urehghdhgdhghg. whf is generally... listen. she gets it. she understands why people end up working for corps - she was one of them. it put metaphorical food on the metaphorical table. it paid for medical bills, piling up. it let her keep the people relying on her afloat. she won't apologize for making the decisions she made and doing what she had to do.
cut bc Longe. post abt takemura mostly.
but she never liked the corp itself, and only pretended she did when she had to. she worked in cybernetics programming, not intelligence, not public relations - she was tucked away in a basement lab, testing software integrations. no one looked at her for too long, let alone cared about how strongly she believed in arasaka's great vision. and behind all that, behind the chip she let them put in her to dull the edges of her emotions, there's just a massive, massive onslaught of rage.
listening to takemura talk up the Order and Overwatch of arasaka like it's a benevolent patriarch makes her want to climb off the side of the unfinished building they're doing a stakeout on and just hit the concrete, it'd be faster and less painless than her head exploding.
takemura, look at yourself. look at her. both of us are from respective slums created by corporate bullshit. she's been in debt since before she knew how to count, inherited and generated out of thin air as everyone she cared about fell victim to the poisoned air, the poisoned water, the poisoned earth - all effects of corpos running amok, unfettered. it's not like he doesn't know - it's just that he's convinced himself otherwise. seen what he wanted to see. and she was like that, too, before leaving arasaka for good. she knew, conceptually, that there were worse things under her feet. that some of her work was being used for horrible things. but there was only the desperate tunnel of needing to make it through to the next paycheck. and she stayed until the very last possible fucking second because - because it was only on the brink of having them take the last ten years of her life away from her that she realized she couldn't rationalize that away, and she had to stop doing it for everything else, too.
so sure, talk to hanako. do whatever you've got to do based on whatever loyalties you've got to honor. but don't fucking pretend, don't fucking lie to yourself that you were ever anything other than lucky. you worked hard, but a corp is a massive beast. you just got lucky. every day you got lucky except for that one day.
just like her. every day she got lucky. except for that one day.
meanwhile johnny's just sitting over there listening to all of this and it's the most she's ever spoken about anything prior to the corp, really, and it's usually walled off in her mind behind the arasaka no-feelings implant, so he's... interested, but also so fucking. sad. he guesses. he's sad because she's sad. except she's just empty, and the only thing left (because there is No One left; they've all gone and the years she spent trying to keep them alive feel completely and utterly wasted now because who is she to fight entropy. who is she to fight the corps. who is she to fight the decay of the planet) is just a well of anger so deep he's surprised he's never tripped over it before. not that he pries, exactly, but it's so obvious now that he's seen it. she's got so much of it and so little of anything else left, and he hates to see a mirror in her in this way.
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After the hospital bombing, I finally heard back from my grandmother and confirmed that several of my relatives were murdered by Israeli bombing. Seven of them, to be precise. Three are still going, including her. We've been talking constantly ever since.
Asked if it was possible to head south, and was told they did but were also bombed there. So they decided to go back home, in Zeitoun. Their home was bombed and they were pulled out of the rumble, then driven by ambulances to the al-Ahli Arab Hospital. There were people in every corner. Gazans sheltering, sleeping on the floor. Gazans dying on the floor, waiting for beds.
Four were declared dead on arrival, three were in need of surgery and other three were just bandaged. Then, a bomb was dropped in the parking lot that made parts of the ceiling collapse, like Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah reported in that horrific conference/interview. Those in need of surgery died.
By the way, just in case you didn't know: the Church of Saint Porphyrius, the third oldest in history, bombed by Israel a few days back, was located near the hospital.
When looking for new shelter, they saw schools with signs hanging outside, "We can't take any more families." They met families, sympathetic but already sheltering too many people. They're now staying in an apartment building they found empty. Sleeping in the corner of the living room. If the family comes back, they'll apologize and leave.
Told me she was saving her phone battery for when the bombing stopped, and she had to ask for help to rebuilt the neighborhood. But she doesn't think it's gonna stop anymore. The ones still with her are mute most of the time, like they're saving energy, but she feels lonely and wanted to talk. There's no internet and to connect to WhatsApp, people are buying "a card from the supermarket, there's a password and username." Not sure what she meant. Still, the internet is inconsistent and won't load neither videos or images nor pages, so she doesn't know what's happening on the outside world.
Told her there were a lot of people protesting to stop the genocide, she replied, "The bombings are getting worse by the day." The bombing yesterday was the worst she ever witnessed. The entire neighborhood is infested with the smell of death, of decomposing bodies. Bodies are piling up in the streets and she's not sure if it's because they ran out of places to store them, but most of them are in bags. The smoke of the bombings hide the blue sky—she hasn't seen the clouds for a while.
Asked if I could share their pictures, names and dreams with people and was told, of which I partly agree, "they're not entertainment." If anyone genuinely cared, they would be alive—I'd argue there are people who do care, but I'm not gonna lecture her pain. And they don't deserve to be used to fulfill someone's sick fantasy. Told me to remember what some Israelis do with pictures of dead Palestinians. And I do.
For those of you who are not familiar, many times before settlers got together to celebrate the murder of Palestinians. For one, in 2015, Israeli settlers set a house in Duma, West Bank on fire. An 18-month old baby, Ali Dawbsheh, was burnt alive. Both parents later died of wounds and only a 5-year-old, Ahmad, survived, although severely injured.
Two celebrations of their murder are widely known, one at a wedding and others outside the court in which two were indicted for the terrorist attack. In the wedding, guests stabbed a photo of the toddler, Ali, while others waved guns, knives and Molotov cocktails. Israel's Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was present.
That's what happens in an apartheid. Palestinians are so abused by authorities that their "innocent civilians" come to accept the brutality as necessary or are desensitized by our suffering. After all, it's been 75 years—get used to it!
So I won't risk the image of my loved ones, in fear they are used in these kinds of depravity. I will say, though, the world lost a young footballer. Lost a female writer and an aspiring ballerina. Lost a kind father, who was also a great cook, and a loving mother that enjoyed sewing and other types of handicraft art. Lost a math teacher and a child that wanted to become one.
People think Israel is testing new weapons on them. There's civilians arriving at the hospital with severe burns, which they thought was from white phosphorus, but apparently the pattern is different from the one caused by white phosphorus. It's widely believed Israel tests weapons in Palestinians.
Jeff Halper, author of War Against the People, a book on Israel's arms and surveillance technology industries, said: "Israel has kept the occupation because it's a laboratory for weapons."
They've ran out of drinkable water and the "aid" Biden sent was only for the South of Gaza and no fuel, for hospitals, was allowed in. Many shelves in the supermarket are empty. She said many are convinced that if they don't die from the bombing, they'll die from starvation or dehydration, or whatever disease will develop from the dirty water they're drinking.
Told me all people do now is pray, cry and die. Told me she hopes West Bank is spared. Told her Israel bombed a mosque in West Bank and dozens of Palestinians in West Bank are being murdered by settlers, so she bided me goodbye.
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