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adropofhumanity · 5 months

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IMPORTANT CRISES THAT ARE BEING IGNORED BY THE WORLD

[ we already are aware about palestine, NOT just gaza so i will refrain from mentioning anything here regarding it ]

these crises will not follow any specific order but i will be numbering them for the sake of proper structure.

i also did my best to find reliable and accurate information. please do not start hating me or questioning my efforts if i have mentioned something wrong or incorrect. instead you can correct me politely. additionally, if there are any crisis that i have missed out on, bring it to my awareness.

i am not going to be including all details but some major highlights so as to be able to keep ourselves updated of atleast the surface level knowledge (so i will try)

reblog and include (or highlight what needs to be excluded) any details that would serve in the best interest of this post.

1. TAMIL EELAM

sri lanka is an island historically inhabited by tamils, sinhalese, muslims, and other communities. the tamil nation is concentrated in the northeast. the muslim community generally speaks tamil. the majority of the country's sinhalese population lives in the southern part of the island and are buddhist.

following independence from britain, the sinhalese ruling class began to build an ethnocratic nation-state that entrenched sinhala-buddhist supremacy. tamil workers' rights were denied in the new nation-state, while tamil students were refused equal access to education. tamil people protested peacefully, but sri lanka responded with arrests and massacres.

in july 1983, the worst anti-tamil pogroms swept the island: tamil people were hunted in the streets, pulled out of their homes, and killed while sri lankan police watched on. In six days, 4000 tamils were killed. government ministers led mobs and targeted tamil homes in areas where tamils and sinhalese both lived, amounting to what the international commission of jurists labelled an act of genocide.

sri lanka booted the UN and international press from the country before relaunching its war against the tamil people in 2006. the state used banned chemical weapons like white phosphorous on civilians. a UN report estimates that 75,000 tamil civilians perished from september 2008-May 2009 alone. ground sources place the number much higher and estimate that over 120,000 people were killed in the final stages of the war.

nothing was spared. hospitals and religious buildings, full of the sick and wounded, were routinely bombed. the armed forces shelled food distribution lines and near International red cross ships picking up wounded civilians from beaches. even the government's own "no-fire zones," packed with thousands of civilians, were indiscriminately attacked from the ground and sky.

for the tamils, the last stages of the war fit into a broader pattern of sri lanka's post-colonial state-building project: a protracted genocide involving massacres, economic embargoes, indiscriminate bombings, discriminatory policies, and the dispossession of tamil lands. tamils fear their political identity, as a distinct group of peoples, a nation, will be dismantled and reduced to a scattered minority across the island.

12 years after the genocide, the sri lankan armed forces maintain complete control through a military occupation of the tamil homeland. five of the seven regional headquarters of the army are entrenched in the tamil homeland, with over 100,000 soldiers maintaining an environment of harassment and surveillance over the tamil people. like kashmir and palestine, the tamil homeland remains one of the most militarized places in the world.

HOW TO HELP

2. ROHINGYA

in august 2017, armed attacks, massive scale violence, and serious human rights violations forced thousands of rohingya to flee their homes in myanmar’s rakhine state. many walked for days through jungles and undertook dangerous sea journeys across the bay of bengal to reach safety in bangladesh. now, more than 960,000 people have found safety in bangladesh with a majority living in the cox bazar’s region - home to the world’s largest refugee camp. the united nations has described the rohingya as “the most persecuted minority in the world.”

the rohingya are a muslim ethnic minority group who have lived for centuries in predominantly buddhist myanmar - formerly known as burma. despite living in myanmar for many generations, the rohingya are not recognized as an official ethnic group and have been denied citizenship since 1982, making them the world’s largest stateless population.

as a stateless population, rohingya families are denied basic rights and protection and are extremely vulnerable to exploitation, sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and abuse.

the rohingya have suffered decades of violence, discrimination and persecution in myanmar. their largest exodus began in august 2017 after a massive wave of violence broke out in myanmar’s rakhine state, forcing more than 742,000 people - half of them children - to seek refuge in bangladesh. entire villages were burned to the ground, thousands of families were killed or separated and massive human rights violations were reported.

more than 1 million rohingya refugees have fled violence in myanmar in successive waves of displacement since the 1990s. now, more than 960,000 rohingya refugees are living in bangladesh with a majority settled in and around kutupalong and nayapara refugee camps in bangladesh’s cox’s bazar region — some of the largest and most densely populated camps in the world.

more than half of all rohingya refugees in bangladesh (52 percent) are children, while 51 percent are comprised of women and girls. the current refugee population accounts for one-third of the total population in the cox’s bazar region, making support to host communities essential for peaceful coexistence.

since 2021, to decongest the 33 camps in cox’s bazar, nearly 30,000 refugees have been relocated to bhasan char island by the government of bangladesh. while protection services and humanitarian assistance have been scaled up on the island, significant gaps remain in service delivery and the sustainability of critical assistance.

rohingya refugees have also sought refuge in other neighboring countries like thailand (92,000) and India (21,000), with smaller numbers settling in indonesia, nepal and other countries across the region.

armed clashes across myanmar have continued to trigger displacement, bringing the total number of internally displaced people (IDP) within the country to more than 1.8 million — including 1.5 million of whom have been internally displaced since february 2021.

as of december 2023, however, a new issue arose. the indonesian navy has pushed back a boat carrying rohingya refugees as it approached the coast of aceh amid resentment among some residents about a sudden increase in boat arrivals. the military said the coastguard first detected the wooden vessel entering indonesian waters on wednesday, before the navy ship KRI bontang-907 located the boat about 63 nautical miles (117km) off aceh on the northwestern tip of the archipelago and drove it out, “ensuring that the boat did not return to indonesian waters,” the navy said in a statement posted in its website.

military spokesperson nugraha gumilar said it was not known how many people were on board. they are suspected to be rohingya, a mostly muslim minority from myanmar who were forced into neighbouring bangladesh by a brutal military crackdown in 2017 that is now the subject of a genocide investigation.

more than 1,500 rohingya refugees have landed in indonesia on barely sea-worthy wooden boats since november, according to data from the united nations refugee agency (UNHCR), and the sudden jump in arrivals has aroused growing hostility among people in aceh.

indonesia has appealed to the international community for help and intensified patrols of its waters, promising to crack down on suspected human traffickers it says are involved in the latest wave of boat arrivals.

on wednesday, a mob of students stormed the basement of a local community hall in banda aceh, the acehnese capital, where about 137 rohingya were taking shelter and called for the group to be deported.

many of the refugees are in poor health after weeks at sea usually with insufficient supplies of food and water.

the UNHCR said it was “deeply disturbed to see a mob attack on a site sheltering vulnerable refugee families”.

indonesia, although not a signatory to the 1951 UN convention on refugees, was once known for providing a safe haven to the rohingya even as neighbouring malaysia and thailand pushed them away.

but the mood has soured this year, especially in aceh, where some residents claim the rohingya behave badly and create a burden on society.

muslims make up nearly 90 percent of indonesia’s 277 million people, and aceh is the only state in the archipelago to follow islamic law.

the growing hostility towards the rohingya has put pressure on president joko widodo’s government to take action.

“this is not an easy issue, this is an issue with enormous challenges,” foreign minister retno marsudi told reporters.

HOW TO HELP

3. MANIPUR

on may 3, members of the kuki and naga tribes, who inhabit manipur's hills and are regarded as scheduled tribes, or india's most disadvantaged groups, launched a protest against the possible extension of their benefits to the dominant meiteis.

meiteis account for half of manipur's population and extending limited affirmative action quotas to them would mean they would get a share in education and government jobs reserved for kukis and nagas.

meiteis have traditionally lived in manipur's more prosperous valley region that makes up 10% of the state's area. they have also had better access to employment and economic opportunities.

nagas and kukis live in the poorly developed hills.

the development imbalance favouring the valley over the hills has been a point of contention and rivalry between the ethnic groups.

the groups coexisted peacefully until unrelated events in recent months exposed old faultlines.

manipur shares a nearly 400-km (250-mile) border with myanmar and the coup there in 2021 pushed thousands of refugees into the indian state.

kukis share ethnic lineage with myanmar’s chin tribe and meiteis feared they would be outnumbered by the arrival of the refugees.

separately, the state government in february launched a drive to evict tribal communities from forests in the hills, saying they had encroached on government land, sparking anger among tribal people that they were being forced out of their homes.

"it has been building up for a long time, in some ways unseen and some ways quite openly, but the government was not paying attention," said pradip phanjoubam, editor of the imphal review of arts and politics.

although the first outburst of violence was put down by mid-may, sporadic reprisal attacks began within days.

both the meiteis and kukis are known to be flush with arms, including automatic weapons either stolen from the state police or sourced from across the border in myanmar.

new delhi has held talks with senior myanmar leaders to help control armed groups that operate from across the border but this is yet to produce results.

kuki and meitei groups also refused to join a peace panel formed by the federal government due to differences over names included in the panel.

the indian army and federal paramilitary forces in the state cannot act independently and are legally bound to work with state police and authorities, who analysts say are also divided along ethnic lines.

also, kukis accuse the bharatiya janata party-ruled state government's chief minister biren singh, a meitei, of complicity and inaction, and have sought his removal. singh denies the accusations.

HOW TO HELP

4. HAWA'II ( MAUI )

maui wildfires of 2023, a series of wildfires that burned parts of the island of maui in the U.S. state of hawaii in august 2023. the fires, which began on august 8, struck hardest the historic resort town of lahaina, on maui’s western peninsula, reducing most of the town to ash and ruins. 98 people were killed in lahaina by the smoke and flames or by drowning, making the wildfire one of the world’s deadliest on record. almost 3,000 structures were reported to have been either damaged or destroyed by the fire. in addition to the fires on maui, a series of less devastating wildfires burned parts of the island of hawaii starting on august 9.

while local and state government officials have hesitated to identify a specific cause of the wildfires (in general, uncontrolled fires in a forest, grassland, brushland, or cropland) as of august 17, some evidence suggests that sparks produced by a downed power line may have touched off at least one of the fires. meteorologists and climate researchers noted that the fires were likely to have been the product of several intersecting factors. the fires occurred at the height of hawaii’s dry season (which lasts from april to october). their severity was exacerbated by the presence of el nino—that is, the development of unusually warm ocean waters in the central and eastern tropical pacific ocean. el niño brings increased rainfall to south america’s west coast but brings drought conditions to the hawaiian islands. indeed, the interval of june to august 2023 was a period of worsening drought on maui and in other parts of hawaii. as the drought increased in severity, it dried vegetation, much of it made up of large tracts of fire-prone invasive shrubs and grasses.

in addition, the pool of warm water in the tropical pacific kept fueling hurricane dora, a powerful tropical cyclone that had formed off the western coast of mexico on august 2. dora passed some 1,100 km (about 700 miles) south of the hawaiian islands during the week of august 8, the day the fires began, which created a substantial difference in atmospheric pressure between the storm and a high-pressure system located north of the islands. that pressure difference drew high winds southward and funneled them into the centre of the tropical cyclone, which helped intensify and spread the wildfires. wind speeds reached as high as 107.8 km (67 miles) per hour on maui and up to 132 km (82 miles) per hour on the island of hawaii.

some researchers have noted that climate change may have played a part in worsening the wildfires’ severity. increases in global and regional surface temperatures due to ongoing global warming are thought to have caused grasses and other vegetation to dry out faster than usual. in addition, studies that considered trends in hawaii’s rainfall indicated that some 90 percent of the state had experienced at least some decline in overall rainfall between 1920 and 2012 and that rainfall amounts at higher elevations had fallen by more than 30 percent between 1990 and 2015 during the state’s wet season (november to march). in addition, the replacement of native vegetation with crops over the last century has affected local climate conditions, primarily in accessible areas in several parts of the state of hawaii, including near sections of coastline and in maui’s central valley—the sites of the island’s wildfires.

the fire near lahaina, a municipality of 12,702 people, began as a small brush fire just beyond the town’s eastern outskirts in the early morning hours of august 8. although local officials considered it to have been contained by mid-morning, the fire flared up during mid-afternoon, forcing officials to close lahaina’s bypass road. driven by the high winds, the fire then moved downslope into the town, and it spread quickly between the parched grassy landscape and the town’s predominantly wooden buildings, generating an immense wall of black smoke. within 15 minutes, the fire had spread to the centre of the town, burning the area between the town’s two primary access roads, which prompted additional road closures that hindered evacuation. the process of alerting residents to the danger was severely hampered by the toppling of several telephone and electric power poles in the area by high winds earlier that day, which had cut power needed for wireless services and telephone lines used for 911 emergency communication. as the fire grew, it became so intense that it melted pipes delivering water to lahaina’s residences, which reduced the town’s overall water pressure and thus inhibited the fire department’s ability to contain the wildfire.

ny 5:30 PM large areas of lahaina, which included tracts of residences and the town’s central business district, were on fire as exploding gasoline tanks in vehicles and filling stations contributed to the conflagration. since emergency services had no way to alert people through their mobile devices, the fire caught many residents by surprise, forcing some to flee in haste while trapping others in their homes. many of those who fled became boxed in by fire, smoke, and road closures; some sheltered in place, whereas others sought refuge in the pacific ocean, clinging to docks, pilings, seawalls, and other infrastructure. by 7:00 PM the fire had reached the harbour, and boats caught fire from the mix of wind-whipped flames and flying embers, causing their fuel tanks to explode. although the fire continued to burn in lahaina throughout the night, U.S. coast guard boats arriving offshore were able to evacuate several people trapped along the coast.

during the morning of august 9 the winds abated enough to allow firefighting crews, helicopters, and other resources to begin to make their way into lahaina, where they found a grayed landscape of ruined buildings and burned-out vehicles. officials reported that the lahaina fire had been 80 percent contained by august 10 and that it had burned nearly 890 hectares (about 2,200 acres) by august 14. maui’s other wildfires, which included the pulehu/kihei fire in maui’s central valley and the upcountry/kula fire along the slopes of the island’s eastern peninsula, were less severe, resulting in far fewer damaged homes and other structures and no reports of serious injuries or deaths. similarly, on the island of hawaii, fires scorched some 600 hectares (about 1,500 acres) of ranchland in the north and south kohala sections of the island, but no injuries were reported.

even as the fires began to spread on maui, government officials started to issue disaster declarations to fund firefighting efforts, rescues, and recovery. hawaii’s lieutenant governor, sylvia luke, issued an emergency declaration during mid-afternoon of august 8, which was followed later that evening by the activation of hawaii’s national guard. the following day, as reports of the unfolding disaster in lahaina reached the outside world, the U.S. federal emergency management agency (FEMA) authorized payments to fire victims, and U.S. pres. joe biden promised that “all available federal assets on the Islands” would assist in relief efforts. such efforts had increased by august 16, aided by state and federal agencies (including the U.S. Army, which provided logistical support and assisted in road clearing) and private charter flights that delivered donations of food and other supplies. In the aftermath of the wildfires, thousands of displaced maui residents were taken to shelters and evacuation centres on the island, which included hotels abandoned by tourists who had been evacuated to other islands or to the U.S. mainland.

HOW TO HELP

5. KURDISTAN

kurds have never achieved nation-state status, making kurdistan a non-governmental region and one of the largest stateless nations in the world. portions of the region are recognized by two countries: iran, where the province of kordestan lies; and northern iraq, site of the autonomous region known as kurdistan regional government (KRG) or iraqi kurdistan.

the turkish government claims to be conducting operations against the kurdistan worker's party (PKK) - a kurdish rebel organization that is outlawed by the state. through the use of airstrikes, the turkish military is hitting targets across the region and pushing deeper into southern kurdistan, launching ground operations from the military bases that it controls in the area.

a consequence of this encroachment into southern kurdistan is that civilians are being hit by turkish drones. those who are being hit are not just fighters but also ordinary kurdish civilian. innocent lives are also being lost when those who are hit succumb to their injuries. turkey justifies such acts under the pretext of fighting the PKK a rationale that it has used repeatedly to justify other military incursions. is this conflict new? absolutely not. what is new is the response to these operations. In previous decades, the turkish state could get away with indiscriminate bombing and military incursions as long as its justification centered on fighting terrorism. this justification was, after all, what other state actors operating in the region would use to rationalize military incursions against those deemed state enemies. no longer are there just people from kurdish diasporas across the world calling out the turkish state for its disregard for international law, but also from non-kurds. even at the administrative level of the united states government, officials are no longer believing the rhetoric that the turkish state uses to justify its military incisions. there will be no peace in kurdistan until turkey withdraws. there will be no peace for victims until turkey is held accountable for its criminal actions now and in the past. and as long as these atrocities are left without a response by international state actors and multilateral organizations such as the united nations and NATO, turkey will continue to commit crimes against kurds, including kurdish civilians.

HOW TO HELP

6. YEMEN

yemen is in the middle of a complex humanitarian crisis driven by a brutal civil war. indiscriminate attacks and chronic shortages of medical staff and supplies have led to the closure of many of yemen's healthcare facilities. more than 4.5 million people have been displaced since the war started in 2014. qith an estimated 21 million currently in need of humanitarian assistance.

collapsed health system- warring factions have extensively damaged public infrastructure, notably health facilities. since the saudi-led coalition (SLC) imposed a blockade in 2015, import restrictions and soaring inflation have severely limited yemenis' access to healthcare and essential services. the blockade has led to the cessation of salaries for many of the 50,000 health workers within the country, compelling them to exit the public health system in search of alternative income sources.

disease- due to the ongoing war, obtaining clean water, waste disposal, and accessing medical care have become even more challenging for the people. coupled with limited access to vaccinations, this heightened vulnerability has left yemenis susceptible to preventable diseases and emerging epidemics. the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was particularly severe, with yemen having one of the lowest vaccination rates globally in 2021. in 2017, a cholera outbreak led to 101,475 patients being admitted to hospital. the same year, cases of diphtheria emerged, a disease largely eradicated in most countries due to systematic childhood vaccinations.

trauma- continual fighting and indiscriminate attacks have affected the ability to provide trauma care, which remains a vital responsibility of hospitals in the area. teams in hospitals near the frontlines routinely react to mass-casualty incidents and continually strive to enhance their capacity year-round to address the frequent arrival of war-wounded and other trauma patients.

malnutrition- yemen is grappling with alarming rates of malnutrition. widespread food insecurity and limited access to essential healthcare services leave many children vulnerable to infectious diseases. Inflation exacerbates the situation, making it progressively challenging for yemeni families to provide nourishment for their children and cover the expenses of transporting them to hospitals.

it has been troubled by civil wars for decades, but the current conflict intensified in march 2015 when a saudi-led coalition intervened on behalf of the internationally recognised government against houthi rebels aligned with the former president ali abdullah saleh. the war is widely regarded as having turned a poor country into a humanitarian catastrophe. riyadh expected its air power, backed by regional coalition including the united arab emirates, could defeat the houthi insurgency in a matter of months. instead some reports suggest nearly 100,000 people have died. others put the death toll much lower, but fighting this year alone has displaced 250,000 people. there are more than 30 active front lines. a total of 80% of the population - more than 24 million people - need assistance and protection, including 10 million who rely on food aid to survive. its roots lie in the arab spring. pro-democracy protesters took to the streets in a bid to force the president, ali abdullah saleh, to end his 33-year rule. he responded with economic concessions but refused to resign. by march 2011, tensions on the streets of the capital city, sana'a, resulted in protesters dying at the hands of the military. following an internationally brokered deal, there was a transfer of power in november to the vice-president, abd rabbu mansour hadi, paving the way for elections in february 2012 - in which he was the only candidate to lead a transitional government. hadi's attempts at constitutional and budget reforms were rejected by houthi rebels from the north. the houthis belong to a small branch of shia muslims known as zaydis. they captured the capital, forcing hadi to flee eventually to riyadh. there is also a strong secessionist movement in the south. arguably too many sides benefit financially from the status quo. united nations officials warned that without more donations, nearly 400 hospitals and health care centers it finances would have to reduce services just as the coronavirus pandemic has surged in yemen. already, food rations have been halved for 8.5 million hungry yemenis, and 10,000 health care workers have lost the united nations payments that for many are their only salary, ms. grande said. since the war began five years ago, pitting the houthis against a government backed by saudi arabia and the united arab emirates, yemenis have endured doomsday after doomsday: relentless airstrikes against hospitals and schools by the saudi-led military coalition using american-made weapons, a severe cholera outbreak, the ever-present threat of famine, a health care system in collapse and now the coronavirus. "yemenis themselves say things are worse today than at any time in their recent history," mr. lowcock said in his appeal to donors, asking "whether the world is prepared to watch yemen fall off the cliff."

HOW TO HELP

7. SYRIA

over 80% of the population in syria is living below the poverty line. that means they make less than $1 a day. more than 11 million people require humanitarian assistance, 5 million of which are children. 93 million people across syria are now food insecure lacking reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. 70% of the population is without regular access to safe drinking water. 6.1 million people have been internally displaced. up to 70% of healthcare professionals have left the country & 50% of hospitals are non-operational. 40% of school infrastructure has been destroyed or damaged.

government and allied forces continued to commit war crimes and other serious violations of international humanitarian law, including indiscriminate attacks and direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects. according to the UN, government forces did not approve around half of their requests to carry out humanitarian missions to:

monitor

assess and accompany aid deliveries,

provide security, logistics and

administrative support.

you may ask, how did the "war" start? even before the conflict began, many syrians were complaining about high unemployment, corruption and a lack of political freedom under president bashar al-assad, who succeeded his father, hafez, after he died in 2000. in march 2011, pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in the southern city of deraa, inspired by uprisings in neighbouring countries against repressive rulers. when the syrian government used deadly force to crush the dissent, protests demanding the president's resignation erupted nationwide.

the unrest spread and the crackdown intensified. opposition supporters took up arms, first to defend themselves and later to rid their areas of security forces. mr assad vowed to crush what he called "foreign-backed terrorism".

the violence rapidly escalated and the country descended into civil war. hundreds of rebel groups sprung up and it did not take long for the conflict to become more than a battle between syrians for or against mr assad. foreign powers began to take sides, sending money, weaponry and fighters, and as the chaos worsened extremist jihadist organisations with their own aims, such as the islamic state (IS) group and al-qaeda, became involved. that deepened concern among the international community who saw them as a major threat. syria's jurds, who want the right of self-government but have not fought mr assad's forces, have added another dimension to the conflict.

the united nations human rights office estimated last year that 306,887 civilians - 1.5% of the total pre-war population - were killed between march 2011 and march 2021 due to the conflict. it is said 143,350 civilian deaths were individually documented by various sources with detailed information, and that a further 163,537 deaths were estimated to have occurred using statistical techniques. at least 27,126 of those estimated to have been killed were children. the then-UN commissioner for human rights, michelle bachelet, stressed that the fatalities were the "direct result of war operations", adding: "this does not include the many, many more civilians who died due to the loss of access to healthcare, to food, to clean water and other essential human rights." the syrian observatory for human rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group with a network of sources on the ground, had documented the deaths of 503,064 people by march 2023. it said at least 162,390 civilians had been killed, with the syrian government and its allies responsible for 139,609 of those deaths. the group estimated that the actual toll from the war was more than 613,400, with an additional 55,000 civilians believed to have died of torture in government-run prisons. another monitoring group, the violations documentation center, which relies on information from activists across the country, had documented 240,215 battle-related deaths, including 145,765 civilians, as of march 2023.

the government's key supporter has been russia while turkey, western powers and several gulf arab states have backed the opposition to varying degrees during the conflict.

russia - which had military bases in syria before the war - launched an air campaign in support of mr assad in 2015 that has been crucial in turning the tide of the war in the government's favour. the russian military says its strikes only target "terrorists" but activists say they regularly kill mainstream rebels and civilians.

the US, UK and France initially armed what they considered "moderate" rebel groups. but they have prioritised non-lethal assistance since jihadists became the dominant force in the armed opposition.

aUS-led global coalition has also carried out air strikes and deployed special forces in syria since 2014 to help an alliance of kurdish and arab militias called the syrian democratic forces (SDF) capture territory once held by IS militants in the north-east and stop the jihadist group rebuilding.

turkey is a major supporter of the opposition, but its focus has been on using rebel factions to contain the kurdish YPG militia that dominates the SDF, accusing it of being an extension of a banned kurdish rebel group in turkey.

turkish troops and allied rebels have seized stretches of territory along syria's northern border and intervened to stop an all-out assault by government forces on the last opposition stronghold of Idlib.

saudi arabia, which is keen to counter iranian influence, armed and financed the rebels at the start of the war. having refused to engage with president assad for more than a decade, it is now discussing how to facilitate syria's "return to the arab fold".

twelve years of war have inflicted immense suffering on the syrian people. in addition to the bloodshed, more than half of syria's pre-war population of 22 million have had to flee their homes. some 6.8 million are internally displaced, with more than two million living in tented camps with limited access to basic services. another 6 million are refugees or asylum-seekers abroad. neighbouring lebanon, jordan and turkey, which are hosting 5.3 million of them, have struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history. at the start of 2023, the UN said 15.3 million people inside syria were in need of some form of humanitarian assistance - an all-time high since the war began - and 12 million did not know where their next meal was coming from. the already dire humanitarian situation in north-western syria - the location of the last opposition stronghold - was made significantly worse by the huge earthquake that struck near the turkish city of gaziantep, about 80km (50 miles) from the syrian border, on 6 February 2023. more than 5,900 people were killed across Syria and another 8.8 million were affected, according to the UN. thousands of homes and critical infrastructure were destroyed, leaving many families without food, water and shelter. deliveries of life-saving aid to opposition-held areas were also delayed for days because of what a UN panel described as "shocking" failures by the warring parties as well as the international community. the disaster happened at a time when the prices of food and fuel in syria were already skyrocketing because of runaway inflation and the collapse of its currency, as well as the global crisis exacerbated by the war in ukraine. syria has also been one of the countries in the middle east worst affected by the covid-19 pandemic - although the true extent is not known because of limited testing - and is now also having to deal with a deadly cholera outbreak that was made worse by the earthquake. access to medical care is severely restricted for the sick and injured because only half of the country's hospitals are fully functional. despite their protected status, 601 attacks on at least 400 separate medical facilities had been documented by physicians for human rights as of february 2022, resulting in the deaths of 942 medical personnel. the vast majority of the attacks were blamed on government and russian forces. entire neighbourhoods and vital infrastructure across the country also remain in ruins. UN satellite analysis suggested that more than 35,000 structures were damaged or destroyed in aleppo city alone before it was recaptured by the government in late 2016. much of syria's rich cultural heritage has likewise been destroyed. all six of the country's unesco world heritage sites have been damaged significantly, with IS militants deliberately blowing up parts of the ancient city of palmyra. a UN commission of inquiry has concluded that the warring parties "have cumulatively committed almost every crime against humanity... and nearly every war crime applicable in a non-international armed conflict".

"syrians," a february 2021 report says, "have suffered vast aerial bombardments of densely populated areas; they have endured chemical weapons attacks and modern day sieges in which perpetrators deliberately starved the population along medieval scripts and indefensible and shameful restrictions on humanitarian aid".

HOW TO HELP

visit the websites [ save the children.org/ syria ] and [ islamic-relief.org /syria crises ]

8. LEBANON

lebanon is currently facing a deep economic crisis as a result of government corruption and financial debt. this is partly a repercussion of the lebanese civil war (1975-1990). during this time, the government piled up huge amounts of debt through corrupt and lavish spending. banks have now become unable to process transactions because the currency (lira) is crashing. this has left many unable to access funds, which are now worth only a fraction of their original value.

in recent years, the situation has only worsened with the pandemic completely shutting down tourism, previously an important source of income in lebanon's economy. this has left a large portion of the lebanese population impoverished and without access to basic necessities. for example, many people in lebanon now rely on private diesel generator operators to have sufficient electricity.

another event that worsened lebanon's current state is the explosion that happened in the port of Beirut in 2020, which killed over 200 people and left many without a home. over a year after the explosion, critics claim that the judicial investigation that should uncover what happened has been continuosly hindered by the country's political leaders. lebanon's current president, michael aoun, hasn't addressed these accusations, but he said no one will have political impunity if found guilty.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ savethechildren.org / lebanon ] and [ irusa.org /lebanon ]

9. AFGHANISTAN

even before the withdrawal of international forces and diplomatic missions and the takeover by the taliban in august 2021, afghanistan was one of the world's largest and most complex humanitarian emergencies (CHEs). more than two years after the withdrawal, and despite massive amounts of humanitarian assistance poured into the country, enormous humanitarian needs remain.

the 2023 afghanistan humanitarian needs Overview (HNO) says afghanistan is facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis “with a very real risk of systemic collapse and human catastrophe.” while in past years humanitarian needs have been driven mainly by conflict, the key drivers of humanitarian need in 2023 include drought, climate change, protection threats (particularly for women and girls) and the economic crisis.

the UN 9ffice for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (UNOCHA) estimated at the beginning of 2023 that a record 28.3 million people will need humanitarian and protection assistance this year, up from 24.4 million in 2022 and 18.4 million in 2021. with 28.3 million people in need, afghanistan is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. the 2023 afghanistan humanitarian response plan (HRP) requests $4.6 billion to reach 23.7 million people.

in addition to the political, social and economic shocks from conflict and the withdrawal of international forces, disaster risk is becoming an increasing driver of underlying need. a national drought was officially declared in june 2021 and is the worst in more than 30 years.

on oct. 7, 2023, two separate 6.3-magnitude earthquakes near herat in afghanistan’s northwest caused significant damage and killed thousands. another earthquake shook herat province on 9ct. 11, resulting in further damage. the herat earthquake response plan from UN and humanitarian partners asks for $93.6 million to support 114,000 earthquake-affected people in herat.

following the devastating June 2022 earthquake that hit eastern afghanistan, CDP hosted a webinar to provide funders with information about the intersection of a natural hazard disaster amid a humanitarian crisis. the insights and recommendations webinar panelists provided remain relevant.

in 2023, 28.3 million people will need life-saving assistance. humanitarian partners have prioritized 23.7 million people to receive multi-sectoral assistance in 2023.

according to WFP, nine out of 10 afghan families lacking adequate food and children and pregnant women are the hardest hit.

each year, the international rescue committee (IRC) releases a list of the 20 humanitarian crises expected to deteriorate the most over the next year. IRC’s 2023 watchlist puts afghanistan in the third spot due to widespread poverty, harsh winter conditions, disaster impacts and violence and exploitation against women and girls.

on average, 200,000 afghans are affected by disasters each year. from jan. 1, 2023 to oct. 5, 2023, 26,014 people were affected by disasters throughout afghanistan. this figure was before the deadly earthquakes on oct. 7 and oct. 11 in herat province, which affected more than 275,000 people. as of nov. 22, humanitarian actors had reached 242,400 affected people with assistance.

in 2022, humanitarian partners reached 25 million people with at least one form of assistance. yet, millions who received one form of assistance will continue to require multiple rounds of support in 2023 to survive.

humanitarian access constraints continue to impact the operational environment. in 2023, there has been a 21% spike in incidents reported by partners compared to the previous year, as of ict. 31.

the taliban’s ban on women working for NGOs and UN agencies in the country means assistance will not reach all targeted women and girls. as UN women survey of humanitarian partners released on feb. 8, 2023 showed that 93% of organizations saw an increased impact on their access to affected women.

decades of conflict and severe drought contributed to afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis, but economic shocks are a primary driver of the deteriorating situation.

according to the 2023 afghanistan HNO, “afghanistan’s economic crisis is widespread, with more than half of households experiencing an economic shock in the last six months.”

a study by the United Nations Development Programme in April 2023 found that “afghanistan’s economic output collapsed by 20.7 percent following the taliban takeover in 2021.” the study also says, “the edicts restricting the rights of women and girls, including a directive banning afghan women from working for the UN, directly affect economic productivity and may also impact the level of aid inflows.”

when the taliban assumed power in august 2021, the country faced daunting economic and development challenges, and recent political developments have pushed the country into an economic crisis.

according to the world bank, “rapiid reduction in international grant support, loss of access to offshore assets, and disruption to financial linkages are expected to lead to a major contraction of the economy, increasing poverty, and macroeconomic instability.”

before august 2021, afghanistan’s economy was 75% dependent on foreign assistance. after the taliban assumed power, most international assistance was cut off, which caused a drop in purchasing power. the U.S. renewed the blocking of afghanistan’s central bank’s foreign assets amounting to over $7 billion (Executive Order no. 14064). in april 2022, United Nations (UN) experts called on the U.S. government to unblock foreign assets to ease the humanitarian impact.

in august 2022, 32 afghan and international NGOs called for a clear roadmap to restore the afghan central bank’s essential functions and release afghanistan’s assets frozen abroad. however, western countries have not been ready to lift sanctions until the taliban sets up a more diverse government, permits girls to return to secondary school and allows independent control of the afghan central bank.

a significant development occurred in september 2022 when the U.S. said it will transfer $3.5 billion in afghan central bank assets into a new swiss-based trust fund to be used “for the benefit of the people of afghanistan.” the new trust fund was created after months of talks between the U.S., switzerland, other parties and the taliban. no funds will go to the afghan central bank. the unfreezing of afghan assets has been called for by humanitarians.

however, the mandate of the afghan fund does not include support for humanitarian assistance. in their january 2023 snapshot report of the afghan economy, ACAPS said the key functions of the fund include price and exchange rate stability, payment of world bank arrears, representing the Afghan Central Bank (DAB) in court, payment for some critical imports, assessment of the capacity of the DAB, and support to the third-party monitoring of DAB’s anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing systems.

more than one million people were estimated to be without work in august 2022. an FAO household survey released in may 2022 found that 26% of respondents lost employment. severe cash shortages continue to limit economic activity within banks and local markets. another alarming statistic is that people's debts have increased both in terms of the number of people taking on debt (82% of all households) and the amount of debt (about 11% higher than the previous year).

in august 2022, dr. ramiz alakbarov, then the UN Deputy Special Representative in afghanistan, who is also the resident and humanitarian coordinator in the country, said, “without functional markets, without (an) operating banking sector, without investments in basic-level jobs, we will not be able to reverse the trends which we are observing now in afghanistan.”

HOW TO HELP

visit [ irusa.org ] and [ savethechildren.org /afghanistan ]

10. VENEZUELA

venezuela is engulfed in a political and economic crisis which has led to more than seven million people leaving the country since 2015.

since 1999, venezuela has been run by two men from the same party. hugo chávez was president from 1999 to his death in 2013 and was succeeded by his right-hand man, nicolás maduro.

their socialist PSUV party has over the past two decades gained control of key institutions, including much of the judiciary, the electoral council and the supreme court.

as a result, the role of the president has become much more powerful and the system of checks and balances has been severely weakened.

not long after mr maduro was elected, global oil prices plummeted and venezuela - which relies almost entirely on oil revenue for its income - went into a seven-year recession.

inflation skyrocketed and shortages of basic goods became widespread.

waves of anti-government protests in 2014 and 2017 fizzled out after a police crackdown.

millions of venezuelans left the country to escape economic hardship and political repression. But despite growing discontent, mr maduro was re-elected in 2018 in a presidential election widely dismissed as neither free nor fair.

with the executive and the judiciary under the control of the PSUV, venezuela's divided opposition in january 2019 united behind the only major institution where they were still influential: the National Assembly and its speaker, juan guaidó.

arguing that mr maduro's re-election was not valid and the presidency was therefore vacant, mr guaidó, with the backing of the National Assembly, declared himself "interim president".

he predicted he would be governing from the presidential palace "within months".

and while more than 50 countries, including the US and the UK, recognised mr guaidó as venezuela's legitimate leader, venezuela's military stayed loyal to mr maduro.

mr maduro, with the continued support of china and russia, remained firmly in charge of the country.

but tightened US sanctions made it harder for the maduro government to sell oil and restricted its access to foreign currency.

wiith the economy in freefall, mr maduro in 2019 relaxed some of the strict foreign currency regulations brought in by chávez.

shortages eased as a result and in 2021, the economy started growing. But extreme poverty remains shockingly high and many of those without access to foreign currency continue to struggle.

disillusioned with the failure of juan guaidó to seize control of anything more than some venezuelan embassies and assets abroad, the majority of opposition parties withdrew their support from him in december 2022 and dissolved his "interim government".

they said that their aim remained to defeat mraduro, but argued that mr guaidó's rival government was no longer the way to go about it.

negotiations between opposition and government representatives - which have stalled on several occasions in the past - resumed in november 2022.

the opposition hopes they will lead to free and fair presidential elections being held in 2024, for which they plan to field a unity candidate to take on mr maduro.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ globalgiving.org / venezuela ] and [ donate.worldvision.org / venezuela relief fund ]

11. HAITI

the country has been in a state of electoral and constitutional turmoil since the assassination of the president, jovenel moïse, in 2021 at the hands of colombian mercenaries with unknown paymasters, but the immediate crisis can be traced back further.

haiti has not held functional elections since 2019 – and the country has been in a fragile state since the 2010 earthquake that killed up to 300,000 people. but moïse’s death in July 2021 – and a new earthquake the following month – sent the situation spiralling out of control.

moïse was replaced by an acting president, ariel henry, who is unelected and widely viewed as illegitimate. in september, the G9 gang coalition blockaded the main port and fuel terminal after henry caused fuel prices to double when he announced a cut to fuel subsidies – a development that brought the crisis to new heights. haiti is now experiencing its worst-ever famine, with 4.7 million people facing acute hunger.

at the same time it is impossible to understand the current situation without acknowledging the dark history of international interventions, including US occupation from 1915-1934, that have blighted haiti. “those interventions have shaped haiti,” smith said. “there’s a chain-link connection.”

long before the litany of recent disasters, he said, “the duvalier dictatorship [the rule of father and son françois, or “papa doc”, and jean-claude, or “baby doc”, duvalier from 1957-1986] destroyed the hopes of a functioning state that serves the nation."

gangs have a longstanding role in political life, and have operated in tandem with political actors since the 1950s to intimidate rivals and deliver votes. there are suggestions of oligarchic figures with ties to the drugs trade pulling the strings – but “many of them are not affiliated to anybody”, smith said.

“the international drug trade is a very important part of it, but that was only the beginning. now gangs have secured their power locally, it is very hard to see that any more powerful actor can control them. the situation has dissolved into the incomprehensible.”

there are almost 100 gangs in port-au-prince, many of them in loose alliances at war with rival groups. gangs control major roads and draw income from customs, water and electricity distribution, and even bus services. membership has become so desirable for some young men that some gangs now have waiting lists for new recruits (pdf).

the country’s army – disbanded in 1995 after years of military interference in politics – has been reestablished but stands at just 500 soldiers, while police also appear impotent.

the ongoing violence has forced the closure of hospitals and has been blamed in part for the re-emergence of cholera, as well as fuel shortages that only worsen the crisis. last month, the UN estimated 155,000 people had fled their homes – almost one in six of the city’s population.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ savethechildren.org/ haiti ]

12. ETHIOPIA

between 2020 and 2022, ethiopia fought a war with militants from its northernmost region of tigray, then under the control of the tigrayan people’s liberation front (TPLF). the conflict was one of the deadliest in recent world history and drew international attention for a preponderance of alleged war crimes, human rights abuses, and ethnic cleansing in tigray. the war formally ended in november 2022; tigray was left in ruins, and its capital was turned over to the federal government.

for decades before the war, the TPLF was a dominant political force in ethiopia. between 1991 and his death in 2012, tigrayan soldier-politician meles zenawi governed ethiopia as an autocracy with the backing of a TPLF-dominated coalition. the zenawi regime oversaw rapid development and increased the international prominence of ethiopia, but his government marginalized ethnic groups, including the oromo and amhara, to solidify government power. additionally, ethiopia was at war with eritrea [PDF] from 1998 to 2000. the war was followed by a nearly twenty-year-long frozen conflict, effectively paralyzing both countries politically and economically.

the TPLF continued to govern ethiopia after zenawi’s passing until 2018, when protests, especially among the oromo population, prompted the government to appoint abiy ahmed ali as the next prime minister. abiy, born in oromia, was heralded by international actors and ethiopians alike as the country’s new hope for peace and ethnic harmony. abiy promised early in his premiership to heal broken trust between the country’s ethnic groups and began to roll back restrictions on certain political freedoms. in 2019, he received the nobel peace prize for negotiating an end to ethiopia’s two-decade standoff with eritrea.

by 2020, ethnic relations within ethiopia once again began to deteriorate. multiple delays of long-promised national elections and the declaration of an extension on abiy ahmed’s first term as prime minister in june 2020 drew indignation from the TPLF. the tigray state council’s choice to hold local elections in defiance of federal orders further inflamed tensions. the elections ultimately solidified the TPLF’s control of the region. on november 4, 2020, abiy accused tigrayan troops of attacking a federal military camp in the tigrayan capital of mekelle and ordered ethiopian national defense Force (ENDF) troops north. this began a military operation known as the mekelle offensive, which escalated quickly as the ENDF pushed further into tigray, and the tigray defense force, or TDF, ramped up their response.

abiy first framed the offensive as a targeted operation against TPLF leadership. a communications blackout implemented at the outset of the conflict shuttered coverage of ground conditions, but media and UN officials began sounding the alarm about improper treatment of civilians, especially ethnic tigrayans, by december 2020. ethiopia’s neighbor and former adversary, eritrea, intervened in the conflict militarily on the side of the ethiopian government. after months of denying their presence, in spring 2021, prime minister abiy ahmed admitted that eritrean troops were fighting in tigray.

in 2021, the United States characterized the war as an ethnic cleansing against tigrayans, and some NGOs raised concerns about the potential of genocide. in march 2021, the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights announced a joint probe with the ethiopian human rights commission (EHRC) to investigate alleged abuses and rights violations in tigray, although the impartiality and accuracy of the report [PDF] were called into question following its presentation at the United Nations.

tigrayan forces retook the regional capital of mekelle from the ENDF in june 2021. a month later, addis ababa announced the results of a national parliamentary election—which prime minister abiy ahmed won in a landslide. the TPLF boycotted the election, and opposition leadership in parliament accused the abiy government of banning poll observers in some states. later in the summer of 2021, abiy called on all capable citizens to join the war against tigrayan forces as the conflict began to spill over into the afar and amhara regions, growing closer to addis ababa. in november 2021, tigrayan troops and allied oromo militants marched within eighty-five miles of the capital but were forced back north by ENDF forces.

after a series of failed efforts to negotiate a settlement, the TPLF and the Ethiopian central government signed a cessation of hostilities agreement on november 2, 2022, in pretoria, south africa. followed by implementation negotiations in nairobi, the agreement promised to disarm tigrayan troops, hand control of tigray to the ethiopian government, end the mekelle offensive, and permit full humanitarian access to tigray.

notably, the pretoria agreement does not explicitly mention eritrea, nor were eritrean representatives present at the negotiations. this omission raised international concern that eritrean troops would continue operations within ethiopia in spite of the agreement between the ethiopian government and TPLF. as of january 2023, displaced tigrayans reported that amhara and eritrean soldiers continued to occupy western tigray. the amhara have contested ownership of the area; the displaced population was informed in late 2023 that they would be returned to their land, and the political fate of the territory would be decided in a referendum.

in 2021 alone, 5.1 million ethiopians became internally displaced, a record for the most people internally displaced in any country in any single year at the time. thousands also fled to sudan and other countries in the region. by the time the pretoria agreement took effect, the tigray war and its associated humanitarian disaster had killed approximately 600,000 people. in late 2022, humanitarian groups were permitted to meaningfully operate in tigray for the first time since november 2020.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ savethechildren.org/ethiopia ] and [ irusa.org/ethiopia ]

13. SUDAN

the dramatic evacuation of international residents from sudan has been a top media headline in recent days, as military conflict spreads across the country. violence in and around the capital of khartoum has forced Concern, along with other NGOs, to suspend activities and evacuate non-national staff.

“this conflict couldn’t have come at a worse time for the people of sudan, who were already suffering terribly,” explains dominic macsorley, humanitarian ambassador for concern US. “the country is just facing into the ‘lean’ season — that time when the remainder of last year’s harvest is gone and this year’s crops have not yet matured. the fact that most humanitarian supports have been suspended and conflict is restricting movement leaves many people in a truly horrific situation.”

violence in sudan has been a fact of life for years

many people last followed sudan in the headlines back in 2019, when months of civilian protest led to a transitional government. since then, however, slowed progress on this front has left room for uncertainty and violence. (similar circumstances have fuelled the crisis in neighboring south sudan for more than a decade.) according to UNOCHA, an estimated 300,000 people were displaced by conflict in 2022 — with nearly 33,000 displaced in november alone due to fighting in west kordofan and central darfur.

at the beginning of this year, concern listed sudan as one of the world’s “forgotten” humanitarian crises due to this fragile balance of security and instability. unfortunately, it is once again front-page news due to the crisis escalating out of the spotlight.

one out of every three sudanese requires humanitarian aid

the protracted nature of the situation in sudan has led to dramatic increases in humanitarian aid. as of december 2022, 15.8 million sudanese required humanitarian assistance, approximately one out of every three people in the country. this represents a 10% increase in humanitarian need compared to december 2021.

those numbers are expected to rise dramatically after the last two weeks. as of earlier this week, over 22,000 civilians have fled the country—many to neighboring chad, as well as nearly 3,000 to south sudan. as peter van der auweraert, the south sudan representative for the UN’s international organization for migration, told the new york times earlier this week: “The people that get out first are the people that have the means,” indicating that thousands more will likely be stuck in the country with increasing needs.

this new wave of violence will affect the global refugee crisis in more ways than one

sudan is both one of the largest host countries for refugees (1.11 million as of january 2023), and one of the largest countries of origin for refugees (844,000 as of january 2023). in the first two weeks of fighting, more than 20,000 sudanese have crossed the border into Clchad, with the UNHCR estimating an additional 100,000 could follow in the coming days.

the knock-on effects go beyond sudanese refugees. many of the foreign refugees (especially from ethiopia, syria, and eritrea) currently in sudan are also in areas affected by fighting. with fewer resources than locals, they will face additional challenges in moving around or outside of the country (much in the same way that refugees living in ukraine dealt with additional challenges in moving to safety). these large displacements will also create additional pressure on host communities in countries like chad and south sudan, where resources are already tight. psychological support will also be a key necessity for those who have been forced to flee.

“day and night the fighting went on — to save their lives people moved and left everything behind,” says concern sudan country director, AKM musha, who like many of concern’s in-country staff was advised to leave khartoum for his own safety. “the journey to escape was very difficult…a very frightening and horrible experience.”

for those remaining in sudan, there is a catastrophic combination of challenges beyond violence

as ranked in the 2022 global hunger index, sudan is the 15th hungriest country in the world. food insecurity and malnutrition have run high in the country for decades due to the combined impacts of conflict, drought, locusts, and disease. the conflict in ukraine and COVID-19-related impacts have contributed to inflation rates in excess of 400%. “hospitals are not working, people cannot buy food, water is in short supply — everything has been eroded,” says musha.

carol morgan, concern’s director of international programs, adds that healthcare will be a key issue for the people of sudan. “THere are only enough health personnel to cover about 17% of the population,” she explains. With the added pressures of conflict, this could seriously affect ongoing health concerns in the country, such as diarrhea — an issue responsible for one out of every ten child mortalities.

humanitarian assistance is not guaranteed

while humanitarian organizations both international and local are designed to help in times of crisis, the safety of staff is the number-one priority. the focus of violence in khartoum has led to concern evacuating its 10 non-sudanese staff members from the country. over 150 local staff members are either internally displaced or sheltering at home with challenges like rolling blackouts the rule versus the exception.

this means that not everyone who requires humanitarian assistance at this time will be able to get the help they need. concern had been working with the ministry of health in 73 health facilities and last year treated over 200,000 children for malnutrition. in total, the sudan team had planned to reach over 500,000 people through a variety of humanitarian programs in 2023, vital work which has now been put on hold.

concern has called for an immediate end to hostilities in sudan, as well as for protections to be put in place to allow aid workers to provide essential community support. “we need the fighting to stop and humanitarian access to be restored or else sudan is facing a really disastrous situation,” says musha.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ savethechildren.org/sudan ] and [ irusa.org/sudan ]

14. SOMALIA

during a year that marked the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the somali state, domestic and international attention was focused on plans for the delayed parliamentary and presidential electoral process. political tensions stalled reform efforts key to advancing human rights in the country, while conflict-related abuses, insecurity, and humanitarian and health crises took a heavy toll on civilians.

all parties to the conflict in somalia committed violations of international humanitarian law, some amounting to war crimes. the islamist armed group al-shabab conducted indiscriminate and targeted attacks on civilians and forcibly recruited children. Inter-clan and intra-security force violence killed, injured, and displaced civilians, as did sporadic military operations against al-shabab by somali government forces, troops from the african union mission in somalia (AMISOM), and other foreign forces.

Federal and regional authorities continued to intimidate, attack, arbitrarily arrest, and at times prosecute journalists, including by using the country’s outdated penal code. Somalia continued to rely on military court proceedings that violated international fair trial standards; it did not hand over Al-Shabab cases from military to civilian courts.

key legal and institutional reforms stagnated. the review of the country’s outdated penal code stopped; there was no movement on the passing of federal legislation on sexual offenses or on key child’s rights legislation. the government also failed to establish a national human rights commission; the appointment of commissioners has been pending since 2018.

allegations that somali soldiers were trained in eritrea and deployed in ethiopia’s tigray conflict added to the political tensions. the disappearance of the former intelligence official, ikran Tahlil farah, reportedly missing since late june, led to a standoff between president mohammed abdullahi “farmajo” and prime minister mohamed hussein roble, including over the control of the country’s powerful national intelligence and security agency (NISA).

attacks on civilians

the united nations assistance mission in somalia (UNSOM) recorded at least 899 civilian casualties, including 441 killings, between late november 2020 and late july; a marked increase compared to the same reporting period the previous year. most were killed during targeted and indiscriminate al-shabab attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs), suicide bombings, and shelling, as well as assassinations.

after the parliament extended the presidential term on april 25 by two years, armed confrontations between security forces linked to different political factions in various districts of mogadishu, the capital, resulted in the displacement of between 60,000 and 100,000 people, according to the United Nations.

federal and regional military courts continued to sentence people to death and carry out executions despite serious due process concerns. puntland executed 21 men convicted by military courts of al-shabab membership and killings on june 27, in three separate locations.

al-shabab fighters killed dozens of individuals it accused of working or spying for the government and foreign forces, often after unfair trials.

the UN attributed six civilian casualties to AMISOM forces between late 2020 and late july. AMISOM established a board of inquiry into an August 10 incident involving ugandan soldiers who were ambushed by al-shabab fighters around golweyn, lower shabelle and responded by killing seven civilians. a ugandan court martial found five soldiers responsible for the killings, sentencing two to death. reports of civilian harm as a result of airstrikes in the gedo region increased.

despite federal and regional investigations into the may 2020 massacre of seven health workers and a pharmacist in the village of gololey in balcad district, the outcome of these investigations remains unknown.

sexual violence

the UN reported an increase in incidents of sexual and gender-based violence, including of girls, which often resulted in the victims being killed.

key legal reforms stalled, notably the passing of progressive sexual violence legislation at the federal level. the somali criminal code classifies sexual violence as an “offense against modesty and sexual honor” rather than a violation of bodily integrity; it also punishes same-sex relations. article 4(1) of the provisional constitution (2012), places sharia law above the constitution and it continues to be applied by courts in criminal cases. consequently, the death penalty for consensual same-sex conduct could be enforced.

in puntland, the first region to pass a sexual offenses law, the UN reported on government interference and blocking of investigations into sexual violence incidents.

abuses against Children

children continue to bear a heavy burden of ongoing insecurity, conflict, and lack of key reforms in the country. all Somali parties to the conflict committed serious abuses against children, including killings, maiming, recruitment and use of child soldiers, and attacks on schools.

somali federal and regional security forces unlawfully detained children, notably for alleged ties with armed groups, undermining government commitments to treat children primarily as victims. the government failed to put in place child rights compliant justice measures.

the previous year, pending legal reforms sought to reduce the age of marriage, including a controversial draft law on sexual-intercourse related crimes—the status of which remained unknown—which would allow a child to marry at puberty regardless of their age.

when the covid-19 pandemic started in early 2020, schools were closed or partially closed for 134 days, including several weeks in march and april 2021, affecting at least 1.2 million children.

freedom of expression and association

federal and regional authorities throughout somalia repeatedly harassed, arbitrarily arrested, and attacked journalists. moments of heightened tensions around the electoral process correlated with an uptick in incidents of harassment toward journalists.

the UN and amnesty international reported an increase during the first quarter of the year in restrictions on journalist in puntland. in march, the military appeals court in puntland sentenced kilwe adan farah, a journalist, to three years in prison under the outdated penal code for his coverage of anti-government protests. earlier, a military court sentenced him to three months, despite the judge reportedly acknowledging a lack of evidence. the journalist received a presidential pardon.

several journalists covering protests in mogadishu were temporarily detained and harassed. on september 5, bashiir mohamud, producer at goobjoog media, was filmed being dragged through the streets by somali police while he covered protests demanding justice for the killing of a former intelligence officer, ikran tahlil farah. he was then held for a few hours at the hodan police station.

al-shabab claimed responsibility for the march 1 killing of journalist jamal farah adan in galkayo.

displacement and access to humanitarian assistance

over 2.6 million somalis are internally displaced, increasingly because of conflict. the UN said over 570,000 people were displaced between january and august 2021. droughts, flooding, and desert locust swarm—increasing in intensity and frequency due to climate change—exacerbated communities’ existing vulnerabilities and contributed to displacement. the UN and Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reported that between january and august, droughts and floods displaced over 90,000 and 49,000 people respectively. tens of thousands of internally displaced people were forcibly evicted, notably in mogadishu.

nearly 3.5 million people were expected to face acute food insecurity and need emergency food aid in the last quarter of the year.

humanitarian agencies continued to face serious access challenges due to conflict, targeted attacks on aid workers, generalized violence, restrictions imposed by parties to the conflict, including arbitrary “taxation” and bureaucratic hurdles, and physical constraints due to extreme weather. al-shabab continued to impose blockades on some government-controlled towns, notably the town of hudur, and occasionally attacked civilians who broke them.

an Amnesty International report documented somalia’s inadequate response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and highlighted the chronic underfunding of the country’s health system.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ rescue.org/ somalia ], [savethechildren.org/somalia ] and [ irusa.org/somalia ]

15. BURKINA FASO

the world’s fastest-growing humanitarian crisis is currently unfolding in burkina faso.

nearly 2 million people need shelter after being forced to flee their homes due to extremist violence.

burkina faso is under threat from extremist attack in the sahel, a belt of semi-arid land south of the sahara desert.

less than ten years ago, burkina faso seemed like a beacon of stability in west africa. in 2015 the country held its first democratic election ever, paving the way to what seemed like a bright future.

but since then burkina faso has seen an increase in violence from jihadist groups, spreading from mali. armed groups quickly started expanding, crossing borders and setting up local groups across the sahel region – including burkina faso, mali and niger.

since 2019, insecurity has reached devastating levels and the number of burkinabe people fleeing violence has skyrocketed.

right now, burkina faso is one of the fastest-growing displacement crises in the continent.

according to the UN, more than one in every 20 people are forced to flee the violence.

burkina faso is a landlocked country situated in west africa.

the country is surrounded by mali to the north and west, niger to the northeast, benin to the southeast, and côte d’Ivoire, ghana, and togo to the south.

its capital, ouagadougou, saw a horrific terrorist attack at the beginning of 2016 which left 28 people dead, and 56 people injured.

the central sahel region, which includes the countries of burkina faso, mali and niger, is facing one of the fastest-growing displacement crises in the world.

yet, it is one of the most forgotten.

it is estimated that over 3 million people have been forced to flee their homes and at least 29 million are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.

the sahel region of africa is a 3,860-kilometre arc-like land mass lying to the immediate south of the sahara desert and stretching from east to west across the breadth of the african continent.

families started fleeing the central sahel region in 2011, after a violence outbreak in northern mali.

increased displacement was reinforced by poverty, food insecurity, unemployment and the presence of armed groups. climate change is also a challenge for families trying to flee.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ savethechildren.org/burkina faso ] or [ friendsofburkinafaso.org ]

16. JAMMU AND KASHMIR

as the sun rises over the picturesque landscape of kashmir, it’s easy to believe that all is well in the region. but beneath the scenic beauty is a harsh and unsettling reality — composed of a military occupation, oppression of the entire population and expression of fear, loathing and anger by the people of kashmir. the picture that the Indian government tries to paint — of normalcy and development in occupied jammu and kashmir — is a myth.

for the last seven decades, kashmir has been the epicenter of a bitter dispute between india and pakistan in which the people in jammu are an integral party. to resolve the conflict, the united nations security council adopted resolution 47 in 1948, and more than a dozen subsequent resolutions, stipulating that the final disposition of the state of jammu and kashmir would be decided by its people through a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the UN. this was accepted by india and pakistan and, in accordance with article 25 of the UN charter, both parties are obligated to implement these resolutions.

but this saturday, aug. 5, marks four years of india’s unilateral actions to consolidate its occupation of illegally indian occupied jammu and kashmir (IIOJK) and imposing what India’s leaders have ominously called a “final solution” for kashmir. to do so, india has resorted to a series of illegal actions, gross and consistent violations of human rights and other crimes that continue to this day.

india increased its military deployment in IIOJK to 900,000 troops right before aug. 5, 2019. this is the densest occupation in recent history — with one soldier for every eight kashmiri men, women and children. this massive force has perpetrated a vicious campaign of repressive actions, including extrajudicial killings of innocent kashmiris in fake encounters; custodial killings and “cordon-and-search” operations; use of pellet guns to kill, maim and blind peaceful protestors; abduction and enforced disappearances; and “collective punishments,” with the destruction and burning of entire villages and urban neighborhoods.

this brutal campaign is driven by the ideology of “hindutva,” which propagates the religious and ethnic supremacy of hindus and hate against muslims. noting this pattern, genocide watch has warned that “the indian government’s actions in kashmir have been an extreme case of persecution and could very well lead to genocide.”

to suppress the voice of the kashmiri people, indian authorities have used censorship and surveillance for decades in the occupied territory. since august 2019, information control has been fully institutionalized. journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders and the entire kashmiri political leadership are routinely incarcerated, beaten, humiliated, harassed and even accused of “terrorism” for reporting the human rights violations in IIOJK.

there is only one normality: the normalization of violence. generations have grown up witnessing violence, insecurity and trauma. numerous human rights organizations, international bodies and independent reports have documented use of rape, sexual assault and harassment perpetrated by Indian security forces against kashmiri civilians, particularly women as a weapon of war. emergency laws, such as the 1990-armed forces (special powers), have created an environment of complete impunity for indian security forces.

to extinguish the ethno-religious identity of kashmiris, historical sites have been destroyed and damaged. one of the most troubling aspects of the destruction of cultural heritage is the demolition of religious sites, particularly mosques, which inflicts deep emotional wounds on the muslim population.

in a classic settler-colonial project, india has initiated illegal demographic changes in the occupied territory, grossly violating international law, including the fourth geneva convention. this is central to its plan to convert IIOJK’s muslim majority into a hindu majority territory, to drown out the demand for freedom and self-determination. new “domicile rules” have been introduced, and more than four million fake domicile certificates have been issued to hindus from across india to settle in occupied jammu and kashmir. the land and properties of kashmiris are also being confiscated for military and other official use.

all the measures taken by India in the last four years are blatant violations of international law, including the relevant security council resolutions, specifically resolution 122 (1957). therefore, all the actions taken by India on and after aug. 5, 2019 are not only illegal but, ipso facto, null and void.

to justify its occupation and oppression, india has sought for decades, and particularly since 9/11, to portray the kashmiri freedom struggle as “terrorism.” likewise, to delegitimize the indigenous kashmiri struggle for self-determination, india falsely alleges that it is instigated by pakistan. to expose india’s falsehood, pakistan has proposed expanded patrolling by the UN military observer group in india and pakistan (UNMOGIP) along the line of control in jammu and kashmir. however, india refuses to allow the UN mission to patrol the line of control and to expand it. despite numerous attempts, india continues to deny access to jammu and kashmir to the office of high commissioner for human rights and other UN agencies as well as other human rights and humanitarian organizations and international media.

pakistan desires peaceful relations with all its neighbors, including india. pakistan has responded with responsibility and restraint to india’s repeated provocations. on the other hand, india continues to resort to aggressive rhetoric and repeated threats of the use of force against pakistan, even under the nuclear overhang. the onus is on india to create conditions that are conducive for a meaningful dialogue to resolve the jammu and kashmir dispute. to this end, india must:

• stop all human rights violations in jammu and kashmir

• halt and reverse its illegal demographic changes there

• reverse the illegal and unilateral measures imposed on and after aug. 5, 2019

• grant access to international observers, including human rights mechanisms of the UN and international media, to observe worsening human rights situation on the ground

the international community must play a proactive role obliging india to respect the human rights of the people of kashmir and to work toward a peaceful, inclusive resolution of the conflict. peace in south asia will be possible only when the jammu and kashmir dispute is resolved. the security council and the UN secretary-general must make concerted efforts, as empowered by the UN charter, to promote a peaceful settlement of the jammu and kashmir dispute, according to the relevant UN security council resolutions and wishes of the kashmiri people.

preventive measures to stop abuses in IIOJK and to promote global accountability is both a moral imperative and a collective human rights responsibility. millions of kashmiris have suffered for too long. to end their plight, they demand a peaceful resolution to the conflict. it is time to make peace a new normal.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ pennyappeal.org/ kashmir ] and [ standwithkashmir.org ]

17. UYGHUR CRISIS

the chinese government has reportedly arbitrarily detained more than a million muslims in reeducation camps since 2017. most of the people who have been detained are uyghur, a predominantly turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily in china’s northwestern region of xinjiang. beyond the detentions, yyghurs in the region have been subjected to intense surveillance, forced labor, and involuntary sterilizations, among other rights abuses.

the united states and several other foreign governments have described china’s actions in xinjiang as genocide, while the UN human rights office said that the violations could constitute crimes against humanity. chinese officials have said that they have not infringed on uyghurs’ rights and claimed that they closed the reeducation camps in 2019. however, international journalists and researchers have documented an ongoing system of mass detention throughout the region using satellite images, individual testimonies, and leaked chinese government documents.

when did mass detentions of muslims start?

an estimated eight hundred thousand to two million uyghurs and other muslims, including ethnic kazakhs and uzbeks, have been detained since 2017, according to international researchers and U.S. government officials [PDF]. the chinese government calls the facilities “vocational education and training centers;” the most common terms used by international media organizations and researchers are reeducation camps, internment camps, and detention camps. some activists describe them as concentration camps.

outside of the camps, the eleven million uyghurs living in xinjiang—officially called the xinjiang uyghur autonomous region—have continued to suffer from a decades-long crackdown by chinese authorities.

experts estimate that reeducation efforts started in xinjiang in 2014 and were drastically expanded in 2017. beginning that year, they documented the construction of new reeducation camps and expansion of existing facilities for mass detention. reuters journalists, observing satellite imagery, found that thirty-nine of the camps almost tripled in size between april 2017 and august 2018; they covered a total area roughly the size of 140 soccer fields. similarly, analyzing local and national budgets over the past few years, germany-based xinjiang expert adrian zenz found that construction spending on security-related facilities in xinjiang increased by 20 billion yuan (around $2.96 billion) in 2017.

in late 2019, xinjiang’s governor said that people detained in the reeducation camps had “graduated.” journalists found that several camps were indeed closed. but the following year, researchers at the australian strategic policy institute (ASPI) identified [PDF] more than 380 suspected detention facilities using satellite images. they found that china refashioned some lower-security reeducation camps into formal detention centers or prisons; expanded existing detention centers; and constructed new, high-security detention centers throughout xinjiang. (chinese officials have said that ASPI is an anti-china tool funded by australia and the united states.) instead of detaining people in reeducation camps, authorities have increasingly used the formal justice system to imprison people for years. In 2022, human rights watch reported that half a million people had been prosecuted since 2017, according to xinjiang government figures. the associated press found that in one county, an estimated one in twenty-five people had been sentenced to prison on terrorism-related charges, all of them uyghurs.

what has happened in the reeducation camps?

most people detained in the reeducation camps were never charged with crimes and had no legal avenues to challenge their detentions. the detainees seem to have been targeted for a variety of reasons, according to media reports, including traveling to or contacting people from any of the twenty-six countries china considers sensitive, such as turkey and afghanistan; attending services at mosques; having more than three children; and sending texts containing Quranic verses. often, their only crime is being muslim, human rights groups say, adding that many uyghurs have been labeled as extremists simply for practicing their religion.

information on what happened in the camps remains limited, but many detainees who have since fled china described harsh conditions. the UN human rights office released a report [PDF] in 2022 based on interviews with dozens of people, including twenty-six individuals who were detained, that found “patterns of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” in the camps between 2017 and 2019.

the UN report affirmed previous findings by international journalists, researchers, and rights organizations. various exposés showed that detainees were forced to pledge loyalty to the CCP and renounce Islam, as well as sing praises for communism and learn mandarin. some people reported prison-like conditions, with cameras and microphones monitoring their every move and utterance. others said they were tortured and subjected to sleep deprivation during interrogations. Women have shared stories of sexual abuse, including rape.

some released detainees contemplated suicide or witnessed others kill themselves.

detention also disrupted families. children whose parents were sent to the camps were often forced to stay in state-run orphanages. many uyghur parents living outside of china faced a difficult choice: return home to be with their children and risk detention, or stay abroad, separated from their children and unable to contact them.

what do chinese officials say about the camps?

government officials first denied the camps’ existence. by late 2018, they started acknowledging that there were “vocational education and training centers” in xinjiang. they publicly stated that the camps had two purposes: to teach mandarin, chinese laws, and vocational skills, and to prevent citizens from becoming influenced by extremist ideas, to “nip terrorist activities in the bud,” according to a government report. pointing out that xinjiang has not experienced a terrorist attack since december 2016, officials claimed the camps have prevented violence.

as global condemnation of the abuses has grown, chinese officials and state media have worked to discredit reports on xinjiang using a range of tactics, including disseminating disinformation and harassing activists. they have repeated a narrative that “anti-china forces” in the united states and other western countries are spreading “vicious lies.” beijing tried to prevent the UN human rights office from releasing its report. after its release, chinese officials described it as false information and published a rebuttal describing how foreign governments and organizations “spread numerous rumors and lies” about xinjiang.

why is china targeting uyghurs in xinjiang?

chinese officials are concerned that uyghurs hold extremist and separatist ideas, and they viewed the camps as a way of eliminating threats to china’s territorial integrity, government, and population.

xinjiang has been claimed by china since the chinese communist party (CCP) took power in 1949. some uyghurs living there refer to the region as east turkestan and argue that it ought to be independent from china. xinjiang takes up one-sixth of china’s landmass and borders eight countries, including afghanistan, pakistan, and kazakhstan.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ uhrp.org ] and [ saveuighur.org ]

18. THE REPUBLIC OF CONGO

the democratic republic of congo (DRC) is a country rich in resources, yet fraught with conflict and violence. the country is currently experiencing the largest displacement crisis in africa.

many of its people have not seen peace in more than 20 years.

the democratic republic of congo (DRC) is host to one of the world’s most complex and long-standing humanitarian crises, centered particularly in the east of the country. More than 2.1 million people were forced to flee their homes in 2017 alone — equivalent to an average of 50 families fleeing every hour, every day.

there are currently more than 100 different armed groups vying for territory and control in eastern DRC. this conflict is causing massive displacement and urgent humanitarian needs as families flee their homes for safety.

the armed conflict and insecurity has displaced 4.5 million people within the country. 13.1 million people need humanitarian assistance — 5.6 million more than in 2017. over the last year with intensified fighting, the humanitarian situation has dramatically worsened.

the rise of ebola has made the situation even more dire.

yes, ebola is endemic to DRC. the country is currently battling its tenth ebola outbreak, which has already killed more than 1,500 people. it is now the worst ebola outbreak in DRC’s history. over 50 percent of the total cases have occurred in the past three months.

on july 17, the world health organization declared the ebola outbreak in DRC a "public health emergency of international concern" (PHEIC). previous PHEICs include swine flu in 2009, polio in 2014, ebola in 2014 and the zika virus in 2016.

“We hope that [this] declaration by the WHO will translate into urgent and practical action, including more funding from international donors,” said laura miller, mercy corps’ acting country director in DR Congo. “every day, women, men and children are dying of the ebola virus and it is becoming too easy to forget that the ever-climbing case numbers are people.”

this particular outbreak is happening in the densely populated and conflict-affected provinces of north kivu and ituri, making it more difficult and dangerous to access affected people and areas.

a previous ebola outbreak in 2018 affected 54 people and resulted in 33 deaths.

what is the kivu conflict?

the conflict in north and south kivu began in 1996 in eastern congo in the aftermath of the rwandan genocide. the conflict involves numerous armed actors, including the DRC military, foreign rebel groups such as the democratic forces for the liberation of rwanda and allied defence forces of uganda and more than 100 local armed groups. due to this ongoing fighting, DRC is currently home to the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world, consisting of 21,000 people.

is there still war in DRC?

not technically. but there is still ongoing conflict, insecurity and a lack of effective governance. there are now more than 100 armed groups vying for territory and control in eastern DRC. the current president, joseph kabila, has been in position since 2001 following the assassination of his father, laurent kabila. the presidential election in december 2018 has thrown the country into further turmoil. in its 58 years of independence from belgium, the DRC has never had a peaceful political transition.

how densely populated is the democratic republic of congo?

DRC is the size of western durope and the second-largest country in africa. its population of 80 million people is spread throughout the country, with 40 percent of people living in urban areas. cities in eastern congo, like goma and bukavu, have been experiencing an influx of people fleeing violence from the more rural areas. people are seeking safety and security, and new opportunities to earn an income, as the conflict has forced many of them off their land.

this escalating displacement, coupled with resource mismanagement, is putting increasing pressure on the cities’ services. to respond to these needs, we’ve developed an integrated water initiative to improve access to water for the most vulnerable citizens of goma and bukavu. it also aims to provide equitable access to water for all.

how wealthy is the democratic republic of congo?

the DRC has vast human and natural resources, which could, arguably, make it one of the richest countries in the world. this central african country is home to the world’s largest reserves of coltan, used in mobile phones and electric cars, as well as significant quantities of the world’s cobalt and copper, as well and diamonds, gold and many other minerals.

yet, because of the ongoing conflict, poor governance and a lack of infrastructure, the congolese people are not benefiting from this immense wealth. in fact, in 2019, DRC will become the country with the second highest number of people living below the poverty line.

who is affected by the conflict in DRC?

in the conflict-ridden eastern part of the country, women and children are often most affected by the conflict, as is the case with many crises. more than 2 million children suffer from severe acute malnutrition. one in 10 women and girls experienced sexual violence in 2016. in some cases, women and their children have no choice but to flee the violence and hunger. women often leave their homes with very little but their children and the clothes they were wearing. men too are frightened of being killed or forced to join armed groups.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ savethechildren.org/ democratic republic of congo ] and [ ngocongo.org ]

19. WEST PAPUA

ever since the invasion of west papua over fifty years ago, the Indonesian security forces have committed a never ending catalogue of extreme human rights violations.

over 500,000 civilians have been killed in a genocide against the indigenous population. thousands more have been raped, tortured, imprisoned or ‘disappeared’ after being detained. basic human rights such as freedom of speech are denied and papuans live in a constant state of fear and intimidation.

genocide

almost all papuans will be able to tell you stories of friends or family who have been murdered. a paper prepared by the yale law school for the indonesian human rights campaign in 2004 found “in the available evidence a strong indication that the indonesian government has committed genocide against the west papuans”.

the use of torture by the Indonesian security forces against the indigenous papuan population is widespread.

there is much documented evidence of this endemic behaviour and in recent years video footage (captured as ‘trophy footage’ by indonesian soldiers) has been leaked and broadcast on international news channels such as al jazeera and channel 4 news.

rape

sexual assault and rape has been repeatedly used as a weapon by the indonesian military and police.

in a public report to the U.N. commission on human rights in 1999, the special rapporteur on violence against women concluded that the indonesian security forces used rape “as an instrument of torture and intimidation” in west papua, and “torture of women detained by the indonesian security forces was widespread”.

the robert f. Kennedy memorial centre for human rights prepared a full report on “rape and other human rights abuses by the indonesian military in iran jaya (west papua), indonesia”.

freedom of expression

the basic rights to freedom of expression are almost completely denied in west papua. anyone expressing any criticism of indonesian rule and in particular aspirations for west papuan independence can expect to be persecuted by the police and imprisoned.

recently, leading human rights organizations kontraS papua and the commission for the disappeared and the victims of violence, published a report on the increasing tendency of the indonesian state to charge people peacefully expressing their desire for political independence with treason. they state:

'in 2010, cases with a political dimension have characteristically become ensnared by the charge of makar, the indonesian word for treason or rebellion… altogether in 2010, 32 people were charged or investigated in connection with article 106 on makar.’

political prisoners

yusak pakage, sentenced to 10 years in prison for attending a west papua flag raising ceremony.

there are currently hundreds of west papuan political prisoners being held in west papua and across indonesia. many are serving long prison terms for peacefully protesting against indonesian rule or for being members of organisations calling for west papuan independence.

filep karma is a particular case in point, serving a 15 year jail sentence simply for raising the west papuan national flag. he is an amnesty international prisoner of conscience. conditions in the prisons are often very poor and maltreatment of prisoners is common with many being beaten and tortured while detained. prisoners have often developed severe health problems and been denied access to medical care.

lives lived in fear

papuans return to find their homes in burnt to the ground by the Indonesian army following a ‘sweeping operation’

papuans return to find their homes in burnt to the ground by the indonesian army

many papuans live in a constant state of fear and intimidation. people living in villages across west papua can at any time be subject to military sweeping operations.

under the pretence of looking for insurgents, the military have repeatedly swept through entire rural areas killing arbitrarily and burning whole villages to the ground, destroying subsistence food crops and livestock and forcing people to flee into the forests where they are prone to starvation and disease.

impunity

imdonesian special army force (KOPASSUS) have committed widespread human rights abuses in west papua

despite public statements that the Indonesian government is improving its human rights record, the situation on the ground seems very different. there are often limited or no investigations into human rights abuses and if any discipline is handed out it is normally of little significance to the perpetrators of the abuses. amnesty international states:

“impunity for human rights violations is commonplace. accountability mechanisms to deal with police abuse remain weak, and reports of torture by members of the security forces often go unchecked and unpunished. many victims of past human rights violations in papua are still awaiting justice.”

access to journalists and NGOs

west papua is currently off limits to international journalists. if discovered without permission they are arrested and deported by the Indonesian authorities. some have even been attacked and imprisoned.

it is clear that Indonesian authorities will stop at nothing to keep the ongoing genocide they are directing in west papua out of the international media agenda. west papua has also become impossible to operate in for many NGOs. in 2010 the international red cross were expelled, and in 2012 peace brigades international were forced to leave. International human rights organisations such as amnesty and human rights watch are also denied access to west papua.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ freewestpapua.org ] and [ freepapuamovement.org ]

20. ARMENIA

azerbaijan launched "anti-terrorist activities" in the nagorno-karabakh region on tuesday, saying it wanted to restore constitutional order and drive out what it said were armenian troops, a move that could foreshadow a new war.

armenia and azerbaijan have already fought two wars over karabakh in the three decades since the soviet union they were both members of collapsed.

here is a look at the history of the conflict and the latest developments.

WHAT IS NAGORNO-KARABAKH?

nagorno-karabakh, known as artsakh by armenians, is a mountainous region at the southern end of the karabakh mountain range, within azerbaijan. it is internationally recognised as part of azerbaijan, but its 120,000 inhabitants are predominantly ethnic armenians. they have their own government which is close to armenia but not officially recognised by armenia or any other country.

armenians, who are christian, claim a long presence in the area, dating back to several centuries before christ. azerbaijan, whose inhabitants are mostly turkic muslims, also claims deep historical ties to the region, which over the centuries has come under the sway of persians, turks and russians. bloody conflict between the two peoples goes back more than a century.

under the soviet union, nagorno-karabakh became an autonomous region within the republic of azerbaijan.

FIRST KARABAKH WAR

as the soviet union crumbled, the first karabakh war (1988-1994) erupted between armenians and their azeri neighbours. about 30,000 people were killed and more than a million displaced. most of those were azeris driven from their homes when the armenian side ended up in control of nagorno-karabakh itself and swathes of seven surrounding districts.

44-DAY WAR IN 2020

in 2020, after decades of intermittent skirmishes, azerbaijan began a military operation that became the second karabakh war, swiftly breaking through armenian defences. it won a resounding victory in 44 days, taking back the seven districts and about a third of nagorno-karabakh itself.

the use of drones bought from turkey and israel was cited by military analysts as one of the main reasons for azerbaijan's victory. at least 6,500 people were killed.

russia, which has a defence treaty with armenia but also has good relations with azerbaijan, negotiated a ceasefire.

the deal provided for 1,960 russian peacekeepers to guard the territory's lifeline to armenia: the road through the "lachin corridor", which armenian forces no longer controlled.

PEACE TALKS

analysts say successive rounds of talks, mediated variously by the european union, the united states and russia, have brought the two sides closer to a permanent peace treaty than they have been for years, but a final settlement remains elusive. the most sensitive issue is the status of the 120,000 ethnic armenians in karabakh, whose rights and security armenia says must be guaranteed. prime minister nikol pashinyan has said armenia recognises the sovereignty and territorial integrity of azerbaijan, but baku says it is not certain the assertion was made in good faith and accuses armenia of fuelling separatism.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

in december 2022 azerbaijani civilians identifying themselves as environmental activists began blocking the lachin corridor, and in april 2023 azerbaijan set up an official checkpoint, saying it was preventing weapons smuggling. the flow of people and goods between armenia and nagorno-karabakh was largely cut off. the united states bemoaned the "rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation".

this week, the international committee of the red cross (ICRC) was able to make simultaneous aid deliveries via the lachin corridor and a separate road linking karabakh to the azerbaijani city of aghdam.

despite that, tensions have risen sharply this month, with armenia and azerbaijan accusing each other of building up troops.

HOW TO HELP

visit [ armeniafund.org ]

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soberscientistlife · 1 year

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‘I Want To Do My Part’

When the USS Gregory sank in 1942, a mess hall officer named Charles Jackson French dragged a raft full of his wounded crewmates to safety through shark-infested waters.

Born on Sept. 29, 1919, Charles Jackson French spent his early years in Foreman, Arkansas. At the time, Black and white pools were segregated, making it difficult for Black people to find opportunities to learn to swim. Swimming World Magazine speculates that French may have learned to swim by visiting the city’s stone quarries and the Red River.

However he learned to swim, French’s days in Foreman were numbered. After his parents died, he left Arkansas and moved in with his married, older sister Viola in Omaha, Nebraska. And by the time he was 18, French decided to strike out on his own and enlist in the U.S. Navy

The Navy, like swimming pools across the country, was strictly segregated. As a Black man, French had virtually no other choice than to work as a mess attendant. In that capacity, the U.S. Navy Office Of Information reports that French spent four years the USS Houston, serving meals to the white sailors, cleaning their tables, and keeping the mess hall spick and span.

French returned to Omaha when his deployment ended in November 1941, but he wouldn’t stay in Nebraska for long. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, French promptly re-enlisted.

“I want to do my part, because I’m already trained and I can start right away,” French said at the time.

He had spent his last tour cruising around the Pacific. But this time, Charles Jackson French would see significantly more action.

On Sept. 5, 1942, the USS Gregory and the USS Little were attacked by Japanese destroyers around 1 a.m. while patrolling the waters near Savo Island and Guadalcanal. The U.S. Navy Office Of Information reports that the Gregory, outgunned, sank after just three minutes. Its surviving men were plunged into shark-infested waters as the Japanese fired on them.

But French leaped into action. The 23-year-old helped injured sailors onto a makeshift raft and — when U.S. Navy Ensign Robert Adrian told him that the current would pull the raft toward a Japanese-occupied island — volunteered to jump in the water and pull the raft in the other direction.

Adrian told him it was impossible. French, according to Adrian, replied: “Just keep telling me if I’m goin’ the right way.”

He shed his waterlogged clothes, tied a rope around his waist, and started to swim. For the next six to eight hours, French tirelessly swam as sharks got so close that they sometimes brushed against his legs. At sunrise, an American scout finally spotted him and the others and sent rescue.

But French’s ordeal didn’t end there. As he later recounted, as recorded by Chester Wright in Black Men and Blue Water, French and other uninjured soldiers were taken to a rest camp by their rescuers, who wanted to separate French from the white sailors. To French’s surprise, the sailors insisted that French stay with them as a fellow member of Gregory’s crew.

“Them white boys stood up for me,” French emotionally told Wright.

The story of Charles Jackson French’s heroism was later made public by Adrian, who described it on a radio program called It Happened in the Service in October 1942, according to Swimming World Magazine. Adrian had never learned French’s full name — he and the others only knew him as “French” — but he fully credited him for their rescue that day.

“I can assure you that all the men on that raft are grateful to mess attendant French for his brave action off Guadacanal that night,” Adrian said.

The story was soon picked up by the national news, and Charles Jackson French was identified by NBC. He was celebrated across the country, featured in a comic strip, and lauded by the Black press.

Adrian “and other white Americans owe their LIVES to a black man whom he identified as a ‘mess attendant named French,'” the Pittsburgh Courier, a Black newspaper, wrote after French was identified.

The newspaper continued: “Although Mess Attendant Charles Jackson French of Arkansas was not in a heroic job, he MADE a heroic job out of it. He who had been looked down upon as a caste man, frozen in status, suddenly was looked up to as a SAVIOUR.”

Though rumors spread that Charles Jackson French might be awarded the Navy Cross, he was given only a letter of commendation from Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., the then-commander of the Southern Pacific Fleet.

French may have been denied the medal because a Silver Star was awarded to one of his superiors — and it was unprecedented to award a higher medal to a subordinate. But the Omaha World-Herald noted some decades later that future president John F. Kennedy had been given the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for a similar act of bravery.

After his service on the USS Gregory, Charles Jackson French didn’t rest on his laurels. He returned to his role in the mess on the USS Endicott and the USS Frankford, and witnessed D-Day and the invasion of southern France.

After World War II ended, French faded from the public eye. Black Past reports that he suffered from alcoholism and depression, and passed away on Nov. 7, 1956, in San Diego, California. He was only 37 years old.

But since then, there’s been a push to give this forgotten World War II hero his due. In April 2021, a post about French from the International Swimming Hall of Fame revived his story. And a year later, Rear Admiral Charles Brown, the Navy public affairs officer, presented eight of French’s relatives with a posthumous Navy and Marine Corps Medal — just like Kennedy’s.

“It will inspire generations of sailors,” Brown said at the medal ceremony, reported by the Omaha World-Herald. “It’s a story of the best of who we are.”

French has been honored in other ways, too. A training pool at Naval Base San Diego was named after French, and a post office in his hometown of Omaha also bears his name.

Black History Month Day 24

#black history facts #black history month #blackhistory #black lives matter

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hellcifrogs · 6 months

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Naruto but Backwards

I tried to keep it in short topics, but this still got long enogh for me to need its own post

A war just broke out in the ninja world, 12 year old Naruto has a huge target on his back and doesn't even know why. His father dies protecting him and telling him about the beast sealed inside him. (Other important plot points happen, that I don't feel like really thinking and elaborating now).

The conflict dies out for a while, many casualities and a new villain claiming to have the power of all the bijuus but two, Tobi/Madara/whatever Obito calls himself here, challenges the five nations to hand over Naruto and B. Naruto is sent to a secret island to train and be safe. There he meets his mother who teaches him to use his powers. He and B are rescued by Iruka's team when the big villain's new organization shows up to get them (Kisame from the Akatsuki)

The five kages meet and a little terrorist (Sasuke) shows up by Tobi's orders to disrupt their attempt to reunite forces, the Hokage Danzo takes the responsability for the boy from his village - when in reality he hopes to get another easy sharingan. Sasuke manages to kill him with the Akatsuki's help.

The leaf village is in shambles after the death of their hokage and Tsunade is appointed as the new one (not counting their titles, Minato could've been hokage or not so Tsunade could be 5th or 6th). Her first challenge is an attack from the Akatsuki after Naruto. Again lots of people get hurt, but the boy convinces Nagato to turn against Tobi and in exchange Nagato introduces Naruto to his old master.

After failing his first mission for the Akatsuki, Sasuke has to fight his brother to prove himself (sasuke is 13) nearly dies, but wins (Itachi lets him - doesn't die). And Sasuke is given his own little team (taka) to work. Their first job? Capture the 8 tails - clearly Tobi doesn't value them and is just sending them to their death, they defect, Deidara is sent to stop them and fights with Sasuke. (Bonus- A tracker team from the leaf is after Sasuke)

Team taka, now running from the Akatsuki seeks shelter with Orochimaru and becomes team hebi. Naruto is training with Jiraya, learns the shadow clones because Minato taught him rasengan already.

Kakuzu and Hidan are sent to capture Naruto and he is saved last minute by team Ino-Shika-Cho. Asuma dies in the first confront, but gives Naruto a hint to improve his rasengan. His students avenge his death with the help of Kakashi and his own team - Sakura and Sai. Naruto asks to be trained by Kakashi and joins his team, so he can have more experiences.

Naruto's first mission with team Kakashi is to investigate one of Orochimaru's hideouts, because there are rumors (thanks to team 8 ;)) that he is working against the Akatsuki and if that's the case they could become allies (he is, but he won't lol). They meet Sasuke!! They knew him from the stories, from his attack to the kages, but they meet in person for the first time.

Back to the leaf village, the sand sends an unexpected request for their help - they have a jinchuuriki and they need to hide/protect him. Turns out Tobi lied about having all the bijuu! Team Kakashi goes (though Sai could be busy this time), they save Gaara from Deidara, who had already kidnapped him and was almost at the hideout. Team Gai shows up to save the day! Naruto makes a new friend like him.

New measures are taken to protect the jinchuurikis, Naruto leaves to travel with his master Jiraya, though he is now officially a member of team Kakashi. He learns sage mode in the two years he's away. And returns to the village once there's apparently no risk of the war breaking into active conflict again. Tobi is quiet.

Sasuke discovers that Orichimaru had been helping Tobi and planned to hand him back to him. He kills him and escapes on his own. He's desperate to find a way to protect himself, if Kabuto or the other members of Hebi find him they'll kill him, if Tobi finds him he'll kill him, if the kages find him... He finds Naruto instead.

Naruto and Sasuke fight in the Valley of the End. Sasuke wants to capture Naruto and hand him to whoever offers him protection. Naruto just wants to reach Sasuke and, by the end of their fight, he does. Sasuke returns with him to the village. They become team 7 with the hokage's student - Sakura (Sai is team Kakashi, but has his own job).

A team from the Sound comes after Sasuke and almost take him back, but a group from the Leaf (and help from the Sand, who owe them for their help) save him, proving to him that he's safe now, Naruto and his friends will keep Sasuke safe.

Kabuto convinces Tsunade to use her powers to bring Orochinaru back to life. Probably blackmailing her. Jiraya comes rescue her with Naruto and Sasuke. She gives Naruto the necklace as a thank you, and tells the boys about the founders!

Naruto and Sasuke learn to fight together, joining forces and when, Itachi and Kisame (the first two akatsukis who the boys ever had to face) show up in the village to take them, they are ready. They defeat the Akatsuki and prepare to fight Tobi himself when the time comes. But first they need to officially become chunin lol

Soon after there's a large scale attack against the Leaf village (pretend is Pein level of destruction here). The Sound and Sand seemed to have joined forces, konoha 13 have to work togethee to save everyone (they're all 16/17 now, Naruto with his sage mode, Sasuke with his summons and sharingans, Tsunade is trapped but Sakura has the byakugo and lady Katsuyu). Orochimaru is back, he actually killed the kazekage and manipulated the Sand, as a thank you he doesn't kill Tsunade - she didn't bring him back, but Kabuto still found a way to do it based on her abilities. (Konoha crush)

After all that Orochimaru wants revenge for what Sasuke did, he is not sick anymore and almost does get him, but team 7 saves him and together they finally kill Orochimaru! (forest of death) -> Gaara becomes the new kazekage -> konoha 13 are all promoted to new positions (chunin exams equivalent, but make them jonin and even anbu). -> At this point I almost forgot about Obito, but...

Team 7 is sent to the mist for a mission, to go after the other jinchuuriki they found out about, one that had been actually helping Obito. They pretend to be on a escorting mission and there they meet a pair of mercenaries :) the waves arc goes pretty similar, but with the addition of rescuing Yagura from Obito's manipulation. Finally defeating him since they slowly had been cutting off all of his supports - Kakashi finds out he *is* Obito and they have their dramatic fight. (Them fighting around the three tails ouch)

Haku and Zabuza actually turn to their side last minute and die teaching Naruto the same lesson that becomes his motivation to become hokage.

#naruto au #naruto #not art #pls ignore any mistakes i wrote this late at night and hadn't had the time to double check #this is the kind of shit i do #that proves to my sibling that i cannot in fact be normal

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months

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Brinkwhump Linkdump

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then San Francisco (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

Once again, I find myself arriving at the weekend with a giant backlog of links, triggering a linkump, the 15th such dumpage, a variety-pack of miscellany for your weekend. Here's the previous editions:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Let's start with the latest incredible news from KPMG, the accounting and auditing giant that is relied upon as a source of ground truth for a truly terrifying share of the world's economy. KPMG has a well-deserved reputation for incompetence and corruption. They first came on my radar in 2001 when they sent a legal threat to a blogger for linking to their website without permission:

https://memex.craphound.com/2001/12/05/reason-4332442-not-to-ask/

The actual link was to KPMG's corporate anthem, which remains, to this day, a banger:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040428063826/http://chkpt.zdnet.com/chkpt/uknewsita/http://anthems.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/kpmg.mp3

Don't miss the DJ remixes (and the Nokia ringtone!) that the internet thoughtfully provided when KPMG decided that it didn't want the world to know about "Our Vision of Global Strategy":

https://web.archive.org/web/20011128153057/http://corporateanthems.raettig.org/

Now all this is objectively very funny, a relic of the old, good internet from one of its moments of glory, but KPMG? They were already enshittifying, even in 2001, and the enshittification only intensified thereafter. Nearly every accounting scandal of the past quarter-century has KPMG in it somewhere, from con-artists selling exhausted oil fields to rubes:

https://www.desmog.com/2021/06/03/miller-energy-kpmg-auditors-oil-fraud/

To killer nursing homes that hire KPMG to audit its books – and to advise it on how to defeat safety audits and murder your grandma:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/09/dingo-babysitter/#maybe-the-dingos-ate-your-nan

They're the architects of Microsoft's tax-evasion plot:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougher

And they were behind Canada's dysfunctional covid contact-tracing app, which never worked, but generated tens of millions in billings to the government of Canada, who used KPMG to hire programmers at $1,500/day, plus KPMG's 30% commission:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/31/mckinsey-and-canada/#comment-dit-beltway-bandits-en-canadien

KPMG's most bizarre scandal is literally stranger than fiction. The company bribed SEC personnel help its own accountants cheat on ethics exams. The corrupt officials were then given high-paid jobs at KPMG:

https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-professional/article/sec-probe-finds-kpmg-auditors-cheating-on-training-exams-061819

I mean it when I say this is stranger than fiction. I included it as a plot-point in my new finance crime novel The Bezzle (now a national bestseller!), and multiple readers have written to me since the book came out a couple weeks ago to say that they thought I was straining their credulity by making up such an outrageous scandal:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

But all of that is just scene-setting (and a gratuitous plug for my book) for the latest KPMG scandal, which is, possibly, the most KPMG scandal of all KPMG scandals. The Australian government hired KPMG to audit Paladin, a security contractor that oversees the asylum seekers the country locks up on one of its island gulags (yes, gulags, plural).

Ever since, Paladin has been the subject of a string of ghastly human rights scandals – the worst stuff imaginable, rape and torture and murder of adults and children. Paladin made AU423 million on this contract.

And here's the scandal: KPMG audited the wrong company. The Paladin that the Australia government paid KPMG to audit was based in Singapore. The Paladin that KPMG audited was a totally different company, based in Papua New Guinea, who already had a commercial relationship with KPMG. It was this colossal fuckup that led to the manifestly unfit Singaporean company getting nearly half a billion dollars in public funds:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/24/incredible-failure-kpmg-rejects-claims-it-assessed-the-wrong-company-before-423m-payment-to-paladin

KPMG denies this. KPMG denies everything, always. Like, they denied creating "power maps" of decision-makers in the Australian government to target with influence campaigns in order to win contracts like this one. Who knows, maybe, this one time, they're telling the truth? After all, the company whose employees gather to sing lyrics like these can't be all bad, right?

The time is now to lead the way, We share the same the idea That may win by the end of the day. Our strength is here to stay. Identity, one energy, One strategy, with sympathy. These are the words that will lead us into a new world.

https://everything2.com/title/KPMG+corporate+anthem

You may find it strange that I'm still carrying around the factoid that KPMG once threatened to crush a blogger for linking to its terrible corporate anthem, but that's just my "Memex Method," which helps me keep track of literally everything that seemed important to me through most of my adult life:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

One of my favorite quips from the very quotable Riley Quinn is that "leftists are cursed with object-permanence" – that is, we actually remember what just happened and use it to think about what's happening now. The Memex Method is object permanence for 20+ years worth of stuff. A lot of those deep archives never see use, but there's a surprising number of leading indicators buried in the stuff that happened in years gone by.

Take James Boyle's 2014, XKCD-style comic about the experience of driving a notional Apple car:

https://www.thepublicdomain.org/2014/11/07/apple-updates-a-comic/

Apple, it turns out, spent the next decade working on just such a car, and while that car has now been canceled, Boyle's comic correctly anticipates so much about the trajectory Apple's products took. It's uncannily accurate – real "don't invent the torment nexus"/"cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion" stuff:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus

But no matter how many times we insist that the torment nexus shouldn't be created, the boardrooms of end-stage capitalism continue to invent them. Take HP, the poster-child for enshittification, edging out even KPMG in the race to turn everything into a pile of shit. After years of tormenting people to punish them for wanting to print things, HP has announced a new service that so mustache-twirlingly evil that it lacks verisimilitude:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/

Here's the pitch: HP will sell you a printer that you don't own. In addition to paying a monthly fee for your ink – which you pay no matter whether you print or not – you will also pay a monthly fee just for having HP's printer on your premises. You are absolutely, positively forbidden from using third-party ink in this printer, and must use HP's own ink, which sells for about $10,000/gallon.

But while you aren't allowed to use this printer in ways that are bad for HP's shareholders, HP is absolutely free to use the printer in ways that are bad for you. When you click through the signup agreement, you grand HP permission to surveil every document you print – and your home wifi network more generally – and to sell that data to anyone and everyone.

What's more, HP reserves the right to discipline you with punitive credit-card charges if you disconnect this printer from the internet, on the basis that doing so makes it harder for them to spy on your printer.

I'm sorry, this is just more torment nexus shit, the kind of thing you'd expect to drop on Apr 1, not Feb 29, but I guess this is where we are. I can only conjecture as to whether HP's businesses strategists are directly taking direction from my novella "Unauthorized Bread," or whether they're learning about it second-hand from a KPMG consultant who converted it to Powerpoint form and charged $1,500/day for the work:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

All of this cartoonish villainry is the totally foreseeable consequence of a culture of impunity, in which companies like HP and KPMG can rob, cheat, steal (and sometimes even kill) without consequence. This impunity is so pervasive that the exceptions – where a rich criminal faces real consequences – become touchstones: Enron, Arthur Anderson, Theranos, and, of course, FTX.

FTX was arguably the largest-scale corporate crime in world history, stealing more than $10 billion dollars, mostly from rubes sucked in by hype and Superbowl ads. When news that FTX founder and owner Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and was in for a lengthy prison sentence made a huge stir, because criminals like SBF usually walk away from the wreckage with their hands in their pockets, whistling a jaunty tune.

One of the very best commentators on cryptocurrency scams generally and FTX/SBF in particular is Molly White, whose Web3 is Going Just Great feed is utterly indispensable. White's newsletter, "Citation Needed," dives deep into the wrangle of SBF's sentencing:

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-52/

Bankman-Fried's parents – prominent law professors at top law schools – helped brief the court this week on their son's punishment. According to them, SBF faces 100 years in prison, but should be sentenced to 5.5-6.5 years at the most. Why? Because he is a vegan, who is not greedy, and feels remorse, and cares for individuals (recall that SBF presented himself as the avatar of the batshit "effective altruism" philosophy while privately admitting that he used this as a smokescreen).

The most bizarre note in the 100-page filing is SBF's mother declaring that her son is an "angel of mercy," apparently unaware of the grisly meaning of that term:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_mercy_(criminology)

America's prisons are a travesty and I wouldn't wish them on anyone, but that's not the argument SBF's parents are making; rather, they're arguing that their special boy doesn't deserve the treatment America metes out to poorer, less white people who merely steal hundreds or thousands of dollars. A crook who steals ten billion should be handled the way a casino handles a whale – with concierge service.

The problem is, there are so many of these remorseless, relentless crooks that there's no way we could scale up that white-glove treatment when we finally round 'em all up and make them pay. Writing for The American Prospect, Maureen Tkacik tells us about the ransomware attack that shut down America's pharmacy system last month:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-03-01-zoomer-hackers-shut-down-unitedhealthcare/

The attack brought down Change Healthcare, part of the monopolist Unitedhealth, which serves as the "pharmacy benefit manager" to a vast swathe of American pharmacies. PBM is one of those all-American finance scams, a middleman garlanded with performative complexity put there to make you feel stupid for asking why independent pharmacies all have to pay rent to this malicious, unaccountable – and now, manifestly incompetent – gang of crooks.

Tkacik's breakdown of this scam – and how it rendered Americans' ability to get the drugs they depend on to go on breathing – is characteristically brilliant. Tcacik is fast emerging as my favorite Explainer of Scams, a print version of John Oliver or Adam Conover. You may recall her work from my post last week on how private equity has taken a wrecking ball to America's hospitals:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/#charnel-house

I always try to finish these linkdumps with some upbeat news to carry you through the weekend, and this week brought two genuinely wonderful – and totally underreported – pieces of amazing news.

The first is that Starbucks has sued for peace in the war against its workers' unions. Hundreds of Starbucks stores have unionized in recent years, but not one of them had a contract. Instead, Starbucks had waged dirty war on their own workers, from denying gender-affirming care to unionized employees to simply shutting down whole stores after they voted to unionize:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/14/starbucks-union-company-threatens-that-unionizing-could-jeopardize-gender-affirming-health-care.html

But the workers held fast and after years of this, Starbucks has caved, promising contracts for all unionized stores and an end to its campaign of terror against workers seeking to unionize more of its stores. In a postmortem for Jacobin, Eric Blanc rounds up "seven lessons from Starbucks workers' historic victory":

https://jacobin.com/2024/02/starbucks-sbwu-contract-bargaining/

This is the kind of listicle I can get behind. According to Blanc, the Starbucks unions won by deploying worker-to-worker organizing, a tactic that many of the new unions that are shaking up formerly impossible-to-organize jobsites are using (Blanc has a book about this coming from UC Press called "We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Unionism Can Transform America," so he should know).

Other tactics that made the difference for Starbucks unions: new digital training and support tools and partnering with established unions for support and infrastructure. Blanc also calls out the success of "salting" – the venerable but largely disused tactic of union organizers applying for a job at a non-union shop in order to organize it.

Blanc also mentions government policy, including the outstanding work of NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, a shrewd and committed tactician whose understanding of the technicalities of labor law have let her push for bold measures. For example, in Thrive Pet Care, Abruzzo is arguing that when a company refuses to bargain in good faith for a contract with its union, she can step in and order them to honor the terms of a contract at comparable unionized competitors until they produce a contract of their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

Abruzzo is one of several smart, competent tacticians in the Biden administration who are working to kneecap corporate power. Another is Rohit Chopra, chair of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, who just announced another bold, important initiative that will help Americans fight corporate corruption and get a fair deal:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-03-01-public-option-credit-card-shopping/

Chopra is taking aim at credit-card comparison sites that purport to show you where you can get the best deal. If you're an affluent person who doesn't carry a balance, this might not matter to you, but if you're an average working stiff, high interest rates can gobble up a massive share of your paycheck. What's more, credit card margins are higher than they have ever been:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/credit-card-interest-rate-margins-at-all-time-high/

The most expensive credit cards come from the big, monopolistic banks, but you wouldn't know it from the leaderboards produced by Credit Karma, NerdWallet, LendingTree, and Bankrate. All of these sites take bribes from the big banks to list their credit cards above those offered by credit unions – who are typically 10% cheaper than the big banks' cards.

The new CFPB rule prohibits this fraudulent ranking, but the Bureau is going even further. They're using their administrative powers to force banks to report their rates to the Bureau, which will publish them on a publicly funded, neutral website – what David Dayen calls "a public option" for shopping for credit cards.

This policy makes a perfect bookend to the last CFPB initiative I wrote about here: a rule that forces banks to allow you to transfer your account to a rival with a couple of simple clicks, importing all your history, payees, and everything else you need to switch to a better bank:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/let-my-dollars-go/#personal-financial-data-rights

Combine that ease of switching with reliable information on which banks will give you the best deal and you get something that will directly transfer millions and millions of dollars from giant, wildly profitable banks to low-income people who've been tricked into paying them punitive interest rates.

So that's it, this week's linkdump. I promised you I'd end on a high note, and I did it. The world may be full of all kinds of terrible things, but workers and regulators are scoring big, muscular victories in battles where the stakes are real and important. Have a great weekend – we've earned it.

And remember!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/02/macedoine/#the-public-option

Image: Stacy (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/notahipster/4402860361/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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ultfreakme · 2 months

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Thoughts on Jessie Gender's video on NATLA

I really admire Jessie Gender's videos usually, she's the one whom I usually go to to see videos on gender and queerness in media. I like her stuff a lot and respect their work.

But the NATLA video left me going "no, wait, that's not what happened" a lot. I can't summarize the video, I suggest people go watch it if they want to know but I disagree with practically everything for the most part.

I'm not anybody on the internet. But what I do have is a lifetime of growing up on ATLA, a degree in Sociology and English Literature, coming from a culture that ATLA is based on, studying about colonial rule, researching the cultures ATLA is based on in my spare time and a love for the original. Does that establish some legitimacy? If for some reason you feel like you need to go hate on Jessie for this, DON'T. DO NOT. This is me just critiquing because I think the video content was biased and I want to honestly engage with the points made because everyone has a tendency to demonize the adaption without looking at it on its own merit. With that said:

Point 1: Sokka's sexism is taken out to make the show more palatable and his arc in the Kyoshi Island episode undermines Suki to prop up Sokka.

She says that Sokka's sexism and him addressing it is a show-long arc, and him deconstructing that is him fighting against the colonial sexism of the Fire Nation.

Sokka's sexism is explicitly dealt with in one episode. He's shown to be overtly sexist in the first 4 and never again except for little comments here and there that every other character makes as well and goes unaddressed. His sexism is not because of the Fire Nation- FN is very inclusive of women as warriors. Sokka's sexism is an anomaly because no one but him cares that Katara isn't just sitting home mending clothes(Bato, Hakoda, none of the men on the ship they are on in S3 say a word and she takes off to join Aang in the Fire Nation islands).

If Sokka's sexism is not systematic to the Southern Water Tribe or caused by the Fire Nation, what kind of commentary on sexism is this?

She also says Suki is played down and demured to give Sokka confidence when she's teaching him, taking away her arc as she pines for the new boy who she likes because he's shirtless. Sokka's throughout the episode shows insecurity and a more subtle form of sexism where he's trying ton prove he's as good as her. He's trying to show off his strength to her, and failing miserably and when he realizes she bested him, he walks away. He goes into it assuming he's better than her but walks away realizing shit she is GOOD. Then he goes to her dojo to observe the practice and follows along, Suki invites him in seeing him fucking up the forms outside and teaches him.

Suki falls for a tackle Sokka does in the og and live action. In the OG, it's shown as Sokka ACTUALLY being better. In the live action? He isn't. One lesson doesn't make him better, she transitions from actually teaching him to kinda flirting until she completely stops. She's not weakening herself for him, both of them are expressing romantic interest. How did Sokka, a boy who that morning was defeated by them, get better than SUKI in a spar she put genuine effort in? I think that's frankly more sexist than the live action take.

Additionally, Suki was meant to be a one-off character meant to teach Sokka that sexism is bad. She existed entirely to serve Sokka's character arc and had no independent motivation in season 1. In the live action, we see her talk about wanting to go into the world, and see her growing motivation through Aang's presence of wanting to not just protect Kyoshi Island, but the world. She became what she is only in season 2 and 3. Sokka's sexism arc didn't even pan out well because he never addressed the issue with Katara after that episode, the first and most affected victim of his sexism.

Sokka wearing the armor in the original, is a joke. Aang calls their uniform a dress while laughing (it's not, like it's not even constructed like one, the bottoms are loose pants called Hakama). He isn't put into the uniform to show solidarity, it's a joke, and we are meant to be laughing at Sokka for the most part. Queer fans have reclaimed and redefined that scene to be like drag, but that wasn't the original intention of the show because we get jokes on Aang's masculinity which never actively get refuted from Toph in season 2. Katara of all people points out Sokka wearing a poinytail in a demeaning manner multiple times, a supposedly girly hairstyle. If the original wanted to honor Sokka embracing gender fluidity, they wouldn't consistently mock him for being choosy about buying a bag and wearing a ponytail(which in-universe has cultural importance to him).

All signs of 'femininity' in Sokka are played for laughs in the rest of the show(down to the scene where he draws a rainbow, and his master Piandao simply rolls his eyes).

Sokka is also never once shown as a better warrior in the live action- his story is the opposite. Sokka yearns here to be an engineer, a scientist tinkering away with new inventions. His father Hakoda and the SWT discourages this because there is no value in that for them. Value is shown for them to come from physical strength, which Sokka NEVER has in live action season 1(him having biceps and being shirtless is not a glorification of strength). He's good, but he's nothing special. His true highlight is in his intellect and the show implies pretty well that Sokka doesn't need to be physically strong or a warrior to fight back against oppression.

That's his defining line in the show teasers "you do not need to be a warrior, to be a hero."

Point 2: The sexism arc isn't replaced by anything more nuanced.

It is! It's replaced by the biases against bending. Sokka discourages Katara from bending because the Fire Nation attacked the SWT to eliminate waterbenders. Both Katara and Sokka hold fear for waterbending, a part of their own culture, specifically because of the Fire Nation's hegemony and hierarchical beliefs. Waterbending = preservation of culture and Katara says these exact words in episode 1. Sokka stopping her is him being under the colonial hegemony of the FN because waterbending is what brought Fire Nation soldiers to their shores to kill their mom. That's the new arc and it has follow through to the end. Instead of Sokka telling Katara to kick ass because he isn't sexist anymore, the live action Sokka says it because he's embraced waterbending and his own culture now through seeing Katara grow and letting her choose for herself what's best for her (instead of smothering in his faux warrior persona, which they literally discuss when stuck in the cave). This arc is exclusive to the show, there's no comment on the cultural significance and erasure of waterbending in the original.

It's made more explicit in Katara's arc, where she needs to get past the fear the Fire Nation has put in her of the dangers of her own bending, and embrace that her people wanted to protect it (Kya sacrificing herself, Gran-Gran hiding the waterbending scroll).

Point 3: Showing the genocide of the Air Nomads is disrespectful

In the original, the Air Nomads are nothing but a memory. At all times. We never see the influence of the Air Nomad culture on Aang, or see them alive and thriving at any point. We see them fight back on the live action, and the actual genocide is a few short minutes, interspersed with Aang sinking. It's not a lingering process and it shows the abilities of Air Nomads. Jessie says this is purely aesthetic and to be cool, but there are significant moments that happen here.

Establishing the powers of Air Benders- this is the first and last time we'll get to see Air Bending on this scale and this shows what they can do

There's a scene where two air nomads nod to one another, and the air nomad switches from defensive to an extremely offensive move. It shows that this isn't typical for the Air Nomads, and that they are being pushed to their limits

This is a festival, they were defending themselves and it's important to show that the Air Nomads didn't just go silently without a fight and were ambushed on an important day.

To show the Fire Nation's cruelty and the extent of their power during the comet specifically.

To give weight to WHY everyone Aang runs into is so critical and hateful of the fact that he was gone, and to also show why Aang never refutes them and the weight of what he's lost (and also that even if he were there, he couldn't have done anything)

It's not just to be cool, it's honestly not cool to watch and taking Gordon Cormier, a child's quote to say that's what everyone's impression is, is disingenuous despite the disclaimer given. The kids' quotes always get taken out of context. Reviewers and Avatar fans who went to the premiere were disturbed overall by the violence. They did not think of the Fire Nation as "cool", they saw the Air Nomads like that. Like don't we want people to think of the Air Nomads in a positive light for fighting back?

Their culture gets little to no expansion in the original, and whatever Aang has left of them is actually slowly stripped away in the original.

Aang is made to okay the destruction and modification of the Northern Air Temple when destruction is shown as wrong during his rage and grief in the Southern Air Temple. The new settlers have used the gliders of Air Nomads to device weapons that fly, which were then sold to the Fire Nation. The Mechanist and his people continue this and create more weapons to fight the war in the temples(albeit this time agaisnt the fire nation but the cycle of violence continues using devices and cultures of a peaceful people). A once-peaceful place, is now a center for war innovation and Aang is told to accept this because he must let go of the past to look to the future.

The above, in comparison to Aang simply saying "I should let go of the past and look to the future" is FAR more disrespectful of Aang's culture and past. The live action keeps Gyatso's memory a constant companion to Aang, he is terrified of letting go of the past and it hinders him from simply living.

Point 4: Violence is shown as good and the cycle of violence is perpetuated.

She says Kyoshi demanding Aang to fight back and hit hard is showing that Aang needs to embrace strength and power. That everyone telling him to fight and be alone means strength is given importance, and that the same is shown when Zuko says "sometimes the weak can become strong, sometime you just have to give them a chance."

Kyoshi is wrong. She is willfully portrayed as powerful, but harsh. Roku(though his screentime was small) disagrees with her and tells Aang to find his own way of fighting and that is ultimately what Aang follows.

Kyoshi doesn't come off as correct, she's demanding and harsh, unforgiving. Aang initially lets her take over because he is scared of the power he holds and she promises she can control it to help others. Aang doesn't want power(he literally says 'I don't want these powers'). In the finale, he gives in to the ocean spirit and does what Kyoshi asks; save everyone, even if it costs his own life. But it is shown as a tragedy. Katara calls back for him and tells him he shouldn't have to sacrifice himself, that he has a place in this world as he is no matter what others tell him and he listens to THAT. He says he will save the world not alone, but with his friends, in the memory of the Air Nomads to ensure it never happens again.

Physical strength is only a priority to Katara's character. Sokka doesn't fight in the end, he's begging Yue to not sacrifice herself and is protecting her. He's not some macho man. Aang is also not embracing power.

Zuko says that line not to show that he can grow stronger, but that people should get second chances. He's a hurt kid wishing his father had the compassion to let him grow. But he doesn't and Zuko walks away from it thinking physical strength and bending prowess is important, crushing his compassion. That line on a meta level isn't even about physical strength. It's about mental fortitude and character, and the strength to be compassionate.

Jet was mentioned as being portrayed as more wrong, but in the original he was ready to sink a village of innocents. in the live action he genuinely helped Katara with her waterbending and was justified in wanting to kill the mechanist(who collaborated with the fire nation) and King Bumi (who is neutral, incompetent and has let the Fire Nation run rampant in the city). He's more sympathetic here because he's doing it with a concrete reason, and he didn't even manipulate Katara the way he did in the original. She was genuinely charmed by him.

A big problem I had with Jessie's video was putting in clips from some right-wing channel between critique of NATLA....which....why? Huh? And these were used to say NATLA is leaning into fascist tendencies and smoothing out any critique of colonialism when it really isn't. I think NATLA is very explicitly saying the same message as the original. Not in the same way, but it is. The show actively engages audiences and the characters in discussions of cultural erasure and the problems of valuing power(the latter especially through Zuko and Azula).

There are million issues with the live action (Sokka's casting, ableism in Zuko's burn scar, the writing issues, pacing issues, the lack of screen time for Aang and focus on the Fire family). The ones Jessie Gender discussed though, are not it.

#natla #natla positivity #atla la #atla live action #avatar netflix #jessie gender

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equallyshaw · 5 months

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little lion au! | luke hughes au! ↠ luke's nickname for liona, blurb! ↠ au masterlist!

↠ warnings: none! ↠ word count: 873. ↠ at this point, they have been dating about 6 months. its may 2024. ↠ italicized is russian.

liona and luke had spent the previous evening together, after an impromptu and last minute dinner in east village. after a win against the NY islanders, luke reached out to liona to go grab some food. she brought him to her favorite russian place, and absolutely adored that luke decided to show off the russian he'd been picking up from her (and duolingo). it made her heart swell, that he had taken the time to learn on his own and how much he paid attention to her 'little lion lessons' from time to time, and ofcourse the conversations she had with her dad over the phone. it meant the world to her that he cared enough.

the next morning to the two were cuddling with each other at her west village apartment that she shared with her two best friends from highschool. her phone had been blaring for a few minutes, but she ignored it - trying to savor this morning. "kai..." luke mumbled, her middle name- that he called her by. she groaned, pushing a hand to his face to shut him up. "kai..." he mumbled a bit more, opening his eyes and took in her morning hair. it was a bad bed head morning he thought, and he pushed some hair out of her face. "kai, you're phone." he whispered before pressing a kiss to her forehead. she pushed him away a bit too hard, because she ended up falling on the wood floor. he quickly looked over and relaxed, once she saw her sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "morning kai." he said with a cheeky grin, and she flipped him off as she heard her phone ring for the 5th time. "what dad?!" she demanded, as she picked up. luke watched as she and her dad conversed with each other in russian, and the annoyance that dripped from every word. "wait what?" she spoke aloud in english, and luke looked up at her from where he was ndext to her. "wait what?" she repeated, hopping out of bed and jogging over towards her front door. "oh dad....you didn't have to." she gushed, bending down to grab the marble glass vase that held her favorite flowers, chamomiles. "i love you dad, thankyou. ill call you tomorrow." she said before hanging up. luke walked into the kitchen where she was, and he leaned onto the counter next to her. "chamomiles!" she said giving him a wide smile, before turning back to them and looking on with marvel. "i cant believe he got them for me." she mused, sending a picture to her uncle malkin who knew how much she loved this flower.

"are they daisies?" he questioned, and she shook her head with a giggle. "no, they're russian chamomile's. russia's national flower, and somehow he got some to me. he knows they are my absolute favorite!" she said bringing her hands to her cheeks. "i thought tiger lily's were? hence his one nickname?" luke questioned, and liona shook her head. "well yes and now. while i do love tiger lily, i love chamomile's. the first time i went to russia, apparently i just flocked to the flower garden my babushka (grandma) had in her backyard, and these are what i began to pull out to smell. and ever since then, they've been kinda my thing." she said leaning into luke, as he pulled her into his side. "they used to say back in russia, 'liona's or lion's flowers.' and my dedushka (grandpa) put a sign next to them, and yeah. my dad gets them every year for my birthday, or whenever i need a pick me up." she said with a small smile. "how do you say it in russian?" he questioned, "romashka. and it means joy, calmness, poise, and its resilient i like to say, because they have the ability to bloom amidst times of stress, and adversity. and they still blooming, no matter what." she said leaning her head on his shoulder. luke's heart warmed because she just described herself. described herself through her childhood.

"y'know that you are just that?" he began, looking down at her. she looked up at him with creased eyebrows. "you bloomed when the world believed that you shouldn't have. it would have been expected for you to hate or curse the world. but you still held and hold deep love for it. you bloomed when you were going through the hardest times of you life with your parents. you've stayed blooming despite it all. despite your rocky relationships with your parents, despite you shutting out your dad last year, despite whatever the world throws at you." he said as his hazel eyes found her brown.

"my romashka." he repeated, and she nodded. "you are my joy and my calm in the storm. you are my chamomille- despite that being the cheesiest thing I've ever said out loud before, but its true. you are my chamomile, my cammie." he said with a smile on his face. tears pricked her eyes, and she leaned up with kiss him. her arms wrapped around his neck, as he pulled her in closer by the waist. "my romashka." he whispered once more, before the two headed back into her bedroom.

#luke hughes #luke hughes au #luke hughes x ovechkin #luke hughes x oc #luke hughes blurb #new jersey devils #alex ovechkin #nhl #hockey #nhl blurb #hockey blurb #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #equallyshaw masterlist

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boundinparchment · 5 months

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Dream a Little Dream of Me - LIV

Celestia had a cruel sense of humor. He knew this, even before his days as a student. But to be given a soulmate? Now, when he openly blasphemed against the cursed island in the sky? He would outlive you and the dreadful fated bond that haunted your shared dreams. There was little point in this. He could at least put a Vision to good use. People were nothing but disappointments. He had no use for you. Until you pulled the bow across your instrument and awoke a part of him long buried by self-hatred and arrogance. Soulmate AU; Il Dottore/Female reader w/ established personality and backstory. Slow burn. Lore and world speculation and interpretation within; follows canon story where possible. Fic is rated explicit; MDNI. Mind the tags. Chapter on AO3 here.

A blast of heat greeted you as you stepped into the House of the Hearth. Early twilight cast shades of pink and orange against warm wooden paneling, echoes of laughter dancing down the halls. You could already smell dinner wafting from the far reaches of the large house. If you closed your eyes, you could just make out the out-of-tune violin being practiced upstairs.

Arlecchino’s passing comment at the bank was followed up with a proper invitation. One you knew better than to avoid or turn down. Zandik didn’t entirely seem pleased but even he knew you were more bound by social conventions. If you were to stay, you might as well attempt to make other bonds.

You knew little about this particular division of the Fatui other than Zandik’s remark about espionage and that loyalty was an interesting facet of cognitive development for children.

A housekeeper took your cloak and lead you to Arlecchino’s office at the back of the house. Wide windows dressed in heavy drapes provided a view to gardens long-since buried in snow and trampled through by both wildlife and children. The furniture looked only slightly out of place and bore the uniquely detailed style typical of Fontainian woodworkers and upholsterers. The table between the couches held a tea set that was, although plain, clearly made from one of the best guild-families; it was accompanied by a large stand of desserts, colorful, fresh, and familiar.

Around you, floor to ceiling bookshelves held various tomes, the age of some betraying the woman standing behind her desk. Another oddity you were beginning to recognize among the top-ranked Fatui leaders.

“Perfect timing, maestra, although I’d expect as such from someone of your skill,” Arlecchino said, her smile softly carving her face. “Make yourself at home.”

You settled into the sofa nearest you, the fire in the hearth on your left spilling its warmth onto your feet. The Harbinger handed off a letter to the housekeeper before she took a seat across from you, legs crossed as her hands reached for the teapot and poured.

“Before I recount the important details of Fontaine’s changes, there is one that I feel you, and many others, were owed a long time ago.”

She picked up a cup and saucer and held it out to you, black fingers curling so her nails wouldn’t scratch you. You took it, the smell of lavender teasing your senses, and watched as Arlecchino pulled something from inside her jacket and placed it on the table.

Metal glinted in the firelight and your blood iced over. You turned your head to look the Harbinger square in the face, eyes narrowed.

“I thought your compositions sounded familiar but your piano playing made it difficult to place. Once my children confirmed you had taken to another instrument, it didn't take much more than an ad placed for a cellist in the national orchestra. The Steambird does love its gossip and a renowned cellist leaving the tour in Sumeru after a devastating scene of destruction is quite...attention-grabbing."

Arlecchino took a sip of her tea before she spoke again.

“Not that it truly matters, although the Doctor was always a bit touched with paranoia. You are owed accolades in your own right and if the Doctor is keen on keeping your visage to himself, then so be it.”

“Then why is that signet ring on the table?” you asked, your tea untouched in your lap.

The last you saw of that accursed thing, he was playing with it as you signed your non-disclosure forms and waivers. How many bruises had that thing wrought? How many scars?

A trembling ache sat in your rib cage. Deep down, a part of you hoped you get to slice your claymore through him, bit by bit. Make him regret hurting you, hurting everyone. It was never a conscious thought but when you practiced, sometimes the training mech wore his face in your mind, and you worked yourself to exhaustion.

Zandik never asked. With many things, he didn’t need to. Spite recognized spite and of all people, he knew how to use it to fuel one’s goals.

“When I arrived, I caught wind that he had a new contract with a violinist. Talented young man. Your patron recently took to darker circles, was far more open about his…activities to others. When one gets away with something for too long, they get careless. I'll spare you the rest but the poor boy did not die a dignified death. Even at the end of a spear, your patron whined and blamed others, thinking it would save him.”

Between your fingers, the handle of the porcelain cup snapped and hot liquid spilled across the fabric you wore. Unsteadily, you placed the cup and saucer on the table and reached for a cloth napkin, dabbing your outfit.

You’d wanted to kill him.

Ever since you finally developed the proper strength and had the means, you’d silently hoped that one day, you’d take up the chance. Hurt him for all that he robbed you and others of, for all the pain and lasting marks, for taking your own passion and throttling you with it…

Gone, just like that.

The flood of rage, hot and boiling, faded as relief washed over you, certainty taking hold. He would never harm a single person again. No one would die again.

But maybe if you hadn’t left, that violinist would be alive. Others after you would have been spared. You could have endured it. Wouldn’t that have been better? At least no one else would have...

Vision blurry and shoulders shaking, you were unaware that Arlecchino had moved to sit beside you, her steady hands taking the napkin from you and dabbing the fabric in your place.

“What good is justice when the guilty all walk free?” she whispered soothingly.

You couldn’t cry, not here, not properly. Even if Arlecchino knew who you were, where you came from, you liked the privacy and anonymity your mask gave you. That something kept you from the rest of the world while Zandik got all of you.

You managed a shuddering breath as you focused on the warmth of the fire, Arlecchino’s voice, and the way your boots moved when you flexed your ankles. The Harbinger, satisfied you at least weren’t melting, rose and folded the fabric in her hands gently.

“He was not the first of his kind, nor the last. Many of the children I’ve come across suffered similar or worse. At the very least, he will no longer hurt another.”

Which was all you could have asked for, in the end.

Arlecchino whisked away the broken cup and wet saucer back to the tray, used the napkin to wipe up the remnants on the polished wood, and placed a new one in front of you without hesitation. Practiced motions that only came with experience.

“I—"

“I hated this set anyway,” the Harbinger said as smoothed her pants and sat down. “One cup won’t be missed.”

You nodded but didn’t bring yourself to take the cup just yet. Hands still shaking slightly, you didn’t quite trust yourself not to break this one, too.

“Fontaine loves to pretend they have everything in order and Monsieur Neuvillette tries, certainly. Lady Furina tried but lacked the confidence in her skills and abilities. Plenty of people, including the perpetrator behind the serial disappearances, got away with the harm they caused due to those blindspots. Systems fail, maestra. No one intends for them to, but they do.”

“They failed those victims for a decade,” you said. “They failed every single person who trusted the ones who put a roof over their head.”

The venom in your words was intentional but it was burning you from the inside out; you couldn’t keep it in forever.

You recalled a case where a boy killed his parents when he discovered they were selling the children they took in when they got too old. More and more young women went missing, never to be seen again. Performers, the best of the best, suddenly without the partner they rose to fame with; shared looks across a crowded room said everything one needed to know about what transpired.

“It is why people like us must step in,” Arlecchino sat back and took a sip of her tea. “Play the roles no one else can or wants to.”

“Because Celestia won’t?”

You recalled the long trip from Sumeru, during which Zandik recounted the structure of the world, the true nature of the Heavenly Principles, and the Descenders who tried to dismantle them. Celestia and the Principles were meant to be guides and when those guides failed, when people were desperate and shaken with a fear of something greater than the divine…

That, too, was a system that failed every single time. A usurper who thought they understood the culture of the people they ruled over, out of touch.

The Knave gave an enigmatic smile over the rim of her cup before she took another long sip.

“It brings me great joy to see Columbina find another who shares her passion for creation. I am not sure how you convinced that madman to allow you to accompany him, but I’m glad for it.”

Although you could not bring yourself to remove your mask, the warmth of being seen kept you cozy until you arrived back at the Palace and in the sanctuary of your rooms.

“Where are you taking me?”

All you received in response was a chuckle of amusement as the forearm beneath your hand tensed for a brief second.

From the moment you’d awoken, Zandik had a lightness to his step that only came with a major breakthrough in his research. In the privacy of your rooms, he had been liberal with his affection that morning, flashing a wolfish grin when he pulled you back under the covers. He had a surprise, he said, but it had to wait until after dinner.

You still bore the reminder at the base of your neck, hidden beneath a high collared blouse.

His excitement took the edge off the knowledge that the ball was tomorrow night. Only that afternoon’s rehearsal stood between you and the moment of truth.

As soon as you’d cleared your plate, Zandik tugged at his cravat and covered your eyes with it, careful not to tie it too tight. He slid your veil back on, muttering something about ensuring no one else saw the color in your cheeks, and guided your hand into the crook of his elbow.

You’d lost track after the first few turns and a stairwell down which Zandik carried you himself. Judging by the muted sounds from his boots, you had to be in one of the wings of the Palace, but only on the first floor, same as the throne room and your music room. Most of those corridors had soft runners and there had only been a single flight of stairs. But with the continued turns, you had no idea where, precisely, you could be on the main floor.

The air grew a little humid when Zandik’s steps slowed and the carpet gave way to hard stone again. He said something you recognized as an order just from his tone and receding footsteps. Carefully, you were lead down three steps before a set of doors (mostly glass, you guessed, from the way the material clattered slightly) closed behind you.

You turned your head as you were guided further into the space, footsteps echoing. Around you, the air was heavy but crisp, filled with scents both familiar and exotic. The freshness of a Rainbow Rose lingered amongst an airiness you only smelled once in Mondstadt.

“You can look now; we shouldn’t be disturbed. Now where did…”

Zandik gently touched your hand and pulled away, leaving you standing by yourself for a moment as he walked elsewhere. You lifted your veil and pulled it back before you slid your fingers into the knotted cravat. The fabric slipped down your neck. Tugging your cowl back to free your hair, you looked around the room illuminated only by the moon and the distant aurorae.

A greenhouse.

All glass, you could see the freshly fallen snow and the ice crystals that bloomed over the windows. Beds of flowers you recognized from home were intermixed with Glaze Lilies, their flowers yet to open for the evening, and Cecilias moving to a breeze of their own.

Perhaps a solarium was a better word for the space than a greenhouse, you realized. It was clearly well-manicured and maintained, meant to be seen.

From behind, you heard the telltale whisper of a spin-crystal gramophone and the click of the needle sliding into place. A crackle, and then familiar notes trickled through the air as Zandik returned to you. Your response to the music was almost instant, your ears conditioned over the last few weeks to know the initial note by heart, and you looked at him, confused.

“Columbina helped with the recording device. You’ll be too busy conducting tomorrow night. I thought you should enjoy your hard work properly,” he said.

He removed his mask and gloves before he held his hand out, palm up; your skin met his with the ease at which the sun rose every morning. His touch was warm, his fingers calloused from experiences both chemical and physical, as he led you in the steady one-two-three rhythm of the waltz.

It felt like you were there, in the concert hall, except instead of waving a baton you were observing. Artists often stepped back from their canvases to make sure everything was within perspective and scale. Without the additional depth to the sound only found in person, you could focus the larger parts and the flow of the music.

“The passion of the musicians is palpable, even in a recording,” you said. “Waltzes aren’t complicated; it’s only six basic steps, but having such dedicated colleagues certainly helped…when they were focused.”

Zandik chuckled softly as you flowed through the room. Your other hand, the one not clasped in his, rested on his shoulder blade and you felt his muscles move and flex. The touch at your waist sent a jolt through you when he pulled you closer.

“Are you aware of the litmus test, such as it is, for a perfect waltz?” he asked, blue eyebrow arching inquisitively.

“If there is one, I certainly never learned it. They trained us on the practical knowledge of playing the music, not dancing to it.”

“A shame. It used to be said that a couple dancing a waltz should be so delicate, smooth, and most importantly, swift that the flame of a candle in the lead dancer’s hand should retain its flame the entire time.”

“That’s only as good as the dance partner, though,” you shot back. “Seems more of a party trick.”

Zandik murmured.

You were uniquely aware of your torso pressed against his, the way his fingers wrapped around your hand, how hard and warm he was beneath your other hand. He followed your lead with an exact precision you only ever experienced with a fellow musician.

The time signature was not up for debate and he did not seek to fight it, fight you.

As the solarium spun around you, all you could think of was Zandik’s lips, red eyes beneath blue lashes watching from between your legs, bodies united in a way that, once upon a time, you would have considered shameful. But who was there to judge you now, save the full moon and the man before you?

Your hand left his shoulder long enough to find the expose strap of his harness across his chest and tug him to you as you angled your head to capture his lips. Cautious once, twice, before you became searing hunger and your tongue met his with a fervor that bordered on starved. You interlaced your fingers with Zandik’s, still firmly gripping his harness with your other hand; you were no longer dancing, and instead swayed to the music as it swelled, Columbina’s vocals overtaken by woodwinds.

Zandik’s hand on your waist dipped lower, grabbing your behind and pressing you firmly against him. He loosened his grip on your hand to cradle the back of your head, seemingly determined to coax your very soul from your lips. That creeping ache took root again as Zandik met your desire at every turn, a pit of fire growing in your chest and working down to curl in your lower belly.

Terrifying and freeing all at once.

You broke the kiss, parting only far enough for Zandik to press his cheek against yours. The last of the notes faded out and you could only hear your breathing over the low static of the gramophone. You swallowed audibly as the hand in your hair trailed down to your cheek, Zandik’s bare thumb brushing your swollen lips.

A match, lit after so many failed strikes, burned within you when you met his gaze again; its flame licked at unwavering patience and dedicated curiosity, determined to retain its light.

“I believe there is merit in understanding the movements of the body just as much as the structure of the music itself,” he whispered. “When you’re ready, we can put that hypothesis to the test.”

#dottore #il dottore #il dottore x reader #dottore x reader #dottore/female reader #il dottore/female reader #dottore x female reader #il dottore x female reader #genshin impact reader insert #soulmate au #merry christmas here's my last update of the year

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kyouka-supremacy · 1 year

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Okay so so terribly sorry for being an insufferable person but. if you comment one of my posts with “[Sigma is] innocent on the basis of the casino being exempt from international laws” I'm literally obliged to correct you, I'm sorry, I physically can't ignore it, it's literally the object of study of my life. Saying that no international laws apply here is just factually incorrect! Twice at that!

First: it's absurd to suppose the sky casino has its own state jurisdiction on the basis that in no word you can consider the sky casino a state. According to the Montevideo Convention of 1933, art. 1:

The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Sky casino fails to fulfill any of these criteria, and thus cannot be considered a state with its own jurisdiction. I don't think there's any need for me to elaborate on why the sky casino lacks a permanent population (its “population” consists of transitory customers), or a government (there's barely anything that can be considered legislature or executive and definitely no judiciary), or the capacity to enter into relations with the other states (we don't have any reason to assume it does). Finally, the sky casino platform cannot be considered a territory on the same basis that artificial islands aren't considered islands: for that we can refer to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, art. 60, par. 8:

Artificial islands, installations and structures do not possess the status of islands. They have no territorial sea of their own, and their presence does not affect the delimitation of the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone or the continental shelf.

Please also refer to the case of Sovereign Recognition of the Principality of Sealand, where the Principality's characteristic of being a World War Two anti-aircraft platform located within Britain's territorial waters makes it the perfect analogous case to compare to the sky casino; the platform's sovereignty isn't formally recognized by any country.

Concerning which jurisdiction the sky casino actually falls under, first of all we can refer to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, art. 1:

The contracting States recognize that every State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory.

So the sky casino's jurisdiction is the one of the state underneath it (most likely Japan).

In case the sky casino lies above high seas (all the sea spaces out of any country's jurisdiction), by the shared analogy between legal regime of sea spaces and airspaces, we can again refer to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, art. 92, par. 1:

Ships shall sail under the flag of one State only and, [...] shall be subject to its exclusive jurisdiction on the high seas.

So it'd be the jurisdiction of the country the sky casino is associated to, for example the one it was built in.

Second: no person, no matter their country or lack or thereof, no matter the jurisdiction they were subject to at the moment of the crime, is extent from international laws. Individuals are considered by the international law doctrine having international legal personality (together with other personalities, such as nations and international organizations) on the exact basis that, besides benefiting from international rights, they also have obligations in front of the international law, and those duties are exactly the duty to not commit international crimes (International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg, 1946 Judgment: “International law imposes duties and liabilities upon individuals as well as upon States”; “Crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provision of international law be enforced”).

Everyone is subject to international laws no matter the jurisdiction; it's just that no one realizes it because to actually commit international crimes means you have to screw up real bad (i.e. : commit crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes). Everyone being subject to international laws with no exceptions is. a huge thing. It means people will be held accountable even when their country decides not to process them. It permits‚ for example‚ the International Criminal Court to issue a warrant of arrest for the current president of Russia, despite we can take a guess that he'd never be processed by his country.

In conclusion: you can't say Sigma is extent from international laws, because no jurisdiction or person is extent from international laws. If anything, what you can do is argue he never committed any international crime, although that'd be hard on its own to sustain; the UN General Assembly condemned terrorism in its resolution 49/60, 1994:

Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them

not to mention he likely would have to answer for counterfeit coin too.

#If the person who first commented read this I hope you understand this wasn't ment to offend!!#I just have fun talking about international laws so actually thank you for giving me the chance to write this essay realistically-#nobody is going to read #sigma #bsd #bungou stray dogs #mine #Wasted the whole break between one class and the other to write this lmao bye

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plasticfangtastic · 6 months

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American Royalty Ch. 12

A Homelander x F! Reader/Dadlander fic

A/N: This chapter its a lot longer for it is the penultimate chapter, just wanted to thanks all who have read till this point and I hope you look forward to the final chapter after reading this. It was a joy to write this story, if y like to be in the taglist plz let me know. prev chapter:

Tags: fluff, romance, slow burn, dadlander, child neglect, child abuse.

Chapter twelve

Names

You let him have the wedding venue and the honeymoon destination… you didn’t expect for him to drag you to Tasmania but just like you did with the house he did this out of spite, but ignoring the cool heat… it was beautiful.

It felt personal and small even if there was a whole camera crew and millions of people watching.

Homelander excuse had been that while taking Ryan for a flight he had spotted this national park on the small island, staring into the violet painted lake, the way he recanted how the mist blanketed the lake shore… you knew he wasn’t gonna settle for anything else, and of course it was as far away from William Butcher than he could get.

He had lifted this place out of a fairytale, every corner had elaborate details. No doubt he had some Hollywood set designer build this, he was a romantic to the extreme… corny too, but as you look at the million flower petals scattered around you, you blushed. There was really just you and him, no groomsmen or bridesmaids– the guests were nonexistent either.

Here you two were forcing each other into an unhappy marriage, but no matter what you told yourself… Homelander would be happy in this supposed misery, perhaps it was only you who was unhappy... were you? No matter how fake this all was, he did cry when he saw you, he even stopped caring that William Butcher was there taunting him with his presence– yeah he did turn red when he spotted the smug bastard smiling knowing he was untouchable with all these cameras around… god knows what he was planning, but he stopped caring as he saw you in that dress.

Nevertheless there wasn’t any pretense as he smiled during the reception, the way you felt his heart against your chest as you danced, as you caught that nervous look trying to hide itself not from the cameras nor from his peers but from you.

There you were blushing as you saw him visualizing every step of your routine, trying to keep it together as he tried guiding you.

“Geez just take a fucking breather– relax.”

“We are live!” He whispered with panic.

“John is not for them… is for us.” You kissed his neck, resting your head against his shoulders to hide your face but also so he could feel your nerves more clearly– I hope you’re having a good time… is fun… I… this is so beautiful… thank you.” You looked up once more– you look good in a suit… you should wear them more often… I like it a lot.” your voice was more breathless than you realized as you stared into his blue eyes.

“Thank you…” He kissed you before forcing another awkward dance move– I just expect to be the last man to ever see you in that dress.”

“Maybe…” Your smile made his ears red– I could be okay with that.”

He was puddy in your hands after that, making the wedding not the worse day of your life, Helena did cursed at having to wear an itchy dress but Ryan was over the moon, and as you rested your feet for a moment, and the cold wind tousled the chiffon on the ornaments, and petals flew away in the breeze.

As you looked at the trees and catched the singing of barking owls hiding in the racketeering of leaves.

For a second you bought into the lie, your daughter would have access to everything the world could offer and beyond, and this boy would get a family, even if the two were struggling to get along, even if the boy still seemed anxious around you, forcing you to walk on eggshells… maybe he would come to love you… maybe you could be happy inside this family.

“I have to ask… why did you came here?” You lifted the actual french champagne bottle towards the dark haired man.

“Worry I’ll ruin the day for you, luv?” he placed his glass closer.

“I would love it if you did… John is probably trying to find the right commercial break to kill you.”

“You invited me but I am here for Ryan… never thought I’d get to have dinner with him under his nose… after I kill the cunt… I always did worry ‘bout him– I never pictured myself surviving. But now he has a little sister.”

“Well if you kill him, I’ll get custody of Ryan and then you can also make me marry you if you like.” He took the bottle of your hands after tasting the bubbly it had simply been divine, looking at the label and knowing how pricey that was he gave it a long messy gulp– just gotta top this.”

“No thanks.” He took a short sip also admiring the insanely picturesque view of the lake– why did you agree to marry him? Even after–

“I don’t care… Flight 37… working with Neuman, killing Stillwell… the supervillains he helped made– I don’t give a fuck. Why would I care now…? Caring will get me killed, and I got two children who need their mother… Homelander is who he is and I can’t change that, even if he did change, it won’t change what he’s done, so I’ll just move on and take him as he is.”

Butcher almost seemed disappointed but he opted to keep his tongue tied, the thought of Ryan losing another mother over a moral dilemma didn’t sit well with him.

“Want me to get you a to-go box? The cake is divine… I’ll let Ryan know you’re leaving… don't try anything funny…”

“I’ll think I’ll stay until they serve the coffee…”

“We got tea too… 2 sugars?” you say forcing a smile.

“Honey, and a little wedge of lemon.”

“Then I’ll guess I’ll get the kid… hopefully he does kill you.”

He gave you a dirty smirk as you went looking for your adopted son.

Catching the skittering glimpse of Homelander as he kept a watchful eye on you too.

The Honeymoon was beautiful as you headed for the mainland, a bit short but beautiful nevertheless… William didn’t ruin the wedding but he did bother you two during the honeymoon.

A year had passed, here you were sitting in the sitting room while you awaited for Homelander to crawl out of the dressing room.

Just thinking about how ridiculous it looked to have a closet bigger than your kids bedroom and for him to have nothing to wear made you squirm in your seat, but he was hard to please, without the super suit he just felt small and ugly, even if was still just as handsome as before.

“We can't miss this doctor’s appointment…”

You pushed your tablet aside, as he emerged in a black t-shirt, a wine jacket and black pants, he kept staring at his shoes as if they weren’t the right match, but at this point you had been waiting thirty-six minutes.

“Homelander… I don’t think anybody is going to roast your shoes, so can we go?”

“I just want them to look at me and say that I look conf–

“Chill. You're not the one who's gonna get implanted with some eggs, but feel free to carry them yourself if we keep delaying this. Being late won’t convey any confidence.”

He looked at your clothes, just sweatpants and a nice colorful t-shirt, dissaproving but he bit his tongue instead.

“I’m nervous… what if it doesn’t work again… this is our third time.” He bit his lip trying not to think about the journey here– my fucking sperm its useless…”

“We survived the fire… we are good… we got a couple embryos. It worked now. I gotta hope my oven works once more… you know I'm no spring chicken– i'm in the geriatric category” You stood up reaching after him to comfort him, he just slumped into your shoulders– we had Helena and you made Ryan, you can do it again…”

In all honesty the process had been difficult for him, he had completely misunderstood what was wrong with his body, when the topic was brought up five months into this marriage it had come off as a shareholder asking for investment returns, he had given you everything you asked but here he was asking for his return so why were you surprised? You were mildly disturbed about how much he’d prepared behind your back, it almost came off as if he had already been preparing with somebody else but you pushed that strange gut-feeling aside, the calendar certainly playing a part but you rather not think more of it– your part had been easy, you made eggs, your body was sufficiently healthy and you weren’t that old that it would prove more than challenging to get it to work, but he had been the issue.

At the mention of getting a sperm donor he had almost killed the doctor for the suggestion, he shot down any mentions of adoption, he didn’t want to consider it, he didn’t believe in it, if they weren’t his blood he didn’t want them– he had already won the odds lottery with his two kids so why push it? It only made sense to him but you didn’t voice your concerns.

He was back to being that young man who thought he would be alone forever, he was enamored with the notion of having another child, looking at parents and their kids thinking how perfect it all was when they had beyond plenty, staring at the baby clothes at target when you dragged him shopping, looking at all the spare rooms in this home and wanting to fill them… a son or a daughter it no longer mattered, he had his preferences but if tomorrow they told him he would have another girl he would be happy, he would still cry and he would go and paint the walls pink himself.

But seeing himself in the mirror he was disgusted by all the naked eye couldn’t see.

“is going to be alright, John.” You kissed his temple.

Maybe it was seeing him like this that mellowed you, or perhaps it was that nothing was set in stone, those eggs might not survive, you might have to give up and the thought of your womb being a rental would fade from both of your minds.

But it didn’t.

He cried a lot when it didn't.

If he had been a groomzilla during the wedding he had become a neurotic mess once the bump settled.

He had made it clear he wanted that baby from the get go– admittedly he put up with some of your worst behavior solely because he wanted this, asking you to schedule sex on your terms, you two even discussed this in a room full of lawyers the sex acts you were okay with– threesomes off the table but risky public sex was in the maybe’s.

Then after that you had to settle on starting fertility treatments as part of the conditions of your marriage, admittedly the agreed divorce settlements left you in a comfortable spot and Helena was always going to be cared for but it came with prerequisites… of proof that you indeed had tried instead of pretending– he had accommodated you beyond expectations… so here you were staring at the slight bump forming under your navel.

The maids duties had doubled, he didn’t want you putting a single extra ounce of work, an elevator being installed was discussed but would’ve taken far too long on remodelations to be realistic, a brief argument took place where he suggested they all moved back to the Vought penthouse as it was less stairs but it was shut down by the majority party.

Even taking out your stand mixer had him on edge, poor Ryan had to rush to help you if he was nearby just so his dad wouldn’t give you that look– where he scanned your body to make sure the bean was still fine.

As it grew bigger and your body began to waddle and wobble more concerns arrived.

Even showering had him on edge on the off-chance you would trip and fall on your stomach, so he insisted on joining you or at least demanded you showered only if he was in the house, depending on your hormones, your preference was either, altho you knew the kids bodyguard was always informed by the staff if you showered or took bath just to be alert.

“Ricardo? Cassandra? Terry? Damian? Kathy?” You looked at him then back at the TV screen, your feet might as well have been covered in shredded glass so you tried to rest but here he was pestering you– There has to be a name you like… like how did you name Helena?”

You looked at him again, lowering the volume on the screen.

“I think Maeve said the name once… thought it sounded pretty.”

Homelander stopped his pacing as his brows touched and your expression grew confused, he took a deep breath.

“I was in the hospital in a lot of pain… I thought of other names… but maybe the nurse had a similar name, why?”

“You named my kid after Maeve’s piece of shit girlfriend!” he barked.

“… wait really?” You said perplexed.

“Her name is Elena!” He was frumpy.

“Maybe the nurse's name was Yelena or Helen.” You rather not dwell too much in that memory– I like Cassandra altho that’s the Deep’s ex-wife no?”

“Argh…” He cursed under his breath– what about Freyda… Vivienne… Loukas… the name has to be perfect… the names Helena and Ryan freaking jumped in popularity after people learned those were my kids names– it will create trends!” He sank on the arm chair throwing the book to the side– it has to be perfect… their name needs to be like poetry… I want to fall in love with them everytime I say their name… and I think it's a girl.”

Homelander paused, catching sight of you.

“You couldn’t bring a cake to tell me that?” You cursed under your breath holding on to your stomach, you took some deep breath feeling your blood pressure spike–... Genevieve… I almost named Helena that… there was this nice lady back at the half-way house… she was lovely and she helped me out a lot… she was getting out of an abusive marriage– her name was Odelia, she helped me get my first job and sort of my food stamps and such” You bit your cheeks trying to suppress the bitter taste in your tongue– either way she went back to her husband and I never saw her again, even if I called it send me nowhere… her middle name was Genevieve.”

He smiled.

“If it's a boy I like the name Jason.”

He would continue looking for names helplessly, tempted to post an online poll to help determine but even Ashley said that might backfire.

Each added centimeters to your waist made his nervousness worsen, during those awful months trying to conceive he had tried all the hokum– between the drugs and the smoothies, he had become obsessed with himself but now it was your food bothering him, bringing dieticians and nutritionist to plan menus to boost your health, suddenly your years of expertise were nulled– your diet wasn’t a problem he just didn’t want to believe you.

Your pantry was filled with wholefood crap and every matter of organic good and insipid health scams, all the meats and veggies now source directly from vetted farmers or killed by himself, somehow a single youtube video taught him how to perfectly cut and portion salmon that he’d caught twenty minutes before… on top of making sure to keep track of your health with his powers, so Homelander made sure everything that entered your mouth passed his standards.

Like a dog caught eating something forbidden, his fingers tempted to pry those fried oreos out of your mouth, but here you were getting fried oreos and beignets and guzzling ice tea as he stood outside the candy store, both kids behind you trying to wipe the powdered sugar off their shirts as their father eyes grew wider.

“I need sugar, John… is called a craving.”

You crossed your arms as you swallowed that beignet whole, you knew it was coming as you reached the end of your first second trimesters– you were hit with monstrous cravings, you devoured M&M’s and so many slices of dollar pizza, you put a dent on your suffering bank account back when you were pregnant with Helena, but now you didn’t need to drink water to calm yourself.

You could buy the food you denied yourself before and here he was about to scold you for it.

“That’s poison.” He stared at his kids. He entered the cramm and small eatery as the elderly owner stared at him in awe– and you two… I expected better from the both of you.” He said firmly.

“She was cranky” Helena says as she sucks her fingers– moms need to meet their cravings.”

Ryan nodded in agreement as he slurped on his egg cream.

“Think of your cholesterol.”

“Says the guy who hasn’t eaten anything for two days… maybe that’s why you’re cranky.” You barked back already picking your bag off the ground as you headed out– oreos are vegan anyhoo so it’s healthy.”

“You know that’s not true!” He follows you behind as he pushes his kids out the place.

Rolling your eyes as he continues his incessant baragery as you stuffed each sweet into your puffed cheeks.

At night it kept you awake, the memories of endless cravings, of pawning and selling your beloved knives and cooking equipment just to make enough dough to stay in a crappy motel, to get some coins to eat, each meal had to be carefully considered, you had no steady income, you couldn’t eat much of anything but water at times as you picked between buying nappies for newborns and clothes for the baby over another real meal, you at least had the multivitamins… telling yourself this was gonna kept her strong.

Your stomach growling as you look at your diminishing wallet, your stomach growling as you slept in couches and not wanting to burden anyone, not wanting to annoy them as you ate something off their side of the fridge, even your mother gave you grief when you ate a whole tub of yogurt in a sudden urge.

But here as you woke up from a nightmare you looked around and saw that this was your beautiful house and this was your beautiful husband hovering above you panicked as he hadn’t build-up the courage to wake you up.

“I thought you might punch me and break your hand if I woke you up.”

You latched onto him, wanting him to comfort you, he didn’t question a thing as you asked him to bring you yogurt from the kitchen, holding you as you ate with a quiet sob.

He wanted a fat baby, a healthy baby and a super one too, as you ate he could see its tiny stomach fill but behind his worries there had been bigger concerns– he had read the files on Becca’s pregnancy, about how the fetus demonstrated abilities while inside the womb, pictures of her glowing stomach, Becca had been made to stay in a facility during the last trimester just out of fear the fetus would kill her or injure his containment.

Your files weren’t so alarming, you experience horrible pains, most of your medical debt had been from having to be in and out of a hospital for so long, but Helena didn’t shoot lasers nor did she fly, her strength slightly over average and her skin just resistant enough that super strength was needed to administer stitches, but this baby wasn’t any different from the average.

The what-if his child was a mud person repulsed him, but nothing he couldn’t fix.

“You can program it already?”

Helena looked up from the desk, before her all manner of high tech equipment and a computer she had been typing mindlessly for an hour before her father had showed up.

“In theory… I’m still struggling with the human issue. If anything I’ve been more successful with already doped up supes– Elmo’s case for example… The Russian government had been testing Soldier Boy, managing to develop their own Compound V… Serum MGH…” She pulled out some classified documents on her screen– … Their version is a lot more interesting and unstable but they wanted to make: You. their version already managed to “program” flight and strength but highly volatile and dangerous even the animal subject didn’t last long… all I did was stabilize it.” She pushed her overgrown bangs aside just to let her father peek at her unamused expression– this is about the fetus, no?”

“Your sister.” He seemed concerned at her tone.

“Looking at your files and Ryan’s I guess the odds are in your favor… altho…” She took a couple minutes to find the files– about twelve years ago one of your girls aborted a fetus at 14 weeks and according to this autopsy the fetus did not contain any significant compound V traces– god knows what that means.” a couple pages down– and the other died from ‘spontaneous human combustion’ so maybe don’t worry if the fetus its human at the moment”

Homelander had a hard time swallowing the cold delivery of his child, moseying the documents with disinterest, he took a seat as his body grew heavy.

“You can fill this form and request the same purity percentage of the Compound V used on your trials, but you know how random it’ll be.”

“How long have you known about those?” His mouth so dry, it's painful, his tongue swelling as his hands grew cold and painful..

“A while. They really wanted you to fly” She stays still instead of facing him– Why did you never kill Dr. Vogelbaum? or Dr. Park?”

“I dunno…” He had never given himself an answer, nor did he understand why his heart ached after the man died before him.

Helena squints lightly as she types a couple notes, the sound of the keyboard swallowing him whole.

“Sentimental attachments or misplaced love… interesting.”

Homelander didn’t see Helena sitting in the room with him, there was something different about her, as he saw her type on the computer and that disinterested expression that he saw his doctors once again, watching him like a sample.

“If you weren’t my daughter…” He hissed.

“You already made my replacement and this one would be a lot cuter don’t you think?” her fingers stopped gliding for a second– regardless what exactly are you looking for in terms of powers? Got plenty of genetic material to work with from all the failures from here, Sage Grove and Godolkin… I like the challenge and I’m sure you would be nice enough to get me some raw materials if needed.``

She opened a notes screen, ready to be entertained.

Homelander shoulder got closer, staring at her, her voice venomous but she was still dainty… the ire of a jealous child, she had gained a brother whom her mother loved and now another baby in under two years (not even) she has been trusted to cope– she was still a kid. His hand found her head, her eyes blinked blue ready to protect herself, thinking of how easy it would be to have her skull crushed against this desk, of the shape of the dent he would leave.

“I love you Helena… just as much as I love Ryan and I love your sister.” He said softly pulling her chair towards him, her hand glued to the desk as it squeaked– she’s not you. she’ll never be you, she won’t be my perfect little peonie. That’s you, my love.”

“Am not jealous, I feel pity for the both of you. Ryan might be an imbecile but I can tell my mother doesn’t love you and neither do you.” she groaned, pushing his hand away– you’re both babytrapping each other… poor unborn sod nothing but an addendum for your custody battle.”

“You really believe that?” He recoiled from her.

“Really?” her voice was firm– do you love Y/N or you love what she could do for you?”

“I love her in my own way… am not stupid. I know she wanted me for money and I don’t doubt her affections towards your brother are motivated for money! Even yourself Helena! All you want is this!” He gestures to the room– You think am an idiot! Do you think so lowly of me?” His voice had a different tone, she began to wonder if she could hold him back but for how long?-- so save me the crap!”

“Is you who thinks so lowly of me.” her tiny fist squeezed the hem of her skirt– you bastard!”

The chair slid and crashed against the thick wall, she sank into her chair covering her head as his open palm raised.

His hand froze in the air held by an invisible force against his own, he blinked awake, watching his reflection in a glass beaker, small tears budding on the corner of her eyes as her breathing struggled to keep steady.

“I-I-I didn…”

Homelander lips clattered, his whole body shivering as he caught the gravity of his display, he dropped on his knees taking her into his arms forcefully, the girl squirmed but stayed quiet, he held her drowning in her delicate scent, wanting to barf as the cocktail of her fear poured out of her skin.

“I am sorry… I am sorry” He repeated over and over under his breath as the girl just said nothing

Helena's eyes closed.

“All I done has been for you… I will bear anything your mother gives me, all her scorn and hatred if it means I can have you… have you and your brother and now your little sister… your mother will have anything she ever wants and all I want from her… is you.” He whispered with a shrill voice– she has the mansion, and the maids and not a single worry left… all you’ve ever wanted to give her. I’ve given them on your behalf… so you can be freed of worries… a father's job is to provide for his family. Is not his daughter’s job.”

His vice tightened just enough to mask his shivering self.

“Dad is sorry. I’m truly sorry I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He kissed the sides of her temples, afraid of letting her go.

Helena had seen the reports, she avoided the images as much as she could but the descriptions had been more than plentiful, she seen the violent things done to him and done by him, she wasn’t oblivious to him.

She should’ve been more careful, she thought.

“You could have kill me.” she said with annoyance.

“You’re not scared?” he looks at her face, seeing the red in her eyes but also the stiffness in her expression– we good?”

“We are good, dad.”

She could see there was a conversation taking part in his head as he kept looking past her.

Thinking of an odd hand-written note buried in the pyre, she looked at her screen and how everything looked so big in this room, she hit her forehead back on his shoulders, his face softening as he took her gesture, holding her, wanting to go back in time to stop himself for he had threatened to tear apart all he had worked for and endured. Helena knew that this was the only way to keep the world around her.

“I need to go back to work… regarding the fetus… I only got ...what an hour or two before home time…?”

“We can put that aside.”

Helena stood watching the street from the terrace, all the houses just as tall and the massive hotel building next to their house a motivating factor for the purchase, the trees lining their streets and the few lights coming from the hotel next door and next door neighbors, it was as loud as it was silent.

“Is it loud to you?” She looked up as her father parked next to her, trying to ignore the sounds from the hotel– you think at this price tag…”

“It's close to Madison Avenue, perfect to spend my paycheck, no?”

She turned to see he had a giant stuffed axolotl in his hands, completely disregarding his passive aggressive comment.

“You went to build-a-bear?” she raised her eyebrow.

“I had to do the whole heart ceremony. I bet it's all over TikTok now” His whole face was tight and red as he handed the stuffed animal to his daughter– had to rub that stupid little heart on my knees, and that's a hard angle to reach on this suit!”

She giggled.

“You could have just bought the display one– they sell them to you, y’know.”

“What?” He walked towards the rail trying not to cry as the memory of being made to make a wish to the green haired store attendant as she spoke with the same tone she used on small children on him– what’s next it's optional?”

“Yeah.” she hugged the thing dragging the tail as she sat on one of their chairs– am sure they’ll think it's cute.”

“Who's ‘they’?”

“The worthless masses.” burying her face in the soft fabric– I love it.”

He blushed.

“What happened today… it’ll never happen again… I swear.” he swallows listening to your steps below as you worked on the cupcakes for your upcoming baby shower. He had wanted a big gender reveal party but you had forced him into just a quiet event with only a handful of friends old and new– I do love your mother– just so we are clear”

“Is okay I forgot for a second you aren’t human… the only thing that could touch me before has been fur not people… so let’s just not dwell in the past…”

“I didn’t mean it… what I said about you and Y/N and money… sometimes I just think the worst of people'' he looked vulnerable and painfully human as he spoke– what your mother and I have it's more complicated than most people could understand– even you!”

“Just don’t divorce… I’ll leave with mom… she would need me…” She mumbled looking away from him.

“I’ll never leave her.” A wicked glint coloured his eyes as a half smile amused him– She can’t leave me either. Not with Genevieve now in the picture… I mean I would go broke if I did…”

“How bad was your prenup?”

“The things I gave up just for getting christmas with you and Ryan… horrific… a bloodbath.”

“Maybe you should go win mom over.”

He took that as a small victory, Helena let herself be taken back inside, Ryan wondering where she got the toy, making a quick promise to take the kid to a toy store.

A maid took the tray into the fridge as you welcomed your husband home.

“Hey, a new episode of that Kdrama we've been watching came out today. Just getting some snacks ready for tomorrow then I’ll go join you guys to watch it.” You said cleaning your hands on your sides– you went to build-a-bear?”

“Long story. Our little genius did a great job in the lab and deserved a present. Right baby?”

“I should have asked for a raise shouldn’t I?”

“Maybe discuss that with ‘bossman’ overthere.”

They both gave you strange looks sharing a quiet conversation away from you.

That night he was unusually touchy, wanting to keep his hand against your stomach and his head close to your bosom, the kids cursing at the stupid behavior of the love birds on the screen as they continued to miss the signs, your hand unknowingly finds itself stroking his ear and chin, as he caressed your stomach.

“She sleeps a lot you know. that's good.”

“Thanks for officially killing the surprise there, honey.” You knock your head back– you better keep it quiet until the cake is cut!”

“Oh! Am having another sister!” Ryan sounded both happy and sad– you think she’ll like baseball?”

“Anything else you want to spoil?” Helena mentioned as she flicked popcorn in his direction.

“She’s very blonde.”

He did get to sleep in the bedroom that night, you simply couldn't fault him for being overly excited… this was now just how he was for some reason.

“Put the beds together… you can hear her better that way no?”

He does without protest.

A pillow wedged under your stomach and your head, frankly you only needed his arm to help bolster your neck, knowing that as you kicked in your sleep, he would keep the pillows in their strategic spots to ensure your comfort, for he slept very little.

“I like the name Genevieve… it's elegant… it's perfect.”

He stifled a yawn as you twisted your neck to look at him.

“Sorry is not a son.”

He stroked your stomach, feeling every minute movement your child did inside, telling himself that she was reciprocating.

“I don’t care she’s everything to me…” he kissed you lightly– I just want to meet her already even if she looks like a blonde alien.”

“You’re not even a real blond” you rub your body against his as you try to get comfortable– don’t call her an alien, you meanie.”

“Thank you for our little area 51 escapee.”

“Don’t listen to him, honey. Your father is just mad, he isn't a natural blonde.”

taglist-- @immyowndefender @fromforeigntofamiliarity @demodemo909 @ghqstfqce

#homelander #the boys amazon #homelander x reader #homelander x you #my fic tag #american royalty #homelander fanfic #dadlander #will say i did not enjoy writing that scene with HL and Helena in the least.#sorry for the lenght

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madmanrambler · 1 year

Text

“So walk me through everything I missed. It seems like it was a lot.”

“What, Everything? It’s 85 bloody years, there’s a lot to cover. And me without a degree in history.”

“Alright then, summarize. I can research whatever you mention that seems particularly interesting.”

I shifted to better watch Corv as he spoke, listening through ears that still felt chilly from 85 years frozen. Corv, one of my rescuers, shifted in his own spot, his diminutive form finding a comfortable seat. He glanced at me before starting in to the history.

“Let’s see, you went under in the 2020s you said, right? So you at least have an idea that climate change was getting bad. That was most of the 30′s and 40′s, handling that in various ways. Mostly bad ways. Lotta border skirmishes, plenty of fighting and arguing about bits of this and that. Big cold war between Canada and China about shipping lanes that opened up in the Artic, which was a miserable bloody time.” this at least all made sense, and I was nodding along.

“in the 50s things came to a bit of a head. Most of the ice that was going to melt melted, and the weather patterns were stabilizing. the countries and people left were figuring out how to handle the Sahara being able to grow plants and the American Midwest becoming a desert. We got some peace makers out of South America, and you’ll probably find some interestin’ stuff about indonesia and how its government in exile set an example for island nations and how to handle the shift in tides. Always found some of that stuff fascinating, you can look up Melati Hon and her speeches on the new world, great stuff.” Corv seemed excited about that part, really animated and I could see his eyes gleaming. Really might be something worth reading, and seeing what I thought afterwards. He reluctantly plowed on. “the 60s people kinda lost their mind, great art from the period but a lot of folks were recovering from being kids during the greatest ecological disaster. The 70s there’s big move of standardizing everything, making sure that plugs fit all over the world and all the measuring equipment can measure the same. Parts of America still insist on using standard but that’s more a local custom then a nation-wide standard at this point. the 80′s had a lot of discussion about the moon base, I think there was a big scare around a country grabbing it for themselves and a space war or something erupting over that, it was agreed to be a joint venture with every nation able to send people up, averted a lot of problems. The 90s are close enough I can remember ‘em, and there’s a ton you could focus on but overall it’s all about how to handle us living with these new batteries we’ve got, the Phazolyte batteries.” This wasn’t exactly what I wanted to focus on, but Corv seemed to think it was important so I nodded and tossed in what I knew. “They’re batteries that mix with water to charge right?”

He coughed, shaking his head. “Yeah, I guess that’d be the second grader explanation. They mix phazolyte with water, and phazolyte causes water to be willing to compress as much as you push it, something it doesn’t want to do at all normally. S’why jumping off a bridge into water is like hitting concrete, all the force rebounds back into your body. With Phazolyte we get to store as much energy as we can compress into the water, then you just remove the Phazolyte and the water uncompresses, pushes against something, makes the electricity. And the Phazolyte, once removed, is good to use again, doesn’t lose anything in the process. It’s dead useful, and the last 15 years has been plugging that into everything and getting the supply chain worked out.” Corv coughed again, and glanced around. “That should cover the basics. Sorry we don’t have flying cars or nothing like that, I know you folks were keen on that.”

I stared at Corv for a long while. “Corv, that’s great. I’m glad you covered all the uh. The battery stuff. But.” I hesitated, glancing from him to the window to the chair he was sitting in. “You uh. Skipped the part about you.” Corv shifted in his seat again, glancing away from me. “Well it really isn’t all that important, it’s just part of the world really. I’m a British citizen, we still say god save the queen, we keep playing football-” “That seems like it’d be a bit hard for you to play.” I interrupt, glancing at how small Corv was. “I mean, Corv, you didn’t mention a damn thing about when birds started talking.” Corv looked what I thought was askance. “Well you did ask me to summarize.” He reminded me as his beak preened his feathers. “If I summarize I gotta skip the things that are less important. That’s how summarizing history goes.”

#CorvandI #writing #utopia fic?#mad man ramblin

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liyawritesss · 3 months

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ᖴᒪOᗯEᖇᔕ Iᑎ ᗷᒪOOᗰ - ᐯᗩᒪEᑎTIᑎEᔕ ᗪᖇᗩᗷᗷᒪEᔕ

Ｄａｙ１４－ＳｅｃｒｅｔＲｅｌａｔｉｏｎｓｈｉｐ

－ Adore You - T'Challa Udaku - Marvel's Black Panther

－ In which being in a secret relationship is never easy, but the King shows his affection in the little ways that matter.

－ Check out more prompts and other activities on the Flowers In Bloom Event Masterlist!

You’d always admired T’Challa from afar.

He was a man of many things; talent, charm, compassion, care. He warmed the hearts of all those he met, leaving smiles in his wake as he threaded through the world, carving his own legacy in the actions he did. He’d stolen your heart, just as he did everyones. It would only be later that you’d find out that the feat was an intentional one.

Your little escapades started in his princely youth, but with someone with so much to lose, the best gambit was to be like the air that surrounded you two - when it came to your love, the invisibility of it to the regular eye was key. It was a dance the both of you mastered by the time T’Challa had taken on the mantle of Black Panther, taking on newfound abilities that scared the both of you just as much as it deepened your connection with one another.

You took your fears and turned it into something tangible, channeling it into a positive force that could benefit the both of you instead of tearing you down. That is how the first sketches of the new Black Panther suit came to fruition, and with the help of Shuri, the ingenious inventor princess with undeniable sass and wit, the first prototypes were completed within the coming months. While Shuri had been the one to present to the King his new, high tech, insanely more practical Black Panther suit that would aid him in his missions much more efficiently, the comments of its intricacies didn't go unnoticed by the Princess, who was sure to relay them down the pipeline.

However, this was the extent of what you could do to show your affections for T’Challa, and for the most part, you were fine with it. You were busy enough as a scientist working at the most high-tech and top lab in the world; time wasn’t necessarily friendly to you, either. You were satisfied with the meetings and kind smiles and longing stares you two shared.

It never occurred to you that maybe T’Challa wasn’t, or felt that he could be doing more, because when you approached your home one night after clocking out from your shift at the lab, you found a black box with the Golden Tribe insignia etched onto the top. You grabbed the small box and brung it inside with you, setting it on your kitchen island along with the rest of your belongings before directing all of your attention to it.

You examined the outside of it first before curiosity took control of you, and upon opening the box, you were met with something that made your eyes go wide and your heart skip a beat for a few seconds. Inside, lying against a tiny black velvet pillow, was a small charm bracelet with black claw-like gems and obsidian beads. It was a smaller version of the Black Panther necklace you had designed with Shuri, the final prototype that T’Challa now wore as a staple of his everyday attire.

A tiny slip of paper poked out from underneath the velvet pillow, and upon pulling it out and reading it, you smiled: a piece of me, as i have of you.

The next day, you received compliments on the new piece of jewelry that rested on the same wrist as your kimoyo beads. Despite the gushing of the sentimental value it represented for the protector of your nation (and the knowing stare from one princess), only you would know the truth behind it.

#flowersinbloom🏵#black reader #black tumblr #black marvel #marvel #mcu #marvel x reader #marvel x black!reader #mcu x reader #mcu x black!reader #marvel black panther #mcu black panther #black panther x reader #black panther x black!reader #black panther tchalla #king tchalla #tchalla x reader #tchalla x black!reader #king tchalla x reader

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sumeru-academy · 2 years

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DECEIT of Theseus.

Shenhe X Female Reader

VOL 04 of Tragedies of Teyvat

⎯⎯mod kiki 🕰

There are five stages of grief, and acceptance is the first door you open.

Perhaps you had entertained the idea of death for far too long, perhaps the gods had finally gotten tired of your antics and decided you would be the next unfortunate victim of their cruel fate.

It follows you through the moon's positions within the night sky, you have memorized the routine by the time you reach the isolated island. It has been branded into your mind and rests on your sleeve as a talisman neatly pinned into the fabric of your clothing with an enlightened symbol messily inscribed onto it. You are the next, and you are naïve if you think you will be the last.

Just as the sun makes its descent into the night and the faded outline of a thinly veiled crescent rises from behind the cloud, you tell the time by the steps to your upcoming wedding. Or, as you have always known, counting down the time until you are sacrificed to an omnipotent nightmare — drowned in expensive drapes worth more than you could ever afford under normal circumstances. A thinly veiled façade to the dark reality lingering near in the future, one that you could not escape.

And when the moon reaches the line of the horizon, it is time for you to bathe atop the grandiose ferry, closed at the top of the ship where the light shines the brightest. You are careful to not damage the ornamental hairpiece gifted to you just as you departed. It is the only reminder you have left of your family — a sharp end and red rubies worth more than you could ever begin to imagine.

The stars come out to greet the skies, sterling silver brightly polished and you are already adorned in clothing much too extravagant for everyday wear. The finest of silk and pure white fabrics. If there is ever a time to laugh at the gods for their cruelty, it would have been at that very moment when the glow of silk struck the eyes of the maidens suited to assist you during your regrettably short stay in the galley.

White like the clouds on a summer afternoon — a pearl hidden beneath the ocean depths. White like freshly fallen snow on the first day of a winter's promise. White like the newly blooming chrysanthemums they would leave at the head of your tombstone when you do not return home, false condolences in their hearts as they pray to their callous God: "at least it wasn't me."

"It's traditional in Mondstadt to wear pure garments such as these." Is what they tell you. But you are not from Mondstadt, and these are not the colors in which your nation carries. It is not so much a celebration as it is a disingenuous mourn for your departure. You will not return from this journey, and they do not care for the outcome of your fate.

Sadness has found itself a missing hole in the place where your heart should have been. It collects in the voided emptiness and consumes what it can at will. You are much less inclined to listen to the world around you, and when the moon is at its peak in the sky, the captain informs you of your need to leave — you cannot prolong your stay on the ship any longer, the dead alleyways of Liyue Harbor threaten to devour you whole. Somehow, even though the city is growing distant, the glow of the lanterns never fade.

It is almost enough to make you laugh. A celebration for the sacrifice that will not prove to be enough. It has never been enough. It will never be enough.

And you learn, through the captain's endless storytelling, that the reason for such lengths every year stems from the death of your immortal god — centuries ago when he was banished from the skies and sent plummeting down into the mortal realm with a thousand words spanning declarations of war against all things living. In the midst of her retelling of the tale, you notice that she conveniently leaves out the word "sacrifice."

Nothing is said for as long as you can remember. All that remains is the sound of the ship as it glides through the open sea, leaving behind streams of water that you have half the mind to leap into and force your way back home.

"You're not afraid?" She finally asks with crossed arms and a lingering stare you can't quite discern, but the expression she gives you is one you can only assume is the mutual understanding of standing in the face of fear with not a single person to stand beside you.

Your eyes don't meet her gaze, arms folded together neatly as you stare ahead at the vast nothingness of cloud and sea the ship has left behind. The drapes of your sleeves will dirty against the wooden floor, but you have not the heart to care. You will soon be dead in a few hours time.

And so, in response to her concerned inquiry, you only shake your head absentmindedly, paying no mind to the way the ferryboat has stopped moving through the vast ocean and is now anchored against the abandoned docks.

"When I depart from this world, I want the guilt to devour them from the inside. For the glory of my name and by the will of the gods, may they never forget me for as long as time will allow it."

She says nothing in return and instead leaves you to exit the ship alone, gathered with the rest of her men and women as they watch you step slowly onto the wooden platform. And from the corners of your eyes, you watch the ship leave and disappear further into the horizon until soon it is gone like it had never existed in the first place.

The floorboards creak under your footsteps, and you soon come face to face with a lavish pool surrounded by a nest of qingxin flowers. There are no signs of life in the still waters, only the floating leaves of the overhanging willow. Something beneath it glows a brilliant blue, similar to that of the glaze lilies back in the harbor, a soft light that illuminates the desolate area just ever so slightly — a handheld lamp in a dimly lit forest. It flows further down the path into a small river, and as you have no other indication telling you where to go, you follow the stream.

If you were resentful, you would curse them for sending you to your early end. For knocking at your door and demanding you follow them whilst they grab at your arms and say, "It is your turn to appease the Gods" while offering no other explanation no matter how much you protested. The look on your mother's face is not one you would ever forget for as long as you lived.

Still, anger is a restless monster, and with your head held high and a resentment so bitter it would put the medicinal herbs at the pharmacy to shame, you put the past behind you and swear yourself to a life soon coming to an end. Would the people of Liyue Harbor remember your name? Were you just another woman fated to meet her doom at the hands of another celestial god tied to the burdens of your nation?

No, you would return home and they would congratulate you for breaking the cycle and surviving the journey. Your name would be remembered throughout history even after you have long passed. They would tell stories of your victory and hold celebrations in your name — for you would be the one to finally end the fury of a counterfeit deity.

Anger is a dangerous game, and so you hold the red lilies tighter in your hand and press onward before you are sure to make any mistakes you are sure to regret. Red for the blessings as a bride-to-be, and red to wish you the best of luck as you ventured into unknown waters.

Something inside you stirs awake in the deepest pits of your stomach and you take one last look at your reflection in the tepid waters before moving once again toward your imminent doom.

You almost do not recognize the person in the reflection. Decorated in flourishing robes and expensive fabrics that do not belong to you. It fills you with a numbing sorrow, lined with rows of teeth and threatening to swallow you whole as you dangle helplessly above the jaws of defeat. On any other occasion you would have been overjoyed, but no amount of persuasion would be enough to convince you otherwise — this was not a wedding that would end happily.

You reach the end of the winding river; a loud rush having filled your ears long before the water comes to reach its drop. It turns below into an enclosed pool of rushing falls, pouring straight down into a misted cavern with no end in sight. The fog has closed you in, and if there is a way out, down the falls is the only forward option.

From your place beneath the open sky, you can almost picture the gods in the sky, sitting upon their thrones in the seats of Celestia as they look down on you like you're a pawn in their game of chess.

What do Gods know of morals and heart? Ichor runs through their veins like that of crimson blood to everybody else, golden chalices filled with as much ambrosia as they so desire — "Everything in this world operates around the order of Heaven," as they say, reenacting highlights of your lifetime like court jesters at play.

And if Heaven would sentence you to the suffering of eternal damnation, in turn you would lift your head and curse them through the afterlife whilst the flames lick at your heels. A play in its final act, a resolve worth remembering.

So, when the moon's pale rays strike the light of the water just right, you would turn your back — and you would fall.

If you ask a god what he fears, he will scoff and tell you nothing. Mortal ideals do not appeal to the Gods, and their lives can only be taken by that of their kin — only a God has the will to kill another God. And if you are lucky, the gods will take pity on you when you die, and they will allow you to be reincarnated anew. Whether it be a human once again or an otherworldly creature away from the people. This time, however, you have a distinct feeling that you would not be returning to this world in your next life — if you were granted with a next life at all.

You learn this the hard way, when you are met face to face with the monster you are meant to be sacrificed to. Only to find a lonesome woman atop the floating hills of the heavenly abode — sitting quietly with her hands set to a prayer by one of the ponds. They swim with life, waterlilies and fish you have never seen before decorate the clear pools, and you find that you almost pity her.

You introduce yourself properly, only slightly annoyed when she ignores your calls and continues to sit in silence with closed eyes and folded hands — and it's only then when you take the time to take in her appearance.

In contrast to the marbled walls of her home, she does not live as lavishly as you initially assumed, dressed in simple garments with crimson tassels to match. Her hair falls behind her in a simple braided fashion, white and untouched and as if an artist had dipped their brush in a deep shade of charcoal at its extremities.

'Graceful,' is an appropriate word to assign her, as she carries herself with the beauty and elegance of a moon kissed crane — as reflected in the characters of her name written in the sand of the shores at low tide when she finally takes note of your sudden intrusion of her home. 'Shenhe,' carefully crafted with the penmanship you would expect from a young noblewoman joined together to create a script of poetic eternity.

You're left to your own devices soon after that short exchange, finding yourself dining alone in silence while servants scramble in and out of the large open-air sanctuary, various plates and fabrics towering over their heads. All the seats are brilliantly labeled with the names of gods and deities alike. Engraved at the edges of the table in sterling silver that catches the light of the sun.

The days pass by so frequently that you've lost count, has it been a week? A month? You haven't the slightest clue, nor have you the will to care anymore. The bowl of soup placed before you has long gone cold, bamboo slices floating aimlessly atop the thick broth. In your time here, you've learned to appreciate your surroundings a little bit more. To your left, an empty chair catching dust like the antiques of Liyue's shops. To your right, the open hallway that leads to the large atrium garden. Just ahead of you hangs a painting that covers a little more than half the walls — a large portrait that spans from corner to corner, fitting in it the forms of each leading deity of Liyue from Rex Lapis to Marchosius.

You find Shenhe in the front, her empty stare piercing your own even through the means of rough paint and even strokes. Some things never change, you suppose. In all your time spent, you've never once seen her without that monotonous expression on her face.

There is nothing left for you here, and so you leave with your bowl left unattended to on the dining table. It's in bad taste, and perhaps rude table manners, but your exhaustion has its limits, and you decide to leave it up to the scrambling houseworkers to deal with its remains.

Outside is much more refreshing, sitting against the towering platforms and watching the people below you tend to their activities. Watering the plants, feeding the fish in the small pools, trimming the overgrown weeds in the back gardens. All around you are surrounded by endless sky and the sea of clouds.

You dust off the fabrics of your outfit and peer over the edge. There isn't an end in sight, too high above the ground to be able to see anything below the density. Your frustration goes unmatched when one of the trailing silks catches itself along the branches of the blooming shrubs — entangled in the mess of thick leaves and staggered wood. Tugging against them does you no good, and in a brief moment of too much force, you lose your footing and fall backwards into the eternal sky.

You aren't sure how long you fell for, only that you were soon met with the arms of Shenhe pushing with you through the air in her grasp, and soon plunging into the cold waters of one of the natural pools.

Air is the first priority on your mind, pushing yourself to rise to the surface and exhaling harshly, coughing at the sudden force passed through your body. Shenhe resurges just near you, shaking her head from the excess water that trails down her face and giving you a stern, and rather irritated, glare.

"Are you humans always this reckless?" She asks through glaring eyes. You grip onto the edges of the pond, lifting yourself up to fall back onto the grass, breathing heavily and raising a hand to block your eyes from the light of the sun.

"How should I know," You hum in response, "I haven't been able to do anything with anyone since arriving here."

You judge that, maybe, your retort was a little bit too harsh — if the way Shenhe winces and falls back is anything to go by.

"Wait," you call out when she turns her back, adjusting your position to sit up "I was just–"

"Don't concern yourself with it," Is all she says in turn, stepping out from the water and wringing the water out from her hair, "Next time, be more careful."

Instances with Shenhe soon became more frequent than not, a regular occurrence of your newly adjusted life here in her otherworldly abode. You still haven't the slightest idea where you actually are, but you figure it's somewhere outside the borders of the normal world, where only gods and deities alike are allowed to wander — and those who are allowed within those walls.

Oftentimes you find her meditating on the hills, others you join her for a silent walk by her side in the extensive gardens. Most nights it ends with little to no words exchanged between the two of you — this night is no different.

You sit beside her on the iron benches afront the luxurious fountain, your mind unkind to you, and your thoughts swimming frantically around your head. The night is as quiet as it always is, and to pass the time you decide on picking at the petals of the nearby scattered flowers.

It's peaceful here, almost too peaceful for your liking. Were you not supposed to be sent away to a monstrous beast? Was this not supposed to be where you met your inevitable doom? Everywhere you look spells nothing but that of a lonesome woman living in a quiet solitude. And it seems she was enjoying her life prior to your arrival, as if you were only a rock at the side of the road, a bump in her path for a mundane lifestyle.

Surely there was more to this place than meets the eye — paradise doesn't exist, not in a wasted land like Teyvat.

"Why haven't you left yet?" Shenhe finally voices, almost as though she could read your very thoughts. You blink at her owlishly, quiet for no more than a few heartbeats when she turns her head to meet your eyes. "It's as easy as the way you came, why are you still here?"

"I, well," Your words get caught in your throat under her intense stare, and you feel yourself falling victim to her straightforward nature. "You haven't given me a reason to not want to stay, I suppose."

It's a lie told right through the clenched gaps of your teeth, whether or not Shenhe is aware of this fact you don't know — nor do you care enough to pay it any mind.

"Why don't you leave this place?" You query instead after the minutes of continued silence, "You don't seem very excited to be here."

Shenhe turns her head away, looking straight ahead with the same monotone stare that annoyed you more than it didn't. "My master has bound me to this place, I cannot leave."

"That sounds horrible," slips under your breath, and you pray she didn't hear your hushed curses.

"It isn't horrible," She comments in response, "I don't have any memories from my mortal life. I have no reason to venture out into the world."

You don't know if you pity Shenhe, or if you consider that to be one of the most horrible tragedies you've ever heard. "Don't you ever think about life outside of this place? There's not much to do here other than. . . Sit around."

"Then leave."

Her bluntness almost makes you drop the flower in your hands. You aren't sure what you expected from Shenhe, in all the times you two have chatted casually like this, it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. "Do you want me to leave?" You walk the edge of the line, carefully balancing yourself against the odds and tempting the waters.

Shenhe is silent. "What I want doesn't matter. The only thing you need to worry about is staying out of my business," she finally settles on as a sufficient response. It isn't the one you're looking for, but it's enough to make you back down for now, and so you leave her alone for the time being.

Carefully you pull a spare lotus floating atop the fountain and shake off the excess water from the petals. When she isn't looking, you tuck it into the open space at the top of her braid. When she looks at you with confusion in her eyes, you only grin back mischievously.

"Lotus flowers," you state the obvious and she continues to glare at you unamused, "They suit you."

Much to your surprise, Shenhe makes no effort to remove it from her person for the rest of the night.

Shenhe is upset, and it's the most terror you've ever felt in your entire life.

You like to think of yourself as a person not easy to back away from the horrors of reality. You take what is given to you and you don't complain unless you know your succession is secured. But this is a battle you are not willing to take part in — never in a million years.

When she storms through the open corridors with a blizzard behind her trace, you know better than to intervene or try to stop her. Instead, you make your way to the second floor, carefully holding onto the metal railing along the walls.

The rickety floorboard creaks under your footsteps, and you pray that nobody comes searching for you, else you find yourself in a hole and unable to dig your way out of it.

Upstairs is full of dust and old debris, an attic of forgotten memories and relics turned to sand. The switch turns on a dim overhanging lamp, barely bright enough to fill the room with a low ambience — but it's enough to safely find your way through the old and rotting space. Cobwebs cover every inch of the unused corners, and you worry how anyone can find anything in this disgusting excuse for storage.

Beneath the covers of a tattered sheet, you find a worn down crate filled with ragged miscellaneous items. An old photograph torn and covered in dust, pieces of an intricate comb broken in two, the remains of a long rope crimson red and ripped at its edges.

And before you can shuffle through the contents any longer a cold hand grabs at your wrist, holding it firmly above your head with a grip as cold as the mountains of Snezhnaya.

Your eyes meet the cold gaze of Shenhe's, filled with a wide panic you've never seen before, not from her, at the very least. Her grasp doesn't falter, and out of instinct, you take a step back — timidly calling out her name in a stemmed worry.

"What are you doing up here?" She demands, ignoring your inquiries. A cold chill runs through the small room and through the nerves down your back. "I told you not to come up here."

You struggle to find the words to fight back, darting your eyes back and forth for any way to diffuse the situation else it escalates to levels you are not prepared for. Empty boxes, broken plywood, abandoned cobwebs. Shenhe is stronger than you, and no matter how many times you try to pull away, it never works. The more you step back, the more she steps forward, backing you into a corner.

"I was just trying to–"

"Trying to what? Involve yourself in everyone's affairs just as you always do?" She pulls you by the arm, cutting you off mid-sentence when you lurch forwards from the sudden force of impact. It's only then do you realize just how scary Shenhe is when she is angry. It's the first time you truly get to see her up close in such a state — sinister and unnerving and even though the inflections of her voice haven't changed, it's different knowing that what you coined as overreactions weren't such at all. Not in the slightest.

Not when the sky in her eyes darkens at the sight of you like you're the worst thing to ever walk this earth. She stares you down like you're just another nuisance to take care of — another insignificant bother that threatens the safety of her home. And when you finally rip away from her grasp and clutch your hand red and sore from the tightness of her grip, there isn't a word you have to say when she takes another step towards you.

The pieces click into place like a wooden puzzle — an uncomfortable shift in the air thick and hot and if you open your mouth for even a second, you're afraid you might suffocate on the heavy weight that is Shenhe's unforgiving storm. "You don't have any respect for privacy. I told you not to come here, so why?" She quips.

In the corners of the crumbling attic, only Shenhe can find the strength to render you speechless. The edges of your lips tremble in the dying light, voice caught in your throat and fighting the urge to spill the contents of your clouded mind. "I just–" you pause, cursing yourself for the stutter that barely slips by when you finally muster the courage to look her in the eyes again. "You said you didn't have any memories when you were a human, so I thought–"

"Did you ever think there was a reason for that?" Her hand blocks the other side of yours, trapping you against the open ledge. The more she leans forwards, the more you're forced to back away — legs pressed against the unstable walls and fabrics ripping with the rotting wood at your feet. "Did you ever think of the possibility that I chose to leave them behind?"

"Shenhe, I–" She grabs the loose silk at your chest before you have the chance to continue, shoving you at arm's length — yet still refusing to let go of her hold. Your heart knocks wildly against your chest, pounding against the cracked ridges of your ribcage. Knuckles tight and hands gripping whatever they can, and you pay no attention to the way the splinters dig into your palms. The pain is the last thing on your mind.

"Do you always stick your nose where it doesn't belong if you think it'll be helpful?" The woman taunts, narrowing eyes and a scowl so fierce you would cower away and hide in solitude if it meant she would never look at you with that kind of hostility ever again. "If I said you'd be more useful if you never showed up, would you leave this place?" When you don't respond, she fires again, "If I told you jumping out this window would save me, would you do it?"

Her body leans over yours, threatening and sinister and for once you're thankful for her naturally cold temperature. If she was any closer, you're sure you would've felt her breath hot against the skin of your neck — tilted and folded backwards over the open air, one slip away from falling into the endless sky. One more push, one more shove. One confrontation too many and it's more than likely to have been the last time anyone ever heard from you ever again.

"Shenhe," you call again, voice faltering and no louder than a whisper, "Please, I'm going to fall."

Bent so far backwards with a grip on the wood like your life depends on it — and for once, it really does. And it's only then, when the weight of the world finally comes crashing back down on the platinum deity. Like an axis spun too fast, like a meteor charted off course and headed straight for the most vulnerable target placed directly where her heart should have been.

And with trembling hands and wild eyes, Shenhe finally lets you go — stumbling back into the empty crates and broken boxes with a fear that could kill.

You finally steady your breath, staring down at your own hands now blistered and bleeding from beneath your skin. When you are left with nothing but bruised palms and battered fingers, you use what little tenacity you have left to bring Shenhe into an unstable hug — clinging desperately to the thin layers of her clothing and your head buried into her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," you cry, sullying her sleeves with your tears, an anesthesia that runs the functionality of her limbs frozen and numb. She stares down at you unmoving and afraid while you spill apology after apology, holding onto her arms like she might slip away if you dared to let go. "I didn't mean to," a plea gone unheard, "I didn't mean it."

When your hiccups finally quiet in the air, Shenhe finds the will to lift your chin and meets you eye to eye — yours with tears, and hers, with more guilt than you could ever visualize. "I should be sorry," she frowns and hangs her head down low, "I should've controlled myself. You could've suffered far worse injuries."

There's no point in trying to sway her any further, so instead all you do is shake your head and laugh it off with the tears still in the corners of your eyes. To which she only looks at you quizzically, wiping away your tears with a swipe of her thumb.

"Let's go home," you say through tear-stained cheeks and a smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes. Shenhe scans your face for a moment too long, but as she's always known when to withhold her word, she says nothing at all, leading you with only a hand down the rickety stairs, an affair gone long forgotten and the wooden doors taped off once again in bright red once you exit the vicinity, "'Our real home.'"

She grabs your hand again, though this time, it's much more accurate to say she's holding your hand as compared to the unforgiving grip she had on it previously — gently wrapping it within her own when the two of you exit the old building. Your words touch a hole in her chest she didn't know she had. A home, a real home. Could such a thing really exist for someone like her? With you, no less? It was hard to imagine, and maybe it was for this reason she tears herself away from you with fear in her eyes.

You call out her name in a voice of concern, and for the first time since she can remember, Shenhe has never hated the sound of it any much more. "I. . ." She stammers, darting back and forth towards your outstretched hand, the building behind you, the look of confusion on your face.

With no other option, Shenhe does the only thing she's known how to do since she was young — and she runs.

Hours pass by with no sign of Shenhe ever appearing in the sanctuary, it's like she was never there in the first place. Her presence erased from existence and her name a forbidden tone on the people's tongue.

You feel like how you did when you first arrived all over again — angry and apprehensive with no other ambitions than to come face to face with whoever you were supposed to be trapped for eternity with. Only this time she is nowhere to be found no matter how high or low you check, and no matter how many servants you ask.

It's only when you're alone in the greenhouse do you truly feel helpless in the situation you are left in. Alone you were sent off, and it seems alone you will die. You have almost half the courage and will to take a dive off the cliffs and live your life anew as a mountain dweller if it meant breaking from this hellish cycle of waking and bedding in solitude.

The adrenaline from your previous near-death experience soon wears off, and you're made all too aware of the throbbing rawness of your battered hands. They ache with the pain of a hundred bee stings, poking your nerves like needles digging into your skin — you begin to wish you had a little more strength to fend Shenhe off on your own, maybe you wouldn't be in this predicament if you did.

Luckily, the halls of the grand estate are relatively empty. And so, you sit yourself outside of a spare room with varying medical supplies scattered across the floor and an open bottle of disinfectant beside you as you try to unveil the tightly rolled bundle of bandages.

A loud crash interrupts your concentration and you jolt from the sudden intrusion, dropping the roll and being forced to reach over when it rolls over to the other side of the wall. The door opens, and before you have the chance to recoil, Shenhe is already lowering down to grab the bandages. The air is awkward, and no words are exchanged between the two of you. Only when Shenhe sits herself beside you do you allow yourself to relax — resisting would be meaningless, it's better to get the issue over with than drag it out any further.

"Give me your hand," she murmurs. Quiet and gentle like Shenhe has always been, save for just a few hours ago when you were forced over an open window just centimeters away from plummeting to your sudden end. It's like nothing happened at all, like you had just gotten yourself into an accident and she — like always — was there to pick up after your broken pieces.

You extend your arm to her, wincing ever so slightly when the rubbing alcohol comes into contact with your open cuts after the dried blood. It isn't the worst thing to happen, you tell yourself. And you suppose this was Shenhe's own unique way of making amends, no matter how unorthodox it may be, nothing she does comes off as a surprise to you anymore — nothing that could ever shock you any more than she already has.

"If you've changed your mind, and want to leave this place, I won't stop you," Shenhe is the one to break the silence this time, still tending to your injuries with a cotton swab, eyes trained on the cuts against your hand. "I won't stop you, and you don't ever have to come back here."

Something in you stirs — you turn your head to face her, but once again it's like nothing has changed. As far as you can tell, it's the same Shenhe that you've been accompanying all this time — no more, and no less. The air in the hallway is still, it's just you and Shenhe here — and even though you were the one caught snooping, she was still showing you the same hospitality as always.

She holds you with all the care in the world, fearful that one wrong touch would send you crumbling like fine china, as if you hold the key to the universe right in the palms of your hands. Her own gloves are torn and worn down, ripping at the seams and her own hands shake like a fawn learning to walk for the first time. You don't dare ask what happened during the hours of downtime between your last encounter.

The back of your mind whirls with every thought you possibly had to say. Apologies, comfort. anger, confusion — you aren't sure which voice you want to listen to, so you listen to none. Saying nothing when Shenhe's hold subconsciously firms up when you try to pull away from the disinfectant that burns your skin and stings your open wounds, and saying nothing when the bandages are wrapped a little too tightly around your joints. It's ready enough for them to keep moving — so you don't complain.

The tension in the air is as thick as the storms of Inazuma. You do nothing but pick up the scattered supplies and dirtied swabs in awkward silence. Shenhe watches you with a distinct look in her eyes — there is so much you both have to say, so much you want to say. This could possibly be the only opportunity you have left, and it's as if the world has been spun the wrong way around. Four hundred and sixty meters per second in the wrong direction — pulling you further and further away just out of reach.

When she gets up to leave you once again, you do the only thing your body allows you to do, and you grasp at the hanging silks at the ends of her sleeves. "Please don't go," escapes from your tongue, a desperate plea finally voiced, and the earth beneath you crumbles away into dust.

Shenhe spares you one final glance before giving herself to you once again. The two of you fall into another tight embrace, your hands dig into her clothes like it'll be the last time they ever will. "Why don't you run away?" Her voice cracks at its ends, broken and bruised and tired like you've never heard.

Your palms grow clammy and the urge to rip off the tight bandages suffocating your hands has never been so high, "I want to stay here," you force the growing pit in your throat down to the depths of your stomach, breathing through shaken breaths and heavy air. "I want to be here with you."

She hangs her head low, hand covering her eyes from being seen and refusing to meet your gaze. Sitting in the corner of the halls with a weeping Shenhe in your arms isn't how you expected to spend the nights of your summer, but summer nights have long been discarded by the destiny forced upon you. And if the fate of this world is to be engulfed by everything the Gods deemed Divine, then you would spit at their feet and prolong your struggle for as long as fate would allow you to.

Her voice is so quiet you almost have to strain your ears to hear her. 'Why,' slips out with a sound so heart crushing and so unlike Shenhe that it sends you plummeting like a meteor in the sky. Crashing down at speeds beyond your imagination and digging a crater meters deep into the stone of the earth.

"Isn't it obvious?" You reach up, cupping the sides of her face in both your hands and wipe away the stray tears that fall just as she did before. She holds the world in her eyes — they pierce the deepest memories of your heart, and you can't find it within you to look away. "I want a life with you"

She looks like she almost doesn't believe you, mouth slightly agape and trembling at the edges, "You mean–"

"Let's get married," You interject before Shenhe can continue her sentence, lowering your hands and instead holding them over her own, "And we'll have a real wedding this time. Just the two of us here, no one else has to be around for it." The weight of your future sits heavily on your shoulders. It rings around your neck and squeezes with every breath you take like a deadly serpent. There are storm clouds overhead and they hiss curses, a warning sign that this is a terrible idea. It stems from the roots in your chest and blooms up your throat spilling the contents of a broken promise without remorse.

"We won't have to worry about anyone else ever again," She softens at your insight, silent and still and if you were the only person left in the entire world, that would be okay. You lean in closer, a warm grin spreading across your face, "We could stay here, or we leave and run away somewhere."

"I don't care where we go," Shenhe presses her head against yours, closing her eyes in the brief moment of peace the two of you finally have. "I'll follow you wherever you fall."

'It's better for the both of us that you don't.' You swallow the lump in your throat, nodding your head absentmindedly before letting out a short laugh. Shenhe pulls away, surprised when she spots the tears in the corners of your eyes.

"Sorry," You hastily wipe them away with your sleeves, flush with embarrassment, "I just didn't imagine we'd ever be getting married."

Shenhe, for the first time since you've been introduced, gives you a smile that only Shenhe could have. "I never expected it either, but. . . I'm happy."

You laugh at her sudden declaration, "I think. . . I think I'm happy too."

The 'wedding' comes sooner than you anticipate, and the nerves that build up in your chest cease to die down.

It was just as you promised, only you and Shenhe were there to exchange your vows. It is much less a wedding and more so a new declaration of the certain love she holds for you. Regardless, it was better this way — away from all the judgmental eyes and dying whispers from those within. Shenhe has always been one to stray away from crowds, and you welcome her with open arms and praise for a new tomorrow.

The feeling is familiar in a way that brings you discomfort. The heavy silks that weigh on your arms, the expensive wardrobe that was never yours to begin with, the red flowers that clash with the pure whites of your garments. You find yourself in the same predicament as you were back then when you first arrived — naïve and unaware of the mess you were getting yourself into. If only you were smarter about it then, you wouldn't be reliving your final moments now.

But tonight is not one of dreary gloom. You hold the flowers with all the care in the world, lifting your arms just enough so the sleeves don't drag along the floor. Not that it mattered in the end, the ridiculously long outfit already trails behind you like a wild dog.

When you arrive at the hidden gardens, Shenhe is already waiting for you, adorned in a similar fashion. It's somewhat of a shock to you, seeing her dressed so formally after all the time spent together. She smiles at you again when you enter her line of sight, and you feel your chest drop to the deepest parts of Hell.

She greets you like you are the warmest thing to ever grace the planet, holding you in a close hug and grinning softly when you lean over to place a gentle kiss on her cheek. "Are you sure you want this with me?" She asks one final time, more for herself than for you, a check to make sure you're still there — that you're actually real, and not a part of her imagination.

You, in your swallowed guilty and trembling arms, can only offer an unassuming nod as a response. "Of course I do," you muster through choked out words and uneven breaths. In your luck, Shenhe makes no further comment about it, stopping only to slip the golden band around your finger — admiring in silence the way it slips perfectly through like a readily made fit. The ring shines against the falling light, and you force a smile through your teeth when she holds you tight one last time.

For once, you are thankful for the lack of a crowd. There is no one to ask questions, and no one to force words out of you. If you have anything to thank Shenhe for, it would be her reclusive nature — as much trouble as it has caused you in every event prior to this. But no matter what she does, you cannot fault her as much as you claim to. After all, you are both just pawns in a greater game. And whether or not she decided to play in it had nothing to do with you.

A room that was once hers is now yours to share — the large double bed now having a use outside of a comforting amount of space. It houses two people now instead of just one, and it will also be your first instance of sharing a bed with anyone besides your parents when you were a young child.

There's no longer any room for thought when Shenhe asks if you're tired. She is already halfway tucked into the bed, and you give her a lazy 'Not right now,' followed by a 'I'll be taking a walk around, I'll be back soon.'

In all your defense, you hadn't told her a lie. Half-truths never hurt anyone before, and the only thing soon to matter is that you finish what you came to do all along. Months of patience and lying in wait. Lying through your skin and saying only what mattered and not what you wanted. The golden ring upon your finger reflects the silver light and you almost have the heart to toss it away beneath the skies and lose it forever. It isn't as if you'll be needing it again any time soon.

Every room you pass you can recall in perfect detail — an old lamp that doesn't turn on anymore, the fireplace you've been told not to light on numerous occasions, the shelves filled to the brim with books you still aren't sure that anyone has ever read before.

Thirteen chairs along the uncharacteristically long dining table and a memory captured just beside it.

The kitchen, usually lively, is dead silent in the ungodly hours of night. Pots and pans hang on their displays, and you open the drawer just left to the sink and grab a newly sharpened knife. It fits smoothly in the palm of your hand — the metal shines against the light of the moon and your reflection mirrors within the blade.

Is it still worth it, you wonder. The thought pounds wildly against the barriers of your skull, ears ringing and bringing you to a dizzying close. Your mind reels from the pressure — half of you wants to put the knife right back where you found it, the other wants to dart straight to your shared room with Shenhe and finish the job.

In a desperate flurry to rid yourself of the impending guilt, you listen to the latter and force your way back to the sleeping quarters of the estate. A cold sweat runs down your back, and you have to keep reminding yourself that this is surely the only way to break free. You have made it this far; all you need to do is take the final leap.

Shenhe, as you predict, is asleep by the time you arrive. You remove the heavy sheets with more uncertainty in your entire life and climb onto your side of the bed, seated upwards right beside her unconscious figure. She is asleep on her back, heart exposed to the open air and the ringing in your ears return as loudly as ever when you finally find the strength to lift the knife above your head — clutching the handle tightly with both hands and eyes shut so tight fearing for the worst.

“—'re back. . . ?” Shenhe stirs from her slumber with a tired call of your name, and you halt in your movements caught directly before you can swing your arms down, your eyes wide with fear and darting back and forth searching for both anything and nothing at all. When she lazily rubs the sleep from her eyes, you know deep in your heart that it's already over.

In a panicked frenzy, you do the one thing your mind screams at you to do, and you bring your arms down with the force of a tsunami at bay — plunging the knife straight into the center of her chest.

If she let out any sound at all, it goes unheard of by you. The numbness overtakes you with the sudden impact, a strong pulse rushes through your head and forces your eyes wide awake as you're forced to watch the outcome with your very eyes.

And with a feverish high you force the blade out, silent and without a word as you swing it back into her, over and over again like a lifeless machine at work. Ruthless and brutal and you aren't sure if you were even consciously aware of the massacre at your very hands.

When you come back to reality, the sheets are stained and Shenhe lays unmoving at the edge of the bed, an expression you can't quite read hidden in her now glossed over eyes.

The adrenaline wears off not a moment after, and you drop the knife in horror, kicking wildly at the reddened sheets and desperately trying to wipe the blood off your hands. Light trickles through the open window and burns against the ring wrapped around your finger. Gold turned a smudged shade of rose and locked so tightly that you're no longer able to remove the metal from your hand no matter how much you twist and pull.

Panic resurfaces in the urge to hurl the empty contents of your stomach — the stench of iron fills your nostrils, and you hurriedly drag yourself away from Shenhe's corpse and rush out of the building, stopping only when you catch sight of yourself in the hallway mirror.

You're still dressed in the drapes from your previous vow exchange — now painted in crimson red and ripped at the corners. Inked in blood that does not belong to you, you are much less a bride and instead made a murderer of your own name. And all for what? A taste for fame? How would you face the people in the harbor covered in the sight and scent of blood?

You shake your head furiously — no, you were a hero, surely you were. No one ever made it back alive, and you would soon be the first. Surely that had to account for something, surely it wasn't all for naught. Cursed with a reminder of your crimes, surely that had to be punishment enough.

The moon is high in the night, just as it was the time you first set foot into the sanctuary. You step close to the edge of the cliffs again. Shenhe once said leaving was just as easy as arriving. And there was only ever one way that allowed you to enter.

There aren't any more doubts in your mind. Your people would definitely celebrate in your name. You, who saved the city from a millennium of suffering. You, who finally rid the beast's curse on your beloved home. You, who was sent on a journey to your death, only to return alive and victorious.

And just as the light hits the shine of the water's reflection, you turn your back, and you fall all over again.

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