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resplendent-ragamuffin · 11 months ago

Note

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.

#jvp #mikvah #mikveh #teacup mikveh #jewish #long post #I know so much more than I ever wanted to about this movement now #every time I did more research I found something worse #thank you very much to those of you who helped me with this #bless you all #and bless those of you who read through all of this #six months of my life #my ramblings #asked and answered #queerdo-mcjewface #I can't wait to see how my inbox is going to explode now hahahaha. haha.#will this be the post that finally gets me on the blocklists?

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bakuhatsufallinlove · 4 months ago

Text

here’s the OTHER leaker translation I would explode out of existence

listen.

I know, okay?

I know everyone loves this. I know everyone lost their shit for it. But I hate it.

I will admit honestly that it is 70% abject fury over the misuse of one word. Another 20% is frustration over how the fandom reacted to the official translation with such vitriol and how the leaker fueled it with their smug comments. That final 10% amounts to what some might consider pedantic or nitpicky. But I don't care.

This translation sucks. It doesn't sound cool, it doesn't sound threatening, and the leaker's rookie mistakes ruin what makes this moment great for me.

Allow me to elaborate.

The emphasis is on the wrong part

I’ve talked about some of the pronoun differences in this line before, but did you know Katsuki also changes the particles every time?

‘Cause I sure don’t think the leaker noticed. Grammar particles are what determine the relationship between words in a sentence. They pack a lot of punch, denoting subject, object, indirect object, purpose, location, time, origin point, direction of movement, means or method—and a bunch more shit that can be hard to describe.

Word order and particles work together to direct our attention to specific parts of a sentence, emphasizing the importance of what is being said. They are some of the most difficult parts of Japanese for learners to grasp and use with the same ease that native speakers do. I’m acutely aware of this weakness, so I often pay particular attention to them. Let’s break down how each iteration shifts the meaning and emphasis of the base sentence.

First time

Chapter 322 おまえが拭えねぇもんは俺たちが拭う omae ga nuguenee mon wa oretachi ga nuguu

Katsuki uses ga with both the second person pronoun for Izuku and the first person plural pronoun for himself and Class 1-A. Ga emphasizes the word that comes directly before it, so this focuses not on the verb itself, but the persons doing the verb. Katsuki's first person plural pronoun oretachi of course means "we," but if you wanted to highlight his literal meaning, he's saying: "the things you cannot handle, me and the people with me will handle."

Second time

Chapter 323 てめーが拭えねーもんはこっちで拭う temee ga nuguenee mon wa kocchi de nuguu

Here, Katsuki retains ga for Izuku’s second person pronoun, but changes both his first person pronoun and its particle, giving us kocchi de. This shifts the implication of who is doing the act—the first time, Katsuki's "we" pronoun highlighted the classmates who accompanied him and acted with him to help save Izuku. But by the time he says this line again, a number of people outside their class have stepped forward to defend Izuku’s return to UA.

Unlike distinctly singular pronouns like ore, kocchi both refers to oneself and something greater than oneself. By switching to this, Katsuki expands that narrow “me and the people with me” into “our side,” presenting the people who support Izuku as a unified force.

You see, kocchi de subtly shifts the verb to being executed by subject(s) defined by a specific characteristic or condition.

Explanations of particle de from Mainichi Nonbiri. The heading and explanation read, "Subject: 'De' is used to denote the subject who deals with or engages in the action expressed by the predicate."

The first example uses jibun de (by oneself) to describe the conditions under which the listener is asked to execute the verb. The third uses gikai de (in the parliament or by the parliament, as a governing body representing many people) to explain the plurality and nature of the subject executing the verb.

The second example uses socchi de, which is the second person "you" version of kocchi, meaning your side. With this, you can see the purpose is to highlight division: "you did that over there on your side of things without any input from me."

Kocchi de as Katsuki uses it likewise creates "sides" by highlighting connection.

These details emphasize Izuku as the person who cannot handle these things and the relationship he has with the people supporting him, a collective Katsuki aligns himself with.

If we maintain this emphasis and the conditions in a literal way, we have: "The things you cannot handle, our side will handle for you."

Third time

Chapter 405 OFA(あいつ)に拭えねーもんはこっちで拭うってなあぁああ！！！ OFA (aitsu) ni nuguenee mon wa kocchi de nuguutte naaaa!!!

I want you to look really close at the particle ni.

Then look at the way the first word balloon ends with the particle wa.

And hear me when I say that this does not emphasize Izuku.

Ni is not a particle for emphasis. If Izuku's personal inability to handle AFO were being highlighted, Katsuki could have used には, which I talk about briefly in this post:

The combination of the two particles ni and wa are used to emphasize, compare, and contrast. This is extremely telling just on its own. Izuku is emphasizing the fact that, compared to everyone he could possibly tell, he cannot tell Katsuki this. He might be able to tell other people, but when it comes to Katsuki, he cannot. Ienai does not specify where the limitation stems from, but ni wa sure implies it.

If Katsuki wanted to disparage Izuku in comparison to himself, like "that guy obviously can't handle you, so I'll do it," he would have said something like this. He even could have slapped his own singular pronoun and ga in there (俺が拭う) to emphasize himself as an individual actor. But that's not what he did.

The particle wa tells us what the topic is. Neither Katsuki nor Izuku are the topic in any iteration of this line; they are subjects engaging with the verbs. The topic is "the things OFA (that guy) can't handle."

Now, because every other time Katsuki said this line had ga in it too, wa wasn't quite as strong as it is this third time. If ga emphasizes what comes before it, then wa emphasizes what comes after. It tells us, "this is the topic, now hold onto your seats."

Katsuki is emphasizing the predicate and the verb. What's gonna happen and how it's gonna happen.

He's saying, "our side is gonna fucking crush you."

The wa particle and the separate balloons build tension, suspense, and excitement—which the leaker instantly deflates. By front-loading Katsuki as both topic and subject ("I'm the guy"), the emphasis is no longer on the promise of destruction he will deliver on.

The emphasis is indisputably on the part after the balloon break, so the mention of Izuku ("when that nerd can't handle it all on his own") reads weirdly like an insult. Hell, most of the words the leaker uses are about Izuku's inability to handle the situation, which bloat the second half of the line and effectively kill the momentum.

Fumbling the flow of a line is a common mistake for amateur translators. Sometimes, it's hard to avoid because Japanese grammar is often the inverse of English grammar; maintaining the original order may render it awkward or even unintelligible.

But that is not the case here.

pikahlua's literal translation

There's no reason to reorder the clauses. You can spruce up the wording, but the lines are perfectly understandable and effective in this order even at their most literal.

The leaker chose to reorder the lines this way, and their translation is worse for it.

Viz Comparison

Official translation by Viz

After what I've said about particles, pacing, and emphasis, I think you can plainly see that the official translator understood these details and made his own choices to highlight them.

Any time you get text with furigana (explained here), you have to decide how to incorporate those dual pieces of information into the text. He could have translated this as "that guy couldn't keep you in the ground," but instead he prioritized the reference to OFA.

By doing this, Viz's translation avoids the implication of insult towards Izuku that the leaker falls prey to.

He also made the choice to translate kocchi as "we."

First, I’m bringing this post back around to remind people that kocchi is a pronoun of ambiguous plurality. This means that an interpretation of “we” is just as correct as an interpretation of “I.” Readers may interpret it differently, but on simply linguistic grounds, they are of equal validity. You will often see this kind of ambiguous language used in Japanese, even with characters that are forthright. The reason is one part cultural expectation that the listener will read between the lines, and one part a willingness to accept two things as simultaneously true. This exists and is frequently found in English as well, there just isn’t a direct parallel for kocchi itself.

A number of people were infuriated by this, because they felt some sort of bkdk moment was erased by Katsuki saying "we" rather than "I."

Yet it seemed like these same people were also mad one week prior when the leaker and the official translator worded Katsuki's rallying cry slightly differently.

Chapter 404. Leaker, left. Official, right.

The claim there was apparently that the official translator was ignoring Katsuki's character development.

And like, which is it, guys? Do you want him centering the collective or himself?

The fact is that the official translation's characterization of Katsuki in the final battle is internally consistent with itself, while the leaker's is all over the goddamn place. Let us never forget that the leaker was just straight up WRONG here while the official got it exactly right.

Chapter 408. Leaker, left. Official, right.

People were losing their shit that Viz made Katsuki "insult himself" and "expect failure" as though he's never used temee to refer to himself self-deprecatingly before.

And then the leaker just had to pretend that didn't happen in the next fucking chapter, while the official got to correctly reiterate their interpretation like they were taking a victory lap.

Chapter 409. Leaker, left. Official, right.

All of this makes it unbelievably rich for the leaker to go and say shit like this:

The leaker is an amateur translator. They spent ages stealing an artist's work and releasing it illegally for a profit with shoddy translations and misleading, even outright false "summaries."

Based on the nature of their translation mistakes, it is obvious to me that they are not fluent in Japanese, yet here they are bragging about their inability to understand how kocchi could mean "we."

Right before the line in question, Katsuki emphasizes himself as an individual in declaring himself to be the final boss.

Chapter 405 俺がラスボスだ AFO!! ore ga rasu bosu da AFO!!

And then, by using ってな, Katsuki is basically quoting himself.

"I said we were gonna handle what that guy couldn't, didn't I!?"

This suggests he is repeating the established meaning for emphasis, not changing it. If kocchi was plural when he said it in chapter 323, it's reasonable for it to still be plural here. Katsuki is not ignoring himself as an individual by doing this; he is rubbing it in AFO's face that neither he nor Izuku are solitary actors fighting this battle alone, they both belong to something greater than themselves.

I'm gonna step up on a soapbox for a bit.

I am kinda tired of people calling Japanese vague. I often see it used to imply Japanese is inherently hard to understand or that it doesn't have the capacity for specificity. Like any language, Japanese can be used to express specific, clear, and direct information. While it is true Japanese culture values indirectness as a way to maintain harmony, I would like to challenge the ethnocentricism I feel sometimes goes unaddressed in this topic.

Japanese is less tolerant of repetition and verbal excess than English is; information that has been established should only be repeated for a purpose. Japanese speakers expect their conversation partners to maintain awareness of context, social expectations, and specific interpersonal information to grasp the intended meaning of their words. Specificity is doled out when it is warranted or desired.

Specificity divides one thing from another, drawing lines in the sand and saying "this is this, and that is that." English often requires repetitive specificity to even be grammatically comprehensible. And while this might not be directly related, many English-speaking countries tend to have a more individualistic outlook on society than collectivist countries like Japan.

To me, "vague" often smacks of a value judgment: "there should be division here, and there isn't."

I said earlier that kocchi creates division by highlighting sides, us vs. them, but when people press on and ask, "but did he say we or I? which did he REALLY mean?" I just want to say that really? truly? he meant both. all of the above.

I think it is unproductive to think of Japanese as vague just because it doesn't exclude possibilities as often or as strongly as English does. I think it is a lot more useful and interesting to think of Japanese as expansive.

Why should there be division between Katsuki and the people fighting by his side? Why should he separate himself from the people who saved his life and risked their own in relentless pursuit of their common, heroic goal?

Why is it unacceptable to imagine an "I" belonging so sincerely and wholly to a "we" that their voices are one?

Katsuki's words reflect the fact that this fight being fought by a collective, a team.

In this context, OFA is a weapon in their arsenal, just as Katsuki himself is.

He is a force of nature, an agent of their willpower.

Chapter 404

He rode upon the winds of their prayers, ushered on by Izuku's hopes

and his own regrets,

to change the course of fate itself.

For much of the series, Katsuki is our beacon of individualism, of defiant refusal to bend to the will and expectations of others.

But Katsuki is also our image of victory. He shows us how to face our failures and change our hearts. He is our proof that rejecting others only hurts us in the end—his love for Izuku and Izuku's love for him is the story's greatest proof that as human beings, we are not better alone, we are better with each other. Other people change us, inspire us, and we do the same for them.

We need each other. We belong to each other.

It is in this final battle where Katsuki becomes his truest self, overcoming every obstacle in his path, making up for every painful regret in his heart, and utilizing every single thing in his grasp to save and win.

If Katsuki ever truly belonged to something bigger than himself, it is in this moment right here.

English divides the one from the many, and while that has its benefits, I think there is real, honest beauty to be found in a word that smooths those lines in the sand until there is no distinction at all.

That's who the fucking "we" is, rukasu.

Now onto my next gripe.

Katsuki is supposed to sound badass here

Frankly, the fan fury surrounding Viz's use of "we" completely overshadowed the fact that the phrase "One For All couldn't keep you in the ground" is fucking metal.

It rules. I'm fucking jealous I didn't write those words. It is such a good translation and it packs so much punch and I wouldn't have thought of it in a thousand years.

The official translator focuses his efforts on genre-specific tone translation, and sometimes he really nails it. I will freely admit that I find his style grating or overwrought at times, and indeed, one of his key weaknesses is that the flavor of comic-book dialogue he pulls from can sound one generation too old to be cool.

One of the most damning examples of this is him having Katsuki utter the word "bub"—

Chapter 406

—which I think no English-speaker under the age of 30 had actually heard before Deadpool & Wolverine came out.

Honestly, if you just read Wolverine comics from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, you can see the character archetype he leans into for Katsuki's dialogue. 405's tagged-on "—and then some!!" is straight out of American action movies.

But the main point here is that Katsuki is taunting AFO and threatening him. He blows up AFO's face, announces himself as the final boss, then vows to kick his ass to death on behalf of everyone. It's amazing.

The line sounds cool as fuck in Japanese. The "naaaa" flourish at the end is nearly untranslatable in any direct way that still captures the appeal and impact of it.

I tend to think of sentence enders like this as flavor text or tone tags. To properly convey them in English, you may have to add a bunch of words, and you have to choose them carefully.

All of this is to say, the official translation tries pretty hard to make Katsuki sound cool. Do they succeed? I think to an extent, they do.

I actually think it's possible the translator did recognize the callback, but wasn't satisfied with the effect of repeating it. You can see that "finish the job" is supposed to link Izuku's actions to theirs, while also sounding grandiose and final.

The Viz translator might've simply prioritized showcasing the cool-guy threat while maintaining the collectivist angle, rather than matching the callback word for word. I don't really think that's the best choice, but I can see why it might be made.

The leaker's translation doesn't make any real effort to up the ante. Maybe this line is cool to somebody, but it ain't me.

In fact, are we ever gonna acknowledge that the leaker's translation just scoops up most of its wording from the official release of chapters 322 and 323?

"I'm the guy who steps in when that nerd can't handle it all on his own!!"

The leaker was not responsible for these translations, but just look at how other people tried to grapple with Katsuki's metaphor.

In fact, the only person whose choice of words prophetically matched Viz was pikahlua, four days before the official release:

And even then, you can see that "step in when" is unique to Viz.

I'm not saying that similarities in translation are unacceptable or that directly referencing the official release is bad, but I do find it truly incredible they had the gall to shit-talk the official translator after cheating off his damn homework.

The leaker basically contributed six words: "I'm the guy who" and "that nerd." I personally disagree with "the guy who" as a translation addition, just because I think it too strongly isolates him in a way that using "I" and "I'm" by themselves do not, but it wouldn't have been terrible if they had also maintained the original clause order: "One For All couldn't handle you... but I'm the guy who—", something like that.

This brings us to my final gripe.

Katsuki did not say “that nerd.”

The leaker made that shit up, they inserted it for no reason and ignored the two pronouns the original text actually provides, OFA and aitsu (that guy).

In the manga, Katsuki has never called Izuku a nerd to villains, not once. It is rare for him to use it while speaking to someone other than Izuku, period. It’s an insulting pet name he uses towards Izuku or while muttering angrily to himself about Izuku.

To be clear, the narrator who uses "shitty nerd" is not Katsuki, they merely validate the accuracy of his nickname for Izuku. Yes, I just linked to my tag for the whole damn 348 chapter, because I've argued against this theory a lot, just read 'em all, it's a good time.

By my count, he only uses it once while talking to Todoroki in chapter 42 and once to Ochako in a 5-page bonus chapter for the first character guide, set shortly after chapter 65. Both take place very early in the series and both are examples of his intense grudge against Izuku.

Did you know that the last time Katsuki uses "nerd" towards Izuku directly is in chapter 320?

Who's ignoring Katsuki's character development again?

The fact is the word doesn't exist in 405's text, and there just isn't precedent for him to say it to All For One.

Trash-talk doesn’t work if your opponent has no clue what the hell you’re talking about. AFO would have no idea who “that nerd” is even supposed to be, because they were not already discussing Izuku, unlike both canon instances of Katsuki using it in conversation with others. The audibly-pronounced aitsu just means "that guy over there (physically near neither you nor me)" and you could argue that is unclear, too, but it's relatively neutral and context clues everyone in to the fact that he means Izuku, with whom he just did an explosive, flying duo move.

I think some bkdk fans were keen to see him use the tsundere insult we all love so much, but it just doesn't read right to me. Writing an insult towards Izuku into this kind of line, even an affectionate one, misdirects the aggression and fails to highlight how Katsuki makes a mockery of AFO during their fight.

I really do think it undercuts how, in his big moment of taunting the greatest villain in history, Katsuki brings up making good on a vow he made to Izuku.

And let's not forget that there is a definitive moment where Katsuki references his relationship with Izuku while taunting AFO:

Chapter 406

To roast the villain for his stupidity in misidentifying him, Katsuki loudly announces himself to be Bakugou no Kacchan.

Katsuki proudly identifies himself with the cutesy nickname his childhood friend has used for him their whole damn lives. That's a far cry from somebody who'd insult Izuku just to hype himself up.

So, no, I don't accept "that nerd." I think the leaker just added it to make their translation sound cooler, but they did so at the expense of Katsuki's character. It's tacky, cheap, and not based in any honest reading of the text.

Put the nickname in your fanworks however brings you joy. Really, go for it, I know I sure do!

But let's not pretend Katsuki said it here.

In conclusion

Katsuki's dialogue offers a unique array of challenges to translators. I would never argue that he is easy to translate, and so much of his characterization is expressed in the minutiae of what he says. Much of his dialogue contains layers of meaning, and any translator is going to have to make a call about how to interpret those layers and what to highlight.

I made this post to say my piece about a translation tons of English-speaking fans love. In the process of dissecting what frustrated me about it, I researched and studied and learned so much.

And to be honest with you, I don't know that I have a solution for this line. I thought of a ton of options:

One For All couldn't keep you in the ground... but we're here to step in and finish the job once and for all!!

I promised we'd step in when that guy couldn't handle it on his own... and I fucking meant it!!

After all, what One For All can't handle... he's got us here to handle for him!!

One For All couldn't stop you… so it's a good thing that guy's got us here to step in and finish the job!!

If the guy with One For All can't get it done alone... then we're here to take you down for him!!

Maybe One For All couldn't handle the job alone... but our side is still gonna kick your ass!!

Some of them are very fun, and each highlights a different set of priorities: collectivism, connection, coolness, intimidation, and so on.

But you could pick apart my words the same way I picked apart the leaker's and Viz's.

There will never be a one true translation. There can't be. For as many readers as there are, there are just as many interpretations to what Katsuki's words mean and what is important about them.

In every translation, you face loss—loss of information, loss of specificity, loss of ambiguity, loss of emotionality, loss of cultural meaning. Your job as a translator is to lose as little as possible, and to make sure you can stomach the things you do lose.

You also gain things in translation. New meanings, new layers, new cultural implications. By showing the audience what you see and choosing how you say it to them, you add something of yourself to the work. You can't not.

As a translator, I want to keep learning and trying and going beyond. I want to do right by the things I translate. I want to share the things I love with other people and figure out, as best I can, how to make them see what is beautiful about it.

Unlike Bakugou Katsuki, we translators can never achieve a perfect victory.

But it's always worth trying.

#I love Bakugou Katsuki #I love him with all my heart #he is my hero #he has given me so much #volume 40 comes out officially in English tomorrow #and if this line gets revised I'll laugh my ass off #and probably think about this all over again #really I'll never stop thinking about this stuff #because as much shit-talking as I'm doing here #it really is so so exciting to see how other people translate things #I love language #I love manga #and I love Bakugou no Kacchan #image of victory #and perfect boy #a creature of love #who loved another boy so truly and so deeply #that I dedicated hours and months and years of my life to learning Japanese even better #so I could see him properly #thank you Kacchan #and thank you to everyone who reads my blog #I think this is the longest fucking post on my blog ever so if you made it to the end #seriously #thank you #mha 322 #mha 323 #mha 404 #mha 405 #mha 406 #mha 408

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5trrr · 1 month ago

Text

☀️Bob Reynolds One Shot☀️

“like a creep”

masterlist

summary: Stopping at a motel while on a mission turns into the team separating into partners and sharing rooms. You and Bob get paired up only to find your assigned room only has one bed…

warning: dry humping, bob and y/n are creeps for each other

word count: 3414

"I'm glad I got stuck with you." You spoke, arm nudging Bob's as you headed toward your assigned room. "Could you imagine me in a room with John? For a full eight hours? No way to escape?" You shivered at the thought and Bob couldn't help but smile. "I'd kill him. Myself, if I had to."

Bob had his usual boyish grin on his face as you walked, eyes switching between you and the carpet you followed. Well...the smile was usual to you.

You two had clicked as soon as he joined the team. You were the second newest after him and you felt it was only right for you to help him. You had been in his place only a year earlier. Now, you were close. Friends. You were the only one other than Yelena that he felt truly comfortable around. Safe enough to not glance over his shoulder when you were behind him or jump when your hand brushed his arm. He felt natural around you. Like himself.

Bob let you pass him as you neared the assigned room. You pressed the key into the hole. "Hopefully not." He whispered. He followed behind you, holding the door open over your head as you skipped in.

You froze in front of him and he barely stopped himself from walking right into you. He cleared his throat as he backed away, eyes following yours to the bed. Bed. Singular. Not plural, like the sweet lady at the desk had promised they had.

Your eyes instead moved to a small couch by the adjacent wall. Bob seemed to notice it too. You turned slightly to see where he was looking, a groan leaving you as his eyes switched between the couch and you. You glared playfully. A warning. A promise that you would be the one ending up on the couch. His smile didn't falter. He knew what you were thinking.

You ran for it first, throwing your bag so it landed on the couch. Bob's hands each grabbed one of your arms, holding them to your side as he lifted you. You kicked in his hold but he ignored it, dropping and pushing you onto the bed.

"Cheater." You growled, face down on the mattress, as your bag was thrown and landed beside you. You pushed yourself up and slid to the edge of the bed. "I'm not sleeping comfortably in this bed and making you sleep on...that." The couch had a small hole on nearly every corner of the cushions, questionable stains, and stuffing coming from the top of it.

Bob's grin still had his lips spread wide as he settled down on the couch. He looked so big on it, his knees higher than his hips when he sat normally. It looked like it would barely be long enough for a child. "Oh, but you want to sleep on it?" He shook his head. "You're not making me do anything."

"Bob." Your voice was firm when he looked away, busying himself by digging through his bag. "You're not sleeping there. You can't even lay down." He ignored you, or at least tried to. You could still see the crease of his eyes as he fought back his laugh. "Just-" You spluttered. "You can..." He slowly sat up, waiting patiently for you to finish. "We can share the bed." You finally whispered.

Bob perked up at your suggestion. His eyes ran over your face. Trying to see if you were kidding or not. You weren't. You looked so sincere and genuine as you held his eyes. "Are you sure?" He asked quietly.

"Yeah, of course." You nodded. You seemed unbothered by the thought of sharing a bed. Your voice was so even and calm. He didn't know how. He could feel warmth on his skin from just thinking about it. "It's not like we haven't slept in the same room before." You shrugged. It was true. You had woken up many times to him on the floor beside your bed, curled up with nothing but his clothes to keep warm. All he ever told you was nightmares. "It won't be that much different. You'll just be closer."

Bob swallowed thickly as his head bobbed up and down. You giggled as he grabbed his bag and set it on the other side of the bed. "See?" You hummed. "Was that so hard?" He grumbled faintly, trying to act like he didn't like the idea of sleeping next to you.

You stood to give him more space. "Do you wanna shower or am I okay to go?" You asked. He swallowed thickly as you stared up at him. Your eyebrow raised at his silence and his head shook quickly.

"I'll wait til the morning." He spoke quickly as you tucked bottles from your bag under your arm. You nodded and slipped away toward the bathroom, unaware of the way he followed with his eyes.

Bob groaned as soon you disappeared behind the door and the sound of the water hitting the ground filled the room. He flopped down, landing on the bed with a huff. He could run while he was able to. He thought about it. Opening the window and jumping, running, sleeping on the side of the building or the roof until morning. Save himself the embarrassment of sleeping beside you. He knew it wouldn't end well. He either wouldn't be able to sleep, too distracted by how close you were, or think himself to sleep and wake up more tired than he already was.

The smell of berries filled the motel room. He took a deep breath, holding it in. It somehow masked the scent of old cigarettes and the musky smell all motels seemed to have. He curled around the pillow you had tossed to him. He always wondered what the smell of your room was. Every couple of nights when he ended up in there after a nightmare, the smell of your room always calmed him. You always smelled sweet, like a warm pie. It surrounded you and he couldn't think of another scent that would fit you more. The smell of it calmed his racing heart, his head burrowing into the pillow as his eyes shut.

It was so late, nearly midnight already, but he wasn't tired. All he could think of was you. His mind raced with all of the times he had woken in your room. When it first started, you would find him curled outside of your door in the morning. He was too scared to knock and disturb your sleep, but you were the only one he felt comfortable enough to come to. He felt like a child, but staying alone with only his mind in those nights after a nightmare was torture. After the first couple of nights, you began leaving your door unlocked. His visits grew more frequent. You'd wake with him sleeping on the cold floor beside your bed nearly every night. He would wake later with a blanket over his body and a pillow under his head.

"Bob?" Your voice was breathy as you whispered his name into the room. "Are you awake?" Your words snapped him from his haze of your smell and...well, you. He stood and you sighed a breath of relief. "Oh, thank god." You laughed nervously. "I forgot my bag. Would you mind bringing it to me, please?"

Bob was on his feet in an instant, your bag held delicately in his hand as if it were an ancient artifact. His eyes found you as he neared. You were behind the door but your shoulders and head peeked around just enough to watch for him. He watched back. Your skin was wet and warm and glistening in the bathroom light. He tried to keep himself from staring but it was nearly impossible. You just looked too good. His eyes found yours again, already smiling at him, and he blushed. Had you noticed him staring? He prayed you hadn't as he handed your bag over.

"Thank you, sweets."

The door shut before he could say you're welcome, or nod, or even comprehend what you said. Sweets. It was a new one from you. You had called him many names in the past, but none of them felt as good as that. It set something right in his mind. He shuddered as his words repeated in his mind. He didn't know how long he had stood there, taking in your words and the rush of berries that attacked him when you held the door open.

Bob jumped at the sound the door clicking unlocked. He threw himself to the side, barely settling on the bed before you came out. He lifted his head as if he had laid down after helping, as if he hadn't stood outside of the door like a creep. His eyes found you and he fought back a groan at the sight. You only wore sweatpants and a tank top but he swore it was the best you had ever looked.

The berry scent followed you, filling his nose as you crawled onto the bed. You settled quickly, your face flushed from the heat of the water. His face, however, was flushed from...everything. The way you looked. The way you smelled. The way your eyes scrunched at the corners whenever you looked at him. You called him sweets.

Fuck, he could feel heat flooding south. He turned onto his side facing away from you so you wouldn't see the tent beginning to form in his pants.

"Thank you again." You whispered as you brought the comforter up to just below your neck. "For getting my bag. You saved me." You giggled. He pulled the comforter over himself too before turning, his need hidden. "Imagine if I had to run out here and get it? Oh, god."

You laughed and laughed at the embarrassing idea, but he was imagining it. He had been since he joined the team and you sat next to him on the team's monthly movie night. You had smiled so warmly at him as you introduced yourself. You had that same smile every time you talked to him since.

"You're being quiet." You whispered sleepily. You were half asleep already, the warmth of the room slowly lulling you closer to sleep. "Is something wrong?"

"N-No." Bob settled up on his pillow so you were face to face, only inches apart. You were unbothered by this but he was sweating. "Just tired." He tried to reassure you.

You fought to keep your eyes open, worried about him even in the arms of unconsciousness. "Try to sleep." You whispered, your mind finally winning and your eyes closing.

Bob wanted to sleep. He wanted to so bad, but the sight of you so close and the feel of his hardening cock brushing his boxers was too much. His eyes ran over you. Your arms settled at your sides, the blanket lowering just the slightest bit. Your chest was only covered by your shirt now and he could see the evidence of your lack of bra. Your nipples poked against your shirt and all he wanted to do was take them between his fingers and into his mouth. He felt like such a creep, staring at you like this while you slept, but he couldn't help it. He shoved his head into the pillow to finally stop his wandering eyes, but his mind replaced them. Images of you flooded his mind and he groaned, shoving his head deeper into the pillow until he was finally able to force himself to sleep.

You awoke at some point in the early morning. Three am, you knew after glancing at the small bedside table. You swallowed thickly, your throat dry and mind fuzzy. Wondering what had woken you up, you moved to try and slide off the mattress. Something wrapped around your wrist to stop you.

Your eyes found Bob, who had scooted closer in his sleep. His hand was wrapped gently around your skin, only there to keep you from leaving. He was still asleep though, chest rising and falling slowly with each breath. You smiled at the sight. He looked so calm. Sweet and pretty as his eyes moved, eyelashes fluttering slightly.

You forgot about finding what woke you up, instead using your free hand to gently swipe his hair from his face. His brows furrowed at the touch and you pulled it back. You were worried you woke him too. Something under the comforter moved. Your eyes followed it, squinting. It was right where his...His hips rolled slowly into your clothed thigh. Was he...Your question was answered before you could even register it, his hips pressing against you again. You slowly pulled the comforter up enough to peek under it, fighting the urge to push your leg forward in time with his hips. His bulge pressed so close to you. You could feel the imprint of his cock with each push.

It felt wrong to stare like this, but you couldn't help it. His eyebrows pinched in the most frustrating way and his lips opened slightly, a whimper falling from them. You nipped your own lip at the sight. He was too pretty like this. You knew this was wrong. He was asleep. He trusted you and only you enough to fall asleep with and you were watching him like a creep.

You had to wake him up, despite the awkward conversation you knew was coming. "Bob." You whispered, a shaky hand reaching out to push at his shoulder. "Bob, wake up."

His hips bucked again and he whined before he finally seemed to wake. He nuzzled his head closer to the comfortable smell of berries. He could tell something was wrong when his nose hit something solid. His eyes finally opened. Your throat. He had his nose pressed flush to your throat, sniffing like a dog following a bone.

"Oh, god." Bob pulled back. His eyes were wide and fearful and worried and embarrassed. "I am so sorry." He whispered. His voice was exactly what you imagined it would sound like. So whiny and up an octave with the speed of his breathing. "I-I-I'm..." He looked like he was about to cry.

"Shh..." You shushed quietly. "It's okay." He sniffled and tears formed in the corners of his eyes. "No, no. Don't cry, sweets." Your words were rushed as you tried to help him, but they had the opposite effect.

Bob groaned as you called him sweets again. "F-Fuck." He panted, hips pushing forward again. "Don't call me that." He whined and all you could do was stare.

His bulge was still pressed against you. He could have scooted back, removed himself from your reach, and left to deal with himself. But he stayed pressed tightly against you. You hoped it was his head doing that and not the one on the tip of his cock.

"Please..." He whimpered and you swore it was the prettiest noise you'd ever heard. He wanted to stop his hips so bad and run far, far away, but the need building inside of him wouldn't allow it. "Please, don't hate me. I'm so sorry." The tears finally spilled down his cheeks. You pouted at the sight of your sweet boy so sad. Without thinking, you leaned forward and kissed them away. His hips bucked at each touch of your lips on his skin. "I'm such a creep. R-Rubbing on you like this. Waking you up. I-It's okay if you hate me after tonight. I understand."

You smiled. After saying all of that, humping your leg like a dog in heat, sniffing on you...You smiled so gently at him, like he was the most beautiful thing in the world. "I could never hate you. Especially not for this." You murmured as your thumb swiped under his eyes, wiping the remaining remnants of his tears away.

It took him a moment to register your words. "You..." He swallowed thickly. "You don't hate me?" His eyes glanced hopefully up at yours.

"I don't hate you." You nodded. "Quite the opposite actually."

You giggled and he could feel himself calming. His mind calmed, at least. His cock felt more excited than it had ever been. It almost hurt how bad he needed you. He pressed against you again. Slowly.

"W-Why?" He asked quietly.

You hummed with a smile. "Who wouldn't want a pretty boy humping their thigh?" Your voice was teasing and your leg moved with him.

His body jolted forward, a hand reaching down to hold onto your thigh. "Oh, f-fuck!"

"Shh..." You cooed, wiping away hair that had slipped onto his face. He leaned into your touch, eyes squeezed shut. "We don't want the others hearing." He nodded instantly with your words and his hips sped up against your leg. "What were you dreaming about?" Your hand reached under his chin and forced his eyes to meet yours.

Bob's mouth fell open in your hand. "You." The word slipped before he could stop, the pleasure in him growing and clouding his mind. He wanted you so bad. "I mean-"

Your lips interrupted his train of thought. They pressed against his like this was normal. Like, he hadn't just admitted to having a sex dream about you. "Sweet boy..." You murmured into his mouth and he melted against you. "You don't know how long I've been waiting to hear you say that." Your tongue slipped into his mouth when he opened it to agree.

His other hand landed on your thigh, squeezing it in his hands as he forced it up. He rutted against you, hips stuttering. He was already so close, but he didn't want it to end. Not ever. He wanted to wake up every day to you. To please you. To be yours.

You watched him intently, a smile curling your lips. "Are you gonna cum?" You hummed against his skin as your lips trailed down to his jaw. "Gonna come in your pants, sweet boy?"

"Oh..." He panted. He nodded desperately. "Y-Yes. Yes." His head tilted back, a sigh leaving him at the feeling of your lips. His eyes slowly opened and met yours. His voice was meek when he finally spoke again. "I-If that's okay with you."

Your mouth fell open at his words. You groaned lowly and latched your lips onto his neck. "Come." You gasped when his hands tightened around your skin, moving against you so fast you could hardly keep up. "Fuck, sweets." His hips stuttered and you knew he was right there. He just needed one last push. "Now, pretty boy. Cum for me. I know you can do it."

Bob moaned loudly and he did as he was told. His hips stuttered and slowed until he stilled against you. He could feel the sticky mess inside of his boxers, a slick sound emitting from the blanket when his hips twitched.

The room went silent. You could see the gears clicking in his head as he finally had a moment to think. His head slowly rose from the pillow. His eyes glanced over you, your thigh still between his legs.

"I..." He began, but paused. He didn't know what to say. Sorry? I liked that? Thanks for letting me hump you? Worry and fear were loud behind his eyes. He finally decided. "I hope we can...still be friends?”

Your eyebrows raised at his question. You released his chin and he whimpered at the loss of your touch. "Are you friend zoning me after humping my thigh like a dog?"

"No, no, no." He sounded panicked now. Maybe he was...just a little bit. He shook his head frantically. "I just- I want to be more, but..." He swallowed thickly. "I wasn't sure if you did."

You shook your head. "You're too sweet." Your hand buried in his hair and pulled him closer. His lips pressed desperately to yours, his tongue darting out to poke and taste your lips. You tasted so good.

"So..." He mumbled against your lips. "Does this mean we're..."

"This means you're mine, sweets."

Meanwhile...

John was confused when he first entered his room. He had made sure to tell the receptionist he would only need a single bed, but there were two twin sized beds on the opposite wall...Oh, well.

#alexei shostakov #ava starr #bob reynolds #bob reynolds smut #bucky barnes #captain america #john walker #marvel #thunderbolts #yelena belova

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eversionimpulse · 5 months ago

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How We Learned to Front on Command (and maybe you can too!)

a post by Naomi (she/her) about how we use voice and body language to control who's fronting

When we first realized that we were plural, back in 2014, we had no control whatsoever over who was fronting. There was no way of passing the baton back and forth, not that either of the alters who existed at that time would have wanted to. We didn’t have amnesia about each others’ experiences, but we essentially lived separate lives that intersected with each other at random. One alter would front for a long time, and then a random circumstance in our life would force the other one to the front, who would front until she was forced out. Things continued like this for a while. One of the alters was much more active than the other anyways.

Around 2018, we first started trying to actively pass fronting back and forth. We would do it by thinking very hard at each other, by getting into situations the other would want to front in, or occasionally by trying what was basically a summoning ritual. The first method was unreliable, the second method was a lot of work, and the third method took too much time and too much obviously weird behavior to be used in most social situations. Things continued like this for a while, too, until life circumstances led one of those two alters to suppress the other entirely for a couple years.

In 2020, our relationship to plurality changed quite a bit. The temporary singlet we had become realized she was miserable that way, and tried to mentally reach out to where the other alter had once been. In response, I began to exist. I’m not the alter she was reaching out to (who was at that point definitively gone), but I had a lot of her traits, especially at first. It was a messy awakening, and again we mostly switched based on circumstances or with considerable mental effort. However, after a while, I noticed my mannerisms starting to become noticeably my own. This is where we had a bit of a breakthrough.

I had the thought that I liked being different, and that it would be nice to assign mannerisms more strongly to each of us: voices and body language, mainly. So I set about deciding what kind of voice I’d like to have, and she decided what kind she’d like to have. I developed a low, languid, fry-heavy style of speech with a lot of intonation to it. She spoke as fast as she could think, with lots of vocal pauses and a more casual, breezy tone. I caught myself making poised and calculated movements, hip-driven and limp-wristed. She lurched through her day a little off-balance, letting her full strength fall where it may. One day, she tried to imitate the way I moved, only to discover that after a second or two, it was no longer her imitating, but me fronting. That’s how we figured it out.

So, to stop being coy about it, here’s the idea: by deliberately attaching different vocal and physical (and typing) mannerisms to different alters, by noticing the differences between us and cultivating or exaggerating them, we’ve trained ourselves to front on command, and I think that perhaps you can too. The way I see it, we’ve managed to anchor mannerisms so firmly into our individual personalities that to perform the mannerisms of an alter is to be that alter. Except in situations where one of us is really having a hard time fronting (or isn’t willing to), imitating another alter will bring that alter to the front.

You can think about it like an actor getting into character, which brings me to the actual technical advice. My number one piece of advice is to develop ways of moving or speaking that, at least to you, make each of your alters really feel like themselves. At first this will feel like clumsy exaggeration, and probably like you're just pretending, but once you get a feel for it you’ll be able to settle into something more natural. Whichever behaviors or vocal tones you want to use as a switching trigger should be ones that are fairly distinct to each alter and not shared by others. If you don’t have those, then make them up! Try out different characteristic voices and behaviors until each of your alters finds at least one thing that makes them feel like themselves.

It can really help in this case to use specific anchor phrases, usually paired with a gesture. I’ll run through our anchors here as an example. The anchor we use to bring Cass to the front is to sigh, slouch our shoulders, and wince out “sure” in the sort of breathy growl he tends to speak in. For Jules, we perk our head up as if noticing something, take a deep breath, and let out a higher-pitched, friendly “yeah!” on the exhale as if we’ve been asked for a favor. For me, we roll our head back and forth, cracking our neck, then shake the tension out of our upper body, find a comfortable pose with our shoulders back, and go “hmmm” nice and deep. Elise is new as of writing this, but for now it seems like we can get it to front by ceasing to try to make any facial expression at all, looking directly at a (real or imagined) conversation partner, and giving a monotone “hello.” And for Marceline, we tuck our elbows in tight to our sides, press our knees together, and say “ok” in her distinctively nasal voice. We don’t always do this full routine in order to switch, but it’s the guaranteed version we rely on if we can’t do it either by thinking at each other or with just vocal tone. Yours don’t have to look exactly like this either. You could use smaller or larger gestures than we do, or you could use full sentences as anchors. Ours are one word because they’re essentially out-loud responses to having been silently asked to front.

So, why learn to do this? I’m sure the idea of switching on demand, for readers who can’t already do it, probably sounds pretty appealing. But just to spell it out: this helps us make sure that in situations where one alter feels safer than another, or where one alter’s skills are more valuable than another, we get to decide who is there and experiencing that situation. It lets me front in situations where we need to be confident and assertive, it lets Marceline front when we’re in pain and need to avoid using up our limited energy, it lets Cass make small talk with strangers in public. It can also help to make sure than an alter who is getting distressed can switch out and cool off instead of having a meltdown. But it also has some unexpected benefits- developing distinctive voices and mannerisms on purpose can keep us from bleeding into each other or merging at times when the boundaries between us are getting porous. It also means that people we trust enough that they’ve spent time with all of us tend to eventually start recognizing who’s fronting without having to be told, which is a tremendously affirming feeling once it starts happening. Not only is it a useful tool, but it also makes us feel more like our own people. The cooperative aspect of this technique has made it easier for us to remember that we’re a team, too. It’s a nice feeling.

One question remains: when doesn’t this work? For us, it tends to be less effective when the alter being imitated is in a particularly unstable state, either emotionally or in terms of identity. We can also fall out of practice with it if we don’t use it openly for a while due to social isolation, even if it’s just relative isolation from people around whom we feel safe being openly plural. It comes back with practice, though. For others, we’re not sure how possible this technique is for systems who have significant amnesia between alters. I suspect it may also be less effective for systems who tend to go very long stretches of time without switching. Plurality is so varied and experiences with it so individualized (it is, after all, your life) that it’s really hard to say how well what works for us will work for others. If you try it out, though (or if you already do something like this), I’d love to hear about it! Tell me how well it works, how it feels, what your most exciting discoveries have been. This especially extends to systems whose experience of plurality differs dramatically from ours (number of alters, degree of separation, degree of amnesia). I’d love to know if systems unlike ours can use something like this, or if not, what it was like to try anyways.

#longposting #pluralposting

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canonicallyplural · 3 months ago

Note

Hitori "Bocchi" Gotoh from Bocchi the Rock! is canonically plural!

While her plurality isn't a focus in the series (at least in the anime, maybe it's more noticeable in the manga?), the opening theme "Doppelganger" from the anime's second recap movie presents a conversation between the extremely introverted and socially anxious version of her most commonly seen throughout the show (who I'll call "Bocchi" for simplicity), and her calmer, more confident persona only seen while playing guitar (who I'll call "guitarhero", in reference to her online username).

The majority of the song's lyrics are sung from Bocchi's perspective, and talk about her self-loathing and how she wishes she could be guitarhero all the time, and just discard her "cowardly self". The choruses, however, see guitarhero respond to her, with the first chorus offering to take Bocchi's place and save her from her anxiety, the second chorus reassuring her that they wouldn't be where they are without Bocchi taking the first steps into music and asking whether she'd really be alright with disappearing like she says she wants to, and the third offering to work together and "overlap" instead of either taking the other's place completely.

In addition to the overall premise of the song, there are various little plural-coded nods in the lyrics, such as "if we switch places, it'll be easier right?", "you are me and I am you", "I'll take your place", "if it's a fake me, there's nothing to be scared of since it isn't me", "so let's overlap; you cry, and I'll laugh", etc. The official lyric video also makes various visual nods to the idea that the two are distinct identities, with Bocchi hiding behind guitarhero's back during performances unseen by even their other bandmates, and guitarhero being shown as "part of the group" while Bocchi is shown as separate and washed out, but slowly showing the two together as both being part of the group more and more over the course of the song.

(Note that the song is in Japanese and afaik does not have an official translation yet; the English quotes here are from our own translation of the lyrics.)

You can listen to the song in question on YouTube: https://youtube.com/watch?v=776pBhZ3oO0

youtube

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burnednotburied · 9 months ago

Text

Chapter 8: Stitches

AO3 Link | Masterlist

Pairing: Abby Anderson x fem!reader

Fic Synopsis: Abby goes looking for Owen and ends up on the wrong end of your knife.

Tags/CWs: sexual themes/content; angst; slowburn; mutual pining; enemies to friends to lovers; hurt/comfort; tending to injuries; talks of purity culture/ideals and “sin”; internalized homophobia and some comp-het feelings (they’re both so gay but so dumb about it); blood and injury; religious/cult-like ideas; character deaths (canon AND non-canon)

Note: I’m excited for this chapter!!

If you’ve read my first fic “You’re My People,” you might recognize parts of the second half of this chapter. I was going to rewrite the scene entirely, but then I reread YMP for the first time since I wrote it and thought “wait, i actually like this.” So I edited it to be a more accurate depiction of the current vibe/dynamic between our Prophet and our beloved Wolf, switched up the povs, and fixed any plot changes. And it has an entirely different ending!

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When Abby had asked you to stay behind, to wait for her back at the aquarium, you just shook your head, picked up your bow, and motioned for her to lead the way.

Something was off with you. You had been silent for the entire trek from the aquarium to the theater, not asking a single question.

You didn’t ask who had done that to Owen, Mel, and Yara. You didn’t ask what Abby was planning on doing once you got there. You didn’t ask why this was happening, why someone was tracking her down, how your own friend could’ve gotten caught in the crosshairs and ended up dead.

Which was good, because Abby wasn’t prepared to answer any of those questions right now.

But you hadn’t even reacted to seeing Yara dead. Abby doesn’t think you even looked at her body, and you treated the huge pools of blood on the floor like they were puddles of rainwater on the street after a storm. Inconvenient but inconsequential.

She knew what this was. She’d seen it before in her friends and fellow soldiers. Hell, she’d done it herself plenty of times. When the hurt gets too big, you shut it down entirely just to make it through. It’s fine in the middle of combat – helpful, even. It becomes a problem when you can’t pull yourself out of it, when you close yourself off indefinitely.

If you didn’t snap out of it on your own once all of this was over, Abby would do it for you.

The two of you had been able to navigate the Seattle streets pretty quickly and without interference. The Wolves and the Seraphites must’ve still been busy killing each other on the island.

“Pinnacle Theater Presents: Cassandra, September 26” was plastered across the front of the building.

And now, staring at the entrance to the theater, Abby realized that she actually had no idea what she was up against. The lights were on inside, so someone was here.

She had seen Tommy Miller earlier at the marina, so she knew he would be inside, but Manny hadn’t said there was a trespasser; he’d said trespassers, plural. She could be in way over her head here, totally outnumbered. Jackson had been huge. They obviously had numbers and resources. But would they really risk those numbers and waste those resources just to avenge one guy? She didn’t know.

Did they leave the map behind on purpose?

Abby could be walking right into a trap.

She could be leading you into one.

She was about to turn back, about to tell you it wasn’t worth the risk, when her eyes caught on the blood. It was on her hands, under her nails, staining her skin and her clothes. Mixed with the caked-on mud on her shoes.

Lev’s blood. Yara’s and Mel’s. And Owen’s.

Owen, who had been Abby’s best friend. Who had loved her dad so much. Who cared for her, even when she’d done nothing but push him away. Who never abandoned her, even when he should have. Who continued to be there, to look out for her and support her, even after she broke his heart.

Owen, who might’ve been the only person left in the world who loved her.

The person who killed him was inside this building.

“Let’s find a way in,” she said.

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On the side of the building, there was a metal ladder that was too high up for either of you to reach it on your own, but it led to a fire escape.

“Okay,” Abby said, “Grab that ladder.” She stood beneath it and intertwined her fingers over a bent knee, ready to boost you up.

Realistically, you didn’t think you would be able to reach it even if you grew a full foot taller and stood on top of her head, but you weren’t in the mood to argue. With your right foot, you stepped into her upturned palms and pushed up. Planting your left foot on her shoulder, you stood at your full height, one hand against the wall, and – as you suspected – still couldn’t reach.

She said your name, clipped and strained, and then, through clenched teeth, “Jump.”

You did, but you wouldn’t have made it if she hadn’t pushed you up, practically throwing you at the ladder.

Holy shit, she was strong.

You grabbed hold of the lowest rung and had to use upper-body strength you honestly didn’t know you had to pull yourself up with your arms until your feet could reach that bottom step.

“Good. You’ve got it,” you heard Abby say from below as you made your way up, the hard part done now. Once you were standing on the fire escape, you quickly found the latch that released the ladder to its full length. Even then, it still didn’t come close to reaching the ground, but it was manageable.

You watched as Abby jumped to grab on and had to go through the same process of pulling herself up with her arms for the first few rungs. Once you were sure she would make it up okay, you turned away and started looking around. There was a window next to you that led into the building, cracked open and letting in the rain. You could hear voices coming from inside, crackling and speaking in code.

A radio.

“Units Alpha, Bravo, Echo, come in.”

The metal shook as Abby finally landed on the fire escape, and she quickly moved away from the edge.

“Units Alpha, Bravo, Echo, please respond, over.”

Abby pushed the window further open and jumped into a small room with brick walls and faded wooden floors. You followed behind.

She shot you a quick look, putting a finger to her lips as if to warn you to stay quiet as she moved forward through the building, closer to the radio.

“What the hell is going on over there?”

Sounds like things aren’t going so great for the Wolves, you thought as you stepped quietly behind Abby.

She walked up to the work table where the radio sat and stopped in her tracks. You came around to her side to see what she was looking at. On the wall behind the radio, there was a larger map of the area, marked with WLF zone numbers, unit movements, names, and even Seraphite territories. Whoever was staying here had been tracking everyone, and they’d probably been using this radio to do it.

But why? Who were they and why did they want Abby?

You glanced over to her, but she wasn’t looking at the map. She was staring down at the table at a collection of little photographs.

“These are Leah’s,” she said quietly. You didn’t know who Leah was, but you studied the pictures anyway. Each of them had names written at the bottom.

Abby and Owen. Mel and Owen. Nick and Nora. Manny. Leah and Jordan. (And one of just Leah with her shirt lifted enough to show off one of her breasts… You wondered who that was for.)

You recognized most of the names from the maps. Were all of them dead now?

Abby turned away from the pictures, leaving them there on the table as she moved over to study the map.

Over the radio, a new voice said, “Site Two! This is Briggs from Unit Echo. Fuck!”

“This is Site Two. Echo, what’s the situation?”

Abby pushed off from the table and headed back out into the hallway, gun at the ready. You took another look at the pictures before grabbing them and shoving them into your pants pocket beside the things you’d taken from the island earlier. Whoever these people were, they didn’t deserve to keep these pictures of Abby and her friends. And maybe later, Abby would want them.

“Isaac’s dead. It’s a fucking massacre!”

You smiled, despite everything. Your people were fighting back against those fuckers.

Since when did you use – or even think – words like fucker?

And could you really call the Seraphites your people anymore?

You turned and sped down the hall behind Abby.

“Careful. Stay close,” she whispered once she heard you behind her.

The hallway opened up into a much bigger, wider space. You’d never seen an Old World building like this one before. Carpets covered the floor, some red and some with fancy patterns on them. The walls had colors and designs, the ceilings were so tall, and there was furniture everywhere. You wondered what this place had been used for. Maybe you could ask later.

Abby led the way down a winding flight of stairs, stopping just before going around the corner, holding a hand back behind her to signal you to stop. You lifted your bow and let out a quiet breath.

A man’s voice came from around the corner, speaking with an accent that was unfamiliar to you.

“Fuckin’ Jesse,” he said. “He thinks I don’t know what real gold looks like.” Abby stepped around the corner, gun pointed at the man who had his back to you. You followed hesitantly, staying close. “Well wait’ll you see this, you son of a bitch. She’s gonna love it,” he went on, clearly talking to himself, completely unaware of the threat directly behind him.

“Hands up,” Abby said, voice cold and hard. He froze. “Back away from your shit.” When he didn’t move, she spoke more forcefully. “I said back up!”

Slowly, he did, hands empty and out where you both could see them. “You’re making a big mistake–”

“Don’t fucking turn around,” she spit out, stepping forward.

Her eyes darted to you for a split second, voice lowering as she told you to keep your bow on him. You did, moving around to his side, weapon raised and aimed and ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

“Get on the ground,” she said, speaking to him again.

“You gonna kill me like a coward?” he asked, unmoving.

Abby didn’t answer. Instead, she kicked in the back of his knee and knocked him on the floor with one swing of her pistol. With the muzzle pressed into the back of his neck, her voice cracked as she mumbled, “You fucking people…”

The giant red doors across from you swung open, and before you had even registered that a young man was rushing through them, Abby had already shot him in the head. Someone else had come in right behind him, but they managed to duck behind the counter before either of Abby’s two shots in their direction could take them out.

“Jesse!” the other voice gasped from their hiding spot, just as Abby said, “Stand up! Hands in the air or I shoot this one, too!” She trained her gun back on the first man. You kept your bow aimed at the person behind the counter.

“Don’t you do it, Ellie! Get out of here!” the man said, rolling onto his stomach, holding himself up on his elbows.

“Stand up! Now!” Abby commanded.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Abby seethed, kicking him in the stomach. He let out a cry as she brought the gun closer to his head.

“Stop!” came the voice behind the counter. The girl stood up, hands raised, fingers extended away from the trigger of the pistol in her right hand. “Stop.”

You and Abby both took her in.

She was probably around your age, with shoulder-length brown hair pulled half up. A bruise went across her freckled cheek, and a tattoo covered her entire right forearm. Her shoulders rose and fell quickly with her gasping breaths. Her eyes were panicked. And sad. And scared.

She looked… nice? Harmless?

This was the girl who helped kill all of Abby’s friends? Who killed Yara?

Instantly, there came a stinging pain in your chest so strong that it took your breath away. You’d been trying not to think about that.

You refocused and re-aimed.

“Toss your weapon,” Abby said. The girl hesitated. “Toss your weapon!” Abby shouted.

“Fuck!” Ellie breathed out as she flung her gun on the other side of the counter.

“No… no,” the older man muttered.

“I know why you killed Joel,” Ellie said, voice desperate. “He did what he did to save me. There’s no cure because of me. I’m the one you want.”

If you weren’t confused before, you definitely were now. Who was Joel? What did he do?

And what cure? A cure for the Infection?

You were really starting to wish you’d asked Abby more questions before you came here.

“Just let him go,” Ellie went on, quickly gesturing to the man on the other end of Abby’s gun.

Abby seemed surprised by the girl’s words, taking a second to process and consider before her eyes hardened again.

“You killed my friends,” she said, speaking quieter now. “We let you both live…” her voice quavered as she lifted her gun to aim at Ellie, “and you wasted it.”

Before she could pull the trigger, the man jumped up and pushed her arm to the side. The gun went off twice as they struggled for control of the weapon.

“Wait!” Ellie cried out.

“Get off of her!” you shouted, firing an arrow through the man’s leg. He fell back to the ground as Abby pointed her gun at his head and shot.

“Tommy!” Ellie had grabbed her gun again during the struggle, and you screamed as she fired a shot at Abby.

It missed and Abby shot back, also missing.

The girl took off through the doors in the same direction she’d come from.

“Come on!” Abby said to you, running after Ellie.

On the other side of the doors was an even bigger room, filled with rows and rows and plush red seats, leading up to a giant stage. Ellie, already nearly to the stage, continued to fire in your direction, barely missing every time.

You and Abby ducked down behind the back row of chairs, and her eyes met yours, both of you breathing heavily.

“Stay here,” she said, peeking over the chairs to locate the other girl. “Watch the exits. Don’t let her leave.”

You nodded, hanging back as gunshots continued to go off from the far end of the room.

Abby paused for just a beat longer before starting down the aisle, staying low but moving quickly.

“Don’t you fucking run!” she shouted to Ellie, who you could now see on the stage. She had the advantage of higher ground and a familiarity with the building.

Please don’t die Please don’t die Please don’t fucking die, you pleaded over and over and over, as Abby made her way to the stage and out of sight behind the big red curtains that Ellie had disappeared into.

They were far away now, but you could still hear the struggle, followed by more gunshots and then more struggling.

You held your breath.

But for once you did what Abby asked you to do. You stayed put.

Until several minutes later, when another woman – one you hadn’t seen before – ran out onto the stage, looking around frantically before dashing back behind the curtains, not seeing you from where you still crouched behind the last row of seats.

And now Abby was outnumbered back there.

A split second decision and you were up, running down the aisle after them.

Behind the stage was a darker space, cluttered with junk from floor to ceiling. You moved carefully and quietly, heading towards the commotion.

When you came to a hole in the ground, you realized that the fight was now down below.

God, did they fall through the floor?

You quickly climbed down and dropped into the basement.

Just as your feet touched the floor, you heard someone scream. You ran, finding Abby down with the unknown girl above her swinging a knife.

You fired an arrow through her shoulder, and she fell to the side. And then Abby was on her, bashing the girl’s head into the floor.

You looked away, your eyes landing on Ellie, flat on her back on the ground nearby, conscious but unmoving, her face covered in blood.

“Stop,” Ellie forced through dripping red lips as the other girl’s head hit the floor a second and third time. “Stop!” Ellie couldn’t even turn her head to properly look at what was happening to her friend. “She had nothing to do with this.”

Abby grabbed the girl’s knife from where she’d dropped it on the floor, grabbed her by the hair, and flipped her onto her back, holding the knife against her throat.

“She’s pregnant,” Ellie choked out.

Abby let out a few heaving breaths before pressing the knife closer. “Good,” she seethed.

“Abby!” you called out.

She stopped, eyes softening as they met yours across the room. She watched you, read the plea in your eyes, and the fight seemed to seep out of her in an instant.

She dropped the knife, pushed the girl to the side, and slowly got to her feet.

Ellie coughed, choking on her own blood as Abby stood over her, their gazes locked.

“Don’t ever let me see you again,” Abby said. A firm command. A sincere warning.

And then she walked away, passing you without making eye contact.

“Come on,” she muttered.

You followed her out of the theater.

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Abby didn’t know where the hell she was going.

She had been walking through empty streets, blinking past the pouring rain, for who knows how long before it even occurred to her that she didn’t have a destination.

The thought of going back to the aquarium right now, of facing what was waiting for her there, made her sick.

Her body felt heavy. Everything hurt. It had been a long time since she’d gotten anywhere close to as fucked up as she was now.

That girl – Ellie – bit her. Hard. Like a fuckin’ rabid dog. And then Abby had hit her lower back on the corner of something hard when she fell through the floor and into the basement. She took some punches, got a knife buried in her left thigh, and that other girl got a few cuts in with her own blade before you shot her with an arrow.

And that didn’t even take into consideration everything else she’d been through today. The marina and the island and the aquarium.

It was… a lot.

She couldn’t really take stock of the total physical damage while she was busy trudging along down dark streets, but she knew that everything hurt. And she was definitely bleeding. And her body felt too hot but also too cold. And she was so tired.

Shit, this wasn’t good.

Abby was aware of your presence behind her. She could hear you. But you hadn’t spoken at all, and she hadn’t looked at you once since you left the theater.

She needed to put some more distance between you and that place (and what happened there) before she could bear to do that, hoping that the further it was behind you, the further it would be from your mind.

But that’s not realistic. There was no way you would forget what you just saw.

She needed to know if you were scared of her now, if you didn’t trust her anymore. She saw the look in your eyes when you stopped her from killing that girl. You were horrified.

You must think she’s a monster.

She stumbled, her bleeding left leg becoming harder and harder to maneuver.

Here you were – this perfect, beautiful thing that came out of nowhere – and she had to ruin it with another revenge plot that ultimately accomplished nothing except to make the people close to her look at her differently, regard her more cautiously, whisper about her when she’s not around.

Did you see the look in her eyes when she beat Joel to death with that golf club? Brutal. What’s wrong with her? What kind of person could even do that?

God, her life was turning into one sick, cyclical joke.

But you were literally the only person she had left, so she refused to turn around. Because if you still had that same look in your eyes the next time she saw you, it might break her. And she wasn’t ready to face that.

Abby stumbled again, this time more noticeably. She was able to right herself, but it took her longer to recover this time.

She was losing steam.

“Abby?” Your voice was as soft as the steadying fingers she felt on her shoulder as you walked around to face her. She kept her head down, still not wanting to meet your eyes. “Abby,” you said again when she didn’t acknowledge you, and then you were holding her face with both hands, cold fingers against her warm cheeks. You gently lifted her face until she had no choice but to look at you.

She thought she might be crying, but she wasn’t sure for how long.

Your eyes were wide, but not with fear or apprehension like she’d feared, not like you looked in the basement of the theater. You were worried about her.

“We can’t keep going on like this,” you said. One of your thumbs was lightly, soothingly, grazing her cheek as you carefully studied her face. “You’re hurt.”

Her whole body shook with a sob, but you didn’t shy away. If anything, you pressed closer.

Despite everything, she felt stupid for crying. She wanted to argue with you, wanted to be strong. She could keep going.

But you were looking at her like you cared, like maybe she hadn’t ruined everything like she thought. And she wanted you to stay close. To keep touching her.

“Come on,” you said, tilting your head towards the nearest building. A house. “Let’s at least get out of the rain.”

Abby nodded as your hands fell away from her face to pull your bow from where it rested over your shoulder and notch an arrow, and she was glad at least one of you had the wherewithal to be cautious of an abandoned building. If she had an ounce more energy, she’d be horrified to realize that neither of you had a weapon out until now.

The front door was mostly intact and slightly ajar. You approached carefully, painstakingly forcing it further open with your shoulder, fighting against rusted hinges and warped wood. The floorboards creaked beneath your boots as you stepped inside, quickly scanning the entryway for anything or anyone that posed a threat. Abby followed behind you, trying not to visibly limp on her injured leg.

“You need to sit down,” you said over your shoulder, just loud enough to be heard over the pouring rain outside. Under any other circumstances, she’d insist on making sure the building was clear first herself, but she wasn’t confident in her current ability to even make it all the way inside, much less up and down the stairs.

With your bow still drawn, you led the way through the first floor of the building, passing a bathroom and a kitchen before arriving in what was once the living room. The room was filled with furniture in various levels of destruction and decay, somehow the most well-preserved among them being an old couch pressed against the back wall.

You pointed to it. “Sit,” you instructed. She moved toward the couch without protest and sat in the left-most corner, albeit very slowly. You set your bow down, leaning it up against the wall by the couch, and shrugged off a backpack you brought from the aquarium, digging around in the main compartment until you found what you were looking for.

You pulled out a small battery-powered lantern and your dagger. “I’m going to check the rest of the house, okay? I’ll be back. Don’t move.”

Abby let out a scoff, immediately followed by a pained hiss. “I couldn’t go anywhere if I wanted to,” she said. It would’ve sounded more cool and casual if she hadn’t had to say it through gritted teeth. And if she hadn’t been crying in the rain in the middle of the street two minutes ago.

Just the thought of it made her cringe. It felt weird being the one who needed help, the one being taken care of. She really didn’t like feeling weak. But she was glad to be sitting down, glad to be near you, and glad you still seemed to want to be near her.

Your face held that same hesitant, worried look long enough that she forced a small smile and attempted to reassure you with, “I’m fine. Go.”

She was lying and she could tell that you knew that, but you didn’t have much of a choice. You turned to go quickly search the house.

------------------------------------------------------------

The second floor was clear of any discernible threats but also of anything that would be useful in helping Abby. On your way back to the living room, you rummaged through the downstairs bathroom and a couple of mostly empty closets in the hopes of finding something. Medical supplies. Even clean cloths.

You found nothing there and moved on to your last hope, the kitchen. This room was even more ransacked than the rest of the house, so it wasn’t a surprise when you didn’t find what you were looking for.

You groaned loudly and dramatically, clasping your hands together on the back of your neck and casting your gaze upward in frustration.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Abby quickly asked from the other room, sounding ready to jump up off the couch and rush to your rescue even in her current condition. It made you smile, just a little, until you remembered that this was no time to be smiling.

“It’s nothing. The house is clear. I was just looking for some medical supplies.”

“Who needs medical supplies?” she asked, surprising you with an attempt at a joke. Either that or she was so out of it that she was starting to lose touch with reality.

“You do, Abby,” you said. “You need medical supplies. Urgently.”

You were still staring up like the answer would be written up there somewhere if you just looked hard enough, when something in the space between the one of the top cabinets and the ceiling caught your eye. If you weren’t mistaken, it looked like the corner of a first aid kit, similar to the one Abby brought back from the hospital for Yara.

It was too high for you to reach standing, and there was nothing for you to stand on top of. The countertops were broken, the pieces scattered across the room, and the wood of the lower cabinets was rickety and unstable at best.

You were grumbling under your breath about high ceilings and unnaturally tall cabinets as you reentered the living room to find Abby almost exactly where you left her, left leg now up on the couch and elevated, right foot still planted on the floor. Both of her hands were hovering over the gash in her thigh like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to touch it or not, her face tense. She was in a lot of pain.

You pulled your eyes away and looked for something sturdy enough for you to stand on, eventually deciding on a mostly intact, only slightly wobbly small metal table. You dropped the lantern on top and started pulling it toward the kitchen.

“Do you really think now is the best time to rearrange the furniture, princess?” Abby asked, glancing at you in her periphery. She was joking again, and you knew that, but you couldn’t help the warmth that pooled in your cheeks at her use of that pet-name. But maybe humor and casual flirtation were just how she coped with pain.

“I–” You cleared your throat, “I need something to stand on. I think I found something in the kitchen.”

“Aww, can’t reach the top shelf by yourself?” Abby asked, amused. She turned her attention from her leg to watch as you struggled to drag the table out of the room. It squeaked along the floor the entire way, making her laugh softly.

The fact that she was being playful with you started to ease your lingering panic about the state of her health. If she was cracking jokes, she couldn’t be that close to dying, right? A little rest and she’d probably be just fine.

“Crazy how you’ve lost like half your blood supply and yet you still have enough energy to tease me,” you said, your own teeth gritted now. The table was much heavier than you anticipated. “And for your information, the thing that I’m trying to get is not on the top shelf. It is above the top shelf. On top of the cabinet.”

“Uh huh. Sure… Take your time. I’m just over here casually bleeding out.”

You liked this.

Was it weird to like this?

It was nice when you just got to talk, when the world wasn’t actively burning to the ground around you, when things felt easy and wonderful and comfortable between you two. You’d seen glimpses of it over the last few days, had fallen into pockets of space where time seemed to stop and you got to feel happy. And hopeful. But those moments were few and far between and always over too soon. Selfishly, you wanted more of it. You wanted more time. More of Abby.

You were scared to hope for it, scared to want something so strongly. Your wishes had never come true before.

“Well,” you responded, finding your words, “I’m no doctor. But I’m pretty sure that if the knife had hit any major arteries, you would’ve bled out a long time ago. So you’ll be fine for another minute. Probably.” With one final shove, you managed to get the table where you needed it.

You carefully stepped up on it, hoping that some sadistic asshole hadn’t thrown an empty first aid kit all the way up here just to waste the time and energy of some poor desperate fool in need of medical supplies. (You, of course, being that poor desperate fool.)

After brushing off a thick layer of dust, you grabbed the handle. The kit was full.

“Yes!” you shouted, nearly tumbling off the table in your excitement. With the medical supplies and the lantern in hand, you rushed back to the living room.

Abby could tease you all she wanted and try to make light of the situation, but she couldn’t hide the look of relief that washed over her features when she saw what you were carrying.

And if you were paying closer attention to her face, she also wouldn’t have been able to hide the way her eyes went wide and her cheeks got visibly pink when you got on your knees on the floor in front of her.

“Uhhh hey, you can—you can sit on the couch.”

You raised your eyebrows, confused by her sudden nervousness. “No, the angle will be better this way,” you insisted. “Just bring your leg over here. That’s the worst of your injuries, right?”

“I don’t know. Probably,” she conceded, avoiding eye contact as you helped her maneuver her injured leg so that her foot was back on the floor, practically between your knees.

There was already a tear in her pant leg where the gash was. So to avoid having Abby stand up and take her pants off or cutting all the way around at mid-thigh, leaving her with half a pair of pants for the foreseeable future, you opted to just rip the fabric a little more on either side of the tear, making it just wide enough to clean and stitch if necessary.

But it didn’t occur to you to fill Abby in on this plan before you did it. You took the already-ripped fabric of her pants in your hands and tore. And when she gasped in response, there was twisting heat in your gut that seems to be a recurring side effect of being close to Abby. You chose to ignore it in favor of focusing on the more urgent (and honestly less daunting and less complicated) task at hand.

“Sorry!” Your eyes darted up to her face. “Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head quickly. “No, just… wasn’t expecting that.”

You didn’t know what to say, so you dug around in the first aid kit and started cleaning the wound. Abby was quiet as you worked, wincing slightly but remaining still.

The cut was deep, but as you expected it missed the femoral artery. You would have to stitch it up, though, and you told Abby as such. She nodded and watched you carefully as you quickly prepared, hoping to get this part over with as quickly as possible.

You moved even closer to her. Abby’s shin gently pressed against your front as you leaned over her knee, bringing your face closer, your movements precise and intentional.

She brought her hands down on either side of her legs, bracing herself. Her shoulders tensed, arms engaged. You allowed yourself one glance before tearing your eyes away, feeling guilty for ogling.

Focus.

You looked back down at her thigh and began.

As you worked, a strand of your hair fell from where you had tucked it behind your ear and into your face. You let out a light, annoyed huff. Before you could attempt to blow the strand out of your eyeline, Abby’s fingers gently brushed it back behind your ear. You felt yourself blush deeply, saying a quiet thank you before going back to sewing her up.

When the last stitch was done and you’d carefully wrapped the wound, you felt Abby’s fingers run through your hair again, this time for no other reason but to draw your eyes up to meet hers.

“Come up here,” she said, her voice low. You stood, bringing the first aid kit with you, and felt the springs in the cushions creak beneath you as you sat on the couch, facing her and closer than was probably necessary.

You felt jittery, and it suddenly occurred to you that you’d never been this alone with Abby before. There had always been someone else close by, somewhere in the same building or around the next corner. But now it really was just the two of you. It was scary in an incredible, thrilling way that you weren’t accustomed to.

But Abby was injured and you were both tired and today had easily been the longest – and the worst – day of your life, even if you still weren’t letting yourself think about what happened.

No. You’d rather focus on Abby. On what she needed.

You started searching her body, analyzing the rest of her wounds. Abby sat still under your careful ministrations, watching your face with a soft look in her eyes as you took stock of the damage. You found several cuts of varying depths across her arms along with the one under her eye. And there was something else on her right arm, below the elbow. You took her wrist in your hand, turning that arm towards the soft glow of the lantern.

“Did she bite you?” you asked, nose scrunching up in distaste.

“Oh,” Abby winced. “Yeah.”

“Ouch,” you said simply, and she laughed a little as you grabbed some more supplies from the kit. You began gently wiping away the blood surrounding her remaining injuries, cleaning all of the wounds and stitching up the deeper of the cuts. You saved the cut on her cheek for last.

It was clear to you now that things weren’t quite as detrimental as you had feared. With everything else taken care of, her face was the last thing that required your attention. The rain had done a poor job of washing away all the blood, but it seemed that much less of that blood had come from Abby than you had anticipated anyway.

“I can do that,” she said in a whisper when you went to clean her face.

“I know,” you replied, just as quiet. “I want to.”

A few moments went by in silence as you worked gently but diligently, eyebrows drawn together in concentration.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” she said suddenly, quickly clarifying, “Not sorry that I did it, but sorry that you had to… see me that way.” Her eyes were downcast, and you wanted to hold her face and make her look at you again the same way you did in the street, but you refrained. You put your hands in your lap and drew back a bit, giving her space.

If you were being honest, the Abby you saw in the theater scared you. That Abby beat a person so thoroughly that they couldn’t move, couldn’t even turn their head to stop from choking on their own blood. That Abby would knowingly slit the throat of an unconscious pregnant woman without batting an eye.

Of course, you had known that she was physically strong. You saw her kill swiftly and without hesitation to protect herself and those close to her. But this was different, right? It was excessive violence.

There was a lot you didn’t know about those people in the theater; that much was clear. They had been hunting Abby for days, killing her friends and seemingly anything else in their path.

They killed Owen and Mel and… and everyone else in those little pictures still tucked in your pocket.

You weren’t sure of the exact history between Owen and Abby, but you did know how important he was to her. And you had seen her reaction when she found him dead.

Who’s to say Ellie would’ve ever stopped coming after Abby and the people close to her? Who’s to say she would even stop now?

So could you really judge Abby for her actions, given how much you didn’t know?

This world is great at breeding darkness, planting it in you from the moment you’re born, growing and spreading both inside your being and out. Everyone has darkness. Tonight you caught your first glimpse of Abby’s.

She had gotten scary, but that didn’t make her a monster.

And she pulled back. She stopped. That meant a lot.

You trusted her. And you trusted yourself. You were sheltered, but you weren’t stupid.

Abby was a good person, and she was in your life for a reason, so you weren’t going anywhere.

You knew it was weighing on her, though. Not just everything that happened today, but the fear that what happened could have a lasting effect on this thing between the two of you.

So you shook your head. “Don’t apologize. I’m glad I was there. You shouldn’t have had to do that alone.” She nodded, but seemed unconvinced that you didn’t have anything else to say on the matter.

Part of you wanted to ask for the history now. How she knew Ellie. Why she wanted her dead. But you didn’t need that from her right now.

Instead, you took another swipe at her face, wiping away the last of the blood. When you were finished, you pulled your hand away. The cut there might form a scar, but you weren’t brave enough to attempt stitches. Not on her lovely face, so close to her eye.

Now that Abby was about as fixed up as she was going to get, you turned your attention to the blood on your own hands.

------------------------------------------------------------

Abby watched as you meticulously scrubbed at your fingers.

When you finished with that, you put everything back into the first aid kit and put the kit in your backpack. Then you made a pile of all the trash that had accumulated. Then you sat back down and immediately stood back up. You shrugged off your jacket – Well, her jacket. (You hadn’t taken it off since Abby gave it to you on the boat, and she didn’t want you to. It looked better on you anyway.) You draped it over the other end of the couch, and then you sat down again.

You were so restless it almost made her wish she had sustained more injuries, just to give you something productive to do with your hands.

When you started to stand again moments later, saying something about needing to move that little table back where you found it, Abby stopped you with a hand encircling your wrist.

“Hey. Stop. Just sit. You need to rest,” she said, pulling you back down on the couch.

“I’m fine,” you insisted but stayed put. “You’re the one who needs rest after everything you’ve been through today. You should try to get some sleep.”

“Everything I’ve been through?” she asked. “What about you?” When you didn’t react, she said your name. You cut her off before she could say anything else.

“You got hurt,” you said, almost exasperated, motioning to her entire body as evidence.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Abby said.

“I’m fine,” you said again, colder this time.

“No, you’re not.”

“Abby–”

“You’re not fine! You’re just pretending like it didn’t happen.”

“Don’t,” you said, looking away now.

She knew she was pushing, maybe even too far, but she promised herself she’d snap you out of this if you didn’t do it yourself.

“You didn’t even look at her body. You haven’t reacted at all–”

“Abby, stop,” you begged in a breathy exhale.

And she did, but only because at that moment you closed the short distance between you and pressed your lips to hers.

------------------------------------------------------------

You were hesitant at first.

You’d never kissed anyone before.

You hadn’t even meant to kiss Abby.

You wanted to – had been wanting to for some time – but it wasn’t a conscious decision you made in that moment.

You just needed her to stop talking.

So you kissed her, surprising both of you.

Just a soft brush of your lips against hers, a hand on one side of her face, holding her still, keeping her where you wanted her. By the time she responded to your touch, you were already pulling away.

A thrill shot down your spine and spread throughout your body. You wanted more, but you didn’t know if it was yours to take.

You weren’t sure Abby wanted you the way you wanted her.

You studied her face, watched as her eyes went from being wide-blown and shocked to something that looked like hunger. A neediness that matched your own.

She was looking at your lips, so you grabbed her face with both hands this time and pulled her in, kissing her again.

------------------------------------------------------------

Abby’s heart beat against her chest as her hand found your waist. She gripped you there, pulling you even closer.

If the first kiss had been testing the waters, this was diving in head first.

It had never felt like this for her before. Touches that she had only ever pulled away from in the past, she heavily leaned into now, seeking more, needing it in a way she wasn’t used to.

She knew you were just distracting her, that you only wanted to get her to stop talking about Lev and Yara, the island and the aquarium. She knew that you probably wouldn’t even be doing this if she hadn’t pushed you to talk.

But then you deepened the kiss and suddenly she didn’t know much of anything. Except that she didn’t ever want you to stop.

God, you still. weren’t. close enough.

She pulled you towards her, and you went willingly where her hands guided you until she had you on her lap, your knees straddling her legs on either side.

You stopped, pulling away from the kiss and whispering through heaving breaths, “Abby, your leg-”

“ ‘M fine,” she mumbled, already pulling your face back down to meet hers. The soft moan you let out as your lips met made her crazy. Her hands moved from your face, tracing their way down before landing on your hips.

She wanted to slow down, take her time with you. She wanted to strip off all of your clothes, push you on your back, pin you beneath her, and explore. She wanted to hear every sound you could make and learn exactly where to touch – how to touch – to make you come undone.

Abby pushed her hands up under your shirt, fingers sliding along your lower back and up your sides. You gasped, leaning into the touch.

But then you pulled away entirely.

------------------------------------------------------------

You promised. The thought cut through the fevered haze in your mind, sending a shock through your system.

You promised Yara that you would bring Lev back safe. You said you wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

You told Lev that everything would be okay. You told him you’d get off that island together.

The full weight of it hit you like a tidal wave, so hard you thought it might’ve actually bruised your body and broken your bones. It knocked the air from your lungs.

Your friends were gone. It was your job to take care of them, and now they were dead. You did everything wrong today, made every mistake, and it cost them their lives.

Somehow, you had gone from Abby’s lap to the other end of the couch, pressing yourself as deep into the corner as you could as you pulled your knees up. Your trembling hands pressed against your chest as you shook with the first of the sobs.

Abby moved and then she was on her knees on the floor right in front of you.

You thought she might be talking to you, but you couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the ringing in your ears.

It felt like something was pressing down on your chest. You couldn’t breathe. You kept trying but your lungs wouldn’t fill.

Lev. Yara.

Images of one on the dirty ground and one on the hard floor. Both of them laying in a puddle of their own blood. And both of them left there by you.

You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to make them go away. But they were still there behind your eyelids.

Still dead.

------------------------------------------------------------

You were having a panic attack, the worst one she’d ever seen, and nothing Abby did was helping.

She kept trying to get you to look at her, to breathe, but it was like you couldn’t hear her. Your chest continued to rise and fall jaggedly.

She wasn’t sure if she should touch you – Were you supposed to touch people who were in the middle of a panic attack? – But she did anyway. With a gentle hand, she pushed your hair out of your eyes and held your chin, turning your face to look at her.

Your eyes widened like you hadn’t realized she was there, like you were seeing her for the first time.

Good. Now that you could see her, maybe you could hear her too.

She held your gazes as she spoke softly. “Baby, you need to breathe. Copy me.” She modeled a deep, slow inhale, followed by a slow exhale. It was shaky and not nearly as strong, but you tried. “Good girl. Again.”

You continued like that for several minutes until you were able to follow Abby’s breathing patterns exactly. The tears didn’t stop, but the heaving sobs had calmed to occasion hiccupping whimpers.

Abby’s fingers ran through your hair, pushing it behind your ear. You still hadn’t said anything, and she didn’t think you would tonight.

“Can you lay down for me?” she asked, voice low. You nodded and began to shift out of your curled position, slowly stretching out your legs. Abby stood to grab the jacket from behind you on the couch and waited for you to lay down before she spread it out over you, covering you up as much as possible. Then she sat on the floor in front of you, turned so that her side was pressed up against the couch.

You were blinking more slowly now, exhausted from… everything.

When you started crying again, she put her hand back on your head, letting her fingers run through your hair and scratch at your scalp in a way that she hoped was soothing. (At least she knew it would’ve been for her.)

“I know,” she said, leaning her head against the arm of the couch. “I’m so sorry.”

She stayed like that for a while, even after your breathing slowed and evened out and she was sure you had fallen asleep. She felt a tightness in her chest every time you sniffled.

Abby had already decided to stay awake and keep watch.

Her eyes scanned the room until they landed on your backpack. She got up, grabbed the pistol from inside the bag, and returned to her spot in front of the couch.

She watched the doors and windows, listened closely for any sounds of danger, but her eyes kept drifting back to you.

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