doorway, and then how he pushes her buttons about the music "Well there ain't no jukebox, so... keep singing"

Alone 4x13 the bridal carry romance trope into the kitchen for the cute little redneck dinner Daryl set up for Beth. Plus his excitement to show it to her, hence the "I'm going as fast as I can" before he picks up her heard outside the doorway.

Alone 4x13 dinner conversation about what changed Daryl's mind about there still being good people. Beth changed his mind. If it wasn't romantic, why couldn't he just say "you're gave me hope / you showed me there are still good people." But the teasing, the repeated asking, the smile and eye contact, the nervousness from Daryl and then the self-realizing "oh" that is more like a romantic confession than anything else. Plus the fact that the confession is interrupted, another TV trope in romance. Plus the fact that in Alone, Daryl & Beth are foils to Sasha & Bob - who we know for a fact were canon. Difference is Sasha & Bob are reunited by the end of Alone, while Beth & Daryl are separated.

Alone 4x13 he chased after her for hours, from night to day.

Alone 4x13 he was ready to kill Len for disrespecting her "Some bitch must have got you all worked up" "You lost yourself a piece of tail" "I bet it was a little one too, they don't last long out here." If Joe didn't stop the knife, I bet Daryl would have ended Len a whole lot sooner.

In 5x8 Coda, when she starts rushing back to Dawn, to say goodbye to Noah, Daryl tries to stop her.

Coda 5x8 he cries over her body

Coda 5x8 he bridal carries her body out of the hospital, sobbing

Them 5x10 he shuts down with the group. Carol knows there is more to his sadness and she is trying to understand it. She assumes Beth saved him (she did, in a way). Rick knows that Daryl lost something deeper than a friend, hence "I know you lost something back there"

================ Beth is alive, cut footage ect. ================

most of this information was posted by a locked account. i've gathered this from the wayback machine and copy and pasted it credit: @bethgreeneishopeunseen

Emily filmed throughout all of season 5, and almost none of that footage was shown onscreen or put on the DVDs as deleted scenes. In season 5, she was in 5x04, 5x07 (barely), 5x08, and 5x09 (minimally). Those episodes were filmed in early June, mid to late July, early August, and late August. She should have been finished with filming on August 29th, as that is when the bedroom scenes with TY were finished. Yet she was confirmed to have been filming from September into October.

And it isn't a few scenes. Depending how much was exactly filmed, that could be at least an episode or two worth of footage. As in bottle episodes that would explain Beth’s backstory. Here is a breakdown of the known missing spoilers:

the Rottweiler and white houses scenes (late May 2014)

included heavy security for “critical scenes”i

Included several actors, the show’s costume designer, and two major producers on the show

There were two white houses used during filming, located side by side. One was smaller, with visible burn marks on the door, while the other was a larger, plantation-style home. Both had “Do Not Mow” signs posted out front—an indicator they were active filming locations. At this point, The Spoiling Dead was highly active and well-informed, often tracking filming schedules and locations in real time. They filmed at the two properties throughout the day and that evening a white van was seen pulling right up to the steps, and Emily dressed as Beth was seen being rushed inside with two security guards. Lennie James dressed as season 5 Morgan was also photographed on set that night.

The van came to the house a second time, and afterwards Emily conveniently tweeted that she was at the movies, even though at least 15 different people saw her on set.

Now, the Rottweiler. The owner tweeted that his dog—a professionally trained acting dog—was scheduled to film soon. A few days later, he confirmed that the dog had filmed two scenes.

This is referring to the filming that took place from May 23rd to May 24th. The Walking Dead Women, a TWD Facebook page, posted a picture on May 14th, and it first surfaced via Spoil the Dead on May 12th. The walking dead rarely features animals, especially dogs the dogs used in the episodes Them, were reportedly pets of the cast, not trained animal actors. So when a Rottweiler was brought in for filming, it signaled a scene that was more intense, complex, and expensive something that required extra time and budget.

It indicates that more was being filmed at the white houses than we saw; Emily could have filmed a few scenes throughout the week. The Rottweiler 100% filmed two scenes, that we haven't seen

“More News… This House been rented again as a filming location... North Hill Street 441, Griffin/Georgia. As rumors have it… Beth was seen around that location… also the house next to it… get used often for inside filming.” In March, Google Maps updated its view of Griffin Street, providing more detail on both properties.

Emily might have spent the first few weeks of filming working at the white houses/in studio of the white houses. That would be at least an episode or two of footage then unaccounted for, and that also does not include the rest of the missing unseen spoilers related to Emily/Beth. No TV show would cut more than a day’s worth of work and not even put it on the DVD. the next instance of cut footage was another filming location not far away where the spoiling dead said they had spotted Beth for a second.

Traffic was blocked off, and security was noted as being heavy. People who came to the site reported that Steven, Lauren, and Alanna were all filming there, and all three actors were photographed at the site. Alanna was even photographed in costume as Tara from 5x01/5x02 and mentioned in a tweet still being covered in dirt and sweat. More than one walker was also seen done up.

Steven, Lauren, and Alanna all came out to take pictures with fans, as well as the producers Denise Huth and Gale Anne Hurd. It takes about eight days to film one episode, so why would the show just scrap an entire day’s worth of work?

Especially since it contained very important scenes that were being filmed out of order, hence the costume designer (for costume continuity) and producers being on set.

Those filming instances are suspect alone. Yet we also have more throughout the whole season, that were consistent. Emily was shuttled in a white van through extreme measures and security was heavy.

Through The Walking Dead Women, I also discovered two more pictures of the Pritchard property tara was spotted at:

The second picture depicts a gate says ‘Beware of the Dog’ sign.

and the weirdness continues

Chase Vasser is a former college football player who became an actor a few years ago. According to his LinkedIn, he is still based in Georgia. In the month leading up to filming at the white houses, he tweeted about being on the show. When word spread, he later recanted and clarified that he was working on another show. Then, on May 17th, a week before filming, Gale Anne Hurd tweeted, “@NeverStop_CV: I will not be on the Walking Dead! #sorryfans" He was never cast on the show.

Beth in the backseat of a Grady car (early July 2014; 5x06 filming)

Beth driving a car out of the Grady hospital/Bethfoot 1 (mid July 2014)

included gunfire and heavy security

Explosions at Grady (late July 2014)

800 walkers for the MSF and the white church (early August 2014) i will go deeper into this when i breakdown the 17 days theory article here x

Don’t f**k with me zombies (August 28th, 2014; tweet implied she would be fighting with zombies. The picture she posted also appeared to have her in make-up with faded scars) Twice Emily referred to her stitches as scars: the Inside 5x04 video and on Slabtown’s TTD. By the time Slabtown’s TTD aired, Emily had known for months about Beth’s “death” as she filmed her death scene early in August and after the filming break, filmed her scenes for 5x09 on August 28th. bethgreenewarriorprincess and I have been discussing the unseen season 5 filming spoilers for a while now. Had she filmed her scenes ahead of time, she would have filmed with scars and not just stitches, which explains why Emily likely referred to them as such instead of cuts. In one of my filming spoilers post, fabledfangirl noticed that Emily appeared to have a faded version of her cheek scar Emily posted this picture on August 28th, 2014 (X) and captioned it, “Don’t f*ck with me today. #diezombies,” and many fans at the time believed it meant she was filming. While she did film the bedroom scenes at the that time, it would not explain the #diezombies because she was not involved with any. It suggests that she filmed more scenes than we saw that day.

if you flip the picture, the mark on her face is a perfect match for Beth’s stitching placement The tilt of the hat would also hide her two forehead scars, as the gash above her eyebrow is bigger and would need more coverage. The presence of scars also help to explain why no almost pictures of Emily surfaced during season 5 filming, especially at the easily-accesible make-up trailer. Faded scars proved scenes were filmed of her surviving.

Bethfoot 1 and 2 (November 17th/18th 2014) picture of Emily in costume taken outside Grady. The picture was taken early in the morning on July 15th, 2014, and it showed Beth in clothes that weren’t her hospital scrubs. (It’s debated whether her shirt is plaid or her season 4 sweater) @sparks-of-greene a long time ago noticed the audio cart that @circled in red, pointing out that such equipment wouldn’t be moved around much, indicating that Emily was outside filming. Now, spoilers prove that Coda was filmed in early August, and that the devastating courtyard scene was filmed on August 6th. That was the only time we saw Emily outside in Beth’s season 4 costume. Whatever this picture is, it’s for something else, as in more filming.

I went back through the comments on the Facebook post with the Bethfoot picture. The woman who took the picture noticed that security was very heavy at the time:

now were at the famous sighting of Beth being spotted in Alexandria or Bethfoot 2 Emily had no reason to be at Alexandria dressed as Beth, WHEN SHE NEVER MADE IT TO THE SAFE ZONE. It was also during filming for the season finale. Emily would have been finished filming for months by that point.

instagram post Emily made and the photo of her on set we had pictures of her in normans trailer, we also had one after she was done filing with a white van outside second picture has been lost. if anyone has it please send it to me

To assume that Emily isn’t filming because she hasn’t been seen on set is a poor assumption to make. The show can hide people if it wants to, such as the actors present in Tyreese’s hallucination never being known, or Lennie James in season 5. Emily could easily have filmed in a studio or remote woodsy location during seasons 5 and 6. Season 7 filming will always be under heavy security until after the premiere, because of the finale death being a secret. There are reports already of people being arrested and filming in the studio. It would not be that difficult to sneak Emily in as well, since she’d be hidden anyway.

================

17 DAYS THEORY

================

credit @dynamicsymmetry link to post x

Here’s what we know: Beth was shot in the head. Daryl carried her outside. The last time we see her (in non-hallucination form) is in that final iconic shot of Coda.

Then in 5x09, it’s a good while later and they’re in Virginia.

The first important thing to note is that we don’t know what happened right after Coda. In 5x10 it’s established that roughly three weeks have passed since the group left Atlanta, and we know almost nothing about what happened during those three weeks. We don’t know what led to them leaving Atlanta.

We also never actually see a funeral for Beth - which is significant, because on this show pretty much everyone who’s at all a major character gets some kind of funeral/farewell. More often than not you see a cross. It’s not something that holds true in every case, there are exceptions, but those exceptions are highly situational (see: Hershel, who still got a memorial when Daryl placed the flowers on the tombstone), and in those cases we still get at least some sense of what happened to their bodies. There is - because of those things - a sense of narrative closure. It’s how this show says goodbye to people who matter. Because this show believes that goodbyes themselves matter.

We never actually saw Beth’s funeral. We have no idea what form it took, where it was, whether or not she got a cross, how people said their farewells - we got none of that. Plenty of people insist that it doesn’t matter, and there’s certainly a possibility that they’re right, just like there’s certainly a possibility that TD is wrong, but I look at the writing on the show as a whole, and what I see is that funerals are a major thematic element and have been from the very beginning, where Glenn insists that they bury their dead instead of burning them.

We saw a huge amount of Tyreese’s funeral. We never saw one second of Beth’s. Not one second. Plus if you look closely there is only one grave so it wasn't a joint funeral like some believe.

This is all to say that the lack of any on-screen funeral, while not conclusive of anything, is very strange. It is not at all in line with how this show handles death, especially not death as narratively important as Beth’s was.

The fact that we saw no funeral at all is enough - in my mind, in conjunction with a number of other things - to cast doubt on whether she had one. Because in writing like this, when something that’s almost always shown is not shown, that often (not always) indicates that it’s being purposefully obscured. Which… Why? Why would they do that?

Okay, so if she never got a funeral, what happened to her body?

This is where we grab a lot of hinty bits from a lot of places and piece them all together into something that’s admittedly messy but to my mind holds up well enough given what we have to work with. I certainly think it’s defensible as a plausibility, though obviously it’s nothing anyone can prove and I don’t think anyone would claim to be able to do so.

Beth was taken from the funeral home (probably) in the trunk of a car. Prior to that - in “Still”, the episode that really kicks off her and Daryl’s relationship (whatever you believe the nature of that relationship to be) - she shelters with Daryl in the trunk of a car in a very tense and meaningful cold open. So we already have something of an established Car Thing with this girl.

In the final shot of Coda, there’s a black car with a white cross on it in the lower left foreground - not the center of the shot, but quite noticeable, the only vehicle nearby aside from the fire engine, and we’ve been told repeatedly that nothing onscreen in this show is wasted (likely hyperbole but I’ll assume that it’s at least mostly true).

In 5x09, we see two strange and potentially very suggestive things. We see multiple shots of a (probably) female walker in a car - a walker whose face is obscured and who appears to possibly have a ponytail or something along those lines. Tyreese sees this and appears moved by it - even disturbed. The fact that we’re shown it more than once tells me that we’re meant to notice it; it’s not there for no reason. Secondly, we’re shown multiple shaky, blurry shots of the group sprinting for the vehicles we see them in later, waving guns around; they’re clearly in a state of distress, running from something. Which indicates that however they left Atlanta, it’s entirely possible that they had to leave very quickly.

Then in 5x10, the group comes upon the cars abandoned in the middle of the road.

Two things happen here that are big for me. First, there’s the (blond, blue-eyed) walker that Maggie finds locked in the trunk of the car. This appears to disturb her deeply - far more than I would expect even for something so awful, because remember that these are hardened people who have been through some real shit, and I think it’s strange that she would have such a strong reaction if there wasn’t something else going on. Plus her discomfort with the car doesn’t begin with her seeing the walker. She doesn’t even want to open the trunk at all. She’s reluctant. Then she sees the walker and she almost falls apart. Glenn has to take care of it for her.

Then there’s Daryl.

Watch Daryl when they first see the cars. There’s a tight close-up of his face, which you don’t have unless a character is feeling something significant. And in his way, Daryl appears to be just as disturbed as Maggie - if not more. He immediately announces that he’ll head off into the woods and circle round, and he doesn’t offer a reason. He just goes. At a point at which there’s every possibility that they might be about to find some life-saving supplies.

No one in the group finds either of these reactions odd. Glenn seems to implicitly understand what’s going on. He never asks Maggie what’s wrong. He just does what he has to do. Carol offers to go with Daryl; earlier in the episode he leaves the group and she says she’s going along, and when he balks she insists on coming with him. This time she offers and he says no, and she backs off immediately and never questions his reasoning. She never asks him for a reason at all.

All of this suggests that between the end of 5x08 and the beginning of 5x09, something upsetting happened that had to do with cars. And whatever it was, it seems to be primarily upsetting to the three people who had the most reason to be upset about Beth’s death: Daryl (obviously), Maggie (obviously), and Tyreese, who was feeling profoundly guilty about his plan working out the way it did when all he ever wanted to do was keep people from getting hurt.

Then we get to the infamous 800 walker extras that both the showrunner and the makeup director talked about for Season 5. That footage? Never saw the light of day. Which is extremely weird. The amount of money, time, and coordination it would’ve taken to pull that off means there’s no way it just got casually scrapped. Especially when you consider they included one- and two-minute throwaway dialogue scenes in Coda on the dvd. If something that massive was filmed, it would’ve absolutely shown up in the deleted scenes or bonus features—unless it was being hidden for a reason.

And that leads us into another case of vanished footage. The Spoiling Dead Fans discovered another filming location—a white church—but they couldn’t get a good look because the entire area was blocked off, with walls put up to hide everything going on inside. That kind of secrecy means whatever they were filming there was important. Even more suspicious? Glenn and Daryl’s actors once posted a photo on Instagram in front of a white church. That post has since disappeared.

And now here’s where things get really strange: in the TAPP trading cards for The Walking Dead, Daryl’s Season 5 card actually mentions Beth getting a proper burial… at a church. I mean—what?! When the hell did that happen? We never saw a burial. We never even got a proper scene acknowledging it. But now we’ve got leaks and official merchandise suggesting they did film it… and then poof gone.

Taken all together, here’s the very rough theory: After the group flees from Grady and Atlanta, they try to find a place to bury Beth. Along the road to Virginia, they come across a small white church and decide it’s the perfect spot for a burial. But something goes wrong A massive herd aka the 800 walker extras we were told were filmed for Season 5—shows up, forcing the group to abandon the church before they can bury her.

In the chaos, they place Beth’s body in a vacant vehicle, using it as a kind of temporary mausoleum with the intent to return and bury her properly. Since she was shot in the head, no one checks for a pulse. They assume she’s dead and has no risk of turning. But when they eventually return… the car is empty.

This would explain the moment where we see Maggie sobbing in front of an open car door, It also gives new weight to the recurring vehicle symbolism around Beth—why cars seem to trigger such intense reactions in certain characters.

We don’t know if Beth turned, or if she was saved. Personally, I like the idea that Morgan found her. There are photos of him and Emily Kinney (Beth) filming together at the two small white houses— that supports this theory.

And if this theory is true, it also explains why Maggie and Daryl didn’t go with Rick, Glenn, Michonne, and Tyreese to Noah’s community. They were out searching for Beth’s body. Offscreen. there's a scene later next season, that supports this when Daryl and Aaron are out scouting for new people. They come across a blonde female walker tied to a tree, and for some reason, Daryl checks her face. Why? Maybe he thought—just maybe—it was Beth. because they never got to actually bury her.

============== how Beth could've survived the gunshot wound ==============

credit: @v0id-bellarke link to post x

 this isn’t a theory really, but this is a post using medical knowledge proving that Beth can survive her head shot. I’m in college at the moment to get my pre recs done for EMT/Paramedic. And I’m in a program where we have free Paramedic training that the Paramedic company offers, and I’ve been with the program going on a year this coming summer. So I’ve retained a lot of knowledge the past year.

Remember when Dr.Edwards told Beth when she woke up from her coma ” You fractured your wrist, and sustained a superficial head wound" 

For those who don’t know what a superficial head wound is, its a survivable injury located in your skull  or the brain. And it can vary in any kind of injury. I think that was the biggest foreshadowing that Beth survives her head shot. I’ve seen other amazing theories getting into awesome detail, but we just gotta look at the obvious sometimes to see what’s going on. I analyzed her head shot, and it is survivable. 

^^^First lets look at her entry and exit wound. By the looks of it she was shot by a 9mm pistol. Her entry wound in located off center to left and is probably the size of a nickle. And then her exit wound is probably the width of two quarters. That’s not big at. It does look bigger than it actually is because the blood around wound in her hair. And there is barely any brain matter coming out. Mostly blood.

Ok, so I had a use a different picture of her getting shot so I could get a better view of it. Her entry wound starts in the frontal lobe, and follows through in the parietal lobe and exits there. Yes, this is survivable. The thing that kill us if we get shot is if the bullet penetrates the brain stem. Which controls all your vitals, swallowing, sleep, nervous system, temperature, sense of balance. Many people who attempted suicide and shot themselves in the head have survived, because the bullet did not penetrate their brain stem. I will get into how her head wound will effect her in a minute.

I drew you guys a chart to show you the general idea where her brain parts are located. Sorry for the crappy drawing, and its more than likely a little off. But this is just for you get an understanding I want you to feel the back of your head. Do you feel that little dip on the nape of your head? That’s the area where your brain stem is. Now look at the picture of Beth. There is no way that it is possible that the bullet penetrated her brain stem, it is physically impossible by the looks of it. The bullet exit wound is even right above where her pony tail hair tie is. Your brain stem in not located that high up.

So you see where she was shot was in the Frontal Lobe and Parietal Lobe. Based on where she was shot, is survivable but she will have some brain damage. Usually after getting shot in this area you will be a temporary coma, how long it is depends on how bad the shot was, the person, etc. But if she wakes up, it looks like she’s going to have speech problems, lacking sensation in touch so she will have trouble identifying different textures, minor blindness ( won’t be able to see long distances ), emotional issues, and academic problems. So she’ll probably have problems reading, speaking articulately, basic math skills. 

Side Note: This would make sense with Beth’s possible speech impairment, on Morgan’s wall No Killed.In.Action on BEF. Beth and BEF do sound similar. So this may be the way she pronounces her name and makes sense of it.  

My mother is also a Nurse and she has said based on where she was shot, it is survivable. And I hate how I couldn’t find a picture of gif of Beth’s arm shot when she dies and she has a pool of blood around her arm. Ya’ll know what I’m talking about. But anyways, based on memory, her bleeding was very slow, trickling and dark. If her wound was fatal is would be an artery bleed. Which is large amounts of bright red blood bleeding out of you so fast it looks like a sprinkler. Also, I noticed when Daryl was carrying her outside to Maggie, he blood stopped. This is a good sign. Because that means her body functions are still working and her blood clotted to stop the bleeding. If she was really dead, the blood would still be pouring out, drenching her hair, getting all over Daryl’s arms.

So a medical perspective her head shot is survivable. Unfortunately we don’t know how long she’ll be unconscious, and she’ll have brain damage.

credit @twdmusicboxmystery link to post x

gunshot wounds: ear to ear - FATAL. Upwards through chin - 95% FATAL.  Directly between eyes: FATAL. 

He also said the most survivable gunshot wounds were those high up on the forehead, because often they did not even enter the brain at all. 

Also, I am a resident of Tucson, AZ, where Congress woman Gabrielle Giffords was shot on January 8, 2011 while speaking to a group of her constituents in a grocery store parking lot - this happened about 2 miles from my home. “Gabby” Giffords was shot from approx 3 ft away in the back of the head and the bullet exited out the front of her forehead, the opposite of Beth’s gunshot wound.  Gabby Giffords is still very much alive today and still an active political lobbyist. I will include two links - the first is to a YouTube interview from about 3 years after the accident. At about 3:50, her husband, astronaut  Mark Kelly, explains that Gabby has aphasia, which is a difficulty at times processing language and thoughts into words and is very common in brain injuries to the upper left side. another really good post by @apocalypse-married link x

parallels and references I cannot add anymore images to this thread, so i will be making a second post here in a few days and ill add the link here so its easy to find :) credit's

@twdmusicboxmystery link to post x link to youtube x

@v0id-bellarke link to post x

credit @dynamicsymmetry link to post x

wayback machine copy and pasted credit: @bethgreeneishopeunseen

@emsee22 link to post x

@apocalypse-married link x

If anyone would like their content or information removed, please don’t hesitate to let me know. My goal with this compilation is simply to archive everything in one place so it can be easily accessed by fellow Bethyl shippers—and maybe even help others understand where Team Delusional was really coming from.

That said, the last thing I want to do is upset or take away from any of the original creators. PLEASE go like and support the original posts—everyone involved is incredibly talented and deserves full credit for their work.

If you have anything you'd like added to the archive, feel free to message me! I'd love to include it.

[cabinseventheaterchick]

“Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up.”

—Jesse Jackson

Portrait done by the incredibly talented @oceans-corals-and-poisons

Please, if you'd like to interact with me, use at least two sentences. This isn't a super strict rule and I absolutely understand that less is more in some scenarios, but I like to have something to play off of, and this way we can keep the roleplay fun!

Kat if she had a Wikipedia page (her lore summarized)

Oh, hey! Didn’t see you see there. I’m Kat Carter!

Okay, let's go! I'm sixteen, a daughter of Apollo, and I'm currently at Camp Half-Blood with my homies <3

When I’m not at camp, NYC is my home base. You can probably find me in Apollo cabin: practicing songs for the campfire, playing matchmaker (it’s not just for Aphrodite kids!), or staging a kitchen coup d’état so I can bake something delicious.

Shoot me an ask, camp can get kinda boring!

he gets his own category:

@ellis--wakefield — my boyfriend <333

he’s really cute and he’s great at capture the flag and he’s nice to the newbies and damn he’s just idk how to even describe him ‘cause words cannot

Former… um… let’s just say people I used to know:

@lukemessedup — Good boss, bad business

@lieutenant-of-kronos — I regret letting him convince me to join up but he’s a nice guy.

@alabaster-c-t — Yep. You read that right. Bro is apparently not dead, nor has ever been.

@the-song-of-the-moon — We’re starting an ex-Titan Army therapy group together :3

Uncle Kronos (links to the Wayback Machine of the first version) — Literally cannot believe I wrote this. Uncle Kronos was a good person. I think I’ll always miss him, but I’m glad he found peace. Here’s to you, Uncle K.

@existence-is-pain-ahhhhhhhh — need I say more? He’s awesome. Case closed.

@the-better-castellan — new addition to the List Of People Who Aren’t Dead After All! They’re cool trust me

@peyton-is-cool — I missed him loads. Thank the gods he’s safe—he’s been in Texas? I guess?

Totally irresponsible pseudo-father to half of CHB (he does actually care about campers but he’s got a reputation to uphold):

@dionysus-god-of-all-things-wine

My fellow campers, love y’all:

@thanatoss-favorite-demigod — best murder road trip buddy a gal could ask for

@thehadescabincounsler — I’ve adopted them into Apollo cabin. They’re now officially an honorary child of the Sun Dude.

@thatonebitheaterkid — my sibling. too many pets (affectionate)

@that-dam-daughter-of-poseidon — my absolute bestie <3

@poseidons-favourite-daughter — training together ⚔️! She’s so sweet and a year rounder so I won’t be alone come fall

@yes-im-a-daughter-of-hades — she just got back from Tartarus, so you know what that means!… binge watching everything pop culture. Phineas and Ferb say what?

@lady-ariadne-of-milan — my coolest big sister. Be nice, she’s been trapped as a flower since, like, the Renaissance.

@bill-son-of-boreas — Ayyy! My Norwegian bestie!

@internal-bloodshed — I’m like ninety percent sure he wants me dead. If I step a toe out of line and hurt Ellis, my body will apparently never be found.

@the-better-stoll-brother — If anyone messes with him one more time I’m throwing hands.

(Psst. My general tag is #kat carter on the case, and my lore tag is #from the archives of kat carter)

(Extra psst. Do you want more Kat Carter content without actually having to roleplay? Send me an ask by picking something from my tag #ask game!)

[shefightslikeagirl]

Updates!

THE JOURNAL ARCHIVES

After a year or two and a lot of copy/paste, I've finally migrated BTP's old journal archive to SFLAG. I'm still going to see if I can bully the wayback machine into giving me a few more of EA's journal entries, but for now, THE JOURNAL ARCHIVES ARE COMPLETE!

Complete as they'll ever be, anyway. Things have been lost to time.

Early 2000s (2001-2005)

Late 2000s (2006-2009)

The 2010s (2010-2019)

The 2020s (2020-Current)

NEWSLETTERS

I added some Wayback Machine links to the Newsletter pages. If you never delete your emails and have copies of newsletters, feel free to forward them to me at shefightslikeagirltumblr@gmail.com

Especially anything 2010 and before!

ART

The Art page has been updated with all of EA's AI Art Posts. I managed to save them all before she wiped her Instagram.

THE ASYLUM FOR WAYWARD VICTORIAN GIRLS

All pages in this section are complete--for now.

Release Timeline

Differences Between Editions

Standard Editions (English) 

International Editions

The Quest for the Spoon of the Royals

NEW PROJECTS

There are a few more masterposts I'd like to do, but the last big undertaking I'm working on is an [unofficial] EA Timeline. I've been writing one that's on a scrollable page, but it's incredibly slow-going. I'd also like to do a discography that can double as an "ultimate" EA Album Guide.

Masterposts in progress:

The Closing of the Asylum Forums

The Asylum Army Fanclub

After that, I'll attempt to finish up the Merch section. But anymore than that... I don't think it'll happen. I'm all tapped out on energy and interest. Unless EA comes back, that will probably be the end of the archive.

But, please, if you have anything that you see I'm missing, tell me in the inbox or send me an email! I'd love any help!

[cheylouwho]

Calling All South Park Fans: fandom history is in danger and we need YOUR help to save it!

The official South Park Studios forum is set to close in just a few weeks. This is a huge blow to the fanbase as it holds YEARS of important fan reactions pre and post air of each new episode, as early as season 9. There are episode threads with information from the moderators that contained original press release information that was changed during the episodes production, amazing fan theories that ended up coming true, and potentially with some digging, gems that could become lost media and myths when the website dies. Newer fans may not know just how important a resource like the forums has been for years of the fanbases existence, and is one of the oldest remaining websites that hold pre-2010 fandom interaction.

How can YOU help?

I am hosting, along with other members of the SPHS, a discord group with the aim to divide and conquer getting the website backed up as much as possible on the wayback machine. The process is super simple, though tedious, but if just a few people even contribute to dropping the links of one forum thread into the archive, it would help so much. If you have the time to spare, even just a little, please consider joining the group and helping us save this important piece of history!!

If you are unable to participate, please spread this around to whoever you can. Share it in your discord groups, on twitter, wherever. This is so important and I cannot stress enough the importance this holds for me and so many others if you contribute.

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

Apr 7th

~*~

1. Would have been Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian.

After the Sunshoot campaign and for some reason Wei Wuxian is in Cloud Recess and Lan Qiren discovers that they don’t have a core. But the lan clan had a technique to fix a lost core for others that had been attacked by others that could melt their core. @nikkiwhitecraft

I was the requester for #1.

I am sure that part of the story that Wei Wuxian and Lan Q had to travel, and that was when it was discovered that Wei Wuxian had no core, and Lan Q was annoyed he never said anything and the Lan Clan had a technique to restore a core that was lost/melted as the core melting clan was known.

Thats all I remeber

NOT FOUND Righteous at a Cost by thunderwear (G, 21k, wangxian, LQR & WWX, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, no one dies, LQR finds out about WWX’s core, WWX and LQR are friends??, In My Fic?, its more likely than you think, LWJ in the bg like whats happening?, Fluff, WWX goes to Gusu, Mutual Pining, Golden Core Reveal) Might be this? LQR discovers WWX lost his core, brings him back to CR & finds a way to restore it

~*~

2. Hey! Im looking for a fic where the jins got the tiger tally, and that they wanted to 'flood the world with vermillion light'. I remember that it was post-the first siege of the burial mounds, and WY was maybe dead? After which the other sects had to fight the Jins, and there was also something about the people wishing that WY was alive. Please help me find it! Thank you so much!

FOUND! I'm pretty sure this is the deleted "When the World Comes Crumbling Down, you Will Call my Name" by pft_a_Frog22. The archive link was https://archiveofourown.org/works/35867848.

the deleted fic for #2 can be found at the wayback machine here

~*~

3. Hi! I’m searching for a fiction on AO3 where Wei Wuxian is a Rogue cultivator, he founds Lan Wangji floating in a river/lake and saves him. Wangji don’t remember anything due to the trauma he has suffered and his core is damaged altogether. He had a severe injury on his back but when he recovers he starts to travel with Wei Wuxian, not knowing his brother is searching for him. Because of his poor health issues he breakdown with a fever in the middle of a hunt, far from everything, during this time Lan Wangji loses consciousness, Wei Ying is visited by a strange fox spirit, really creepy whom he made a pact with to save Lan Wangji life's. In the history, Wei Ying has an uncle that reach both of them to advise something, Lan Wangji discorver to be a really powerfull fox spirit, i think they call him Huxia or something like this, Wei Ying "dies" by the venom of a fierce corpse (most like become one of them) and is ressurected by the Jade Emperor himself, the Demon subdue palace is actually a palace and Wangji's mother was the previous Huxia.

I’m going crazy cuz I remember ALL the history, but not the name of the fiction.

I appreciate the help with all my little heart. ❤️ @myukisora

~*~

4. Hi, could you please help me find a wangxian fic? I apologize for the inconvenience, especially because i don’t remember much of the plot except select few parts of it and i dont remember if it was a thread on twitter or on ao3.

The scenes i do remember are as followed: Prior to this scene, wangxian might have had an argument or were avoiding each other because i dont think they had spoken to each other in a while. The scene i remember is WWX going to JYL’s place where everyone is gathered for a get together, wwx dotes over JL, going on about how he’s the favorite uncle. When he enters the living room, he sees LWJ on the couch, and sitting next to him is JZX half brother MXY talking to him. He thinks they are sitting a little too close and he gets a bit jealous but doesn’t say anything. I’m not sure if I remember it right, but i think people or mainly nhs kept saying how MXY resembles WWX, worsening the situation. Wangxian and their whole eye contact happens and everyone in the room is tense because of their interaction or lack their of. WWX suddenly goes to the bathroom, leaning into the sink…waiting and LWJ follows him in. They end up reconciling.

Thats all I remember, I know its not much, and i have been struggling as well because of it going through my bookmarks on ao3 and twitter. I’m hoping someone remembers this part as well and can mention the fic. Thank you!

Hi, the fic you mentioned is not the one :/ i am so sorry for the inconvenience. I can try adding more context. It’s the fic about WWX entering JYL’s party at her place and finding LWJ sitting on a couch with MXY. The scene is towards the very end so MXY’s presence is more of a cameo, he wasn’t present for the fic. WX might have a fwb situation that went wrong or it might be a lwj fucks fic. Lwj follows wwx to the br, its tense as wwx stares at him through the mirror but they both make up

NOT FOUND Talk Hard by DeviyudeThoolika (E, 161k, wangxian, LXC/JYL, JZX/WQ, JC/MM, Modern, College/University, Roommates/Housemates, rare pairs galore, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Separations, Getting Back Together, BAMF WWX, Drunk LWJ, Protective WWX, Good Parent YZY, Mutual Pining, Fluff, Cultivation Sect Politics, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Angst with a Happy Ending)

~*~

5. Hi,

I’m trying to find a fanfic where instead of Jin Zixuan dying to Wen Ning at the pass it was Wei wuxian who pushed him out of the way and died instead? I’ve been trying for ages and still can find it. Thank you!

neither of these are exactly what you described, but it might be

NOT FOUND! A Butterfly Flaps, A Sword Stabs by RadAceFriend (T, 37k, JZX/JYL, JZX & WWX, JZX & LWJ, JZX & JGY, JZX & JL, Major Characted Death, JZX Lives, WWX does not, background wangxian, Not Jiang Family Friendly, Sect Leader JZX, POV JZX, Canon Divergence, the horrifying experience of killing someone you didn't like much, and finding out that you're one of the only people you know upset about it, Wen Remnants Live, LSZ is a Wen, WangXian Get a Happy Ending)

NOT FOUND! in this place where we don’t have a prayer by Cerusee, Mikkeneko (T, 42k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, WWX dies at Qiongqi path, Demonic Cultivation)

FOUND! finding you always, all ways by BlueFrogs (T, 31k, WangXian, ChengQing, Reincarnation, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Romance, Memory Loss, technically there is character death, but he comes back lol, Age Difference, due to reincarnation)

~*~

6. Hi, hope you are having a great day! Could you, please, help find a fic, which, I think, had a wangxian arranged marriage due to growing Wen threat, but honestly cannot remember the exact premise. But there was a scene where wrh manages to get wq married to lwj as a second wife, and wwx felt like he failed the Jiang-Lan alliance. And there was a big confrontation between wq and wwx, where she tells him the reason for the marriage was to save her family. And lwj might have been ill or cursed and wearing a mask (not sure).

FOUND? The deleted "A Price to Pay" by wangxianist.

~*~

7. Looking for help finding the name of this fic on ao3 I’m have trouble hunting it back down. Burial mounds settlement days canon divergence.

Essentially the premise is that the people living in Yiling often see Wei Ying taking care of and teaching A-Yuan by the river and a woman one day who was also there to wash her clothes asked him to look after her son while she was busy. This snowballed into Wei Ying basically running a little informal school out of Yiling where he teaches and just looks after any child that is brought there, including orphans and prostitute’s children which is kinda illegal. Lan Zhan knows and regularly visits. If the children show aptitude for cultivation they usually get sent to the Lan or (later in the story) the Jiang. The rest of the Wens kinda accidentally become a part of the Yiling community so much so that they all move out of the burial mounds and into the town proper. Because they’ve all left the mounds and disconnected pretty hard from the cultivation community they don’t even realize that the Jin’s sent people to attack the mounds. They found no one and declared to the world that they had slayed the rest of the wen dogs alongside Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng only finds out his brother is alive because he’s been informed that a small school in the Jiang territory hasn’t been paying taxes and when he goes to investigate finds Wei Ying safe and sound. @coffeehousefanfics

FOUND? Just as the Snow Melts by draechaeli (T, 66k, wangxian, JYL/JZX, SL/XXC, Everybody Lives AU, Canon Divergence)

~*~

8. Hello, could you please help me find a fic where Lan Zhan finds a number to call Wei Ying which Help? to people at night and calls himself patriarch yilin afterwards They (wei Ying and lan Zhan) meet in the university library

FOUND? Maybe You’re the Reason by Clearpearls (E, 67k, WangXian, Modern AU, College/University, Phone Sex, slight D/s, Secret Identity, Praise Kink, Phone Sex Operator WWX, he’s part-time though, slight internalized sexual repression, Fluff, Light Angst, Dirty Talk Orgasm Delay/Denial, Slow Burn, Sub LWJ, Bottom LWJ, Vibrators, Aftercare, Introspection)

~*~

9. There's an au where Wangxian are like murder husbands and it has very dark themes. It's a series but I remember one of the fics in it had a scene where a woman tries to get their attention so the other cuts off her body parts or something like that? Would you be able to help me find it?

FOUND? So Full Of Love (Wouldn't Know Where to Start) by witchupbitch (M, 63k, wangxian, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Possessive LWJ, Protective LWJ, Blood and Violence, Killing, Idiots in Love, Humor, Mafia AU, Modern, Flirting, shameless WWX, Confident WWX, Explicit Language, Swearing, Mutual Sexual Tension, dark LWJ, Dark WWX, They're both twisted, Exhibitionism, Sex, Possessive Behavior, Unhealthy Relationships, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings)

~*~

10. Hey!!! Love your work!

Do you know of a fic where jiang cheng's younger self sort of takes over his future self for some while before going back and this repeats for some time? I remember a young jiang cheng talking to older wwx. Older wwx doesn't believe that it's really the younger jc so he asks him to ask about why wwx dislikes dogs (i think). Young jc asks young wwx and it's because www had a pet dog named 'doggie' who had turned on him during the winter. Sorry that's all I can remember

~*~

11. Hi, I dunno if my ask got lost in the mail but i was looking for a fic that had a line "lan wangji was a musician, he know how to make his hands do different things" in reference to one hand jackin wwx off and the other up his ass. if this sounds familiar lemme know please

~*~

12. Hi! I really am looking for this story in AO3 and still can't find it. It was about Wei Wuxian who got married to Wen Chao but Lan Zhan couldn't take it so he plans to take Wei Wuxian back by claiming Wei Wuxian each time he got (even in the wedding night of WWX and WC) and destroying the company of the Wens. As they (LWJ & WWX) continued the deed, WWX ended up pregnant and LWJ is more than determined to take WWX back. I do hope you can help me find this story. Thank you in advance!😘

FOUND? 姻緣 | this marriage was always predestined by saccharinings (E, 43k, wangxian, Cheating, Infidelity, not between wangxian, WWX is married and LWJ persuades him to cheat on his husband with him, Dark LWJ, A/B/O, Feminizing Language, Exhibitionism, Size Difference, WagnXian Have a Breeding Kink, Stomach Bulge, Possessive LWJ, Manipulation, WWX Wears Lingerie, Rape/Non-con Elements, for one part, Hair-pulling Kink, Alpha LWJ, Omega WWX, Mirror Sex, Vibrators, Phone Sex, Rimming, Edgeplay, slight choking kink, Light Bondage, Inappropriate Use of Gūsū Lán Forehead Ribbon, LJY's Big Fat Crush on Milfxian, Pregnant WWX, WangXian Endgame, Spanish Translation)

~*~

13. Hello! I've been trying to find a fic I lost on AO3 for a few days now so hopefully you can help 💚💚

It was canon-verse but an AU where lwj and wwx hadn't met and wwx was still the Yiling Patriarch. Someone has an idea to give wwx a "bride" and wwx picks lwj and he goes to live at the burial grounds with wwx and the wens. At some point lwj gets stabbed and almost dies and wwx reveals he picked lwj because he assumed lwj would be in on some kind of plan to spy on/hurt wwx and the wens but lwj wasnt a part of that at all. It had a happy ending but i cant remember exactly what it was. Pls help 🥺 i want it in my bookmarks soooo bad

FOUND? 💖🔒 love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, wangxian, Canon Divergence, YLLZ WWX, Arranged Marriage, political scheming, Gratuitous Domesticity, Mutual Pining, EXTREME SLOWBURN, the inherent eroticism of the forehead ribbon, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, neither wwx nor lwj want to be Perceived, but sorry kids! it's gonna happen!, rated E but the the NSFW stuff doesn't begin until chapter 19!, bottom LWJ in chapter 20 and 27)

~*~

14. For the next fox finder

Pls help me find this fic where wwx and lwj are night hunting and wwx gets hurt badly lwj makes a deal with a spirit/god but in exchange to save wwx he will lose his love/ emotions (he only acts on what’s needed not on the things he like or is want)

Wwx ofc suffers because of this but is able to re awake lwj love after 3 years while he’s playing wangxian (( he has already lost hope lwj would recover his emotions))

~*~

15. hi! im looking for a post canon fic where jc sends a letter to cloud recesses saying that gusu lan owes him a debt since wwx married into the lan. lwj responds very angrily. it wasnt jc friendly and at the end of the fic, wwx finds a bitter letter from jc who dies alone. wwx and lwj live longer and happier lives. id love it if you could find it, thank you!

FOUND! The Price of a Golden Core by AshayaTReldai (M, 9k, wangxian, LXC & WWX, WWX & JC, Major Character Death, Angst, Tension, Aggression, JC pays the price for his choices, demanding letters, JC is a Brat, Supportive Lan Brothers, WWX deserves the best, Life Debt, Sad Ending, Sad Ending for JC)

~*~

16. Hi! So, I’m looking for an AO3 fic, Lán Zhan/Wei Ying, that I read what feels like years ago and I can’t find it again. I remember it is a bit of a dark lan zhan or dark cloud recess fic, with Wei Ying being brought to this ‘hunt’ type thing with a group of people. I believe all the people brought are given Lán Zhans scent, so that he may track them. I also believe that it’s not expected that the participants will survive, and they’re being offered a reward if they do. Please help me find it! @diabolic17

FOUND? 🔒 Five Fifteen by 3neetee (M, 11k, wangxian, rape/non-con, modern, ABO, alpha LWJ, omega WWX, mating runs, graphic depictions of violence, dom/sub undertones, light bondage, rape/non-con elements, dark LWJ, betrayal)

~*~

17. Hey mods! 💜

I’m pretty sure I found this fic on here but now I can’t seem to find it. I’m not sure if it was on a itmf or fic finder. But it’s the one where wwx takes a curse from some ghost in order for her to move on. It’s a curse where he can’t see or feel anyone that feels “strongly” about him. He assumes the juniors all either hate or fear him and I forgot what he assumed lwj. They say to break the curse he has to accept the others’ feelings. So he tried to accept the fact that jin ling hated him although jin ling did not mean what he said and was confused at how wwx reacted. I think lan jinyi was the one who figured out wwx couldn’t see them because he launched at him as if he was going to attack him and wwx didn’t flinch. In the end he starts seeing and feeling impressions of them until he can see them in full again. Please help? I’ve been through my history and bookmarks and all open tabs of ao3. No such luck.

Thanks for all that you do! @jikcf

FOUND! See Me, Feel Me (Listening to You) by Ghost_Honey (T, 29k, WangXian, POV WWX, WWX Needs a Hug, WWX’s Abyssmal Self-Esteem, Emotional Healing, Angst, The Juniors love their Senior Wei, Curses, WWX is an Unreliable Narrator, JC & WWX Reconciliation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Cuddling)

~*~

18. Hi! I’m searching for a fic that I’m pretty sure was a threadfic on twitter... It was foxian and dragonji, and LWJ came across WWX while he was in heat in a cave and they mated. WWX went back to Lotus Pier not knowing who he’d been with only to find himself pregnant. He has hybrid babies and LWJ eventually tracks him down and he turns out to be a prince or something? WWX goes to visit Cloud Recesses, still unsure about LWJ. There was also a scene when one of the babies gets snatched by an eagle or some other bird and LWJ saves them? I think that’s as far as I got, as it was a WIP at the time and I lost track of it. Thank you!

FOUND? Twitter thread by cerbykerby (wangxian, cw: dubcon, mpreg, memory loss)

~*~

19. Hello! Hope you're well! I've been looking for a fic like crazy and have not been able to find it, so hopefully you know it? It's a fic where instead of nie mingjue dying, nie huisang dies as a result of jgy and nmj attacks the cloud recesses because he blames Lan xichen in part due to him defending jgy. Please help me find this if you can. Thank you in advance!!! 🫶🙏🏼 @cherryblossom8

FOUND! Digging Graves by nirejseki (Not rated, 13k, NHS & NMJ, WWX & XY, wangxian, Revenge, Broken Moral System, Non-Graphic Violence, the masterless sabers)

~*~

20. Pls there was this one fic in ao3 , I was so looking forward to it but I lost it 😭😭😭I don’t know much about it but the summary was smth like Wwx getting pregnant and being in an island?? Shizui grows up and smth please 😭

FOUND? The Winner Takes It All by YilingSani (M, 46k, WangXian, Modern AU, Single Parent WWX, Old Friends, One Night Stands, No Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Forgiveness, Second Chances, Inspired by Mamma Mia! (Movies) Teen Pregnancy, Mpreg, mention of miscarriage, Birth Trauma, amniotic fluid embolism)

~*~

[genericpuff]

Are there any comics you were into around when LO was first coming out that you still adore and highly recommend? Any comics you wish got far more attention they they have?

There are several artists I used to love the comics of that went on hiatus years back/the artist doesn't make content anymore and I still look at them fondly (Snakes and Ladders by Mulattafury guts me. I would've loved to see it continue 😔)

So LO was kind of one of the first "webtoons" I got into, and by that I mean I was reading tons of webcomics for years prior to it, but the whole vertical format thing was still very new at the time and I wasn't accustomed to it. I spent a lot of the early to mid 2010's reading manga scanlations and indie webcomics, some of which are still ongoing today (though others unfortunately were never completed):

City of Blank (which is now an Originals series and it's in its final season, please check it out!!!)

Monster Pop (this one is actually really similar in art vibes to LO, it's very pastel and fun! idk if the creator still makes comics but she DOES make eco-friendly plus-sized skirts with POCKETS now!)

The GamerCat

AwkwardZombie (i stg this is one of those comics that will probably live to see the heat death of the universe LOL)

A BETTER PLACE (this one was REALLY fun to experience at the time because it pulled off some time travel shenanigans that you literally had to be there to read, you deadass can't read the original pages that got overwritten in the timeline near the end of the story, it doesn't affect the overall narrative at all but it's fun knowing that I was there LOL)

Grassblades

An Exercise in Futility

A Tale of Two Rulers

Theodd1sout (yep, before they were big on Youtube, it was a webcomic!)

Fail by Error (unfortunately it seems the creator of this comic has removed it from Tapas entirely, I'll see what I can dig up through Wayback but until then you might be stuck with Pinterest on finding strips from this one)

A Matter of Life and Death (this one is pretty much cancelled indefinitely BUT the creator is still an active comic creator and just recently started up a new original project! they also make super cool Jojo fanart and AU stuff if you're into that haha)

Two Guys and Guy (same as Fail by Error, its site seems to be long gone now but some of the strips can be found online)

Happle Tea (^^^)

And of course there was all the manga that I used to binge like fucking crack LOL Soul Eater, Death Note, Naruto, Bleach, Full Metal Alchemist, Yotsubato, Sailor Moon, One Piece, Deadman Wonderland, and those were just like, the well-known popular ones, there were a ton others across varying degrees of popularity that I don't even fully remember the names of now.

On the whole, there was a LOOOOT of stuff I read prior to LO, I used to practically live on sites like Tapas. Some of it's still as good as ever, others haven't aged quite so well, but for the most part, I look back on it all very fondly as it's what made up a lot of my formative years as a webcomic creator :'3 If you haven't read any of these, feel free to check them out, maybe you'll find a new favorite! <3

[undertale-fic-librarby]

Lost Fics!

A post containing fics that I have searched for & have not found! If you recognize any of these, send an ask or reply with a link!

Hello, I was hoping you could help me find or at least help recover some information of the fic. I’ll try my best remember everything I know. For starters it was a delated mafia Sans x male reader or gender neutral reader and the fic was on Wattpad. Don’t remember the title but it might have had the word soul in it however I’m not completely sure. Plot: The reader was part of a rival gang along with their friend but the friend got in trouble with leader who threatened them saying that if they didn’t go undercover in the monster gang he would kill their friend. So the went and that’s how they met Sans, I know the reader spend a butch of time with the monster and is overhaul done with their gang. So the most I remember is the finishing parts of the fic for starters Sans and reader kiss? or they say they’re in love with each other anyway reader gets kidnapped by their gang and gets tortured for information we also find out the friend betrayed them. So Sans and everyone else goes to rescue the reader lots and lost of fights Sans and the reader kiss when they see each other is all nice. They defeat the boss and it might have to do with the readers soul but I can’t really remember. It ends with them at the hospital we’re we find out reader friend didn’t betray them they talk do im sure he didn’t stick around for long, basically it ends with a happy ending. Other details: The reader soul is pretty important in the fic I believe it was turquoise color and it had nothing to do with integrity and patience. Characters like Frisk, Papyrus, Toriel and a couple of other showed up in the fanfic. The author had a picrew profile and they had maybe one or two other works excluding the one I’m talking about. The author did say they were moving to ao3 before they deleted everything but I didn’t save anything and have made attempts but I haven’t found them. So why did I come here if I know it’s delete? Well to see if anyone could find it on the wayback machine or they have it downloaded and could share, I deeply adore this fic and this blog give some hope of a way to get it back. Conclusion to all this please download your favorite fanfics it will save a lot of heartbreak also to the person who runs this blog I apologize for the long explanation.

- anonymous

Do you have any recommendations for Reaper x Error? (I'm interested in more plot-driven, long fanfics, not smut)

- @terraelbus

hello!!! been looking for this fic for a bit and havent had any luck finding it yet so!! looking for some help :) the fic was a gaster-sans centric fic (not a ship). i distinctly remember the fic including gaster injecting himself with determination, and that alphys' dad was a scientist in the gaster team, who was also retconned out of existence. there was also a box that was invunerable? or at least resistant to the retcon and/or reset powers. some things im not too sure about but are pretty much positive about it is that it spanned from the creation of the core to leaving to the surface, and that it might have been part of a series. thank you in advance!!! :3

- @aremegay

[simonsquest]

1, 6, 9, 11, 17, 31, 58, be back for more

1. do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road?

I’ve always known how I wanted the “true” ending of TRFSB to go down. I think I mentioned in a previous ask that it was originally going to be split into three different endings, depending on the reader’s choice. But there was one that really stood out to me. In the end, it will be that one true ending.

But it is just as much me stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road to get me there, lol!

6. do you have any kind of consistent writing schedule or just hoping for the best?

I try to write a little each day after work. But that usually devolves to just thinking about it instead of writing it, especially contingent on my energy levels/how my work day went. At this point, I hope for the best, but I’m at the mercy of when inspiration strikes/my personal energy level. It’s been rough irl lately, but I would really love to go back to a more consistent schedule…

9. in an ideal world where you’re already super successful and published, would you want to see a tv or movie adaptation of your work? why or why not?

GOD. YES. PLEASE. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I see TRFSB as a tv show, film, or even stage play in my mind. I feel like that’s reflected in how I write (present-tense, physical action-oriented, like an actor’s stage directions), for better or for worse. It’s a shame because I cannot storyboard to save my life but I really do see it through that sort of lens.

I would give anything to see it adapted as a 2d animation. I’d be happy with anything, even if it wasn’t perfect or exactly how I intended. I would just lose my marbles to see my beloved characters move and talk and fight and love and suffer and just thinking about the casting choices for their actors I sajfbsdjfnjsnfak. Bonus points if I could be creative director and have the say on those decisions… that would truly be a dream come true.

11. what’s something neat you’ve learned while doing research for something you were writing? also, how much do you worry about doing research in general?

I went down a rabbit hole with my partner trying to research the origin of “Ghulash” being the widely-accepted name in fandom for the town of Yomi. It puzzled me because in-game in both the original and localized languages it was “Yomi”, and even in the Nintendo Power map, too!

After a lot of digging and going through the wayback machine, my partner and I found the first online recorded use of the word “Ghulash” - in a walkthrough from 1997 (I think it was on GameFAQs?). It was the first walkthrough on the site for Simon’s Quest.

If my memory serves me correctly, it’s the same walkthrough that referred to Doina as “Fetra”, too.

We resolved it was derived from that. Neat, huh? :D

I worry about research and conveying accuracy more than I should tbh hahaha. I agonize over the details. I want it to be as faithful as possible to my utter detriment. I’m sure nobody is paying that close attention to the kind of things I agonize over, like how much time has passed between past chapters. :P

17. what is your favorite line you’ve ever written?

I really can’t think of one. I guess I’ll use this line, from chapters 30 and 51: The clock tower in the distance sounds its poignant toll under the glow of an ungodly blood-red moon.

31. tell us about one of your characters who’s an absolute joy to write

I miss Gabriel every day of my damn life, lmao. He was so effortless. So funny, so charming! I loved thinking about his physicality and role as mediator in this ever-darkening gloom of a plot.

And Mathieu, too - there were a lot of moments where it was just nice to cut through all of the weight with this young boy being wholesome and inquisitive and a bit naive.

Both characters really allowed the main cast to reveal unique parts of themselves and they’re vitally important.

58. what is the last thing that a fic made you google when you were writing it?

Judgment day. :^)

[wojakgallery]

Will wojakparadise ever come back? Sure the site is technically up but I want the real thing back and there's no way to know how close they are to returning

Every few days, like I have now since early 2024, I try going to wojakparadise.net, but Chrome tells me that the site can't be reached or something like that and the site doesn't load the gallery normally. Some people are probably using the Wayback Machine archive to still get some Wojak images from it. Still, the problem is that it's really slow, and the high-resolution download links don't work (at least from what I've tried); only some thumbnails can be downloaded/saved, and a lot of them won't load. If they're not going to come back, it would be awesome if the admins who created Wojak Paradise would release the whole wojak collection for download somewhere, so we can have access to them again. Right now, a lot of those wojaks are lost or really hard to find.

If anybody reading this ever hears some good news about Wojak Paradise, please tell.

[who-is-page]

CoHost Closure & Hurricane Helene/Milton Updates

[Cross-posted from my Patreon]

Social media platform CoHost, which started in 2022, announced Sept. 10th that it would be closing its doors by the end of 2024. Per the staff team's post, CoHost will go into read-only mode on October 1st, and the team will make their best efforts to keep the lights on until the end of the year.

Although not universally well-known, the site was beloved by its members and had a thriving alterhuman community. Because of this, my system has been scouring the tags for public essays to preserve and add to the Alterhuman Archive. So far we've completed looking through #otherkin; all archivists are collectively still working on getting everything summarized, tagged, and mirrored through the Wayback Machine. We've also got some new folks on the Alterhuman Archive team to help with the effort, including Sivaasonikaan, Rudy Cantor, The Dragonheart Collective, and the Draconic Wizard Workshop. Huzzah!

The one problem we're running into is that CoHost disabled new member accounts shortly after its announcement. My system, as far as I'm aware, are the only ones out of the lot of us who had a CoHost log-in. This has slowed down the effort somewhat. I'm focusing on just grabbing what I can from the tags, and then chucking its links into the collective work pile that anyone can work on (unless the work is marked as 18+, it seems). Not an ideal situation, but we're making do. If you have a CoHost piece you want to make sure ends up archived, please send it our way!

Our efforts to archive CoHost (and to work on everything else that we mentioned in the last post) have also been a little hampered thanks to back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton. My town was devastated by both in rapid succession, and I've been without power for a majority of the month. Because of Milton, a large portion of my city is now without Internet access as well, as a large amount of cell towers completely toppled in the storm. Thankfully, my family evacuated and we're all okay-- unfortunately, my job stayed open the morning and afternoon of the day that the hurricane was set to make landfall, having had me scheduled to come in, and calling out of that shift is likely to come with termination (albeit when, I couldn't say; this job has been known to wait up until 363 days after an infraction to terminate or write someone up). Job hunting will shift my plans around quite a bit and losing this job will postpone my degree by a while, unless I can graduate before I lose access to this job's tuition assistance. So we'll have to play these upcoming few months by ear, and I'm going to keep my eyes locked forward as I apply for better positions prior to my formal termination.

[mcbitchtits]

Since tumblr is very atomized both in the sense of reblogging as well as people not linking back to things, and given the chaotic events the last few days that bring up some serious questions about the state of the site, I am attempting to put together all of the context in one place. I've also attempted to Wayback/ArchiveToday every link and image as much as possible, so hopefully I've covered everything in case these blogs delete or get deleted. (And hopefully with equal seriousness and humor of the situation, as befits tumblr?) If I'm missing anything, please feel free to let me know. I'm hoping I've also missed larger discussions happening elsewhere, but, again, tumblr's sharing structure makes it difficult to bring it all together coherently and cohesively. So:

@predstrogen/@avewy/@predsterone gets serially harrassed and no support from tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/radiohead2/742831140329635840 Tumblr then bans her blog (@predstrogen) for "sexually explicit materials" despite previously acknowledging that she was not breaking the Community Guidelines. https://www.tumblr.com/alwek/742818852958765056/oh-and-this-should-be-saved-too

The post in question was a post of her transition photos, which were both safe for work: https://www.tumblr.com/mcbitchtits/742557931490476032

A tumblr user sends @/photomatt, aka the Tumblr/Automattic CEO, an ask about the situation: https://www.tumblr.com/photomatt/742806189400866816/you-gonna-do-anything-or-make-any-statement-about Wherein he says their policy is generally to not comment on individual cases, but "[i]n predstrogen's case in addition to some mistagged sexually explicit posts, which on its own wouldn't be that bad, we have documented cases of harassment against other users". He then continues, "she made threats of violence against Tumblr staff", with this included screenshot:

He continues that death threats are never okay, they have terminated a different user over this situation and threats already, and that they take threats seriously and involve "police and FBI where appropriate".

He also comments that the staff is not transphobic, he doesn't think they/he/the site deserves that reputation, and casually includes that tumblr apparently had a transphobic moderator abusing their duties both in action and through bribes: "Why do we wrongly have a transphobe reputation? We did have an external contract moderator last year that was making transphobic moderation (and also selling moderation, criminally). As soon as we were aware that person was fired, and we later terminated the entire relationship with that contracting firm and have brought almost everything in-house (at great cost). I have previously commented on this publicly, several times."

Later on he comes back to edit pronouns in the post in regards to accusations of misgendering @predstrogen.

He continues to reply to some asks, including one about tumblr's banning trans women through moderation: https://www.tumblr.com/photomatt/742822115555868672/all-you-ever-do-is-drop-the-ban-hammer-on-trans To which he replies: "Community guideline violations, including mistagging, harassment of other users, and threats of violence, all three of which were repeated in predstrogen's case, were the reasons for the suspension, not her identity. There are obviously tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of trans men and women on this site—why would our accused transphobia be applied to just this one user? The most parsimonious explanation is that it was because of the stated community guideline violations, not her identity as a trans woman." This is seemingly in conflict with Tumblr's own notification to @predstrogen, which was for "sexually explicit materials".

In addition to answering some asks about the situation on his blog, @/photomatt apparently also messaged several users directly about various points: https://www.tumblr.com/skyefawna/742817887621988352/who-wants-to-take-bets-on-whether-i-get-banned-for

https://www.tumblr.com/allegoriestcicada/742816156202795008/oh-hey-fun-now-im-getting-dms-time-to-see-if-my

https://www.tumblr.com/dragongirlsnout/742816811736760320/speechless

https://www.tumblr.com/elerium/742868288383614976/it-almost-goes-without-saying-but-for-posteritys

Several users discuss their time as employees of Tumblr and some of the situations that abounded. https://www.tumblr.com/tinystepsforward/742827256509038592 Some users claim that Tumblr and Wordpress are planning to sell user data to Midjourney AI: https://www.tumblr.com/tinystepsforward/742889449866887168/could-you-elaborate-on-the-midjourney-thing | https://www.tumblr.com/jv/742961132362514432/what-is-this-about-the-tumblr-staff-wanting-to

@predstrogen posts a goodbye from a new blog: https://www.tumblr.com/cyprederone/742904943801958400/its-rita-were-done-here-for-now [Archived link] which is also nuked.

tumblr, as is wont, KUNGPOWPENIS'es @/photomatt's post. (I think one of the official accounts TOS'd or threatened to TOS someone for this within the past few months, but now I can't find that post.) https://www.tumblr.com/raytoroboros/742894961642586112/you-gonna-do-anything-or-make-any-statement-about Tragically I did not archive this one, and it now appears that all of those reblog chains doing do on the original post have been deleted: https://www.tumblr.com/photomatt/742806189400866816/you-gonna-do-anything-or-make-any-statement-about

I would have liked to end on a funnier note that someone replied with a "this content has been removed [etc]" image in place of the explosion gif, or they did in fact post the explosion gif and it got officially removed by tumblr, but it appears tumblr removed or blocked all those reblogs so I don't know if they exist anymore.

@/photomatt then came back again today to post further comments, including "...if nothing else this has given me a lot of empathy for how pile-ons must be totally unmanageable for users with the interface of Tumblr, especially the lack of basic things like bulk actions that have been in WordPress for a decade-plus. [...] As far as I'm aware improving moderation tools both for staff and regular users wasn't on Tumblr's roadmap when I left, but I hope this raises awareness within the team." https://www.tumblr.com/photomatt/742963003613446144/im-continuing-to-get-harassment-and-death-threats

I think that's where we're at currently?

[hoshibatake]

Hello! I wanted to ask two questions!

First, are you going to be continuing your translations for the Sunflower Live Enstars story? (I looked for a completed version online and on the wayback machine and this is the only version I found)

And two, do you have a transcript or link to where I could find a non-translated version of the story that I could read?

(Trickstar is my favorite unit and I really hate to leave off the story with a cliffhanger, please get back whenever you can 😭🫶🙏)

Hi!

Thank you for your ask ^^ it's good to know people are enjoying the story.

I am definitely finishing the translation, no worries! Real life has just had me really busy the past weeks.

I can't promise a timeframe, but the rest of the chapters will be coming!

[ltcommanderkathrynjaneway]

You should totally rewatch JAG !!!

I’m watching it for the first time (well, technically I watched S2 & S3 before, but remember nothing about it really). Just got the whole series on DVD last year.

Only on S2 right now, but am already obsessed with Harm x Mac (both individually & as a ship)!

Plus, a couple of other people (@starrybouquet & harmandmac) are in the dumpster fire with me.

So, please feel free to come join us and revive this nearly dead fandom!

You do make a very good argument!

Plus I started watching the show shortly after I joined the Navy and now I’m about to retire, so there’s some good poetic symmetry there that I like.

If you’re looking for fanfic, almost everything predates AO3. There’s some great stuff on ff.net, especially if you go back deep to when the show was still airing. Most things were actually hosted on personal sites (unfortunately), but I’ve used the Wayback Machine to find some again - my favorite author can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20060821225606/http://aerogirl.dhs.org:80/ and there are some links off her page that also might work with the Wayback archive.

[simcardiac-arrested]

If Sep somehow woke up back during the times his creator was around with all his memories of his current time, how would he be? And If Wayback discovered himself back in time as well, is there anything he would have done different?

i do like some good technical time travel … I think putting sep Back in the torment nexus is already a bad idea, but OUR current sep? who is learning how to change and open up and just have the slightest bit of fun? who had a panic attack at the idea of forgetting wayback? yeah um i. think the torment nexus will get even Torment Nexuser for him . so very very bad idea. as for wayback …. god, the things he would’ve done different. you tell me. There is So Much. he would probably try and be more pushy towards his creators on the topic of ascending. i mean, he already thinks he wasn’t enough to make them stay, so if he had a chance to go back in time he Would make himself enough. whatever that means. he’d give all of himself even more than before. and when it comes to wade, he would… well. not yell, probably, even though he’d Really Really want to. a bigger part of him would just be happy to have her back. and plus, there won’t even be anything to yell about if he just convinces her to stay! if maybe this time he seems desperate enough about her not going, then maybe she really won’t go!! maybe this time he’ll finally be enough for someone!!! look, you really Don’t have to leave! so what about your family?? am i not your family? am i not right here? please just listen to me, you go and you won’t come back, so just stay. i am Right Here so just stay. if you care even a little bit about me you’ll listen. (if you care even a little bit about me you’ll let me go.) what? of course i care! that’s why i don’t want you to go, because you’re making a mistake! don’t you get it? i know it’s a mistake. what has your family ever done for—i—i, i’m sorry about using my powers on you, okay? i’m just trying to make you understand, i’m not actually going to keep you hostage. seriously. but you just wouldn’t listen to me. and you’re still not. and you’re still leaving! and you’re still choosing to ignore what i’m saying like last time and you’re still leaving! fuck! fuck. maybe another time

[the-insanity-of-mojiru]

Gokuto Jihen sensors activated (hey other anon, can we talk about the two new escorts? Lol)

I wish the English fanbase wasn't so dead, I'd like to be able to at least translate scans for myself if there's not enough interest to put out translations, but I've only ever found the Kirishima and I think half of the Saeki anthologies.

As for the stage play, is it available any where? I've read your post about it before but couldn't find more

Oh wow hello fellow Gokuhen fan!

Yes, I think that’s what I saw last time too for Anthologies that was translated into English. The good news is you can still get the manga digitally! Check out the official website for where to get yourself a copy! It’ll be easier to clean and translate than to get the physical copy and scan the pages.

For the Angeki Gokuto Jihen, I got my copy from Animate, but they seem to be sold out now. I think you could buy a resold copy off Amazon but it’s kind of expensive… I don’t know if you can Wayback Machine this, but the official stream was on Nico Douga.

Ha ha, sometimes fans come out of nowhere suddenly and give me a heart attack (lovingly). I’m really honored that y’all come say hello to me from time to time.

(On the escorts: back when I asked Rinnedou-sensei the weirdest questions I was told the manor could have like 15 escorts and I’m not saying the whole place has to be filled but… but please, what do you mean potentially there’s like double the number of characters we could meet??? Not me speculating deaths already like a maniac…)