#❈ a charm about the forbidden ( malcolm )

[persephoneggsy]

i’m having all sorts of feelings about Marian and her extremely complicated relationships with her family.

I recently found out about this dialogue:

Anders: What was your father like? Hawke:(aggressive/direct personality) Strict. High expectations. And if you didn't meet them, you'd hear about it.

Malcolm feared his kids being taken away and suffering the same abuses he did, so maybe he went overboard in making sure they were prepared to face the world as apostates. He was especially tough on Marian, the eldest, drilling it into her head that the family needs to be protected, so sacrifices must be made. 

She couldn’t grow close to other kids for fear of them discovering her magic. She was forbidden from leaving the house on her own until she was almost a full adult. And when the twins came along, suddenly she was the role model, she had to be a good example to them -- but mostly to Bethany.

Perhaps Bethany took to Malcolm’s teachings better than Marian ever did. Now Bethany is the “good one”, the “example to aspire to”. She’s sweet and polite and charming, the apple of their parents’ eyes. Everything Marian isn’t. And Maker help her, she knows it isn’t Bethany’s fault, but she can’t help but resent her anyway. (She still struggles with these thoughts even after Bethany’s death. She doesn’t have anyone to talk to about it for the longest time, at least until she meets Sebastian.)

So she starts to rebel, sneaking out just to get away from how suffocating home was. In doing so, Carver (who was already feeling neglected, being the only non-mage child and thus having limited interaction with his father) felt like she was leaving him behind, so that’s another relationship fractured. She’s closest to Carver, really, but that’s not saying much. It’s not until after he goes with the Wardens and they both mature and grow independently from each other that they can come together again and fix the relationship. 

Malcolm passes away. I don’t think we’re ever told how, so I imagine he gets sick, and it’s a slow, painful thing. Maybe on his deathbed, he makes amends with his eldest -- or at least tells her that for however harsh she thought he was, it was only to protect her. He’s proud of the woman she’s become. His last words to Marian are a reminder to protect the family -- “They’re in your hands, now, pup.” And that’s a helluva thing to put on a kid right before you die, no matter how old they are.

Then there’s Leandra. To be honest, pre-Blight, I think Marian had a mostly normal relationship with her mother, with the only grievance she had being that she felt like Bethany was the favored child. But then Bethany dies as they flee Lothering. And Leandra blames Marian, why didn’t you protect your baby sister, that’s your one job. Carver gets sick in the Deep Roads and has to be taken to the Wardens, never to return home, and she blames Marian, you should have left him here, how could you take him into such a dangerous place. 

Nevermind that Marian’s the sole breadwinner of the family, that everything she’s done since arriving in Kirkwall was for the family’s sake. For all the good she does, in Leandra’s eyes, every failing is a thousand times worse. Maybe Leandra mellows out as the years go on, maybe she even apologizes, but the damage is done and Marian’s not sure if they can salvage that relationship... And then she dies, and suddenly she’ll never know.

[kkpxcoy]

Through a Darkening Glass - R.S. Maxwell

EPUB & PDF Ebook Through a Darkening Glass | EBOOK ONLINE DOWNLOAD

by R.S. Maxwell.

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Ebook PDF Through a Darkening Glass | EBOOK ONLINE DOWNLOAD Hello Book lovers, If you want to download free Ebook, you are in the right place to download Ebook. Ebook Through a Darkening Glass EBOOK ONLINE DOWNLOAD in English is available for free here, Click on the download LINK below to download Ebook Through a Darkening Glass 2020 PDF Download in English by R.S. Maxwell (Author).

 Description Book: 

A mesmerizing World War II mystery about a Londoner who flees the city to write a novel and finds a truth stranger than fiction.England, 1940. Literature student Ruth Gladstone evacuates Cambridge University for Martynsborough, a tiny English village with a shadowy history. For Ruth, retreating to a forgotten corner of the country is more than a safety maneuver; it?s an opportunity to end an undesirable engagement and begin writing her first novel.But upon her arrival, Ruth learns of a ghostly wraith haunting the villagers after decades of silence. Although Ruth is enthralled by the legend, the locals are less charmed by the wraith?s return. They blame the evacuees?and among them, Ruth?for stirring up restless spirits.Undeterred, Ruth joins forces with Malcolm, an injured soldier, to unravel the mystery of the wraith. As Ruth and Malcolm draw closer to the truth, they?ll unearth long-buried secrets that could threaten them both?even as they craft a forbidden love story of their own.

[dqbello]

act i. scene vi. THE PURGE PT. II setting. 0247. november 1st. malcolm’s residence. ft. @matthiaswarren

Delilah remembers it like this: the bomb goes off and she feels nothing. She hears someone scream, until she looks down at bloody mess of her leg and realizes that it’s her own voice she’s hearing. The crowd pulls her in, a riptide she can’t fight, and she’s drowning until she isn’t. A veritable dark haired, blue eyed superman saves her, tossing her to safety -- that’s how she finds herself sitting against Matthias’ door. The truth is, her shrapnel wounds look worse than they are, a Montague saves her, and she straggled her way to her friend’s door.

Her legs are splayed out before her, feet still bare. She lost her shoes in the middle of it all. Some of the blood on her leg has dried, giving her skin a red haze to it. Delilah closes her eyes, not wanting to see more. She senses movement, and opens them again, lips pulling into a smile. “Matthias,” she says. “I’m afraid I need your help. Are you alright?”

[rockislandadultreads]

Fiction Set in the Victorian Era: Book Recs

The Mystery of the Sorrowful Maiden by Kate Saunders

In the spring of 1853, private detective Laetitia Rodd receives a delicate request from a retired actor, whose days on the stage were ended by a theater fire ten years before. His great friend, and the man he rescued from the fire, Thomas Transome, has decided to leave his wife, who now needs assistance in securing a worthy settlement. Though Mrs. Rodd is reluctant to get involved with the scandalous world of the theater, she cannot turn away the woman in need. She agrees to take the case.

But what starts out as a simple matter of negotiation becomes complicated when a body is discovered in the burnt husk of the old theater. Soon Mrs. Rodd finds herself embroiled in family politics, rivalries that put the Capulets and Montagues to shame, and betrayals on a Shakespearean scale. Mrs. Rodd will need all her investigatory powers, not to mention her famous discretion, to solve the case before tragedy strikes once more.

For readers of the Grantchester Mysteries, The Mystery of the Sorrowful Maiden is the charming third mystery in Kate Saunder's series about Laetitia Rodd, the indomitable lady detective.

Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy

Some houses hold secrets that are meant to be kept forever… When Eliza Sullivan inherits an estate from a recently deceased aunt, she leaves behind a grievous and guilt-ridden past in New Orleans for rural England and a fresh start. Eliza arrives at her new home and finds herself falling for the mysterious lord of Havenwood, Malcolm Winfield. Despite the sinister rumors that surround him, Eliza is drawn to his melancholy charm and his crumbling, once-beautiful mansion. With enough love, she thinks, both man and manor could be repaired. Not long into their marriage, Eliza fears that she should have listened to the locals. There’s something terribly wrong at Havenwood Manor: Forbidden rooms. Ghostly whispers in the shadows. Strangely guarded servants. And Malcolm’s threatening moods, as changeable as night and day. As Eliza delves deeper into Malcolm’s troubling history, the dark secrets she unearths gain a frightening power. Has she married a man or a monster? For Eliza, uncovering the truth will either save her or destroy her.

Down a Dark River by Karen Odden

London, 1878. One April morning, a small boat bearing a young woman’s corpse floats down the murky waters of the Thames. When the victim is identified as Rose Albert, daughter of a prominent judge, the Scotland Yard director gives the case to Michael Corravan, one of the only Senior Inspectors remaining after a corruption scandal the previous autumn left the division in ruins. Reluctantly, Corravan abandons his ongoing case, a search for the missing wife of a shipping magnate, handing it over to his young colleague, Mr. Stiles. An Irish former bare-knuckles boxer and dockworker from London’s seedy East End, Corravan has good street sense and an inspector’s knack for digging up clues. But he’s confounded when, a week later, a second woman is found dead in a rowboat, and then a third. The dead women seem to have no connection whatsoever. Meanwhile, Mr. Stiles makes an alarming discovery: the shipping magnate’s missing wife, Mrs. Beckford, may not have fled her house because she was insane, as her husband claims, and Mr. Beckford may not be the successful man of business that he appears to be. Slowly, it becomes clear that the river murders and the case of Mrs. Beckford may be linked through some terrible act of injustice in the past—for which someone has vowed a brutal vengeance. Now, with the newspapers once again trumpeting the Yard’s failures, Corravan must dredge up the truth—before London devolves into a state of panic and before the killer claims another innocent victim.

Miss Moriarty, I Presume? by Sherry Thomas

A most unexpected client shows up at Charlotte Holmes's doorstep: Moriarty himself. Moriarty fears that tragedy has befallen his daughter and wants Charlotte to find out the truth. Charlotte and Mrs. Watson travel to a remote community of occult practitioners where Moriarty's daughter was last seen, a place full of lies and liars. Meanwhile, Charlotte's sister Livia tries to make sense of a mysterious message from her beau Mr. Marbleton. And Charlotte's longtime friend and ally Lord Ingram at last turns his seductive prowess on Charlotte--or is it the other way around? But the more secrets Charlotte unravels about Miss Moriarty's disappearance, the more she wonders why Moriarty has entrusted this delicate matter to her of all people. Is it merely to test Charlotte's skills as an investigator, or has the man of shadows trapped her in a nest of vipers?

[jamieatthebarricade]

Maids to Wives / Chapter 5

In 1619, one hundred and forty-four English women from good families crossed the Atlantic in response to the Virginia Company of London’s call for maids “young and corrupt” to make wives for the planters of it’s new colony in Virginia. One in six of the maids could even claim gentry status. Although promised a free choice of husband, they were in effect being traded into marriage for a bride price of 150 pounds of best leaf tobacco, the profits to flow to individual investors

In 1619, Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp made the voyage to do one thing: marry a man she’s never met. But when she arrives, she comes to the startling realization that her heart belongs to someone else, a certain James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser.

Chapter 5/? : A Known Stranger

Previous Chapters : 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Find Maids to Wives on Archive of Our Own!

May 22nd, 1619, Claire’s POV

“Dear diary, 

As time passes by here, I find myself enjoying life here more and more. I’ve been less than a week, and since arriving I’ve made a goal for myself to discover something new everyday. Whether it’s a new tree I didn’t notice before or a currant in the river. Yesterday I discovered a field of wildflowers a little aways of me and Frank’s house. I hope to go back there one of these days, maybe take Frank there and have lunch.

Frank and I haven’t had too much time to converse with each other, aside from small pillow talk at night. I ask about his day and he asks about mine. Usually he’s away during the day, in town with peers or overseeing the farms. I suppose I had an unrealistic romantic idea of marriage, that we’d be with each other more.

That’s not to say I mind. Being able to think by myself is a privilege I’m happy to keep. This whole experience has been incredibly overwhelming, so not feeling smothered by my husband is somewhat of a plus, although I’m smothered by a different thought.

The man at the docks. His red hair. His tall statue that stood over everyone else. Since last seeing him I couldn’t stop thinking of him, and guiltily I don’t think I mind. The feelings I have for him aren’t like anything I experienced before. It’s the type of attraction you read about, but never live through. He was this erotic thought in the back of my mind I could pull out whenever I wanted to escape. He was the forbidden fruit, and I wanted nothing more than a taste.

I need to stop myself. As pleasant as those thoughts were, I had a husband. A good husband who was kind and gentle, and who provided graciously for me. I had a roof over my head, and all the free time to frolic and read. I’d been doing better than many of the other women, from what I had observed. Mary was the only other one who seemed happy to be married.

I am seeing Geillis tomorrow, so I’ll ask her then. Although, I can guess her answer. From what she told me of her dream man, her current husband didn’t fit the description. He was old, bald, and fat. From what I observed from far away, she always pulled back when he kissed her. It made me fortunate to have Frank.

I suppose I should stop for tonight. Frank will be home soon, and still have our bed to make. Thank you for letting me release my thoughts.

Love, Claire”

------------

May 23nd, 1619, Claire’s POV

“What are your plans for the day?” For the first time in weeks, Me and Frank were able to sit down together for breakfast. I had opted to prepare a simple meal of bread and milk, as I still had yet to learn to integrate recipes for my husband. I made a mental note to myself to start that.

“I’m visiting Geillis, my friend from the ship” Frank just smiled and sipped his milk, gazing between me and his food. I found his look charming, and I was happy to receive it. He looked at me with a nurture that was warm and inviting, that said ‘I’ll protect you,’

As he looked at me, I took the opportunity to look at him. Everytime we interacted, it seemed like I was noticing more about his features. His face was quite square, and he had these lines along his cheeks that trailed from the bottom of his jaw, and which became more defined when he smiled (thankfully, he did that a lot). He was balding slightly, but I suspected he’d be one of those men who balded nicely. He had a nice face, and I smiled to myself as I looked at him.

Suddenly the door opened, and Frank’s lesser twin came in. I hadn’t seen Jonathan for a while, as he usually kept to himself for the most part. Sometimes I saw him when I went out for a walk, but I always tried to avoid him. There was something about him that caused me to move away from his presence. It was strange, even though him and Frank looked the same, I knew deep down they weren’t the same person at all.

Frank was annoyed at his brother’s outwardly intrusion, and made no effort to hide it. “What can I do for you?” although the question wasn’t ill-spirited, the annoyed tone of his voice gave away his true feelings.

“There’s a shipment down at the docks. We need to help unload,” Jonathan returned with the same annoyed energy, and I saw the sibling tension between them. Growing up an only child, I’d always wanted a sibling of my own. Living with Jonathan and Frank rid myself of that dream.

Frank turned to me, giving a small smile. “I’m sorry our breakfast had to be cut short, we should try doing this more,” He smiled, and leaned in for a kiss. I happily returned it, and we shared a short peck before he was out the door. I hadn’t even noticed Jonathan was still in the room before I heard his voice,

“Goodbye Claire,” He said. I hated his voice so much, because it sounded so much like Frank. If any part of them shared likeness, it was their voices. Though, Jonathan’s always sounded like it was laced with something. Villainy? That’s what I suspected. 

I gave him a short nod, and thankfully he was out the door. I let out the breath I didn’t know I was keeping in, and looked around the small room. Me and Frank’s half eaten breakfast, a small table with 3 chairs, and a hearth. It was quaint, but it was home.

‘I should meet Geillis,’ I told myself, taking off my apron and looking at myself in the window. My hair was pulled up, and I was hesitant to change it as my hair tended to be untamed down. It wasn’t like I was meeting the queen or anything, I kept it the way it was.

The walk to town was longer than I was expecting. I’d only ever ridden on horseback, but figured today was a good day to take a scenic route. It was sunny, and quite warm. Some of the wildflowers I passed were blooming, and birds filled the sky and sound with their presence. Everything was peaceful until it wasn’t.

It was like a dark cloud came over everything, and the perfect day turned to something worse. Behind me, I heard the rustling of bushes, and slowly the movement of feet. I didn’t even notice my own starting to pick up the pace. A part of me wanted to keep walking. I’d be to town eventually, it wasn’t too far away. I heard the footsteps getting closer and my other thought was to turn around and fight whoever this demon was.

I chose that option, turning around and screaming, at the same time punching whoever was my chaser one. The person fell to the group, clutching his nose in his hand. It was an old man, with a bushy beard and a smell of alcohol that filled my senses quite quickly. I didn’t recognize him, and surely thought that whoever it was meant to hurt me.

Before I had time to breath, I heard another pair of footsteps being him. ‘This can’t be happening’ was I being set upon by highwaymen? Were these a band of bandits intending on stealing or hurting me? I quickly ran the opposite direction to my house, but whoever was chasing me was faster. At some point I would need to fight and that time would be now. 

I turned, and punched at whoever it was quickly. He doubled over, but didn’t fall like the other. When I looked at who it was, my breath caught in my throat. The man had bright ginger hair, and I’d only ever seen that color on one other person.

------------

A/N Thank you all for reading!! I’ve been in a writing mood lately so hopefully expect some new stuff out! Have a great day yall :)

[sims4legacy-story]

Gen 1, chapter 1 Mixed Landgraab Legacy sims 4

After venturing out from her home in Widenburg, Theresa sought out life in the city, the hotspot for aspiring politicians. She started her campaign for less mischief, and started going around, knocking on doors. She was invited in to the Landgraab household by Alec Langraab-made him for the story line-and they had lunch together. She found him charming, and modest for a man of his socioeconomic status. Quickly, innocent flirting gave way into a less innocent kiss...and a promise for a date at the best bar, tomorrow. 

She spent the whole night deciding on outfits, but eventually decide on a simple top with a short skirt.

Alec found her stunning. He knew he shouldn’t, his mother had absolutely forbidden him from marrying anyone without first-class status. But he couldn’t help himself. He told himself no to, but in the end, he relented, and asked Theresa to be his girlfriend. She leaped into his arms and said yes. He took her home to meet his family.

Geoffrey welcomed her with open arms, Malcolm grew wide eyes and ran off into his bedroom, muttering to himself. And Nancy crossed her arms, and looked her up and down sneering. Theresa grew closer to Alec instinctively. Nancy stalked off.

A few days later, Alec asked her to marry him. They were so over come with love they eloped right in the kitchen...with Nancy there!

She gave them a freezing glare a stormed off.

Alec started telling Theresa about his big dreams for the future. About his plans to inherit the family fortune and become a successful politician. He wanted a big family. 

Theresa said, “Well, maybe I’m going to far...but….I want a big family as well. I want a baby!”

And there was some woohooing, and some more woohooing...but eventually, she conceived a baby! 

Alec and Geoffrey were happy. Malcolm and Nancy were not.

Malcolm wanted to inherit the family fortune and he wanted a son of his own to be his heir. He asked his mother to arrange a marriage between him and a female of wealthy lineage.

She chose Cassandra Goth. Nancy met up with Bella Goth, who agreed with an alliance with the most powerful family, and it was fixed.

Malcolm didn’t really love her, of course. He just wanted an heir. But she got pregnant anyway.

Unfortunately for Malcom, Alec and Theresa’s baby got born first. A little boy named Alden. Malcolm had been desperately hoping for them to have a daughter, and him a son, so he could have an heir. But it was not to be. 

Then, a new secret was discovered! Nancy was having an affair with the gardener! Geoffrey found out, but Nancy mind-wiped him and he forgot. But she’s beenn kissing teh gardener, and he’s been kissing back! Oh, Nancy Landgraab, what are you doing?

Malcolm gets to know Alden a bit more. He comes to regard him as his own son. His baby was born, but it’s living with its mother in the goth house.

Malcolm slowly becomes a better person. He doesn’t flirt around, and he’s gotten rid of his evil. Still, he can’t help being a bit of a snob sometimes.

However, he still hated his brother. Oh, if only he could just...die! 

Malcolm began to hatch a plan. If it did work, Malcolm could inherit the fortune and move Cassandra and Beau-his son-into the Affluista mansion.

Theresa got pregnant with another baby, to the joy of everybody but Nancy and Malcom. 

Malcolm grew more desperate. He traveled around the city, trying to find the recipe for Pufferfish nigiri. Eventually, he gave up and he hired someone to teach him!

But he had to to eat it! He took a few bites...then another, then another. He survived! Which wasn’t a good thing for Alec.

He imagine his totally not evil because really, he deserved it-plan, the day when he would take over the Landgraab legacy.

[lordeasriel]

Would love to hear your headcanons if the events of NL never happened regarding Lyra, Marisa and Asriel.

This could get long lmao

Well, first, I’ll assume that Asriel never found proof of other worlds, so that wouldn’t trigger his poisoning, therefore Lyra wouldn’t have to save him and start the events. Assuming he still looking for evidence, because he is a bitter and idealistic man, he would be forced to go back to Jordan, as the reason he travelled so much was because he was living hand to mouth and couldn’t afford a place to live. He also stayed away for Lyra’s sake; he had been forbidden to raise her, so his contact with her couldn’t be that extensive, or the court could find reasons to take her away from Jordan, thus endangering her. (Let’s assume the Magisterium still wants her for the prophecy, but the prophecy is not yet in motion, so they’re less interested in her).

He probably would wait a long time before telling her the truth, because I believe he felt shame and anger towards Marisa, and telling Lyra he was her father would’ve caused her to ask him where was her mother; she was a curious child, she would’ve asked eventually and he would have to either lie again or tell her the truth.

Roger is never taken because Marisa never goes to Jordan. I always assumed the Oblation Board followed her, so where she was, kids would be taken. She never goes to Jordan because Asriel is there and he forbade her to ever see Lyra, so she now has to either find another way to get Lyra or let it go. She chooses to let it go, because Lyra is not relevant to her now (as I always believed Marisa took Lyra because she was an excellent bargaining chip).

With Asriel at Jordan, Lyra wants to spend more time with him and that means she spends more time in the college. He still prefers to stay away, especially because she looks more like Marisa each passing day and he resents it, but the girl is also clever and cunning and stubborn like hell. He tutors her in his specialty subjects, but when she is 13, he sends her to St. Sophia’s - to be educated and to stay away from him lol She spends the school months at St. Sophia’s and returns to Jordan whenever she wants, but she now spends the Holidays at Jordan too, although Asriel isn’t always there. He makes a deal with the Master to pay for Lyra’s education - he does have some money left for her (because he never goes North, the little money he uses to afford her stay at Jordan is still there) but the rest is paid by Jordan, as long as Asriel keeps publishing his research (and getting money doing it) in their name. The Master would still pay for her things even if Asriel decided not to make a deal, but he likes the deal because that way Asriel stays nearby and causes less trouble (unlikely, but this is what the Master believes).

Asriel only goes on exploring or on his political trips when Lyra is safe at Jordan because Marisa still has some power in St. Sophia’s, and he doesn’t like leaving Oxford when Lyra could be approached by Marisa. He also still has his tea time with Lyra, twice a year now, and they now discuss for longer periods as she has lots to tell him about her studies and how Dr. Polstead is irritating. He pretends to be interested in her lie, but he had spoken to Malcolm a few days before the tea time and he already knows Lyra is being rather difficult with her professor. He thinks she’s amusing, but he tells her to behave before he leaves for London again. Lyra is less sad to watch him leave, because she’s grown accostumed to having him back within a couple of months; she’s also rather curious about what he is doing in London, but all he ever does is smile and say “None of your business.”

Lyra is 15 when she meets Marisa for the first time, oddly in the same way Asriel predicted: through St. Sophia’s. Marisa lies, of course, and introduces herself as a scholar. As expected, Lyra immediately falls in love with Marisa and her charming ways, and how clever she is. Mrs. Coulter was bold enough to visit Lyra when Asriel was in Oxford, at that time the Oblation Board was shut down for not yielding results and getting too public, but Marisa’s “devotion” - plus a little assistance from Marcel - has her now under the graces of the CCD and preparing to start another institution of censorship. Lyra has dinner with Asriel the same night, and tells him all about the lovely Mrs. Coulter, which causes him to be mute for three seconds and she’s weirded out by his sudden pale face. Stelmaria tries to convince that it is time to tell her the truth, but instead, he tells her about the Alethiometer. Mrs. Coulter quickly vanishes from her mind, replaced by that eerie object. He uses his ties to Oakley Street and convinces Dame Hannah to teach Lyra how to read it.

Asriel and Marisa meet for the first time in years after the Alethiometer talk. He tells her to stay away, but she reminds him that she has friends in high places and he cannot shield their daughter forever. “It’s not fair.” She tells him, but Asriel refuses to let her near Lyra and threatens to leave England with her if Marisa tries again. She believes him, so she doesn’t purposefully try to go after Lyra, instead meeting her casually here and there. Asriel becomes more politcally involved, including his ties to Oakley Street.

When Lyra is 18, he tells her the truth, the whole truth. How her mother was married and how he had to kill to keep her safe, how he had been forbidden to raise her himself and how he couldn’t have done it even if they allowed it because he simply had no skills for that. It’s not an emotional conversation, it’s actually very much like a scientific debate. They’re at his study, by the fire, drinking his Tokay; they spent so much time together in the past that began to understand him a little, and that made loving him easier, but the truth is like a slap to her face. She does not cry; he taught her how crying is pointless and how she should harness sadness and anger and make it productive, like he did, as she understand that evening. Instead, she ask him questions, like a lecture: why didn’t you marry her? why did you lie all this time? don’t you think I deserved the truth long before this? what is she like? who is she? These questions Lyra knows the answer long before he tells her; Pan whispers that she always knew, she just chose not to acknowledge it. Asriel explains Marisa’s alignment with the Magisterium and Bolvangar, and how she is power-hungry, and it’s all very surgical, but Lyra notices how he sounds bitter sometimes and that makes her wonder many things.

At the end of that evening he gave Lyra Marisa’s address and told her she could visit her, if she wanted to. “I didn’t know I needed your permission to visit people.” She tells him and he laughs, heartily. “Don’t be a brat.” He has no idea what to expect from Lyra now; she was always so predictable, but this time he was curious, actually curious, about what she was going to do. Marisa was all layers of complexity, it was no surprise Lyra was as well. Next day, he expects not to see her, but she’s there, having breakfast with the servants in the morning, laughing and chatting and lying as usual; at noon, she comes back from her daily walk and has lunch, quietly chatting with Pan about an essay she delivered the previous week. Asriel walks past her, but doesn’t talk to her. When he comes back at night, he finds at her desk, writing fluidly her Alethiometer notes. He asks her if she didn’t want to meet Marisa. “If she wants to meet me, I’ll be here.”

[richincolor]

With 2019 on its way out, it’s time for the bloggers here to compile their lists of favorites! It was difficult, but Audrey managed to narrow down her list to six books. Did any of these make it to your year-end list?

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo HarperTeen || Group Discussion

Ever since she got pregnant freshman year, Emoni Santiago’s life has been about making the tough decisions—doing what has to be done for her daughter and her abuela. The one place she can let all that go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness.

Even though she dreams of working as a chef after she graduates, Emoni knows that it’s not worth her time to pursue the impossible. Yet despite the rules she thinks she has to play by, once Emoni starts cooking, her only choice is to let her talent break free.

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi Wednesday Books || Audrey’s Review

Paris, 1889: The world is on the cusp of industry and power, and the Exposition Universelle has breathed new life into the streets and dredged up ancient secrets. In this city, no one keeps tabs on secrets better than treasure-hunter and wealthy hotelier, Séverin Montagnet-Alarie. But when the all-powerful society, the Order of Babel, seeks him out for help, Séverin is offered a treasure that he never imagined: his true inheritance.

To find the ancient artifact the Order seeks, Séverin will need help from a band of experts: An engineer with a debt to pay. A historian who can’t yet go home. A dancer with a sinister past. And a brother in all but blood, who might care too much.

Together, they’ll have to use their wits and knowledge to hunt the artifact through the dark and glittering heart of Paris. What they find might change the world, but only if they can stay alive.

Soul of the Sword (Shadow of the Fox #2) by Julie Kagawa Inkyard Press || Audrey’s Review

One thousand years ago, a wish was made to the Harbinger of Change and a sword of rage and lightning was forged. Kamigoroshi. The Godslayer. It had one task: to seal away the powerful demon Hakaimono.

Now he has broken free.

Kitsune shapeshifter Yumeko has one task: to take her piece of the ancient and powerful scroll to the Steel Feather temple in order to prevent the summoning of the Harbinger of Change, the great Kami Dragon who will grant one wish to whomever holds the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers. But she has a new enemy now. The demon Hakaimono, who for centuries was trapped in a cursed sword, has escaped and possessed the boy she thought would protect her, Kage Tatsumi of the Shadow Clan.

Hakaimono has done the unthinkable and joined forces with the Master of Demons in order to break the curse of the sword and set himself free. To overthrow the empire and cover the land in darkness, they need one thing: the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers. As the paths of Yumeko and the possessed Tatsumi cross once again, the entire empire will be thrown into chaos.

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia Katherine Tegen Books || Audrey’s Review

At the Medio School for Girls, distinguished young women are trained for one of two roles in their polarized society. Depending on her specialization, a graduate will one day run a husband’s household or raise his children, but both are promised a life of comfort and luxury, far from the frequent political uprisings of the lower class. Daniela Vargas is the school’s top student, but her bright future depends upon no one discovering her darkest secret—that her pedigree is a lie. Her parents sacrificed everything to obtain forged identification papers so Dani could rise above her station. Now that her marriage to an important politico’s son is fast approaching, she must keep the truth hidden or be sent back to the fringes of society, where famine and poverty rule supreme.

On her graduation night, Dani seems to be in the clear, despite the surprises that unfold. But nothing prepares her for all the difficult choices she must make, especially when she is asked to spy for a resistance group desperately fighting to bring equality to Medio. Will Dani cling to the privilege her parents fought to win for her, or to give up everything she’s strived for in pursuit of a free Medio—and a chance at a forbidden love?

Slay by Brittney Morris Simon Pulse || Group Discussion

By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the Black man.”

But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination.”

Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?

The Grief Keeper by Alexandra Villasante G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers || Audrey’s Review

When her brother is murdered, and her little sister’s life is threatened, seventeen-year-old Marisol Morales knows they have no choice but to flee their home in El Salvador, and steal across the US border. Especially because she knows everything is her fault. If she had never fallen for the charms of a beautiful girl named Liliana, Pablo might still be alive, her mother wouldn’t be in hiding, and she and Gabi wouldn’t have been caught by ICE.

But they have been caught and their asylum request will most certainly be denied. With truly no options remaining, Marisol jumps at an unusual opportunity to stay in the United States. She’s asked to become a grief keeper, taking the grief of another into her own body to save a life. It’s a risky, experimental study, but if it means Marisol can keep her sister safe, she will risk anything. She just never imagined one of the risks would be falling in love, a love that may even be powerful enough to finally help her face her own crushing grief.

The Grief Keeper is a tender tale that explores the heartbreak and consequences of when both love and human beings are branded illegal.

[justonebadsprayaesthetics]

“There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.”

@smoakinn    ||    Malcolm Merlyn & Felicity Smoak ( DarkSmoak ) Shipping Board!

[ladydracarysao3]

Get Into Ian Hawke

Tagged by @idrelle-miocovani and @galadrieljones (I know you asked for Abner, but I really wanted to take this opportunity to introduce my new OC. I can do Abner too, if you want)

NAME: Marian “Ian” Hawke

AGE: 25 as of 9:34 Dragon (which is the year of the events of her canon) or roughly 1888 A.D. 

GENDER: female

ORIENTATION: heterosexual

PROFESSION: Some may say: Criminal, others: Opportunist, but others still: Savvy Business Woman

BACKGROUND: First things first, Ian’s tale is a mash-up of Dragon Age’s Kirkwall and Victorian England’s Jack the Ripper.

Born in Ferelden, Ian was the eldest daughter of Leandra and Malcolm Hawke. Her parents fled Kirkwall due to the tyrannical gang that calls themselves the Knight’s Templar. To be a conjurer, as Malcolm was, is strictly forbidden, and the Templars take it upon themselves to hunt and imprison such people in the name of the Maker. They are not officially a sect of the Chantry, though it is common knowledge that is untrue. 

Malcolm cared for his family by secretly conjuring magic for many types of organizations, but it was a dangerous life that he did not wish upon his children, regardless of their natural potential in magics. Because of this, Ian grew up knowing she had some talent, but never learned how to properly wield it. Instead, she relied on her wits and her brawn to get her through the world.

Leandra had come from the high society in Kirkwall, and dreamt of returning. As such, she taught her daughters the sensibilities of delicate females. Her younger daughter took to it without question, however Ian was a thorn in Leandra’s side at every turn. Ian preferred the dress, manners, and even names of men, and rejected the notion that she was destined to live a life corseted and serving tea.

When destruction, war, and blight struck Ferelden, Ian took charge in saving her family. Her father had since passed, but his scrappy and determined nature to do anything for his family was very alive in Ian. By tooth and nail she got them all to Kirkwall and at the expense of her reputation and soul, neither of which she much cared for, she managed to drag her family out of the gutters and placed her mother and sister in the affluent lifestyle she knew they wanted and deserved.

Now, she works to keep their status by any means necessary and above all else, protect those she loves from the chaos that living in a crime-ridden, over populated, neglected city brings.

PHYSICAL

Body type: tall and athletic

Eyes: Bright Blue

Hair: near black, short/choppy

Skin: pale/creamy/alabaster

Height: 5′9″ (~175 cm)

Weight: ~165 lbs (~75 kg)

SKILLS (S.P.E.C.I.A.L + M)

Strength- 8/10 - She’s scrappy and fearless, not afraid to get in a bare knuckle fight or stick you with her knife should the need arise. 

Perception-  7/10 - Ian is pretty perceptive, it goes along with her intelligence. To make it in this world and to make sure no high-ups or other nobs get in her way, she needs to stay one step ahead... in theory... somedays are better than others.

Endurance- 10/10 - Ian will not quit.

Charisma- 2/10 - She is about as charming as a pile of dirt. She has zero fucks to give on whether you like her. She only cares for results. She’s not even nice to her family members, and she does all of this for them!

Intelligence- 9/10 - Smart as a whip, that one. Needs to be, to make it the way she has.

Agility- 7/10 - She’s a woman usually fighting men that are sometimes larger than her, she needs to be agile to gain the upper hand.

Luck- 1/10 - Hawke has got to be about the most unlucky person ever, I think that is a universal truth we can all agree on.

Magic- 5/10 - Okay... so magic works differently in her universe as opposed to canon DA. It is more dangerous, and usually takes aids to do anything. It’s not like: Fire bolt - fire bolt - I got you!!! There is more to it. Ian isn’t trained in it, so she barely knows what’s she’s doing, but that won’t stop her from trying when she finds a reason to.

LIKES

Colors - She enjoys the Blooming Rose, and it has lovely red silks, golden threads and tassels, and lovely dark damask wallpapers. I guess that would be her aesthetic rather than one color. Rich, bold, sensual colors.

Smells - Exotic scents of jasmine or sandalwood. Along with nostalgic scents that bring the memories of the rolling green hills of her home in Ferelden: Grass, woods, clean air.

Food - She’s not picky about food.

Fruit -  A luxury for sure. She gets things like grapes and oranges for Leandra and Bethany, but she tends not to indulge in them herself.

Drinks - Hard liquor. Spirits call to her most nights in the Hanged Man.

Alcoholic drinks - lol, see above.

OTHER

Smoke: Yes, she will smoke a pipe/cigar/or rolled cigarette from time to time. Especially if relaxing in the pub.

Drugs:  Okay... when you think Lyrium, think Opium. Lyrium is needed for a lot of conjuring. So yes, she may dabble in Chasing the Dragon..... There are also other narcotics that were sometimes used in those days that are more taboo now.

Driver’s license?: Ian? No. She walks mostly, but once she reached hightown, she did purchase a carriage, a horse, and began to employ a young man by the name of Sandal. He will take her, or more aptly her family, where they need to go.

This was a lot of fun, and very long, so I’m sorry if you are angry to see it on your dash. I really enjoy reading these, so I would like to tag the following lovelies if they would like to participate! @kaoruyogi @ma-sulevin @long-liv-prairies @kagetsukai @roguelioness @gwen-cousland @silent-of-spirit @princessvicky01 @gugle1980 @thesecondsealwrites @a-shakespearean-in-paris @john-cousland (Hey John, I was talking to your wife earlier about this new character, will you let her see this if she’s interested? Thanks!)

[carstairsdaily]

Lord of Shadows Review & Analysis! SPOILERS AHEAD, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

On another note about spoilers, I get that seeking out spoilers as well as snippets, are a product of waiting so long for the next book… but I don’t know that I will treat them the same way going into QOAAD because I almost felt, while reading, that I had read 35% of the book already! I can’t promise that I won’t seek out spoilers or snippets, but I do hope that less are released over the next two years (I know that sounds ridiculous, but I would prefer a surprise!) With Regards to Individual Characters: • Emma: a feminist badass, growing into being the best shadowhunter of her time but not there yet. Her sarcasm and skill has improved since LM, and I literally laughed out loud during her POV’s and while reading her quotes. The scene with her and Diego and the fire ants= pure gold. Her scene with Manuel and calling out the cohort for being fascists= pure gold. • Julian: a sweetheart and I want to cry thinking about how much he has been through. I know “Dark Julian” has been referenced several times throughout the fandom but I really didn’t see too much of a change until- actually- the steamy scene with Emma where he demands that she calls him only Julian. Very sexy, very dark too. • Cristina: deserves better and I am dying for more of her POV’s. I am always amazed by her class and maturity. • Diego: not perfect. I am mad at him. • Kit: surprisingly likeable. I am so glad they included POV’s with him and Jace!! • Livia: underrated as hell, so sweet, so caring, so selfless, her charm and sarcasm= gold. • Ty: I AM SO GLAD WE ARE FINALLY STARTING TO SEE T Y B L A C K T H O R N AND HIS TRUE SELF-A M E N. • Dru- her crush on Jaime is fitting for a first crush and I’m glad he gave her the confidence to speak up. I want to hug her literally all the time. • Tavvy- irrelevant but cute. SHIPS: • I surprisingly loved Mark and Emma’s dynamic. Their relationship reminded me of a mundane high school sweetheart kind of relationship, because you can tell they absolutely care about each other, I just don’t see them as anything more than a bromance. I will however agree with the sentiment, "maybe in another life" because maybe, in another series, in another world, they would have been perfect for each other. • Kieran/Mark/Cristina: I find it significant that no choices were made in terms of canon relationships, which I interpret as a canon friendship because if any of them were going to be romantically involved, a decision would be made by now. I enjoy the friendship they have, I surprisingly forgave Kieran, but I do not expect any of the Blackthorns or Emma to forgive him also. His actions in QOAAD will definitely define how I feel about him going forward. • JEMMA: You all know I am 100% a Jemma shipper, but this time around I was glad that their relationship did not overshadow the rest of the book. I liked how private their relationship was, which is a funny word to use because people become more privy to it in LOS and because it was extremely private in LM, but the fact that they were literally in a different part of their country on their own made me all happy. • I am also glad that I got the B&N copy with the extra scene, which I waited to read because it is right after the ending of the book and I did not want to read anything after finishing LOS, lol. • Kitty: No canon romantic relationship yet, still very cute scenes… Ill talk about this in theories. • Kit/Livia: I am glad that Livvy’s first kiss was Kit, and not some random boy who won’t treasure the memory or look back and think “oh she was sweet, it’s a shame what happened to her”. Kit will always treasure the fact that he was Livia’s first kiss, and will cherish the friendship he had with her. It was platonic, but still special. I know people on tumblr were upset with this but I hope by the end of the book they understood. PROFOUND THINGS IN LOS • Lets talk about the fact that Emma Carstairs literally doesn’t cry….. but she cried over Julian literally 400 times in Lord of Shadows. If that doesn’t show you how much she literally loves that boy idk what will. • CLARY SHIPS JEMMA. During their conversation Clary literally says “who I pictured you with [not Mark or Cameron] doesn’t make sense….” This goes back to my question to CC about whether or not Simon knows about Jules and Emma, since he noticed something off during the parabatai ceremony. She responded “he knows something, he just doesn’t know what he knows”. I think the same applies to Clary, maybe she has even had premonitions about it, and that is so so significant. #jemmaisendgame • Kit and Livia and Ty’s friendship: so sweet and pure and is literally the reason why Kit decides to stay. How will Ty and Kit function without their third musketeer? • DRU & JAIME: Thank you Jaime for giving Dru the confidence to confront her family over her role as a Shadowhunter… but the witchlight you left behind that literally portals to another dimension: WTF? WHO IS ASH????? That scene is messed up because it is so short and therefore, subconsciously everyone looks over it because of how chaotic everything else is. I can’t help but feel like this is going to play a MASSIVE role in QOAAD. • Diana & Gwyn: Thank you CC for trans representation and a beautiful story. The fact that Gwyn accepts her wholeheartedly made my chest ache, and I hope that no one will use it against her please please please. • Jules & Emma’s Decision to tell the Inquisitor: Not sure why they did this tbh, but now that Robert is dead, what are their options??? Did he mark it down somewhere? Will they become so irrational that they consider the Seelie Queen’s offer? Livia’s Death • Months ago I received an anon message from someone about Livvy, which literally said that they felt something was going to happen to her and I completely dismissed it…. Thinking we haven’t seen enough of her storyline yet and it was too soon. I AM SO SORRY, and it’s literally all I have been thinking about for days. • Livia was so so selfless, down to her core, the last moments of her life were spent trying to save the people she loves. • I discussed with a mutual that the fact that Annabel did it was both cruel and also extremely fitting. • When you think about it, Livvy was the 21st century version of Annabel. From their appearance, which was remarkably similar, to the way that they treated outsiders taking refuge in their family (Livvy with Kit, Annabel with Malcolm) down to their deaths, both innocents killed trying to protect the ones they love. • The fact that the Mortal Sword shattered to me symbolized the end of the truth and trust within the Clave. • The amount of guilt that each character will carry following these deaths is heartbreaking… • i sincerely hope her death is not tossed to the side, discussed for 150 pages then only mentioned 4-5 times after that because she deserved better, the entire Blackthorn family did, and peace was completely ripped away from them Which brings me to my first theory: I believe there was a reason that Jessamine was introduced to TDA, not only to highlight Kit’s Herondale-ness, but also as a foreshadowing of another character who is not at peace, feels that there is unfinished business, and a group of people needing to be protected: Livia. Because it was made clear in the book that necromancy and raising the dead is forbidden, and because QOAAD takes place a week later, Livvy’s chances of being raised are very very very slim. I sincerely believe that she will come back, but not to life. It would be fitting of her to come back as a ghost (not at first but definitely later in the story) and for her to protect her family, and give Kit and Ty the OK to do whatever they want to do (whether its be a couple or become parabatai, or go to the Scholomance) More theories: • Though I predict a dark Julian, I do not predict a dark/irredeemable Julian, who digs himself into such a big hole that he can’t climb out of it. Remember he has two anchors: his family, and Emma… • The Rosales brothers, especially with their plans to overthrow the Cohort and fool Zara are going to play a massive role in QOAAD. • I think that Jemma are going to have to confide in Jem and Tessa, and they will end up helping Jules and Emma with the parabatai curse. I am also sure they will play a big role in the next book. • Unpopular Opinion: I do not think Clary will die. I know she thinks she will, but CC did say QOAAD is lighter (in regards to themes) than LOS, and I just do not think it would be a lighter book if Clary, a significant character, dies. I think she will become close to death, and people will become concerned, then she will tell Jace of her fears and say yes to his proposal. However, I could very well be wrong!! •i do predict the Cohort being in power for a short amount of time….. because they represent members of our society, I do not think they will be shut down so easily because that’s not realistic. Despite this, hope and love always win. I trust that this will remain true in the next book. • I do predict the end of the Cold Peace, it was never ever a good idea and no one likes it. • I predict that Drusilla will be a hero, now that her older sister has passed away and she has finally decided to step up as a Shadowhunter, I do not doubt that the role she plays will be significant, it just seems to be a reasonable underdog story. • Kitty: parabatai or lovers? An important decision, because Kit does reference his thoughts about being parabatai with Ty, and Ty finally says yes to being parabatai with Livvy. I think it’s a possible “that’s what Livvy would have wanted” trope, but I could also be wrong and think its about as equal of a chance of them becoming lovers. • Who will the new head of the LA Institute be? I sincerely doubt it will go to someone the Blackthorns do not know or trust. They have had so much taken from them, the Institute does not deserve to go next. Possibly Cristina? Will Jules or Emma be of age? Jem or Tessa following the end of the Cold Peace? We have to see! • ASH… I am just frustrated that we do not know more about him… I don’t even have a theory I just needed an excuse to talk about him again. Questions and Theories from my mutuals!!!!! • Anonymous: Its 3 am and I am literally just crying on my bed because of the book. ​ >> Relatable!! I cried hours after I finished because I was so sad. The ending really got me! • Anonymous: Do you think Jaime and Dru are endgame? She is 13 and hes like 17 but he thinks she’s 16. Idk, they seem to have a nice friendship but not a romantic relationship in my opinion.. ​ >> Agreed! I honestly think CC included this first crush idea as a way of introducing Dru’s further character development, not necessarily to introduce them as a couple… But also think about Cecily and Gabriel!!! They were about the same ages at the time, even though that was a different time period… anything is possible, but I do not ship them romantically! • VirginaNewman: I loved LOS, however I was indeed disappointed that Helen + Aline make a debut in the LAST chapter! ​ >> I definitely thought Helen and Aline would play a larger role in LOS, they were barely mentioned, barely had any scenes… I was disappointed by their small role too, but I am interested to see how hard they fight to stay in the next book. Ps- the scene where Aline basically tells Zara to shut her fucking mouth is GOLD. • Betweenshadesoftessagray- Since Robert’s dead, its going to be a race to get that spot, with probably Zara’s father trying to become Inquisior. And since Robert was the one who could help Emma and Julian with the exile thing, they really don’t know what to do with it. I think the powers will continue to grow, and since I think the main battle of QOAAd is going to be a battle where the warlocks and nephilim cannot use their runes/warlock magic, maybe their parabatai magic will still work and that’s how they win. I have already stated that I think there is going to be a battle in QOAAD without being able to use rune magic and the warlocks not being able to use their magic, but this didn’t fit in my other ask I just realized something that made my theory more solid: in the beginning, Zara says she went to Hungary because they were claiming their weapons were not working and she said it was incompetence, so the blight is already spreading not only in Idris but everywhere else. ​ >> This is such a well thought out theory and I wish I could give a formal response but I definitely need to go back, reread, and analyze this… I didn’t even realize the significance of Shadowhunters and warlocks including Magnus losing their powers!! Wow! Is this because of the Black Volume? I definitely think Emma and Julian’s parabatai/love powers will play a huge role in QOAAD and maybe even save the day during this second Dark War. Maybe that’s how they will become heros, their bond will be broken as a reward or something and everyone can live happier ever after? AHH! • Share your theories and thoughts in the comments below or inbox me (not on Anon so I can respond privately!!!)

[aparoxysm]

favorite memories. (rp-wise)

favorite memories. 

liz getting the fuck out of town for the first time ever & bunking down with this super grumpy guy who i think put the first ounce of light into her tbh because for survival purposes she kind of had to let it in it was bliss and a defining character moment

everything to do with bookshop :’) everything.

that time rosalie discovered the epic beaumont castle staff parties.

when andy threw pebbles at gretel’s window. 

(ooc: but sam always missing the point and all of us having to explain it to her, but affectionately, because we love her :’)) )

bitches fighting over alastair that one time LOL.

lumiere always getting away with things. also see: were him and adam a bit gay? i think so.

that time the huntsman took belle to a forbidden fairy folk town & she was made super woke about how much she didnt actually know different cultures and he was smarter than her for once it probably never happened again tbh.

the grand ball.

peter pan mermaids.

all moments of argumentative nature between red and the huntsman. also business.

all of us ignoring that birth control doesn’t exist :’)

that time liz threw the ring in wolf’s face because :))) fuck you.

that time everyone let belle cheat because she was cheating on my own character with another of my characters ha u guys are the real mvps .

the town markets.

everything to do with prince charming being the devil incarnate.

using carriages to get anywhere SO YOU ONLY GET ANYWHERE IN 87 YEARS.

when graham and belle got married :’)))

the time gretel 10/10 fell off hook’s boat because shes so dumb.

ed & gwen, burrito blanket. B)

liz and leo being in limbo and talk of them moving to nyc.

the first moment liz met gus.

band-aid guy aka “ribbons”.

the backstreet boy performance at the club/casino and liz wanting to kill herself twenty times in the span of like 3 minutes

that time liz attempted to walk back to nyc from philly.

leo’s therapy session aka getting stuck in a kids ride at the park.

the duchess era.

that time when liz and gus went on a road trip across arizona and he got a cactus stuck in him and she laughed for 20 years.

that time peter tried to save a group of ducklings from a storm

when adam did the thing and gave emily the necklace.

liz and gus’ north end apartment with the door that didnt open properly, the dead racoon (?), the ceiling collage and shit water pressure.

peter finally giving the keys of his loft over to adam (even if it broke my heart).

emily telling summer about her diagnosis. (also broke my heart.)

that time liz punched phoebe in the face. then slept with malcolm. then punched gus in the face with his burrito. what an eventful christmas party tbh. she was never invited back again.

ian taking opehlia to jersey.

when scott proposed to emily with a bread bag tie and the player didnt ask me if it was okay to MURDER ME LIKE THAT OUT OF NOWHERE.

ian’s halloween party from hell.

when jude became just another child of the holt-sayles fam.

the day emily got her new job and was no longer a struggling waitress anymore but a real adult with a real responsibility.

that time liz got pregnant. woops.

the whole ian x ophelia x becca thing.

that time when hannah bought emily sandwhiches and it was cute af and i hold onto it for no reason other than i adore it.

becca and ian having haley.

when scott busted emily out of hospital and kind of lowkey kidnapped her but stolkholm syndrome says it was a mutual decision ft. peri peri pizza.

hayden talking to jimmy.

ian finally admitting that he feels more for ophelia than he ever should have and couldnt take not talking to her ever again so he got in contact with emily behind her back and met her at the gallery and made a night to remember.

that time margot beat sara’s boyfriend into an almost pulp.

every time nico ever said he wanted to run sally over with his jeep, bless.

that time kitty punched sara in the face.

that time ollie ran away from home and andy was so devastated and tired and over it all and aaron was so nice about it and helped her clean up all the broken plates etc and just held her and told her she wasnt a shit mom and she needed that.

whenever nic and sara were in a room together.

that time sara showed tristan the pancake ritual.

the lakewood spring carnival.

mason’s entire & brief existence LOL.

that time sara asked brandon of all people for advice on what to do about loving someone & he actually had legit advice to give.

i definitely left so many out by accident but give me a break. this is like 5 years of tumblr rp condensed into BULLET POINTS.

[ultralifehackerguru-blog]

New Post has been published on http://www.lifehacker.guru/13-must-read-september-romances-youll-devour-faster-than-you-can-down-a-psl/

13 Must-Read September Romances You'll Devour Faster Than You Can Down a PSL

Happy September, bookworms! I have the latest round-up of must-read romances to keep your brains and e-readers full and well-read this month. This month’s list is filled with highly anticipated reads, emotionally heart-melting novels, sexy-as-sin alphas, thought-provoking mysteries, and so much more! Let’s dive into what’s here to devour this month.

1 Dirty Headlines, Out Sept. 4

Dirty Headlines is an all-new enemies-to-lovers standalone office romance from LJ Shen. Jude Humphry is having the worst day. A one-night stand with a handsome, dark stranger is the last thing on her mind, but when it happens, she is thankful that it’s with a tourist from France. Or so she thinks. A month after the one-night stand, in which she stole his wallet (hey, no judgment, right?), she finds out that Celian Laurent is: 1. Not a tourist, 2. The heir of a media empire and — 3. Her new boss. This starts a steamy, chemistry-filled war between Jude, the new intern in the newsroom, and Celian, the director of news. But they both have secrets keeping them from truly getting closer.

2 More of You, Out Sept. 10

In More of You by A.L. Jackson, the second Faith Linbrock met Jace Jacobs, she fell hard and fast. She knew better than to fall for a boy like him, but some things are unstoppable. One touch of his hand, and her skin sizzled. She shouldn’t have been surprised when the boy who was surrounded by rumor broke her heart. She swore to herself she’d never allow it to happen again. Ten years later, she’s in trouble, and she’s shocked when Jace shows up at her doorstep saying he’s there to protect her. What he didn’t anticipate was their chemistry had never faded. He’s never wanted a woman the way he wants her, and he’ll do anything to get her back. But Jace is back with secrets of his own, and now he must prove whether his intentions were good or only there to break her all over again . . .

3 Shot on Goal, Out Sept. 12

When a former champion figure skater’s ambitions collide with a struggling young hockey player’s desires, sparks ignite and forbidden passion threatens to destroy their careers and their future. In Shot on Goal by Jami Davenport, Marina Sanders strives to overcome the scandal that cost her a gold medal. Drew Delacorte battles with the demons of his past and a waning disinterest in hockey. When forced to work together, the lines between business and pleasure become blurred. Unable to keep their hands off each other, they realize that their secret relationship could spell the end of their once-brilliant careers. Will love be enough if everything else they’ve worked for is gone?

4 Big Stick, Out Sept. 17

Myles Sanders has a big stick. That is a big, long hockey stick. For Myles, life is perfect like a smooth rink before a game, until his best friend Oli announces his twin sister Flynn is moving to Chicago. Myles and Flynn were next-door neighbors and childhood best friends. Sure, the lines of friendship may have been blurred once or twice over the years. They were meant to be together until one night changed everything . . . Myles knows that just the sight of him dredges up bad memories for Flynn. So why can’t he stay away from her? Find out in Big Stick by R.C. Stephens.

5 Rebel Hard, Out Sept. 18

Rebel Hard by Nalini Singh features a modern arranged marriage mart, family shenanigans, and a swoonfully sexy romance. In an attempt to hold together her family, Nayna has lived her entire life by the rules, and all she wants now is freedom, adventure, and a wild fling with a hot hunk. Raj is the eldest son, the brother his siblings turn to, and a man at home with tradition. He wants to build a home, have a small family, put down roots. Nayna wants to fly. They’re moving in opposite directions . . . until they collide in the middle. Sexy, brilliantly colorful, and defiantly joyous, Rebel Hard is a love story that’ll make you believe in forever.

6 Restless Ink, Out Sept. 18

Thea Montgomery has worked endless hours to make sure her bakery is one of the best in the city. And as she finds herself ready to take the next step, she realizes she might need to work on her personal life as well. Only the one person she wants is her friend’s ex-husband. Dimitri Carr knows he shouldn’t have feelings for Thea, but he can’t help it. She was his friend before he was in his ex’s life, so dealing with his connection to Thea isn’t easy. In Restless Ink by Carrie Ann Ryan, when the two finally take a chance, it’ll take more than attraction for them to make it work. But thankfully, neither one wants to give up . . . yet.

7 Got It Bad, Out Sept. 18

Bad boys are always fun, especially when they’re trying to figure out how to be good! USA Today bestseller Christi Barth’s Bad Boys Gone Good series is a lighthearted, goofy fish-out-of-water series about three big-city ex-mobster brothers in Witness Protection who have to figure out how to live crime-free, quiet lives in a small Oregon town. It’s full of quirky characters, small-town charm, lots of humor, and a little bit of suspense. In Got It Bad, when the brother who has always followed the rules starts to fall for the federal marshal in charge of their case, it’s his turn to be a little bad.

8 Why Not Tonight, Out Sept. 18

There’s something unusual about Why Not Tonight: heroine Natalie Kaleta is wearing her trademark red glasses on the cover, the better to see brooding glass artist Ronan Mitchell. (Imagine muscles gleaming in light from the kiln.) When Natalie and Ronan get trapped together by a mudslide in his mountain lodge, romance builds with passion and genuine humor. Lighthearted but not lightweight, Why Not Tonight explores whether happiness is a choice. Ronan must learn that forgiving his family will clear the way for love. If you’ve never read Susan Mallery before, start with this one. The No. 1 New York Times bestselling author is at the top of her game.

9 Vampires Like It Hot, Out Sept. 18

Raffaele, Zanipolo, and Santo are on an enforced vacation during the wet season in the Dominican Republic. While Raffaele is happy to help out his cousin Santo, he’d rather do it where it wasn’t so hot and humid you could hardly breathe. At least that’s how he felt until he met his life mate, Jess. Jess was in the Dominican Republic to attend a family wedding. After she follows her cousin onto a tour ship, she finds herself on a pirate ship full of hungry vampire pirates, and her only option to escape is to jump ship. From vampires to shark-infested water, and then the arms of Raffaele Notte. . . . What started out as a boring family obligation has suddenly become something much more in Vampires Like It Hot by Lynsay Sands.

10 Hidden, Out Sept. 25

In Hidden by Rebecca Zanetti, Malcolm West is more than ready to give up undercover work as a cop, and he finds the perfect cottage in the middle of nowhere to do just that. A day later, he meets his neighbor, sweet Pippa Smith, an introvert with frightened eyes and an odd thirst for adventure, so long as it takes place in his bedroom. Three days later, he finds himself part of a Homeland Defense unit complete with an alcoholic dog, insane cat, and a wounded group of ex-cops who all have something to hide. The situation is one that he can manage, until he discovers he’s been set up and put in place to protect the world from the woman he’s starting to care about. When danger comes at him from every direction, he has to choose a side . . . and hopefully protect Pippa in the process. That is, if she lets him.

11 Cross Breed, Out Sept. 25

In the highly anticipated novel Cross Breed by Lora Leigh, Cassie Sinclair has played a very dangerous game with the enigmatic, lethal Coyote Breed known only as Dog, a Breed suspected to be the enemy, at the very least, a mercenary for the hated genetics council. When she’s caught in a web of her own making, forced to trade a single night with the Coyote to save someone dear to her, she finds the mate she swore she’d never have. Secrets, premonitions, and ghostly figures have shadowed Cassie’s life and drawn her to the one Breed that can complete her. If his betrayal doesn’t destroy her.

12 Hot Winter Nights, Out Sept. 25

Hot Winter Nights (a stand-alone Heartbreaker Bay romance) by Jill Shalvis is a sexy romance in which hero Lucas Knight wakes up with a woman in his bed with no memory of how that happened. What the heck? Did he miss the good stuff? And who is she? This one is an ice-melting romance with light suspense involving a scrappy, feisty heroine who was well used to making her own way in the world. Molly Malone needed a man who could go toe to toe with her and yet let her fight her own battles. Enter Lucas Knight. He’s been attracted to Molly since the day he met her. Two problems. One, she’s his partner’s sister, and two, he’s just been told by his boss he needs to watch over her without letting her know about it. Tricky enough, as Molly is smart as they come. Oh, and there’s one more thing — he’s not to sleep with her.

13 Dirty Rich Betrayal, Out Sept. 26

Dirty Rich Betrayal is Grayson Bennett’s story: He’s a billionaire, the king of the world to some. He has everything, but what he really wants: her. That woman is Mia Cavanaugh, criminal attorney, ex-lover, a woman who believes he betrayed her, a woman who could burn him to the ground, but she won’t. Because she loves him. Because he loves her, and it’s time that she sees the truth of the past. Now, he’s handing her the key to his future. He’s giving her the chance to burn him to the ground. He’s letting her see the real man beneath the surface that not even she’s seen in the past. She has to decide what to do with that man: love him or destroy him.

(C)

[tortuga-aak]

How US foreign policy helped feed the rise of global jihad

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Chatting with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November 2016, Barack Obama mentioned Indonesia, where he spent part of his childhood back in the 1960s.

The country, he noted, was a changed place. Where Muslims once adopted elements of Hinduism, Buddhism, and animism, a more austere version of Islam had taken hold once Saudi Arabia began pouring money into Wahhabist madrassas in the 1990s. Where women had formerly gone about with their heads uncovered, the hijab began to spread.

But why, Turnbull wanted to know, was this happening? “Aren’t the Saudis your friends?” To which Obama replied, “It’s complicated.”

That c-word covers a lot of territory, not only with regard to Wahhabism, the ultra-fundamentalist Saudi ideology whose impact is now felt across the globe, but also with regard to the United States, the Saudis’ chief patron, protector—and enabler—since World War II.

Like any imperialist power, the United States can be a bit unscrupulous in the partners it chooses. So one might expect it to look the other way when its Saudi friends spread their militant doctrines into Indonesia, the Philippines, the Indian subcontinent, Syria, and numerous points beyond.

Saudi Press Agency

But Washington did more than just look away. It actively encouraged such activities by partnering with the Wahhabists in any number of hotspots. They include Afghanistan, where American- and Saudi-armed jihadis drove out the Soviets in the 1980s. They also include Bosnia, where the two countries reportedly teamed up in the mid-1990s to smuggle hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms into Alija Izetbegović’s Islamic republic, today a stronghold of Wahhabist Salafism.

Other notable examples: Kosovo, where the United States joined forces with “Afghan Arabs” and other Saudi-backed jihadis in support of the secessionist movement of Hashim Thaçi; Chechnya, where leading neocons such as Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Midge Decter, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen, and R. James Woolsey championed Saudi-backed Islamist rebels; Libya, where Hillary Clinton personally recruited Qatar to join the effort against Muammar Qaddafi and then said nothing as the Wahhabist kingdom funneled some $400 million to rebel groups, many of them Islamists who proceeded to turn the country upside down; and of course Syria, where Sunni head-choppers backed by the Saudis and other oil monarchies have turned the country into a charnel house.

The United States pronounces itself shocked—shocked!—at the results, while pocketing the winnings. This is evident from a famous 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, as Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, did as much as anyone to invent the modern phenomenon of jihad. Asked if he had any regrets, Brzezinski was unabashed:

Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap, and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war….What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?

Or, as Graham Fuller, former deputy director of the CIA’s National Council on Intelligence and later a RAND Corporation analyst, put it a year later:

The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia.

What could possibly go wrong? Less a specifically Saudi phenomenon, the great Wahhabist offensive of the last 30 or 40 years is best understood as a joint venture between oil imperialism and neo-medieval Islamic revivalism. On its own, such an austere doctrine would never have made it out of the badlands of central Arabia. Only in conjunction with outside powers, first Britain and then the United States, did it turn into a world-altering force.

Flickr/David Brossard

Still, a bit of pre-history might be helpful. In order to know how Wahhabism arose, it’s necessary to know where it arose. This is Nejd, a vast plateau in central Arabia that is nearly the size of France. Ringed on three sides by desert and on the fourth by the somewhat more fertile Red Sea province of the Hejaz, it was one of the most isolated and barren spots on earth until oil was discovered in the 1930s.

Less isolated now, it remains extremely barren. The English explorer Lady Anne Blunt described it in 1881 as consisting of “vast uplands of gravel, as nearly destitute of vegetation as any in the world,” dotted with occasional settlements that were nearly as cut off from one another as they were from the outside world. It was one of the few third-world countries still uncolonized by the 19th century, not because it was unusually strong or well organized but because it was too poor, wild, and inaccessible to be worth the effort.

It was a land that no one else wanted. It also was home to an ideology that no one else wanted. This was Hanbalism, the most severe and unforgiving of the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence. It arose in Baghdad in the 9th century and within a few decades was wreaking havoc as adherents plundered homes to confiscate liquor, musical instruments, and other forbidden items; raided shops; and challenged men and women walking together in the street.

Expelled from the metropolis, Hanbalis found themselves relegated to the most primitive and distant outposts, Nejd most notably. But then, in the mid-18th century, they found themselves under attack by a wandering preacher named Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, for whom Hanbalism was not severe enough.

Reuters/XXSTRINGERXX Xxxxx

Moving from village to village, “the Luther of Mahometanism,” as Lady Blunt described him, denounced such folk practices as worshiping at saints’ graves and praying at sacred trees. Theologically, Wahhab’s great contribution was to take the concept of shirk, or association, which traditionally referred to the worship of any deity in conjunction with Allah, and expand it to include anything that distracted from the single-minded focus on the one true god.

Seeking the intervention of a saint, wearing a good-luck charm, even adorning the interior of a mosque—all were shirk. The goal was a religion as bare as the landscape, one that allowed nothing to come between man and God.

Presumably, Wahhab was not the first mullah to inveigh against superstition. But what distinguished him was his energy, his fanaticism—he made a name for himself by ordering the stoning of an accused adulteress—and an alliance he made in 1744 with a tribal leader named Muhammad bin Saud.

In exchange for military backing, al-Wahhab provided bin Saud with the legal writ to rob, kill, or enslave anyone who refused to bow down to the new doctrine. Backed by fanatical Bedouins known as the Ikhwan, or Brotherhood, Saud and his sons set about conquering the desert interior.

A new dynasty was born. The Saudi-Wahhabi alliance amounted to a “constitution” of sorts in that it laid down basic rules that the new kingdom would have to follow. The al-Saud gained untrammeled economic and political authority. But the clan also acquired the religious obligation to support and defend the Wahhabiyya and struggle against practices that they regarded as un-Islamic. The moment it faltered, its legitimacy would vanish.

AP/ Saudi Press Agency

This explains both the strength and weakness of the Saudi state. At first glance, Wahhabism would seem to be the most untamable of ideologies since the only submission it recognizes is to God. But after being briefly toppled by the Ottomans in 1818, the al-Saud could only claw their way back by garnering outside support. The regime’s survival therefore hinged on balancing a fierce religious establishment against international forces that, as the dynasty knew too well, were infinitely more powerful than any horde of desert horsemen.

The tidal wave of oil money that washed over the kingdom in the 1970s compounded the problem. Not only did the al-Saud dynasty have to balance off the Wahhabiyya against the United States, but it also had to balance religious austerity off against modern consumerism. In the 1920s, mullahs had raged against foreign travel and telephones. A member of the Ikhwan once even struck a royal servant of the king for riding a bicycle, which the Wahhabists denounced as “Satan’s carriages.”

But now the mullahs had to contend with Rolls Royces, Land Rovers, shopping malls, cinemas, female newscasters, and, of course, the growing ubiquity of sex.

What was to be done? The answer became clear in 1979, when three epochal events occurred.

In January, the shah of Iran fled by plane to Egypt, paving the way for Ayatollah Khomeini’s triumphant return to Tehran two weeks later. In July, Jimmy Carter authorized the CIA to begin arming the Afghan mujahideen, prompting the Soviet Union to intervene several months later in support of the embattled left-wing government in Kabul. And in November, Wahhabist militants seized control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, holding it for two weeks before being dislodged by French commandos.

Thomson Reuters

The last was particularly shocking because it was quickly apparent that the militants enjoyed widespread clerical support. Juhayman al-Otaybi, leader of the assault, was a member of a prominent Ikhwan family and had studied under the grand mufti, Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz. While the Wahhabists condemned the takeover, their language, according to the journalist Robert Lacey, “was curiously restrained.” Support for the royal family was beginning to waver.

Plainly, the Saudi royal family needed to mend relations with the Wahhabiyya while burnishing its Islamic credentials in order to fend off criticism at home and abroad. It had to reinvent itself as an Islamic state no less militant than the Persian one across the Persian Gulf.

But the burgeoning conflict in Afghanistan suggested a way out. While the United States could funnel aid to anti-Soviet forces, it obviously could not organize a proper jihad on its own. For that, it needed the help of the Saudis, which the kingdom now hastened to provide.

Out went the multiplexes and female news presenters, and in came the religious police and 75 percent discounts on Saudi Arabian Airlines for holy warriors traveling to Afghanistan by way of Peshawar, Pakistan. Thousands of bored and restless young men who might have caused trouble for the kingdom were shipped off to a distant land to make trouble for someone else. Saudi princes could still party as if there were no tomorrow, but now they had to do so abroad or behind closed doors at home. The homeland would otherwise have to remain pure and unsullied.

(AP Photo/Christopher Gunness)

It was a neat solution, but it still left a few strings untied. One was the problem of blowback in the form of hardened jihadis returning from Afghanistan more determined than ever to battle corruption at home.

“I have more than 40,000 mujahideen in the land of the two holy mosques alone,” Osama bin Laden reportedly told a colleague. It was a claim that could not be entirely laughed off once al Qaeda bombs starting going off in the kingdom beginning in 1995. Another problem concerned whom the militants targeted abroad, a problem that initially didn’t loom very large but would eventually prove highly significant.

Still, the new partnership worked brilliantly for a time. It helped the al-Saud regime mollify the ulema, as the mullahs are collectively known, which had come to see the umma, or community of the faithful, as besieged on multiple fronts. As Muhammad Ali Harakan, secretary-general of the Saudi-sponsored Muslim World League, put it as early as 1980:

"Jihad is the key to Muslims’ success and felicity, especially when their sacred shrines are under Zionist occupation in Palestine, when millions of Muslims are suffering suppression, oppression, injustices, torture, and even facing death and extermination campaigns in Burma, Philippines, Patani [a predominantly Muslim region of Thailand], USSR, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cyprus, Afghanistan, etc. This responsibility becomes even more binding and pressing when we consider the malicious campaigns being waged against Islam and Muslims by Zionism, Communism, Free Masonry, Qadianism [i.e. Ahmadi Islam], Bahaism, and Christian Missionaries."

The Wahhabiyya would overlook the princes’ many sins if they used their newfound wealth to defend the faith.

REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

The arrangement also worked for the United States, which acquired a useful diplomatic partner and an auxiliary military force that was cheap, effective, and deniable. It worked for gung-ho journalists traipsing through the wilds of Afghanistan, who assured the folks back home that the “muj” were nothing more than “ornery mountain folk who have not cottoned to a foreign power that has seized their land, killed their people, and attacked their faith,” to quote William McGurn, who went on to prominence as a speechwriter for George W. Bush.

It worked for nearly everyone until 19 hijackers, 15 of them Saudis, flew a pair of fuel-laden jetliners into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people in all.

The 9/11 attacks should have been a wake-up call that something had gone seriously amiss. But instead of pressing the pause button, the United States opted to double down on the same old strategy. From its perspective, it had little choice. It needed Saudi oil; it needed security in the Persian Gulf, global commerce’s most important chokepoint; and it needed a reliable ally in the Muslim world in general.

Moreover, the Saudi royal family was clearly in trouble. Al Qaeda enjoyed wide public support. Indeed a Saudi intelligence survey reportedly found that 95 percent of educated Saudis between the ages of 25 and 41 had “sympathies” for bin Laden’s cause. If the Bush administration had walked off in a huff, the House of Saud would have become more vulnerable to al Qaeda rather than less.

Reuters

Consequently, Washington opted to work on the marriage rather than splitting up. This entailed three things.

First, there was a need to cover up Riyadh’s considerable role in the destruction of the Twin Towers by, among other things, suppressing a crucial 29-page chapter in a joint congressional report dealing with Saudi links to the hijackers.

Second, the Bush administration redoubled efforts to pin the blame on Saddam Hussein, Washington’s latest villain du jour. Need “best info fast,” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered while the towers were still burning, according to notes taken by his aide Stephen Cambone. “…Judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. at same time—not only UBL [i.e. Usama bin Laden]. Hard to get a good case. Need to move swiftly—Near term target needs—Go massive—sweep it all up, need to do so to get anything useful. Things related or not.” Washington needed a fall guy to get the Saudis off the hook.

Third was the need to prosecute the so-called “War on Terror,” which was never about terrorism per se but about terrorism unsanctioned by the United States. The goal was to arrange for jihadis only to strike at targets jointly approved by Washington and Riyadh.

This meant, first and foremost, Iran, the Saudis’ bête noire, whose power, ironically, had grown after the U.S. invasion of Iraq had tipped the formerly Sunni-controlled country into the pro-Shi‘ite column. But it also meant Syria, whose president, Bashar al-Assad, is an Alawite, a form of Shi‘ism, and Russia, whose friendliness to both countries left it doubly marked in U.S. and Saudi eyes. Ideologically, it meant taking Wahhabist anger at Western powers such as America, Britain, and France and directing it at Shi‘ism instead. The doors to sectarianism were thus opened.

US National Archives

The “redirection,” as investigative reporter Seymour Hersh termed it in 2007, also worked brilliantly for a time. Hersh described it as the product of four men: Vice President Dick Cheney; neocon Elliott Abrams, at the time deputy national security adviser for “global democracy strategy”; U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad; and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, for 22 years the Saudi ambassador to the United States and now the kingdom’s chief of national security.

In Lebanon the goal was to work closely with the Saudi-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to limit the influence of the pro-Iranian Shi‘ite militia Hezbollah, while in Iraq it entailed working more closely with Sunni and Kurdish forces to rein in Shi‘ite influence. In Syria, it meant working with the Saudis to strengthen the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni group locked in a ferocious struggle with the Baathist government in Damascus since the 1960s. Indeed a secret 2006 State Department memo made public by Wikileaks discussed plans to encourage Sunni fears of growing Shi‘ite influence even though it conceded that such concerns were “often exaggerated.”

The “redirection” program soon imploded.

The problem began in Libya, where Hillary Clinton spent much of March 2011 persuading Qatar to join the effort against strongman Muammar Qaddafi. Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani eventually agreed and took the opportunity to funnel some $400 million to rebel groups, many of them Sunni Salafists who proceeded to turn the country upside down. The result was anarchy, yet the Obama administration stayed mum for years after.

Thomson Reuters

In Syria, the Defense Intelligence Agency determined in August 2012 that “events are taking a clear sectarian direction”; that Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and al Qaeda “are the major forces driving the insurgency”; and that, despite this fundamentalist surge, the West, Turkey, and the Gulf states still backed the anti-Assad uprising. “If the situation unravels,” the report went on, “there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria … and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion….” Eastern Syria, of course, became part of the Caliphate declared by ISIS—the recipient of “clandestine financial and logistic support” from both Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to no less an authority than Hillary Clinton—in June 2014.

The war on terror turned out to be the longest route possible between Sunni terrorism and Sunni terrorism. Once again, the United States had tried to use Wahhabism to its own advantage, but with consequences that proved nothing less than disastrous.

What went wrong? The problem is two-fold. Wahhabism is an ideology of Bedouin zealots who may be adept at conquering their fellow tribesmen but who are incapable of governing a modern state. This is nothing new. It’s a problem discussed by Ibn Khaldun, the famous North African polymath, in the 14th century and by Friedrich Engels, Marx’s collaborator, in the late 19th, but the bottom line is an endlessly repetitive cycle in which nomadic fanatics rise up, overthrow a regime that has grown soft and corrupt, only to grow soft and corrupt themselves before succumbing to yet another wave of desert warriors. The result is anarchy piled on top of anarchy.

The other problem involves U.S. imperialism, which, in contrast to the French and British varieties, eschews the direct administration of colonial possessions for the most part and instead seeks to leverage U.S. power via innumerable alliances with local forces.

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Unfortunately, leverage works the same way in diplomacy as in finance—i.e., as a multiplier of both gains and losses.

As part of its alliance with the Saudis, the United States encouraged the growth not only of jihad but of Wahhabism in general.

It seemed like a good idea when the Saudis established the Muslim World League in Mecca in 1962 as a counter to Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. So how could Washington object when the kingdom vastly expanded its missionary effort in 1979, spending anywhere from $75 billion to $100 billion to spread the word?

King Fahd, who ruled from 1982 to 2005, bragged about all the religious and educational facilities he built in non-Muslim lands—200 Islamic colleges, 210 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques, 2,000 schools for Muslim children, etc. Since the aim was to combat Soviet influence and promote a conservative view of Islam, U.S. fortunes received an immense boost.

It seemed like a good idea for some 15 to 20 years. Then bombs started going off, the 9/11 attacks rocked America, the United States rushed into the restless Middle East, and radical Saudi Wahhabism metastasized beyond its spawning ground. U.S. fortunes haven’t been the same since.

Daniel Lazare is the author of The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique, and his articles about the Middle East, terrorism, Eastern Europe, and other topics appear regularly on such websites as Jacobin and Consortium News.

NOW WATCH: A historian of Islam explains how Trump and his team’s rhetoric could fuel radicalization

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[sydnam]

OUAT 6x19 “The Black Fairy”

Only a week late this time…

The usual running commentary under the cut.

Title card fairies looked like Flora, Fauna, and Merriweather.

Hey Malcolm what’s up? Are you less of an ass at this point in time? Aww look at tiny bb Rumple. Oy, fairies, you ought to at least KNOCK. Why is Blue known as Blue when other fairies get actual names? Savior Rumple. Tiny vindication for the Dearies who have always maintained he’s a good dude who just fucks up often?

Rumple why do you have a rotten dragon egg? “That’s dark even for the dark one” do you eat meat Emma? You do so hush. It’s already dead he didn’t, say, STEAL THE DRAGON EGG AND INFECT IT WITH DARKNESS AND CAUSE IT TO BE KEPT FROM ITS MOTHER FOR 28 YEARS LIKE SOME PEOPLE’S PARENTS DID, NOW DID HE? Also he’s trying to save Blue so wtf. Don’t be difficult.

Rumple what did the newspaper box ever do to you? Heh, Belle, good question. “I’ve already lost one son” WAAAAAAH I MISS NEALFIRE

Hook, dude, let the fairy wake up for more than 5 seconds before you demand help, eh? CORA’d. How many of those magic dampening cuffs ARE there or do they keep recycling the same one?

Okay, this bonding over not using magic is cute. Hee. Ikea. Zelena how do you even know about Ikea and also Swedes and how did you GET something from Ikea?

TRUST. HEARTS IN MY EYES. Rumple maaaaaybe dragging Emma along was not the best plan without asking. Although she might not have said yes, so perhaps it was necessary even if not exactly wise.

Emma you weren’t kidnapped you were put to sleep. Rumple you make a fairly good point. She probably would have run off to be Heroic. I like this coat of Emma’s. It looks like her. Unlike SO MUCH of her current wardrobe.

Tiger Lily whyyyy you never knock? I would probably draw a sword too! Book of Prophecies???? THAT IS A THING? WHERE IS THIS BOOK NOW? BB Rumple is swaddled in a gold blanket which is a nice touch. You can just turn yourself into a fairy now that’s a thing? And Fiona speaks fairy because she read some books? Sure. Ok. Whatever.

That certainly is a car right there. And it’s certainly green. ANd Zelena certainly cannot drive. Why not give her an automatic transmission, Regina? Come on! “You really trust me to raise Henry?” “Nooo...I trust him to raise you” HA. Well-played. Regina is offended by mayor pants? Granny’s is the heart of Storybrooke? Ok sure whatever.

Fairy vs Fairy showdown would be way more interesting if one weren’t tied up.

Is, is the Black Fairy a Gold Fairy to start with? New spells are forbidden? Why? By whom? There’s a fairy vault?

“Are you serious” Rumple I ask the same of Emma ALL THE TIME. And he’s telling you right now he wants her defeated so please remember that I’m sure it’s important later. Hey Gideon bb. NO NOT THE CRYING RUMPLE FACE. Can’t they use a locator spell on the heart since it’s part of Gideon?

I’ve missed Granny and her being fed up with everyone. Really? Under the juke box? Odd choice. More scenes with Regina and Black Fairy please.

There’s quite a lot of gold in Black Fairy’s costume too. Hmm. Hell of a time to learn to drive, Zelena. That was pretty funny.

Rumple that was a very half-assed attempt at scaring Emma for calling you scared. Where has THIS Emma been all season? I don’t get why Rumple should have clear memories of being an infant? What a WEIRD looking vault. Fairies have the oddest aesthetic. Now that Rumple knows Tiger Lily was HIS fairy godmother are they ever gonna meet? Well. Finally we’re told definitively who made the Dark Curse. Ok so ripping out one heart turns you into an eeeeevil fairy? “Evil was not born this winter it was made” Okay HOW many prophecies about Rumple ARE there though because if he is and his mother are supposed to kill each other and also he had to die to kill his dad (though that was NEVER explained) and also there was a boy who would be his undoing…

Gideon looks SO uncomfortable with this savior information. Rumple, running off to try and solve everything on his own. Oy.

And now we have a Dark One vs Black Fairy showdown. I am sure it will not be the last. I am kind of shocked he let her touch him.

How does Blue know how to put a heart back in though. Hmmmmm. Oh hey the shears again surely nobody saw that coming. “I need my power” OH NO IT’S GENETIC. “Every moment of every day” IT’S ALL GENETIC. This family. Oy. Rumple is always so disappointed when other people make bad choices because he KNOWS about bad choices. If she severed his fate then he isn’t fated to kill her anymore though? Or be killed by her? Or are we ignoring that? YES he understands, Fiona, he told you that already. “I love you” ehhhhh I’m not convinced and I don’t think he’s gonna forgive you stealing and torturing his kid for 28 years.

How long was Fiona a fairy before she got banished? Did Malcolm know she was a fairy? Were they still living together? Seems like Blue wouldn’t allow that sort of thing. Also how old is bb Rumple why didn’t he have a name? Blue this is CLEARLY not a good place to leave a helpless infant Malcolm is CLEARLY not gonna be a good dad why must you fuck over everyone all the time? Also why did Tiger Lily abandon him? Worst Fairy Godmother! And why didn’t either one of them save him when he was being abused by Malcolm? Fairies. man.

TOMORROW WHO HAS A WEDDING TOMORROW WITH NO PLANNING DONE YOU JUST SAID LAST EP YOU WERE GONNA POSTPONE

GIDEON HAS HIS HEART YAY Awww hugging. HE HAS WAITED HIS WHOLE LIFE FOR THESE HUGS. Oh Gideon bb you don’t need forgiveness. Rumple is so carefully not saying he killed her to Belle and Gideon. He didn’t say he killed her either to the Charmings. Hmm. (He said the blackened heart was hers but that doesn’t mean it was HERS…) He is super obviously hiding something though, Belle should know this. And that little “it might not be apparent at the time” spiel is CLEARLY him trying to say something without saying it.

Ew Hook. You HAVE been through a lot. Like the time you tried to kill Henry and his whole family. Ew Emma what is that top. “It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding” and yet you are seeing her literally right this moment? Or is it just on the actual wedding day?

Okay Rumple is clearly not a happy man right now. “No one ever doubts me” dude that is the least true thing you’ve said in a while. What’s his game right now? Hmmm. He’s not really working with her, that ought to be clear.