#Fatimah’s writing

[marylily-my-beloved]

Letters to A Happier Life - 2,744 words - Marylily hurt no comfort - ao3 link - hope you enjoy!

It was just a normal average day for a normal average woman in her normal average life, with a normal average husband, and normal average friends. But to her it didn’t feel like a normal average day. 

Mary woke up that day, and went for a walk, when she suddenly felt a strange feeling, loneliness, it rushed through her veins, leaving her in sadness. 

Mary was never lonely though, she had her husband, and her friends, and her dog, and all of her friends' kids. She had no right to feel lonely yet she did, she felt lonely while watering her plants, she felt lonely while cuddling her husband, she even felt lonely while she was out with her friends. 

It was like all of a sudden she realized she was living a boring average life, with a boring average house, and a boring average husband, and friends that felt too fake, and a life that felt like it was never meant to be hers. 

This went on for months, the loneliness tugging at her bones, coursing through her veins and settling deep in her chest, a feeling that she could never escape. It tugged at her everyday and everyday, all of those days normal average days, with normal average people, that were starting to become boring. 

No adventure, but Mary can’t remember a time that there was adventure. Loneliness, but now Mary looks back and can’t find a time where she didn’t feel lonely, or out of place, or like she was supposed to be somewhere else. Average, but isn’t everything average, Mary can’t remember anymore. She needs to go get her memory checked or something, it feels like she can’t remember how to live anymore,  it’s almost like she never learned. 

Mary started feeling incomplete, like there was this aspect of life that she once had, now forgotten. She felt like she must have forgotten something important, she must’ve lost something along the way of paving her life.

Her heart felt hollow, as if there used to be something filling it, but not anymore. 

She tried her hardest to think of what that could be, maybe she wants a kid, or something else average and exciting, but she couldn’t quite figure out what was missing in her life. Even while talking to her husband John, this hollowness in her heart still stayed, it seemed no matter what she did she would end up feeling like this. 

She had tried very hard to ignore it, she had tried very hard to will it away, she felt as if she had tried everything to feel how she felt just a mere months ago. 

On another normal average day, months after the first feeling of loneliness, Mary decided she needed to clean up the house, it was too messy, and maybe that’s why she felt like this. 

Another normal average day in between thousands of normal average days. She vacuumed the floors, and did normal average cleaning things.

Then she decided to look through the attic, since it’s been ages since she went in there. She started clearing up the boxes and found a box full of letters. ‘Interesting’ she thought, ‘the last time me or John used letters was quite a few years ago, since the internet became a thing we stopped’. 

The last letter was dated 1982 so Mary thought maybe these were John’s old collection of letters, so she was ready to set the box aside until she saw her name in there. She decided to pick up the letter at the top 

——

04/05/82 

Today is the day Lily. I’m never gonna even think of you again, I really wish you guys were still here, I’ll miss you so much, but I know you’ll still be there somewhere, I really hope you’re still somewhere out there, enjoying life with James, Marlene, Peter & Dorcas. God, I can barely function without you guys. I miss you all so much.

Love, for the last time 

Mary Macdonald 

——

Mary felt confused, thinking ‘who is this Lily? Why did we stop talking? and why can’t I remember anything about this?’ 

She decided to dump the box and sort out all the letters by their dates, so maybe she could try and remember who these people were, and why they seemed so important to her. 

Mary also felt like she needed to sort them out by the people that were mentioned. Remus, Sirius, Lily, Marlene, Peter, James, Dorcas, & Pandora.  ‘weirdo names’ She thought, ‘except for Peter, James and Lily, and who even are these people?’ After Mary had sorted out all the letters, she decided to pick from the ones about ‘Lily’ and picked up the oldest one, dated from her school years, the summer of ‘72 and it was decorated with flowers drawn on it. 

She remembered that those were her first years of school yet she can’t remember anything about it, as if it was erased from her memory.

——

12/08/1972 Hi Lily! How has your summer been? I’m sending this through a muggle post because well, we’re both muggle-borns and I don’t have an owl yet. (My mom says they’re gonna be a big pain in the ass so we can’t get one, she’s such a buzzkill, having tons of fun, and I’ve missed my TV so much. I’ve spent some time with Marlene (we used magic, haha, I don’t know how they didn’t catch us!)  and I hope you can come visit soon. 

Love, 

Mary (your new friend!)

——

Mary felt even more confused, who were muggles? Why did she need owls? Who was Marlene, and who was Lily? She had always thought she had forgotten her school years due to her age, or the genetics that were passed on to her, but while she read this letter she felt as if something had happened, as if something important happened in her brain. She decided to look at a letter sent from ‘Marlene Mckinnon’ 

——

09/12/1973 Hi Mary! It’s me Marlene, well you would probably know that but anyways, I forgot to write you letters last year, and I felt really bad about it, so here you go! A letter from your best non muggleborn friend! How has your winter been? Mine’s been pretty good, I’ve hung out with James and Peter a lot, and sometimes Remus comes and visits them so it’s always fun! I know you said you were dreading going home, but I hope it wasn’t that bad. 

Love ya,Marlene Mckinnon

——

Looking back upon school days, Mary had tried really hard to think, think and remember what had happened, of who she was friends with. Some started coming back to her, bright fiery long hair, flying brooms, big massive tables filled with food she could never even imagine and short blonde hair. Who were they? Why can’t she remember? 

She continued looking through the letters, still not understanding anything. How could they be magic? Were they wizards? She couldn’t understand anything, except for minor details.

She reviewed what she knew. Lily used to hate the boy called James. Her and Lily, Marlene, Dorcas & Pandora were friends in school. The letters from the boy Sirius started in ‘76 and ended ‘81 and it seemed like they were dating from ‘76 to ‘77. James and Lily started dating in ‘78 and got married in ‘79 and had a baby in ‘80. All the letters stopped in 1981. Marlene’s letters stopped in 1980, so did Dorcas’s and Pandora. She only had four letters from Peter, dated ‘78 ‘79 ‘80 and ‘81, one per year. 

They all mentioned a war by 1978, it seemed that they were all fighting in it, or fighting against it? She wasn’t sure. 

Mary cannot for the life of her remember any wars in the UK from that time, she can’t even remember something important happening that year. The memories were just a blur of school and colours, nothing important at all.

Mary found a pretty informational letter that seemed to have been unsent, to one Lily Evans. Who was supposedly her best friend. 

——

13/08/1978

Hey Lily. I’m so sad  happy you’re with James now I miss you so much. I just wanted to check up on you, I hope you’re doing well. Tell me more about your summer. I miss your letters and your love. I also wanted to ask if we were still a thing? Like we were last year. FuckI just wanted to check in!

All the love,Mary Macdonald

——

Mary was finally starting to piece together everything. She was in love with Lily Evans, Lily Evans was in love with James Potter. Lily Evans used to love her, but stopped. They were still friends. They must’ve gone no contact. Lily must’ve started to hate her and her love. She hoped they were still alive, she had to contact them. 

Mary saw another letter, it explained more to her. More about what had happened to them, and who they really were. 

——

03/04/82 

Lily, the wizarding world rejoiced and celebrated, but I can’t believe that you, James, Peter, Marlene, Dorcas, and everyone are just gone and that Sirius betrayed you. I miss you so much, and I’m thinking of obliviating myself, I see you everywhere, I see them everywhere, and I hope Remus is okay, I can’t see him anymore. I miss you, I wish we were back in Hogwarts, nothing would kill us there. Lily, I’m sorry, I’m never going to remember you after this. Goodbye my friend Snape came after me, I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t wanna hurt you, my love, I know we’re just friends but I miss you

Love, 

Mary Macdonald, I’ll never forget you 

——

Mary finally seemed to understand. They might be dead, but she wasn’t sure yet. They were all friends, there was a war. She felt a pang in her chest, she missed them, even though she barely knew them. This must’ve been what she was feeling, a longing for the past, the better past, her real life. 

‘Wizards must be real,’ she thought to herself, ‘I must be one. But how?’ She was still confused about the logistics of it, but she knew she was a wizard, or used to be. She must’ve used a spell to erase her memories. Why? Was it that heart-breaking? Mary didn’t know, but she assumed. 

Suddenly she felt a light blinding her, she collapsed to the floor, breathing heavily, her heart pounding in her ears and her vision dark.

Her vision was filled with a bright white light, and it felt like all her past memories were coming back. Her head hurt, and all she could see was what seemed to be her old friends, they were joking around, small and young. Then they were kissing and playing silly games like truth or dare, and throwing around spells with wands like it was easy. 

Then she saw something important, her and a redhead were kissing, and kissing, and the love filled the air, but it changed, the redhead was kissing a boy. A boy, and not her. 

The memory quickly changed to a battlefield, the blood was everywhere, it was even all over her. She felt it on her head, in her bones, staining her. She was the redhead and her friends fighting too, all bruised and bloody. Fighting against people with masks. They all had wands too, it must’ve been bad. She saw dead people everywhere, and then the light was gone.

Everything went back to the dark, and she tried to get up but she couldn’t. She tried to open her eyes, and after a couple of tries she managed to get them open, her eyelids heavy and drooping.

Mary stayed on the ground for a minute or two longer, processing what she had seen, what memories had come back to her, the redhead must’ve been Lily. The boy James. Her heart broke slowly, the pieces stuck in her body, making her choke on her emptiness. 

Mary truly felt the weight of what she remembered, they must all be dead. Her friends, her love, her everything, and she had chosen to forget them. She had chosen to live oblivious. She hated herself, why would she do that?  She wanted to remember everything, she wanted all the love back. She knew this love, this life she had lived wasn’t real. It wasn’t hers, not anymore. It was the life of a person unburdened by their past, unknowing of their truth. 

She stood up, shaking, and walked to the only table in the attic, sitting on the small short chair, grasping to its edges, eyes searching for a pen and paper to write on.

She saw a paper on the edge, she picked it up slowly, her hand shaking and tried to write a letter to Lily. 

——

13/07/92 

I know who you are now. I really miss you, I hope this gets to you. I hope you’re alive. I just wanted to reach out again, Lily Evans. I couldn’t get you out of my mind, even when I didn’t know who you were

I hope you’re out there somewhere, and this gets to you. I hope one day we can meet again, and I can see you and the others.

Regards,

Mary Macdonald 

——

After Mary had written down her thoughts in the letter, she sighed. She felt like she would never get a reply, and it would tell her that her fear was real, but she had to try. 

She walked back to the floor, picking up an envelope and an opened letter to figure out Lily’s address and write it down. She put her letter in the envelope and wrote down the address, put a stamp on it, and prayed. 

She went downstairs, put the letter in the mailbox, and prayed for it to reach. Prayed for Lily to be alive. 

She saw the letters get taken away the next day, and she prayed. 

She continued her normal average life, and continued praying. Praying the letter would reach, praying they could be friends again. 

She kissed her husband, she babysat her friends' kids, she went out, she had fun, but not without praying. She did everything with the feeling of despair in her bones the longer the letter wasn’t replied to. 

6 MONTHS LATER: 

Mary checked the post anxiously, knowing the letter should’ve gotten to Lily already, knowing she should have a reply already. 

Six months had passed, it had been so long with the fear of Lily being dead in her body, and now she knew. The letter was in the mailbox, address not found. Person dead.

Lily was dead. The only tether to her past life, the only tether for the pain she was feeling. The one who had made it better and then worse again. She felt the pain in her chest before it hit her mind, making her breath heavy and her body shake.

She barely knew this person, yet here she was, crying over them being dead. Lily must’ve died ages ago, but Mary didn’t know. 

All Mary knew was that it was 1993. January, her husband's birth month. The day she found out Lily was dead. Lily was dead, which meant all her friends were dead. It was like before she had found out, she still didn’t know them, and she would never be able to. They were all gone. Forever. She would never even get to see the fiery red hair again, unless it was someone else, someone different. Not Lily. 

She ran to the attic, where all those months ago she had sat down, and written a letter to a dead person. To a dead person she once knew, to a dead person she would never get to feel again. 

Mary sobbed and sobbed and sobbed until her body was empty of tears, and her voice gone. She would never get to remember them again, all she had was letters. Letters to a happier life. 

She never did get over it, years and years later, an old woman, with her old husband. She held on to those letters, never letting them go missing, keeping them in a box titled ‘Don’t Forget Me’, and she never did forget. 

Sometimes she would wish that she could erase her memories again, but this time she lived with the pain, and died with the pain. 

—

hope you guys enjoyed and cried !!

[clcmentines]

blood dripping down my throat, isn't it lovely?

fruit, azra t / he who is good with swords, fatimah asghar / the becoming of noah shaw, michelle hodkin / it's a circus and we're all paid to be here, ashe vernon / things have gotten worse since we last spoke, eric larocca / aaron o'hanlon

[saintkafka]

"Home is the first grave."

— Fatimah Asghar, from "How'd Your Parents Die Again?" published in the New York Times Magazine.

[reshramlove1ob]

Guys I love Amir so much it’s not even funny

[userparamore]

pluto shits on the universe, by fatimah asghar

[woodtoc]

I think I believe in freedom I just don’t know where it is.

I think I believe in home, I just don’t know where to look.

(Fatimah Asghar – If They Come for Us - Poems)

[plutobutartsy]

im in again. im so sorry i’ve been attacking your inbox like this but BUT BUT .

fatimah - vamp turned in the 1960s (by lombardy, sandy’s maker! she’s 22 tho so she’s his big sister)

vivian - human who just moved in next door to fatimah. cynical college student.

neighbours to lovers,,, gay,,,

NEVER apologize for invading my inbox i LOVE ur asks okay >:3

anyways

SANDYS BIG SIS!!!!!!!!!!!!;;; I LOVE BIG SIS CHARACTERS AND I LOVE SANDY!!!! AMAZING DAY FOR ANNOYING PEOPLE (ME)

cynical college student... wishing her strength bc i now shenanigans will ensue... good luck viv

NEIGHBOORS TO LOVERS!!! GAY!!!!

[shadowtriovibes]

Hello,

Can you write some shameless pre-relationship Sebastian x mc flirting? Like pining, comparing hand sizes, teasing about height, all that cringe cute stuff! Just go off on that however you like!

hello anon!! here's a quick 1.5k pg-rated words for you because i'd just started a little drabble of MC working at j pippin's for the summer and it turned into two goofy teens in love 🥹

edit: i felt like this deserved a name so i'm calling it "the potioneer's apprentice" and i personally love a potion-loving MC characterization very much so i may return to this 'verse later on xoxo

"I happen to know that you can make a perfectly good batch of Wiggenweld yourself," you point out. Sebastian watches distractedly while you untie your hair, shaking it loose as it falls down to your shoulders. "W-well, yours is better," he insists. "Always has been, even Sharp said so." "It's even better now," you say proudly, pulling one of the bottles out of your bag to hand to him. "...You're not actually hurt, are you?" "No, just bored," he admits. "I wanted to see you."

Staring down at the order slip in your hands, you bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling.

Mr. Sebastian Sallow Feldcroft Hamlet

x3 Wiggenweld x1 Focus x1 Felix Felicis

“Simple enough,” Parry Pippin says cheerfully, tucking a knut into the pocket of the postal owl that had just dropped off your latest order. “I’ll put together the Liquid Luck, I know that’s a tricky one.”

Bustling over to his potions station, he adds, “I trust brewing the Wiggenweld and Focus draughts should be no problem for you?”

“Of course,” you say, quickly tying up your hair before lighting a fire beneath the cauldron at your own station.

You’ve been an apprentice at J. Pippin’s Potions for just over a month, refining your potions skills over the summer break – and helping keep an eye on things in Hogsmeade. In that time, your brewing skills have improved significantly, and Parry is more than happy to pass on some of the simpler potions to you.

Attempting to be casual, you ask, “Will this be a delivery?”

“Oh, I should think so,” Parry confirms. “Though it’s not exactly my neck of the woods.”

“Would you like me to drop it off?” you offer hopefully.

“How about this,” Parry offers. “I’ll send you down to the hamlet to drop these off, and then you can call it a day.”

“Thank you, Mister Pippin,” you say with a grin.

Your boss smiles approvingly as you carefully pour some horklump juice into your cauldron, precisely tapping the side of the bottle as he’d taught you.

“Besides,” he says cheekily. “I think this is the third time this month that young mister Sallow has ordered from my shop and requested delivery, even though Fatimah’s shop is much closer.”

You nearly spill the entire bottle.

“Any idea why a Hogwarts student on summer break would need so many potions?” Parry asks, smirking to himself as he pours some lacewing flies into his cauldron.

“W-well, I – I suppose he could be clumsy,” you mumble unconvincingly. “O-or stocking up, perhaps. We’ve got N.E.W.T. classes next term, some of these spells are quite challenging, a-and the beasts, we’ve got Grindylows to examine, you know how they bite…”

You trail off feebly, blushing a bright red. The Wiggenweld potion in your cauldron signals its completion with a puff of smoke, offering a welcome distraction.

“Aye, of course,” Parry murmurs, sounding very much like he doesn’t believe you in the slightest. “In any case, as soon as you finish that Focus potion I’ll send you on your way.”

Quickly ladling three portions of Wiggenweld into Parry's glass vials, you scrub out your cauldron and prepare the last draught, wrinkling your nose at the smell of dugbog tongue. Once it starts to smoke and bubble, you measure out a generous portion and collect the Felix Felicis from your boss, tucking the lot into your satchel.

“Please thank young Sebastian for his order, and tell him I said good day,” Parry tells you with a wink. “And to kindly stop pilfering my apprentice so often.”

“Yes, sir,” you reply sheepishly.

Outside the shop, you trek outside the boundaries of Hogsmeade to hop onto your broom and head south toward Feldcroft. It had been more than a week since you’d seen Sebastian, which felt like an eternity compared to how often you saw him during the school year.

One month into your break and you feel like a simpering wreck.

You miss him like crazy – not that you’d tell him like that, of course. He’s your closest friend, and the two of you have been through so much together in the past two years. You aren’t about to ruin it by confessing that you’re hopelessly in love with him.

—

Sebastian is not moping.

And even if he was, why shouldn’t he mope? He’s alone, it’s swelteringly hot in the hamlet and he hasn’t seen his best friend in a week.

He’s bored, and when Sebastian gets bored, he gets creative.

Really, it’s almost too easy to summon you to Feldcroft. All it took was a quick trip to see the owl post stand and another superfluous order for some potions (with a little bit of Liquid Luck thrown in on a whim), and he knew you’d arrive by the time the heat broke.

He conveniently manages to be tending to his small garden when you touch down beside the Sallow home, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows while he pats some dirt around a sprig of fluxweed.

“Sallow?” You call out teasingly. “I have an order here for Sebastian Sallow?”

“Must be a lazy bloke, ordering all those Wiggenwelds instead of making them himself,” he answers, sitting back on his heels and wiping some sweat away from his brow with the back of his wrist. “Or perhaps just daft.”

“I happen to know that you can make a perfectly good batch of Wiggenweld yourself,” you point out.

Sebastian watches distractedly while you untie your hair, shaking it loose as it falls down to your shoulders.

“W-well, yours is better,” he insists. “Always has been, even Sharp said so.”

“It’s even better now,” you say proudly, pulling one of the bottles out of your bag to hand to him. “...You’re not actually hurt, are you?”

“No, just bored,” he admits. “I wanted to see you.”

If Ominis were here, he’d likely pick up on how those words make your heart race a little faster, but mercifully, Sebastian does not.

“Here I am,” you say. “And I’m all yours for the day, Mister Pippin gave me the rest of the day off.”

“Oh, really?” he replies, brushing some stray dirt off of his trousers as he stands up. “Whatever could we get up to with an entire afternoon?”

You blink in surprise as he stands, realizing for the first time that Sebastian has gotten taller.

“What?” he asks, catching your gaze.

“You’ve grown,” you say dumbly. “I – I mean, you’re tall.”

“Am I?” he asks, a teasing smirk on his lips. “Perhaps you’re just short.”

“I am not short,” you protest, following Sebastian as he leads the way into the old Sallow home.

It feels different now, obviously. Less like a family home and more like a chaotic bachelor pad, Sebastian’s strewn-about books and haphazard notes covering up a distinct lack of coziness.

It’s only for the summer, Sebastian had told you the first time you’d seen it.

(You know he doesn’t really have anywhere else to go anymore, what with the Gaunt household becoming more toxic by the day. You wouldn’t be surprised to find Ominis squatting there as well by the time July rolls around.)

“You’re practically pocket-sized,” Sebastian teases, closing the door behind you to keep some of the midday sun out. “I think it’s why you’re so powerful – it’s concentrated, your magic.”

You scoff and shove at his shoulder, wondering to yourself when he became so broad.

It had only been a few weeks since school had let out, hadn’t it? And suddenly Sebastian was walking around in a man’s body, one you were sure wasn’t there in Charms class in May. Or maybe it was, hiding beneath his suit jacket and his robes…

You blink rapidly to clear your head.

“Um. Your potions,” you mumble, pulling the rest of the bottles out of your satchel and placing them on the front room table.

Then you can’t help but ask, “What’s the Felix Felicis for?”

“Not sure yet,” Sebastian admits. “But I’m sure it will come in handy at some point.”

You hum under your breath, picking up the delicate vial and examining it in the light.

“Hand it over,” Sebastian demands with a laugh. “I don’t like the way you’re looking at that bottle, I know what temptation looks like on your face.”

Blushing, you place the vial in his outstretched hand, letting your own hand linger a beat too long. Sebastian quickly catches your wrist, turning your hand palm-side up.

“Merlin’s beard, your hand is small,” he observes.

“Not this again,” you groan.

“I’m being serious, you hold your wand with this tiny thing?” he jokes. “Poor Ollivander had his work cut out for him.”

“Let’s see yours, then,” you insist, holding your hand up to him. “Go on.”

Sebastian presses his palm against yours and you raise your eyebrows. His hand dwarfs yours to the degree that he could wrap the tips of his fingers overtop yours if he wanted to.

“See?” he says, his voice suddenly much quieter in the empty home. “Tiny.”

“And yet I can still beat you in a duel,” you retort, trying to calm your racing heart.

Just like that, the tension in the room dissolves away and Sebastian lights up.

“A duel, hmm?” he echoes. “Is that an offer?”

“Seriously? That’s what you want to do today?” you laugh. “It’s thirty degrees outside and you want to duel?”

“We could practice on the training dummies,” he offers hopefully. “You know you want to.”

…Damn him, he’s right.

“Fine,” you relent. “But if I sweat through this chemise, it’s your head, Sallow.”

Sebastian tries very hard to not think about you in a sweat-soaked white shirt as you lead him back outside, and if he trips over the doorframe on his way out, he’s happy to let you continue to assume it’s just his clumsy streak.

[permetutotheworld]

hi my name is Persephone, but you can call me Seph/Sephy/Nyx , I use they/xe pronouns, I’m an asexual lesbian, I’m autistic+adhd,

and I’m a minor (please don’t be creepy I’ve already had two people message me being weird and sexual)

I write a lot of poetry and I’m writing a book at the moment based off of the idea of multiple universes existing at a time, I sing and I love performing, specifically musical theatre

I ALSO TAKE REQUESTS!! I write poetry mostly for them but microfics tooo, for good omens, the marauders, percy jackson, les mis and any TJ Klune books that ive read, just pop a prompt into my inbox and ill do my best to get jt to you as fast as i can <3

my fandoms are : Les Mis, good omens, pjo, marauders, hunger games, aru shah, marvel, doctor who

my favourite music: queen, Maisie peters, the last dinner party, the crane wives, Taylor Swift, Florence and the machine, rene Rapp, Chappell roan, David Bowie, blondie, boygenius, most musicals

favourite books: house in the cerulean sea, under the whispering door, in the lives of puppets (all by TJ Klune)

my tags:

Nyx yaps: my silly little commentary on anything that happens to me

nyx vents: my life low-key sucks quite a lot at time so I vent a bit but I make sure to trigger warning everything triggering

nyx writes: I write silly little poems and stories that I post sometimes

nyx’s moots 🫶🫶: for my lovely moots

Nyx loves their gf: thats right guys i love my gf so mich and i talk about her a lot

perpendicular universe: posts about my fantasy novel im working onnn

Please dni if you’re queerphobic or discriminate against minorities in general, if you support trump or other dickwads like him or if you’re just going to be mean

also I do struggle a lot with mental health so I probably will randomly disappear or vent but I’ll make sure to trigger warning everything

my writing blogg: @persephone-writes-silly-stuff below the cut: my rp blogs, my moots and my fics

My rp blogs:

@nico-sees-dead-people @prongsie-rambles @regulus-the-star @pandora-opens-the-box @sunshine-boy-official

@enjolsaurus-rex @sunshine-prongsie-boy @panda-reads-your-death @lily-petals-falling @stars-andpoems

if you like my blog you should check out my amazing mutuals whom I love and adore:

@xenocollector LES MIS RAAA

@sauntering-vaguelydownward literally so sweet ilysm/platonically

@marylily-my-beloved love you Fatimah omg

@junos-ocean-galaxy very purple coded person and very cool also so genuinely lovely we live laugh love Juno in this household

@theoristswan5683 literally so nice omg they have the loveliest vibes 😭

@ashstillalive Amazing writer amazing person will happily beta read for you anytime

@mae-occasionally-reads so sweet so lovely so cool so glad we’re mutuals love you so much/platonic vibes only MY BEST FRIEND

@definitionoffuckup very cool individual

@rafaelthesilly I KNOW YOU IN REAL LIFE POOKIE YOURE THE BEST LESBIAN BUDDIE MY AMAZING SPOUSE ILYSM (platonically)

@ineffable-ezra I have more octopus facts for you!!!!!!!

@garden-of-runar the coolest person alive still can’t believe you followed me back althought yoir spice tolerance js weird as shit/lh and paprika is not spicy

@ravenwordss literally so sweet love you/pl

@pyromaniacbibliophile my spouse bc we are married

@cossie-fauchelevant the one and only cosette to my enjolras <3

@delinda24601 SHES SO COOL MY IRL BUS BESTIE LOVE HER TO BITS I FOUNDED HER FAN CLUB SHES SO SUPER COOL GUYS 🩷🩷🩷🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶

@im-on-crack-send-help RIYANAAA SO SUPER COOL ILYSM

@startswithahell - cant wait for those unhinged asks omgomg

@biggestqiblifan - I LOVE YOU SM/pl

@the-eclipse-is-in-me - one of my favouritest people on this hellsite

[dabistits]

"Two Lives" in Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life, Li Yiyun | "Ash," Tracy K. Smith | The Oresteia of Aeschylus, trans. Ted Hughes | "The Real Horror in The Haunting of Hill House," Sophie Gilbert | "Reassuring ghosts and haunted houses," Christine Ro | "Home," Warsan Shire | @/tiarnanabhfainni | "Courtney Love Prays To Oregon," Clementine von Radics | Rob Brezsny, quoted in We Were Witches, Ariel Gore | "How'd Your Parents Die Again?," Fatimah Asghar

[marylily-my-beloved]

Letters to A Happier Life - Hurt No Comfort Marylily Fic - @definitionoffuckup - Hope you guys enjoy the angst!!!

[gingernutsenthusiast]

a foreigner is a foreigner everywhere (variations on the theme of home)

[ Clementine von Radics, ‘Courtney Love Prays To Oregon’ // The backyard of my family home with my parents’ first dog, in Boda, Hungary, early 2000s // Fatimah Asghar, ‘How’d Your Parents Die Again?’ // Brandon Melendez, ‘How to Write Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle into a Promise to Return Home’ // My dad on the main street of the village I grew up in, 2005 // Melendez, ‘How to Write Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle into a Promise to Return Home’ // Keleti Railway Station in Budapest, 1900 // Melendez, ‘How to Write Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle into a Promise to Return Home’ // The hills of my childhood landscape, the Mecsek mountain range in South-West Hungary // Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue // My childhood home in Hungary, 2004 // James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room // My parents’ first house being built by friends and family members, around 1995 // @wvterways on tumblr // The iconic 25-story high-rise building of Pécs, my birthplace, 1985. The building became a ghost town in 2003 (incidentally, the year of my birth) and was then demolished in 2016 // @waitineedaname on tumblr // Uránváros, (a city district in Pécs, Hungary) in 1960, the neighbourhood of my grandparents’ apartment // @ohevoyev on tumblr // Danez Smith, ‘from “summer, somewhere”’ // Hungarian Parliament Building, 1896 // @electraheart2012 on tumblr // Analogue picture of Kőbánya-Alsó (Budapest X. District), the neighbourhood of our Budapest apartment // @cruellesummer on tumblr, lyrics from taylor swift’s my tears ricochet // Barbara Cassin, ‘Odysseus and the Day of Return’ in Nostalgia: When Are We Ever at Home? // Stage design of the 1975’s 2022 ‘At Their Very Best’ Tour // Bohemian Betyárs, Lebegő // The campsite of the summer camp I used to go to as a child, Óbánya, Hungary // Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves // Cassin, ‘Odysseus and the Day of Return’ // Trinity College Dublin (my university), covered in snow, 1994 // Neil Gaiman, American Gods // Esterházy, Péter. ‘A mi a bánat’, Élet és Irodalom, 1996. 51–52.]

[torsamors]

Harry Kim x Voyager and ‘Home’

quote sources + notes under the cut

Chelsea Dingman, from "Psychogeography," published in The Los Angeles Review / Longing Poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe / James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room / Joy Harjo, from “We Must Call a Meeting,” In Mad Love and War / James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room / Joan Bauer - Almost Home / James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room / Clementine von Radics, ‘Courtney Love Prays To Oregon / Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot / Fatimah Asghar, from “How'd Your Parents Die Again?” / Naguib Mahfouz / Louise Glück, The Triumph of Achilles / Brandon Melendez, ‘How to Write Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle into a Promise to Return Home

Purple highlight refers to Non-Sequitur, pink refers to Favorite Son, Yellow refers to Deadlock, green refers to Emanations and red refers to Timeless.

[songofwizardry]

belated Ramadan Mubarak!

I try to do a bit of reading every Ramadan, so, for accountability, and so that when I inevitably don’t get through them I can find my list next year—here's my (extremely very ambitious) reading list for this year!

(suggestions are very welcome, with the warning that I very much may not get through them. this year, I’m trying to learn more about Islam and liberation theology and I’m trying to read more abolitionist texts, and of course my standard queer Muslim books, I’m trying to read more poetry by Muslim poets I don’t know well, and every Ramadan I try and only read fiction by Muslim authors, so there’s some sff on here too!)

non-fic:

memoirs:

We Have Always Been Here by Samra Habib (reread)

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

The Colour of God by Ayesha S Chaudhry

Love is an Ex-Country by Randa Jarrar

A Dutiful Boy by Mohsin Zaidi

other nonfic:

Islam and Anarchism by Mohamed Abdou

We Do This Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba (reread-ish? I never fully finished it)

Let This Radicalise You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba

Qur'an and Woman by Amina Wadud (which I also never finished)

The Women's Khutbah Book by Fatima Seedat and Sa'diyya Shaikh

Qur’an of the Oppressed: Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam by Shadaab Rahemtulla

With Stones in Our Hands: Writings on Muslims, Racism, and Empire by Sohail Daulatzai and Junaid Rana

fiction:

The Candle and the Flame by Nafiza Azad

Mirage by Somaiya Daud (yes I still have not read this)

The Light at the Bottom of the World by London Shah

Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faisal

poetry:

Halal If You Hear Me (anthology)

If They Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar (reread)

Hagar Poems by Mohja Kahf

Bad Diaspora Poems by Momtaza Mehri

The Fortieth Day by Kazim Ali

Black Seeds by Tariq Touré

Postcolonial Banter by Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan

[saffronapplemanga]

Tenmaku no Jadoogar: A Witch’s Life in Mongol - 天幕のジャードゥーガル

HISTORICAL, DRAMA

Tenmaku no Jadoogar: A Witch's Life in Mongol by Tomato Soup

(1 volume, ongoing)

JP only. Hopefully, it gets licensed! Please hire me to translate this, publishing companies. The first 5 chapters are up for free in JP here.

Links to my other manga posts here

An Irani girl named Fatima who’s a captive of the Mongol Empire and uses her education to her advantage??? 

Hello, my name is Fatimah, I’m half Irani, and it’s finally my time >:)

I hope you guys are ready for history and cultural lessons! I worked really hard on this post and she’s a long one... I literally just came back from an Iran trip and got some books, took pictures, and consulted people who know more than me for this post (the trip wasn't for the post, that was a coincidence lolllll).

This series won first place in the オンナ編 (Female Category) for the このマンガがすごい！2023 / Kono Manga ga Sugoi 2023 / “This Manga is Amazing! 2023″. I’ve talked about the Male Category’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd place winners. Check the links if you’re interested :)

This post will be broken up into the following sections - What's It About? - Some Background - Representation - My Localization Choices - Story - Art - Culture Time! - Let's Talk Religion - The First Word From God, "Read".

Enjoy!

What's It About?

I usually don't like to go into plot details too much so you can discover the story for yourself. But since it isn't currently accessible in English at all, I figured I’d summarize the first chapter so you at least know what it’s about. Then I’ll summarize the rest of the chapters in a spoiler section for those who are interested. That way, we can all be informed enough to discuss it. I might touch on themes or other things outside the first chapter in the discussion, but I’ll try to do it in a way that doesn’t spoil for those of you who want to wait and read it for yourselves.

Chapter 1

We kick off with a rather poetic reference to scholars using geometry to measure the earth and the idea of trying to quantify fate. In 13th-century Iran/Persia, in the city of Tous, we meet a family looking for a domestic worker. The family is a woman, Fatima, who is newly widowed, her son, Mohamed, and her brother. A slave trader offers her some options, but they are rather pricey. So he suggests she take a little girl, Sitara, for a heavily discounted price. The slave trader asks Fatima to educate Sitara since they are a scholarly family, so she does.

However, Sitara plays dumb to ensure her value as a slave stays low. That way, no one would bother taking her to faraway lands to sell her for higher prices as she wants to stay close to her home to try and go back. Sitara tries to sneak out and runs into Mohamed, who talks to her about why he thinks learning is so great. He inspires her to pursue an education so she can have the tools to handle whatever life throws at her. Mohamed wants to travel and learn from others to find the "truth" for himself. He promises Sitara that he'll write letters to her and his mother, which further inspires her to learn to read.

The chapter ends with Mohamed leaving Tous, and the narrator tells us it was the last time Mohamed and Sitara ever saw each other.

Chapters 2-5

I'm going to speed through the rest now that we got the setup out of the way.

***SPOILERS FOR CHAPTERS 2-5***

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*

*

8 years have passed since Mohamed left and Sitara has been pursuing an education under the direction of Fatima and her brother. While the Tous army is investigating strange activity near their borders, Fatima shows Sitara some things her late husband left behind such as books and astrology tools.

As the Mongols are closing in on Tous, Fatima and Sitara hunker down in a cellar to wait the threat out. Unfortunately, they're found, and one of the Mongol princes takes a book that belonged to Fatima's late husband. Sitara tries to stand up to him, causing her to be attacked. Fatima takes the blow, saying, "Don't touch my daughter," before passing away.

Tous is razed to the ground, and its citizens killed or driven out and forced to march to the Mongol camp. Sitara finds out that the city of Neyshabur, the city Mohamed is studying at, was also attacked. His whereabouts are unknown.

Interestingly, the Mongol prince was specifically looking for the book he took since his fiance had asked him for it. However, the book is in Persian and they are unable to read it. Sitara meets a boy who is interpreting for the Mongols in an effort to make himself more useful to avoid becoming a meat shield in battles for them. While he can speak Mongolian and Persian, he can't read. But, Sitara can. He asks her to team up with him to help each other become more valuable to their capturers. Sitara will read the stolen book, and the boy will translate. He suggests she come up with a more "elegant" or "majestic" name before presenting herself to the Mongol princes. She steps into their tent and introduces herself as "Fatima".

*

*

*

***END OF SPOILERS FOR CHAPTERS 2-5***

Some Background

Quick disclaimer, I'm by no means an expert. A lot of this is what I know and what I've experienced. I might have to make some generalizations or else we're gonna be here all day.

I feel like I’m about to overshare but I want to offer my perspective on this series. I don’t get to do this often so indulge me please. This background is so you have an idea of some things that influenced my perspective on this story.

For those of you new around here, I'm a Kuwaiti/Irani-American, Japanese-to-English translator (I speak English, Arabic, and Japanese).

What that means more specifically is that I've grown up/lived in the U.S. my whole life, visiting Kuwait when we could, until I moved to Japan after college. My parents are both Kuwaiti with Kuwaiti fathers, born and raised, but both of their mothers are Irani. They know Farsi to varying degrees of fluency as a second language. I never learned it since their first language is Arabic and that was the language they focused on teaching me while living in the U.S. They usually spoke Farsi if they wanted to keep me and my brother out of a conversation between adults, rude. But I can sometimes pick up on some things being said. One of my best friends is Irani-American (Her name is also Fatimah! It's a ridiculously popular name) and our experiences are quite different, but there's overlap as well!

For those of you who don't know where Kuwait is. It's a tiny little country in the northern end of the Persian Gulf in Western Asia. FYI "Mina" in "Mina Al Ahmadi," which you can see on the map, means "port".

Most of our Kuwaiti relatives have Irani roots and some Turkish. There are a lot of ethnic groups in Kuwait because it started out as a port city that was a part of the Silk Road network. (I actually wanna study the Silk Road more!) So lots of people from all over gathered there. There are afro-Kuwaitis, those with blonde hair and blue eyes (my mom's relatives are like this), those with more East Asian features (my cousins), those with darker features (my dad's side), etc.

The Silk Road in the 1st century, courtesy of Wikipedia. You can see the route going through Kuwait. It was specifically part of the Maritime Silk Road route.

Because of all the trade, you can see the influences of many other regions in the food, clothes, language, culture, and so on.

But, yeah! History is cool.

Representation

I am indeed one of those people who is annoyingly passionate about representation. Like, I could write a whole Master’s dissertation on why it’s so important, but I’ll spare you… for now. More eloquent people have already done so anyways.

As you can imagine, I’m not used to seeing myself represented in media. And any representation I did get, was… well, how do I put this… not great? Bad™ actually. Beyond racist tbh. So can you blame me for being excited? I’m still mad about that one episode of Grey’s Anatomy when that girl whipped off her scarf/hijab to save a patient IN A FULLY STOCKED HOSPITAL!!! That would NEVER happen ;_; like imagine if you pulled your pants off to put pressure on a wound when the gauze is literally right there. I CAN’T, where do I even begin??? But I digress.

And even if I wasn’t a person from this culture, it’s just cool to see rep we don’t usually get! For example, Requiem of the Rose King is fresh in my mind right now, but having an intersex main character is not something I recall seeing. While not intersex myself, nor a noble from ye olde times, I related to Richard a lot and appreciate what the story did. I can see people from other cultures relating to Tenmaku no Jadoogar, or simply just learning new things about a culture we don’t get to see a lot of rep about.

My Localization Choices

There are no official spellings for this manga, so some explanations as to why I wrote things the way I did. Thankfully, these are all real-world names with context, so I'm not pulling nonsense out of thin air. Localizing uncommon/made-up names is... hard... traumatic flashbacks to when I had to look up official spellings for Gundam and Kamen Rider and the client didn't give me glossaries... Literally did research about Sypha Belnandes' name localization being all over the place for this blog post. Spoiler, I don’t think it was supposed to be Belnandes.

It really be like that...

Sitara - シタラ "Shitara". This isn't a name I was familiar with, so I asked my mom and Irani-American friend if it sounded like a name they knew. I wanted to say "Sitra" sounds like something that has a more "West Asian pronunciation" than the Japanese pronunciation in the manga. I was wrong and it's "Sitara" which means "star" just like what they said in the story.

Fatima - ファーティマ "Fātima". Same as my name! It's a super popular name. I katakana-fied my name as ファティーマ, which is the same, I just put the dash that elongates the sound in a different place. Why? Fatima is an Arabic name فَاطِمَة. In classical Arabic, it's pronounced like Fā-dtee-ma or Fadt-ma in Kuwaiti Arabic (the letter طِ doesn't exist in EN/JP and the best way I can describe it is it's like D+T sound.) An Irani pronunciation is more like Fā-teh-meh, which is what my grandma and Irani-American friends call me. In English, I personally pronounce my name like Fuh-tee-ma, but people have various preferences. So basically, I took the Arabic and English pronunciations and katakana-fied it how I thought it would sound best in Japanese. And no one has ever pronounced my name wrong in Japan since katakana is phonetic and is actually pronounced how it's spelled. Wild I know. Meanwhile in the U.S. ... *cries* I have a half-Irani-half-Japanese acquaintance who doesn't put any elongated sound in her name like ファティマ, and it's all just preference tbh. There are also different ways you can spell it in English, but "Fatima" is the most common way.

Mohamed - モハンマド "Mohanmado". This one is pretty straightforward. I think most people are familiar with this name. Also super popular. There are various English spellings as well, so I just went with a common, shorter spelling (manga bubble space is limited after all, haha).

The title, 天幕のジャードゥーガル Tenmaku no Jadougal (this is how it's romanized on anilist), also doesn't have an official translation. It basically translates to Witch of the Marquee. Tenmaku="tent/marquee" in Japanese. ジャードゥーガル comes from جادوگر "jadoogar" meaning "witch" in Farsi. The romanization of the title should actually be Tenmaku no Jadoogar. There is no "L" in Japanese, so it often becomes "R". In Japanese, ジャードゥーガル is "Jādoogaru". Without context, it's often hard to tell if it's supposed to be "L" or "R" so I don't blame them for the mistake. But yeah, that's why I wrote it as Tenmaku no Jadoogar for the title at the top of the post. How do I contact the anilist admins about correcting that? The way my brain is short-circuiting trying to combine Japanese, English, my nonexistent Arabic reading skills since Farsi uses basically the same alphabet, and consulting my Farsi "sources"... my brain can only handle two of the three languages I speak at the same time...

Shout out to Fatimah #2 for putting up with all my questions <3 Farsi has some extra letters that aren't in Arabic and I didn't know about that one...

Story

I’m starting to realize that I really dig historical fiction. Things like Requiem of the Rose King (current read, I'm obsessed), Vinland Saga, Bride’s Story (a priority TBR of mine), and Ertugrul (this one is a Turkish drama, highly recommend!) are so fascinating because we get to take a peek at what life used to be like, especially if the author did their homework. This story reminds me of Ertugrul at times since they both take place in West Asia during the 13th century, and the characters in both had run-ins with the Mongols.

This baddie took out three Mongolian soldiers on her own!!! Well, her horse helped. Horses are great. I'm a horse girl, literally took riding lessons for ~4 years.

I found out while researching for this post that this story is in fact based on a real person in history! Here's the Wikipedia page, more info here by Dr. Jack Weatherford who wrote a book that I'm totally going to read once I can get my hands on it. I think this manga is going in a similar vein as Vinland Saga where the events are real historical events, and some characters were actual people in history, but the author is going to take creative liberties. (Check out Merphy Napier and Philip Chase's Vinland Saga discussions. They're great and Philip has a lot of historical knowledge relevant to that series that's super informative!)

The characters are lovable and interesting. I like Sitara's spunk, Mohamed's thoughtfulness, and Fatima's gentle nature, just to name a few. The relationship Sitara has with Mohamed and Fatima was very sweet. I'm interested to see how the relationship that I mentioned at the end of chapter 5 goes. Also intrigued by the bits of relationship dynamics with the Mongolian characters we have so far.

I got super excited when the theme of "learning/education" came up. Seeing how that looked back in 13th-century Persia which was a hotspot for advances in many fields is so cool! This story led me to do some research and asking around on topics I was familiar with, but not an expert on, and I learned things about my own culture/religion. More on learning and education later. But overall, a strong start and I can't wait to read more!

Art

My twitter reading thread for this series

The art is very stylized, like a chibi-esque style with Persian art influences. I like the contrast between the simplified shapes and the detailed bits. I’m a big fan of inky blacks and white whites. I know all manga is black and white but this one feels like it has more contrast due to the simplified shapes. It's got tons of charm!

The shoujo-esque flowery background, but make it Irani-flavored✨ It looks like the rug we got in Iran!

Some pictures I took at historical sites in Tehran with more examples of flowery imagery. Sorry if the image quality sucks, I didn't have my good camera :(

Culture Time!

As soon as I saw this cover, I felt a sense of familiarity. Particularly, the style of henna on her hands made me go, “Hey! That’s similar to how we do our henna!” While we also do the mehndi style henna (Is that the right term? Help) in Kuwait because of Indian influences due to longtime trade, we have another kind as well. You take the paste and hold it in your hands while curling your fingertips into it.

I had such a hard time finding pics that weren’t the intricate mehndi design ones. I would’ve just put henna on my own hands and taken a pic to show what I’m talking about, but it’s winter and it’s not good to use henna in winter because it has a cooling effect. I put henna on in winter once, and it made me so much colder. But makes you feel nice and cool in the summer! That’s why it’s traditionally applied to the head, hands, and feet, which are places you have a lot of heat dissipate from and it saps the heat away. I remember my mom doing that for me and my brother all the time when we were little during summer.

But! With the help of my mom, she helped me narrow it down. I didn't know the actual name of this style of henna. I just called it Kuwaiti-style henna lol. Apparently, it's حنه قصعة henna gasa'a, and bingo!

It doesn't show super well here, but the tops of the fingertips are also dyed like on the cover of the manga. Love that nazar ring though, so cute! 🧿

This is the mehndi style henna that people are most familiar with.

When I was little, I assumed that henna was made from soil because there are soils that can dye things a reddish color. But it's actually from a plant! The leaves are ground into a powder and then made into a paste when you want to use it.

Health, cleanliness, and hygiene are big deals in Islam. Other than being used for beauty and it’s cooling effect, henna is also used to keep oneself clean and smelling nice. It’s said that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) utilized henna as well.

I actually didn't know much about Iran's henna culture. When I asked my Irani-American friend whose family is from Tehran (northern Iran), she said she wasn't familiar with any. But like Kuwait, Iran has a lot of ethnic groups. It's also a large region (it used to be a whole empire and all that, too), so there are definitely people who do use it!

Turkmen Iranis, dying their fingertips with henna, exactly like in the manga! My family are Turk, too! (From a book I picked up a few days ago in Iran, "Nomads: Migrating with Swallows". What a pretty title...)

The clothing of the characters also felt very familiar. The cover of volume one reminded me of this picture:

Maku Kurd girl ("Nomads: Migrating with Swallows")

Iran grows tons of fruit, herbs, and flowers, famously roses! Rose water is a staple we pretty much always had at home.

Rose water is used for medicinal purposes and has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory qualities. People often wash up with it since it has a lovely fragrance and makes you smell nice. It's also used in foods and desserts or added to drinking water for flavor and health benefits.

Sitara bringing Fatima rose water. It looks just like this 12th-century rose water container. We still have containers like this nowadays and I actually used one to wash my hands recently.

Faloodeh (Persian Lime and Rose Water Granita With Rice Noodles), Bastani Sonati (Saffron and Rose Water Ice Cream), in Kuwait we say Sharbat Nimil but apparently, it's Tokhm-e Sharbatie in Iran (Rose Water and Basil Seed Drink) Fun fact: Sharbat Nimil means "ant drink" because the seeds look like... ants... and the thought freaked me out as a kid, I never wanted to drink it. I thought my aunt was messing with me but my parents said, "Yeah, no, that's actually what it's called."

Dates! Another staple. Always have some in the house.

These are ripe dates. We call them "tamar". Sweet, delicious, amazing.

These are fresh dates! We call them "khalal". Sweet, crunchy, amazing.

The architecture was also, you guessed it, familiar as well. Particularly the courtyards! It really took me back.

Courtyards! My Irani grandma (also Fatima, I told you it was a popular name...) had a courtyard home in Kuwait too, but less fancy, and she had a huge date tree instead of a fountain. We would play there all the time when we visited. Also reminds me of the houses in some of the Irani movies I've seen.

Let's Talk Religion

I know religion is historically always a fun and totally not divisive topic, but we're all going to be civil and discuss stuff like adults. I'm not trying to convert anyone, I swear. Chasing after people and forcing religion down their throats is actually frowned upon in Islam believe it or not. I’m also not saying it’s a better religion than others or anything of the sort so don’t come for me. It's just relevant to the story and I'm hoping we can interact in good faith, so let's talk.

I am NOT a scholar, this is just what I know and my understanding so please don't quote me. I probably have to gloss over and simplify a lot because there's... too much.

There are various interpretations of Islam. The Quran, to my understanding, is meant to have its interpretations evolve over time to address the issues of people no matter the time or place. Issues faced centuries ago might not be as pressing now, or we might have new issues today that weren't a thing back in the day. Iranians mainly practice Shia Islam, which is also the sect I know most about so that's what we're focusing on.

Islam is the fastest-growing religion. It's also quite misunderstood due to hate/misinformation, AND — I'm gonna just say it — there are Muslims who have skewed interpretations of Islam's teachings. Am I the perfect Muslim and my interpretations are law? I didn't say that, obviously not. But I'm going to call it how I see it. I don't take sides and I'm not going to defend someone just because they identify as Muslim if they're doing stuff that doesn't make sense (that would be un-Islamic and just... dumb imo). But anyway, there are a few points I’d like to touch on so we all have a base understanding.

Many people think that Allah (SWT) is “the Muslim god” but actually, he’s the same god that brought down the Bible and Torah. He's just... God. This is why you’ll see a lot of crossover between these religions. And Christian Arabs, for example, say Allah because that’s just God in Arabic.

Why did God come up with different religions? It’s my understanding each religion was what the people needed at the time. (Also because of the next point.)

Muslims DO believe in the original Bible and Torah, but historically there's evidence that these books have been altered by people over the years. (Again, I'm not saying your religion is wrong if you're Christian or Jewish. You do you.) Then what about the Quran? I’ll actually address that later.

Muslims DO believe in Jesus. We just think he's a prophet instead of the son of God or God.

Cool? Cool.

Now to address some religion-related things that came up in the story.

The part where there is the selling of slaves made me raise an eyebrow since slavery is not allowed in Islam, because, duh.

I did some research and asked around. I was able to talk to my Irani-American friend's aunt when I visited them during my Iran trip last week since she's studied this kind of stuff. She joked that I should save myself the trouble and not touch the slavery topic, especially with Americans since it's... like... a super touchy topic. But this is an important topic and we should talk about important topics instead of shying away from them. Respectfully, of course. And maybe we can all learn something. It was a perspective on slavery that was very different from what I'm used to hearing about in the U.S. She essentially confirmed what I was thinking.

The Quran envisions the ideal society as one in which slavery no longer exists. Since slavery was such a widespread issue around the whole world back in the olden days, (it still is an issue today, but I'm assuming it was worse back then) it was unfortunately unrealistic to try and abolish it in one fell swoop. Again, this isn’t just abolishing in one country or region, but tackling the issue worldwide. So, in Islam, the idea is that there are steps in place to phase it out. For example:

No free people can be enslaved, duh.

People cannot be enslaved due to debt or crime.

You are encouraged to help slaves buy their way to freedom by giving them money to do so or buying them to free them.

If you are in possession of a slave, you should free them.

If you house a slave, you must treat them well.

This last one is just an interesting thing I didn’t know about that I saw in my research and it came up in the story — Slaves get half the punishment for a sin than if the same sin was committed by a free person.

I wondered why then, did Fatima's family not free Sitara and the other slaves? It didn’t look like they had anything stopping them from running away either. Sure, Sitara got scolded by another slave for trying to leave, but she could have tried again and run away. The other slaves in the story seemed like they wanted to/were okay with staying, even though they did wish they could go home and felt homesick. So what’s up?

It's my understanding that back then, it was common for people to take slaves into their families, sometimes even presenting the option of marriage into the family if they were interested, and offering shelter and and education. It was a way to take them off the streets, away from the slave traders, and keep them safe.

Why not just take everyone back to their homes? Various reasons. They might be in danger if they try to go back. They might not have anywhere to go back to. Also, this was the 13th century. It's not like they could just hop on a plane and go home. There's also no law enforcement the way we have today. Hell, even with all the local and international law enforcement of today, slavery is still a major issue.

Sitara wants to go home but has no home to go back to.

Is this ideal? As I mentioned, ideally slavery wouldn't even be a thing. I’m pretty sure we can all agree slavery=bad. I'm not here to argue that. But I also think it's important to try and understand what things were like back then and why people did what they did. A lot of times I see people measure things with their standards that were developed in modern day, with their own life experience. You need to be careful when doing that. I'm sure in the future, people will look back at us like, "Damn, y'all lived like that???"

Perhaps, this was the best the average person could do. Try to protect them and offer them shelter and an education. As long as we don’t live in an ideal world, we need to consider various solutions to issues. So this was an interesting way to try and tackle the issue given the time and circumstances. It’s rather different from what I think most Americans know about this subject.

Did everyone do this? I'm going to say probably not. Terrible people always exist. Plus there are plenty of people who say they practice a religion, but cherry-pick what they want to follow, do the opposite, have distorted understandings of its teachings, or just downright weaponize religion to suit them. That's a whole other discussion though, so I'll leave it there.

I would like to read more about this topic though, so if anyone knows any sources, let me know!

The First Word From God - "Read"

"Slave or not, it is a Muslim's duty to seek knowledge, as stated in the hadiths."

What's a hadith? Here you go. Also, this is the OG Fatima, Lady Fatima (PBUH).

When God first sent the angel Gabriel down to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), his first word to him was, "read". Education and seeking knowledge are SUPER important in Islam, and should not be kept from anyone regardless of race, gender, social standing, etc. Seeking knowledge will make you a more rational, well-rounded person. Knowledge in this context is broad and all-encompassing. It doesn't only mean religion, math, and science, but philosophy, art, and so on. Literally anything. I hope I don't really need to convince anyone that education is a human right and empowering and all that stuff, so let's keep it moving.

"Isn't that what learning is all about?"

To address this earlier point:

Muslims DO believe in the original Bible and Torah, but historically there's evidence that these books have been altered by people over the years. Then what about the Quran?

Tbh, I hesitated to include this part because people might misinterpret or take offense. To reiterate for the umpteenth time, I'm not saying your religion is wrong if you're Christian or Jewish. You do you. We’re actually told to respect believers of these religions. I swear!

So, yeah. Moving on.

Another reason seeking knowledge is an obligation in Islam is so that you are able to read the Quran for yourself. When loads of people read it, memorize it, and are familiar with it, any changes will not go unnoticed. This is to stop people from weaponizing and distorting the Quran's teachings. And this is why there is only ONE Quran, and not multiple versions (I’m not talking about translated Qurans). Modern-day Qurans match the oldest Qurans. They haven't changed.

In general, having knowledge about things makes you less susceptible to being lied to or misled, regardless of the topic. Unfortunately, I'm in the camp where I believe not enough people do their own research and reading. And again, I don't just mean religion, but everything. That kind of thing takes effort, and effort is hard.

Go read!

You're Still Here?

Like the first-place winner for the Male Category, The Summer Hikaru Died, which I’ve been pushing on anyone who will listen since volume one hit bookstores in Japan, Tenmaku no Jadoogar: A Witch's Life in Mongol deserves to win the Female Category. From what I can see so far, it’s well researched and written with love. I'm looking forward to seeing how this story unfolds and I may add more thoughts as we go.

Volume 2 is due to come out February 16th, so I’ll be tweeting my thoughts on my reading thread. The link to this post is on Twitter here if you want to share it there. EDIT: Volume 2 post is up!

If there's anything else you'd like to see me discuss or expand on, let me know and I'll see what I can do. I'd love to hear what others think!

I await your email publishers, my resume is ready... fatimahhajiasiri@gmail.com

🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿🪬🧿

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If there’s any Japanese-only manga you want me to check out, let me know! No promises, I’ll only read what I’m interested in, but I’ll take suggestions into consideration. Preferably, shorter manga or newer manga with a few volumes out since I like to take breaks from longer series I’m reading :)

[dandelion-network]

Mid-Year Book Freakout

@doughtah said anyone can tag in so i'm tagging in

1.Best Book so far in 2024: The Intersectional Environmentalist: how to dismantle systems of oppression to protect people + planet by Leah Thomas. Thomas covers the lack of focus and consideration on environmental racism in discusses about climate change and sustainability by environmentalists from the Global North. There are loads of resources in the back of the book for future reading and education.

2.Best Sequel you've read so far in 2024: I haven't read any sequels but I have read the first book of 2 different series.

3.New Release you haven't read yet, but want to: Bury Your Gays by Dr. Chuck Tingle

4.Anticipated Release for the second half of the year: Don't have one. I only notice the year books are being released and not the actual months and days.

5.Biggest Disappointment: Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt. The writing wasn't disappointing, but that ending? I mean I guess lol.

6.Biggest Surprise: The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker and it was only surprising because the movie adaptation really an incredible job actually adapting the story. I thought things would be more noticeably different or have different events but it's pretty 1:1 with minimal changes.

7.Favorite New Author: No new favorites.

8.Newest Fictional Crush: None.

9.Newest Favorite Character: Maia from The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. The best boy, the sweetest boy just doing his best.

10.Book that made you cry: None but reading Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Davis was an emotional experience.

11.Book that made you happy: ANNIHILATION BY JEFF VANDERMEER MY BELOVED

12.Most Beautiful Book you've bought/acquired this year: If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar. No one does book covers like poetry collections do book covers.

13.Book you need to read by the end of the year: I need to finish A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys and Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer

If you see this post on your dash, this is me encouraging you to do the tag.