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blerb-f1 · 1 month

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Paddock shenanigans

Oscar Piastri x trad goth!reader PART TWO

This is a Sequel - find part one here

“Oscar, have you seen Y/N since the whole ‘setting your car on fire’ thing?” Mark Webber asked, fiddling with his steaming coffee mug.

“No. Dr. Roberts returned and Y/N was off training with the FIA. Don't you remember that? You were the one that told me in the first place!” Oscar complained. Mark shook his head. “Right - I totally forgot. I got my hands full of your contract negotiation goin' on. Have you spoken to Y/N at least? I know you got her contact info.”

Now it was Oscar's Turn to shake his head. “Y/N had to hand off her phone. Secret FIA stuff or something. Training's been pretty intense from what I've heard. Almost a Bootcamp. Appears Dr. Roberts really wants to retire about now. “

Before Webber could answer him, however, his phone's special chime went off. A message directed to Oscar, who'd managed to toss his own phone in the bath, had arrived. Y/N was now fully starting at her position coming the Saudi Arabian GP.

The young Australian driver smiled as he read it.

As the GP weekend rolled around, Oscar found himself excited. Y/N was good to be around - or more than that. He couldn't really tell himself.

The paddock was lively with music blasting, though not that much to his liking. The practice sessions went well for him, less good for Carlos Sainz Appendix. Y/N was the one to order him to the hospital. Oscar himself hadn't had the chance to spot the woman yet, but a chance would surely arise.

The second he finished that thought, Oscar spotted a familiar gloomy appearance.

Y/N stood in the distance, long black sleeves cuffed at the end, puffing up at her shoulders and fluttering in the wind, a dark hat resting on top of her hair. The second she spotted him, she jumped up and waved but also dropped her cup of coffee.

Oscar rushed over to her, ignoring the media, snapping pictures.

“Nice to see you, Y/N. It's been so long! Should i call you Dr. L/N now?”

Y/N chuckled. “I don't think that's necessary after I managed to set your car aflame. Was McLaren angry at you?”

Oscar cringed on the inside. The chewing out he'd received afterwards wasn't exactly simply lovely. “A bit. But it's all good, McLaren saw this as a chance to fix the car.” He took a simple look down at the spilled coffee on the ground.

“Fancy a new mug of coffee? My treat at the McLaren Hospitality?”

“Coffee sounds good. Let's go!”

The Walk to the hospitality was short, letting Y/N sip on her new Latte Macchiato much earlier than she could have hoped to.

“You look quite simple today. What's up with that?”

“That's pretty direct Oscar. Short answer: I'm a doctor now, can't turn up in a full face of makeup that gets somewhere it's not supposed to. Everything else? This is a Muslim country. Didn't wanna rock up too revealing - not that i usually am.”

“I feel like the bite you spoke of the last time we met is kinda gone Y/N.” Oscar exclaimed.

The woman just pressed her face on the tabletop, sighing loudly.

“Oh Honey, you wouldn't know. Be happy you're a driver - FIA bootcamp is hell.”

“Hell?” He laid his head to the side, looking like a depressed puppy.

“Sleep deprivation, caffeine overdosing and overworking. They had me going from morning till evening and then last minute studying.” Her fingers were shaking as if the sheer thought was causing her agony. “I am, however, very well-prepared for this job now. Dr. Roberts can retire in peace now. I also got to meet someone great.”

She perked up at that before pulling out her phone. The wallpaper presented to Oscar showed her standing next to a lady in an old-school racesuit, looking quite old herself.

“I got to meet Michèle Mouton! I got to practise driver extraction on her!” With her voice rising high, one could feel Y/N getting excited.

“The rally Legend? That's hella cool Y/N. Though your fangirling makes me think you'd prefer working with her than in F1” Oscar teased her.

“Shut up mate! It's Michèle Mouton! Who wouldn't fangirl meeting her! She was quite happy seeing me enter the world of Motorsport. She even took me on driving laps around circuits and even road track's. Believe me, she scared the carsickness out of me.”

“So our doctor doesn't need a doctor of her own after a car ride? That's nice - i feel like I'm in much better hands now. Have you told the other drivers yet?”

Y/N balled her fists. “Who allowed you to be so cocky, huh? I rescued you from becoming cooked chicken in Qatar. Be grateful.”

Oscar bowed forward. “Thank you, dear saviour. How could i ever repay this favour?”

Y/N pondered for a second before answering. As she turned to speak, her beeper announced itself. She read the little device before downing her coffee and standing up. “Sorry Oscar, that'll have to wait. I need to check over Ollie Bearman and his dad. Both are nervous wrecks. See you!”

She spoke before running out, sleeves fluttering like a crow's wing.

Qualifying went well though Oscar couldn't spot the doctor again. Only after the actual race on Sunday did he catch her again - standing next to the medical car still in her racesuit, talking to a few FIA employees about something. Her hair had been put into a tight braid, looking disheveled from the helmet sitting on top.

As she caught Oscar, she said goodbye to her colleagues before speeding off.

“Congrats Oscar! I bet it felt great to finally leave Lewis behind you.” She greeted him.

“It sure did - a podium would have been nicer though”, Y/N fumbled around the medical bag slung over her shoulder before procuring a bottle of water of which she quickly downed half. “You came back nice and healthy - so that's all that matters. Want some?” She finished off with a question. Oscar took the bottle, letting the leftover water run down his throat. “Very good. You've been looking a little red again. Make sure to drink enough.”

“Yes Doctor, i will.” He cheekily responded to her. “So what did you want from me as payment for your chivalrous deed? Well, both good deeds now. Nothing's for free when you're concerned. I bet you want repayment.”

Y/N placed her hands on her hips. “Of course Oscar - take example of the Dutch. They even want you to PayPal a Euro if they buy you something.”

“Glad then that i haven't been in Max debt yet.” Oscar smiled at her again. “Want me to repay you in monetary value?”

Y/N sat the bag down on the floor, packing the waterbottle before turning to him again.

“I'd like you to take me out for dinner somewhere. You've got my number, right? I know Mark got you a new phone. So contact me with the time and place. I gotta go now! FIA isn't kind to people being late.”

With that she zoomed off again, leaving Oscar behind in mild confusion. Had she just asked him to take her on a date? Apparently. He'd better get researching then.

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Sorry for dissaprearing for so long - at first Exam Season kicked my butt and then writing papers was my 13th reason. Enjoy, i'll try to update more!

#f1 x reader #blerb writes #oscar piastri #carlos sainz x reader #f1

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dolli-is-me · 7 months

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Introduction: welcome to my cozy little blog ♡

About me: you can call me Dolli or Dee, I am 6teen, from middle east , a Muslim, she/her 💗, I've been in the subliminal community since 2019, and in the shifting community since 2020, and I found out about LOA and the void state in late 2020, but I recently found Tumblr which is way more supportive than other platforms, my personality is kinda over energetic and really daydreaming at any time possible, I'm an ENFP, and I'm sort of a sensitive overthinker sometimes- but I love to hype people up! I'm glad to meet everyone here

Current status of being: I've been taking void and manifesting in a newer light now and I'm currently working on my concept, which is quite good, I'm close to enter the void, I'm so sure you'll enter too 😔✌️✨

Likes: butterflies, compliments, pink and purple, romantism art, painting, drawing, cats, manifesting for fun, helping people, Melanie Martinez songs AND DEFINITELY SWEETS OML-

Dislikes: hurtful words, mocking, feeling insecure, racism, and animal abusers (who tf hates them-)

What have I done so far?: manifested decent small things in the past using any method (like waking up at an exact time, revising my past grades into new good grades, growing my eyelashes longer, changing the tone of my voice, major weight loss, sweets and desserts... etc etc) but at that time I used to restrict myself from what was "a big manifestation or a small manifestation", so I'm currently fixing this limiting beliefs and decided to go with the void, used to be a heavy subliminal user in the past, I still use them but not over obsessed with it like before, had a couple of lucid dreams, and of course used the power of the subconscious mind countless of times for daily things

Why did I start this blog?: I wanted to help, I wanted to guide people, in fact, I made this account to help others when they are desperate, because I was also on a point in my life where I was extremely desperate, crying every night, I found out about changing my mindset the hard way, so I want to help others finding it out the easy way, I love to help 💗

Rules before engaging in my blog: just please be nice and respectful, be kind and I'll definitely help, no hating, this area of Tumblr is the calm and accepting community, other than that I don't have a problem! I support anyone regardless of anything with them, every race/gender/ethnicity etc etc...is welcome here! Just please respect everyone's opinion and be kind 💗

DM status: open! I wouldn't mind to help and listen to you at all💗

Asks status: open! You can ask me anything, I'm more knowledgeable in subliminals and subconscious mind, I also know about shifting (haven't shifted yet), I'll try to answer with all I can think of, don't hold back 💗

Taken anons: 🩶, 🎀, 🌙, 🦭, 🍫

So let's start this journey, we will both shall get our desires, you can do it, I'm so proud of you 💗

#void #void state #void challenge #manifesting #manifesation #daydreams #void blog #you can do this #IM SO EXCITED TO FINALLY HAVE MY BLOG #BESTIE I LOVE THIS IMMA BECOME A BLOGGER RN #dolli memories posts!#subliminals #shifting #shifting reality #loa #law of assumption #Spotify

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tilting-at-windmills · 4 months

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The 74th genocide the Yazidi lived through was in 2014. It was several more years before I arrived in Iraq to help in any small way I could. When I went, ISIS was still in Mosul, Trump was still president, we never knew what caused the smoke on the Syrian border as we drove by, and I was afraid I wouldn't make it back into the country when the Muslim ban was debated.

The village elders I met in Sinjar thought my American status meant I could raise attention internationally, but all I had were words no one would listen to.

Now I have an audience, a very, very small one, but I made a promise to use my words and I am doing so to the best of my ability. If you can help, please get in touch with me.

Their website is still in the development stages but I can connect you with the director or other useful figures. Longer story under the cut.

On August 3, 2014, ISIS attacked the Sinjar region (and I'm using Americanized names for familiarity's sake) in Nineveh, in northern Iraq. The few who were able to get warning from nearby villages piled into their cars and drove as far up the mountain as their cars could take them. One girl, I believe she was ten, was unable to hold onto the side of her father's truck. He could stop and save her, or continue and save the rest of their family. He continued on, and this organization is named Yuva in her memory. No one knows which horror she encountered.

The next day, the now-director of Yuva began attempting to distract the children from their terror, their hunger, their grief, by starting impromptu lessons. These continued as the Yazidi were trapped on the mountain, the young and old dying from thirst, starvation, and exposure to the elements. Some of the women who escaped finding their own ends as well.

But my friend, a truly incredible person, my own age, didn't stop when they returned to their decimated homes. Throughout the rebuilding process, which was still underway when I arrived several years later, he began formal classes in buildings that were not too damaged, like the school had been. He had volunteers I worked with, and focused those early days on teaching children English. He wanted them to be able to leave Iraq, something very, very few have been able to do.

He now runs Yuva, an international NGO funded by the UN, and they have built schools over the rubble, found qualified teachers, and are still going strong.

I'm not rich. I'm not famous. But I have a small number of people who listen to what I have to say, and which I've said in my chapbook (shout out to And My Blood Sang because you know I gotta), I will use my voice as much as I am able. I promised I would do that. And even if I hadn't, it's the least I can do.

These people who lost everything took me in with kindness and promised to protect me. They didn't shame my naivety, I think in part because they hoped that if one optimistic girl could come and try to change things, even if they had to save her at checkpoints and adjust to having a woman in the many councils of men, maybe there could be more. I hope there will be.

If you read this far, thank you. Being in Iraq changed my entire life, and I will not stop fighting for the forgotten.

#yuva #yazidi #iraq #ngo #islamic state #daesh #nineveh #duhola

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ireadyabooks · 2 years

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Books by Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans to Read All Year

We are dedicated to promoting, celebrating, and supporting our Asian American and Pacific Islander creators, readers, and community. Below, check out some incredible books by our AAPI creators to read all year round!

Debating Darcy by Sayantani DasGupta

In this Pride & Prejudice retelling, Leela is ALWAYS #1 in speech and debate competitions. But when she meets Firoze Darcy, more than just her winning streak is at stake...her heart is, too.

Freedom Swimmer by Wai Chim

Inspired by a true story, two friends risk everything in a daring attempt to escape the poverty and oppression of mainland China during the Cultural Revolution.

Zara Hossain is Here by Sabina Khan

Seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant Zara Hossain’s family has waited years for their visa process to be finalized so that they can officially become US citizens. But it only takes one moment for that dream to come crashing down around them.

The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan

Rukhsana is finding it impossible to live up to her conservative Muslim parents’ expectations. Luckily, it’s only a few more months until her new life at Caltech. But when her parents catch her kissing her girlfriend, all of Rukhsana’s plans fall apart.

I Love You So Mochi by Sarah Kuhn

When Kimi visits her grandparents in Japan, she is relieved to escape her problems back home. But soon the trip becomes a way for Kimi to learn more about the mother she left behind, and to figure out where her own heart lies.

Caster & Spell Starter by Elsie Chapman

Aza Wu knows that real magic is dangerous and illegal. After all, casting killed her sister. But to save the legacy of their family teahouse, she enters an underground casting tournament and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

K-Pop Revolution and K-Pop Confidential by Stephan Lee

In this romantic coming-of-age duology, a Korean American girl travels to Seoul in hopes of debuting in a girl group at the same K-pop company behind the most popular boy band on the planet.

The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling by Wai Chim

When Anna’s not looking after her brother and sister or helping out at her father’s restaurant, she’s taking care of her mother, whose debilitating mental illness keeps her in bed most days. When her mother finally gets out of bed, things go from bad to worse. And as her mother’s condition worsens, Anna and her family question everything they understand about themselves and each other.

The Great Destroyers by Caroline Tung Richmond

Jo Linden was born into a world where wars are won with giant mechanical soldiers and the nuclear bomb was never invented. Yet the Cold War still rages, and international rivalries between democracy and communism are now fought at the Pax Games, an Olympic-style competition that pits young pilots of mechas against each other. In a global arms race between superpowers, playing out in violent games that only humanity could create, comes a chilling story of clashing titans, ruthless competition, freedom, and the girl caught in the middle of it all.

Lovely, Dark, and Deep by Justina Chen

When Viola Li returns from a trip, she develops an extreme case of photosensitivity. But Viola is determined to maintain a normal life, particularly after she meets Josh.

Upcoming Reads by Asian American and Pacific Islander Creators!

Meet Me in Mumbai by Sabina Khan (On Sale 8/2)

Mira must decide whether to re-connect with the woman who placed her for adoption...but isn't sure she's ready for what she might learn. Told in dual perspectives, this novel follows Mira and her mother eighteen years apart.

Beneath the Wide Silk Sky by Emily Inouye Huey (On Sale 10/18)

After Pearl Harbor, Sam documents the bigotry she sees towards Japanese Americans. When the US announces that those of Japanese descent will be sent to "relocation camps," Sam must act or lose her voice forever.

#AAPI heritage Month #stop aapi hate #books to read #booklr #book recommendations

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one-page-a-day · 7 months

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27th of September 2023

I attended a guest lecture by the muslim scholar Prof. Dr. amina wadud yesterday. The topic of her lecture was "Women and Non-Binary Matter: New Pathways through Islamic Ethics, Authority and Traditions".

If you are a university student and you attend guest lectures, I don't have to tell you this. But if you find yourself thinking "hmmm.. maybe not today..." this is your sign to go! If there's a scholar from abroad speaking about a topic you're interested in, go hear them! The amount of inspiration I get from a guest lecture every single time is priceless. You WILL learn things that your university won't teach you.

amina wadud is best known as the Lady Imam. I was thrilled to hear that she would speak at my university - inspired by nearly 50 years of research and work she is considered one of the top scholars in progressive Islamic thought, often sparking controversy and discussion. More on her here: https://aminawadud.com/

Some of the key points I take away from her lecture are:

The islamic tradition in general and first and foremost the Quran are not free from ambiguity. An example for this is how it states in the Quran (97: 1-5) the Quran has been revealed in one night, lailat al-qadr, whereas the islamic tradition tells us that the Quran was revealed to the prophet over a span of 20 years.

wadud points out that ambiguities like these call for us to get involved. Only when we take a step towards the tradition, embracing ambiguity, we can reconcile with the texts. Only this way we can make out their meaning to apply them in our practices. "Reconciliation is a matter of choice."

wadud sees ambiguity not only as means to engage into a deeper exegesis of the texts, but also as a door-opener, and this was my favorite part of her lecture. She says "where something is ambiguous, there is space for compassion."

wadud pushes for an interpretation of the islamic sources that does justice to the dignity (karāma) God gave ALL people. This includes men, women and non-binary humans alike.

Many voices in the field see their views challenged. wadud says: "It's not the methods they disagree with, it's the conclusions." waduds conclusions call for a more inclusive islamic praxis, defying patriarchy and the gender binary. Any reading of a sacred text has to benefit the community. That's why it's important to ask: Who does my reading benefit? Who does it harm?

Quran exegesis (tafsīr), for a long time, has been focusing on the male experience. For wadud, it's now time for non-male experiences and voices to be included when interpreting the islamic sources. "Allah is omnipotent but doesn't oppress. Oppression or (zulm) is not only inequality but also arrogant and ungodly."

Prof. Dr. Melissa M. Wilcox, who also attended the lecture, added: "Where people are afraid, ambiguity becomes intolerable."

My thoughts: this might just be the biggest test for the muslim community (umma) today. As it says in the Quran: "Do people think once they say, 'we believe', that they will be left without being put to the test?" (29:2) A compassionate and inclusive reading of sacred texts is called for. And the second step is the most crucial: putting the findings into action to fight oppression and to reduce harm to the community.

If this interests you, you might also want to read: Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle, Asma Barlas

#amina wadud #islam #islamic studies #muslim feminism #islamic feminism #patriarchy

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50centexecutivembaclass · 7 months

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Sunday is always the best day of the week to check your watch , schedule , and calendar for the rest of the year while fixing your cufflinks in the back of my limousine as we cruise through the streets of Gotham New York City and I say thank you Mr . Nasir Jones and 50 Cent and then French Montana for providing me with a world class education , I got Joyce Meyer , Joel Osteen and Victoria Osteen on my book list and I am a world class political scientist economist and social scientist now a business student getting an IVY League education I own my own library and my own hospital with an even more brighter future ahead of me , thank you Prince Harry is a bother and a friend of mines I'm a King status now and I'm in the hospitality business after taking over the streets with my politics with Mayor Bill De Blasio and Former Governor Andrew Cuomo and patrolling the New York City streets as Gotham Batman Bruce Wayne and Savior of his people as Superman Clark Kent in front of City Hall to the streets and now I'm going for Madison and Park Avenue I'm in the hospitality business so it is all about how treat people first their is my list of accomplishments showing that I care now I'm going to commit to getting my education in big business in my city and hopefully get into other cities and countries in the world Im going international but first I commit to my education my library is my school my class and you should treat as such go there and get your mind right I'm civilized so my establishment are civilized I expect and give great great service because I believe in and love people they make life exciting all walks of people I love em they make me feel good , enjoy your sunday all these are in my plans now for the near future I plan to serve donut dough mixed drinks with reeases smores crushed crumbed cake thick mix with oatmeal milk with lid as a drink though and line of Im loyal to the Queen 👑 Hotels just dreaming out loud I'm young and confident and had a great career in like the political science and sociology fields that I made a star of myself and now I want go into business and I know it is hard work and it is easier said than done I'm just excited about it on this Sunday and I wanted share this with you and the direction I'm going in the future and with my future I'm commiting to a business education my business education set in play by Governor Andrew Cuomo he believed in me and help to redeem my character and self in the face and in front of the people thank you thank you so much he made a program of me helping to rebuild New York City in the science of legislature in law passing laws getting stuff done for the people , politics and what's goes on in this city thank you I'm honored and hope you have a great Sunday and afternoon .

youtube

You ever feel you tripped and fell into the wrong kind of people and their practices of evilness I wish I could talk to myself more than people that hate me I wish I was you I got voodoo a curse on me and a very demonic person or set of people is the voice in my head 24 / 7 Joyce Meyer speak on that in Battlefield of the mind the hood may need to return to God and really find out what being Christian , Muslim or 5 Percenter really mean it's the hood so it is aight not to do your part as a good person it just a theory until you put righteousness into theory until then you are undeveloped and evil and that make what you so called hate . Quick announcement Nicki took me on as a son of hers and I accept we don't look alike but she took me on and I said yeah she don't need anything from me but I'm learning the business and plan to open shops and hotels called I'm loyal to the Queen hotel with her and Cardi B and other stuff in business it is just a dream of mines you are going to love it when I finish learning it I will post it , it is going to be my plans and ideas and seeing who got the best pitch to them like I said they good it just something I want to learn and get it done and name it after my first women I'm going to go as far as I could in learning it and then drawing it and showing the world and hopefully she don't say no , wish me luck my behaviors is changing as far as doing things in an appropriate manner and sorry about the drama I may have caused anyone but everything is fixed and everybody is doing okay so let's enjoy the future together as New Yorkers and prosperity . Those ladies are free to live stress free over me they got their freedom from me they are free to go and is free to live their lives they are safe I will make it to the other side of financial success they ain't gotta worry about me and if they like me they will take my plans on , I'm a huge smash and success in the economy , politics and social science but I moved on and leave that to the professionals while I go enjoy my life and individuality , thank you it has been a blessing and great for me to help New York City and other places in the world and I wish the best for all communities in the world .

#Youtube

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pridepages · 1 year

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Worship: I Was Born For This

I just finished I Was Born For This by Alice Oseman. I have thoughts...

Here there be spoilers!

The late great David Foster Wallace once said: “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”

He was right. In modern society, many of us have turned away from organized religion. But if we think that means we don’t worship something...then we are fooling ourselves. It is deeply rooted in human nature to seek something bigger than ourselves, to find somewhere to place our faith. So if we can’t find it in god...where do we look?

In their third novel, Alice Oseman examines a new golden idol: celebrity culture and fandom. I Was Born For This is told in two voices: Angel Rahimi, a big name fangirl of boyband The Ark, and Jimmy Kaga-Ricci, one of the members of The Ark. Over the course of a week, these two lost souls re-examine the role that faith has played in their lives--be it faith in religion, in others, or in themselves--and each has a period of crisis when they must decide if they have chosen the right places for their faith.

Interestingly, both Born’s Angel and Jimmy are religious characters: Angel as a muslim and Jimmy as christian (even the band The Ark is a reference to the bible, and the hit song ‘Joan of Arc’ is in reference to a Catholic saint). And Jimmy identifies as a gay transboy. So none of this is to suggest that traditional organized religion can’t ever have a place in queer people’s lives. Rather, the idea is that the modern world has created a new religion that a lot of us practice. It invites the question: what role do we allow celebrity culture to play in our lives? Why do we care about these strangers? Why do we obsess endlessly about these fictional stories, characters, or personas? We laugh about not being able to ‘behave normally,’ but...how funny is the joke, really?

But let’s roll back the tape: how does Oseman show that celebrities occupy a space akin to deities and religion in people’s hearts? It starts with the nature of the love that fans have for the objects of their obsessions. Angel starts by debunking the idea that being a fan is about indulging in a purely romantic fantasy, describing her love for The Ark as:

“not a romantic confession. It’s so much deeper than that. Love sometimes doesn’t feel like the right word. The feelings I have for The Ark are what keep me going every day. They get me out of bed, even when everything is shit and I’m feeling worthless...Needing, desperately, to think about anything apart from yourself.”

Note how Angel’s speaking: looking for something outside herself to motivate her, to give her hope, to help lift her out of the darkness of her life...this is the language of faith. Angel knows that she has never met the actual people in The Ark. She’s not delusional. She actually is aware that she loves the idea of The Ark. She loves this abstract concept that she can hold in her heart and mind as comfort and inspiration. This is the speech of a lost soul looking for something bigger than herself to believe in. This is the kind of love a person has not for another human being...but for a god.

And it’s nothing new. As a grandmother points out: “I’ll never forget what dear old John Lennon said: We’re more popular than Jesus now. They attacked him for that, I’ll tell you. But he was right. It was a religion.”

And where did this modern religion come from? Why did people, particularly young girls, place to put their idolatrous, bigger-than-me love in celebrities? Grandma further hypothesizes about the Beatles that:

“Their music was good and fun, yes, but they looked kind. They were attractive, but not in a scary, very masculine way that many young girls find intimidating...They gave these girls something very safe to love. Something that would never bite them back...everything would bite you back if you were a girl.”

It’s such a fascinating choice of words: looking for something that won’t bite you. Because the Old Gods can and do. At least, the humans who translate and push their texts do. Queer people may come to worship bringing love in their hearts and be shunned as sinners, cast out from that God’s light. That love may curdle into something sickening, something painful. Instead of being a source of strength and hope, that Higher Power becomes an enemy. So it makes sense that the space becomes empty, that the outcasts then need a new, safe higher power to believe in...even if that higher power was manufactured specifically to appeal to them and to sell them things.

Another key aspect of worship is that it isn’t just about the individual. It also connects people to their wider world. In the old days, communities would often be bound together in person in houses of worship. People would meet, probably weekly if not more often, and see their friends and neighbors around them. Regardless of any conflicts outside the walls, these communities would come together and express their shared tenets of faith. They would be reminded of their better selves, and they would agree to take care of each other. It was a place to be reminded of love and forgiveness for your fellows.

Unfortunately, many of those communities have also traditionally demanded conformity. If you deviated out of the bounds of ‘the norm,’ then you would be cast out. Queerness has traditionally been considered such an unforgivable deviation. So many of us have turned our backs on these communities. And that left a vacuum. Born shows us that fandom has become a whole new version of the faith based community:

“People think...fangirls all just want to kiss the boy-band boys and marry them and live happily ever after. Whereas if you actually asked a lot of fangirls, they probably wouldn’t even say that they had a crush on the boy-band boys....Add that to the fact that there’s an extremely high percentage of LGBTQIA+ people in fandom, particularly queer girls, usually because it’s a much more diverse and accepting space than real life.”

What Angel hits on that’s of interest here is how fandoms are communities purportedly dedicated to loving celebrities or art, but their true purpose is to serve as a hub that connects the fans to each other. Have you ever read a book, heard an album, or seen a movie and immediately wanted to share it with people? Then you’ve brushed up against this kind of worshipful love. For many, it will end there. But for the ones who don’t have other places to put their faith, their worship, or find their people...it goes farther. This is what fandom culture is really about.

Unfortunately, we have a problem. Like any all-consuming love, like any love that takes something manmade and tries to elevate it to godlike perfection, fandom love can turn toxic. It’s a thin line between passion and obsession. And obsessing over something as imperfect as another human being or their creation? That’s a recipe designed to bring out our worst selves. Sometimes, I look around and I feel the same way as Jimmy’s granddad: “the saddest thing about you fans is that you don’t care about yourselves...You cling to them like you’re reaching out to a god. They practically keep you alive. But beneath that, and if you took it all away, you fundamentally do not value yourself. All your love is given away. You leave nothing for yourself.”

It’s too easy to get lost in the trenches of celebrity worship, fighting each other in the trenches about the morality of liking or consuming certain art, elevating others, and dissecting all of it to within an inch of its life. Think about the ‘fans’ who send death threats, who force celebrities out of the closet, who try to even cancel other fans just because they love in a different way that is largely disapproved. Or, it may be as simple as the fans like Angel who insist if they just get to see the object of their adoration one time, and it goes perfectly (no pressure), then they will be happy for the rest of their lives. Celebrities may seem to be an amalgamation of money, targeted advertising, and talent...but underneath the fiction is a human. And humans are too fragile and fallible to carry that kind of worship. There is a reason we used to put it on invisible, abstract gods: they could take the pressure.

Of course it’s important to find sources of joy in the world. Art absolutely does that. And, in the modern world, we have unprecedented access to the people who help make that art, be it actors, musicians, or any other kind of creators. As wonderful and enriching as art can make life, “There comes a point where you have to help yourself. Believe in yourself.” Art and artists bring us joy, but that doesn’t make them gods. They are human, and so we need to stop expecting perfection either from the creation or the creator. Instead, we need to look into our hearts and make sure that the love there is sustaining us instead of stealing from us.

Remember...everybody worships. So be conscious of where you choose to place your faith.

#i was born for this #alice oseman #osemanverse #lgbt reads #queer lit #iwbft

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richincolor · 2 years

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A Few Recommendations from the Past Two Years

Each of the Rich in Color bloggers reviews one book or even more every month, but we aren't able to review everything that we read and enjoy. Today I'd like to share some of the books that shouldn't be missed even though we haven't had a chance to review or feature them yet.

Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers

Valora Luck has two things: a ticket for the biggest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world, and a dream of leaving England behind and making a life for herself as a circus performer in New York. Much to her surprise, though, she's turned away at the gangway; apparently, Chinese people aren't allowed into America.

But Val has to get on that ship. Her twin brother, Jamie, who has spent two long years at sea, is on board, as is an influential circus owner. Thankfully, there's not much a trained acrobat like Val can't overcome when she puts her mind to it.

As a stowaway, Val should keep her head down and stay out of sight. But the clock is ticking and she has just seven days as the ship makes its way across the Atlantic to find Jamie, audition for the circus owner, and convince him to help get them both into America.

Then one night, the unthinkable happens, and suddenly Val's dreams of a new life are crushed under the weight of the only thing that matters: survival.

Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World (Aristotle and Dante #2) by Benjamin Alire Sáenz Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers

In Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, two boys in a border town fell in love. Now, they must discover what it means to stay in love and build a relationship in a world that seems to challenge their very existence.

Ari has spent all of high school burying who he really is, staying silent and invisible. He expected his senior year to be the same. But something in him cracked open when he fell in love with Dante, and he can’t go back. Suddenly he finds himself reaching out to new friends, standing up to bullies of all kinds, and making his voice heard. And, always, there is Dante, dreamy, witty Dante, who can get on Ari’s nerves and fill him with desire all at once.

The boys are determined to forge a path for themselves in a world that doesn’t understand them. But when Ari is faced with a shocking loss, he’ll have to fight like never before to create a life that is truthfully, joyfully his own.

Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy Dial Books

Huda and her family just moved to Dearborn, Michigan, a small town with a big Muslim population. In her old town, Huda knew exactly who she was: She was the hijabi girl. But in Dearborn, everyone is the hijabi girl.

Huda is lost in a sea of hijabis, and she can't rely on her hijab to define her anymore. She has to define herself. So she tries on a bunch of cliques, but she isn't a hijabi fashionista or a hijabi athlete or a hijabi gamer. She's not the one who knows everything about her religion or the one all the guys like. She's miscellaneous, which makes her feel like no one at all. Until she realizes that it'll take finding out who she isn't to figure out who she is.

We Are Not Free by Traci Chee HMH Books for Young Readers

We Are Not Free, is the collective account of a tight-knit group of young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American citizens, whose lives are irrevocably changed by the mass U.S. incarcerations of World War II.

Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco. Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted. Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps. In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart.

Love is a Revolution by Renée Watson Bloomsbury YA

When Nala Robertson reluctantly agrees to attend an open mic night for her cousin-sister-friend Imani's birthday, she finds herself falling in instant love with Tye Brown, the MC. He's perfect, except . . . Tye is an activist and is spending the summer putting on events for the community when Nala would rather watch movies and try out the new seasonal flavors at the local creamery. In order to impress Tye, Nala tells a few tiny lies to have enough in common with him. As they spend more time together, sharing more of themselves, some of those lies get harder to keep up. As Nala falls deeper into keeping up her lies and into love, she'll learn all the ways love is hard, and how self-love is revolutionary.

In Love Is a Revolution, plus size girls are beautiful and get the attention of the hot guys, the popular girl clique is not shallow but has strong convictions and substance, and the ultimate love story is not only about romance but about how to show radical love to the people in your life, including to yourself.

Miss Meteor by Tehlor Kay Mejia and Anna Marie-McLemore HarperTeen

There hasn’t been a winner of the Miss Meteor beauty pageant who looks like Lita Perez or Chicky Quintanilla in all its history. But that’s not the only reason Lita wants to enter the contest, or why her ex-best friend Chicky wants to help her. The road to becoming Miss Meteor isn’t about being perfect; it’s about sharing who you are with the world—and loving the parts of yourself no one else understands. So to pull off the unlikeliest underdog story in pageant history, Lita and Chicky are going to have to forget the past and imagine a future where girls like them are more than enough—they are everything.

Witty and heartfelt with characters that leap off the page, Miss Meteor is acclaimed authors Anna-Marie McLemore and Tehlor Kay Mejia’s first book together.

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang First Second

Gene understands stories—comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins.

But Gene doesn’t get sports. As a kid, his friends called him “Stick” and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it's all anyone can talk about. The men’s varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that’s been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championships.

Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he’s seen on a comic book page. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end. What he doesn’t know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons’s lives, but his own life as well.

Are there books that you'd like us to review? We may not be able to get to every book that's published, but we could make an effort if there is something people would like to know more about in the future.

#recommendations #youngadultlit

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because-edmund · 2 years

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Daphne Ask #?

Is there any family that Daphne would introduce Hassan to (whether intentionally or because of circumstance)?

Hehe story below 💕 @the-redheaded-league

I’m only ten years younger than her dad… Hassan thinks, waiting outside the strange house. Is that a little messed up? I don’t think so… Her father suddenly opens the door, and they’re finally let in to Daphnes family home.

He shakes the man’s hand after setting his suitcase on the floor, “It’s great to finally meet you!”

“It’s nice meeting you too, two years, huh? Sure she hasn’t driven you mad yet?” He laughs, Daphne glares at him before running to the restroom.

“Ah, yeah. She could never do that!” Hassan laughs. “She’s really quite amazing, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me sir! I’m only a little bit older than you after all!” Her father, Dan, laughs again.

“Yeah it’s cause of her daddy issues,” her younger sister, Lydia, yells from the table.

“Or maybe this dude is just a cradle robber,” her older one laughs.

Hassan chuckles a bit, tries to brush off the comments. When Daphne walks back from the restroom, he pulls her in to his side, not letting her go. “Are you ok?” She whispers.

“Yeah, shortcake.” He smiles back, gritting his teeth.

She gives him a weak smile back.

They were on a road trip, he had a training seminar to go to, and he tried his damndest to make it romantic, but when their hotel lost their reservations, the only option was to sleep at Daphnes dads house or the car.

Hassan settles them in what would’ve been Daphnes old room, had it not been entirely changed into a room for her dads step-grandchildren. Two twin beds, they couldn’t even sleep next to each other.

“Guess I don’t get my cuddles tonight, huh shortcake?” Hassan laughs.

“I’m sorry, it’s going to be a long night,” she rubs her temples, already feeling a headache.

“You got this, babe,” he sits next to her on her bed, hugging her tightly.

It goes pretty smoothly, all things considered. They make their comments, about his age, about her weight, about the fact she never visits. They both grin and bear it.

“Why her?” Lydia asks, in the middle of dinner.

“Excuse me?” Hassan replies, honestly taken a bit aback.

“It’s like, I know Erin lives on that island, she’s a bit prettier right?”

Hassan can’t find the words to answer this question, and before he can try to open his mouth, Gabby, the oldest says:

“Even Bev is.”

The two start laughing, Daphne rolling her eyes, wrapping her cardigan tighter around herself.

“I think your sister blows everyone, here or there, out the water.” Hassan says, picking at the food on his plate.

Her dad snorts, “Sure pal, wait until she has a meltdown. Girl is so sensitive. Can never even take a joke, I mean look at how she’s acting right now.”

Daphne, tired of it, gets up and starts to clean up their plates, not saying anything.

“Oh look, she’s being nice and actually cleaning for once,” Gabby laughs.

“Yeah, bud. You might have to hire a maid. This girl never cleans, lazy as all hell,” he sad sips on his whiskey. “You sure you don’t want any?”

“He’s muslim,” Daphne snaps, the first thing she’s said all night. “He doesn’t drink. And you shouldn’t either, you’re getting a bit rude.” She storms off the the kitchen, plates in hand.

“The fuck did you just say?” Her dad yells after her, and the second he gets out of his chair, Hassan is already grabbing him by the sleeve, forcing him to stay down.

“Don’t,” is all Hassan says, voice hard.

“Don’t what?” Her father slurs. “Teach her a lesson? How dare she talk to me like that, I’m your father show some respect!” He practically spits at Daphne, who’s frozen in place by the kitchen door.

Hassan glares at the man, “All of you should be ashamed of yourselves. Especially you.” In a swift and quick movement, he’s got the man pinned to the wall. “I think it’s best we all head to bed. Be out in the morning, and nothing has to get worse than it already is. Got it?” He looks around the room, seeing the two girls nod. “Good.” He lets the man go, before grabbing the dishes out of daphnes hands, sets them on the table and then holds her close to his chest all the way to the bedroom.

She’s crying the second the door closes, “I’m sorry,” she sobs into his chest. “I didn’t mean to make you mad…”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, shortcake.” Hassan holds her tight. “I see you why you can’t fucking stand them.

“They’ve gotten a lot better,” she laughs.

He pulls her out from his chest, stares into her eyes while he wipes her tears with his thumbs. “I love you, sweet girl.” He kisses her softly, just as she says it back.

He stays awake the whole night, and truly understands how Daphne learned to run.

#baylee shut up #sheriff hassan x daphne #sheriff hassan x oc

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basicsofislam · 2 years

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PROPHET MUHAMMAD (PBUH)’s BIOGRAPHY : The Incident of Ifk. Part2

How and from Whom did Hazrat Aisha Learn about the Slander?

Hazrat Aisha narrates from whom and how she learnt about the slander as follows:

“More than twenty nights had passed after my illness. I had got over the illness and I was in the period of recuperation.

We did not have toilets next to our houses like non-Arabs did due to the stink. We went outside the city of Madinah to answer the call of the nature. Women went there every night to relieve themselves.

One night, I went out with the mother of Mistah b. Uthatha to Manasi to relieve ourselves. When she tripped by stepping on her covering, she said, ‘May Mistah fall,’ or ‘Damn Mistah!’ I said, ‘O Umm Mistah! Why do you curse your son?’ She kept silent. She did not answer me.

She tripped for the second time. She said, ‘‘May Mistah fall,’ or ‘Damn Mistah!’

I said,‘O Umm Mistah! Why do you curse your son?’ She kept silent again.

She tripped for the third time and cursed, ‘May Mistah fall,’

I said, ‘O Umm Mistah! Why do you curse your son? How can you curse a person who was present in the Battle of Badr? She replied,

‘I curse him due to what he said against you.’

I asked, ‘What did he say about me?’

Thereupon, Umm Mistah told me what the slanderers had said. I became extremely ill. I could not even relieve myself and returned home. I cried so much that I thought my lungs would break into pieces.”[ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 311-312; Muslim, ibid, Vol. 8. p. 114; Tirmidhi, Sunan, Vol. 5, p. 332-333 ]

Hazrat Aisha is in her Mother’s Home

When Hazrat Aisha was ill, Umm Ruman, her mother, looked after her.

One day, the Messenger of God entered the house, greeted them and asked, “How is your patient?” without mentioning Aisha’s name. He did not say anything else.

Hazrat Aisha said,

“(Thereupon) I could not help saying, ‘O Messenger of God! I have been suffering so much. Will you let me go to my Mother’s house? I can be looked after there.’

The Messenger of God said, ‘You may go!’

I wanted to go to my parents and find out about the news against me.

The Messenger of God sent me to my father’s house with a servant.

My mum asked, ‘O my daughter! Why did you come?’

I said, ‘Mum! People have been talking against me but you did not mention anything to me.’

Mum said, ‘My daughter, take it easy. By God, it hardly occurs that a wife is so beloved to her husband, and she has co-wives at the same time, except that they talk about her!’

I asked, ‘Does my father know about it?’ She said,

‘Yes, he does.’

I asked, ‘Does the Messenger of God know about it?’ She said,

‘Yes, he does.’

I could not help crying.

My father was reading the Quran upstairs. When he heard my voice, he came downstairs. He asked Mum, ‘What is wrong with her?’

Mum said, ‘She heard about the rumors against him.’

My father started to cry too.

I cried and cried until the morning came.”[ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 311-312; Muslim, ibid, Vol. 7, p. 115; Tirmidhi, ibid, Vol. 5, p. 333. ]

The Prophet Consults his Companions

The Messenger of God spent most of his time at home and did not go out very often during the days when the slander against Hazrat Aisha was prevalent.

When revelation regarding the issue was delayed, he talked to his Companions and asked them about their views.

Hazrat Umar’s View

Hazrat Umar said, “O Messenger of God! This is a big slander. I definitely know that it is a lie of the munafiqs. God protects you even from flies. Is it possible that God, who protects your body from flies that land on dirt and keeps them away from your body, will not protect your family from such disgrace?”

Hazrat Uthman’s View

Hazrat Uthman expressed his view as follows:

“O Messenger of God! God protects your shadow from being on the ground so that people will not step on it or dirt will not land on it. Is it possible that God, who does not let anybody step on your shadow, will let anybody blemish the honor of your family?”

Hazrat Ali’s View

Hazrat Ali said, “O Messenger of God! Once, you were leading the prayer. You took off your shoes. We took off our shoes following you. When you finished the prayer, you asked us why we had taken off our shoes. We said we had taken them off to follow you. Thereupon, you said, ‘Gabriel ordered me to take them off because they were not clean.’ Is it possible that you were informed about the dirt that polluted your shoes and you were ordered to take them off but you would not be ordered to remove something that blemished your honor?”[ Halabi, Insanu’l-Uyun, Vol. 2, p. 624-625. ]

The View of Hazrat Aisha’s Maid

Meanwhile, the Messenger of God called Aisha’s maid servant, Barira, and asked her view.

Barira said, “O Messenger of God! I swear by God, who has sent you as the true prophet that I have not seen anything from her but goodness. I can only say one thing that can be regarded as a fault about her: one thing. She was a young girl. She sometimes used to fall asleep when she was kneading the dough; and when she fell asleep, the lamb would come and eat the dough.”[ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 313-314; Muslim, ibid, Vol. 8, p. 115. ]

Hazrat Zaynab’s View

Hazrat Zaynab regarded herself equal to Hazrat Aisha among the wives of the Prophet in terms of her beauty and position; she always competed with her. However, she did not have any negative thoughts about Hazrat Aisha. When the Messenger of God asked her about her view, she said,

“O Messenger of God! I protect my ears from saying, ‘I heard’ what I did not hear and my eyes from saying, ‘I saw’ what I did not see. I do not know anything but goodness about her.”[ Muslim, ibid, Vol. 8, p. 118. ]

The Prophet’s Speech

In fact, the Messenger of God knew very well that Aisha, his wife, was free from such slander; however, he was depressed that such treacherous, sly and planned slander spread among people. It made him change his attitude toward her. As a matter of fact, the speech that he made in the mosque expressed it clearly:

“Oh gathering of Muslims! Who will help me against a person who has hurt me with slander about my wife? By God, I only know good about my wife. And they have mentioned a man with her concerning whom I only know good of as well.”[ Ibn Hisham, ibid, Vol. 3, p. 312; Muslim, ibid, Vol. 8, p. 115; Tirmidhi, ibid, Vol. 5, p. 332 ]

The Prophet Talks to Hazrat Aisha

Although about a month passed after the slander against Hazrat Aisha, no revelation was sent down to the Messenger of God.

A few days after his speech in the mosque, the Prophet went to Hazrat Abu Bakr’s house. After greeting them, he sat next to Aisha and said, “O Aisha! I have heard such and such things about you. If you are free and away from those accusations, God will state that you are free and away from them. If you have committed such a sin, ask forgiveness from God and repent to Him. When a slave confesses his/her sin and repents, God treats him/her with mercy.”

Hazrat Aisha narrates her mood at that time as follows:

“When the Messenger of God (pbuh) ended his words, my tears dried. There was not even one drop coming out of my eyes.

I turned to my father and said to him, ’Answer the Messenger of God on behalf of me.’

My father said, ‘O my daughter! By God, I do not know what to say the Messenger of God (pbuh).’

Then, I turned to my mother and said to her, ’Answer the Messenger of God on behalf of me.’

She said, ‘By God, I do not know what to say the Messenger of God (pbuh), either’.”[ Muslim, ibid, Vol. 8, p. 116; Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, Vol. 6, p. 197. ]

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battyaboutbooksreviews · 2 months

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🦇 Hope Ablaze Book Review 🦇

❓ #QOTD What books by POC have you read so far this year OR is there one on your radar? ❓

🦇 First, I just want to point out the irony that this SMP book approaches everything the executives at SMP still have not: Islamophobia and colonization. I'm not going to let the boycott keep me from praising this book, but I'd be remise not to mention the company's continuous silence.

[ Find my review below. ]

🦇 Though Nida's uncle was wrongfully incarcerated during the war on terror for his "radical" poetry, Nida has always found comfort in the written world. After a Senatorial candidate has her illegally frisked (her hijab torn off in the process), she writes a scathing poem in response; a poem she didn't intend for a mass audience, only for it to win first place in a national contest. When the poem in mentioned on the news, Nida must struggle with the aftermath, all while trying to demonstrate pride in her Islamic faith and Pakistani culture in a world of Islamophobia and racism.

💜 What a dazzling, thought-provoking, raw debut. As a Muslim who grew up in a post-911 world, I understand and empathize with Nida's fears and applaud her courage. Sarah Mughal Rana does a beautiful job at capturing so many familiar experiences; the power of a supportive community, the struggles of the immigrant experience, the conflict between wanting to hold onto your roots and culture only to be punished for what other people don't even want to understand. Hope Ablaze is a reminder that we must fight to find our voices, even when they're drowned out by oppressive, ignorantly righteous rallies of racism. Many of the layered themes in Nida's story reflect not only Palestinian experiences in America, but I'm sure similar experiences of other Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian immigrant families. While Nida is still a high schooler, this is a story many adults can benefit from reading. Nida's emotions BOUND off the page, not only through exposition or dialogue, but strongly through her poetry. I adored the use of poetry to describe scenes we didn't need full chapters of, giving us insight into Nida's emotions and thought process while keeping the pacing from stalling.

🦇 If you've read even a handful of my reviews, you know I thrive off experiencing other cultures through food, not because I'm a foodie, but because I think it's the easiest way for people to relate to one another. Nida's mother owns a catering business, so there's no end to Pakistani delicacies in this book. However, even with a modest understanding of Arabic (I can write it and pronounce it but not translate it, which is SO helpful), and a vast familiarity of Islam, I had to look up a few words. I'm worried that those unfamiliar with the religion or culture will have a difficult time relating to the story, even on a surface level. The magical realism feels a bit misplaced--was it the overactive imagination of a creative mind, or the ancestral magic of Nida's power over spoken word? Some sentences lacked context clues that would have helped. There are a few segments that felt repetitious--this novel would have benefited from an extra round of edits--but otherwise, a strong debut.

🦇 Recommended for fans of Internment, The Poet X, and All My Rage.

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🖋️ Thought-Provoking Debut 🖊️ Teen Muslim FMC ✒️ Magical Realism 📜 Poetry Letters 🖊️ Racism & Islamaphobia 🖋️ Immigrant Experience

🦇 Major thanks to the author @sarahmughal769 for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley @netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

Quotes ❝ The sharpest sword is the tongue. ❞ ❝ They cry, These are our human rights, but the right is just a pretty way of saying, We prefer the shade of white. ❞ ❝ "Mr. Daniels, it’s racist to think, a girl can’t have the right to her own beliefs, in a country that applauds itself on diversity, and multicultural plurality. Last time I checked, this is a free country, so let the Muslim girl wear her hijab and sweatpants in peace.” ❞ ❝ To write is to show the world your heart before letting them stomp all over it. That kind of permission was dangerous, because consent didn’t matter for our art when we never had ownership to begin with. ❞

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tomsquitieri · 4 months

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We Do It For You; Now You Can Look And Act

WASHINGTON -- The first massacre victim I met was really two, an elderly couple still holding hands three days after an ambush along a dusty Bosnian road left them and a dozen others dead.

The only way to find out who they, and the others who were slain — to give them their voice, to tell their story — were was by getting close, looking at any documents they may have had, trying to piece together the bloodied event that left innocents baking and rotting in the hot August sun, or those who never made it out of the bus they thought would bring them to safety.

Moving their hands from pockets, rolling them over, whispering questions in their ears hoping for answers to help me tell their stories and, ideally, make them the last to suffer like this.

In the dust was Veselinka Masic, her birth certificate in her left front pocket; Mlade Todorovic, atop a school diploma and working papers; Veselinka Todorovic slain nearby, her bankbook showing 77,000 dinars - then around $385; Ninela-Nia Galvanic, 16; Dragica Pljevaljcic, 84; Joka Ikohic, 65; Dalibaor Matovic, 11; Dragon Spasogevic, 24.

And a baby, tiny, helpless, whose name I was never able to get.

It was called a small war, Bosnia. The elderly couple and those murdered with them would be faces of hundreds I would see, smell, touch, ponder, come far too close and internalize far too much.

Here is some of what I learned, no matter if it was in Bosnia, Haiti, Burundi, Rwanda, Iraq, Corsica, Afghanistan, and dozens of other places where innocents were murdered, bullied, raped, and tortured:

First, those who commit the crimes always say they did not do it. Second, the war crimes we journalists learn about - or discover on our own — are just a smattering of the horrors that have occurred.

The war in Ukraine has from the start been like those I had covered, one reason I considered steps to get to Ukraine, to get to besieged cities, to follow the flow of weapons from the United States to the hands of Ukrainian troops to their use. I knew, like others who crouched and ran with me in past wars, what was going to happen in Ukraine — and it did — and what is still to happen as that war worsens.

Destroyed buildings, attacks on schools and hospitals and shelters, hundreds fleeing, lawless troops. We knew that once the Russians arrived and then would retreat, greater horrors would be unleashed.

One of the biggest single horrors of the Bosnia war was the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men were slain and dumped in several mass graves as the area was “ethnically cleansed” of all Muslims. A war term to soften the horror, “ethnically cleansed.”

We found some of those mass graves and relayed the information to authorities. We trekked across mine-strewn roads and wound up arrested, but we did not stop.

Be a “voice for the voiceless,” my first editor told me again and again. So I, and others, did.

Those victims of those wars needed us to give them a voice. Just as those who are deep in Ukraine reporting are doing for these latest victims.

The world always wants to look away. It does not want to hear about the grandmother who dropped to her knees to kiss my muddy boots as she begged me to take her grandchildren to safety. It does not want to hear about the trembling voices from the pre-teen girls who were raped. It does not want to hear the boasts of the bullyboys who chortled — when I asked how they knew who the “others” are — said “they smell differently” and it made it easy to pick them out to murder. It does not see the bodies bobbing in an eddy of a river, after floating downstream from a Rwanda massacre site or the Burundi bodies chopped by “pangas” — machetes — to finish them off after first being gunned down.

And it never even seems to know of the bandaged bodies of the wounded, the bloated stomachs of the starving infants, and the soft whimpers of those slowly dying.

The world does not want to be the ones going through the pockets of rotting corpses to find out who these people were, the precious lives they led, before they were ruthlessly ambushed, now strewn for animals and nature to dismember their remains on that dusty road.

We do it for you. As uncomfortable as it is, at least you can do is look and act.

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cannoli-reader · 5 months

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My notes watching Wheel of Time: Season 1, episode 4

Posted on readandfindout.com on 11/27/2021

1:10 – Says Ghealdan. Looks like a Logain flashback. Or at least it had better be a Logain flashback since there is absolutely no other reason to set more of this show in Ghealdan, given the enormous amount of material they don’t have time to cover.

1:49 - Interestingly the flows of the Power wielded by a man are white tinged with black. Not sure if the difference is the taint or saidin.

2:42 - “What does a crown mean to the Dragon Reborn?” This is kind of good, because it’s a lesson Rand did not learn until late in the series. Not that he was hungry for crowns or misused the one he did take, but although he’s probably doing so out of arrogance, Logain is articulating something about the job that Rand (and especially Moiraine) did not get. Rand was not born to govern but to lead and to inspire.

2:59 - The Spanish-type accents and Muslim-looking helms and armor give Ghealdan a sort of Andalusian character, which is a nice sort of world-building thing, even if better reserved for Taraborn or Tear. I am also uncertain about the king’s realization that Logain truly believes he is the Dragon Reborn. Logain almost certainly knew he was not born on Dragonmount. I’m also reserving judgement on the voices until we find out more about them.

5:05 - I think I like him healing and recruiting the king. There is a bit of an issue with the fandom swooning over Logain early on and being predisposed to think the best of him, when he’s actually kind of a jealous dick when it comes to Rand and a war-criminal and terrorist who started a conflict over a title he had no right to. But he did try to cause as little harm as possible.

8:15 - Your healing is crap, Kerene. Nynaeve would have done way better. On the other hand, good job on staying alive 20 years longer than you did in the books.

8:55 - “Only Alanna, Liandrin and (Kerene) are strong enough to shield (Logain).” OK, show, you had better be careful with ANY other Aes Sedai names you use for this party. If any of them are canonically stronger than Alanna, who is the weakest of that trio, I believe, some friends of mine will have words. Pretty sure Liandrin is a tick below Moiraine who is the top tier of active living sisters before Egwene is fake-raised or Cadsuane comes out of retirement.

Although, come to think of it, since Cadsuane had hunted down Logain, why’d she fuck off leaving the party short of strength? Even though her given strength is controversial, the fact that she is almost as strong as Egwene and Elayne would probably put her around 9 or 10 and Kerene is 11, I’m pretty sure.

9:03 - Alanna has enough of a likability problem given her future crime against Rand that we don’t need her being passive-aggressive.

9:27 - Porcelain doll, my ass. Is that tangle on the side of her head supposed to be Liandrin’s trademark multiple honey-colored braids?

9:41 - Proclaiming oneself the Dragon Reborn is apparently a symptom of delusional madness. In the books it’s always referenced as ambition or power-hunger, in keeping with the theme of everyone having agendas and motivations. There isn’t even any real mention of false Dragons going mad, at least not the famous ones, since it seems like it would be an impediment to the kind of efforts that make them notorious, like gathering large followings and effectively fighting back against the Tower and armies sent against them.

I also miss Liandrin’s SS dominatrix accent.

10:08 - I kind of feel like Moiraine would not be volunteering for these side projects when she’s lost track of her charges.

10:19 - I will defer to the Power experts in our community, but I think what they are describing with the shields works. I have always thought that the description of a shielded man we get from Rand’s PoV does not fit the description of a link, especially with each shielding sister individually tying hers off. It is also mentioned that when holding a shield, you are supposed to use all your strength, according to law or custom, which is not actually possible, or up to the individuals, in a link. So I’ll give them this one.

But I’m watching you, show!

11:09 - The relative strengths, as pertains to shielded and shield-holders, I am less sure of.

11:40 - I am assuming the reference to Siuan’s enmity toward Moiraine is for public consumption only.

11:58 - Why would an axe-man be going through the same kata or progression of forms as a swordsman. Especially one with two axes, to one sword. And the axes are much shorter, and double-edged.

12:05 - Lan would not badmouth a woman to another person. Even obliquely.

13:01 - This scene is good establishing Moiraine and Lan as being reticent and stand-offish from their colleagues, alluding to the male channeler pogrom and the slipping of the Amyrlin’s authority as well as demonstrating the dynamics of typical Warder-sister relationships. Kerene’s acting, I think, saves some of her dialogue from verging on GoT-esque clunkiness.

14:22 - “If either of us feels like we should go, we go.” Who are you and what have you done with Egwene? Setting aside interpretations of her character, this is in direct contrast to how her relationship with Perrin played out during their journey together, with both Elyas and the Tinkers.

14:46 - “…if you’re bandits, you’re not very good ones.” This is stupid formulaic TV writing, intended to be iconoclastic or deconstructive or something, but it just makes people look stupid. You become a bandit because you’re broke and have no other recourse for income or survival. Also, there is a thing as a shill or spy, who acts as the inside man. This is the second or third appearance of the Tinkers and a very good set-up line for them to finally articulate the Way of the Leaf! Perrin asks “how do you know we’re not bandits?”, and a Tinker says something about accepting whatever comes and offering hospitality to everyone in need, even a pack of hungry Ogier when your supplies are tapped, because leaves.

15:15 - They’re really trying to get the Tinker wagons right, with the garish colors, but it’s just not coming through in the dingy lighting.

16:10 - Rand is suspicious of Thom, while Mat, who is carrying the Shadar Logoth dagger, reasonably points out that Thom saved their lives, and makes a joke when Rand implies maybe it was a ploy.

16:25 - When Mat first said “…the five of us. You, me, Perrin, Egwene. Who else?” the natural impulse of a book reader is to say “Forget about Nynaeve?” but of course, Mat would not know she is any more significant than Daise Congar or the villager he stole jewelry from, because as far as they know she’s dead. Because of a pointless and unnecessary change from the showrunners that watered down her characterization.

16:30 - Ohhh. And cut to Logain. Tell me why we’re entertaining this delusion? Setting aside the choice to make it a mystery which of the Emond’s Field crew is the DR, why would a WoTnovice who has ever watched another movie or show think Logain is the legit Dragon?

17:15 - Is Alanna working around to calling Siuan a bitch?

Seriously, though, what do we get by the dog story? It doesn't establish their relationship - it could be affection, good-natured teasing or subtle mockery & belittlement.

18:34 - Interestingly in the books, the strength Logain manifested had sisters believing he was considerably weaker than he really was, with Verin claiming he lacked the strength to use the Choedan Kal. OTOH, she also seemed to think it required a maximum level sister, like Moiraine, Elaida or Siuan to handle it. The only other two named sisters Rand has met at that point (Leane and Liandrin), were only slightly below that level, and did not make it into Verin’s list, even though she was nearby for his encounters with both.

19:12 - Alanna sounds like a fan who thinks of the Ajahs as specializations, rather than sororities. Greens are not combat specialists and the Reds are not responsible for gentling men. In fact, the Amyrlin by law does all the gentling and she has not been Red in 1000 years. Greens and Reds simply believe that the purpose of Aes Sedai is to protect people from enemy channelers and prioritize different threats. The main Greens we see in the series are a scholar, the best living male channeler hunter and a politician. The most effective combatants are a Blue and a Yellow. The first Green we see in combat action doesn’t perform notably better than her Brown companion. Saying the Greens are better at combat or the Reds are responsible for gentling is like saying Michigan natives are all industrial workers and better at it than Texans. All Aes Sedai do all sorts of stuff. They gravitate toward Ajahs based on personality and inclinations, not skillsets.

19:50 - If you like braids, why don’t you wear some, like your book character, Liandrin?

19:52 - No, it’s not Nin-Ayv, it’s Ny-neev, which Robert Jordan implied was a pet peeve of his at a book signing my brother attended.

20:25 - Liandrin lets a non-sister talk smack to her. Totally in character.

21:30 - Handling a bow incompetently is not an indicator of lack of resolve - or intent - to kill!

21:59 - More “TV writers attempt to demonstrate competence” tropes. AHA! There were other archers behind them all along! Never mind that as this scene is blocked, it was absolutely impossible for the woman and boy to get into position that fast, let alone without making any noise as they are both standing on a pile of leaves. Even the stipulated intent to show Rand catching flies with honey has him do so by belittling the other person’s shooting and offering a faulty logical proposition supposedly proving his lack of hostile intent.

22:13 - Liandrin, or any Aes Sedai, would not gossip about a sister to an outsider! Ever. The only possible rationale would be if she’s aware of Nynaeve’s strength or potential and wants to get her on her side, but setting aside the Tower’s canonical disdain for any channeler not raised to sisterhood, that would make her a wilder, which Liandrin hates like they have a Y chromosome.

22:35 - Lan addresses an Aes Sedai in public without the honorific Sedai, which so far we have seen the show lean toward excessive use of, rather than insufficient. Kerene uses it when speaking to her warder while alone. Lan would not fail to do so unless he was married to Nynaeve and Liandrin was clearly snubbing her in some way, rather than being way nicer to her than any book Aes Sedai would. Lan is the one who told off Perrin’s assumption about Red sisters, that they are fighting the Dark One in their own way. This sort of thing makes it stick out more that he helped Rand for his audience with the Amyrlin.

23:18 - Lan’s assertion that they can better look for the missing TR folk from Tar Valon only makes sense if they are taking GoT’s approach of aggressive indifference to geography. It looks more like a weak rationalization of a plot divergence to introduce the Aes Sedai in general.

23:56 - FINALLY. Four scenes of Tinkers before we so much as hear about the Way of the Leaf. For the Tuathan it’s like being a eunuch on Game of Thrones – they tell people about it every chance they get.

24:30 - Aram’s underlying dissatisfaction with the Way is rather on the nose. It was done more subtly in dialogue ITB where Perrin showed up his posturing of moral superiority.

24:55 - Ila’s pointed remark about the axe is similarly heavy-handed, especially with her jumping right to “axe” as his weapon of choice. Also, Perrin doesn’t have the axe, which represents his conflict with personal violence. I also feel that conflict might have been better served without that nonsense of his accidentally killing his wife. SHE’S the one who surprised an armed man, after all.

25:08 - And in the books, Perrin’s beard symbolizes his maturation. tDR was a coming of age story for Mat, Egwene & Perrin, where they each learned an aspect of maturity. In the next book, he is growing a beard and begins a leadership arc, where before he was always in the company of a “grown-up” type character, like Moiraine, Elyas or Ingtar or doing very poorly.

And this caravan is moving south or southwest.

26:08 - Not sure how I feel about the dagger making him puke up blood, or that the blood is tainted, but I suppose it’s going to be easier, going forward, than trying to make him look visibly wan and scrawny.

27:25 - That’s an OK way to introduce Birgitte as a legendary hero, although an explanation that it’s more than a doll’s name will hopefully be forthcoming.

28:30 - “He’s not an idiot” says no one who know Mat. That being said, while the channeling diagnosis is pretty quick on Thom’s part, that’s kind of par for the course with this show’s pacing so far. It could be a halfway decent way of illustrating how paranoid people in this world are about men channeling. I wonder if a WoT novice is going to agree or go right to the dagger he picked up in a city where he was told not to touch anything. The black stuff in his puke looked a little like Logain’s channeling.

29:25 - No one would know about the malaise that afflicts women, because the Tower is no more keen to advertise weakness or fallibility than any sensible power-seeking group. You can use the exposition excuse, but considering one of the three storylines is currently following a group of Aes Sedai, it would be more appropriate to have one of them drop a mention that both men and women fear losing their ability to channel. Especially when a major subject in that plotline is holding a man shielded and taking him in for gentling.

30:33 - Is there some massive gleeman conspiracy? Are the gleemen subtly manipulating the powerful while passing as harmless? First of all “there is nothing as dangerous as a man who knows the past” is script-writer bullshit they think makes them sound clever, and nerd-pandering to the conceit that liking to read is a superpower. If you actually want to be witty, people who don't know the past are way more dangerous. Secondly, knowledge of the past is not remotely relevant to the topic of their discussion. Male channelers are very much a right-now problem.

31:01 - Male warders cuddling! Now there’s not going to be any complaints about Rand’s love life! All the junior feminists whining about the lack of Aiel polyandry have been silenced!

31:19 - Do they even realize they have all the warders laughing at Lan being tracked by a guuurl? Nynaeve’s tracking comes up in the books as something that earns her respect, it’s not something she thrusts forward into a discussion teasing Lan. But as I have said, Clever TV Dialogue TM consists of belittling people and tearing them down. All humor and fun must be at someone’s expense.

31:38 - What exactly is Green Oriental Sister doing with the group, since we have not seen her taking a shift with Logain, nor does she look like she’s going to anytime soon?

32:00 - ITB Formulaic salute from Warder to Aes Sedai “Honor to serve, Aes Sedai.” WoTshow Warder “We don’t (serve Aes Seda).”

32:46 - Apparently Owein has been replaced by Maksim in Alanna’s group of warders.

33:10 - Yay. Polyarmory fan service. Just what WoT is really all about.

33:36 - If neither Moiraine or Alanna is shielding Logain, who is?

33:57 - Ahh. They’re hanging around to check if Logain is the actual DR. And Lan pointing out that’s kind of stupid from a Watsonian sense doesn’t make this guessing game any less so from a Doylist one.

35:02 - I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt that Lan’s just making a joke and they aren’t trying to say that a warder bond feeds back on the Aes Sedai. It’s unique to a female-female bond, which was the whole point.

35:56 - So 50% of the Tinkers’ distinctive belief system is just a superstition or fairy tale? What is their point then, if they are not seeking the Song? Why are they wandering around with Ila and Raen? This sounds like more post-modern scoffing at fantasy elements, which is very weird, because a lot of the fandom took the idea of the Song seriously at face value, no matter how often the more perspicacious of us tried to clarify that it was an example of the power of belief and legends, even when they are misunderstood and garbled over time! The fact that the Tinkers are wrong about the Song does not change the importance of that belief to a central thematic concept to the whole story! Having Aram sneer at the idea and Egwene offer a Hallmark-worthy comeback is the show trying to be clever and superior at the expense of servicing the story!

36:36 - Taika Waititi is really going to town on them bongos. Like a chimpanzee. That’s the way you do it.

37:00 - I have zero faith that the ensuing conversation will produce anything particularly relevant to the plot or Perrin’s characterization.

37:19 - I suppose it’s good that Perrin’s powers of observation are being revealed, but “don’t look peaceful” should reference their actions, not be an assumption that they are somehow falling short of the Tinkers’ Way based on their appearance! Especially since absolutely nothing about non-resisting pacifism suggests you will never acquire scars, which are done by OTHER violent people!

38:03 - This conversation is dumb and pointless. Watching Perrin be instructed on the novel concept of principles mattering more than results adds nothing to the story. This is junior high philosophy!

38:31 - Aaand we’re excising Aram’s mother. Who never appeared on screen, so it’s not like we’re sparing the casting budget, but whose death was his catalyst for abandoning the Way of the Leaf.

39:12 - Ila would not refer to taking up the spear to seek revenge as an act requiring courage.

39:26 - Perrin sees no difference in actions and desires. Ila, who, it has been established, did not act against her principles and Way, is guilty of acting in a manner that “does not sound like the Way of the Leaf.” I said this discussion was junior high philosophy, but by 3rd grade we had already learned the difference between having sinful desires and acting upon them! I guess junior high is still way above Perrin’s competency level.

39:33 - This makes no sense! Perrin chides Ila for desires that go against her principles, and she responds by rationalizing her principles as fulfilling those desires! They are not actually responding to what the other person is saying, not in any coherent or congruent manner.

40:04 - I should like this better, given how closely it tracks with my recent theory where I argued that adhering to principles even at great personal cost makes the world a better place to be reborn into. But for this character, why not go with Ila’s ITB answer that violence harms the soul of the one who commits it? This is the 21st century, and we have been fighting a war for all but 8 months of it. PTSD is a household term. This should not be hard to get across.

40:16 - Robert Jordan, criticized more often for excess verbiage than any other fault, did not find it necessary to have a single on-page conversation between Egwene and Aram, not least because adolescent interactions are insipid and banal. There is no way this second on-screen conversation is going to add anything more than Ila’s & Perrin’s did (and ITB, it was Egwene who had long conversations with Ila).

40:51 - Okay, are Rand and Egwene broken up or not? Either way, I’m rooting for her to move on and have some fun with Aram. Like do SOMETHING to establish her actual characterization, please?

41:02 - Tuatha’an rumspringa?! Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me?!

41:10 - “Some farm, some set sail”. Chubby nerd film major who’s probably never done manual labor in his life thinks those are jobs you can just pick up at 20, after growing up wandering around in wagons, or that you can join a collective enterprise as a distinctively-clad member of a despised and mistrusted group of cosmopolites. And what does this detail have to do with the subject of Egwene’s missing boyfriend? Or girlfriend, because this is the kind of show that would make a point of not making assumptions.

41:46 - WHAT did we gain from either of those conversations? How does Tinker Rumspringa expand our knowledge and understanding of anything? And why are they all from Murandy? What does Ila’s sorrow at the death of her daughter add to her character? The real contention against the Way of the Leaf is the question of addressing the need for revenge, but of preventing evil. That IS the first thing Perrin brought up after hearing about it ITB. And it has even less to do with his experience on screen, where the signal act of violence in his life has been the friendly fire death of his wife. In which case, there is a real conflict, because taking up arms in defense of himself, his home and his family led directly to Laila’s death. You can DO something with this. That’s why I was intrigued in the first episode. But they seem to have forgotten that datum, since nothing Perrin says is informed by that singular experience of violence.

42:20 - There are a hundred fan-fiction writers right this moment hard at work composing luridly elaborate descriptions of ass-piracy all pretentiously titled some variation of “When the Candle Went Out”

42:50 - The scary thing Ba’alzamon does in their dreams is talk to them! Not jump scares or acting like a monster! How is this supposed to get them on Team Shadow?

43:08 - Well, shit. Dagger-possession escalated rapidly.

43:49 - That scene was so quick, you barely notice the Myrddraal disappearing into and out of the shadows. We’re so used to this genre being shot in darkness, that it seems like it just backed out of sight and ran down the stairs. Also the implication is that Thom’s knife knocked it back. There should have been some indication that it would have hit, but the shadow-thing moved the Fade out of the way.

45:13 - Doll-shots are the most pretentiously trite thing ever.

That was crap. We have one conversation with Thom that is not entirely exposition, barely get to know him, he never meets the rest of the Fellowship and likewise, are barely told anything about the Myrddraal or its powers and abilities. We have no lines indicating that a Warder and Aes Sedai failed to bring down the one that attacked the village, no real demonstration of the threat it poses. I noted in my analysis of the trailer that the sandworm mouth might work to convey its wrongness and inhumanity, but going with that, rather than attempt to convey its shadow affinity or unnatural strength and speed, or mentioning how it paralyzes you with terror or controls the Trollocs by fear … that just undermines the peril Thom faced. The show has given us no reason to suppose this thing is any more formidable than Narg, who at least had size and power going for it. We have not seen it kill a single person on this show! Thom kicks it across the room! How tough can it really be, catching daggers or not?

So why are we supposed to assume that Thom died, or the boys were right to run, rather than try to fight and improve his odds? Thom has not even been there to see that the Shadow is hunting them and that they need protection. If Rand is to be taken seriously with his noting that he could have killed Dana to ingratiate himself with them, well, the same goes for an off-screen fight with the Myrddraal.

You might not even realize that the Myrddraal killed the Grinwells, rather than Mat, driven by the dagger.

But this is why they changed Else from a flirtatious young woman, which demonstrated Rand’s attractiveness and incompetence with regard to the opposite sex, as well as the way ta’veren change people’s lives, to a too-cute-for-this-world child. Who dies tragically, of course. Though if the names were mentioned, I don’t recall. I got that from the subtitles & X-Ray feature.

I have also just now realized that it was not blood, it was Mashadar-like manifestations. Which is not a bad way to indicate the actual source of his odd behavior, but hard to notice with the dark lighting every time we’ve seen it.

45:26 - If holding Logain is as difficult at Kerene said earlier, and as Liandrin is claiming now, as the crux of her argument to gentle him, why is Liandrin doing it alone?

45:34 - The Three Oaths have nothing to do with why they have not gentled Logain. It was established in a prior scene in this very episode that it’s orders and Tower policy. The Three Oaths apply to all sisters, including the Amyrlin, so if gentling violates the Oath to not use the Power as a weapon, how do they gentle him at all, without a procedure that entails both lethal danger and considerable sophistry?

45:47 - Nice sentiment, Kerene. I’ll let that one stand. But ITB

46:00 - I like the assumption that most Reds would follow the law, and that this is Liandrin’s personal animus, not a characteristic of her much-slandered Ajah.

46:50 - Yay. More invented rituals. /sarcasm How did Lan get to be one of the most rabidly loved and admired characters in the series, when Jordan was too stupid to have him doing any of this crap?

FWIW, ITB, Lan does not believe Malkier shall rise again. He intended, before being bonded, to commit suicide by Blight to prevent any Malkieri from getting killed uselessly trying to bring it back.

47:31 - I’m pausing to look up the Old Tongue dictionary for this. “Dead People Blood Must Pass Through World and Our Memories Will Of Tied to Your heart.” Flipping pages back and forth is hard with a Kindle Paperwhite. (Dear Amazon; Please don’t sue Ben. Thanks)

47:49 - That was some pretty precise recitation for someone who does not know the Old Tongue. Speaking as someone who prays in a dead language, that’s not how it works, unless you read it a lot, too.

48:40 - “We shall go into the land, so our children can always hold us and will never be alone.” I guess context is critical in the Old Tongue. Maybe when that’s the closest approximation you can get with the extant Old Tongue dictionary, drop the unnecessary dialogue, hmm?

50:55 - I’ll give Alanna that one under the Three Oaths. She just dropped the arrows. Not her fault the soldiers ran under them. She dropped them forcefully to quickly get them out of the way, that's all.

52:10 - I’m glad Nynaeve is not using a weapon in all this, but now I’m afraid this is going to turn into her big moment of revelation by channeling to destroy the army when everything appears lost.

52:28 - Ugh. Now it’s Moiraine stepping up to Logain. Like a Boss. Yay. Snap. Snap.

52:41 - Did she sabotage the shield?!?

53:30 - This is like in GoT, where they had Tyrion in the first season toss off a line that basically summed up Jon Snow’s plot arc and character development for books 2 & 3. Except Logain is here stating as a given the lesson that Rand takes the whole series to learn and the realization of which pulls him back from the brink of his self-destructive despair. Assuming the series even gets that far, aren’t observant fans going to miss the significance of that, when Rand starts repeating Logain’s delusions?

I’m not sure how I feel about the voice of the Dragons thing as a set-up for LTT’s voice.

53:40 - This is sort-of in character for Moiraine to miss the philosophical point by nitpicking semantics, as she did with Perrin in Book 3. But it also feels like the “we know all metaphysical belief is dumb, aren’t we so clever?” writing that pervaded the latter seasons of Game of Thrones. What even are prophecies and the point of the Dragon or ta'veren if "the Wheel doesn't want anything"?

I feel compelled now to start searching through promotional material fr this show, because I'm pretty sure there's been something that quoted Moiraine saying "The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills." As she often does ITB, especially to cover her own ignorance or mistakes.

54:19 - Moiraine’s comparison of Logain’s strength as “a pinprick of candlelight against the sun” compared to the Dragon Reborn is interesting considering he’s “one step below Rand” according to the Companion.

54:56 - Okaaaay, show clearly does not get how shields work. They don’t trap the Power in with you, they keep it AWAY from you.

57:00 - And because Kerene’s warder stuck his axes through the shield, Logain was able to grab them and break them? What even is this?

57:32 - Logain making those saidin wings just like he did before Healing the King of Ghealdn sort of undercuts the peril here. You’re halfway waiting for him to do it again and sway everyone back to his side. That probably does not seem as ridiculous to WoT Novices as it does to book readers.

Anyway, I say this because the obvious thing to do here is have Nynaeve Heal people as her big moment of channeling revelation.

57:59 - I like that we saw her Healing Liandrin, so it’s not a thing that she was driven to Heal Lan out of Twoo Wuv.

58:12 - Just because men can sense women channeling does not mean they are aware of their strength, or in any position to compare one’s power to “a raging sun”. And again, let’s remember that Logain is canonically stronger than Nynaeve, whose full potential (unreached late in the series) is short of even the second step for women, let alone men. All Logain should notice is that she Healed some people. Only two we can tell for certain on screen.

58:30 - For the record, “nature itself” is A. never anthropomorphized in the books and B. does, in fact, wish Logain to channel since it gave him the inherent ability. The taint is Unnatural and the work of the Dark One.

59:02 - And Logain’s gentled, so that’s that.

Interestingly, the writer of this episode is credited as Dave Hill, whose sole other credited work is Game of Thrones. He is listed as “assistant: David Benioff & DB Weiss, LA” in seasons 2 through 4, staff writer in season 5, story editor in season 6 and is credited with writing one episode in each of the last four seasons. You know, the shit ones? What a shocker. So if you're trying to make a new fantasy TV show, based on a series of doorstopper novels, why would you hire a guy who fetched coffee at the Hollywood office ("LA" suggests he was not on the set in Ireland or Malta or wherever) during the good part of the show, and saw it go into a downturn when he was promoted to writer. And incidentally, started writing around the time the show stopped writing off of existing books.

And regarding Thom, how about that run? Thom showed up at the very beginning ITB, he was the voice of the author in describing the changing of history and fact into different stories, on more than one occasion. He was an intermediate character between the ignorant hicks and Moiraine & Lan, who are operating at the preternatural level. While they exposited the paranormal levels of the story, Thom guided the kids into the wider world at a more human level. While Moiraine's One Power lectures and Lan's weapons instruction didn't come into play until much further down the road, Thom helped give Rand and Mat skills to help them survive in the immediate, relatable crisis of being lost and alone with no resources. He got them passage on the ship, and a roof over their head in Caemlyn and gave them the means to earn their way there. And he threw himself in front of a monster to save them. There's only the bare bones of that here. Nothing was done to establish any real rapport between him and the boys. He's the one to finger Mat as a potential channeler and tells Rand they have to keep him clear of the Aes Sedai. That barely fits with his actions and intentions ITB, where, like any sensible person he is resigned to the fact that you can't do anything in that case. When he thinks Rand is cleared of suspicion in channeling he says not to tell him which of Mat or Perrin it was. He mostly wants to protect the boys from getting chewed up and spat out by White Tower machinations. Protecting a male channeler from gentling is basically a lost cause, a fact which is only obscured from WoT Novices by a lack of clarity about the details of channeling.

Now it's starting to look like Logain is a bigger part of this section of the story than Thom. Logain was pure background and setup in "The Eye of the World" through "The Shadow Rising." He was basically a McGuffin for Siuan and Nynaeve to act upon in the next two books. And Thom actually interacted with the main characters and influenced Rand significantly in the first two books. He served as sidekick and mentor to various characters throughout the series and he's Moiraine's love interest, for crap's sake!

Except, you know what? There's a significant portion of the newer fandom on social media, especially the half-assed feminist posturing sort, who worships Moiraine and thinks Thom is unworthy of her and/or ships her hard with Siuan. And all too many of the changes or additions to the show seem to be the sort targeted exactly at that segment of the peanut gallery. The possibility that the Dragon can be, and has been, a woman, the shallow LGBTQ nods, forefronting Moiraine, swapping Raen for Ila as leader of the Tinkers - it's all the sort of thing they're panting for, as well as the chance to posture and virtue-signal their embrace of the non-white cast.

The problem is not which fans they are trying to appease, but that they are coming at this with the attitude of trying to "fix" the story, and trying to 'update' it. How often has that ever panned out? The successful genre adaptations tend to have in common fidelity to the source material. "Lord of the Rings" was almost religiously so and "The Hobbit" took a great many more liberties and was much more poorly received. "Game of Thrones" is generally considered to have worked when it was faithful to the books and not when it struck out on its own. It's worth noting that the 5th season is much more reviled than the subsequent 6th or even 7th, even though they were still more or less covering established book material in the 5th. But in that season, they felt more at liberty than previously to deviate and repackage the story. They swapped out characters and moved carelessly from one plot-point to the next with little care for keeping the storyline coherent and the progression logically or fitting in with the established setting.

And those are problems I am seeing the beginning of on this show. Thom's arc feels like they're just hitting line items on a checklist. Thom shows up, we establish the Owyn backstory (actually, that might explain renaming Alanna's warder), and having him disappear fighting rearguard against a Myrddraal. Check and check. When we bring him back, we'll just have Rand be happy to see him and that's all we need to do. They look like they're doing the same thing with the plot in general. Trolloc attack, check. Shadar Logoth, check. Tinkers, check. What about Elyas? Eh, just have some wolves show up here and there.

There's hints they seem to be missing the significance of a lot of elements in the story, like Perrin's conflict with the wolves or what Shadar Logoth represents as a cautionary fable. Or the mechanics of channeling. Nothing is more promising to the prospects of an adaptation than making up a new magic system on the fly. And of course, the whole central premise of perspective as it relates to knowledge, of which there has not been the slightest sign.

My brother, a book fan, sat down with his wife who doesn't read fantasy, to watch the show, and she gave up because she has no idea what's going on and has no attachment to the story. She did not, needless to say, have that problem with Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings.

#wot on prime #season 1 #timestamp annotations

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