This Is The Way - Blog Posts
You ever have a moment where you spot another introvert and want to show them you empathize but can't because you're too introverted to do it? For example, I am currently taking a lunch break at Qdoba in my car because I don't want to eat my rice bowl inside. Exactly one car apart from me is another woman sitting in her car eating a rice bowl. We are each staring dead ahead, enjoying what I am assuming for her is also solitude, possibly with some music or YouTube if she, too, is feeling froggy. We will occasionally meet eyes but neither of us will wave or even nod so as to not disrupt the other's private eating time, as the Introvert Code™ has so forbade us.
something that I feel like is missing from fandom nowadays is the idea that you dont have to have a unified, chronologically/tonally consistent interpretation of your favorite work. your fics dont have to fit within the same version of canon, even if theyre all canon-compliant on their own. your headcanons can contradict each other. be a multishipper. write metas that take two totally different interpretations of the same plot point. write a character as a villain and then write them as the hero next time. write a character as a lesbian and then write them as straight next time! engage in hypotheticals and drop them when you get bored! make up the rules as you go!! have fun with it!!!
Reblog daily for health and prosperity
Here to mention that this is the same friend that sent me this once:
"I'm a burden" congratulations Janet you have discovered the way that society is meant to function?
best thing you could have ever said to me. like my dad always says. the only way to treat a cold is with contempt. I present: the only way to treat Sad Boi hours is with disdain
[ID: screenshot with the words "And yeah we've all got limits and flaws and whatever"]
this reminds me of chapter 8 when it’s revealed that all the mandalorians in din’s covert were forced to take off their helmets after saving din. the armorer, who in the show represents the ultimate moral authority on the creed, appears to approve of their decision because they were prioritizing one aspect of the creed over another (i.e. helping fellow mandalorians > keeping the helmet on). she considers it a tragedy but not a sin. this is evidenced by the fact that she says “we were forced to reveal ourselves” rather than morally separating herself from the others by using they/themselves.
I keep seeing people say that Din broke his Creed in Chapter 15 but I think that is a misread of the scene and the show overall. I think what happened was that Din re-ordered the collection of tenets his follows so that the child’s safety supersedes all else.
The two most important parts of the Creed (as represented in the show) are wearing armour and protecting foundlings. In Chapter 3, Din is faced with a moral problem - does he protect this foundling or reclaim his peoples’ armour? His chooses the latter, and then goes back on that decision to rescue the child. That episode is titled The Sin for this exact reason - he made the incorrect moral decision, but he was no less of a Mandalorian for it.
In Chapter 15, he is then presented with the exact same problem, but this time he chooses the child over the armour. This is why that episode is titled The Believer - Din is in the process of reorganising his religious priorities, not abandoning them. Just as he was a Mandalorian when he decided to forsake the child, so too does he remain a Mandalorian when protecting him.
“why are you dressed like that?”
“this is the way”
….THIS IS THE WAY…! 😎
this is the way
Thursday Thoughts: Israel Story
“I honestly think that it’s adorable that you actually believe these children’s stories. But there is nothing magic about the waters.”
“Without the Creed, what are we? What do we stand for? Our people are scattered like stars in the galaxy. The Creed is how we survived.”
-Bo-Katan Kryze and Din Djarin, The Mandalorian Chapter 18: The Mines of Mandalore
When I was thirteen, my grandparents took the family on a big anniversary trip to Israel.
As a Jewish American kid in the early 2000s, growing up where there weren’t a lot of other Jews and spending my summers at Reform Jewish summer camp, I was told a lot of things about Israel. The big thing was always that Israel was important – that it was our home. That I should go there, and that when I went there, I would have an amazing feeling of connection, and I would know that it was my home.
So, as a recent bat mitzvah, I was excited about this trip. I was ready to go to Israel and have my big moment of feeling connected with the world.
I remember standing in the airport in Tel Aviv, minutes after stepping off the plane, and asking my dad, “When does it start to feel like Israel?”
Because it didn’t feel like Israel. It felt like an airport.
And then we stepped out into Tel Aviv, and rode around on a bus, and it felt like a city. I’d been to cities before. It was cool to see the street signs and graffiti were in Hebrew and Arabic just as much as they were in English, but it was a city.
Over the course of our trip, we went everywhere we could possibly go. We floated in the Dead Sea. We climbed Mount Masada. We saw the archaeological sites at Megiddo. We went to Caesarea, and Ein Gedi, and Yad Vashem, and Tzfat. We rode camels, we ate falafel, we learned just how unbreakable Druze glass is.
And, again, it was cool. I enjoyed the trip. It was beautiful everywhere we went, and we were surrounded by history everywhere we went. I remember thinking that the dust of history was gathering in my boots, because this is a place where people have lived for as long as there have been people.
But I kept waiting for it to feel like Israel – to have that big magical moment of connection that everyone said I would have – and it just wasn’t happening.
Then, we went to Jerusalem. And I thought, “Okay, here it is. This is where I’m going to have my big moment.” We went to the Western Wall, the last remaining piece of the platform that surrounded the ancient temple, the holiest place any Jew could visit in the world. I saw people there, pressed against the wall, eyes shut, in fervent prayer, clearly feeling something amazing. I walked up through the crowd in the small women’s section of the wall. I found enough space to reach forward, and I put my hand on the wall.
It felt like rock.
I remember thinking, “What is wrong with me, that all I feel is rock? Where is the connection I’m supposed to feel?”
And then, on our last day of the trip, we went to the Diaspora Museum (Beit Hatfutsot, now called the Museum of the Jewish People). It’s all about the Jewish people – our exile from that part of the world, and all our journeys since then. I’d never seen such a comprehensive look at the diversity and history of Judaism before. I’d certainly never been to a museum before that provided such an honest critique of the United States – it’s where I first learned about the SS St. Louis.
There was one room in the museum that caught my attention. I don’t know if it was a permanent installment or a temporary exhibit; I haven’t been back there since. In the room, there was a screen on the wall, rotating through pictures in a slideshow. Some of them were drawings, while others were photographs. All of the pictures were of the insides of people’s houses – their kitchens and dining rooms. Each picture was labeled with a place and a time. This was Poland, this was Spain. This was the fifteenth, eighteenth, twentieth century.
These pictures were from all across the world and all across history. And, in every picture, three items were circled in red: the challah loaf, the kiddush cup, and the Shabbat candlesticks.
As I stood there, watching these pictures, it hit me – slowly, and then all at once – that I had those things in my house. I was connected to every single place, and every single time, all across the world, all across history.
That was it. That was my moment, the completely mind-blowing and earth-shattering realization. That connection through tradition – that’s what it meant to be a Jew. I felt then a supreme sense of belonging, of being grounded, of being a part of something so much bigger than myself – something that mattered, something that was made of love, something that could never die. That realization has stuck with me ever since.
I told this story on TikTok on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Chapter 18 of The Mandalorian aired, and I marveled at the serendipity. I’ve talked here before about the connections I’ve noticed between the Mandalorians as depicted in this series and Judaism. We too were scattered. Our holy sites were destroyed. We are diverse, and disparate, and faced with the question of what to do now, in a world that hates us, hurts us, and demands that we too become hateful and hurtful. And we are united – we are grounded – we are able to survive because of the stories, the traditions, the rituals at the heart of our people.
These “behind the scenes” pics from the Disney Gallery feature have me shook thinking about all the times I woke up in a panic at 3AM because I didn’t clarify when and where a character in Mandalorian armor set their helmet down.
Apparently they can just tip them back???!!!??