rionaleonhart | Climb That Mountain.

Episode 8.03 of Waterloo Road has just finished and, er, whoops, I think I might be full-on 'shipping Josh/Tariq. Tariq is a practising Muslim and the Qur'an is not, to my knowledge, particularly wild about homosexuality, so there might be a bit of an obstacle there. Although I suppose his faith has taken a few knocks of late. And he doesn't seem to have any problem with Josh's sexuality; just with the fact that Josh won't stop helping him go away Josh.

At the very least I suspect Josh has a bit of a crush on Tariq. Josh has a type, and that type is trouble.

So now I'm slightly conflicted. On the one hand, I really like that Josh is a gay character who has crushes and boyfriends but also has storylines that don't have anything to do with his sexuality (this is one of the very few things Waterloo Road actually does right). So it'd be nice for his friendship with Tariq to be just that - friendship - because Josh may fancy boys, but that doesn't mean that he fancies all of the boys. On the other hand, how delightful would Josh/Tariq be?

The answer: probably not actually that delightful, because this is Waterloo Road and so horrible things would happen to everyone involved. But I would be delighted regardless.

(I've just remembered that I made notes on what Tariq's daemon would be, even though Tariq didn't appear in the His Dark Materials AU I inexplicably wrote. I seem to remember that she wasn't settled, she favoured canine forms and she generally didn't get along with Tariq at all. Sambuca's daemon would be a grey squirrel.)

Something I forgot to mention in my earlier entry on Revenant Wings: there's a wonderful bit where Tomaj asks 'Do you wanna know what I think?' and your options are 'Okay, okay' and 'Not if I can avoid it'. I couldn't resist choosing the second. Sorry, Tomaj.

Being asked 'Who do you like?' during the weapon-crafting process also amused me. The possible answers include 'None of your business!' and 'It's Pe— personal!', but my favourite is 'I like everyone!' It's just so Vaan.

Also, Filo's crush on Llyud is adorable. And Vaan tries to scout out whether Llyud is interested in her! She's eleven, Vaan. Llyud is twenty, and aegyl only live for forty years, so by the standards of his species he's middle-aged. This seems really inappropriate.

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I feel like you should check out A Jihad for Love. Fascinating stuff.

...I'm totally not enabling you, wut

(especially ironic as I don't know the canon at all)

While most Muslims are against the whole gay thing, it's not a totally homogenous community, and you get a wide range of views running from "Kill them all!" to "Yeah, we can totally hold a gay Muslim wedding!" So it's really a matter of interpretation how much of an issue it'd be.

I certainly don't think all Muslims are necessarily opposed to homosexuality! Tariq certainly doesn't seem to have a problem with Josh (well, not a sexuality-related problem, at any rate; Josh is trying to take Tariq under his wing at the moment and Tariq doesn't want any wings over him, thank you). I do think actually being in a relationship with another boy would probably cause Tariq some internal conflict, though, and he's a tremendously internally conflicted soul as it is.

(When I consider why I think Tariq would suffer internal conflict in such a case, incidentally, two reasons spring to mind. The first is 'he seems fairly by-the-book in his faith most of the time'. The second, and by far the larger, is 'he's a Waterloo Road character; like anyone in Waterloo Road isn't going to be internally conflicted about something with the potential for internal conflict.')

Edited 2012-09-06 22:01 (UTC)

That makes sense. The impression I got from my (admittedly limited) reading on the subject is that the gay accepting position is the minority one in most Muslim communities, and I've known several religious people who are all "Well, I don't feel it's God's ideal vision for human sexuality, but I'm not going to judge others if they feel different about it, especially since so many other people are so cruel about it", so Tariq could think like that. (And, of course, get tremendously conflicted if he was interested in another guy, especially if, as you say, he's prone to getting internally conflicted about things.)

IT IS EXCITING TO ME THAT I CAN ACTUALLY USE THIS ICON IN CONTEXT FOR ONCE. I didn't really get along all that well with Final Fantasy XII, but Revenant Wings absolutely charmed me. I am mildly concerned as to what this says about me, but mostly I don't care because everything in that game is too precious. Have you been returning to the airship after every mission? The characters almost always have something specific to say about the latest events, it's so delightful.

Filo's crush is adorable. I agree with you that it would be inappropriate as an actual relationship, so good work Vaan, but she is very lovely and I'm extremely fond of Llyud. I'm fond of just about everything in this game, though. Tomaj! Ba'gamnan! Everyone in tiny sprite form! The logbook! AHHH I need to get back on my replay, I was really quite close to finishing it again ahhhh.

Have you been returning to the airship after every mission?

YES. I was so excited when I realised that not only did the logbook update after missions, but the characters had new things to say! It became my main motivation for progressing, actually. I just love all the silly little conversations.

(Your icon is far too cute.)

http://iamnotharaam.tumblr.com/ = being a practising Muslim is not necessarily an obstacle to being a great big gay. And frequently isn't. As the Imaan (http://www.twitter.com/imaan_LGBTQI) float every year at Pride will also attest.

IN WATERLOO ROAD, EVERYTHING IS AN OBSTACLE TO BEING A GREAT BIG GAY. That's actually its advertising slogan. Not that Tariq can't be a great big gay, but there would definitely be a huge 'how does he reconcile his great big gayness with his faith???' storyline.

Waterloo Road is effectively just one Special Episode after another, right? The TV equivalent of leaflets in the nurse's office.

Climb That Mountain.

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