I’m dying.
I was already on board and then you hit me with that Aphrodite being Beyoncé and I just I’m never leaving, this is so perfect
more on writing muslim characters from a hijabi muslim girl
– hijabis get really excited over pretty scarves
– they also like to collect pins and brooches
– we get asked a lot of questions and it can be annoying or it can be amusing, just depends on our mood and personality and how the question is phrased
– common questions include:
– “not even water?” (referring to fasting)
– hijabis hear a lot of “do you sleep in that?” (we don’t) and “where is your hair?” (in a bun or a braid, usually)
– “is it mooze-slim or mozzlem?” (the answer is neither, it’s muslim, with a soft s and accent on the first syllable)
– “ee-slam or iz-lamb?” (it’s iss-laam, accent on the first syllable)
– “hee-job?” (heh-jahb, accent on the second syllable)– “kor-an?” (no. quran. say it like koor-annn, accent on the second syllable)
– people tend to mess up our names really badly and you just get a sigh and a resigned nod or an awkward smile, maybe a nickname instead
– long hair is easy to hide, short hair is harder to wrap up
– hijab isn’t just covering hair, it’s also showing as little skin as possible with the exception of face, hands, and feet, and not wearing tight/sheer clothing
– that applies to men too, people just don’t like to mention it ( i wonder why)
– henna/mehendi isn’t just for special occasions, you’ll see people wearing it for fun
– henna/mehendi isn’t just for muslims, either, it’s not a religious thing
– henna/mehendi is not just for women, men also wear it, especially on their weddings
– there are big mehendi parties in the couple of nights before eid where people (usually just women and kids) gather and do each other’s mehendi, usually just hands and feet
– five daily prayers
– most muslim kids can stutter through a couple verses of quran in the original arabic text by the age of seven or eight, it does not matter where they live or where they’re from or what language they speak natively
– muslim families tend to have multiple copies of the quran
– there are no “versions” of the quran, there has only ever been one. all muslims follow the exact same book
– muslims have no concept of taking God’s name in vain, we call on God at every little inconvenience
– don’t use islamic phrases if you don’t know what they mean or how to use them. we use them often, inside and outside of religious settings. in islam, it is encouraged to mention God often and we say these things very casually, but we take them very seriously
– Allahu Akbar means “God is Greatest” (often said when something shocks or surprises us, or if we’re scared or daunted, or when something amazing happens, whether it be good or bad; it’s like saying “oh my god”)
– Subhan Allah means “Glory be to God” (i say subhan Allah at the sky, at babies, at trees, whatever strikes me as pleasant, especially if it’s in nature)
– Bismillah means “in the name of God” and it’s just something you say before you start something like eating or doing your homework
– In Shaa Allah means “if God wills” (example: you’ll be famous, in shaa Allah) (it’s a reminder that the future is in God’s hands, so be humble and be hopeful)– Astaghfirullah means “i seek forgiveness from Allah” and it’s like “god forgive me”
– Alhamdulillah means “all thanks and praise belong to God” and it’s just a little bit more serious than saying “thank god” (example: i passed my exams, alhamdulillah; i made it home okay, alhamdulillah)
– when i say we use them casually, i really mean it
– teacher forgot to assign homework? Alhamdulillah
– our version of “amen” is “ameen”
– muslims greet each other with “assalamu alaikum” which just means “peace be on you” and it’s like saying hi
– the proper response is “walaikum assalam” which means “and on you be peace” and it’s like saying “you too”As a Muslim this post is so very important and it makes me so happy that it gives the small facts and details that one might be unaware of or confused about.
hot take: the capitalist cultural construction of “humans are naturally greedy and self-centered” is just an attenuated version of the feudal christian construction of “humans are inherently sinful”; both are designed to make people internalize cultural problems and externalize morality.
building off that hot take: western individualism (the American Dream, meritocracy, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality) is actually a hopelessly sentimental cultural fantasy that stems from this toxic capitalist conceit, and it’s high time we start admitting in our personal lives and in our public policy that humans actually live in dynamic and overlapping webs of inter-dependency
@nmd4ao3 asked for what I would write if I combined a teacher au and a dystopian au.
This fic would be set in the future. The world is controlled by the Empire, a government twisted around controlling the population by indoctrinating children with their close minded, self serving ideals.
The only hope? An underground network of teachers, laying the groundwork for a generation that will defy those ideals. Only a few can be trusted, their ranks spread thin and the number of minds they can enlighten few. Spies abound, attempting to root out the rebellious spirit, the spark that can turn the tide on this war.
In the midst of this, two men find themselves racing against time to protect the network. One a believer from youth, the other a reluctant participant in the Empire’s plans recently turned to the light – these two must put aside their fears and their differences for the greater good. The only question: will they survive long enough to realize that they’re far stronger together than they could ever be apart?
I would so read this
I am a sucker for one particular trope, so if you are so inclined- hurt!Cassian and protective!Jyn.
Thank you for the prompt! Caretaking is my jam and I was inspired by what I was eating for dessert. Hope you like it. 🙂
–
Jyn dragged the metal chair towards his bed with a purposeful screech, aware that he was actually awake. She knew by now the pattern of his breaths and the loose curve of his jaw whenever he was sleeping. He knew she knew. So he didn’t even bother pretending and just turned his eyes towards her, like this was just another boring afternoon in the Yavin IV medward.
She was fine. Two weeks of bonesetters and bacta had healed cracked ribs and smoothed over burned skin. He, of course, had almost died.
And he wasn’t eating.
So she brought the bundle she had dragged in with her to her lap and spread the cloth apart, showing the bright orange fruits she had found in crates in a corner of the hangar. The citric smell filled her nostrils and made her mouth water as she took one in her hand and started peeling it using her blunt nails. Cassian watched her, silently, nostrils flaring whenever he caught a whiff of their fragrance.
“These were my favorite,” she started saying, “whenever Saw brought me here as a kid.”
She had already admitted to him that her being brought over from Wobani hadn’t been her first time at the Massassi Great Temple. He had been shocked, had wracked his brain for any memory of her but not found any.
“I like them, too,” he offered, voice still raspy from the tubes that had been shoved down his throat so he could breathe in those hazy days before the Death Star was destroyed.
She used her legs to bring the chair closer, to make sure he smelled the oil that would spray minutely into the air every time she ripped into the fruit’s skin. She tossed the peels aside and pulled apart a small section, shoving it into her mouth.
“Force, it’s been ages since I’ve had them,” Jyn sighed, chewing around the words as she spoke them.
She let juice dribble onto her chin on purpose and made quick work of the first one of the Yavin tangerines. Cassian’s eyes were on her mouth and she felt just a teensy bit smug, nails digging into the peel of the second fruit. She ate it in silence, spitting out whatever seeds there were, rubbing her hands together, making sure the smell lingered in the air.
He huffed a laugh. And then winced because it hurt his ribs.
“I know what you’re doing.”
“I never thought you didn’t.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, a fleeting thing.
“Come here,” he said.
Jyn got up, holding on to the tangerines, and sat on the bed. She reached out and brushed his hair away from his forehead, feeling for his temperature in a way that made him roll his eyes. He stopped her hand, took it in his and tugged her down to him.
His lips tasted like bacta. Hers, of tangerine juice.
“I’ll have one if you’ll take the seeds out,” he whispered against her mouth.
“Very well, Captain.”
1. I’m sorry you’re in pain and can’t do the things you want! Sending love from a galaxy (ok, country) far far away. 2. Awkward Teenage Luke Skywalker with a crush on… anyone in Rogue One, honestly.
Thank you for the prompt and for the kind message. I’m not in any real pain, thankfully, which always sounds weird to the doctors I’ve seen, ‘cause from the MRI that really shouldn’t be the case. And well… Siento que no estamos tan distantes así, por lo menos linguisticamente, ¿no? 😉
I’m not really secure in writing from Luke’s POV, but I’m always fascinated by him coming into the Rebellion in ANH and just, you know, being him. I went with something that reminded me of when I was a teenager. Hope you like it!
–
It took a while for Jyn to convince Bodhi that she and Cassian weren’t a couple. The bizarre way they both had fallen into step together since Jedha had left, it turns out, a lot of people with that impression. Bodhi seemed torn and he explained it to her, albeit a little confusedly, why it was so: on the one hand he didn’t feel as left out in the middle of what seemed so many little units – Jyn and Cassian, Cassian and K-2, Chirrut and Baze. On the other, he felt slightly betrayed by the mere notion that two people so in sync and so obviously smitten with each other weren’t actually a couple.
“You should be together,” he said a bit drunkenly, one night when they were having another revelry in the aftermath of their victory while packing up to evacuate Yavin IV, “just do something about it.”
Jyn scoffed, but said by way of appeasing him that she was working on it, all the while turning starving eyes on the lithe profile of their subject-matter as he picked up drinks for the three of them.
Cassian still had a slight limp and when he sat down next to her, she felt warm without even having tried the Corellian whisky yet. She wished Bodhi could feel the same about someone.
Awkward Teenage Luke is my JAM! ¡Muchísimas gracias, @estherlyon, me encantó! (Y me alegro saber que no te duele tanto – ¿es posible que tienes un superpoder, y por eso no sientes dolor?)
Day 5: Favorite Dynamic/Relationship, Hope
Day 5: Favorite Dynamic/Relationship ❙ Alternative prompt: Hope
Cassian Andor had seen many people broken. By war, official or otherwise. By poverty. By impossible choices. By the sheer hopelessness of daily oppression from the Empire, and, if he was being truly honest, from the Republic before them. He had gotten used to seeing people break, and he no longer let it get to him.
But sometimes, it still did.
Luke Skywalker had joined the Rebellion as a teenager. Fresh-faced farm-boy from a sandy rock in the middle of nowhere. Reeling from sudden loss, but still full of youthful enthusiasm. Still full of hope. Cassian couldn’t stand to see it die in him.
Rebellions are built on hope, he’d told Jyn, and Jyn had repeated his words to the Council. And somehow, those words had become true. It had become a kind of catch-phrase, the unofficial slogan of the Rebellion. Cassian had heard those words come back to him time and again over the next five years. General Organa, bolstering the failing faith of a battle-weary soldier. Veterans inspiring the fearful new recruits. Wise-asses, throwing it around every time they heard someone say I hope we don’t have faux-bantha stew again tonight. Erso, muttering to herself when she thought no one was listening. (Or maybe she did know he was listening. It was hard to tell with Jyn.)
It seemed to be commonly accepted that Rebellions were Built On Hope. But what about what came next?
The war was over now. Cassian was not so naïve as to think that the work was over, too. He knew that this war, any war, was merely one battle in the fight that would never truly end. Still, there might be some respite, every once in a while. In this moment of calm, they’d earned the chance to regroup, to look back on what they’d accomplished, and to enjoy it.
Shara Bey had lost no time and had begun enjoying right away. The wedding was so rushed, they hadn’t even bothered inviting anyone. She and Dameron had just held the ceremony right here on base, and whoever happened by was free to celebrate with them.
Bodhi Rook had gone off to visit Baze Malbus, one of the only other surviving NiJedhans. They were rebuilding Jedha City, or rather, building anew – nothing could replace that ancient site of pilgrimage – and Rook thought he might stay on and help. He thought he might even help out a bit with the scrolls Malbus was writing, dedicated to that other monk Cassian had known so briefly.
Erso was planning to find some out-of-the-way planet, the sandier the better, to settle down, and never think about war or rebellion again. Cassian gave her three standard weeks. It was the most generous bet in the pool.
Lando Calrissian had returned to Cloud City. Class stratification had worsened in his absence, and Lando realized that he needed to make some changes before it became another Canto Bight. If some of Cassian’s favorite jackets happened to go missing the same day he left, it was surely just a coincidence. As was the sun-yellow shimmersilk cape hanging in their place in Cassian’s wardrobe.
But what of the fresh-faced farmboy? The brash young hotshot who’d destroyed the Death Star? The sandy-haired kid whose care and faith and hope had made even the most cynical smuggler stick around and join the fight? That young boy was dead and gone, replaced by a stony faced Jedi. The very last one, as far as anyone knew. So many millennia of tradition would die, at last, with him.
Cassian couldn’t bear it. He’d been young once, too. He’d believed in the goodness of people, the rightness of the galaxy, and he’d had it crushed out of him by the time he was six. Skywalker hadn’t, and this had saved him. He couldn’t lose it now, not when they finally had time to put down their weapons and be free.
Skywalker was sitting alone in the mess hall. It wasn’t hard to find an empty table – since the war had officially ended, most people had left the Base and gone home. The only ones left were those without a home to go to. Cassian gave a nod to General Draven, also sitting alone, but passed his table to join Skywalker instead. The young man looked up, surprised, when Cassian sat down.
“Captain Cassian Andor,” Cassian introduced himself.
“I know who you are,” Skywalker said off-handedly. Then he smiled ironically. “I assume you know who I am too, don’t you?”
Cassian nodded, taken aback.
“Well you can just call me Luke. No title needed. The war is over, apparently, so we’re all civilians now.”
Cassian huffed a laugh. “I guess so. That’ll take getting used to. I haven’t been a civilian since I was six years old.”
Luke’s eyes grew wide, and his cynical mask slipped. “Six? You – What? – That’s terrible! You were a child!”
“I didn’t officially join up until I was eight,” Cassian amended, but Luke’s eyes just grew wider. “I mean twelve?” This conversation wasn’t going the way he’d hoped.
“I was nineteen when I joined up,” Luke said, staring off into the distance. “I thought I was so young. I was just sheltered, I guess. Six,” he repeated with a touch of despair.
“That’s just what I’d like to talk to you about,” Cassian said firmly, pleased to see Luke turn back to him, the dazed look fading. “Nineteen is young, should be young. And it can be young again. These children growing up now, and the ones who come after them – they won’t have to fight like we did. They’ll get to have a childhood, a real childhood, in a free galaxy. And we have to help shape that galaxy for them.”
“Shape the galaxy…” Luke turned away. “What do you propose? What master plan do you have for the galaxy’s glorious new future?” His voice was bitter.
“No, no, nothing like that! Please, I’m from a Separatist planet, I would never suggest…” Cassian shook his head vehemently. “No, I would never suggest we take away choice, just when it’s finally become possible again. But what are the choices offered to these children? Freedom is a half-gift if there’s nothing left to hope for.”
“Rebellions are built on hope,” Luke quipped ironically. Then he started. “Oh shavit, I’m sorry, I forgot you were the one –”
Cassian just laughed. “We don’t need to reuse those tired old words anymore,” he replied. “It’s not a rebellion now. It’s peace. It’s possibility. And what will you bring to it?”
Luke shrugged. “I don’t know. I… I know I should be happy – ecstatic even – but honestly, I just feel tired. I reconciled with my father, saw the good in him, got him to see the good in himself, just in time to lose him. We won the war, and I’m thrilled, but once the parties died down, I just – I feel like I don’t know where to go next.”
“It’s normal to feel this way,” Cassian assured him. (He certainly hoped it was.) “Take your time, but don’t wallow. Think – what is it you wish you had had, when you were younger?”
“A teacher,” Luke said automatically. “I don’t mean I never went to school or anything. But I wish I’d had more training as a Jedi. I got about three lessons from Master Kenobi before I lost him, and I had longer with Master Yoda, but it still wasn’t enough. And I felt so stupid, getting these basic lessons when I was already fully-grown. I wish I’d had those lessons as a kid, like I was supposed to.”
“Then that’s what you can offer,” Cassian said earnestly.
Luke perked up. “I guess you’re right. I probably won’t be the best teacher in the galaxy, but I’m the best we’ve got right now. I won’t let that go to waste.”
“Now all you need is children.”
“Are you propositioning my brother?”
“W-what?” Cassian sputtered, whipping around. Princess Leia – General Organa – whatever she was going by these days – was standing half a meter away, smiling that enigmatic smile of hers. “N-no, Your Highness – General – I was just…”
“Call me Leia. As my brother keeps telling me, we’re all civilians now. What were you saying about children, then?”
Cassian regained his composure, ignoring the mirth in Luke’s eyes. This was the thanks he got for trying to cheer the boy up? “I was just saying, Your – Leia – that Luke should become a teacher. Train the next generation of Jedi. And for that, he’ll need children. Not necessarily his own,” he added, blushing under Leia’s amused smirk. How could such a young woman be so intimidating?
“Oh, good, so borrowed will do? That’s good because – and I haven’t told anyone else, not even Han, and I will kill you both if anyone finds out about this – you just might have your first student soon.”
Luke’s eyes lit up again. “Oh, Leia, that’s wonderful news! Congratulations!”
“Shh!” she shushed him, but she was still smiling. Cassian took the opportunity to start to slink away.
“Wait, what about you?” Luke asked, and Cassian sat back down, chagrined.
“What about me?” Cassian asked innocently.
“What will you offer to this Glorious New Future?”
Cassian shrugged.
“Glorious New Future?” Leia asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Cassian was just reminding me that we each have our parts to play in the post-Empire galaxy. That we each have something to offer. I can train new Jedi. You can rebuild the Senate, without all the corruption. Han can, I dunno, tell amusing stories? Ferry you around to important councils?”
Leia laughed. “He’s good for more than that, you know.”
“Spare me the details, please. Anyway,” he turned back to Cassian, “what about you?”
Cassian’s stomach clenched. He was a seasoned spy. He could charm his way out of any situation, convince almost anybody of almost anything. But some lies, he had trouble convincing himself.
Suddenly, his fingernails became very interesting. “I gave a lot in the war. Before the war. Like I said, I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old. Maybe I don’t have anything left to give. But that’s alright, I did my part.”
Leia laughed again, and Cassian looked up, bewildered. “Don’t be stupid,” she admonished. “You just brought my brother out of the funk I’ve been failing to get him out of for weeks. You do know what you just gave him, don’t you?”
Cassian shook his head.
“Hope.”
Cassian started to smile, and the twins added in perfect unison, “Rebellions are built on hope.”
Leia gently placed her hand on her still-mostly-flat stomach. “And the Glorious New Future is built on hope, too.”
(Soon to be added on AO3.)
Rebellions are built on hope 