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arabidoll · 2 months

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The image the west painted about arabs and SWANA ppl centuries ago, how is it still used today, and why is that image harmful to SWANA group

First of all, what is Orientalism? based on the definition by Edward Said, orientalism is a "created body of theory and practice" which constructs images of the Orient or the East directed toward those in the West.

Representations of the East as exotic, feminine, weak and vulnerable reflect and define how the West views itself as rational, masculine and powerful. These can be seen in paintings as well as media.

The painting were obsessed w the idea of the Harem women, which affected all SWANA ppl, including Persian and Turkish women as well. Stereotypes and orientalist depictions of arabs and SWANA ppl are still used till this day.

Le Corsaire (1856), takes place in Turkey and focuses on a love story between a pirate and a beautiful slave girl. Scenes include a bazaar where women are sold to men as slaves, and the Pasha's Palace, which features his harem of wives.

Petipa's The Pharaoh's Daughter (1862), an Englishman imagines himself, in an opium-induced dream, as an Egyptian boy who wins the love of the Pharaoh's daughter, Aspicia. Her costume consisted of 'Egyptian' décor on a tutu.

Fatima (1897) and Fatima’s Dance (1907), which were the very first portrayals of Arab woman as a veiled belly dancer. These sexualized and objectified Arab women.

Sheherazade (1910), involves a shah's wife and her relations with a Golden Slave. It includes an orgy in an oriental harem. When the shah discovers the actions of his numerous wives and their lovers, he orders the deaths of those involved. Also based on One Thousand & One Nights.

The sheik (1921), takes place in Algeria, where Lady Diana disguise herself as a dancing girl to become one of the prospective brides, yet is unable to go through with the deception bc the sheik liked her. the sheik later abducts her, intending to make her fall in love with him.

The movie didnt even have the accurate Algerian traditional clothing and Algerians dancing clothes arent the “belly dancing inspired” clothes. The stereotype that a SWANA man would abduct a white women to make her fall inlove w him too…

Lalla Fatma N'Soumer, an Algerian anti-colonial leader during 1849–1857 of the French conquest of Algeria and subsequent Pacification of Algeria. She is an Algerian national hero. The pictures show the Algerian traditional wear, which isnt close to the ones in the movie.

Here is an Algerian woman wearing a Haik, again not dressed as the movie shows.

Mickey in Arabia (1932) by Disney, taking place in the Arabian Desert, where Mickey and Minnie are exploring the area I assume. Later, Minnie gets kidnapped by a Sultan. Again, portraying men from SWANA or arab men in this case as predatory and barbaric.

Abdullah the Great aka. Abdullah’s Harem (1955), about an Arab sheikh and a European model. He’s always with the Arab women he bought, along with belly dancers. He still tries to seduce Ronnie. He then attempts to drug her in order to sleep with her, but fails and gets dethroned.

So far all these movies continue to have the same narrative, continue to sexualize Arab and SWANA women, always portraying them as belly dancers and/or harem women. The Arab and SWANA men as barbaric and predatory. Themes that will continue to exist till this day.

Babes in Baghdad (1952) Arabian Nights princess goes on strike demanding equal rights for women, to the frustration of the caliph. Aided by the caliph's godson, she enables the caliph to see the error of his polygamous ways, and he eventually settles down with his wife.

The Queen of Babylon (1954), about a king's concubine that loves a Chaldean rebel in ninth-century B.C. Assyria. I Am Semiramis (1963), in ninth-century B.C. Assyrian Queen Semiramis loves an enslaved Dardanian king. mind u assyrians dont dress like egyptians

Fast forward to the 90s and early 2000s, the same stereotype surrounding SWANA ppl persisted Aladdin(1992), Aladdin meets Princess Jasmine, daughter of the sultan of Agrabah. They both have to deal with evil sorcerer Jafar from overthrowing Jasmine's kingdom.

Jasmine was sexualized (even tho shes a minor), she seduces Jaffar, and was put in a harem/belly dancer fit. the same portrayal of Arab women. The movie also features harem women. Jaffar w big nose, painting arab men as ugly, sinister and ruled by sexual desires, again.

Braceface (2002), the harem thing again. Totally spice (2002) with harem inspired fits Around the World in Eighty Days (2004) by Disney, Arab sheikh his wives that were objectified through the scenes.

After 9/11, “Arabs are terrorists” and xenophobic remakes towards arabs increased. Air Marshal (2003), The stone merchant (2006), The kingdom (2007), and many more all portrayed arabs as terrorists. Family guy(?) and shameless (2012, S2) with jokes about k!lling iraqis

Bratz: Desert Jewelz (2012) and Aladdin (2019) had the same orientalist themes as the 1001 Arabian nights (1959) and as well as the older movies.

Today, inaccurate and offensive Arab/SWANA representation is still the same. Arabs are either rich sheikhs, terrorists, or exotic belly dancers. not only that, u rarely see any arab or SWANA actor/actress get good roles, its always reduced to the terrorists role.

Whats mentioned in the thread isnt only harmful to how SWANA ppl are viewed, but how they’re treated as well. In 2002 to 2005, Philippe Servaty engaged in sex with over 80 Moroccan women, promising to take them to Belgium.

He asked them for sexual photos and photographed them in poses that could be seen as degrading. They included ejaculating on the face of a veiled woman and having another woman kneel, bound, and gagged while he urinated on her. After returning to Belgium, he published the photos.

with assyrians and persians ppl still use the same harem belly dancer clothing and its not even accurate. egyptians are always portrayed as belly dancers, also inaccurate.

SWANA ppl are still treated as fictional characters. Dune (2021) uses orientalist themes and is inspired by SWANA cultures. many offensive media made ab arabs, but wont i b able to fit all here. racism/xenophobia against ppl in SWANA didnt start with 9/11 and its not over either.

twt original thread here!

#orientalism #threads #swana

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pregnantseinfeld · 3 months

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"The winning of constitutional independence in any given African territory has to be correlated with winning of independence everywhere else on the continent and in Asia, so as to determine to what extent the so-called peaceful handover of power was really peaceful and was due to the goodness of the colonizers, and to what extent it was an option forced on them by examples of violence in particular colonies and by the threat of violence implicit in any nationalist movement which had shaped the people into a single resolute force. It is, for example, palpably obvious that the French learned from defeats in Vietnam that they should quit the whole of Indochina 'peacefully', rather than perish at other Dien Bien-Phus. The French repeated their high-handed actions in Africa and found that the national war of liberation threatened to reduce the French 100-franc note to a piece of worthless paper, and had already bequeathed the National Assembly in Paris with a succession of jack-in-the-box premiers. There was clearly a connection with the unsuccessful French wars of repression in Algeria and the haste with which they tried to establish acceptable African governments in West Africa.

As for the British, Malaya haunted them in Asia and the example of Kenya gave them diarrhoea in Africa. True, they did suppress the Mau Mau land and freedom army, but at what cost! Imperialism is not imperialism if it costs more to suppress the exploited than the imperialists receive in surplus. The British knew that it was wise to proceed with African independence rather than court more Mau Mau. Even in far-off British Guiana, the popular movement of the 1950s could exert some leverage on the British by threatening them with Mau Mau.

India is often given as the classic example of non-violent transfer of power from the imperial power to the indigenous nationalist forces. But it should be remembered that India had a powerful current of mutinous soldiers and other political traditions opposed to the non-violence of Gandhi. The British retreated as much from the threat of millions of Indians lying peacefully on the roads and railways as from the possibility that they might get up and strike back, given the example of those nationalists who were attacking British life and property before and during the Second World War."

Walter Rodney, The British Colonialist School of African Historiography and the Question of African Independence

#lengthy quote but this whole piece was good #walter rodney

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mariacallous · 4 months

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This is from September 2020

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” President Donald Trump told his supporters in the far-right street-fighting group from his podium at the first 2020 presidential debate. “Somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left.” Four years into the Trump era, Americans have struggled to habituate themselves to the persistent presence of armed paramilitaries at demonstrations and flashes of lethal political violence. What do these hard men herald for our political life? Are they stormtroopers waiting for Trump’s signal to hasten the transition from autocratic attempt to autocratic breakthrough and the final demise of American democracy, as some liberals fear? Or are they a sideshow of confused, lonely men acting out fantasies with semi-automatic rifles?

Both hyperventilating over paramilitary fantasists and laughing off potential death squads miss the mark. The whiff of putsch may be more pungent than feels comfortable at the moment, but the far-right’s window for an extra-legal takeover remains quite narrow, especially if polls hold and Biden wins by a healthy margin. At the same time, American politics really has been destabilized by political violence, overwhelmingly perpetrated by the extreme right. But if the United States is heading into an era of fear and violence, it won’t be the first time this has happened in a democracy—or even the first time this has happened in America itself.

If proud boys and vigilantes can’t pull off a coordinated drive for power, they may opt for a time-honored approach in democratic politics: the “strategy of tension.” In a paper published this spring, University of Winchester criminologists Matt Clement and Vincenzo Scalia defined the strategy of tension as a political method of “state crime,” designed to produce “a climate of fear within communities. [Strategies of tension] employ deceit, threats, and acts of violence in order to maintain control across society through fear of the consequences of challenging the government of the day.”

The term was coined in Italy during the Years of Lead from the late 1960s to the 1980s, when political violence exploded, with bombings, kidnappings, and failed coups making weekly headlines. Under the strategy of tension, as the left grows more militant, influential, and strident in its demands, the right tries to inflame social tensions rather than defuse them. The violence has a dual purpose, to both suppress and provoke. The right’s aim is to cordon the left off from power by simultaneously intimidating them, eliciting escalation, getting the police to crack down, and using the chaos to manipulate public opinion and political alliances.

Virtually every member of the Western Alliance has had its own years of lead, not only Italy but Britain during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, France as it tried to cling to Algeria and was targeted by its own paramilitary terror campaign, South America in the years of Operation Condor, Mexico’s Dirty War, and so on. America is no exception. The country has been here several times before: Bleeding Kansas during the 1850s, when slave-owners and abolitionists faced off in murderous confrontations; the birth of the first Klan after the Civil War to resist Radical Reconstruction; and the wave of violence that accompanied the rise of the Third Klan during the civil rights movement. Elements of the left from John Brown to the Italian Red Brigades have also pursued violent accelerationist campaigns in pursuit of social change. But only the reactionaries have enjoyed approval from more mainstream sources of political power. Often, they got logistical support as well as material and legal cover from security services.

Clement and Scalia described the strategy of tension as a vicious cycle. State prevention of emancipatory politics leads to dissent, which is in turn repressed and delegitimized, further isolating social movements.

With no outlet for their demands, activists pursue more radical confrontations, leading their opponents to justify almost any violence in maintenance of the oppressive regime.

That dynamic is on display in the response to this year’s BLM protests. Once initial police suppression was met with uprisings, the “good guys with guns,” “patriots,” and militias showed up. Ostensibly there to protect businesses and support law enforcement, the armed right has instead brought Chekhov’s AR-15 onto the political stage. The inevitable exchanges of gunfire and vehicular assaults at protests demonstrate, as Christina Cauterucci recently wrote for Slate, the political ethos of “own the libs” has escalated into “kill the libs.”

In the classic model, the strategy of tension was associated with Cold War covert action and CIA interference in our allies’ domestic politics. After World War II, Western intelligence agencies really did organize “stay-behind networks” with alumni of both fascist regimes and anti-communist resistance networks in preparation for a possible Soviet invasion.

And a military threat from the east was only one strategic danger: The left, it was feared, could also rise to power in the West at the ballot box and through social movements. The CIA did put its hands on the scale in the elections like Italy in 1948, when left-wing parties were portrayed as Soviet puppets and systemically kept out of a coalition government. In the late 1960s, the rise of the New Left was indeed met with covert violence, police terror, and a string of false flag attacks by neo-Fascists intended to suppress, discredit, and isolate the young movement. In turn, some on the left took up bombing and kidnapping as well, but this retaliation served the right’s ends by contributing to public fear and justifying red scares. The actual degree of coordination between the stay-behind networks, Western intelligence, and the right-wing terrorists of the Years of Lead remains hotly contested. But, as historians Leopoldo Nuti and Olav Riste wrote in an introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies on the strategy of stay-behind in Cold War Europe, “clandestine networks sometimes overlapped, without clear demarcation lines as to missions and functions.”

By contrast, the latter-day American pursuit of the strategy of tension is carried out largely in the open. The armed far-right doesn’t need a covert network to supply it with military equipment because America is awash in legal weapons. Militias and vigilantes don’t have to maintain underground communication networks because social media platforms allow them to operate freely. Police chat up the gunmen as they both eye BLM protesters. While the revelations regarding the Italian security services and political establishment’s relationship to right-wing violence didn’t fully emerge until police and parliament investigated in the 1990s, Republicans have publicly embraced figures like Kyle Rittenhouse, the alleged Kenosha shooter whom Fox News has transformed into a folk hero.

If Biden wins, as polling suggests is likely, it’s hard to imagine the likes of Patriot Prayer will surrender and disappear. After all, Trump has cast the election as an apocalyptic fight for America’s soul with stakes as high as the fight against communism. Republicans portray Biden, however tendentiously, as a tool of Ilhan Omar, BLM, and antifa, and his potential victory as inherently illegitimate, recreating the fear of the left that led many in Europe during the Cold War to try to exclude Socialists and Communists from power.

Given the persistence of the 2020 racial justice movement, it’s hard to imagine that the resurgent left will shy away from making demands of newly empowered Democrats. So to many on the armed far right, it might appear that their work will have only just begun if Biden takes office. They’ve got everything they need to continue operating as a domestic stay-behind network to antagonize, suppress and isolate the left—most valuable of all, permission from above.

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forasecondtherewedwon · 1 month

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First Line Game

Rules: List the first lines of your last 10 published fics and see if there’s a pattern.

Thanks for tagging me, @jonairadreaming!! I love these 😊

1. "little fix" (Masters of the Air, Gale x Bucky)

Algeria, and the heat rose shimmering from the dusty earth as well as radiating down from the white-hot marble of the sun.

2. seven degrees east (Masters of the Air, multiple pairings)

Spring was about to fall headlong into summer and Bubbles had decided Princess Di was the woman for him.

3. remember it once (The Artful Dodger, Jack x Belle)

Jack’s squinting into the sun, fingers bitten by the wooden bow because he (regrettably) refused to wear the poncey little gloves Belle offered him.

4. "coming in clear" (Masters of the Air, Gale x Bucky)

The first night after Buck had built the radio, Bucky woke up and rolled over to see his best friend sitting there in the dark.

5. "hanging clothes" (Masters of the Air, Crosby x Sandra)

If it was wrong (it was), at least it was honest: how he was looking at her.

6. "Bodies in the Theatre" (The Artful Dodger, Jack x Belle)

She lives, and he’s afraid to be near her.

7. "how to cook the loch ness monster" (Masters of the Air, Crosby x Bubbles)

Crosby lived in a wacky reality where heroes outnumbered regular guys a hundred to one.

8. "stop-motion poetry" (Masters of the Air)

Everywhere was empty, like a museum.

9. "dear john" (Masters of the Air, Gale x Bucky)

John had grown further from himself since the last plane, Gale’s plane, had touched down in Algeria.

10. "my how they fly" (Masters of the Air)

So he didn’t wear out his welcome with his own crew, Bucky stowed his book and went wandering off into the fog.

********

Pattern:

In my lower-case title era 😔 None of these start with dialogue, so out of curiosity, I checked and found I haven't led off with dialogue since my 22nd most-recent fic!

Apparently, my writing's in a more reflective phase right now, where I prefer to spend time establishing mood/atmosphere. I've been writing characters who are often distanced from their own emotions (because of the Grief and general War Trauma), which I didn't consciously notice I was mirroring; the slower set-ups at the start of these fics also deny closeness until emotion wins out over restraint.

Tagging: @sempervera, @cocoamoonmalfoy, @mercurygray, @flythesail, @lookforanewangle, and @woahpip 😊

#tag game #my writing #The Artful Dodger #Masters of the Air #MotA #dodgerfox #Bucky x Buck

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darthgloris · 1 year

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If things had gone differently

Pairing: bi!Palermo x fem!bi!reader

A/N: this was quite a request, @tzkyo, thank you! This is a really interesting plot that is very likely to make me cry while writing it but I love it! You're very creative, hope you get more ideas like this for me to write ❤❤

Summary (@tzkyo 's courtesy, everyone 😉): Y/N (aka Recife) is completely and utterly in love with Palermo, even if all this time he loved Berlín. After his love interest died, he was torn apart from grief, while Y/N did her best to comfort him in hopes of one day winning his heart. During the heist, he breaks her heart in the most cruel and painful way possible, but regrets it when things start getting ugly.

Warnings: SPOILERS, violence, death, angsty af, heartbreak

€€€

I hated them.

I hated them both.

Actually, that's not true. I loved them both.

But I hated the way they looked at each other.

I hated the way they acted together.

I knew I shouldn't. I knew it was wrong to act like this, but I didn't care. I'd been going through this shit every single day for 10 years. Watching the love of my life Palermo being so kind, so sweet, so fun, being himself with Berlín, and then turning to me with a cold shoulder. Of course, he'd be sweet and kind to me as well, but when he was with the love of his life he was a whole different person. And it bothered me so much that that version of Palermo was the real him. Berlín brought out the best in him, certainly. He brought out the fun, sunny, Golden Retriever-like side of him. But he started neglecting me for it.

Damn him. Damn him and his perfect plans and his perfect brains and his perfect fucking smile. How could I be so in love with him? He was impossible, he was selfish, he had countless of flaws, but when you truly love someone, that doesn't matter. And his happiness mattered to me as well, so I let him be with Berlín and tried not to get in the middle.

And then, in the heist at the Royal Mint, he died. That was really impossible to see. The only difference between what hurt him before was that this time it impacted me as well. Berlín was the one who stole Palermo's heart, and he was quicker than me in doing so, but he was still a really good friend to me, almost a brother. He was used to giving me lots of attention, and that made Palermo's blood boil. That was probably why he was so cold to me.

A few months after Berlín passed, I was called by my ex-partner-in-crime Nairobi to join her and Helsinki in their life of partying and joy. I had missed her very, very much and couldn't wait to clear my mind from the hopeless, dead-end chase after Palermo in the lovely landscapes of Argentina.

A little less than a year later, love played its dirty game once again. Rio got captured and was taken to Algeria for interrogation and torture. That was what brought us all back together. But if there was something I wasn't ready for was meeting Palermo again.

Our reunion was certainly heartfelt and tearful. After all this time of grieving on his own, he felt incredibly alone and couldn't deny that he missed me, even if my advances sometimes bothered him.

...

During the heist

Palermo was acting weird. Very weird. He wasn't looking at me at all, he didn't even bother to look me in the eyes. To others, he talked normally, but to me, he just gave orders as if I meant to him as much as the next person. I've done everything for him: I spent my time helping him when he was blinded when I could have been doing much more useful stuff, I supported him when no one did, I covered him during battle. Hell, I've known him for years, why would he be acting like this?

And then it occurred to me. Why don't I ask him myself?

On the way to look for him, I bumped into Nairobi, who grabbed my arm gently and pulled me away to somewhere more private.

"Recife, where were you going?" She asked carefully.

"I'm just looking for Palermo, why?"

I sighed in exasperation. "Cariño, when are you going to realise you're too good for him? Have you seen how he treats you? You don't deserve that shit. You deserve someone who treats you like the wonderful person that you are. I know you love him, and I know you have for a very long time, but how did you endure all those years of watching him with Berlín and then having him push you away? He's not good enough for you. If he doesn't respond to your advances, it's not your problem, it's his, because he can't see the person in front of him for how she really is."

"Look, I know he can be a really shitty person, but he wasn’t always like this, okay? Before Berlín came around he was sweet, fun, caring. He used to show me so much affection, so much care, and when the guy showed up, he started following him like a puppy."

"He might have been like that before, Recife, but he's not anymore. People change, and sometimes for the worst. Even the inspector in charge now would be able to treat you better than this. And she's been torturing Rio for weeks."

"I'll never know what's going on with him if I don't ask him, will I?"

Nairobi sighed and placed a hand over her cheek, thinking. "You're so stubborn. Now go on, lover girl, before you miss your chance."

I gave her a strong hug and hurried off to find him. After a bit of wandering in the Bank of Spain, I found him in the library with a bunch of hostages and a couple of crew members. This was going to be difficult.

"Palermo!" I called him, and he stopped for a moment, but chose to ignore me and kept walking.

"Hey, Palermo." I grabbed his arm and forced him to look me in the eyes. "Um, could we talk? Alone, please?"

"No. Whatever you have to say, you can say here." He replied coldly, making my jaw clench.

"Fine." I rolled my eyes. "Could you please tell me why you've been treating me like trash since we got here? You're acting really weird, and you're not the Palermo I know, because that guy was loving, and cared about me, even if I was just a friend to him. But now... now you're just a jerk who thinks that he can push me around because I have feelings for him. I miss you, Palermo. The real you."

When I noticed how his fists were closed and his face was red, I got scared. Knowing him, he was going to lash out. "Don't give me that shit, Recife. Do you have any idea how much I suffered when Andrès died!? Does your teeny little brain even begin to comprehend what I went through when you left me alone to follow your little friends to Argentina!? You can't blame me, you can only blame yourself!"

In the middle of all that yelling, Nairobi came in I she almost heard her heart cracking at the scene. I teared up at the harsh words he was throwing at me without any regret, and my friend tried to walk up to me.

"Palermo, shut up! Can't you see she's crying?! Leave her alone!" She defended me.

"Why should I care if she's crying?!" He turned his attention back to me. "Are you still here, Recife? Go on, get out! Leave! Stay the hell away from me!"

I tried not to break down in front of everyone and ran out of the room. I could hear their voices arguing from inside.

"Why did you have to do that, you selfish piece of shit? All she has ever done is care for you and give you the love that not even Berlín gave you and you just break her like that?! Are you crazy?! Do you really think you're in the position to break someone's heart? You? I saw what she went through..."

I zoned the voices out and broke down on the floor, my cries echoing through the corridors. I couldn’t believe he did that to me. Maybe it was better like this. It may be better for both of us.

What he had said really hit a spot. Sometimes I regretted leaving him, but I thought it was for the best. The Palermo I remembered would have never rubbed that in my face. He wouldn't have said any of those things, he would've rejected me gently. And still treat me like a friend.

I leaned my head on the wall and hugged my knees to her chest, sobbing uncontrollably. I heard the door open and someone sat down next to me. Her hand started rubbing circles on my back.

"I gave him a piece of my mind. I couldn’t let him hurt you like this." She said and I leaned my head on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, cariño. Really."

"You know what the worst part is? If he hadn't changed, if he hadn't started pushing me away for someone else, that version of him would have never done this. I loved Berlín, but he turned him into this... this person I've never seen before..."

Nairobi sighed and clutched me to her chest. "You don't deserve that. Now, why don't you spend the rest of the heist with me, hmm? Get away from all of this for a while. You'll stay at the furnace with me, Bogotá and Denver and we'll take care of you, okay? You know that those guys never fail to put a smile on our faces."

I chuckled. "Okay. Let's go."

...

When they got downstairs, Denver rushed over to me while Nairobi went to talk to the others. "Hey, Recife, what happened? Who did this to you? You give me a name and I'll rip their face off-"

"No, no, no, please don't rip any faces off! It was Palermo. He ripped my heart out, threw it on the ground and walked all over it."

"I have to go, someone is in the need of a beating." He said jokingly. "Hey, listen to me. He's not worth it. If he can't see what a wonderful human being he could have been with, he's not good enough. And it's not all bad. You did a really brave thing, telling him everything you felt to his face. That's a courage he lacks completely, because he doesn't have any balls or dignity. Would you have been with a guy that didn't have dignity or a functioning pair of testicles? Of course not!" I laughed and smiled at him. "There we go, that's much better!" Denver picked me up in his arms and swung me up and down. "Recife! Recife! Recife!" He chanted and I laughed, hugging him.

He put me down and Bogotá approached her. "He's right, kid. Don't let anyone walk all over you. You're too good for that." He pinched my cheek affectionately and I smiled, hugging him as well.

I was going to be better off like this after all.

...

Meanwhile, more days passed and seeing Palermo hurt a little bit every time, but being with people who really cared about me and loved me for who I am made me feel much, much better. I managed to get much closer with the boys, that being Matías, Bogotá and Denver. It was great, they were fun, they were interesting, and they were good people. And Nairobi encouraging me made me feel so happy inside, to finally have someone who truly cared for me.

But I was about to get the harshest reality check I could have ever gotten.

Alicia Sierra had managed to get in contact with Nairobi and manipulate her through her son. First she left her the boy's teddy bear, which contained a phone. I got worried when Nairobi accepted a call from the Inspectora. She started telling her that Axel was with her, and when Nairobi didn't believe her, she put him on the phone. Then she took him outside, encouraging her to look out the window. I felt something was off, until I realised what Sierra was doing.

"It's a trap! Nairobi, get away from there!" I yelled and without wasting a beat, I pushed her out of the way.

The sniper bullet cut through the air as if it was a hot knife cutting butter. Then I felt a pain in my chest and gasped in shock, but almost choked on the blood I was spitting. My hearing faded out and my eyesight blurred, but I could make out Nairobi's voice desperately calling my name and asking for help. I saw a few blurry figures, of which I only recognised Estocolmo and Nairobi, but I also tuned out a voice of which I couldn't forget the presence: Palermo. I could distinctly hear his anguished yells and cries as he tried to pick me up and bring me somewhere else. I wished I could hear what he was saying to me, but I lost consciousness shortly after.

...

*Palermo's POV*

She's shot.

She's shot. She's shot. She's shot.

I couldn’t calm my nerves as I paced back and forth, holding back my tears. Recife just got shot. I couldn’t believe what happened. Her life was on the line, likely because of me. I don't know why I broke her heart like that, I should have done anything else but that! And now she was lying on that cart, a step away from death.

"Somebody do something, carajo!" I cursed. "Anything you can! An anesthesia, a bandage, anything, just don't let her die!"

I heard Nairobi mutter something, but I didn’t have the energy to care. My best friend was dying, the very best friend that never stopped loving me even when I treated her like trash. She was brave and smart and intelligent and never failed to put a smile on my face. I wish things had gone differently, maybe if they had she wouldn’t be here like this.

"Okay, she's stable." Tokio said, making me breathe a sigh of relief. "She's in a coma and we don't know how long it will be until she wakes up, so she's going to need constant monitoring and observation, if we leave her alone like this and something happens, we're screwed."

"I'll stay with her," I volunteered immediately. "The rest of you go down to the furnace, we're almost there."

"Finally getting some common sense into that thick skull of yours, eh, Palermo?" Nairobi asked, her voice lacking humour completely.

"Why don't you mind your business, Nairobi? You still have a job to finish," I countered. I needed to be alone with Y/N now.

She just rolled her eyes. "Fine. Now come on, we need to move her somewhere safer."

...

We took her upstairs carefully and the others left to go back to their jobs. Finally, a moment alone with her. I sat down next to her and grabbed her hand gently, interlocking my fingers with hers.

"I don't know if you can hear me, corazón," I started. "But I need you to know how sorry I am for treating you like that. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I was really overrun by grief and you remind me so much of him... but I don't want to talk about him. I'm so sorry you're going through this... I should have protected you, goddamn it! You've always stuck with me, you've been so patient, so kind, so sweet, waiting for me to treat you the way I did before. And guess what? To get me to remember you, you had to get shot. God, I'm so stupid! You're right, I have changed, but you had to pay the consequences while it should have been me..." a few tears started rolling down my cheeks. "Please give me a chance to fix this once you get better. I couldn’t live with myself knowing I lost such an important person in my life."

I rested my forehead on my other hand and cried shamelessly. "My God, I don’t know what to do with myself if I lose you. I already lost someone important, I already lost someone I loved. Please don't be next. Hold on, honey. You hold on and when we get out here I'm going to buy us an island off of the coasts of Japan, your favorite place, and then I'm going to marry you. We'll live on the island all alone, just us, where nobody can bother us. We'll have sushi every weekend and mochi whenever you want, the ice cream ones, just like you like them. And after a few years, I'll fill that pretty stomach of yours with lovely children, and we'll live the best life we could ever get."

I did the best I could to paint her that picture, hoping she could hear me. I want to do all of these things and more. I want to kiss her forever, then go to Japan and marry her and live the rest of our lives together. I want to give her children, who'll hopefully get her personality and both our brains.

But what if she didn't make it?

I wanted all those things. I love her. I love her more than she thinks. She's going to make it. She has to. Otherwise, I might not be able to move on from her.

...

A few days passed and I spent every single day with her to apologise for everything I had done to her, to tell her about everything I loved about her and our future plans. I refused to leave her side, not while she was in this condition. My eyes hurt from crying and my back hurt from sitting in the chair; I hadn't eaten since she got shot, I only had water, and it wasn't my intention to leave anytime soon. Not even to eat. Not even to sleep.

...

I was sitting next to Y/N, my hand in hers, hoping for any sign of movement. Nothing. All of a sudden, her hand twitched and I almost jumped up from my seat. She was awake! She was here!

I couldn't hold back tears as she opened her eyes and shifted her head to the side to look at me. She eyed me up and down, her eyebrows furrowed. "You look terrible," she said honestly, making me laugh. Her life was on the line and she didn't even leave her sarcastic personality behind. God, this woman was amazing.

"I know," I laughed, stroking her face. "I've been sitting here for days hoping you'd wake up. Listen, I'm really sorry for treating you like that. And I don’t just mean last week. Everything I did to you. You were right, I've changed, and not entirely for the better. I pushed you away without being aware the value of your feelings for me, and when you got shot I finally realised what I should have a long time ago. What I'm trying to say is that I really love you. Please, please give me a chance to fix things. I owe it to you."

She smiled as she teared up as well, which made me hiccup in tears, only this time they were of joy.

"Yes. You can have one more chance." She said.

I gasped softly and tried not to shower her with physical affection as I knew she was hurt.

"What are you still waiting for, Martín? Kiss me, you fool," she joked.

"Are you sure? Because once I start, I might not be able to stop." I replied sincerely.

She gave a small nod and I leaned my face closer to hers. Then she moved her face upwards and met my lips in a soft kiss. I felt my stomach drop to my feet at the feeling of her soft lips on mine, her hand trying to run her fingers through my hair. I smiled in the kiss and felt more tears falling down my face, but I didn’t care. Finally, she was with me. And I wasn't willing to let her go.

...

I woke up to a lot of bustling in the room: the crew was running around and swarming over Recife's body, and their frantic muttering was mixed with the unstable beeping of her monitor.

Shit, the monitor!

"What's going on? Why isn't anyone doing anything?! She's dying, hurry!"

"Palermo, honey..." Nairobi started. "...we can't save her."

I noticed the tears pooling inside her eyes and I almost forgot how to breathe. She was serious.

"No! There has to be something we can do to help! Just anything- no, don't touch that!" I yelled at Denver who was about to detach her from the drugs. "Don't you dare give up! She'll live, I know she will. She's a survivor!"

"I know she is, Palermo, but we're just putting her through useless pain. She's gone, she was since the Inspectora refused to let in the surgical team. She's the only one with proper medical training, if anyone could have done anything, it would have been Recife herself."

"Screw it! Screw all of it! Come on, Nairobi, help me out, please! Please, Nairobi! I can't lose her!"

I saw the hurt and pity in her eyes as she opened her mouth to speak. "I'm sorry, but we-"

Our argument was cut off by the sound of the monitor flatlining.

"¡No! ¡Carajo!" I yelled and punched the wall in a futile attempt to let out my anger. "No! No! Don't leave, please! Please, Y/N!"

The others hugged each other in mourning, but I let nobody touch me. I was too late. She was dead. She was gone forever. No more wedding in Japan. No more sushi and mochi at the weekend. No more children.

I sobbed loudly and clutched her dead body to my chest. I still couldn't believe she was gone. I still couldn't believe that I let love slip through my fingers again.

...

Before her funeral, I stopped by to see her once more.

She was still there, her wound clean and her face relaxed. My heart swelled at the sight and my eyes filled with tears again. I sat down on the cart and pulled her to me, her upper body laying on my lap.

"I'm sorry for this, mi amor. I should have protected you. I love you so much, remember that."

My tears dropped on her face and it looked like she was crying as well, which made me cry harder. My body racked with sobs and I held her beautiful face in my hands as I started singing her favorite song.

"Con los pobres de la tierra

Quiero yo mi suerte hechar

Con los pobres de la tierra

Quiero yo mi suerte hechar

El arroyo de la sierra

Me complace más que el mar

El arroyo de la sierra

Me complace más que el mar

Guantanamera..."

My voice cracked and I couldn’t help but give a soft kiss on the lips.

"Goodbye, my beautiful."

#ldcp #lcdp palermo #lcdp x reader #palermo x reader #money heist #money heist x reader #palermo

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menonlywrestling · 6 months

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garland-on-thy-brow · 1 year

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Today, a rather predictable statement came from Russia – a statement that they are finally canceling the grain export initiative. But in fact, this is not the decision they made today.

Russia began deliberately aggravating the food crisis back in September, when it blocked the movement of ships with our food. From September to today, 176 vessels have already accumulated in the grain corridor, which cannot follow their route. Some grain carriers have been waiting for more than three weeks. Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Bangladesh, Vietnam, others countries – very different countries, from different parts of the world... But they can all be equally destabilized by this Russian decision to block exports.

Why a handful of people somewhere in the Kremlin can decide whether people in Egypt or Bangladesh will have food on their tables? A strong international response is needed now. Both at the UN level and at other levels. In particular, at the level of the G20.

Ukraine has been and can continue to be one of the guarantors of global food security. Russian terror and blackmail must lose. Humanity must win. I thank everyone who is fighting with us to restore peace and stability to international relations!

- Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 29.10.2022

#russia is a terrorist state #food insecurity #russia wants global famine #russian war against ukraine #food crisis

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freifraufischer · 10 months

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So you've come back to gymnastics since Tokyo because you are excited and French Gymnasitcs is on Fire and Everything is Terrible....

[This original post was written for Reddit to help catch people up on what was happening while they weren't paying attention]

Welcome to an overview of "Everything is not okay in France". Before I get into the details of what is happening in the French Gymnastics Federation (FFG) you should be aware that they are hardly the only French sports establishment gleefully lighting themselves on fire. In mid June the headquarters of the Paris organizing committee was raided by French Police as part of corruption investigations, the head of the French Olympic Committee has resigned after her predecessor announced he was filing a complaint about mismanagement of funds, the French National Assembly has started a commission to investigate abuse and corruption in French sports broadly ... oh and they still haven't signed the contracts for all the Paris Olympic venues including the Stade de France. If you want the lowlights of French Sports scandals this year @darthmelyanna posted a summary.

Specifically the FFG ... before Tokyo it was decided that to give the French team the best training environment all Paris hopefuls would need to move from their home gyms to centralized locations at Pôle Gym St-Etienne (in south central France) or INSEP in Paris. This is not the first time there has been a push to centralize French gymnastics and the last time it didn't go well either. There was a massive sexual abuse case at INSEP which was dropped because of the age of the suspect... so you know it's totally reasonable to trust the environment there.

Anyway... many of the most promising French gymnasts come from a club called Avoine Beaumont Gymnastique and their gymnasts did not want to move (either away from their family or their coaches with whom they saw success). According to the coaches at Avoine-Beaumont the centralization push is about the ambitions of national team staff wanting to take credit for successes at the home Olympics and there is a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest this true. The Avoine-Beaumont coach had been offered a job at INSEP and was previously on the national team staff but when he did not take the job he was forbidden to travel with his gymnasts.

According to Carolann Héduit (a French national champion and a European medalist) the FFG called her weekly to pressure her to move--including while she was in Tokyo at the Olympics--and have told her that her national championships mean nothing and they even pulled her funding only restoring it after there was national press attention. She has described the psychological impact as heavy and her parents and coaches believe the French federation are attempting to break her.

Her team mate Kaylia Nemour was probably the most promising French junior of her generation. She also refused to move and after a surgery when her own doctor approved her return to training the French federation's doctor--without examining her--not only refused to allow her to return to competition, but also said that she could not return to training and initiated an abuse investigation into her coaches. He had the authority to refuse to allow her to compete, he did not have the authority to tell her she could not train. He tried to publicly say he never did that but Nemour's mother had the letter in writing and posted it on twitter. Facing the prospect of not being able to compete Nemour switched to Algeria but the FFG opposed the country change meaning she couldn't compete for a year. That would have prevented her from competing at this year's world championship and most of her best opportunities to qualify for Paris. This was only reversed at the intervention of the French Minister for Sport the literal week before the 2023 African Championships where she qualified for Worlds. She has a VERY good chance of winning a medal on bars in Paris. Yet another Avoine-Beaumont junior's family is voicing that they may also be looking at a country change...

All while this is going on Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos was given leave to train in the United States at WCC. No one is clear why she was given this exception. Some fans have speculated that it is because she is from Martinique which is in the Caribbean and she wants to be closer to her family... but it is neither cheaper nor faster to travel from Houston to Martinique then from Paris to Martinique. MDJDS has talked about how it takes basically 24 hours for her to travel from Martinique to basically anywhere and because Martinique is a French department there are direct flights from Paris and no such thing from Houston. As of this post it would cost between $690-730 to fly from Paris to Martinique and almost $1200 to fly from Houston to Martinique. MDJDS is also not been treated super well when she has gone home to compete. Her WCC coaches were not allowed to stay with her in the week before the Paris World Challenge Cup and when she showed up the French National Team staff decided they didn't like her technique on one of her releases and decided to retrain it. A week before competition. It did not go well. She had a generally good 2023 French Championship but the difference between her being allowed to train in the states while the Avoine-Beaumont gymnasts are being put through hell to force them to leave home is... a choice. And not one I think anyone can explain.

While this was going on the Pôle Marseille was closed down after it's head was convicted of "moral harassment." One of the longest running French gymnastics meets Gym Massilia was abruptly cancelled last year and though it was said it would be back this spring... it's July and that hasn't happened.

All of this has been about WAG but it's also worth mentioning that the French federation hired Vitaly Marinitch to be the head coach of the French team. He had been publicly fired from USAG for drunkenly groping the wife of an athlete. In under 2 years the French also fired him for "alcohol related incidents".

A lot of this came to a head last month when a French sports television program aired a segment including many former French national team members describing physical and verbal abuse. It's... a hard listen if you can find a copy though the versions on youtube have been copywrite striked so I can't link it. The French Minister of Sport acted the next day ordering Nemour to be released to compete for Algeria and investigations into the coaches described in the report, as well as a "speedy conclusion" to the investigation into Avoine-Beaumont. The FFG has down played and been dismissive of the entire thing. Even claiming that the TV team did their investigation... because of Larry Nassar. But hey... the French gym fed president gets to spend a lot of time now answering questions before the National Assembly's investigative commission.

That's pretty much the state of everything right now... but please indulge me as I give a brief explainer about how France does not work the way you think it might. France is divided into administrative units called departments (think provinces or states). There are two "kinds" of departments those of Metropolitan France (the area you probably think of when you think of a map of France) and the départements et régions d'outre-mer or Overseas Departments. There is NO difference under French law between the two. Marine Boyer is from the French department of Réunion which is in the Indian ocean and MDJDS is from the French department of Martinique in the Caribbean. They are both full French citizens and their home departments have representation in the European Parliament. Does this sound very Colonialism-y or Empire-y to you? Of course it does. You wouldn't be wrong. But this does not change the reality of how French citizens are treated under the law. French political society highly values the idea that all French citizens are equal under the law and it would be deeply offensive to that power structure to suggest that a French citizen should be treated differently based on if they came from a Metropolitan Department or DROM.

One other side note: Many believe Avoine-Beaumont pushes too much difficulty too young. I am among the people who believes that. But there is also no evidence that they are doing anything different than would be done at INSEP. It's completely possible to side eye the pacing at Avoine-Beaumont and also think that they are the victims of a power grab. While I do not know of any complaints by current gymnasts against Avoine-Beaumont there is some evidence from the London quad of restrictive diets and abuse.

#gymnastics

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