“Who Is It? Who Is It?”

I made Gary (my gecko) a tiny Tallis and yarmulke for Rosh Hashanah and he wished u all happy new year

In the au, Shiro is twelve and the big brother of the group. He was best friends with Pidge’s brother Matt. I haven’t decided his family life yet but I do know he becomes an authority figure among the kids. He isn’t an adult but he’s the closest of them to being one.

Shiro helps keep the peace because he knows a good deal about kids and is old enough to explain earth things to the adults. He carries Pidge around on his shoulders to keep them from wandering off and causing trouble, and is often the first one the kids go to when there’s mischief, whether they caused it or are hiding from it, for protection. They all consider him their big brother, latching onto him to different degrees.

Pidge knew him from before because he’d come over to hang out with they bother. Hunk sees him as the biggest and strongest around and therefore the safest person to be with. Lance sees him as someone else to get attention from and goes to him a lot for little things because Shiro always takes the time to listen to him. Keith never really had anyone but his mother and Shiro understands that, trying to help any way he can and giving him ‘jobs’ as he is the second oldest.

Happy Hanukkah!

And happy birthday Ozzy!

The tailors at Colonial Williamsburg made a suit for their cat

-boops your nose- send this to ten blogs you think are lovely and deserve a boop on the nose. 🖤~booooop~<^_^>

I appreciate you sending this to me but these sorts of things make me unreasonably anxious so I ask people do not send me chain things like this thank you.

Ehhh?

Do you ever just wanna cry because the cutest greatest girl, the first you've had crush in life, is straight? ;-;

Help cheer me up?

I was not allowed to audition for district band today because I forgot to do a form and I've been crying off and on for the last hour while I have been waiting for my mom to come pick me up, so if any of you care about me in the slightest, please just send a little something. Music means a lot to me and I'm absolutely devastated right now. Heart broken. Please send a little kindness my way.

My second grade teacher would scream at us and was generally horrible, but she specifically targeted me for some reason. Every week on Friday, if you didn't get a ticket for bad behavior, you could sit with the rest of the class and get candy and watch a movie. I never got a ticket, not once. Then! Halfway through the year, she swapped it, so if you were good, you'd get a ticket for good behavior, and then I didn't get any tickets at all. I was almost always the only kid left out, almost always. I think I had one week the entire time I was in that class where I got to sit with the others and watch the movie, every other week I was functionally called out in front of the class for being a Bad Kid and kept away from the others. I had ADHD and some form of dyslexia probably, but I was always a people pleaser, there was nothing I would have been doing that warranted this aside from struggling not to talk in class like every other kid. She also scared me so bad that I forgot what ability to read I did have at the time and had to be put in remediation when I changed schools. No one thought to test me for ADHD. She didn't mention behavior issues to my parents much, I think. I did get tested for dyslexia but because I started reading better out of her class, they stopped, so I never actually got any academic support. Last I heard about that teacher, they were considering revoking her license, and I really hope they did because no kid deserves to go through what she did.

Everyone give me the most screwed up thing that has ever happened to you in the american public school system

So I had a weird conversation on shamchat while looking for a chatzy

Ruth and the Romance of Consent

This year rereading the Book of Ruth I've been making sure to contextualize her within the rest of Tanakh. She's a beautiful little romance in isolation and a pointed moral commentary about sexual accountability in conversation with Genesis. In fact, she's a better romantic text if you deliberately read her in response to Genesis.

Ruth is a descendant of Moab and Boaz is a descendant of Judah. That two people from these specific families meet and marry is no literary/theological accident, since Genesis stans will immediately remember that both bloodlines are born from a sexual crime.

The man Moab for whom the nation is named was conceived by rape-incest, Lot's daughter mounting him when he is drunk. (Genesis 19) While the moral lesson of that sordid episode is complex and murky, the horror is blatant.

Boaz is the great-great-great-grandson of Peretz, who was conceived by Judah sleeping with his disguised daughter-in-law Tamar. (Genesis 38) Judah condemns her as a harlot to be burned, and though he cancels the death penalty once he realizes he is the father, the Biblical author is clear that he has all the power, responsibility, and blame in the situation.

In both cases, a child is born from a man and his daughter figure having sex. Leviticus 19 is explicit that such a relationship is forbidden. (Remember that Biblical law makes an immoral act an illegal one.) Both women acted from desperation in trying to conceive an heir but explanation is not excuse, especially since neither man knowingly consented to the act.

One might think, in a society obsessed with lineage and legitimate inheritance, that Moab and Peretz would be cursed morally and socially for their parents's sin, that their children's children would still bear the shame. But the Book of Ruth upends that expectation by having their descendents act with such morality that they merit the kingdom and the future Messianic dynasty.

When Boaz marries Ruth, he is technically fulfilling an esoteric Biblical inheritance law called yibum, honoring his dead relative Mahlon by marrying his childless widow so that Mahlon will have an heir. All very formal and proper, except that absolutely none of their contemporaries should have expected them to bother! Ruth isn't Jewish, so why should she care about property she's not allowed to access? (Marrying a Moabite woman was also illegal.) Naomi is explicit about releasing Ruth from any obligation she might feel. And Boaz is a wealthy, established community leader who's not even a close relative, so why would he marry Mahlon's goyische ex? The sexual ethics laws don't apply here, no one would notice if they just fucked.

Ruth and Boaz's meet-cute, therefore, is neither just a love story (against all odds!!) nor just a creative case study on how to apply weird property laws. When Ruth slips into Boaz's bed in the middle of the night, the Biblical audience can reasonably expect another murky sexcapade, like in Genesis. Nothing new under the sun, right? Just another desperate woman taking advantage of an oblivious powerful man to secure her survival.

INSTEAD, we get a compassionate, gentle scene where the couple not only does not sleep together, Boaz promises to marry her. In the dark, on the floor, in the middle of the harvest season, two kindred spirits open their hearts and hopes and trust each other to honor their promises the morning after. Your faves could never.

In Jewish tradition, we usually classify yibum as redemption, ie Boaz redeeming Mahlon's property and inheritance. But before the property redemption in front of the court, there was a moral redemption, made in private with no witnesses but the sacks of grain and the LORD.

Ruth and Boaz remind us that consent and dignity are always beautiful and romantic. We respect our sexual partners because it is right, not in expectation of reward or applause. And when we do, we can blot out the memory of any ancestral crimes. The generational trauma is ended, and love & trust will merit the World To Come.

Happy Shavuot!