#because race and religion are really intertwined

[realbeefman]

i know chase obviously wins the religious trauma competition but can we please talk about how foreman was not only raised by a deeply religious father, but was most likely raised BAPTIST. no wonder he’s so repressed. the baptist experience is like. you’re in church every sunday listening to a man scream about how love is something that should hurt. you believe in a good, loving god - but to believe, you have to accept that true love is painful. that to be a good person, you must suffer. to love is to endure it, to work mercilessly. you’re not worthy of the love of The Almighty, and you never will be, and that sense of unworthiness is fundamental to having faith. when you sin, you don’t just hurt Him, you hurt everyone around you. you make the world worse because you have dared commit the sin of existence — to be human is to be sinful. to be loved is to feel unworthy and pathetic and hopeless. like YEAH no wonder foreman self isolates and is emotionally closed off. he was taught from BIRTH that he is fundamentally unworthy of love, and that in accepting love, he is also accepting that he truly is worthless.

#also #i really cant stress enough to non-americans that foreman being black would seriously have had an impact on his relationship with religion #christian ideals are baked into the way racial justice is thought about in the blm movement of today #christianity is also by and large more significant to black americans than it is to white americans because of this #because race and religion are really intertwined #and idk its not. the MOST important aspect of foreman’s character or anything #but i think it’s a lot harder to Get him if u don’t have that cultural knowledge which most americans will inherently understand #also disclaimer im not black. never been to a black church so obviously i cant speak to that experience #however i did go to a baptist school growing up and they REALLY emphasized that i should be ashamed of being alive #obviously this is all me theorizing bc foreman could be some other flavor of protestantism #they’re all varying levels of traumatic tbh #if he was episcopal he probably was listening to people speaking tongues in church which just. yeah. that also really fucks u up #house md #eric foreman #house md hc #house md headcanon #dr foreman

[neverwritewhatyouknow]

Results are in for poll #2

I’m honestly not too shocked by the answers that were given and, let’s just say relieved that others weren’t given is an understatement.

I figured the best way to respond would be to go one by one and explain more to help educate:

1. “I love the actress, no matter the role, so her taking a Jewish role was fine”

Unfortunately no matter how talented someone is, they can’t change their ethnicity on screen. It would be like saying that you love Angelina Jolie no matter what and it was fine that she played an Afro-Latino in Pearl, or if they had Tom Holland play a Latino character. Loving someone doesn’t make it okay to erase a minority.

2. “I didn’t know “Jewish” was an ethnicity and not just tied to a religion.”

This having a lot of votes didn’t surprise me at all. Jewish is very much an ethnicity, and actually there are a few different Jewish backgrounds. There’s Ashkenazic (Eastern Europe), Sephardic (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Iberia), Mizrahi (Oriental), Ethiopia (and I’m assuming the rest of Africa?). So not only is Jewish itself an ethnicity, but further than that, depending on what Jewish background you have, everything could be different. Judaism is the religion and a Jew is a part of the ethnoreligion. Meaning that the two are intertwined. A Jew may not be religious, but they may keep traditions that are a part of the culture or they may do absolutely nothing and are still just as Jewish as someone who goes to services every week. You’re a part of a tiny little (but strong) tribe of people, being Jewish is literally in your blood (yes, that includes you converts, you have Jewish blood and soul too).

But the biggest reason why this answer doesn’t surprise me, is that on TV or in movies, Jewish characters are never allowed to just exist. It always has to be tied into a Jewish plot. Sometimes that’s playing them for a joke, other times they’re a WW2 victim, other times they’re extremely religious. Jews are so rarely ever shown just being people without the religious aspects tied in. So it��s not surprising that non-Jews don’t know that a lot of Jews aren’t even religious, hell there are a shit ton of Jews who are outspokenly Atheist but super duper Jewish. If films or shows had Jewish characters that didn’t have any sort of religious connection, it would show that Jews are more than a bagel, a Torah, a lawyer/doctor/banker, Orthodox, etc.

That’s why RWRB erasing a Jewish character who was accidentally an amazing example of a 22 year old explicitly Jewish girl who was just Jewish without being overtly religious in any way would’ve been groundbreaking.

3. “Other answer, I’ll explain more…” Please do!!

4. “I didn’t know “Jew-Face” and Jew-erasure in the media was a big deal.”

Sarah Silverman coined the term Jew-face to give a name to when a non-Jewish actor is cast to play a Jewish actor, based on their physical features. Take Rachel Sennott in Shiva Baby or Patti LuPone in like 5 different things. They’re both Italian. But the term has evolved to cover any non-Jew playing a Jew. Much like Black-face, Yellow-face, and Red-face, this is something that is clearly not okay. That’s why performers don’t do any of the latter 3 any more, yet because many don’t understand that Jewish is an ethnicity or why it’s bad to erase Jews, it continues. 9/10 a Jewish character you see on TV or in a movie isn’t a Jewish actor. Most of the Marvelous Mrs Maisel cast— not Jewish. Most of The Goldbergs cast— not Jewish. Most of the Transparent cast— Not Jewish. The new Spielberg movie— Not Jewish. You see what I’m getting at? There may be a few Jews here and there, mainly in comedies or just by happenstance that the actor was Jewish and they ran with it, but explicitly Jewish roles are normally always given to non-Jewish actors. That would never be the case with any other ethnicity in 2023.

5. “I like Nora being a POC and I didn’t know Jews could be Black (or any race).”

Another answer that really didn’t surprise me. This is because on TV and in movies 1: you rarely see any actual Jews, and 2: You definitely never see Jews of more diverse colors and backgrounds. Jews can be Asian, Black, Hispanic, literally anything you can imagine. Some by conversion, but a lotttttttt were just born Jewish. I don’t want to speak over any Jew of color, but I can make the likely true assumption that it probably fucking sucks for people to assume they aren’t Jewish simply because of what they look like. I’m grateful I was raised Reform, so I grew up surrounded by diverse Jews as far as the eye could see, but unfortunately since Jews are a minority anyway and Jews of color are only a small fraction of an already small fraction… It’s not shocking that people think they don’t exist. What RWRB could’ve done, if they wanted Nora to be played by an African-American actress, is they could have found a girl who was Jewish and Black. I promise, they exist.

6. “I understand that it’s wrong! Changing my mind! RWRB did something bad!”

Amazing! So glad! Please post about it or reblog any of my posts. What they did was really not okay and we can’t let this slide.

7. “I didn’t know the rest of the cast was accurately portraying their ethnicities.”

To the absolute best of my knowledge, every other actor cast in the film who has a character with a minority background is of that background. South East Asian playing South East Asian. Mexican-American playing Mexican-American. Etc. It seems that the only character not portrayed accurately is the only character with a Jewish ethnicity, and even if she wasn’t the only one, hopefully you understand why it would be wrong in any production.

As always, if you have questions, comments, or concerns… DM, Anon, Comment, or leave ‘em in the tags

#rwrb movie #red white and royal blue #red white royal blue movie #rwrb cast #rwrb #red white and royal blue movie #casey mcquiston #red white royal blue cast #nora holleran #rachel hilson #red white royal blue #jewish #cmq #rwrb film #nora rwrb #booktok #lgbt books #jumblr #american jews #Jewish actors #Jewish people #amazon prime original #amazon prime video #amazon studios #rwrb book #rwrb spoilers #rwrb social media

[sonofanactuallyveryniceperson]

is this too late I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts about themes on ioh

oh so you got me thinking!

Pete has said before that this album feels like nighttime. I agree. It feels like getting home from a party at 2am, still kind of tipsy and drifting.

I think it’s very easy to say that Infinity On High is about fame, and then just leave it there. You wouldn’t be wrong; but we’ve got more ground to cover.

Ever since futct, fob has had a bone to pick with the idea of fame (e.g. the album literally starts with the sound of ambient camera shutters). From Under The Cork Tree, Infinity On High, and Folie à Deux have always felt almost like a trilogy to me, in that regard. While ‘Cork Tree’ feels like the band’s introduction to the machinations of fame, and Folie is a definite exploration of the aftermath... Infinity On High is almost euphorically self-aware. Like it knows where it’s headed, but it just can’t stop. IOH is about the best part of fame: the midpoint. It’s about how, if you’re not careful, you’ll get caught in the dream and the dazzle of it. The high, if you will.

Despite that, it really is an album that decries everything about the industry machine. It’s a record that spends a lot of time screaming about how nothing is real, everyone is fake, and nothing can be trusted. The first three songs of the album (Thriller, The Take Over, and Arms Race) all have that tongue-in-cheek take on the band’s success: “I can take your problems away with a nod and a wave” / “Don’t pretend you’ll ever forget about me” / “As long as the room keeps singing / That’s just the business I’m in”.

However, the next three songs are interspersed with honest and incredibly visceral moments of sincerity (I’m like a Lawyer, Hum Hallelujah, Golden). Within the scope of the rest of the album, these songs feel like a moment of clarity. Like being lucid, before you’re swept back up in the headrush of being a fucking rockstar. The horror of being the next big thing.

For a while, I thought there might have been something significant about these trios of songs, but neither the original record — nor the deluxe album —are divisible by three. So, bummer. No cool lore there. There are, however, 14 songs on the original album. There’s nothing super significant about that except for the fact that it’s a very popular number within the bible: whether its 14 rains, 14 lambs, 14 plagues, 14 rams, 14 cubits, or 14 wives. There’s 24 mentions of the number within the bible. The lamb thing is fun, though. Hey Franklin!

But that’s my segue: religion in ioh. As we know, Pete loves a little bit of Catholic guilt. Uhhh it’s definitely there. It’s been talked about before. Lots of people have discussed it. But I would say that death, as a theme, is even more present than religion.

Pete, in particular, has always written about fame and death as though intertwined, like they can’t be explored separately. Like they’re consequences of each other, no matter which comes first. Which I suppose is interesting in the context of this album, named Infinity On High, after a passage from Vincent Van Gogh’s letters. Van Gogh’s story is so impactful because his artwork didn’t garner success until after he died. In fact, his death was the thing that skyrocketed his fame. It wouldn’t surprise me if this reference to Van Gogh is another indirect critique of the fickle nature of fame.

At the end of the day, I think the most prominent — yet somehow under-addressed — theme in ioh is love. The opening track, ‘Thriller’, is almost explicitly a love letter to the fans. Love is mentioned numerous times throughout the lyrics of ioh:

“Love songs for the genuinely cunning” / “I love a tree I used to lay beneath” / “Better off as lovers” / “This is a love song in my own way” / “I’ve loved everything about you that hurts” / “I know I’m supposed to love you” / “All the boys who the dance floor didn’t love” / “I thought I loved you, it was just how you looked in the light” / “And all the lovers with no time for me” / “Collecting page six lovers” / “Oh, put love on hold” /

Within Infinity On High, love is something that you give to the people who got you this far. Love is presented as something foreign. Love is something that you buy. Love is something that you can never have. Maybe that’s why it’s widely regarded as fob’s most beloved album, because that’s what it’s about, at the end of the day.

Love is fame, and fame is death. Easy as that.

#I didn’t cite my work in this one but forgive me #my uterus is ravaging my body rn #fob: the world’s not waiting #text: words from e #text: analysis #pw: mr sandman

[wondo-dancer]

Wondo Rules for Writing & Art Requests

A small and simple list of rules for requesting content!

————

1. No NSFW

I will closely dance around the subject, i dont mind implying things, but I will not be writing or drawing downright smut for tumblr 👍

2. Be polite & patient

Im an adult trying to pay bills outside of this! This account is just for fun hobby stuff, i may not want to draw or write everything requested and i ask that you stay polite about it

3. I’m a very neutral writer, but more specific artist

Less of a rule, more of a notification. I do not at all write for specific gender, im purely gender neutral in wroying. I also generally avoid race specific or religion specific requests because I rarely know how to write them in a way that properly intertwines those traits with relevance to stories/hcs. Specific physical traits are generally okay for requests. For art, i dont mind doodling more specifics- you can even submit ocs to be doodled with canon coaches. I dont care! Go ham! Its much easier to visually represent things for me

4. Proshippers, Homophobes, Transphobes etc. fuck off 💜

This blog is lgbtq+ friendly & doesn’t support proshipping. Fuck off with that shit & don’t request anything that falls under any of that.

In addition to this rule: feel free to request trans specific or sexuality specific hcs/art for JD coaches. I dont mind if it goes against my personal hcs.

5. I use my personal headcanons as default

I have personal headcanons & interpretations of coaches that can be found through my account, i use these headcanons as default character guides when writing. If you don’t quite vibe my character interpretations, request something specific 👍 it’s totally cool to

————

This is about it really!

[uwm-art150]

X(formerly Twitter)

For my last Tumblr post I decided to focus on X(formerly known as Twitter) and more specifically, how Elon Musk has changed it for the worse. Elon Musk initiated his purchase of Twitter back in April 14 2022, and finalized his purchase on October 27 2022. Since then, there have been a multitude of poor decisions by Musk that have alienated many of his users. Some of the controversial decisions that he has made include unbanning a multitude of controversial users and backtracking on many of the promises he has made such as stepping down as CEO(which took nearly 6 months). Some of the users who were unbanned include Ye(formerly Kanye West), Donald Trump, known neo-nazi Andrew Anglin, and Andrew Tate. These decisions by Musk generate a huge discussion regarding race and cultural diversity. Ye for example has been in the news the past few years for his increasing antisemitism. In fact, Ye was re-banned only weeks after being reinstated for posting the nazi symbol intertwined with the star of david. Also, former President Trump has now been given a platform to push his political agenda, causing many users to quit twitter altogether because they do not agree with his radical agendas. The reinstatement of accounts such as these with terrible messages about hate and racism do not belong on a social media site and people with these kinds of agendas should not be given a platform. However, Musk seems to think that the reinstatement of these accounts are just a part of freedom of speech. The issue at hand relates to the course readings by creating discussion about if the people reinstated really deserve a platform and creating real discussion about the effect the accounts at hand have on people of color and certain religions. Ye, for example, has been immensely anti semitic towards jewish people and has been very open about his strange admiration for Hitler. Twitter(X) has gone from a place where people  have been able to openly share their opinions, news, etc. to a place where people can openly share hatred about race, religion, and cultures that they feel are not as “superior” as their own.   

[hintsofhoney]

alright, *cracks fingers*. so. I’ve written up a transcript just to lay it all out for myself and get the most important parts. listen, everyone. for all intents and purposes and legal reasons, THIS WAS A DREAM. alright? I dreamt this. and he is literally the nicest human being ever so I don’t want to just like... put our whole convo out there like that, but I think he said some stuff that was important for people to hear so... here we go

my *dreamt* zoom call with thee crowley below the cut

The first five minutes (of my dream) was just a bunch of introduction stuff and talking about my favorite Supernatural seasons which eventually led to him telling me how they filmed the Season 8 finale (which they did over the span of three days, and in between takes the crew members were like dead silent, as to keep the moment going, which Mark thought was really cool. Said it was one of his favorite things they did on Supernatural.) Anyways, he eventually asked me if I had any questions, so, I’ll start there.

MARK: So, do you have any questions you want to ask me about aaaaaannyyyythingggg? 

ME: Um, I guess the number one thing I wanna know… um, so, I know you can’t speak for Dean and I don’t want to talk about Dean because you’re not Jensen, but, there’s like a lot of questions I guess or subtext or whatever concerning Dean’s sexuality and what not, but I want to know about demon Dean and Crowley’s relationship and if there was, I don’t know, anything like, any implied –

MARK: Well I think – I think you’re talking about… there’s a massive difference between sex and love. There’s a massive difference between, um, well, they can intertwine perfectly, that’s not the issue, but I mean you would believe with all the things that Crowley did for the Winchesters, that he was – that he very much loved Sam and Dean or loved who they are or what they are. To reduce it to, you know, a crush, or to something that – I mean, I don’t know, I think Crowley is very probably pansexual more than anything else; I don’t think anything phased him. I think, that’s why the whole stuff with Lucifer and licking the floor was kind of really stupidly boring for me because Crowley did weirder and crazier things on his own. I mean, it became this joke of trying to humiliate somebody who can’t be humiliated. There’s nothing you can humiliate Crowley with. So, that never sort of made sense, that was just a sort of writer’s glitch of thinking, “oooh, this would be funny to knock him down into subservience” and that’s what he does on a Wednesday, I mean it’s like the most un-inspiring thing. I think so much is projected onto the relationship between, certainly the four main characters, um, and, you know, look, getting comfortable with one’s sexuality and one’s identity is a massively complicated things, and if you want to live vicariously through what you believe people’s identity is and you can relate to that, great!  Who cares? I mean, can I be absolutely honest? Apart from – what I do care about, you know, don’t ever take this and piece me or misquote it, because it’s very, very specific – um, somebody stopping somebody being able to express their own identity or whatever is an issue for me. That will always be an issue for me. Um, we should all be treated equally, and we all have the rights to believe and follow those things that we wish to follow, but to project relationships onto characters is an odd thing to do. I mean, it’s wishful thinking in a lot of ways, I mean, actually it’s quite… it’s quite reasonable because in the past if you think about it, if you ask your parents or anyone else, the only way sexuality was used was to, uh, literally demonize somebody. It was only ever used to say somebody was bad because this who they’re in love with. You know, that’s, that’s the thing. And it’s a massive change in the world that we’re moving towards, I should say, uh – a lack of consequence for who one loves, apart from the obvious consequences of human nature. You know, political consequences for who one loves – I’ve just watched Pete Butteigieg being, you know, sitting in congress with his husband there with him; that’s the first time that’s ever happened in United States congress and I’m so proud of that. Not just because the man is gay and happily married – that’s not even the issue for me, it’s because he’s the best man for the job and one of the smartest people on the planet. You know, it’s like using sexual templates, as they were, or gender templates as they are, or orientation templates as they are, we always use to disclude people from things. They were always used to discriminate. You know, labeling somebody was a way of discrimination. And where as labels are very important, to ones self, and they’re very important politically and they’re very important socio-economically and they’re very important in all those aspects, I yearn for a time when nobody gives a damn. I really do. But I mean, we have to go through so much to get there. I mean, let’s be honest, you can’t, you know, right the wrongs of hundreds of years of oppression in 20 minutes by saying, “let’s all move forward”. It just doesn’t work that way, it never has. But there’s a responsibility there, that if you’re going to represent, that you represent all. That you don’t just represent you. So, one has to be careful with a television program or, or, you know, Misha or myself, or, not speaking for the boys, but just generally, um, you have to be careful that what you advocate is inclusive, not disinclusive. Not excluding people... and it’s so hard to frame these conversations, that they’re equitable, it’s so hard to do that. And so, you know, we spend years pointing out the inequity and the injustice and the unfairness of the whole situation, and… I don’t know if the trick is to rise above, or, uh, maybe it’s as simple as love and coming together as a human race and make it very difficult for people to discriminate and exclude based on gender, race, color, religion, any of the subsets of humanity that we’ve decided we have. So, I think personal responsibility is the most important thing, but if one is in a position of power on a TV show, you got to remember what you’re representing, that you have a, you know, you have to cover all or cover none. So, you know, but if you stick to a story and you have a story about a person or two people and their journey, that’s shining light on things. If you try to advocate for all, I think it becomes a little more complicated. Does that make sense?

so, i just feel like he said some important things there, but like I also don’t really understand what he’s getting at really, y’know? oh! also, he didn’t watch the finale lmao 

also! there’s this:

MARK: Because if you come down on one side or another, you’re admitting the sides, and that has its own political ramifications. If you push the ball up in the air and say, “you decide”, I don’t think that’s copping out. I think that’s, maybe not fulfilling everybody’s expectations, or not fulfilling everybody’s hopes, but at least you’re getting the question asked. You know, at least you’re getting the question asked. At least people are relating to it and going, “well, what if?”. Because it’s all “what if”, I mean, it’s a TV show, so it’s “what if”, you know? It’s not Misha being in love with Jensen, I mean as much as he loves Jensen, I don’t think that’s his thing – I mean you never know – but I’m saying yet again, I don’t exclude anything from anybody (I LITERALLY CAN’T BELIEVE HE SAID THIS LMAO). But to force my opinion or my identity belief upon a situation has a cost. It may be right, it may be absolutely right, and it may be necessary in many, many cases. But, in that circumstance, I think… there are a lot of people in the world that say that Jesus, for example, was anti-homosexual and that he was – and none of that is true, and none of that is provable in the New Testament, and I’m not talking about Leviticus and I’m not talking about early Bible and I’m not talking about the fact that more than 25,000 words have been changed in the King James edition and all of this stuff, but these things that people hold so sacred, the confusion that arises from that is being told that a man loving a man or a woman loving a woman or a man loving a man and a woman or whatever combination being there is either right or wrong because you’re being told by a pastor or the leaders of your church, is a very difficult thing to break down. I think what you have to do is at least put it out there so it’s visible, and so it becomes less and less deniable. And you know, people change over years, that’s the trouble with youth, is shit doesn’t move fast enough. “I need a decision now!”, and unfortunately, when you’re dealing with centuries of prejudice and centuries of un-enlightenment, I think that sometimes the best thing to do is reach as many people as possible and pose the question. And sometimes it’s essential to make a statement, absolutely, no question. It is essential to make a stand, in some circumstances. But to polarize a TV show, can be very disingenuous to those who need to go ask their own questions, who need to go say, “well, where does Jesus say this is wrong?” you know, if that’s your beliefs.

he also said, when we went off on a tangent about doom patrol:

MARK: There are issues that are being addressed here [on Doom Patrol] that are not being addressed on other shows, and yet again, we have the format, and I don’t know that Supernatural ever had the format because it was on the CW.

anywho, in conclusion, fuck the cw.

also, again, for all intents and purposes this was a dream I had :)))))))

[meyhew]

I stumbled on an old post about Zayn and anti Asian racism and it made me think. I know Islamaphobia is something we talk about a lot regarding Zayn and we usually mention racism but I feel like the nuance isn't always talked about enough. Like, even if you take religious background out of it, anti Soutj Asian sentiment in the UK is so common and Zayn grew up in one of the most racially segregated areas in England. Plus, the South Asian experience in the US isn't too good either. I feel like that aspect is so overlooked esp when ppl make the excuse that he's white passing (which we all know he is not) but it really kills me to think about how ppl refuse to acknowledge the racial aspect and insist on whitewashing him. The way they reacted with his Grammy tweets proved that they have whitewashed him in their minds to such as an extent that the significance of his statements went completely over their heads. I see the anti South Asian sentiment in the way his music is criticized, it's their when ppl use racial slurs specific to South Asians against him. The thing that gets me is that British ppl are actually more willing to acknowledge the South Asian aspect more than Americans are. And the post also mentioned the "model minority" myth and how South Asians in the US are held to it. But the model minority myth is in itself inherently racist and we feel the pain of it. I've experienced so much vitriol not just for my religion but also my race and its frustrating how easily ppl here in the US dismiss it because of the model minority bs. Anyway, I'm sorry for the rant lol. I just needed to get this of my chest

no you're right. i've seen a lot of americans (white and otherwise) who look past zayn's desi heritage and focus on his whiteness—as if anyone with a working brain looks at him and sees a white man. his name, his features, his attitude all indicate that he's a person of color. during the 1d days, the efforts to whitewash him went as far as trying to keep him from growing a proper beard—something that's very near and dear to a LOT of brown (especially muslim) men, and something that liam and louis had all the freedom to do. him being of south asian (esp pakistani) descent is enough for people to be vile but it's almost impossible to separate the religious bias since it's so intertwined with his racial identity. whether or not he actively practices islam isn't even the question; it's the fact that he comes from a muslim family that seems to observe muslim traditions and then he went and had a kid with someone who also comes from a muslim father. but anyway to your point—yes people continuously try to erase his brown identity and treat him as they would any white man when its like. just because he doesn't have dark brown skin does not mean that man is white passing. this part in yellow metal sums it up in zayn's own words better i ever could:

i've been facing the racists from back when I were a kiddie born up in 93', living it rough in city they kicked me out of the schools said i had a problem with hittin' the kids that would call me paki still sittin' in classroom chillin', i'm angry now that i'm older i see they treat us different got me thinking I'm the problem 'cause they never dealt with these issues 20 years later, i'm still in the same boat tryna treat me like my grandpa say i came up off the boat came to tell you what i stand for, man i think this shit's a joke how can i be civil when they've got me by the throat pushing my feelings down, you ain't got it like them "boy your skin is so light" okay motherfucker, take my name up on a flight and try to convince immigration that your bloodline's half white

i wish everyone who treats zayn this way and tries to trample over his desi identity a very rough day <3

#anonymous #answered

[gravelyhumerus]

“just like a folk song (our love will be passed on)”

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Relationship: Jemily

Summary: Pregnant? Off a one-night hookup that convinced her that the relationship wouldn’t go anywhere? Impossible. Improbable. Unlikely.

Word count: 3,086

Read it on AO3 

Chapter One, Chapter Two

Content warning: mentions of Emily’s abortion and discussions of some canon typical violence.

Sitting at the edge of Emily’s large, porcelain bathtub, JJ wrung her hands. She hadn’t planned to take the pregnancy test that morning, but she had barely slept the night before. Her anxious thoughts kept her tossing and turning, wondering if she was pregnant or not. 

What would she even do if she was pregnant? What would she say to Emily?

It was their first weekend off in over a month, and instead of relaxing with her girlfriend, JJ was more stressed than she was when she was actively chasing down the worst of humanity. An unsub holding a gun to her head was not nearly as terrifying as this moment, as JJ sat and waited for the little plus or minus to tell her whether she was going to have a baby. 

The test rested on the tub next to her. JJ kept her eyes away from it, watching the two minute timer tick down on her phone. 

Emily spoke from just outside of the bathroom: “Hey, are you struggling with the shower again? I know it’s annoying, I can turn it on for you.”

JJ stiffened, realizing that she hadn’t turned the water on yet. She had told Emily she was showering as a cover for taking the test, then she hadn’t done the one thing that would hide the truth. 

She hated keeping all of this from Emily. Even when they were just friends, JJ found herself telling Emily everything. But, she still wasn’t sure how on earth she would tell Emily about the situation, either way. 

The profiler knocked again and said: “JJ?”

JJ tried to speak but let out a strangled noise, her voice unexpectedly thick with emotion.

“Are you ok?” Emily asked. “Are you still not feeling well?” 

The door opened a crack.

“Can I come in?” Her voice was soft, caring. The sound of it felt like a hug. 

“Yeah,” JJ managed. 

Emily stood in the doorframe, taking in the scene in front of her, her eyes filled with concern. She looked JJ up and down, then flicked around the room until they rested on the pregnancy test. 

“Oh,” Emily said. 

JJ could see the thoughts racing through Emily’s mind. The brunette’s brow furrowed as she processed the information. Then, Emily seemed to make up her mind, walking towards JJ and sitting on the toilet seat lid. She took JJ’s hand in hers.

“Is it mine?” Emily asked as a hint of a smile pulled on her lips. 

JJ  let out a sigh of relief at how calm Emily was with being confronted by her maybe-pregnant girlfriend in her bathroom. 

The timer went off on her phone. Emily squeezed JJ’s hands tightly. It was time to look.

“I’m pregnant.” 

———

Three tests later JJ was very much pregnant, and Emily was not quite sure what to say. They had just started to date, and she had no idea what this meant for them. 

When Emily asked how this all came to be, JJ explained that she had only spent one night with Will, back when she and Emily had just been friends. It was a relief to hear, especially when fearing the worst, but it didn’t make the whole situation any less complicated. 

Emily was forcing herself to tuck all her feelings away to be there for JJ through this, even if only as a friend. She would be whatever JJ needed. 

As the frenzy of the tests subsided, the two women sat in silence eating the scrambled eggs that Emily had managed to make for lunch. She wasn’t a good cook, but she felt the need to keep busy and keep her whirlwind of a brain at bay. JJ had a panicked look in her eyes. She was almost vibrating with anxiety, so Emily tried to keep her calm if only with her presence.

But there was only so much she could do before the questions came tumbling out of her mouth. 

Emily decided to give JJ an out. A free, no hard feelings free pass out of the relationship. JJ was pregnant for God's sake, she wouldn’t want to stay with Emily. She just needed to let JJ go. Their relationship was new, barely started. It would be a clean break. 

“You should call him,” Emily said, her voice calm, measured. “Tell him about it.”

JJ’s eyes shot up, and she squinted at Emily in confusion.

“Why? I’d rather talk about what this means for us.”

“What do you mean by us?”

JJ set her fork down on her plate and reached across Emily’s wooden kitchen table. 

“You’re my girlfriend, Emily,” JJ said. 

Emily blinked. They weren’t over after all. 

“Oh my god, Emily, no,” JJ said, standing up and walking over to her. Her hands grasped Emily’s face to pull her into a kiss. “Did you think–”

“I thought that you wouldn’t want...” Emily gestured vaguely, “Me, I guess.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” JJ said, kissing Emily’s forehead.

JJ pulled away, wrapping her arms around Emily’s neck. In exchange, Emily rested her hands on JJ’s hips. 

“I just,” JJ said, her voice almost a whisper, “I don't really know what to do. This is a lot. For me, for us.”

“Think about it,” Emily suggested. “You don’t need to make any decisions when the information is fresh. You’re probably still in shock.”

An unspoken understanding passed between them. Emily knew exactly what JJ was going through. But instead of being a struggling sixteen year old in Rome, she was a 27 year old FBI agent with a stable job, a home and a girlfriend. Still, Emily knew that fear and uncertainty intimately. No matter the circumstances, it was absolutely terrifying. 

 “You’re right,” JJ said. 

JJ pressed a soft kiss onto her girlfriend’s forehead. Emily’s eyes flickered closed as she leaned into the gesture. 

“Thank you for being you, Emily.”

———

That night, both agents lay awake late into the night. The only light came from the streetlights below them, illuminating the room in a dim warm glow. The familiar sounds of the busy Washington, DC streets were faintly audible. It was peaceful, yet the weight of the day’s events was heavy on their minds.  

JJ’s blonde hair tickled Emily’s nose as she buried her face in her golden locks. Her arms wrapped around her girlfriend's smaller frame, their bodies fit together perfectly. While JJ’s breath came evenly, Emily could tell that she was still awake. 

Emily’s fingers were intertwined with JJ’s, and the media liaison rubbed her thumb along the back of Emily’s hand. The gesture was subtle, but let her know that JJ wanted her there, wanted her to stay close. 

The whole day brought back memories for Emily. Hard memories. But it wasn’t about her, it was about JJ. She needed to keep it together. 

JJ wasn’t some lost teenager like Emily was. They would be okay, no matter what. At least, that was how Emily reassured herself. 

Emily didn’t regret her abortion at all. She was able to live her full life because of it. She wouldn’t have made it to where she was now, without her friend Matthew. When she closed her eyes, she could almost picture him with his floppy hair and earnest eyes, squeezing her hand, telling her it was all going to be okay. That was the beginning of the end of her drought relationship with religion, because she knew people like her weren’t welcome there. 

She knew JJ hadn’t grown up with the same religious upbringing that she had. Sure, the Jareaus went to church on Easter and Christmas, but Emily knew she wasn’t raised in the same strict Catholic environment like she experienced with Elizabeth Prentiss, especially when they lived in Rome. Not that that made the decision any easier, but at least the weight on JJ’s shoulders wouldn’t be as heavy. 

Maybe JJ would choose not to have the baby. It was an accident, after all. And with their relationship still in its infancy, there was a lot that could go wrong. That didn’t even factor in that they were FBI agents who fly across the country every few weeks. 

Keeping it was a whole other issue. Emily had thought of having children, had always wanted to. With every case involving an orphaned child or one in foster care, something inside of Emily yearned to just take the child in her arms and protect it from the world. 

“I think it's a good idea, though,” JJ had said to her on the jet.

“What's that?” Emily asked, looking across at the blonde.

“You. Kids. I can see it.”

The comment made something in Emily’s stomach flutter.

“Yeah?”

JJ nodded. Emily looked out the window, deep in thought. At the time, she wouldn’t let herself imagine that with JJ, it seemed so far fetched. So impossible. 

Now, with JJ in her arms. Emily could see it too.  

“Either way, no matter what,” Emily found herself whispering before she even planned what she was going to say. “Just know that I’m not going anywhere.”

Emily squeezed JJ tightly, kissing her shoulder and smiling. She meant it. There was something about their relationship, albeit newly established, that felt so right. 

JJ didn’t react at first, and for a moment, Emily wondered if she had fallen asleep. Then, she heard JJ swallow before speaking. 

“I’ve always wanted to be a mom,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper. 

Emily pulled her closer.

#criminal minds #jemily #cm #criminal minds tv #jennifer jareau #emily prentiss #prentiss x jj #jemily cm #emily prentiss x jennifer jareau #my post #my writing #gravelyhumerus cm baby au #fanfic #fanfiction #i promise my college au will get an update soon #the next chapters just a bit complicated #for now my baby wants to write soft baby fic idk

[honey-harper-official]

This is gonna be a long as post and I am in no way an expert but cultures having aspects of different cultures mixed in / Americanized cultures are not the awful mess thst you all think it is.

Obviously some parts have very racist and problematic roots im not gonna deny that and if there’s a practice in a culture or religion where the people of the background that said practice originally created said it’s a closed practice and not for people outside of them then it should remain a closed practice. But that doesn’t mean it’s all bad especially when you actually look at history.

This will be a very American centric post bc I’ve seen a lot of European people and people from other countries online comment about how white Americans don’t have culture or are ruining and stealing their culture when that’s not really the case.

First of all over time cultures naturally shift and change. Thsts just how it goes.

Second of all some of the changes in cultures now from their original practices in the countries and regions they started in have changed because of influences of other cultures. America is a melting pot! All different cultures and backgrounds are here and we learn from each other! A lot of practices aren’t stolen so much as adapted and meshed together due to learning and respectfully experiencing another persons culture or just people being mixed backgrounds. In the future I guanretee you cultures in America are going to be a lot more mixed because more and more people marry outside their race and culture which is a beautiful thing thst should be celebrated!

There’s also the immigrant experience. Recipes and practices have changed as immigrants came and had access to more or different resources especially before more modern technology came into play. Some things people may have had in their home countries were accessible within America so things got substituted. Or there were new things they had never got to experience that those immigrants enjoyed and intertwined in. Thst doesn’t mean the American version of those practices are bad and frankly it should be celebrated bc a lot of it is thst your ancestors survived and got new experiences. The practices should very much be celebrated as originally done but also more American versions should also be celebrated bc it’s a survival of the culture and the people who brought it here!

I saw some posts on St Patrick’s say discussing how Americans were doing it wrong and while there’s definetly some parts that are disrespectful a lot of it also has to do with Irish immigrants having different resources in America then Ireland and the mix of different cultures and people participating influencing it and that doesn’t mean how we celebrate it is wrong.

Cultural shifts aren’t necessarily bc America is racist and therefore celebrates it wrong so much as America is racist and there’s cultural shifts so the culture could survive. We should very much celebrate thst survival even if it’s different from its roots!

I also see people saying to stop saying you’re Irish American or Italian American you’re just white and while I get the meaning behind that part of thst also has to due a lot to racism. Anyone who has a white background is very much NOT oppressed now but that doesn’t mean they weren’t. I know people make jokes about how people say that they’re Italian American are probably only one percent but a lot of white Americans most definetly have a lot of Irish and Italian and Germanic backgrounds not just French or British and I’d make a bet that those probably aren’t the largest amounts either.

When Irish and Italian and other white immigrants came they very much stuck with their own peers and background bc Americans already here HATED them. It wasn’t until more recently thst the different white background started mixing together. So in all honestly just let people say they’re Irish American or Scottish American bc they very much most likely are ans the way they celebrate it has to due with the American immigrant experience not necessarily the ruination of the root practice.

It’s also very beneficial for people to learn these things bc while no one who’s white is oppressed in America now it doesn’t mean that they’re ancestors didn’t face hardships that should be honored and appreciated. The practices at their roots and the American versions should both be celebrated and embraced bc they represent the original culture as well as how it survived.

It’s also beneficial to learn about bc the reason the different backgrounds started mixing does have to do with racism against other ethnic groups that aren’t white. It very much had to do with power in numbers and us against them and erasing and changing one culture so that way they could oppress and erase another. Again I’m not an expert or a historian by any means but a lot of this can be gathered and figured out by looking at basic American history and sometimes just listening to things grandparents and older people tell you.

This becomes even more important bc it’s starting to happen again. As racist practices have lead to white people stealing ethnic traits and making them the beauty standard and stuff actual people of those backgrounds are now being considered white and white passing and having their culture erased from them and their experiences invalidated. The model minority myth is part of this and I don’t know if you’ve seen it but when checking off your race for certain things Asian and white are being clumped together. It very much has to do with splitting minorities apart so they can’t band together against oppression by white people.

This is a lot of information to take in but I think it’s very important to discuss based on the fact that it’s happening again to more and more minorities as a means to oppress them. If I’m wrong on anything please correct me but a lot of this I just gathered from basic history classes and watching the news. Also people, no matter what race, don’t deserve to have their cultural practices disrespected bc it changed out of survival purely because you don’t understand the history behind it. I understand not wanting to have your culture disrespected but I promise you that you view it that way due to a perception ajd image america has Thsts not 100 percent true to people that actually live there.

If all white people knew this and got to properly celebrate their backgrounds then there wouldn’t be so many people who aren’t oppressed because we’d all have banded together by now and when we’ve seen groups do that we see that the government tries to turn them against each other to save themselves.

A lot of people going I’m Italian American or Welsh American and such like that also has to do with the fact that British and then French people were the first white people here and declared themselves the best and in charge and as we all know both of them basically combined attacked and fucked over every culture and country imaginable and it didn’t stop when America gained independence from Britain. So when white Americans go oh I’m Italian and Scottish American it’s not bc they’re trying to claim something that isn’t there’s. It’s bc at its root it’s about honoring your ancestors and where your family came from and giving a huge fuck you to Britain and France who very much tried to take that away from white immigrant Americans.

Please let white Americans learn their roots I promise you it’s not anyone trying tk be deliberately disrespectful it’s trying to make the culture survive and celebrating our ancestors more then anything as well as helping educate white Americans now on racism. It’s very beneficial to understanding the political climate against people of color now from my personal experience and has more benefits then you think. America IS a melting pot of cultures and we should celebrate it instead of claiming that it’s ruining cultures bc it’s not. It’s about cultures surviving and people of different backgrounds coming together.

[captainsimagines]

Titanic || H.S

Part Three || “Harry”

“I hear the states are quite bigger than just New York, dear...”

Warnings: This book contains mature themes and discussions, such as gun violence, emotional and physical abuse, attempted suicide, mentions of blood, character deaths, heavy sexual content, and reference to the real maritime disaster of the 1912 cruise liner Titanic.

     Mornings were as warm as freshly made bread and salted butter for Harry, inviting and comforting, with that perfect combination sitting on his tongue in absolute delight. He’d chow down happily as each morning customer ordered their regulars, his mother rushing from one side to the other as the orders came in. And once he swallowed his last piece, he rolled his sleeves up to pull yet another tray of bread that had been baking since the early morning hours. 

     The family bakery was located in a very crowded part of the city, where thousands walked by each day, good and bad, gossiping about anything and everything. And although Harry’s family bakery wasn’t the only one on the street, it was the one that received the most praise. With dough made with love and an end product that was easily pulled apart, Harry’s family bakery won first place in all good graces. 

     And with such precision in every bite and every cake decorated in such an exquisite manner that they were rated number one in The Times for attention to detail and amazing taste, the family bakery was ready to branch out. They had a plan to save as much money as they could - and although being loved by many and receiving great reviews - they had very little of that. Most of the money the family earned went to rent, new shoes, and ingredients. The plan involved the Styles Bakery becoming some sort of franchise, and since they had London’s attention, it was possible. 

     The Styles Bakery would extend through other parts of London, and ever since Harry’s grandparents moved to the states with his aunt and her children, America was added to the equation. 

     “Mum, could you get the bread out? My hands are full!” Harry called out, arms struggling to carry glass jars full of jelly. He carefully climbed the ladder on the wall and began stacking, looking over his shoulder to make sure his mother heard his request. She quickly came out from the back room, padding her hands against her apron, and proceeded to remove the bread. She placed it on the counter carefully, all the while watching her son as he balanced himself on the ladder. 

     “Quite busy, are we?” she asked, rushing over to hold the ladder under him. Harry placed the last of his jars on the shelves. 

     “We need to get this place ready for the photographer! We need those photos by tonight so I can bring them with me on the trip.”

     “I know, honey. And thank you for doing this, but I don’t want you to fall and get hurt just because you were in a rush,” she said, helping Harry as he climbed down. “We have more than enough time.” 

     “Time?” Harry said with a tiny laugh, “Grandad said that if we don’t get these plans and photographs to the landlord in two weeks time, then we have to search outside of New York.” 

     She smiled at him, “I hear the states are quite bigger than just New York, dear.”

     Harry rolled his eyes, retreated back to the stockroom, and grabbed even more full jars. But as he returned, he continued the conversation. “But it’s where all the business and people are!”

     But still, his mother laughed. “People exist outside urban areas as well.”

     Harry saw how his mother would continue to innocently twist his words for the better, and no matter how negative he seemed to speak, his mother always could sprinkle the positives inside. For a while longer, they stacked jars, rearranged chairs, and cleaned the windows while waiting for the photographer. Once he arrived, he set up and did the bakery justice. From just the angles alone, Harry could see that the photographs would come out perfectly. They paid him extra for such an expedited order, promised to pick them up early tomorrow morning, and closed up the bakery a little after two in the afternoon. 

     Harry quickly ventured out to the still-empty pubs around town, a small pack of cigarettes he usually kept hidden behind the sacks of flour in the stockroom now hidden in his coat pocket, and joined as many small poker games he could find. With such deserted pubs at this time of the day, the men were less rowdy and more sober. This way Harry could collect as much pocket change he could in time for his voyage. The time flew by as he hopped from one pub to another, but he was still determined to make some more cash. But as his eyelids began to droop and his mind narrowly missed the ‘full house’ he was holding, Harry won, wrapped it all up, and started home. 

      He wasn’t a heavy gambler but he was known to succeed in a few tournaments when his family desperately needed to make rent. With such a dangerous alternative, Harry and his sister hid the fact that they would apply for odd jobs outside of the general area they lived, bringing in money under their mother’s nose - anything to keep the family afloat.

     But after a few hours in the comfort of his home, he ventured out into the world once again. He traveled around his known parts of the city, a few blocks here and there, most alleyways, and greeted many people. Once his feet began feeling sore and the tips of his shoes stubbed his toes, he went into a pub for a quick drink. He enjoyed its taste, sort of salty and sweet at the same time. He ordered the same and decided to focus on his surroundings during each sip, watching every bartender and every customer walk to and from the bar. All he could think about while looking at everyone’s joyful faces was that tomorrow he would be waiting at the docks and boarding the grandest ship in the world. Perhaps he’d be lucky enough to taste the alcohol they were transporting and serving, but it was a long-shot thought. The third class most likely was not going to offer up the finest things, but it sure beat the streets of rat-infested London. But as Harry recalled his schooling and the little travelers who brought the plague, he settled for calling Titanic’s possible rats more upper-class than the ones below the bar he was currently lounging in. The simple third class ticket hidden safely away in his bedside drawer was a somewhat important telling, like it was something that represented a rise in Harry’s world. 

     He ordered his third drink, this time carefully watching a young couple across the room who shared the drink they just ordered. They laughed along with the piano player, hands intertwined, simultaneously tapping their thighs to the beat in unison. Such synchronization was therapeutic and Harry wondered how they met - if they knew they were right for each other, if they ever fought, how many children they had, or whether they were truly happy as their movements portrayed. All these unanswered questions did not need to have an answer for Harry to accept the wonder. 

     The sound of Harry’s sliding barstool startled the sleeping man next to him. Harry paid the bartender, gave the sleeping man a double pat on the shoulder, and left. He was only a few blocks away from home, but he decided to walk slower than usual. Tomorrow’s plan formulated itself and Harry didn’t have to think twice about it - he would wake up early, dress casual but clean, make sure his boots had their laces, and double-check his packing. And the one-way ticket would burn a hole in his pocket as he boarded, waving goodbye to his mother and sister who weren’t granted tickets themselves. They would wave sadly, tearing up slightly but just enough for Harry to see, and would come back home to run the bakery themselves for a few months. 

      It was worth the distance once Harry landed in America, for their entire lives would change. In America, Harry would buy that spot of land they had all been saving for over the last fifteen years. He would clean, build, anything he had to do as long as that spot of land showcased the first of a long chain of Styles Bakery’s. A bakery where Americans of all races, all religions, all everything and anything would get to savor the sweet taste of a busy London street.  

     Once he got home he wrapped himself up with three heavy blankets, drank a cup of tea, and rested his eyes for a moment. He was already giddy with joy, restless as to what awaited him tomorrow. The chance to step on American soil and the Titanic - all within a week - barely allowed Harry a wink of deep sleep. 

     The American dream wasn’t really what Harry strived for or wished to achieve, but he definitely thought it probable. He had the money, he had the determination, he had the contacts. But it was quite unsettling to think about the negative consequences of such a drastic move and not knowing if everything was going to fall into place. 

     Harry’s eyes began to feel heavier and heavier as his mind kept racing, but he knew one thing for sure. Whether his family’s dream was to be recognized and accomplished, it was luck and luck alone that would ultimately determine his new American fate. Harry breathed a heavy sigh and ducked his chin deeper into the blankets, neck slightly tilted and arms hugging his upper torso.

#Harry Styles #harry #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles x reader #reader #Titanic AU #Titanic #harry styles x you #captainsimagines #harry styles smut #Smut #romance #angst #fanfiction #new fanfic #sad fanfiction #second person pov #period piece #detailed #fiction #film piece #movie #one direction #part three #love #love story #reader x harry styles #ship

[kenyatta]

The reality genre, a television staple for nearly 30 years, is so broad by now that it’s impossible to assign it a single aesthetic or political bent. It encompasses social experiments (from MTV’s classic “The Real World” to the current Netflix series “Love is Blind); creative showcases (“Top Chef,” “Project Runway,” “Cupcake Wars”); docu-series that mock the rich and famous (“The Simple Life,” “The Osbournes,” the Kardashians universe); docu-series that celebrate blue-collar work (“The Greatest Catch,” “Ice Road Truckers.”) Most shows purport to be politically neutral, even as they play-act the culture wars; “The Bachelor,” has, with notable stumbles, taken on gender relations, religion and, most recently, race, while trying somehow to remain popular with everyone.

Some shows really are popular with everyone; polls consistently show that “Survivor” ranks high with both Democrats and Republicans. But in general, TV preferences over the years have broken down along political lines. A 2011 report by the consumer research firm Experian, commissioned for Entertainment Weekly, surveyed self-identified “liberal Democrats” and “conservative Republicans” about their favorite shows. Liberals preferred “literate media-savvy comedies” like “The Daily Show,” “30 Rock,” and “Parks and Recreation.” Conservatives were drawn to crime dramas like “NCIS” and “The Mentalist.” And, more than liberals, conservatives were drawn to reality shows, from “Swamp Loggers” and “Pawn Stars” to “The Bachelor” and “Dancing with the Stars.”

In part, Schmidt says, that’s a function of education. Whether you have a college degree, he points out, is a major predictor of which political party you’ll support—and cultural preferences are often intertwined with political ones. When highly-educated liberals watch reality TV, it’s often with a sense of detachment: taking part in a guilty pleasure, as opposed to an outright pleasure. But fans of “Dancing With the Stars” are generally there for unironic joy. And at this point, “Dancing with the Stars” base is, for all intents and purposes, the GOP base, too. A 2019 report in Variety noted that of the 10 markets where the show had recently performed best, eight were in states that went for Trump in 2016, and the top one was the Florida market that covers Mar-a-Lago.

Politicians understand what’s in it for them—and what isn’t. In 2010, when Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol was cast on “Dancing With the Stars,” a casting director for the show told the Los Angeles Times that she often reached out to Democrats, to no avail. By 2011, Al Sharpton had turned down the show three times.

When Democrats do entertainment, they tend to choose a different approach—less risky, less broad, more consciously self-aware. When President Barack Obama wanted to drum up support for the Affordable Care Act in 2014, he deadpanned with Zach Galifianakis on the droll hipster web show “Between Two Ferns” and bantered with Jerry Seinfeld on “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” making certain the audience knew that he was only playing the game because he had a policy to plug. In 2018, the Obamas inked a Netflix deal that called for documentaries and scripted series with a high-minded mission: “to promote greater empathy and understanding between peoples.” And while Hillary Clinton did good-natured, scripted turns on “Saturday Night Live” during her presidential campaigns, US Weekly reported that in 2017, she was offered a spot on “Dancing with the Stars” and declined.

[bibliofiles-in-a-greenhouse]

Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to Know: A Review

Today I will be reviewing Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed. As always, there will be spoilers ahead, so read at your own risk.

~~SPOILERS AHEAD~~

Khayyam Maquet should love her holiday with her studious parents in Paris. But instead she finds herself at a crossroads - her sometimes kind-of boyfriend is ghosting, she may have blown her chance of getting into her dream college, and all she wants is to go back home to Chicago to figure out her life. 

But things change when she meets Alexandre Dumas, a descendant of her favorite writer. On top of that she finds letters to a mysterious woman, who just might give Khayyam another chance. 

Meanwhile, centuries before, Leila is trying to hide her love from the pasha, and survive as she is ‘gifted’ a position of favor in said pasha’s harem. As Khayyam begins to trace the threads of Leila’s life, the lives of these two women will intertwine as both lives are changed forever. 

~~TIME FOR MY THOUGHTS~~

I’m rather sad to say that I didn’t like this book. It felt like a chore to read, and my issues with the characters and the plot only made it worse. 

For starters, this book was presented as a feminist and poc narrative, but both protagonists spend the majority of the book bending to the will of men, and not even nice, respectful men. Being a feminist and hating all men do not go hand in hand, but these characters, and Khayyam especially,  are at the beck and call of the men in this story, above their own autonomy. Leila is not much better, making strong, well-grounded decisions and suddenly throwing them all away for a man despite the fact that it might very well get her killed. 

Another thing that wrankles with me is that, from what I can tell, this book has some good poc representation, especially in that of the two leading ladies. But Khayyam makes me feel like she’s ‘not racist towards the french’ in the way that Emily in Paris is a love letter to France instead of a bunch of Americans taking a shit on French culture. Khayyam is such a cool intersection of cultures, race, and religion (she’s French, Indian, American, and Muslim), and I think it would have been really cool and interesting to take a look at how all of these intersecting identities affect Khayyam, regardless of where she is*. 

Instead she spends so much time confused over which boy she should pick (she calls them ‘problematic faves’ - more on that later), that the story (these two women centuries apart coming together) that I came here for comes second. 

Back to Khayyam’s ‘problematic faves’, or more accurately, her use of that term. It makes sense that a seventeen-year-old would speak like most of gen z, however, sometimes the volume of gen-z buzzwords in what Khayyam is saying reminds me of Riverdale, and not in a good way (side note: is anything involving Riverdale good? I mean seriously, would anyone ever say ‘I beg your misogynistic pardon?’ unironically?). 

For a complete change of subject, where were Khayyam’s parents? Their few appearances are only to further the plot progression (and by plot I mean what should be the subplot of which boy Khayyam is going to pick), despite the fact that their daughter breaks and enters on multiple occasions. They let said daughter run around Paris with a guy that they met once (and the only thing they know about him is that he’s related to Alexandre Dumas), and though I appreciate that they are giving their daughter more independence, I’m a little concerned that they didn’t seem to fear for Khayyam’s safety at all. 

The story has such a cool premise, but I feel like so much of it is spent mooning over different men (almost entirely on Khayyam’s part by this point, since Leila’s major paramour died) that it takes a back seat, and could be lost entirely without really affecting Khayyam’s journey at all. I don’t see a lot of character development in Khayyam, and she sort of comes across like ‘i’m not like other girls’ in the way that Bella from Twilight isn’t like other girls. 

Later in the story, in an effort to prove that she really is feminist, and she doesn’t need men at all, her two love interests are demonized (which is fair, both of them are flawed, but given the fairly positive view that the reader has gathered of them from the previous 200-ish pages, it’s kind of out of nowhere), but that doesn’t erase the fact that Khayyam has been pining for the both of them throughout the book. I also think that Khayyam could have been a lot less damaging with how she handled the situation. She didn’t try to communicate sensibly and instead hurls insults at them until they both leave (In the case of Zaid, it kind of makes sense, he was not good to Khayyam, but Alexandre’s feels a bit less justified). I understand that given that she is 17, she may not be the most mature person in the world, but I think her outburst is kind of sudden and poorly handled. 

She chooses herself, yes, but at the cost of some, if not glowing relationships, then half-decent ones. I feel like the book fell into the common pitfall of ‘romantic relationships are the be all and end all of teen life’ which is simply not true. 

Khayyam is so focused on being feminist and defying the patriarchy in the present that she forgets that the whole point of this was to discover Leila’s story, and take down the patriarchy by telling it. The whole point of Alexandre appearing at all (his connections to the Dumas family helping discover Leila) is thrown out of the window when Zaid shows up, just like it has been for the last few hundred pages. Khayyam, and by extension Leila, are jerked around by men, the patriarchy, despite Khayyam’s whole deal supposedly being defying said patriarchy. 

Khayyam reminds me of how white cishet male authors write feminists - spewing all the relevant rhetoric until a man comes along and ‘fixes’ it. I guess the only reason that i’m so bothered by it is because this is presented as a masterful feminist story, but all Khayyam really does is say feminist things while she is a doormat for the male characters. It doesn’t even feel like quality observations, because she spews all of this hate towards famous men - not entirely without reason - but she doesn’t acknowledge the cultural influence that these men had. She does not separate art from artist from gender. 

Nevermind that these men are helping the plot move forward, and without them there would likely be no plot at all. Khayyam’s main personality trait is supposedly being feminist and not needing men, yet she consistently bends to the will of men for the sake of the plot or drama, both of which are in such contrast with how the reader has expected Khayyam to be that they feel almost physically painfully out of place. 

In short, I think that this book had a really amazing plot idea and a lot of things going for it, but the way is was executed in contrast with my expectations based on the synopsis and the author’s note make me feel massively let down. The book has pitfalls that while not always massive, are commonplace enough and reoccurring enough that I couldn’t ignore them, and subsequently couldn’t find myself enjoying the book, no matter how hard I wanted to. 

- Marigold

*note: I know that the race, religion, and/or cultural identity of a character, especially a poc character, should not be their only personality trait. However with Khayyam, I feel like it is not addressed in any way at all, despite the fact that within the first few sentences of the book it is put in a position to be a focal point. I just feel as though her saying vague things like ‘that lady was kind of rude to me’ leaving the insinuation that she (the woman) is racist, or ‘it’s paris so i probably won’t get shot by a cop’ (which is a fair thing to say, I just think that if you’re going to mention that you might as well add something to make me invested in that idea with regards to the character personally. That didn’t happen, therefore it feels very abstract; since she’s not in America, where such a comment would be most relevant it falls flat) really leaves out the audience and makes it hard for them to relate or sympathize with Khayyam’s struggles against racism. It feels performative, obligatory and perfunctory when it would have been such an effective device to get readers invested in Khayyam’s life, regardless of whether she was in the US or not. There are no flashbacks to help ground the things that Khayyam references, so it’s far too easy to forget that she said them at all, and that in her hometown she has a very good reason to be concerned for her safety (in special regards to the cop thing).

#book review #new books #book #bibliophile #Bibliofilia #library #mad bad and dangerous to know

[ejm513]

ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMESTRIS: CHAPTER TWO: WHISPERINGS OF HOPE

Chapter One

AN: HELLO MY LOVELIES! SORRY THIS HAS TAKEN SO LONG. I’VE HAD A LOT HAPPEN IN THE PAST THREE MONTHS THAT I REALLY DON’T WANT TO GET INTO BUT IT’S TAKEN A LOT OUT OF ME. BUT I FINALLY REALLY READY TO PUSH ON SO HERE WE GO!

I ALSO NEVER DO THIS BUT JUST TO BE SAFE AND BECAUSE I HAVE A FEELING I’M GONNA HAVE TO DO THIS MORE THAN ONCE... 

TW: FOR TALK OF ABORTION. IF THIS TOPIC MAKES YOU SENSITIVE... DON’T READ I GUESS. 

DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING LADIES AND GENTS SO THANK YOU MUCH!!

CHAPTER TWO: WHISPERINGS OF HOPE

Well Ms. Hawkeye it looks like congratulations are in order. You’re pregnant.”

It was funny, Riza decided, how one sentence could throw the entire course of your life in ruin.

There had been many thoughts spiraling through Riza’s head and emotions charging through her heart after she heard those two simple words.

You’re pregnant ….

First there was utter shock.

Then there was debilitating confusion.

After that came a wave of bitter rage that threatened to overtake her very being.

A bitter shock of cold terror quelled that rage before it had a chance to become all consuming.

And the guilt weighed so heavily she feared it would send her crashing below the surface and steal her breath.

It was only when she was alone in the confines of the four walls she called home something resembling happiness began to bloom. It lingered quietly, hiding in some deep place as if it was an unwelcomed guess no matter how hard she tried to shove it away.

Above all else, there was one singular thought that reigned supreme.

Roy.

Once the news had begun to settle in her bones, the picture of his pale face, ebony hair and dark eyes refused to leave her. She was all too aware of the weight this news held… how dangerous it was. Riza had mulled and puzzled over how to break such monumental news-though it had seemed despite her best efforts, her behavior and simple note had spoken more eloquently than she ever could.

Four hours upon hours she had tried to ignore the fear eating at her. It only worsened the ever-present rumbling and stewing in her stomach. At first, she had walked and walked, praying the thin, clean air would clear her senses. Yet when that same comforting breeze started luring her to a place of cold darkness Riza retreated to her four walls. She dove into books and the quiet companionship of Black Hyate to distract herself from the one worry she couldn’t escape;

________________________________________________________________

How would he react?

“You’re…. you’re….”

“Pregnant?” Riza chimed in, her voice quiet and thin. “Yes. Yes I am.”

For a man who claimed to have known what she needed to say, Roy began to spiral.

Riza watched as his eyes grew dangerously wide. They appeared on the verge of flying out of his skull. His tall, broad frame was visibly shaking. She watched calmly as he ran his fingers through is hair. Somehow, and Riza wasn’t sure how, his midnight mane became even more tousled. It only added to the frazzled, frantic expression on his face. His face paled to bone, his jaw falling into a large circle. If she listened closely, she could have heard his lungs stop and his heart speeding into oblivion.

The man looked on the verge of collapsing. One sudden movement or a gentle gust of wind threatened to break him into pieces. Riza sat up straighter and squared her shoulders once more, prepared to put the pieces back together as she always did. Miraculously, whatever force was holding him together was far stronger than she knew. He stood planted to the ground, even though his quaking frame resulted in weak, wobbling knees. His large, stunned eyes staid fixated on Riza’s anxiously guarded features.

A soft, strangled noise spilled from Roy’s gaping mouth as he gawked at the sight before him.

There was no sign of the changes occurring in Riza. The thin, baby pink cotton covering her made it clear there was still a firm body beneath the baggy clothing. Everything about her appearance was completely and utterly normal. It was so normal that the whole notion seemed to be one horrible, twisted joke. His thoughts rebelled against the notion that any form of life-let alone a life he was partially responsible for-was forming in that flat stomach. He was about to open his mouth to question if she was playing some kind of evil prank to watch him squirm.

Before he had a chance to even speak, Riza did something. It was seemingly harmless and innocent, yet her actions were enough to silence Roy’s childish notion.

Riza retained her infamous stoic gaze and still demeanor. The longer Roy gawked her, the tighter her muscles became and the more strained her face grew. As if her body had a mind of its own, Riza’s hands gravitated to her middle once more. Roy’s eyes slowly trailed her movements, his heart racing faster and faster. She held her arms across her stomach. In that instant her stoic demeanor gave way to a quiet, burning protectiveness reserved for very few souls. She seemed oblivious to the change in the way she held herself. She seemed to act on a deep, strange instinct she was not yet fully aware of.

That simple motion and change in her aura was that final gust to finally break the venerated Major General. It was enough to shatter any illusion this was some foolish notion this was all a twisted joke.

Against all rhyme and logic Roy’s eyes grew even bigger as any color that remained on his strong features vanished. The shaking became so violent it forced his knees to buckle, sending him falling to the floor. His adapt hands gripped on to the top of the couch before he had a chance to completely loose his balance. His chest heaved as he took long, ragged breaths. No matter how deep or how long he inhaled his lungs never seemed to have their fill. They screamed for more air that his nerves rejected at any turn. Naturally, this made his already revolving head even lighter and his thoughts even faster.

One simple sentence in one single moment threw the entire course of life into complete and utter wreckage.

His plans for the country…

His plans to reach for the highest prize of them all…

It would never matter that the late Fuhrer Grumman would have plucked Roy and hoisted him to that throne had it not been for a pesky heart attack. It wouldn’t have mattered that his ambitions were laid bare for the world to see. It didn’t matter that the whispers and gossip had been louder than thunder before the man was covered with dirt. As Roy had made his way through the numb days following Grumman’s sudden passing all eyes had been own him, watching and waiting. Throughout the preceding year he had sat patiently and quietly, waiting for the moment that grew further and further away. After years and years of one single man at the helm, there was a thirst among certain groups in parliament to avoid putting another warm body in that cold throne. A charming if naive notion. He had watched as the parliament and its embarrassingly green prime minister stumbled and fumbled, desperately attempting to uphold the vast changes the late Fuhrer had enacted;

Freedom of the press,

Freedom of Speech,

Freedom of Religion

A policy of Peace and Rebuilding

More and more power trickling down from the military into the hands of the people.

There were always those who clung to the days of old, when one man held the destiny of his land and people in the palm of his hand. They continued to fight tooth and nail against change, and against all odds they never won.

There was only one law all seemed unwillingly to budge on; fraternization.

Roy has seen it many times before; an officer charms his young subordinate. It’s innocent at first, nothing more than little jokes and lightning glances. The looks turn into touching and then the touching turns into lips against lips and then….

The circumstances never mattered. That little look would lead the officer and subordinate to be swept away with all the remains of a shattered career, relationship and life at their feet.

Roy and Riza had been different. Their souls became intertwined in the safety of the shadows, hidden under the minutest of gestures and simplest of words. It was cloaked under code and under far away spots. It was concealed in dark apartments, drowned in laughter and wine.

There was a rush of thrill as they indulged in the electricity that had been humming between their souls for years. It was enthralling to hide under everyone noses as their bonds busted out of the hearts and into something physical and beautiful. They had-so Roy thought-proceeded with the upmost discretion and cautiousness

In spite of themselves and their broken souls, they had managed to create something akin to happiness.

He should have known the laws of the universe would never let a pair with so much blood on their hands and death in their eyes be truly happy.

It only seemed comically natural that their whole lives were about to implode.

“Roy?” Riza said, dropping any pretense of rank and titles of past or present. Her voice was strained and distant, becoming lost within his chaotic thoughts. It did little to break through the armor of shock covering every part of his frame. At first all she received was a bone chilling silence and wild eyes. Then, as if the man had become so tightly wound that standing still was a chore Roy pushed himself up right. The small, barren apartment became filled with boots trampling as he frantically paced back and forth.

“I don’t… I… how did this happen?” He sputtered.

Riza raised her eyebrows, her arms crossing over her chest.

“Roy you are a grown man surely you don’t need me to”

“No no of course I know HOW it happened! But HOW and WHEN?” His hands gripped his hair as his pacing refused to slow or cease. His face was completely manic while he dived deep into his memories and dashed off a few rough calculations.

“It couldn’t have been… no no no but what about?”

Riza could only sigh, her chest filling with tight fear as the man she loved continued to fall apart by the second.

“The doctor said I’m two, maybe three weeks along at the most and due at the beginning or middle of November.” She claimed. As Roy continued to effectively tread the entirety of Riza’s home he gained enough self-control to nod.

“I see. So it was Breda’s birthday party wasn’t it.” He concurred, taking to running his fingers through his hair once again instead of holding on to it for dear life.

“Most likely…. That or the night not long after when we were stuck inside during that freak snowstorm.” Riza conceded, sending out a silent prayer that receiving a piece of concrete information would give his logical, methodical mind something to latch on to. She hoped in turn that simple act would give his soul even an ounce of peace.

He nodded, bringing his fingers to his chin as he always did when deep in thought. His pacing refused to end; his feet as loud as drums. They pounded in her ears, only worsening her already throbbing head. She could see his broad back tensing into one giant knot. Those same shoulders refused to quit their shaking despite the heavy jacket.

The sight sent a sharp, frigid shiver creep up her veins.

There had been one other time, four years before she had seen him fall. In a maze of dimly lit tunnels Riza had watched as Roy had begun to lose himself to flaming anger and scorching revenge. It was only with the barrel of a gun and a vow to end her life once the day was done that wrenched him back from the brink.

Once again, the Major General was in danger of losing himself in her box of an apartment under the rays of a setting sun. Instead of being blinded by red all he could see was the horror of what lied a head, and a life that would never be the same.

Riza felt her heart begin to crack. She automatically shoved the blanket on the floor and rose to her feet, darting to Roy. Her hands reached for his shoulders, to finally force his restless energy to still. Yet just as her fingertips brushed the thick, black coat her stomach flipped. The sudden and quick motions had awoken the storm in her gut, causing it to rage once more. It caused her to freeze as her fingers gently touched the familiar material as her cheeks flushed a sickly green once more. She felt herself began to sway, her fingers gripping tighter to the thick coat as a last attempt to keep her steady.

That weak, stiff touch was enough to freeze Roy’s frantic pacing. He whipped his head over his shoulder. His features were rigid and bone white. His dark eyes were wide with frantic panic and hopeless despair. Riza could feel his shoulder quaking under her fingertips. She felt her heart twist at the sight, her blood beginning to run cold a shiver climb up her spine. Her oldest and most familiar companion, guilt reared its head once again. It bloomed deep in her stomach, growing into an ever larger and heavier force until…

“I’m sorry.” Riza muttered, bringing one of her hands to her mouth. Before her words seemed to reach Roy she was dashing towards the bathroom. She had accidently pulled Roy’s coat with her, letting it collapse to the floor in a heap.

For a moment the Major General could only gawk at the pile of black on the floor as he listened to the sound of his pounding heart. He couldn’t escape the sensation that he had fallen into a dream. The simple furniture he knew so well, the ebony coat he wore day in and day out, even the setting sun seemed otherworldly. His eyes slowly moved to his hands. Even they seemed foreign and bizarre.

Had they been shaking this whole time?

Roy’s eyes twisted shut as they balled into fist once again.

“This has to be a dream. Wake up Mustang. Wake up Mustang. Wake-“

A chorus of shrill barking broke through the white noise blaring in his head. Roy’s head shot up, his eyes facing out to the setting sun. A cold, wet nose against his fist shocked his fingers open once more. Desperate wines and a paw pressing against his leg sent him crashing back to reality. He glanced down and saw Riza’s black and white dog beside him. Black Hyate stared into Mustang’s eyes as he continued to whine. His cold, damp nose pushed against Roy’s hand once more. When that only resulted in a series of stunned blinking, Black Hyate clamped his mouth on to Roy’s ample pants and began to tug.

It was only then that Roy became aware of the horrible retching hanging in the air. His glanced towards the sound and the direction he was being pulled. He laid eyes on the closed bathroom door, all but oblivious to Black Hyate’s valiant efforts to help his master. When another wretch hit Roy’s ears it flipped a switch in his head.

What was he doing?

Why was he standing there falling into pieces when the person he loved needed him?

With that new resolve Roy rushed to the bathroom, leaving Black Hyate in the dust as the dog trotted beside him.

He pushed the door open just as Riza gallantly attempted to push herself to her feet. He could see her arms shaking with the effort as they braced against the cold porcelain seat. Her long blonde strands spilled in front of her face. Her breaths were short and labored, making her back tremble. He didn’t need to see her face to know it had been drained of it’s soft, ivory coloring.

The sight made Roy’s heart begin to splinter and his stomach twist. It was difficult beyond words to watch his strong, iron willed Riza be reduced to such a fragile state. Yet whatever terror and fear that had held him in their claws had been shaken off, if only momentarily. Roy only stood in the door frame for a fraction of a second before he was on his knees, right by her side.

“Don’t stand just yet Lieutenant.” Roy whispered, gently grabbing hold of her shoulders. He moved her slowly and carefully, inch by inch, as if he was moving a slumbering bomb. She felt like a ragdoll under his touch. It was all to easily to move her to his side. He slipped the royal blue coat covering his shoulders on to Riza’s shoulders  before slipping his arm around her and pulling her close.

“Colonel…” She breathed, her fingers wrapping around his white shirt. “I…” Roy slowly ran his hand up and down her arm.

“I know Lieutenant…” He sighed, hiding his lips in her soft hair. Silence fell over the pair as they sat on the cool bathroom floor, wrapped in the warmth of each other’s embrace. Riza fluttered her eyes closed as her breath grew slower and ever more steady. A little trace of pink began to flush her cheeks. She seemed to melt into his side, as if the weight on her shoulders was lifted for one blissful moment. Her lips even twisted into a the faintest of smiles when Black Hyate rested his head on her lap. Life was returning to her features once more.

Yet, as Roy gazed from the top of Riza’s mane, all he could see was her arm resting protectively over her middle. He could not help but allow himself the smallest of smiles into her hair.

“You know something Lieutenant?” He chuckled. Riza hummed, burying herself deeper into his hold.

“You’ve been holding your stomach a lot.” Riza’s eyes lazily blinked open, her face twisting ever so slightly in confusion. Her eyes trailed to her stomach, widening when she noticed her arm resting over her stomach.

“I have?” She mumbled, her eyes glued to her middle. Roy pressed his head against her hair. He nodded and sighed, attempting to hide the growing fear in his features. His hand froze against her arm and gave it a hard squeeze.

“What are we going to do?” Roy’s voice was gentle, weak and tinged with quiet panic.

Nevertheless, the question hung like a heavy cloud over the pair. It had been whirling around Riza throughout the hours, tormenting her and poising to blacken her thoughts. It whispered to Roy in the midst of his initial, debilitating panic, sending shivers up his limbs. It was even more deafening than the silence as all they could do was stare dumbfoundedly. Above all else, as the seconds ticked onward and onward it made them feel smaller and more helpless than the smallest ant.

What are we going to do?

Roy felt Riza stiffen against his side. The weariness that had plagued her pale features became hard and stoic. It was a face he knew so well; it was the face she showed the world. As always Roy could see straight through what would otherwise be deemed an emotionless face. He could see the tightness of her lips and her fingernails gripping to her pajama’s. He could see heavy guilt crashing on her shoulders. Her chocolate orbs became clouded with cold darkness and despair.

It was a look he had thought she left long behind her in the blood-soaked sands of Ishval. It was the same look he saw time and time again during the calm after battle.

Riza pulled her knees towards her and brought her gently laced hands to her forehead.

“After you sent me home, I walked around the city for a while.” She began, her voice low and steady. “I was trying to clear my head or distract myself. At a certain point I remembered the doctor explaining to me there were… options.”

Roy’s lungs paused for a beat as Riza attempted to gather her words.

“I see…”

Riza nodded.

“She also said I’m not too far a long to consider this option. After seeing how… how I reacted to the news… she gave me an address to a place that would do the procedure safely and discretely.”

A beat of silence fell over them as Roy’s frame became tenser and tenser, his heart beginning to feel cold. Riza eyes fluttered shut, taking a moment to sort through the jumble of emotions racing in her.

“I walked to the clinic. I don’t know why… I hadn’t considered going until that moment.  When I found myself at the door it seemed like the only option. But…” her voice trailed off once more, disappearing into the thin air. She lapsed into muteness once more as memories of that moment flashed. Her face took on an of expression pure, unadulterated shame.

“You couldn’t do it.” Roy stated. Riza remained voiceless as her heavy shame slipped into her stomach, weighting her to the ground. The only reply she could give was a sharp nod. Her eyes remained close and her face colored with ashen remorse as her voice began to return to her.

“I…. I walked in and stood there for God knows how long. I… I don’t really know why I left. It would solve everything. I could have gotten it over and done with, take maybe a week to recover and no one would know. It would be easy enough to pretend I just had a really bad case of food poising or a stomach bug. This could have just been some mistake we would never have to think about again. But….” Riza paused, opening her eyes as she gave Roy a moment to say something. She was greeted with nothing but steady, patient silence and an unusually blank expression. When all she heard was silence, Riza gripped the thin, soft material of her pajamas as if it was the only thing holding her together. She only dared to keep her eyes a head at the open door as she continued to speak.

“Well firstly there’s the fact that what I was about to do is illegal and if I had gotten caught the results would have been the same. You would have been unceremoniously discharged at worst, and I could have ended up in jail. But there was more than that. All I could think was ‘How can I take another life when I’ve taken so many?’. My hands and conscious are forever stained with blood, and I couldn’t bring myself to stain them even more. However…” her voice suddenly became heavy and cracked, as if she was trying with all her might to suppress unforgiving tears.

“This is your child…. My child…  Our child… I… I don’t know why… I’m not happy… I can never allow myself to be happy about this… but this is our child and I… I… I don’t know why but… I… I love it. I… just… I couldn’t..” Riza’s voice took on a harsh, quivering edge. Stray tears began to spill down her cheeks as she held her knees even tighter against herself. She remained eerily still as Roy’s thumb gently stroked her cheek, wiping a tear or two from her face. He pressed his forehead against the side of her head, placing a kiss to her cheek bone. It was a blessing Riza only kept her gaze forward. It was all the easier for Roy to hide his own tears that threatened to fall. He wrapped his other arm around her and very slowly began to sway.

“Sush. It’s okay Lieutenant it’s okay.” He murmured.

Roy had no idea who he was trying to comfort, himself or Riza. In the end it didn’t matter who he was trying to sooth, his attempts were wasted. His own heart refused to stop racing and his stomach continued to twist and coil. Riza’s limbs were tense under his hold, her own fear and dread radiating back to him. For a while, they never knew how long, the pair sat in complete and utter silence. Their eyes stared at nothing but the plain apartment spilling out of the open door. Only the sound of Hayate’s steady breathing filled the tense air. The world itself seemed to melt around them. All that remained was the warmth of their bodies, cold tiles and soft fur at their feet.

“This is your child…. My child…. Our Child…”

Riza’s words had sent his heart flying to his throat and all his senses screaming. He found himself blinking rapidly to keep puckering tears at bay. The very idea seemed holy foreign… maybe even unnatural. As he sat on that cold floor with Riza leaning against him, Roy couldn’t escape the feeling he was floating out of his body. The world around him morphed into a strange blur where there was nothing but the snug weight of Riza against him and the sound of the white noise in his head. It roared and blared, causing his head to ache. His limbs were strangely numb and heavy, like dead weights bolting him to the ground. Somehow his hand continued to slowly and gently rub Riza’s arm as if his appendages had a life of their own. Every little action seemed to be controlled by an invisible master pulling a string.

Even his own eyes slipped out of his grasp.

For better or worse his eyes seemed to have a will of their own. Before he had a chance to react Roy’s eyes trailed from the open door to Riza’s stomach.

His mind wanted to recoil at the sight of her perfectly flat stomach. It seemed impossible that anything was amiss with his Lieutenant, let alone that there was a life blooming underneath that flat stomach. He truly wanted to give into the notion he had fallen into some strange and horrible dream. Any moment he would blink open into a world where he wasn’t sitting on a bathroom floor with terror swimming throughout him. He would wake up in a world where everything he had toiled so hard for wasn’t slipping through his fingers.

A dream was the only thing that made sense. After all, in his own brutal reality he would never have a prayer of ascending to Fuhrer if the wrong ears heard whispers of a love child with his subordinate. All of his dreams and honor would be stripped bare. He would find himself back in the shadows once more with nothing but a prayer of one day climbing out or escaping. And Riza… heaven knows what would happen to her. For whatever reason women always seemed to baren the burden and scrutiny of an illicit relationship.

Yet Roy knew it was no dream. The fear and uncertainty clawing at his gut was far too real. The sheer guilt and pain pouring from Riza’s soul was far too unbearable. The hard, frigid tile below him was enough to shatter any illusion of having fallen into a dream. Riza was truly carrying his child… their child. They were truly huddled in an impossibly small bathroom, clinging to each other for dear life. Their carefully crafted lives and tightly held secrets were on the verge of being engulfed and destroyed. She would be forced to do away with the offensive creature one way or another in the cover of tightly sewn lips. Once the evidence was discarded then her life would be finished. If Roy only had a prayer of rebuilding his life, then Riza barely had a hope of coming out the other side. No matter what she did or how hard he would try to help, she would be left to drown in the shadows.

And all because of something that shouldn’t even exist… something that was no bigger than a spec of sand.

It boggled the Major General’s mind how one night of pure pleasure could throw everything into chaos. The longer he stared at that flat stomach the wilder his gut twisted and the louder his mind raced. He wanted to hate the life threatening to disrupt their world. He wanted to do the rational thing and quietly erase their little mistake. He knew he should lift Riza off her feet and guide her too that clinic. He knew he should comfort her and care for her as she healed, and then return to life as if nothing had happened.

More to the point what right did Roy Mustang have to feel any sort of joy or any sort of love? He had destroyed so many lives, leaving countless parents without children and countless children without parents. His hands had taken away the chance for many innocent Ishvalans to experience the thrill of falling in love and the bliss of holding their child.

What right did he have to have a child of his own?

Yes. He wanted to loath their mistake. He truly did.

Yet… as the seconds kept ticking something began to shift. Riza’s words slowly began to take a far stranger and different meaning, morphing into something softer and brighter. The twisting in his stomach turned into flutters. The terror freezing his blood began to warm and melt away. That warmth flowed to his heart, filling every inch of it and slowing it to a soothing rhythm. The white noise screeching in his head began to dim until there was nothing but the sound of gentle breathing. Every part of him suddenly felt lighter and freer.

He suddenly couldn’t escape the notion that, just as Riza had said, that was his child slowly growing inside of her. Even if it was unintentional, it was a life that he had helped create. Moreover, it was created out of a moment of pure exultation and love.

Roy swallowed, his gentle stroking stopping. He let his free hand lumbered towards Riza’s. He watched as it moved to rest on the hand that was still on her stomach, only to freeze and hover above it.

Riza’s brown orbs looked down at that still hand and then back up at Roy. She was greeted with a face as equally strained as it was full of longing. She felt a flutter of hope in her heart at the sight. His tense silence had been deafening and sharp like a knife. Even in her own despair Riza had been waiting to hear him say something- anything. It was clear the news had not been met with delight-that much she had expected. She still had no way to know what was running through his thoughts or what was filling his heart.

Was there some ounce of joy whispering through the darkness?

Was there something resembling love somewhere in his spiraling soul?

Was he scared?

Was he angry?

More importantly was he going to beg her to march back to that brightly lit clinic and take care of their little mistake?

The very thought made her heart run cold.

Riza knew it would be, in theory, the easiest option. She had never imagined slipping into the role of mother, nor she did she feel particularly worthy. Like Roy she too had ruined countless lives from the safety of roofs and her trusty rifle. She had robbed innocent people of the chance to embrace their loved ones and create a life of their own.

How could hands so stained cradle such an innocent creature?

How could a soul so violated be able to love the way a mother should love?

How could a monster be trusted to raise a child not to be the same?

How could a monster be allowed to raise a child at all?

Yet despite all her self-loathing and fear, Riza could not bring herself to march into that clinic. She could not bring herself to rid of her little mistake. The very thought made her turn cold and her heart climb to her throat. Her arm wrapped tighter around her middle, as if to protect the life in there from what may come out of Roy’s mouth. She hoped with all her soul he wouldn’t ask her to do what had become impossible.

No matter how hard reason screamed otherwise, Riza could not rid herself of the child she already loved dearly.

The sight of Roy’s hand hovering over hers sparked a light of hope. Riza couldn’t help but to grab hold of that spark.

“It’s okay. “She whispered, wrapping her fingers around his wrist. “There’s nothing there yet but you can feel if you want to.” Riza pulled his hand down and slipped it underneath her thin pajama top. The moment she rested it on top of her bare skin she felt a shock of thrill run through her. His hand was rough and warm against her smooth skin. At first Roy’s touch was stiff and still, resting on top of her like a small dead weight. His pale face matched his touch; rigid and unsure. Riza held her breath as she watched him, waiting to see any shift in the stunned and inflexible being.

It only took a mere moment for that shift to occur.

Riza felt his hand melt into her stomach. His touch became unspeakably tender and careful as his thumb ran across her soft skin. She watched his unbendingly shocked expression vanish into one of childlike wonderment and glowing adoration. It was an expression she rarely saw, only meant for her eyes only in the safety of the world they created. Riza felt her heart beginning to soar as the wonderment and love overtook his features.

Maybe it was an evil trick of the light or her eyes playing games, but Riza could have sworn she noticed tears puckering in the corners of his eyes.

“Our child…” Roy swallowed, his voice oddly dry and hoarse. Riza nodded, allowing her lips to turn into the smallest of smiles as she rested her hand on top of his.

“Yes. Our child.” Tears threatened to spill down the normally stoic soldier’s features as his lips quivered ever so slightly. It was odd seeing the normally controlled man in such a state-going from complete and utter terrified shock to what she could only assume were tears of joy. The man may have a thunderous spirit and she had seen him slip into despair and loose himself in his anger more than once, however, Riza had only seem him rocked to tears once. It was as he stood at the grave of a friend cut down in his prime. She could still see how they caught the sunlight as they trickled down his face. Sitting in that cramped bathroom Riza could see one tear escaping, catching the light above and sparkling. A moment later another tear slipped through and fell the other side of his face.

Riza couldn’t help but hold her small smile as she reached for his cheeks.

“I see it’s raining Colonel.” She said, brushing away the tears sliding down his face. “I hope it’s raining from happiness.” A low chuckle rumbled from Roy’s chest, his lips curling into a crooked grin. He circled his arms around her torso and pulled her as close to him as possible. He pressed his forehead against hers, letting their noses touch. Riza felt herself begin to melt as he brushed his nose against hers and felt his lips press gingerly on hers.

“I don’t know if I’m happy Riza.” Roy began, keeping his eyes closed as he spoke. “Hughes once told me that it’s a universal right for a man to raise a family with the woman he loves… but I don’t know if I can bring myself to believe that. If I’m being honest, I don’t think I deserve to be happy after everything I’ve done. I certainly don’t think I’ve done anything to deserve something…. something like this. To be even more honest I am terrified of what this is going to do to us.” His words momentarily vanished as his soul was laid bare. Riza nodded before placing her lips on his nose.

“I know…” Riza sighed. “I can’t allow myself to be happy either. I’m terrified of what’s going to happen to us as well. But…” Her voice trailed off, unable to scavenge for the words to give life to her intense emotions.

Roy however…

Roy always appeared to know what was buried deep within her without her needing to utter a word.  Moreover, he always knew how to ease her soul without even trying.

Roy’s grin widened ever so slightly as his arms wrapped tighter around her middle.

“All I know…” He began, stopping and softly kissing the bridge of her small nose. “All I know is that I love you and that I have loved you for a long time. This child may be a mistake but it’s our mistake that happened because we love each other and… God help me I want to hate it Riza I really do. I wish I could say let’s just go and take care of it but I can’t. I may be crazy but…. I… I… I think I already love it.”

Riza’s tiny smile busted wide open as a laugh tickled her lips. She continued to rub his high cheek bones as she felt his chest rumble with laughter.

“It’s not that crazy Roy.” Her smile dimmed as she carefully chose her next words. “I know we would be crazy not to fix this or at the very least give them to a family who can actually give them a normal, happy life. We would be putting everything we have worked so hard for at risk. I don’t know if I can ever be happy either or even deserve something as wonderful as this. But I know that despite everything I love this baby… and the idea of getting rid of it in any sort of way is unbearable, Roy.”

Roy immediately felt his heart gradually crack as she spoke. Once her words had ceased, he peppered every inch of her face and neck with kisses. Riza’s hands slid away from his face and down his back until her hands were pressed against its strong muscles. She held him tightly as Roy continued to kiss her face until he found his away back to her lips. They hovered over hers, taking in their softness and warmth. She could feel him smiling against her face and his eye lashes flutter against her.

“I don’t want you to get rid of it either.” Roy claimed softly.

“I could just retire.” Riza cautiously suggested. “You could still continue on with your goal and”

“No.” Roy shook his head. “That would still look suspicious and even if we lied through out teeth it would still be clear that you were pregnant before you retired. We would still be breaking the fraternization laws.” Riza frowned, her fingers digging into Roy’s stiff white shirt and burying her face in his chest.

“It’s not fair.” She muttered as tears began to fall.

Roy felt himself begin to boil.

She was right.

She was ALWAYS right.

It was brutally unfair.

Even if one of them stepped away from their positions it would not release them from the walls that had kept them apart. They would not be safe from the eyes of the law no matter what they did.

Roy kissed Riza’s temple before he pulled her to his lap. The hotly independent woman didn’t protest. Riza nuzzled her head against his chest, dissolving into his warm strength. Roy’s chest puffed with a animalistic determination and will to protect. His gentle hold abruptly grew fierce and defensive as he pressed his lips on her temple once more.

“I love you and I love our child Riza.” Roy stated, digging his fingers into her thick sun kissed mane. “I promise will do whatever I can to protect you both.” He vowed

Riza blinked open her eyes and stared up at his alabaster face. There was something eerily similar about the way they were situated on her bathroom floor. The way Roy cradled her, the way she nuzzled her head against his chest as she smiled weakly. Even his soft expression and tender eyes brought her back to a dark room, and the relief she had survived a cold blade slashing her neck wide open.

In that quiet moment as he smiled lovingly at her and held her close to his chest, Riza felt that same rush of relief.

No mattered what happened, they would find a way to come out on the other side just as they always had.

No matter what happened, they would have each other and hopefully their baby… and that was enough.

#FMA #fmab #fma fanfiction #royai #roy x riza #Roy Mustang #riza hawkeye #dear god help me #idk what i'm doing #but at least i'm trying

[all-pacas]

so the thing that’s struck me from egtw is how fragile the kryn dynasty really is. they don’t appear that way: they’re all about certainty and the moral and religious Right: they alone have the  true secrets to the universe and the wisdom borne of lives and centuries. but it’s built on sand, and the book makes clear that it is absolutely unsustainable: the mighty nein are witnessing the end of the dynasty and not the dynasty’s moment of triumph.

let’s look at the empire, just for contrast. the empire doesn’t even pretend to be morally superior or anything other than cynical, but that has ended up kind of… working? religious cults cause trouble, so let’s ban those religions, not because dwendal particularly cares about the threat of the wildmother but because he cares about keeping an uprising from happening. ally yourself with a group of powerful mages who you absolutely don’t trust and know want to screw you over, because at least now they have to pretend to listen to you. dwendal’s actions are cynical and self serving and not “good,” but also due to his paranoia and isolationist tendencies, have served to make him hyper aware of threats and reactive in trying to prevent them.

the dynasty? 

there’s no mention of any other religion even existing in the kryn dynasty. it doesn’t appear that it’s been outlawed as much as completely overpowered and ignored, just as the nomadic tribes are ignored, just as the monster races were ignored until very recently — the skysibil was born as a goblin this time around and pushed for that acceptance, but given goblin lifespans this is probably a very recent thing. she appears to be elderly, so say she’s around 30. by elf standards, by endless reincarnation standards, that’s nothing. the dynasty is stagnant. 

but that’s not really the problem. the real problem is leylas kryn. the book makes clear: she is the luxon, she is the pope, she is in a real way their jesus: she found the beacons and discovered their power and the entire religion is based around her, her life and her powers. dwendal is the current king in a long line; he has a son and presumably extended family. the kryn have no one. leylas has no children. she has no heirs, because she can simply reincarnate. (that math, too, is odd: the first beacon was found “a millennium” ago, but drow can live up to 750 years, but leylas is on her ninth life.) there was no founder: she is the founder. there is no replacement: she is her own replacement. the culture is stagnant and slow to react and change: in a thousand years they’ve found four beacons. in a few years, the empire has uncovered one on their own. (luck, maybe, but you gotta wonder.) they promote consecution and reincarnation and the luxon, and literally kill anyone who shows signs of madness from the process and hide that this madness even exists: cynical, yes, but necessary, because if people knew the cornerstone of your only religion and government and lifestyle was going to drive you mad, people would question it, and if they questioned the beacons they would be committing treason, because the beacons are the state and are the bright queen. there is no separating them. you can’t do what dwendal did and go “well, this religion  is bad and so we’re not doing it anymore.” the three are inexorably intertwined. lose one, and you lose it all. if leylas’s madness is revealed? if leylas is killed and not reborn? there’s nothing. there’s no fallback plan. the kryn dynasty doesn’t exist without her, because she founded it and created the religion and created the cult of the beacons and their worship.

(how often are people consecuted? if the first beacon was found a thousand years ago, that’s only two generations by elf standards. but leylas has been reborn eight times, and her partner five. and sure, 750 years is the ideal — i personally might live to 114 but probably won’t — but that’s a lot of drastically shortened lives. and the kryn have ritual suicide/rebirth as a religious rite — and the madness borne of consecution, leading to the quiet removal of the mad — how often does the average person consecute? are they urged to? is it exalted? are the kryn, unintentionally, hastening their own demise?)

(and what happens if you do opt out? if you, drow jones, just aren’t in a hurry to be reborn because you like how you are now? essek has hinted that you’re scorned for not taking part, which now makes a lot of sense: if your entire nation is a cult of personality and religion based on the life and choices of one woman, you can’t opt out. to be areligious is the same as being treasonous; to defy the government is the same as rejecting the religion; to question one is to question it all.)

(that isn’t to excuse essek’s actions, because he was not a noble patriot acting to uncover the truth, and if what he did was ‘right’ or ‘important’ it was clearly accidentally so — in fact, if anything he only served to hasten the fall of the dynasty, because if you question or learn one thing — the madness, the source of the beacon’s power, the source of the beacons — it is going to cause the whole system to fall apart. the kryn cannot survive without leylas, or the beacons, or the story of the two of them. the moment one flaw is revealed, it is all going to break apart.)

#this post has spoilers

[celiabowens]

Some rambling about The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu

“What legacy could Nannerl have left if she’d been given the kind of attention and access that her brother enjoyed? What beautiful creations were lost to us forever because Nannerl was a woman? How many other countless talents have been silenced by history, whether for their gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic circumstances?”

There aren’t any spoilers actually, but I’ll put my ranting under the cut, because I doubt anyone wants to read it (but I still felt the need to ramble about it lol) and it ended up being longer than I thought? Anyway, I totally recommend checking the book out. 

I’m sure I am not the first making this connection, but Marie Lu’s latest book reminded me of If Shakespeare Had a Sister, from A Room of One’s Own. Pretty sure most people would be familiar with it, but basically, Woolf imagined that Shakespeare had a sister, perhaps as capable as he was, but, since she was a woman, she never had the same opportunities and was destined to never demonstrate her talent.

The Kingdom of Back follows Mozart’s sister, a child prodigy who was forbidden from composing: while her brother would go on to become immortal through his music, Nannerl would have to stay home, marry, have children. Of course, while the novel is partially based on biographical info from the Mozart siblings’ childhood, Lu adds some fantasy elements to it. The Kingdom Back, born from the imagination of the two siblings, becomes the fascinating scenery for a fairytale-like bargain with a prince, three tasks included. Salzburg and the kingdom intertwine constantly as Nannerl grows up, the clock ticking towards her adulthood (and therefore towards the end of her musical career).

The book is very different from Lu’s previous novels, more quiet maybe, but it takes you by surprise. The relationship between the Mozart siblings was well developed and captivating, because the author didn’t shy away from the thorniest aspects of it: Nannerl’s affection for her extraordinary little brother is often tested by jealousy and envy, because, while she’s restrained by society’s standards and often controlled by her father, he is not. His talent and his antics are her family’s pride, while Nannerl herself sees her path shape itself against her own will. 

While I found myself not caring that much for the fantasy elements of the novel, I really enjoyed how Lu was able to portray the injustice that held Nannerl back and I was often frustrated while reading. Would definitely recommend checking the book out.

#gio rambles #2020 reads #the kingdom of back #marie lu #book recs #book review #wowie this ended up long edgrnverg #no one will read this but please read the book???? #ya literature #it's good??? #also the sibling relationship is great cdnwsbkch

[julianwolski]

#30 - Why should you read Wish?

It is often hard to find a story where the representation of gods and demons intertwines with queer themes without it being about how we are condemnable for the sins of the flesh we commit, according to some religious beliefs. In contrast, in real life, it’s absolutely normal to see people that have faith in some higher being also celebrate life without feeling the need to push away a part of who they are.

But then, it’s not always that we need to connect godlike creatures and religion, and this is one instance where we definitely don’t need to. Angels exist in a number of faiths around the world, but also in other cultural settings and writings where these creatures make themselves present to humans. 

There are a number of different interpretations of who they are, how they act, and their connection to the human race. To be honest, their relationship with humans, and their counterparts, demons, are also the origin of a ton of different media, which is why we’re talking about them in the first place.

Angels and demons falling in love with each other, and with humans, and losing their place as higher beings are enough to become a subject of our issue today.

The thing that calls the eyes when you open the first volume of CLAMP’s Wish, is the beauty of the drawings, and how they express a state of being and of feeling. All the settings and characters are beautifully conceived to highlight the beauty of the human body, but also, the androgynous nature that can be attributed to it. 

And in this story, we see a lot of that. It serves as the perfect allegory for representation, especially for people who don’t feel comfortable in the identity attributed by society to them, but that also pride themselves in choosing something different for themselves. It is important to point out that there’s a very interesting scene where we see our main character, Kohaku, trying to explain what kind of creature he is, not human, not man or woman, something in between, and nothing at all.

Still, their features are quite human, and the feelings they develop are human-like, their actions too. In this mundane story about how the red-string of fate connects us all, we get characters who had to give up their place in life for love. There are archangels and demons falling in love, and humans and angels doing the same.

We already talked about Kohaku, who is an angel from heaven that was sent to Earth to find one of the archangels from the sky that ran away to pursue their feelings for someone else. On that mission, Kohaku comes to Earth and loses his full power, and ends up finding a human that helps him, Shuichiro. The man is a doctor that seems a bit aloof and distant from everyone else, but he has a kind heart and, of course, dreamy features.

There’s definitely a certain type of coding for these two characters, and some people might not like it, perhaps I would be one of them a few years ago, but in the same way one can interpret their interactions as straight-washed, there’s an inherent queerness to these characters, and how they present themselves that is incredibly enticing. And as we see the plot developing, and meet more characters that come from high above and down below, we realize that a lot of them are queer. And that’s not even a wish from the reader, mind you.

If there’s beef that I have with the story would be the ending, but not because it’s not good and happy. It’s a happy ending, and whoever follows CLAMP’s stories knows that they love to kill their main characters every now and again, which is not what happens here. Our main heroes get their happy ending, but there are sacrifices involved for them to be together. And it feels a little bit overdone, but it is what it is.

And yet, it feels very relatable to our current state. And I’ll say why. One might go further and analyze the role of this god they talk so much about in the story, and how that being shows human emotions, making it more approachable, but also vile and selfish--which could be an allusion to the power some religions have over their faithful throughout history. And that comes to remind us that, even things that are parts of who we think we are might hurt us in the long run, because we are always changing and growing.

But there’s nothing too religious about the story, don’t worry. It’s just the parallels I’m drawing here because I was brought up quite religious myself, though I never really had to battle against past reckoning during my teen years to get over the prejudice. Yeah, I was lucky like that. 

Beyond the religious aspect, the story is quite sweet, if a bit saccharine at times. The jokes are good and will get some laughs out of you. And there’s the art that is so powerful and beautiful you can’t help but spend moments in those pages just catching every detail. There are no cut corners in the art department, for sure. The characters are also so expressive, we can absolutely read their emotions before they spell them out for us.

All in all, Wish is a sweet story about angels, demons, and humans coming together to live on Earth because of the power of love. We might joke about that emotion, and I definitely think some stories rely too much on that, but here it makes sense. For humans, love seems like a loaded sentiment, and at times hard to really fathom by ourselves, but in our media, it’s very prevalent. Still, when we lack representation for a lot of things in the West, there was already queer content brewing on the other side of the world for a while now.

You can read the entire story in an afternoon if you’re eager to reach the end. And also, revisit the drawings later, because they are gorgeous.

If you can, read Wish.

#rec #wish #manga