Ella is thinking about the consequences

consistent practice opens up whole worlds of skill that you couldn't imagine

making mistakes in the process of learning is not only natural, it is also essential

activities that you enjoy can give you more energy back than you spent on them

Weapons. Trained, tested, forged in steel and fire. Failure is an inevitability that ends in death. Pain should not be felt--it should be recognized, familiar, and inconsequential

Martyrs. In the form of servants and princes, of leaders and underdogs. If blood is necessary, the martyr will lift their hands and offer it all

Shields. Like tempering a sword, but only to bear and not to lash out. Wounds are medals--not symbols of pride, but symbols of worth. A pretty shield is useless; scars mean a job well done

Experiments. Raised on the cold comfort of a lab table. Restraints are only necessary when they're not in their right mind. Is it honorable, to be twisted beyond recognition? Or is it just a necessary evil?

Monsters. Cruelty, caution, and regarding one as a creature beyond reasonable thought is tempering in its own right. But if you keep a leash at the right length, perhaps the massecre won't reach you. One can hope.

Idols. Pretty face, pretty name, pretty hands around their shoulders and throat. There to seduce, manipulate, force any feeling to come to the surface and twist it to their favor. Any genuinity stays locked behind the guilded cage that surrounds their pretty little heart

Trophies. Status and wealth and the traditions that keep someone at their heels, on their knees, to display and serve and decorate one's ballroom.

"omg, she's such a girl boss"

She kills babies like it's her job, if that's a girl boss?

"I'm a witch and my patron is Lilith"

She's a rape/SIDS demon. You actually do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to her."

Like, bluntly, it's not just that Lilith isn't a misunderstood girlboss goddess who was tarred with an association with rape and SIDS. It's that it's literally the opposite of that. Lilith was the mythological embodiment of rape and SIDS, and her association with feminism is entirely due to a misogynist in the Middle Ages claiming that feminism was bad and should therefore be associated with the rape and SIDS demon.

Claiming that Lilith is your feminist girlboss patron is like claiming that your biggest personal inspiration for the fight for trans rights was the totally 100% true story of the "down with cis" bus, which btw wasn't actually about people committing violence, it was instead the heartwarming story of how people wearing "down with cis" t-shirts drove a bus to Washington and convinced Congress to give trans people equal rights. Like 1) that's absolutely nothing to do with what the "down with cis bus" story was about, and 2) the "down with cis bus" story was an obvious lie which was created by someone who was trying to discredit the movement you claim to support.

It's not actually particularly feminist to claim that the an anti-feminist screed is true and real and important (they just got some little details wrong).

Like it's really really important to recognize that!

She was not subsumed into/incorporated into Christianity at all, and so she cannot be a subversion of "Judeochristian patriarchal mythology."

Judeochristian is a highly problematic term for a VARIETY of reasons, and people shouldn't use it (outside of, perhaps, the first three centuries CE, where Christianity was still defining itself as a unique religion) because they will inevitably say/imply some shit that just isn't true! Like suggesting that Lilith is a part of Christian mythology in any way. She isn't.

Like @penrosesun mentioned, the idea that she was Adam's first wife is from a deeply misogynistic text. She's not really a girl boss there. She actually leaves and is told if she doesn't return 100 of her demon children will die every day. And she agrees to that and declares she was basically made to bring pain and death and likes this. So. Not exactly a good thing.

Things associated with Lilith in various jewish texts:

Tragic death of infants / committing infanticide (particularly of disabled, unhealthy, or "strange" children)

Birthing demon babies that will die in the hundreds (possibly even killing her own children)

Miscarriage (especially with genetic defects)

Giving children epileptic fits

Causing death in childbirth

Having hundreds of agents of like...evil and badness

Being the partner/consort of a demon prince/king (Samael/asmodeus)

Nocturnal seminal emissions

Adultery

Possibly the first mention of Lilit is just referring to a screech owl/night bird. She does show up in the talmud (predating the alphabet of Ben Sira, aforementioned misogyny text) but all of those earlier mentions seem to be limited to her being a horrifying demon.

Ex: shabbat 151b:

Rabbi Ḥanina said: It is prohibited to sleep alone in a house, and anyone who sleeps alone in a house will be seized by the evil spirit Lilith

Niddah 24b discusses miscarried fetuses that resemble the form of "a Lilith", who appears as a woman who has wings. But this suggests it's a category of creature, not a singular woman.

on survival

Jon art by @drawsmaddy

And also this:

It's my rideshare driver from my doctor's appointment ranting about Jews to me from the front seat because he hasn't seen my magen david yet. I limp home.

It's the (white) person doing lunch service with a keffiyah lanyard and red hand pins at the hospital. I no longer feel safe receiving my kosher meal from him.

It's a doctor I work with. It's a doctor when I was a patient.

It's all but one of the professors in the department I minored in and roughly a third of the professors in the department I majored in. I have been taken out of class and yelled at by fellow grown adults in academia for apolitically acknowledging Jewish history in passing. Given failing grades with no explanation, accused of plagiarism I did not commit - only by these people.

It was the entire student government at my university. The cooperative silent treatment would have been impressive if it wasn't comical. At least I have a great story now.

It's the people I lived with, who swore they knew nothing of the conflict and became homicidal within 24 hours of a new housemate moving in. I still don't know what she told them. I fled for my life. I miss my chefs knife.

It's my leadership when I was in the Army, the people we were helping when activated for disaster response.

It's my landlord.

It's the teachers in my local school district.

My neighbors.

The tech doing my EKG to his captive audience. The chaperone doesn't comment.

The artists in my painting group.

These people are identifiable of the far right and the far left. Their commonality is they desire someone to hate, a group they deep down know is not powerful to project their problems onto instead of facing the true giant of systemic failures and purposeful oppression backed by actually and nearly insurmountably powerful individuals. They engage in magical thinking, conspiracy theories, and extreme cognitive dissonance. They allow these beliefs and feeling to impact their behavior towards strangers, and during their professional work. They make their patients unsafe, attempt physical harm, commit ethical violations and target students, abandon the truth and justice they have committed their careers to, break oaths, commit perjury. Nobody I mentioned here was a protestor. Nobody I mentioned here was a random person accosting me on the street, or this list would go on forever. None of these people were coworkers or only classmates, or this list would go on forever. None of these people were those I had power over in a professional environment. But all of these people were someone I had some form of relationship with, however temporary. All of these were people I had placed an amount of trust in, to be responsible, to keep me safe, to not act this way.