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teawaffles · 3 years

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The Conspiratorial Bullet: Chapter 8 / End

“Hey, Helena. In the middle of the game, you suddenly went along with that guy and disappeared — where on earth did you go?”

“Hmm…… Explaining it would be a real pain. Just imagine what you like.”

The girl groaned in annoyance. “……Can’t you just tell me? Meanie.”

After the game had ended with the blue team’s victory, as he observed Helena and her former friend’s conversation from a distance, Bond spoke to William.

“Those two sure have gotten closer, haven’t they?”

William answered with a smile.

“Perhaps it’s like how after rain, comes fair weather.” [1]

“Though for the two of them, it must’ve been like a bolt from the blue, huh.”

After that modest exchange of proverbs, Bond wondered aloud.

“Moran-kun and I haven’t heard the details, but for now, can we consider the case closed without incident?”

“Yep; the perpetrator has been caught, and the threat to Helena and her family has been effectively eliminated.”

This time, the plan had been set up after William and the others leveraged their intelligence network to identify the criminal, and then shared the information they’d obtained with Helena. From his profile of Andy, William had read the man’s every move, then intentionally left him at large in order to catch him in the act — that was the entire flow of it. Hence, apart from the key players involved, the others had been told nothing more than that they would be “using the game to capture the criminal”.

William had put an end to it all. After hearing his report, Bond seemed satisfied.

“That’s great. To be honest, ever since I got caught up in the game, I’ve been thinking a little — that maybe, I haven’t actually done anything useful today.”

“Far from it; on the contrary, it’s because you took the game so seriously, that Andy dropped his guard and carried out his plan to frame Mr Kevin.”

“——So you’re saying the match between me and the old geezer was well and truly a serious one.”

Placing a hand on William’s shoulder, Moran joined the conversation. Behind him stood Jack and Albert.

Jack sighed in consternation.

“You’re quite persistent, you know. It was just one hit.”

Yet Moran was undeterred.

“Still, it’s a fact that I scored that hit. If it was a real bullet, you would’ve been a goner.”

“Wasn’t it because it wasn’t live that it managed to hit me……?”

Jack smiled wryly, and Albert spoke up in a cool voice.

“Furthermores, it’s an undeniable fact that you got hit right after. Isn’t that right, Colonel?”

“Ugh.”

Albert had been spot on, and the corners of Moran’s mouth twitched as he fell silent.

Having watched their exchange with amusement, William thanked them once again.

“I’m truly grateful to all of you for lending a hand today. Truthfully, it pained me to have involved everyone in catching just one criminal.”

Hearing that, Moran clapped him on the shoulder.

“As I said, we had fun, so it’s alright. In fact, it’s been a long time since we’ve fought one another all out, so I’m grateful for that.”

“Indeed: we’re also pleased to have had a showdown with Colonel Moran.”

“Now hold on just a minute. Don’t think you’ve won just because you caught me off guard once.”

Even now, Moran was still snapping at Albert. Seeing that, Jack spoke up in a grave tone.

“On the battlefield, even the slightest carelessness will cost you your life, Moran.”

“I’m well aware of the basics! Don’t give me those useless platitudes!”

Just like that, William and the others were engaged in an amicable conversation, when the parent and child who’d been the central figures of this case called out to them.

“Everyone: thank you very much for today.”

Having wrapped up her conversation with her friend, Helena thanked them in a light-hearted tone that was distinctively hers. Continuing from where she’d left off, Kevin stood beside his daughter as he gave the entire Moriarty household a deep bow.

“How can I ever thank you enough for this……?”

On behalf of all of them, Albert spoke.

“We have simply acted according to our sense of justice. In particular, Mr Kevin, I would like to apologise for not informing you of our plans.”

Kevin hastily shook his head.

“No no no; Lord Albert, you have nothing to feel guilty about: you all saved Helena’s and my lives.”

“That’s right — we’re really grateful for that. We’ll probably never forget this kindness.”

Upon hearing that inappropriate cockiness, Kevin admonished her at once.

“What’s this pomposity towards the people who’ve helped you? Also, you should be saying ‘definitely’ rather than ‘probably’……. Apologies; to have such an unpleasant exchange at this time…”

He bowed repeatedly as he said that. But suddenly, as he remained in a bow, Kevin looked up and asked a question.

“……Come to think of it, what happened to that man? It seems the other participants haven’t noticed anything at all.”

He was concerned about Andy Krueger’s fate. He had punched the living daylights out of the man, so much so he’d been knocked unconscious — that much Kevin himself knew, but as William and the others had taken care of the aftermath, he hadn’t heard the details of what happened after that.

“He’s now on one of our carriages, with Louis and Fred keeping an eye on him,” replied William. “We felt there was no need to blindly call in the police and spoil the fun.”

“I see……. Then, will he be taken to the police after this?”

Handing a criminal over to the police. That was what common sense dictated, but William deliberately tilted his head with a troubled expression.

“As much as we would like to, ……the nobility of this country wield an outsize influence, hence there is a concern that even judicial rulings will be twisted in their favour. If that were to happen, both of you may end up in harm’s way again. As such, we shall engage in careful negotiations, with the aim of preventing such things from ever happening again.”

A calm smile rose to William’s face, and unconsciously, Kevin gulped.

Normally, negotiating with a criminal outside the authority of the state would be out of the question. But William’s smile held a power that seemed almost divine, erasing all such doubts.

How would they deal with Andy after this? It was probably wiser not to probe into that. Anyway, it was true that they had saved both their lives. Best to let sleeping dogs lie.

The unfathomable nature of these young men made Kevin’s blood run cold. Then, William changed the topic.

“So, what are your plans from here on?”

Kevin lowered his gaze a little, and met his daughter’s eyes as she stood beside him.

“Just like before, I’m going to spend time with my children. As for the plans for the new store…… To be honest, I’m worried about going it alone, but I intend to do my best anyway.”

“Hmm — I have no idea how to manage a store, but my brother and I will be supporting Mr Kevin together. Even though I don’t look like it, I’m good with housework and stuff, you know.”

“……Is that so?”

At their words, William nodded, and a strange silence settled between the two parties.

Kevin and Helena were trying to appear relieved at having overcome great danger, but even so, it must’ve been an immense shock to learn that a person important to both of them had been murdered. That emotional wound had yet to heal, and now that fact revealed itself in the form of silence.

“U-Um……”

In a hurry, Helena tried to find the words to dispel the unpleasant atmosphere. Right then, Kevin raised his voice a little as he made an announcement.

“In any case, we’ll be alright. Somehow, I believe we’ll overcome this tragedy and move forward.”

Helena nodded along with his words, and William broke into a gentle smile.

“Indeed. I shall be praying for your family’s bright future.”

After those modest words of encouragement, William held out a clenched fist towards Kevin.

“Also, that punch was very satisfying.”

“Definitely. You socked him with all you had — I’ve seen you in a new light.”

Helena did a swift one-two as she shadow-boxed, and Kevin ruffled his hair in embarrassment.

“It was unbecoming of me. Though, I don’t regret it one bit.”

“Since you had the courage to pull that off, I’m sure you’ll do just fine from here on.”

“I’m honoured to hear that. Well then, I hope we meet again someplace else.”

As Kevin bid them farewell, Helena stood up straight and looked at William and the others in turn.

“To everyone in the Moriarty household: today, we are truly in your debt. We’ll never forget this kindness, definitely not.”

With an uncharacteristically polite tone, Helena expressed their gratitude once again, and both father and daughter left the scene with peaceful expressions.

As he sent them off, the eldest brother asked his younger sibling a question.

“——Well now, is this truly the end of it, William?”

A hint of the Lord of Crime — who was striking terror across the country — revealed itself in William’s expression as he spoke.

“Of course not: we still have the finishing touches left.”

At those words, the entire Moriarty household smiled in unison.

T/N: Helena’s story isn’t over just yet — there’s one final piece of the puzzle, and it’s a big one! Stay tuned x)

Footnotes:

[1] This is the literal translation of the proverb 雨降って地固まる — essentially, it means that good things do come out of bad things.

Translator’s notes

The Moriarty household

I’ve translated the phrase モリアーティ家 as “the Moriarty household” when it is used to address everyone in the Moriarty organisation, since “the Moriarty family” suggests that only the three brothers are being referred to.

#moriarty the patriot #yuukoku no moriarty #yuumori #english translation #the girl who sees rainbows

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writing-prompts-for-friends · 4 years

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Questions to Help World Build

I’ve realized I have a big problem with my writing. I am awful at world-building. Like, I just start writing without thinking about the world. And since I write fantasy. Well. That’s pretty no bueno and leads to all kinds of problems down the road. So I did some brainstorming with my friends and we created a list of over 100 questions to help think about our stories’ worlds and make them more concrete. Thanks to everyone who chimed in and gave me a hand!

A traditional Japanese clock, wadokei, that counted hours from 9 to 4, starting from sunrise, and then starting once again from sunset. (1-3 were not used for religious purposes.) They’re super interesting and confusing. You should definitely check them out.

Temporal

Is your story set in the past, present, or future?

Specifically, what year(s), month(s), day(s)?

Are days 24 hours? Or does time pass differently in this world?

How many months are there in a year? Is it a seven day weekday? Does the concept of weekends exist?

Have most existing societies developed a timekeeping device?

Is there a way to communicate across long distances?

The concept of time zones is still relatively new to our world. Prior to the late nineteenth century, timekeeping was a purely local phenomenon. Each town would set their clocks to noon when the sun reached its zenith each day. Do standardized time zones exist across the world?

Geographical

From a planet perspective, is it Earth? If it is not Earth, or an alternative version of Earth, what is it like? Is gravity the same? Does it have a moon or multiple moons? Can you see other planets? Is it closer or further from the sun? If so, what impact does that have on the climate and passage of time?

What town, state, region, country, continent, planet does this story take place in? What are its bordering/nearest neighbors? Draw a world map if you want.

What kind of land is it? Landlocked? Mountainous? Along the sea? Desert? Tundra? Tropical forest? Plains? Agricultural? Industrial?

What kind of plants and animals are common to the area? Are there any that do not exist in the real world?

What are the most common crops and livestock in various regions? What geographic features influence certain regions ability to grow/raise their crops and livestock (positively and negatively)? Are the regions diets strongly influenced by what they are able to grow themselves, or do other circumstances (like strong international trade) allow them to have more varied selections? How does religion influence what is considered ‘normal’ to eat?

What, if any, natural disasters are common to the region? Earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, monsoons, blizzards?

How many seasons does it have? Are any longer than others?

What is the typical weather like for those seasons?

Does the region have any unusual geographical features that set it apart? Perhaps there is some weird thing like Devil’s Tower just chilling out. Or hot springs because of volcanic activity?

Is it easy to travel from place to place within the area? Is it difficult to travel because of terrain/technology issues, or because travel is strictly regulated?

Main Locations: Cities

Many stories take place within one city. In Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, a character remarks, “So, if a city has a personality, maybe it also has a soul. Maybe it dreams.” What personality does this city have? What soul does it have? What does it dream of when it slumbers? If your story takes place within a settlement, town, or city, give these questions some thought.

Exactly where is it located within the lands you conjured up in the above Geography questions? Does it have a bay? A river? Does it butt up against mountains? Draw a map of the city.

How big is the city? Is it compact, or sprawling?

How old is the city?

What is the history of the city? How did it come to be? What tumults and triumphs has it seen?

What is the population? Is it currently increasing, decreasing, or remaining the same?

Does the town have any claim to fame? Any tourist attractions? What are they? What’s the story behind them?

If it’s a big enough city, how many and what kind of districts does it have? Residential, Commercial, Industrial, etc. Where are they?

Are there any areas that are deemed unsafe? If so, where are they and why are they unsafe?

Is there public transportation? What kind, bus, tram, train, subway, monorail? Is it good?

How do people get around this city if not by public transportation?

Are the roads narrow or wide? Crisscrossing in a methodical grid or higgledy-piggledy?

What are the buildings like? What materials are they made of? If they’re wooden, are they new wood, old wood? If they’re painted, what colors? If they’re stone, what stone? If they’re brick, is it new red brick or blackened, crumbling brick? If they’re glass and metal, are they sparkling with new hope or dull and jaded?

Are there many skyscrapers? Or are most buildings 1-3 stories tall? What does the skyline look like?

Are there many parks?

How is the city powered? Coal? Hydroelectric? Wind? Nuclear? Has it always been so?

What is the city’s main source of revenue? Agriculture? Tourism? Manufacturing? Mining? Something else? A combination? Dive deeper into this. If it’s agriculture, what do they grow? Tourism–what is famous? etc. This will help to determine what a lot of people do for a living.

What are the demographics? Ethnicity, age distribution, distribution of upper, middle, and lower class, etc.

How many schools are there? Universities? Are any of them good? Do they specialize in anything? Do schools even exist? Perhaps there are clans that teach their children everything they need, for example, or education isn’t viewed as important.

Are there any particular landmarks within the city that standout?

How many and what kind of restaurants are there?

Are there supermarkets, open air markets, or both?

Where do young people go to spend time? What about adults?

Do people there bustle or do they amble?

What are the nights like? Does the city grow quiet, or does it grow rowdy?

What does the city smell like?

If you had to give your town a color, one that represented its personality, what color would it be?

Main Locations: Houses (or buildings, but mainly houses)

There are many stories that have a house or headquarters or hospital or some sort of building as their main setting. These questions will mostly be geared towards helping you figure out a house, but you can apply these to other buildings too probably.

Exactly where is the house located within the city or outside the city? How does your character usually get there? Draw a map.

What year was the house built?

Was this house built by the current family or their ancestors? Who else lived in the house before the current dwellers? What were they like? Did they leave their mark on the house somehow?

What style is the house? Bungalow? Cabin? A shed? A cave? (makes the following questions mostly useless if so lol)

How many stories is it?

What is it made of? Wood? Brick? What color is it?

Does it have a lot of windows?

Are the curtains usually open or drawn? Are thee curtains at all?

What does the front door look like?

Is there a porch?

You enter the front door. Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you use the side door because the front door is for show or something. Anyways. You enter the house. What room do you step foot into?

Draw out the floor plans for each floor. How many rooms are there? Where are they? How big are they? How are they connected? What color are they? What style of decor?

Is there a basement? Is it used or is it just a home for spiders and darkness and unwanted things? How about an attic? Crawlspace?

How many bathrooms?

Are there any rooms that only certain people are allowed to enter? If so, why?

What is the flooring? Carpet? Wood? Tile? Linoleum?

What does the house smell like?

Government/Military/Economy

In other words, “the boring stuff,” if you ask me. But this is a very important aspect of any world.

What sort of government is in place? Democracy, oligarchy, etc? Is it a just or corrupt government?

How are goods exchanged? Bartering? Money? Coins and bills? Credit cards? A specific kind of sea shell? Lol

What are the police like? Strict? Lax? Is there a curfew?

Do taxes exist? If so, do the people feel as though they are heavily or unduly taxed?

Where is the intersection between theology and law? Is it common to have religious leaders in positions of power? Are laws based around religious ideology, or is there an effort to keep them separate?

Is there an organised structure devoted to halting criminal acts? Are they corrupt? Who runs the organisation? How does their reputation change based on demographic? What is the history of the organisation, and how does that history influence how it operates today?

Regarding potentially criminal acts, what is the elgality of prostitution, sex work, ect.?

What about drugs and other illicit substances? Alcohol, illicit drugs, recreational use. Legality, festivity, age limits, etc.

Underbelly. How prevalent is crime, what sort of crime (scaled from pickpocketing to human trafficking) is there? Are there areas that have bad reputations because of it?

Regarding war, are there currently conflicts in the world? Are they international or civil wars? How common is it to have an active war? What is the history of war? What does current warfare look like (Is it dudes in metal suits swinging swords? Have longbows been invented? Gunpowder? Tanks? Missiles?) Is military service mandatory or voluntary? How is the military seen? Is there a sense of patriotism for the military, or does the common man fear it?

Is there stigma around certain genders entering the military? Are come genders regarded as better recruits than others? Is it illegal for some genders to enter the military? Does a person's sexuality affect their ability to serve?

How has religion influenced war? Have there been holy wars in the past? Do any religious institutions hold their own military forces?

Cultural/Historical

I’ve put these together because events in history lead to cultural change. You can apply these questions not only to the world/country, but also the city or even the neighborhood, workplace, or school that your story takes place in.

What is the history of the region? Who was it settled by? Was another group of people displaced? After that, did any new cultures come in? Did they get along?

Were there ever any wars or serious conflicts in the region? What was the cause and what was the outcome of the war if there was one?

In our world, the internet, social media, and film/tv are massive cultural drivers. They determine the latest fashions, jokes, topics, and expressions. What are the big cultural drivers in your world? Books? Plays? Radio? Oral tradition?

Is it a collectivistic or individualistic society?

What languages are spoken by your characters? Is multilingualism common?

What sorts of cultures can be seen? Do any clash? Do any mesh?

What sort of foods are most common?

What superstitions do people hold? Is there a version of “knock on wood” or throwing salt over your shoulder after a funeral? What are the roots of these superstitions?

Are there religions? If so, what are they? Do any conflict with each other? Are zealots or extremists an issue?

Does slavery or indentured servitude exist?

Are there any class or caste systems? If so, what are they, and what does an average day look like for a member of each class/caste?

How does a person's appearance change from country to country? Do certain countries have very distinct fashions? If so, are the fashions influenced by religion, surrounding countries, the cultural majority or international trade partners?

How does a person's clothing relate to their social standing? Is it very easy to assume someone's roll by appearance alone? Are there punishments for dressing above or below your social standing?

Does the society place a great deal of importance on a person's presentation, or is the society more lenient on such things?

Is there an emphasis on conformity to a dress code, or is individuality encouraged? How strictly is clothing regulated by gender binary? Is it commonplace to see a man and a woman walking down the street in the same cut of clothes? Is there a social stigma when a person does not conform to the most common form of dress for their gender?

How are sexual rights viewed? Does the LGBTQ community have the same rights as people outside the community? How are sex acts between people of the same sex viewed? Is it legal? Taboo? Are there cultures that encourage those relationships in some circumstances (like how the romans were down with guys with guys in the military)?

Are there any groups of people that are victims of prejudice? If so, who are they, who holds these views against them, and what views specifically are they?

In regards to gender, do certain societies hold differing beliefs? Is there a commonly accepted number of gender identities or does it change regionally? Is the most common gender spectrum a binary, or do certain racial and cultural differences allow for a wider range to be seen as the baseline?

Are children raised by their biological parents or are children considered to be in the care of the wider community? Is it common/acceptable for extended family to raise children, such as parents needing to study, work, or serve time in the military? Is adoption a common thing in society? Is there a stigma around adoption/being adopted? Do cultural or religious views impact how adoption is seen by the wider community? What is adoption like for a single perspective parent? When adopting, is interracial adoption accepted/common, or is it seen in a negative light? Are some societies more open to adopting children outside of their own race?

How is sex and virginity viewed? Does religion influence it? What is the age of consent? What is appropriate on a first, second, third date? Is sex something that is talked about openly, or something taboo? Are you supposed to wait until marriage? Do couples stay monogamous while dating? Do some regions place higher importance on virginity than others? Do some place higher importance on one gender’s virginity than others?

How is marriage viewed? Are arranged marriages a big thing, or are people free to choose? Is monogamy common? How is a marriage symbolized? A wedding ring, or something different?

How is divorce viewed? What is the divorce rate? Can people remarry?

Magic and the Supernatural

If magic or spooky stuff doesn’t exist in your story, disregard this section.

Does magic exist? If so, who can use it? What are the limitations to their magic? What things are they capable of using their magic to do? What things are they incapable of doing?

Are there laws against what kind of magic can/cannot be used? What sort of laws? Who enforces them? What are the punishments for breaking said laws if they exist?

How does the existence of magic affect religion? Are there religious institutions that infuse magic into their worship? Are there religious sects that see magic as immoral and in direct opposition to their faith? Have there been conflicts in recent or ancient history between religion and the supernatural? Do some sects employ people to hunt and/or enforce law over the supernatural?

Assuming that magic does exist, is it taught? Are there different schools of magic? Is there a system of ranking for magic users based on their skill level?

Do non-magic users look towards magic users with respect or fear?

What role does magic play in this world? Has technology not advanced because magic solves many problems? Or has technology advanced and the use of some magics has become unnecessary?

Are there any mythological creatures/monsters, such as vampires, demons, skinwalkers, dragons, or other creatures of your own creation? Are they common? Do people believe in their existence? Do people worship them? Where can they be found? Do they interact with humans? Do humans fear them or try to put up with them as they do nature?

Do the dead continue to exist in some form, such as ghosts or zombies or the like? Can the dead be summoned or brought back to life?

Are there human/supernatural hybrids? Perhaps a half-demon half-human, for example? How are these people viewed by their peoples, and by society as a whole?

How has the supernatural influenced war? Do armies tend to have a mix of regular and supernatural soldiers/weapons? Have there been wars between the supernatural/magical and those without? How does magic influence a person standing in a mixed army? Is it more likely for a magical being to be promoted than a non-magical being? Conversely, are supernatural being forced into service and seen as pawns?

The End!

Please feel free to reblog and share, and add on any questions you think should be added!

#worldbuilding #world building #creative writing #writing fiction #writing tips #brainstorming #creative writing methodology #writing prompt #writing exercise #writing prompts for friends resources #long post #writing inspiration #writing prompts for friends

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britishvamps · 4 years

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First Meeting

Ateez Mafia!au: You Meet For The First Time

Hongjoong:

In the mafia world, there were the big three. These were the top three Mafia groups with, undeniably, the most power and influence to the surrounding world, whether individuals knew it or not. The groups were EXO, Stray Kids and Ateez and seeing as you belonged to Ateez’s largest rival group SKZ, it wasn’t exactly all hugs and kisses. Though you were a fairly new individual to the SKZ family, you were no stranger to the life of crime, having being taught to shoot a gun from very young and fight by your father who was a Capo for his old mafia group, you had climbed up the ranks of the Stray Kids ladder pretty quickly. Which would have been shocking from the outside perspective of someone such as Hongjoong, however to those nearby, you were seen working the under the table dealings, assigning and assisting in assassinations, aiding in missions much below your pay grade which earned you the position you held. You had first met Hongjoong during a ‘truce’ meeting that had quickly turned sour when they found explosives rigged to the derelict building that they had assumed Chan was cause of. So, in the midst of the gunfight and retreat, Hongjoong had San and Wooyoung take you captive as a means to negotiations and quickly was he intrigued by you. Never had he seen a female seem so unbothered and able to surpass his flawless features, intense looks and honey-like voice. He seemed mesmerised by your unwavering loyalty to Stray Kids alongside despite knowing the danger, you kept running your mouth as if these people weren’t trained killers but longtime friends.

Seonghwa:

Though not a part of any known groups or gangs, you were one of the mafia syndicates best hitman, sorry woman. Though few had seen your face or known your identity and lived, the whispers of the infamous killer spread and reached many ears and you were a sought after hitwoman. And like all jobs, your had many perks but with your recent target being the one and only Park Seonghwa you knew that many of these perks would have been added to sweeten the deal with the matter of fact that you were to eliminate the right hand man of one of the most ruthless crime organisations to walk the earth Despite having passed glimpses of one another at during “charity parties”, as many of these gangs liked to call it, you never had the chance to have been formally introduced until you wound up in the club owned by Kang Yeosang, club owner business man on papers, but of course to the few, he was Ateez’s very own drug mixologist and soldier. So there you were, sat at the VIP section with your right hand ladies, staring up at the owner’s booth watching the moves of Park Seonghwa, Kang Yeosang and ladies man Kim Wooyoung before you were summoned up by a bartender who said the presence of you and your ladies was requested by the males. Stepping through the doors, you immediately met eyes with each of the males, eyes undoubtedly scanning over each ones features before stopping at your target, there he sat furthest away from the other two, pouring himself more scotch as he cockily raised his glass to the three of you as a sign of greeting meanwhile Yeosang and Wooyoung came over, rushing you to sit beside them whilst you slowly meandered over to the male clad in a neatly pressed suit, suit jacket discarded with the sleeves rolled up and perched yourself on his arm rest.

Yunho:

You met Yunho on the day of your 19th birthday. It was the simple cliche, your parents were best friends growing up and wanted their children to date and get married. But being a part of a crime syndicate so big made plans like that not so simple. As both your father and Yunho’s father were leaders of infamous gangs, it was a deal held before the births of the both of you that you would get married. So on the day of your 19th birthday, you were awoken to being showered with many gifts and before you knew it, you were being driven to a large mansion on the other side of Seoul. Upon questioning your parents, they both gave curt responses and lead you into a large dining room where there sat your, yet your unknown to you, husband to be and his parents. Shyly you watched as your parents greeted them with hugs and handshakes, before they sat down opposite them, beckoning you to sit in between them like Yunho was. There, sat in front of the both of you were marriage contracts. Thick, slabs of white paper sat in contrast to the deep black glass of the table, the neatly written words staring back at you as it read ‘Legalised document of the union of the Jung’s and the (Y/L/N)s’. Looking up in horror, you glanced around the table to see all blank faces, as you were the last one to know. Abruptly arising in anger, you practically flew out of the room dismissing the yells of your parents when you were suddenly stopped by a sharp, curt pull on the arm, turning to being face to face with the beautiful individual who was previously sat opposite you.

Yeosang:

As Yeosang was one of the only high ranking members of Ateez who had been placed in the eye of the public as a legitimate business man, he was constantly around his nightclub where new crime deal prospects constantly being whispered about by certain people. You were a new employee, and unlike the others, you knew nothing of Yeosang’s real job, of how deadly the handsome male really was, which was highly unusual that the position offered was even given to you, an outsider to the gang life. For one to be introduced to a high ranking member of Ateez meant that either you were one of them or a rival member, which rose suspicions in Yeosang as he saw you being shown around by the acting manager who had interviewed you because, unlike most, if not all, of the other workers, you didn’t owe Ateez any money nor were you secretly aiding in any of their under the table dealings. So the surprise in which Yeosang felt when he had walked in and discovered that one of his acting managers had employed you, he was curious about whether you were really as oblivious as you seemed. So he called you into his office before your first shift to give you the rundown of the place, as he put it, despite already been shown around. You had known the individual to be handsome due to his many appearances on TV, but seeing him up close, you were hit with shock at the subtle smirk he wore when you walked in and seemingly froze on the spot. Upon summoning you closer, he gave you a not so subtle glance over before straightening out his suit and offering you a drink.

San:

Like Yeosang, San was also one of the members who was given a business to run, whether legitimate or not, the line was blurred. You were a police officer. Despite being young, you rose through the ranks pretty quickly which is what landed you in front of the exotic dancers club for a mission. You were to go undercover and find any information on the largest rival gangs that seemed to frequent the club; Ateez and EXO. Although EXO had the higher advantage of having years more experience than Ateez in the mafia business, the smaller gang had rose to criminal fame very quickly, being in the circle of the top three most dangerous gangs in just over a year. Upon walking into the club, you were hit with the stench of cologne, cheap perfume, smoke and liquor. Your eyes setting upon the stages where two dark skinned and fair skinned girls where currently twirling around. Walking through the building, you turned heads and gained whispers as you were one of the few girls currently fully clothed. As you reached the office, you knocked before entering once a gruff voice summoned you in and there he was sat on the dark brown leather swivel chair, dressed in an all black 2017 Ludlow J. Crew suit and a deep red shirt with a matching tie, Choi San. The man was most certainly not done justice by his photos, seeming more ethereal yet smouldering in person. He wore a smile but this man was nothing without the reputation of his duality; from a simple, kind businessman to a stone-faced killer in seconds.

Mingi:

For Mingi, he prided himself on being a skilful sniper. He was the best in the business. Hired by many for assistance in assassinations that were needed to be taken care of swiftly and from a distance until he decided to stick to being Ateez’s personal long range sniper on missions where they needed eyes outside and at a distance, even with his extensive training in hand-to-hand combat, Mingi had grown to preference his sniper, a Remington 700 XCR. However, for today’s mission, Mingi would have to give up the sniper and use his trusty handgun and fighting skills as they ambushed a rival group who were severely messing with their drug trade business. Sneaking in with Hongjoong, San and Jongho, Mingi had gotten Yeosang to disable all alarms and cameras throughout the mansion so they could all enter undetected. When the first shot was fired, the house began buzzing with noise, orders and gunshots heard from almost every room except one. The main study, although unlocked seemed to have no activity in it until Mingi decided to take a look and in there he found a lone lady, sat in her desk clacking away at her laptop as if there wasn’t a shootout only 3 meters away from her. Looking up, she saw Mingi with his gun raised and she smiled, and there Mingi seemed bewitched as she seemed not to even blink as the male stood inches away from her with gun pointed to her head. A gold plaque with the words ‘Y/N Y/L/N’ caught his eye.

Wooyoung:

Wooyoung was known for being the flirt, the crazy and unpredictable one which worked in his favour when he needed information from certain clients, whether male or female, they all fell for his little charm. That little wink and the way his mouth contoured into an over confident smirk that he held perfectly on his face made him deadly in a way no gun or knife ever could. Walking into the club, you knew your target was a well sought out individual and that you’d have competition on who would be getting information first. Seeing as the male had no issue in being active with both males and females, you knew he’d be surrounded tonight as it was one of the only nights he left the comfort of his chateau and private parties for an event of this scale and much to your distaste, there he was with a grey haired male stood rather close to him, whispering in his ear as females danced around them. Taking a moment to collect yourself, you grabbed a shot from the bartender and downed it before slamming the glass down and pushing yourself off of the bar and strutting over to the two well dressed males. A slight sheen of sweat on your skin made you even more enticing as people seemed to clear a pathway or stop dancing to keep eyes on your swaying figure in red bottom Louboutin wrap heels and one shoulder diamante dress before you stopped in a seat beside the man and turned to give smile at the two of them. Wooyoung’s eyes raked down your body, not bothering to hide the fact that he was doing so before sending a wink over to you and going back to his drink as the male was no longer speaking but much rather gawking at the goddess like female sat next to him. Knowing this would be an easy assignment, you reached out your hand to greet both males.

Jongho:

You weren’t part of the mafia life. Far from it. A regular civilian with a regular job as a waitress living with your parents with regular jobs as a police officer and a doctor. However, your meeting with Jongho was far from regular or even normal. You had gone to bring lunch to your parents, first stopping at the hospital to drop off some food to your mother before rushing out and heading to the precinct to have lunch with your father, a very common occurrence. Upon gallivanting into the police station, you noticed a lot more chaos in the air than usual. Seeing people rushing around on phones, holding papers and large files, some walking in and out of your father’s office and a lot of shouting heard from multiple directions. Walking a little slower to avoid getting knocked to the floor, however, certain plans don’t work well as the minute you stepped out, you had bumped into a very hard chest and upon looking up, you saw a a very handsome beat up face smirking down at you before he was pushed out of your way into an interrogation room nearby. You finally reached your father’s office and walked in to find him on the phone with a very unpleased face, as he glanced up to glare at whoever walked in, his face softened to see you and he motioned you in. As he hung up the phone he gave you a soft smile but before you could sit, someone burst in with a rushed voice about Jongho of Ateez in room one. Realising that lunch was off the table, you walked out with your father and let him walk off in a different direction. However, as you were near enough down the road, your phone rang and the very enraged voice of your father rang through about how the witness would only speak to the ‘innocent looking cutie he bumped into’.

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princessanneftw · 4 years

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Princess Anne: the best queen we’ll never have

Discreet and dependable, she is a royal cast in her mother’s mould. No wonder many long for her to reign over us, write Roya Nikkhah and Tony Allen-Mills

Roya Nikkhah and Tony Allen-Mills for The Sunday Times

When the Princess Royal turned up at one of the charities she supports to meet a gathering of disabled and autistic children, a young girl boldly informed her: “You don’t look much like a princess.” Anne didn’t miss a beat. “Good,” she replied. “That’s very reassuring.”

There have been moments over the past half-century when the Queen’s second child didn’t behave much like a princess either. She acquired a criminal conviction after her bull terrier, Dotty, bit two children. She tried to wriggle out of a speeding fine. She once owned a Reliant Robin.

Anne was unprincesslike in other ways too. As president of Save the Children, she has toured remote corners of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. She slept on camp beds and shared a bathroom with up to eight people. She visited parts not many British royals have reached: Madagascar; Peru; Wuhan, in China. In London she travels to some engagements by Tube. In 1971 she was the BBC’s sports personality of the year.

Today, as she approaches her 70th birthday, Anne has in many ways emerged as the royal family’s most valuable member after the Queen.

Captain Sir Nick Wright, a former naval officer, was Anne’s longest-serving private secretary, retiring last year after 17 years. He has never previously spoken about the princess. Now he says her sense of humour is “marvellously wicked” and her stamina endless: “The day starts early and ends at 11pm, day in, day out. Like the Duke of Edinburgh, she’ll just go on and on.

“She is totally consistent. If I’d done something wrong, I’d get a look, which can be disarming at times, but then she would immediately move on. Now, more than ever she will be a great stabilising influence for the monarchy, and when the Prince of Wales accedes to the throne, I don’t see her role being diminished, because she is such a valued and committed member of the family.”

Amid the chaos that has engulfed the dukedoms of York and Sussex, Anne has appeared a pillar of probity, devoted to her royal duties, impervious to the fallout from successive family scandals.

Although she is now 14th in the line of succession, it is tempting to reflect, as the nation braces for a whirlwind of birthday tributes — including a fly-on-the-wall ITV documentary promising to tell the story of “a royal mould-breaker, a princess who refused to follow the script” — that Anne may come to be remembered as the best queen Britain never had.

It has been quite a turnaround for a distant, largely unknowable princess routinely described as “no-nonsense”, “brusque” or “as stiff as her hairdo”. She was the first daughter of a monarch to be sent to boarding school. One of her contemporaries at Benenden in Kent was the royal biographer Penny Junor, who later described her as “one of the rudest people I have ever come across”. Anne inherited her father’s fondness for swearing at photographers and brushing off unwanted attention, earning her the tabloid title “Princess Sourpuss”. A Sunday Times profile in 2001 mockingly described her as an “enemy of the people”, after her lawyers explained that the reason why she didn’t slow down her speeding Bentley when flashing blue lights appeared behind her was because she thought it was a royal police escort.

She was never mistaken for a “people’s princess” and her relations with her former sisters-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales and Sarah, Duchess of York were by most accounts somewhere between chilly and arctic. She was reported to have shouted during a royal Christmas party at which Diana was present: “I will not be pushed around by that brainless woman.”

Her 1973 marriage to fellow equestrian Captain Mark Phillips produced two children; long before Harry and Meghan shunned a title for their son Archie, Anne insisted that her son Peter and daughter Zara remain Mr and Miss.

“I think it was probably easier for them,” she told Vanity Fair earlier this year. “I think most people would argue there are downsides to having titles.”

Over the years there have been occasional upsets, notably in 1974 when Anne survived a kidnap attempt in central London. Some years later she was linked romantically to her Scotland Yard protection officer, who was removed from royal service in 1982 amid newspaper reports of “overfamiliarity”.

Several more rumoured romances were reported but shortly after divorcing Phillips in 1992, Anne married Commander Timothy Laurence (now a retired vice-admiral and a knight). There has been speculation in recent years that the couple have grown apart and live separate lives, but people who know them say the partnership remains watertight.

“I’ve seen them together often and they seem to me a very good team,” said the lyricist Sir Tim Rice, a long-standing friend of Anne’s. She and Laurence attended a revival of the musical Chess at the London Coliseum. “She rang me up and wanted it to be very downmarket,” said Rice. “They sat at the back, we had a sandwich at half-time and when some of the producers found out they said, ‘Why didn’t you tell us? We could have made more of a fuss.’ But that’s exactly what she doesn’t want.”

Indeed, it has been precisely the avoidance of fuss that has turned Anne into such a discreet, dependable and desirable patron for so many of the more than 300 charities, military organisations and associations that she supports.

Unlike Prince Charles, Anne rarely courts public displeasure by pronouncing on government, family or any other policy matter. At her many public engagements — she has often topped the list of busiest royals — she tends to dodge the top brass and head straight for the lower ranks, military or civilian.

As she told Vanity Fair: “It’s not just about ‘Can I get a tick in the box for doing this?’ No, it’s about serving. It comes from an example from both my parents’ way of working and where they saw their role being.”

Gareth Howells, chief executive of the Carers Trust, of which Anne is also patron, said: “At every event she goes straight to talk to the unpaid carers first. They are her priority. She doesn’t just rock up to shake hands.”

Major Tom Gibbs, the officer commanding C Squadron, King’s Royal Hussars, recalled Anne ripping up the programme when she arrived at the unit’s base in Germany shortly after it was mobilised for the Gulf War in 1991: “Instead she spent hours talking to the [soldiers’] wives to understand the impact it was going to have on them. She gives the unit what it needs, rather than what is expected.”

Colonel Jason Gunning, of the Royal Signals, another of Anne’s regiments, added: “She doesn’t seek the limelight, but she’s very good in it.”

A month after Harry and Meghan announced their departure for a new role across the pond, Anne told Vanity Fair: “I don’t think this younger generation probably understands what I was doing in the past. Nowadays, they’re much more looking for, ‘Oh, let’s do it a new way’. And I’m already at the stage [of], ‘Please do not reinvent that particular wheel. We’ve been there, done that. Some of these things don’t work. You may need to go back to basics.’ ”

All this suggests that Anne, in radically different circumstances, might have become the worthiest of successors to her mother. The Queen and her daughter are said to have become much closer of late and one royal source noted: “The feeling is that if the Duke of Edinburgh isn’t around any more, it will be the princess who is giving her mother more support and not the Duke of York, who was trying to insert himself into that role.”

Andrew is now more concerned with extracting himself from trouble. “With everything that’s been going on recently, the members of the royal family you have left are the really hard-working ones, like Anne, who just get it; who knuckle down and know ‘it’s not about us, it’s about them, the public’,” the source added.

The Princess Royal may have been a mould-breaker once, but today she has reshaped and remade herself very much in her mother’s image. All hail not-to-be Queen Anne II, the monarch Britain never knew it might need.

#anne article #tim rice describing her and tim as a very good team 🥺#squee he’s talking about their date night at chess #fr though i need some of her stamina #princess anne #princess royal #british royal family #brf #newspapers #sunday times

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years

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Trudeau promises massive covid stimulus

Canadian Prime Ministers have a fun gambit: when things start to go really badly for them, they "prorogue" (suspend) Parliament, which dissolves all committees, inquiries, etc, until such time as they are ready to reconvene, with a tabula rasa.

Most egregiously, the far-right asshole and climate criminal Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament in the middle of the 2008 Great Financial Crisis in order to avoid a no-confidence vote that would have triggered new elections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Canadian_parliamentary_dispute

While this DID save Harper's bacon, it also left Canada without a legislature during a global crisis that threatened the nation's entire future. It was a crazed, reckless thing to do.

Canada has a safeguard to prevent this kind of gambit: as a constitutional monarchy, Canadian parliamentary manoeuvres have to receive the Crown's blessing, in the form of assent from the Governor General, the Queen's rep to Canada.

This is the sober, apolitical adult supervision that fans of constitutional monarchies are always banging on about, and then-Governor General Michaëlle Jean completely failed to do her fucking job, leaving Canada without a Parliament during the GFC. She literally had one job.

Proroguing Parliament didn't just save Harper from a no-confidence vote: it also dissolved all the Parliamentary inquiries underway at the time, including the "Afghan detainee transfer" affair, which was investigating Canadian forces' complicity in the torture-murder of POWs.

In many ways, Trudeau is the anti-Harper: a charismatic Liberal who tells refugees they're welcome in Canada, marches with Greta Thunberg, and appoints the first-ever First Nations person to serve as Attorney General .

Truly, there is no policy so progressive that Trudeau won't endorse it...provided he doesn't actually have to make it into policy. Because many of his policies are indistinguishable from Harperism, albeit with a better haircut.

This started before he won the election, when Trudeau (whose father once declared martial law!) whipped his MPs to vote for a human-rights-denying mass surveillance bill, C-51.

Trudeau did so while insisting that the bill was a massive overreach and totally unacceptable, but claiming that the "loyal opposition" should still back it so as not to be accused of being soft on terrorism in the coming election. He promised to repeal it after.

Of course, he didn't.

Trudeau is often compared to Obama, a young and charismatic fellow who makes compromises, sure, but comes through in the clutch.

Tell that to pipeline protesters.

After the Obama administration killed the Transmountain Pipeline - the continent-spanning tube that would make filthy, planet-destroying tar sands profitable enough to bring to market - Trudeau bailed it out, spending billions of federal dollars to keep it alive.

Then, Trudeau - who campaigned on nation-to-nation truth and reconciliation with First Nations - announced that he would shove this toxic tar-sand tube through unceded treaty lands across the breadth of the naiton.

And then he had the AUDACITY to march with Greta Thunberg at the head of a climate march, demanding a change to policies that would see billions dead in the coming century.

HIS OWN policies.

I mean, Trudeau's boosters have a point - Harper NEVER could have pulled that off.

The Harper years were a Trumpian orgy of blatant self-dealing and cronyism.

The Trudeau years, on the other hand...

One of Trudeau's major donors is SNC Lavalin, a crime syndicate masquerading as a global engineering firm (think Halliburton with less morals).

SNC Lavalin had done so much crime that it was on its final notice with the Canadian legal sysem, a probation that it must not violate on penalty of real, big boy federal criminal prosecutions.

Then it did more crimes.

Remember Trudeau's historic appointment of a First Nations woman to the Attorney General's seat? Now was AG Jody Wilson-Raybould's moment to shine.

As Wilson-Raybould began aggressively pursuing these corporate criminals, she started getting calls from Trudeau's office.

For avoidance of doubt, these were not calls of support. They were demands to drop the case and let the SNC Lavalin crime syndicate get off scot-free. Eventually the PM himself called her and demanded that she give his cronies a pass on their repeated criminal actions.

Wilson-Raybould went public, decrying political meddling in the justice system. Trudeau denied everything and began to smear her (Harper had tons of scandals like this, BTW, only the counterpart was usually a rich old white guy, not a First Nations woman).

But Wilson-Raybould had recorded the conversations, and she released the recordings, and proved that Trudeau had lied about the whole thing. Trudeau fired her and kicked her out of the party.

But at least he's not Trump, right? He's the anti-Trump! (Well, except for the pipeline and that time he announced "No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave them there").

Remember the Muslim Ban? As Trump was tormenting refugees at the US border, Trudeau tweeted "To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada."

Yes, that was awesome. There is no policy so progressive that Trudeau won't endorse it...provided that he never has to do anything to make it happen.

Canada and the US have a "Safe Third Country Agreement" that says that asylum-seekers turned away from the US border can't try again in Canada. To make #WelcomeToCanada more than a hashtag, Trudeau's government would have to suspend that agreement.

Instead, Trudeau's government insisted that under Trump, "the conditions of the Safe Third Country Agreement continued to be met" and thus they would not suspend the agreement and give hearings to those turned away by Trump's border guards.

But at least Trudeau handled the pandemic better than Harper handled the Great Financial Crisis.

No, really, he did!

Mostly.

I mean, unless you were in a nursing home or on a First Nations reservation.

https://www.canadalandshow.com/podcast/an-emergency-season-pandemic/

But still, Trudeau's government did a MUCH better job than the Trump government, or Boris Johnson's Tories. Neither Liberals nor Conservatives will really fight cronyism, climate change or authoritarianism, but there are still substantive differences between them.

But in some ways, they are depressingly similar.

Take corruption.

Long before the plague struck, Canadaland was publishing damning reports on We Charity, a massive, beloved Canadian charitable institution nominally devoted to ending child slavery.

Canadaland's initial reporting on the charity focused on its partnerships with companies that were using child slaves to make their products, but the investigations mushroomed after the charity sent dire legal threats to the news organisation over its coverage.

And then Canadaland founder Jesse Brown found himself smeared by a US dirty-tricks organization that got its start working for GOP politicians, who got a contract to plant editorials criticizing Canadaland's We coverage in small-town US newspapers.

Private eyes started following Brown around, even keeping tabs on his small children. Rather than being intimidated, Brown kept up the pressure on We, which prompted whistleblowers to leak him even more details about the charity's activities.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/03/turnkey-authoritarianism/#we-charity

These included massive, mysterious real-estate holdings, hard-to-excuse criminal investigations of its Kenyan activities, and (here's where I've been going with this all along) GIANT CASH PAYMENTS to Trudeau's family, as well as valuable gifts to his Finance Minister.

And, as with the Wilson-Reybould affair, Trudeau's initial response to this was to simply deny it, calling his accusers liars. But then the scandal kept unspooling, his Finance Minister quit in disgrace, the charity (sort of) folded up and shut down, and Trudeau...

Well, Trudeau prorogued Parliament, shutting down Canada's government in the midst of a crisis that was - unimaginably - even worse than the 2008 crisis that Harper had left the nation rudderless through to avoid his own scandal.

(Again, for constitutional monarchy fans, that's two entirely political proroguings in the midsts of global crises, signed off on by the Queen's supposedly apolitical and sober check on reckless activity)

Shutting down Parliament seems to have rescued Trudeau's government from snap elections, which may well have been won by the Tories, who have resolved their longstanding racist and plutocratic tensions with a new ghoulish nightmare leader:

https://jacobinmag.com/2020/09/canada-erin-otoole-conservative-party-cpc/

And, as Trudeau has reconvened Parliament, he's promised something genuinely amazing: a massive, national stimulus package meant to keep families, workers and small businesses afloat through the looming second pandemic wave.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-canada-economy/canada-bets-the-farm-on-big-spending-as-second-wave-threatens-economic-recovery-idUSKCN26F1NF

This is something Canada - and the US, for that matter - desperately needs. Canada is monetarily sovereign: it issues its own currency and its debt is in the same currency, meaning it can never run out of money (no more than Apple could ever run out of Itunes gift cards).

The Canadian DOES face constraints on its spending, but they're just not MONETARY constraints - they're RESOURCE constraints. If the Canadian government creates money to buy the same things the private sector is shopping for, there'll be a bidding war, AKA inflation.

But as a new wave of lockdowns and mass illness looms over the country, there's going to be a hell of a lot of things the private sector isn't trying to buy - notably, the labour of the Canadian workforce, millions of whom will be locked indoors through the winter.

An analyst warns that Trudeau's proposal is likely to add CAD30B to the deficit, which is a completely irrelevant fact unless that new money is going to be chasing the same goods that Canadian business and citizens are seeking to buy.

Trudeau has promised to create a national prescription drug plan (a longstanding hole in Canada's national health care system), as well as universal childcare, and he's denounced austerity as a response to the crisis.

There's a part of me that is very glad to see this. My family and friends are in Canada, after all, and if Trudeau lives up to his promise, he will shield them from the collapse we're seeing in the USA.

But that is a BIG if. Trudeau isn't Harper. He's more charismatic, he's got better hair, and he says much, much better things than Harper.

However, when the chips are down, Trudeau out-Harpers Harper.

Mass surveillance legislation. Corruption scandals. Lying about corruption scandals. Bailing out the pipeline. "No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave them there." Abandoning asylum-seekers to Trump's lawless regime.

"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action." It would be pretty naive to assume that merely because Trudeau has promised to do the right thing, that he will do the right thing.

Indeed, if history is any indicator, the best way to predict what Trudeau will do is to assume that it will be the OPPOSITE of whatever he promises.

I won't lie. I felt a spark of hope when I read Trudeau's words.

But hope is all I've got - and it's a far cry from confidence.

Or relief.

#pluralistic

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ariesgrade79 · 3 years

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Cheltenham Family Civil Mediation Services Cheltenham Gloucestershire.

Winston Family Arbitration Solution.

Content

Other Solutions

Monetary Arbitration.

Watch These 2 Video Clips That Explain Household Mediation In Much More Detail

Uks Leading Arbitration Chambers.

Gives secret information as well as guidance for those taking into consideration therapy. You can browse on the website to discover a neighborhood registered counsellor. If it's not feasible for you to see a lawyer, consider getting some help from an organisation that can offer you some advice absolutely free, such as Rights of Females or People Guidance. as well as obligations of a parent-- for more information see the Gingerbread factsheet Adult responsibility. When you have actually talked about with the lawyer what your choices are and also what choice a court could make in your situations, you will require to give them clear instructions on exactly how you want to continue. The amount of sessions you need will certainly rely on the issues you require to settle, but between three and five is the average.

Do most cases settle at mediation?

Of the remaining 20%, probably half of those settle within the next couple of weeks, based on the progress made in Mediation; and of the other 10%, probably half of those will eventually settle prior to trial.

He spent a week assisting a family members fix a long-standing feud in between brothers. It was a fantastic success, as well as brought about an online appearance on The Richard as well as Judy Program for Martin and also the brothers, discussing how arbitration had benefited them. As one of the few male moderators, Martin has found out that some men can have a critical view concerning just how well the lawful system offers them.

Various Other Solutions

Nevertheless, mediation is not the only method of avoiding court process. Solicitors can supply accessibility to joint regulation as one more, albeit fairly brand-new, method of discussing an arrangement without the demand to participate in court. If you would like assistance in mediation or advice on any one of the issues described above our household regulation group would certainly be thrilled to aid. The moderator will give you information regarding the separation and also splitting up process but will not give you lawful guidance. You will be motivated to have advice from separate solicitors on your proposed arrangement before it is settled. Occasionally, it can assist to have your solicitors existing or at the end of the telephone throughout an arbitration session.

It will certainly provide a refuge for you as well as your ex to try and work out your remedies for the way ahead and also, if you have children, this might be actually practical.

First, it is usually quicker as well as less costly than making use of a solicitor or going to Court.

There are a number of reasons that household arbitration may be an excellent way to arrange things out.

We have streamlined points in the guide to give you an idea of just how the legislation puts on you if you are a young worker.

It will be much easier to handle parenting in the years ahead if you have prevented having a very aggressive split.

By concurring whatever in advance, you will decrease the chance of undue stress as well as parental conflict. Can examine your eligibility for legal aid and also signpost to regional resources helpful.

Economic Arbitration.

If you are having problem getting to contract over either kid living plans or funds, then the clever move is to start with divorce mediation, through a recognized family moderator. Price-- arbitration is far less costly than advising solicitors within the court process.

In pics: night patrol in Changchun - Global Times

In pics: night patrol in Changchun.

Posted: Sun, 10 Jan 2021 00:01:00 GMT [source]

Keep my various other moms and dad upgraded regarding my demands as well as what is occurring for me. Attempt to have good interaction with my various other moms and dad due to the fact that it will certainly help me. I can have a relationship with the partner of my other moms and dad without this transforming my love for you. Household Matters supplies kid assessment in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and also the Humber. Household Issues' child experts have professional training and also extensive experience around. A structured parenting plan will certainly begin with you outlining your purposes and hopes before moving right into the information.

See These 2 Video Clips That Explain Household Arbitration In Much More Detail

unchallenged, it should take in between three to four months from sending out in the divorce request, to the pronouncement of your Mandate Nisi. What normally occurs in the daytime drama and movies is a warmed exchange, which leads to a dramatic court room fight. However, most of couples generally involve an arrangement after roughly two or three sessions.

youtube

He's eager to place them right on this, but believes it is essential to approve peoples' sights prior to you can expect them to recognize the views of others. As well as this procedure helpful individuals value each others' perspective, Martin really feels, is the key to successful mediation. Martin has a grown-up little girl as well as this has given him a good understanding of the importance of the dads' function as well as of the highs and lows of dealing with teenagers.

Uks Leading Mediation Chambers.

Don't claim negative things about my other parent, specifically if I can listen to. Remember I can often hear your discussions or see your social networks comments.

The government is dedicated to arbitration as a way of dealing with household conflicts. The simultaneous decrease in legal aid has driven several separating couples to represent themselves in court as well as the surge in litigants-in-person has contributed greatly to the cost as well as time involved in court process. However, https://devon.ukfamilymediationservice.co.uk/ does depend on the dedication of both events if it is to work.

Arbitration Will Certainly Not Work Because I Do Not Wish To Compromise.

At the first meeting an evaluation will certainly be embarked on to see whether you are eligible for Legal Aid and also the prices will certainly be clarified before you proceed. Do not use my partnership with my various other parent against me, or them. Keep in mind that I don't anticipate you or my other moms and dad to be perfect, so I don't desire you to anticipate my other parent to be perfect either. Work out in between you and my other parent who is responsible for the additional points I require, such as new institution footwear and uniform, school trips, supper money and also the expense of my hobbies or after institution activities. Be open to alter, be flexible and also compromise when agreeing arrangements for me. Remember it is ok for me to love and also have a connection with my other moms and dad.

Mediation may not be feasible as a result of functional problems, such as not being able to go to as a result of where you live, or due to an impairment. If you're separating or have recently divided you will require to consider your financial resources, your home and any kind of property you have or financial obligations you have. The Gingerbread factsheet Caring for your emotional health and wellness will certainly offer you suggestions on exactly how to enter better form to make those crucial decisions. If you have been through a hard split or an emotionally challenging or stressful time, taking actions to care for on your own as well as utilizing the aid that's readily available will help you make much better decisions. Suggestions Now has a guide to making use of mediation complying with separation, which contains details regarding costs.

Wish To Know Even More Concerning Mediation Or Locate A Conciliator Near You?

Your divorce mediator will certainly assist you to prepare economic statements and collect the supporting files and declarations. They will after that talk about the very best method to separate these to get to a monetary negotiation. You might still call for the recommendations from a solicitor, as well as we would certainly constantly suggest this. For many who select the lawful path with solicitors, they almost always end up speaking with a household conciliator, especially where agreement is not gotten to. The factor being, is that you will certainly require to attempt arbitration, prior to a court will certainly think about hearing your instance.

Divorce arbitration will aid you as well as your ex-spouse to go over the vital problems regarding where the children live, contact setups and financial backing. It will certainly likewise help you to reach contracts about just how you split the possessions and obligations from your marriage.

You as well as your ex will certainly be able to increase things that are necessary to you and the arbitrator can aid develop a listing of topics to speak via. Info won't be shared with any individual else without your authorization (unless as an example, there's a protecting danger or a criminal offense is divulged). You require to apply for a 'decree absolute' to finalise your separation.

Can you change your mind after mediation?

Usually, two people enter into a divorce settlement after attending a mediation, or after negotiations between their attorneys. If a person changes his or her mind before he or she signs the settlement agreement, the negotiations will simply resume again.

You'll need to wait 6 weeks and also 1 day from the day of your decree nisi. With over you can find more information on uk family mediation service's divorce mediation durham here. experience as a family mediator, Martin has aided hundreds of people get to agreements concerning their youngsters and finances. He has phenomenal understanding of separation and splitting up, their affect on individuals' lives, and also just how finest to manage them. Martin has worked in arbitration solutions in South Essex, East London, Central London and Hertfordshire. In addition to divorce as well as splitting up he has mediated in conflicts concerning Unique Educational Demands, disability discrimination, as well as between parents and also their adolescent kids. In 2005 Martin was offered the opportunity to test his mediation skills in a Channel 4 reality TV program, Families at War.

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useless-catalanfacts · 5 years

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Hie! As a non spanish person with Catalan friends who get really heated up with the subject and cant explain it thru. Why is that they want to separate from spain? And havent they done like 4 or 5 referendum thingies to gain independence and they've all turned our negative or whatever it is that means we wanna stay? I come in peace and hope not to get shouted at like my friends did to me when I asked. Sincerely, the Tall Friend

I think you’re confusing Catalonia with Quebec or Scotland or some other country. We’ve had 1 independence referendum and yes to independence clearly won it. The pro-independence political parties have also been winning the elections every time since 2012.

Let’s start with the beginning.

What is Catalonia? And what was Catalonia?

Catalonia is a country with its own language (Catalan), culture, and history. It developed in the Middle Ages, when it was an independent country.

As you can see, we have two neighbours: Spain and France. As you will probably know, those are two of the most imperialistic countries in Europe (they colonised Latin America, the Caribbean, parts of Africa, the Philippines, etc).

I will try to explain the historical part as fast as possible so we can get to nowadays, but to understand the situation you need a bit of historical context.

Before going to invade lands far away, the European colonial powers invaded their neighbours and fought other European countries. Catalonia, because of its location and importance in Medieval Mediterranean commerce, was targeted.

In 1469, the Queen of Castilla (Spain) and the King of Catalonia-Aragon got married. This was normal at the time and did not mean that the two countries became one. On the contrary, each country remained independent, just that with the same monarchy. It didn’t really matter for Catalonia because Catalonia was ruled by a Parliament (and the king didn’t really have that much power), but Castilla (Spain) was an absolute monarchy (meaning that the King had all power).

With time, the kings and many Spanish people started to really hate Catalans because they were seen as un-Christian for having other forms of government than the Catholic absolute monarchy. And since Catalonia had its own laws and traditions, those were seen as un-Christian and traitorous. Most of the greatest writers, politicians, nobles, etc of the Spanish Golden Century (1500s-1600s) were openly very Catalanophobic.They said Catalans are “the most miserable creature ever created by God”, “a monstruous abort of politics”, “an illness against the kings”, all Catalans were often called thiefs, or that “it is well known the obstinity and savagery of this people [Catalans], the most criminal of all” (all of these are literal quotes). Catalans were also said to be guilty of spreading Judaism in Spain for whatever reason.

(In fact, even nowadays fascist Spanish people often tell Catalans and Basques to “speak Christian” meaning to speak Spanish instead of our languages).

Spain wanted to force all population to convert to Christianism (at that moment a lot of the population, especially in the south, was Muslim), and to become a Castillian (that is, a Spaniard in the modern sense of the word: speak only Spanish, be Catholic, have an absolute monarchy, celebrate Spanish celebrations, etc). This is the moment when Spain did the expulsion of Jewish and Moorish people and when it started its repression of Catalan, Basque and Romani people.

Castilla (Spain) tried to gain as much power as possible in Catalonia, convinced the upper classes of Catalonia that they had to abandon the Catalan language (which they considered a “peasant’s language” and not evolved enough for finer minds), and so the upper classes started to speak Spanish and try to imitate the Spanish way of doing everything. But practically everyone kept speaking Catalan, and Catalonia remained independent (with its own laws, parliament, insititutions, etc).

Until there was a moment where the Spanish monarchy couldn’t stand that Catalonia has such a different political system. In the year 1714, Spain (Castilla) won the War of Spanish Succession against Catalonia and other territories, and proceeded to invade Catalonia and the other Catalan-speaking territories (Valencia and the Balearic Islands).

Spain teamed up with France, which means they were the two most powerful armies in Europe. Obviously, Catalonia-Aragon lost the war, and was invaded.

The invasion meant that Spain could finally do what they wanted with this land: they banned our language and imposed Spanish, they eliminated our traditional laws, they eliminated our institutions and imposed the Spanish absolute monarchy, they imposed Spanish “gobernadores” (governors) to rule our lands, they burnt down whole towns, they closed our universities, they forbid schools for ever speaking in Catalan or teaching Catalan history, they forbid churches to say mass or teach Catechesis in Catalan, they killed many of those who had fought to defend Catalonia from the Spanish invasion publicly to humiliate them (for example, general Josep Moragues was killed after being dragged alive by a horse through the streets of Barcelona and then killed and his head was displayed as a warning in the entrance to Barcelona for 12 years, even with his widow’s begging), among many other things.

Please, see this post for a list of laws made against the Catalan language between the 16th and 19th centuries. And this post for the laws between 1900 and 2016 (when I made the post, I could say more laws now).

After the invasion of Catalonia, the idea that Catalans must be “Spanishized” and that speaking Catalan makes us inferior spread more and more among Spanish people, as did the general hate against us. This is why Catalonia was often victim of Spanish soldiers’ rape, stealing harvest, etc without facing any consequence, because the Spanish kings and officials allowed it.

France also tried to invade us many times, then Spain invaded back, then France, then Spain... but I won’t get into that because it would make this post unnecessarily long.

The worst moment though, was definitely the fascist dictatorship of Franco (1939-1978).

Fascism in Spain adds Catalans (as well as the other national minorities: Romani people, Basques, Galicians, Asturians, etc) to their list of enemies.

Catalonia was always a progressist place, and in the 1930s a huge part of Catalans was anarchist. Fascism made a coup d’etat which they called “a crusade against the reds”, and Catalans were not only targeted for being Catalan but also for being all seen as “reds” (anarchists and communists) and atheists. The anthem of the fascists (called Cara al sol) said “Catalan, Jew, and renegade [atheist], you’ll pay for what you have done”.

The fascist coup d’etat did not triumph in Catalonia thanks to the resistance of the antifascist unions and the Government of Catalonia, which organised civilians militias. Sadly, in the end the fascists won the war (Spanish Civil War) and established a dictatorship. They killed the president of Catalonia and thousands more people who opposed them. Everyone who defended the right to speak Catalan was tortured and killed. Schools were forbidden from teaching in Catalan or mentioning Catalan history, literature, etc. Catalan teachers were fired and either killed (many teachers were leftists) or forced to go to a rural village far away from their home, and schools in Catalonia were replaced by Spanish fascist teachers or people from the Spanish army. These teachers beat the children if they were heard speaking in Catalan. Schools taught the superiority of Spain and the Spanish language and the glory of the Spanish empire. Children were made to sing the fascist anthem and pray every day before starting class. Some Catalan traditions were banned, such as our traditional dance. Many of our traditional songs were also banned, and people even went to jail in for singing them (for example, la Santa Espina). Every family knows people who were tortured and/or killed by the regime, sometimes for no reason, sometimes for their political beliefs.

The dictator died in 1975 and Spain entered a phase known as the “transition to democracy”. Catalonia was given a bit of self-government (not much) and our language was legalised to use at schools.

Even with this, we have whole generations born and raised under the fascist regime who were brainwashed into hating Catalans, Basques, Jews, atheists, etc. And even in Catalonia, there are still people who are ashamed of being Catalan. For example, the neonazis who murdered Miquel Grau and Guillem Agulló (two Valencian young men who were targeted for being independentists) were not from other parts of Spain.

It is scary, because our country is controlled by another one which is full of people who hate us, and the Spanish governments have always (even nowadays) discriminated Catalonia in front of other regions and actively work against us.

Many people wanted to try to be able to keep our language (which was weakened by the fact that it was persecuted for most of the 20th century) and pass different laws. Spain is very conservative, Catalonia is not. If you look at the maps every time there are elections, you can see the voting results in Spain vs. the voting results in Catalonia and the Basque Country are very different.

So the governments of Catalonia have been asking the Spanish government to have a few more control over our own territory (Spain is very centralist, so most power is in the hands of a central government in Madrid). Spain has always said NO. Please see this previous post with a video that explains all the ways we have tried.

Catalans basically were saying “yes, we will be part of Spain with no problem, as long as we’re allowed to speak our language and have some laws to protect women, poor people, etc”. Every time, we had less demands. We were begging that yes! we wanted to be part of Spain but just these little demands! But they never allowed anything. Spain still has a very imperialist mindset, and see our sole existance as a threat (that’s why you get the Minster of Education Wert saying in parliament that “we must turn Catalan kids into Spanish kids”).

So in front of that, people got tired. More and more people saw that the only way we can truly advance to a more equal and democratic society is if people who live in Catalonia can decide how Catalonia should be run, and not just obey the comands of a government in Madrid that has never had any intention of helping our land prosper, and who have an opposite idea of what the future should be like.

So we asked for an independence referendum. Many times. They always said no. So we said “fuck it, we’ll do it anyway”. So we organised October 1st 2017. Spain declared it illegal, searched for the ballot boxes and voting papers for months, sent thousands of military police to beat up voters and steal the ballot boxes with the votes, etc. The police brutality on that day was shameful, and yet the Spanish government and the King said the policemen were honourable for doing so, and many Spanish people gave them support too and greeted the policemen singing “a por ellos” (go get them).

Please, read more about what happened in October 1st and after it in this post.

Even though the police stole votes, physically stopped people from entering the voting schools, etc. 43% of the people of Catalonia voted (in fact, over 50% voted but their votes were stolen by the police and could not be counted). And 90,2% of the votes were “yes to independence”.

Spain’s response? A democratic country would have found the solution to meet with the Catalan goverment and talk about it, maybe find a middle point, listen to the demands of Catalans... But no. Spain’s response was to jail the politicians who had taken part in the organisation of the referendum as well as the leaders of the main civil organisations, more people arrested, and arbitrary imprisonment in . They also took down websites that talked about the referendum and independence, said we had made up that the police had beaten voters (even though over a thousand people had to be hospitalized just on the day of the referendum as a result of police brutality and there are hundreds of photos and videos), and apply Law 155 in Catalonia (which means that the Catalan institutions are dissolved and Catalonia is ruled directly from Madrid. The party at the Spanish gov in that moment was the far right wing PP, which in Catalonia had only gotten 13% of the votes. That is basically a dictatorship).

And now, every time there is more and more repression. Some people ask us if we are not scared of the arrests, jailings, police brutality, etc. Yes, we it’s scary. But not protesting and remaining under Spanish occupation is even scarier. For mental health, I don’t think I could stand the rest of my life seeing how Spanish media treats us. I don’t want to see my grandmother cry when she watches the news because “it’s like Franco again”. I don’t want to see more of my friends in trials for things they have not done. I don’t want to be temporarily arrested again because a policeman saw me wearing a yellow ribbon (symbol of solidarity with political prisoners) and decided I must be up to something.

tl;dr Spain is a fascist state and we want no part in that.

Catalan people want to be treated as equals and this will never happen in Spain. We want to be able to pass the social laws we have voted for (to welcome refugees, equal pay for women, protect the Earth, abolish monarchy, not have political prisoners, stop evictions, etc) and Spain does not allow us to. The only option is independence.

Please, read this previous post and you’ll see how Spain bans Catalonia from progressive laws, and so how independence will make life much better for all its citizens. And hopefully, more Spanish people will realise that life is happier when we respect each other and work in cooperation for a better future.

#ask #anonymous #actualitat #catalunya #catalonia #independence #catalan independence

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chaoticspacefam · 4 years

Text

Character Traits Meme: The Ahaszaai Twins

I was tagged by @stratosara (thank you!) I shall tag (no pressure, as always, feel free to ignore if you don’t feel like it!) @pauletta-00 , @commander-kulan , @mercurypilgrim , @a-muirehen and anybody else who feels like doing it!

We’ll start with the Ahaszaai twins (of course, they are my favourites), but I’ll probably do this for a couple others and throw it in the queue too, cause this one is fuuuunn :D

Bold for currently applies, italics for formerly or sometimes applies, strike for never applies (AFAIK, that’s what I’m using anyways XDD)

MANDATORY REMINDER THAT MY FICVERSE IS CANON DIVERGENT BECAUSE THERE’S ALWAYS GONNA BE SOMEONE COMING TO COMMENT “ThAt’S NoT CaNOn!” I KNOW! THAT’S THE POINT XD

SAARAI

[WEALTH ]

$ Financial : wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty

[Could technically count as “wealthy” but since most of what they make goes right back into the Alliance I’m gonna call it moderate. When she fled to Rishi with Ty, though, they had very little, she was able to make enough doing odd jobs knocking pirates around etc. for them to get by, but it was a little rough.]

✚ Medical: fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged

✪ Class or Caste: upper / middle / working / transient / slave / unsure

[If Valkorion hadn’t killed most of their family and she’d stayed as the heir to the Sith throne, she would’ve been considered upper class. She’s not sure what to call herself while she and Ty were on Rishi and once she becomes Empress of the Eternal Alliance she’s technically upper class again, but Saarai doesn’t like to consider herself “above” the other Alliance members and prefers to see them as equals with different viewpoints so she’s not going to label herself as “upper” class]

✔ Education: qualified / unqualified / studying / other

[Technically finished training at the Sith Academy, but because she didn’t stay for long after becoming a Lord it doesn’t count. She has plenty of knowledge of the Force though and is always learning new things when she can (though she’s not the smartest, she tries!) so she gets by.]

✖ Criminal Record : yes, for major crimes / yes, for minor crimes / no / classified

[Doesn’t have one, because she ran before it could be traced back to her. If her sister hadn’t taken the fall for her, though, she would’ve suffered the same fate (or worse), for murdering one of Arkous’ apprentices.]

[ FAMILY ]

◒ Children: has a child or children / has no biological children / wants children / has adopted children

[Has a son, Ty. In an ideal world where there was nothing stopping her, she’d want more kids because she loves them. But trust issues and being one of the main figureheads of the Alliance means she doesn’t really have time to be on maternity leave to raise a baby. So she makes do with helping teach the youngsters and/or babysitting her nieces, nephews and grandchildren instead :3]

◑ Relationship with Family: close with sibling(s) / not close with sibling(s) / has no siblings / sibling(s) is deceased

[Saarai only has one sibling, her twin sister Ni’kasi, and they are very close, so close that they have a Force bond, in fact!]

◔ Affiliation: orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by birth parent(s) / not applicable

[Father was killed when she was a very young child, she only has vague memories of him. Was raised by her mother for most of her life, till things (which she still blames herself for) caught up to them and her mother was killed too. Though they don’t reunite officially till Iokath, the twins are adopted by their uncle Vowrawn and his husband Abaron after their mother dies.]

[ TRAITS + TENDENCIES ]

♦ extroverted / introverted / in between

[Saarai is careful and guarded (but polite, unless you give her reason not to be) with strangers, but with those she is familiar with she is very vocal and extroverted.]

♦ dis-organised / organised / in between

♦ closed-minded / open-minded / in between

♦ calm / anxious / in between

[Only gets anxious in specific situations, otherwise is generally pretty calm.]

♦ disagreeable / agreeable / in between

♦ cautious / reckless / in between

[cautious in certain very specific situations, but when it comes to the battlefield and protecting her loved ones or allies Saarai is very reckless. She operates under the principal of “if they’re hurting me then they’re not hurting you and I can take more beatings than you can”, much to Lana and Koth’s dismay XD]

♦ patient / impatient / in between

♦ outspoken / reserved / in between

♦ leader / follower / in between

♦ empathetic / unempathetic / in between

♦ optimistic / pessimistic / in between

[Since the trauma in her past, Saarai had to learn the hard lesson that she can’t assume someone isn’t going to try and hurt her, so she tries to be more critical of people, but her first attempt is always to see the good in someone.]

♦ traditional / modern / in between

[Holds more to the old old Sith traditions she learnt from her mother (and the few memories she has of her father), than Valkorion’s Empire’s traditions. Is relatively open-minded about adapting and changing her views, within reason.]

♦ hard-working / lazy / in between

♦ cultured / uncultured / in between

[Has a generally dignified air most of the time. But on the battlefield or when she gets really angry, she’s fucking feral. She has teeth that can crack bones and she will use them on you if she has to.]

♦ loyal / disloyal / unknown

♦ faithful / unfaithful / unknown

[ SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION ]

❤ Sexuality: heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual / other*

[*Polycurious, and strongly woman-leaning, does end up in a closed poly relationship with Lana and Koth mid-way through KOTFE.]

❥ Sex: sex repulsed / sex neutral / sex favourable / naive and clueless

[Had to work through some stuff after her trauma, but has managed to work through (most of) it now through the years and is all for it.]

♥ Romance: romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favourable / naive and/or inexperienced

[Saarai is one of the sappiest romantics you have ever met. If she loves you, she’s not afraid to show it in any way possible: cuddles, kisses, dinner dates, stay-at-home-and-watch-movies dates, random flowers, anything you can possibly think of, if it makes you smile, she’ll do it.]

❣ Sexually: adventurous / experienced / naive / inexperienced / curious

[Absolutely knows what she’s doing (and can certainly give you a good time ;)), but isn’t particularly adventurous.]

⚧ Potential Sexual Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

[After her bad experiences with Ty’s father, she’s not comfortable with any sort of intimate contact with men, not even Koth (and she trusts him more than anything - they have it all worked out between the three of them though and everyone’s happy with the way things are). Sticks almost exclusively to women, would probably be okay with fem-presenting people of other genders, but masc-presenting people would worry her.]

⚧ Potential Romantic Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

[Heavily female-leaning, but not adamantly against a romantic relationship with a man...it will just take her longer to trust and feel comfortable with them, but as long as they respect the boundaries she sets out (thank you, Koth!), she’s fine!]

[ ABILITIES ]

☠ Combat Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

≡ Literacy Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✍ Artistic Skills : excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✂ Technical Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

[Do not let her near a computer or explosives, for your own safety, please. Even she will warn you as such and refuse to touch it. She’s not good with them LOL Saarai can do very simple things like plug something into a navcomputer, or scroll through files on a datapad/in an archive but that’s about the limit of what her abilities allow.]

[ HABITS ]

☕ Drinking Alcohol: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

[Social drinker, but never over the top.]

☁ Smoking: trying to quit / never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

✿ Other Narcotics: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

✌ Medicinal Drugs: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

[Assuming this refers to kolto and whatever else they put in the medpacs etc. Then yes. Sometimes if she gets hurt and Lana or her sister isn’t around to fix it for her.]

☻ Indulgent Food: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

$ Splurge Spending: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

♣ Gambling: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

NI’KASI

[WEALTH ]

$ Financial : wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty

[Formerly a slave with nothing to her name, but since rising the ranks of the Dark Council has made quite a name for herself, even after leaving the Empire to join up with her sister in the Alliance.]

✚ Medical: fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged

[During her time as a slave she was deliberately kept sickly/weak to stop her from fighting back properly or trying to escape, but once she was re-entered into the Korriban Academy and started training she gradually re-built her muscle tone. She’s still less bulky than her sister because of this, but she’s got decent enough muscle by mid-way through her canon storyline.]

✪ Class or Caste: upper / middle / working / transient / slave / unsure

[Like Saarai, would have stayed upper if Valkorion hadn’t happened. Spent almost half a decade in slavery, but gradually worked her way up again to make it back to upper class.]

✔ Education: qualified / unqualified / studying / other

[As a Dark Council member (and eventually Alliance Council Member), Ni’kasi is very much one of the leading authorities in her field. That doesn’t mean she’s stopped studying though, not in the slightest. She’s always looking through the archives to expand her knowledge base so she can use it to help her family and allies.]

✖ Criminal Record : yes, for major crimes / yes, for minor crimes / no / classified

[Was on the books for Tsâhis (Ty’s father)’s murder, though this was wiped after she became high ranked enough within the Empire as she’d earned that much. What no one but their family knows, however, is that though she confessed to the murder, Ni’kasi wasn’t the one who did it. She simply said she was so she could protect her sister and ensure that she could get her nephew, Ty, out of harm’s way (otherwise Ty would’ve had nobody to raise him).]

[ FAMILY ]

◒ Children: has a child or children / has no biological children / wants children / has adopted children

[I haven’t named them yet (or gotten that far in their part of the story), but she has at least two with Andronikos, maybe a third later on down the line. I haven’t made my mind up yet.]

◑ Relationship with Family: close with sibling(s) / not close with sibling(s) / has no siblings / sibling(s) is deceased

[Her only sibling is her twin sister, Saarai. They’re very close and even share a Force bond. There’s nothing in the universe Ni’kasi wouldn’t do for her sister. If Saarai says “jump”, she asks “how high?”.]

◔ Affiliation: orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by birth parent(s) / not applicable

[Father was killed when she was a very young child, unlike Saarai, Ni’kasi has very few memories of him. Was raised by her mother for most of her life, till things caught up to them and her mother was killed too. Ni’kasi reunites with their uncle Vowrawn and Abaron much earlier, and they adopt the twins as their own since their mother’s passing.]

[ TRAITS + TENDENCIES ]

♦ extroverted / introverted / in between

♦ dis-organised / organised / in between

♦ closed-minded / open-minded / in between

[Ni’kasi, too, sticks more to the old old Sith ideals taught by her mother, but is far more openly critical of Jedi views. She won’t completely throw them aside but it will take a lot of convincing to get her to come around.]

♦ calm / anxious / in between

♦ disagreeable / agreeable / in between

[Mostly agreeable...but is still not fond of Jedi. Where necessary, she will tolerate them, but she makes it clear that she can’t wait for it to be over when that happens.]

♦ cautious / reckless / in between

[This woman has a back up-back up plan for the back up plan for the back up plan. She thinks through everything before she makes a decision or follows through an action and very rarely reacts on impulse.]

♦ patient / impatient / in between

♦ outspoken / reserved / in between

♦ leader / follower / in between

[Usually a leader and quite bossily so. Except where her sister is involved; she will follow her sister anywhere and listen to any order Saarai gives her, no matter what, because Saarai’s the boss.]

♦ empathetic / unempathetic / in between

[Comes off as unempathetic, but is in fact simply very literal/logical and has a bit of resting bitch face XD.]

♦ optimistic / pessimistic / in between

♦ traditional / modern / in between

♦ hard-working / lazy / in between

♦ cultured / uncultured / in between

♦ loyal / disloyal / unknown

♦ faithful / unfaithful / unknown

[ SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION ]

❤ Sexuality: heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual

❥ Sex: sex repulsed / sex neutral / sex favourable / naive and clueless

[She’s a Sith, it’s like...one of the most important “rules” they teach XD.]

♥ Romance: romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favourable / naive and/or inexperienced

[”Repulsed” is a strong word, I’d more call it “hesitant”. Ni’kasi is demiromantic, so she needs to know a person well enough before she can actually fall in love with them. When she does, though, and she accepts that that’s what it is, she’s alright with it and comes to enjoy little romantic gestures here and there. Though she and Andronikos are certainly more private about their affections, she prefers it that way (:]

❣ Sexually: adventurous / experienced / naive / inexperienced / curious

[Relatively experienced and open to try new things, within reason. Won’t do anything too crazy.]

⚧ Potential Sexual Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

⚧ Potential Romantic Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

[Kas is demiromantic, strongly leaning towards men because that’s who she prefers in bed.]

[ ABILITIES ]

☠ Combat Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

[Good on the battlefield, as long as she’s not close-range, her footwork is sloppy and she’s incredibly clumsy, despite being the less bulky between her and her twin, Kas is the one that trips over her own feet while duelling.]

≡ Literacy Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✍ Artistic Skills : excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

✂ Technical Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

[ HABITS ]

☕ Drinking Alcohol: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

[Kas is a lightweight, she can’t hold her liqueour well and gets drunk very easily so she prefers not to drink if it can be helped, but is occasionally persuaded to have a glass or two by Andronikos or some of her other companions.]

☁ Smoking: trying to quit / never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

✿ Other Narcotics: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

✌ Medicinal Drugs: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

☻ Indulgent Food: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

[Didn’t get much of it as a slave, Andronikos likes to surprise her with nice things like chocolate on occasion because her face always lights up when he does (:]

$ Splurge Spending: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

[Not often, due to coming out of slavery, she understands the value of money and is somewhat picky about what she spends it on, but isn’t above picking up something nice if she knows she can afford to spend on it.]

♣ Gambling: never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

#swtor #star wars: the old republic #swtor OCs #tagged meme #OC meme #swtor oc: saarai ahaszaai #swtor oc: ni'kasi ahaszaai #the sith twins #some more backstory tidbits included #[wink wink nudge nudge]#;)#sith pureblood

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danixsimmer01 · 5 years

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The Sims 4 Colour Legacy Challenge

The Sims 4 Colour Legacy Challenge Rules

This challenge is very similar to the Not So Berry Challenge but focuses on different colours and what characteristics are associated with that particular colour. I recommend for fun gameplay to incorporate the colour of your generation into your sims and their homes.

There are 2 extremely important rules to this challenge: No Cheats which help achieve your goals and Normal Lifespan.

Occasional Money Cheats are allowed as this is not a money based challenge.

This challenge has not been game tested so if any problems are found please let me know. I will be starting this challenge extremely soon and can’t wait.

FOR GENERATION 4 - GREEN YOU CAN DO BOTH SIMS OR JUST ONE

I hope you have fun with this challenge and if you do, feel free to share your progress using the tag #sims4colourlegacy

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GENERATION 1 - RED

When you think of the colour red, you automatically think of someone who is hot headed and aggressive yet passionate and important. You are the perfect representation of those qualities. You own your own restaurant (or are head chef) and are quite a strict boss who can easily snap if people don’t do what you ask them to. However, you are really passionate about your restaurant succeeding and achieving a 5 Star Rating. You are extremely busy with working so don’t have many friends but you get your social fix by interacting with your staff and customers.

You can cheat money to build your restaurant (it is extremely difficult to earn enough money to build a restaurant and a house).

Traits: Hot Headed, Foodie and Ambitious

Aspiration: Fabulously Wealthy

Career: Chef or Owner of Restaurant

Goals

- If you choose the Chef path, you must reach level 10 of the Career

- If you choose the Restaurant path, you must live on your restaurant lot until you reach a 4 Star Rating and then reach a 5 Star Rating after you move off of the lot.

- Max the Cooking and Mixology Skills

- Meet your spouse through your work or restaurant (colleague, employer or customer)

- Have 2 children when you are an adult - must adopt one

- Unlock all recipes in San Myshuno (only possible if you have City Living)

- Must Complete Aspiration

- After Restaurant Rating is at 5 Stars, sell the restaurant when you become an elder to focus on family.

GENERATION 2 - ORANGE

The colour orange is associated with a playful, energetic and social personality and this description matches you perfectly. You are a very social person who enjoys going out and meeting new people. You are really good at making people laugh and want to pursue a career in comedy. You have so much energy and enjoy working out at the gym. You have a great relationship with your sibling and are best friends.

Traits: Outgoing, Active and Goofball

Aspiration: Friend of the World

Career: Comedian

Goals

- Get to level 10 of Comedian Career

- Max the Charisma, Comedy and Fitness Skills

- Must Complete Aspiration

- Must live with your sibling until you are engaged

- Meet up with sibling once a week when you move out

- Have 3 kids after Marriage

GENERATION 3 - YELLOW

When you see the colour yellow, you think of something or someone that makes you happy and that’s you for a lot of people. However, what they don’t know is that you are quite anxious an anxious person. On the surface you appear to be a cheerful, positive person but on the inside you can become quite panicked. You turn to music and baking to calm you down. You decided to work as a Charity Organiser because you want to help make the world a better place. You are very close to your siblings and don’t have much other friends. You care too much about what other people think of you especially your parents who are really supportive of what you have achieved in your life so far.

Traits: Cheerful, Perfectionist and Erratic

Aspiration: Successful Lineage

Career: Charity Organiser

Goals

- Reach level 10 of Career

- Max the Charisma, Baking and Piano Skills

- Must Complete Aspiration

- Spouse must be a sibling’s friend

- Keep close relationships with siblings for whole life

- Have Twins (can cheat for this)

- Complete the Postcard Collection

GENERATION 4 - GREEN

You and your twin love nature and always want to be outside so you both decided to take up careers which meant you could spend a majority of your life outside surrounded by what you both love the most. You both enjoy yoga and want to be as healthy and happy as possible and you both believe you can do that with the support of one another.

Traits: Sim 1 - Loves Outdoors, Self Assured and Clumsy

Sim 2 - Loves Outdoors, Jealous and Good

Aspiration: Sim 1 - Freelance Botanist

Sim 2 - Super Parent

Career: Sim 1 - Botanist (Gardening)

Sim 2 - Floral Designer (Gardening)

Goals

Sim 1 - Max Gardening, Wellness and Fishing Skills

- Reach Level 10 of Career

- Must Complete Aspiration

- Complete the Plant Collection

- Get Married then have 2 Kids

Sim 2 - Max Floral Arranging, Wellness and Parenting Skills

- Reach Level 10 of Career

- Must Complete Aspiration

- Have 2 children who must complete their Child Aspirations

- Get Married after Kids

Both Sims - Must go on camping weekend every 2 weeks for whole young adult life

Generation 5 - Blue

You are a calm and loyal person who often feels sad which is why the colour blue fits your personality so well. You want life to be as stress free as possible but have rough patches where you are sad for almost no reason. You were brought up in a busy home living with your aunts, uncles, cousins, sibling and parents so sometimes feel like you didn’t get very much attention which is why you often get so upset. You really enjoy writing and are pursuing a career as an author.

Traits: Creative, Bookworm and Gloomy

Aspiration: Bestselling Author

Career: Author (Freelance if preferred)

Goals

- Max Writing, Photography and Cooking Skills

- Reach Level 10 of Career

- Complete Aspiration

- Date 2 people before having a one night stand which results in a child

- Be on bad terms with mother or father and claim custody of the child

- Date 2 more people before calling it quits on love life until elder

- When you are an elder, get married

Generation 6 - Purple

You hated the way your parent was treated by men and/or women so want what they didn’t have. You are all about the romance and want to find the love of your life. You represent the colour red because of the strong passion for romance that you have. You want to be swept off your feet by someone and you are at quite a young age. You love the luxurious things in life and are not afraid to splash the cash on anything. Your job as a doctor earns you a lot of money so you have an extremely luxurious lifestyle which you deserve because of all your hard work.

Traits: Romantic, Snob and Materialistic

Aspiration: Soulmate

Career: Doctor

Goals

- Reach Level 10 of Career

- Max the Logic, Violin and Dancing Skills

- Complete Aspiration

- Meet your soulmate when you are a teen

- You and your soulmate stay together for a while, have a child and separate when they are a toddler.

- When your child is a teenager get back together with your soulmate and get married

- Your house must be worth 200,000 Simoleans

Generation 7 - Pink

You are a very feminine and innocent person who is sweet and friendly to everyone you meet. You are the colour pink. You grew up in a very luxurious lifestyle but would much rather live in a smaller, family type home. You want a nice happy family where everyone gets along. You really enjoy baking and own a bakery which you run with your spouse. You really want to give people something they can truly enjoy and that is your baking. You and your spouse are extremely close and know you will be together for the rest of your lives.

Traits: Cheerful, Romantic and Childish

Aspiration: Big, Happy Family

Career: Own a Bakery

Goals

- Run a Successful Bakery

- Max the Baking, Charisma and Singing Skills

- Get Married as a young adult to your high school sweetheart

- Have 3 kids

- Have a movie night once a week with your family ever week

Generation 8 - Brown

You were raised in a loving home and were treated with nothing but respect but you always knew you were a bit different. You love nature in a way like no other which is why you represent the colour brown. Whilst every other kid was interested in videogames and playground equipment, you were interested in plants, collectibles and space. You wanted to collect everything and store it in your home - kind of like a museum. You love when you find someone with the same interests as you and love to share your collection with people who care. You were often left out by your siblings but your parents always supported you.

Traits: Loves Outdoors, Vegetarian and Genius

Aspiration: The Curator

Career: Astronaut

Goals

- Reach Level 10 of Career

- Max Logic, Herbalism and Rocket Science Skills

- Complete Aspiration

- Keep everything you collect and store it in your house (don’t keep duplicates)

- Meet your Spouse through Work

- Adopt 2 children and make them complete opposites

Generation 9 - Black

You had a terrible relationship with your family growing up. They were all really nice but you were just not which is why you represent the colour black. You always had a bit of a temper but something changed inside of you as a teen. You began to lash out and become violent towards others. You would lock yourself inside of your room and often sneak out of the house without your parents knowing. You pride yourself in knowing you made their lives miserable. You didn’t ask to be adopted by such nice people but you were and now you can escape. You have turned to crime and love to steal from fancy homes and museums to make some money. All you care about is money and not landing yourself in prison.

Traits: Evil, Kleptomaniac and Mean

Aspiration: Public Enemy

Career: Criminal

Goals

- Sneak out every Saturday night as a Teen

- Reach Level 10 of Career

- Max Mischief, Programming and Handiness Skills

- Move to a different town from your family

- Spouse must also be Evil

- Spouse dies in an accident when you are an elder and you try to become good

- Improve your relationships with your sibling and child as an elder

Generation 10 - White

You are the complete opposite of your evil parents and want to do something which will help someone or something. You represent the colour white and achieve to be a successful vet and own your own practice. You love animals and really want to help them so by becoming a vet you are surrounded by what you really love. When your parent changed to be good you repaired the relationship but it won’t ever be perfect which is why you have some jealousy issues with people who had a better upbringing than you. You find it difficult to let people in but when you do you are a bubble of joy.

Traits: Dog Lover, Cat Lover and Jealous

Aspiration: Friend of the Animals

Career: Vet

Goals

- Run a successful Vet Practice

- Complete Aspiration

- Max Vet, Guitar and Dog Training Skills

- Always have a pet in your household from when you move out

- Meet your spouse in a Coffee Shop

- Have 2 kids

#sims #sims 4 #sims 4 gameplay #sims challenge #ts4 legacy #sims 4 legacy #simblr

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creepingsharia · 5 years

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“Lovers of Islam, Force These Demonic Creatures Out!” Muslim Persecution of Christians, May 2019

by Raymond Ibrahim

The Slaughter of Christians

Burkina Faso: A number of fatal Islamic terror attacks on Christians and their churches took place or were reported in May:

On Sunday 26 May, armed Muslims stormed a Catholic church during mass and opened fire on the gathered worshippers; four were killed and several others injured. killing four and injuring others.

On May 13, armed Muslims attacked a Catholic procession, slaughtered four Christians and "burned a statue of the Virgin Mary."

On May 12, approximately 30 armed Muslims stormed a Catholic church, slaughtered at least six worshippers—including the officiating priest—and then burned the church to the ground.

On Sunday, April 28, Islamic terrorists stormed a Protestant church and killed six worshippers, including the 80-year-old pastor and his two sons. According to a local, "The assailants asked the Christians to convert to Islam, but the pastor and the others refused." So "they called them, one after the other, behind the church building where they shot them dead."

On April 5, Islamic gunmen entered a Catholic church and murdered four Christians.

Nigeria: On Sunday, May 26, Muslim Fulani herdsmen ambushed and slaughtered as many as 30 Christians as they walked home after church service. The Muslim tribesmen also torched approximately 20 Christian households as part of their planned "Islamization" of Nigeria, said a local pastor, adding, "These targeted attacks on innocent Christians are unacceptable, particularly with confirmed arrests of over 30 Christian women [who work as] fruit and food vendors by soldiers ... after the attack." Separately, on May 18, Islamic gunmen killed a Christian and kidnapped two others at a Baptist church.

Central African Republic: An elderly Christian nun of Spanish/French origins who spent her days teaching young girls how to sew in the African nation was beheaded by a militant group representing and partially composed of Muslim Fulani herdsmen; around the same time the group massacred at least 26 people, in what one report refers to as "one of the biggest single losses of life in the Central African Republic (CAR) since a February peace deal."

Turkey: The murder of an elderly Christian man is believed to have been a hate crime. According to the report, the "86-year-old Greek man was found murdered in his home with his hands and feet tied. He was reportedly tortured":

Zafir Pinari's death on May 14 comes just five days before the commemorative anniversary of the Greek Genocide. This genocide was conducted from 1913-1922 by the Ottoman Empire and was the systematic killing of Christian Greek citizens. By the time the Ottoman Empire collapsed and modern Turkey formed in 1923, most of the Greek population were either murdered or had fled the country. A wave of killing of Greek Christians again occurred in the 1960s.

A suspect has been arrested in this case and three others are under investigation. It is not yet clear as to what motivated the murder. However, given the historical context, local press covering the incident are labeling it as a hate crime.

Pakistan: A Muslim man kidnapped and tortured his Christian employee to death after he tried to quit his job. Javid Masih, 45, worked as a livestock farmhand for Abbas Jutt. According to a source acquainted with the case "Masih wanted to quit because he was often subjected to discrimination and religious hatred." The deceased's widow confirms:

"We had been experiencing religious hatred from [Jutt] and his colleagues, however, we had no courage to register this with police. We are poor and belong to a downtrodden segment of society. Therefore, we are never heard. Jutt has damaged our lives and we have nothing to live for now."

Egypt: A Muslim employee murdered his Christian supervisor on May 7, "because of his Christian faith" notes a report. Surveillance footage from a nearby building captured the incident. While passing each other, the two men speak briefly, before the Muslim man returns with a knife and butchers the Christian, who leaves behind a wife and two boys aged 15 and 9. "The Islamic holy month of Ramadan began nearly two weeks ago," the report adds. "It is common for Christians to suffer increased violence and harassment during this time. Persecution is a constant theme of life for Egyptian Christians, as they are already viewed as second class citizens in this Islamic nation."

Syria: Islamic militants bombed a Christian village; five children and a 35-year-old woman were killed. "The kids went out to play after some days of calm" near a monastery, said a local priest, when a rocket struck near them, "instantly killing five and wounding others... the woman was killed in a nearby street by a separate rocket."

Iraq: On May 13, Islamic militants joined with the Shia group, Shabak, which is supported by Iran, broke into the home of two elderly Christian women, a mother and daughter, and stabbed them. Although the mother's age is unknown, it can be surmised considering that her daughter—who was last reported as "struggling with death" and "in critical condition"— as around 69. According to one report, "The women were repeatedly stabbed with a knife and their gold and money were stolen. The two victims were then hospitalized in Mosul. The daughter, who sustained a violent head injury, remains in critical condition." Although the women were robbed, local Christians say that plunder was not the primary motive:

"The attackers tried to deliver a message of threat.... I don't think it was a robbery because they stabbed the daughter on her head by a knife which means the criminals tried to kill them.... You know who could be the ones who may attack Christians. Everyone knows them. But no one can give you the names since they are supported by the militia."

Separately, in an address delivered in London, the Rev. Bashar Warda, Archbishop of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, accused Britain's Christian leaders of indifference to the genocide of Iraq's Christians. Parts of his comments follow:

Christianity in Iraq, one of the oldest Churches, if not the oldest Church in the world, is perilously close to extinction. Those of us who remain must be ready to face martyrdom.... Our tormentors confiscated our present, while seeking to wipe out our history and destroy our future. In Iraq there is no redress for those who have lost properties, homes and businesses. Tens of thousands of Christians have nothing to show for their life's work, for generations of work, in places where their families have lived, maybe, for thousands of years.... Will you continue to condone this never-ending, organised persecution against us? When the next wave of violence begins to hit us, will anyone on your campuses hold demonstrations and carry signs that say "We are all Christians"? And yes I do say, the "next wave of violence", for this is simply the natural result of a ruling system that preaches inequality, and justifies persecution. The equation is not complicated. One group is taught that they are superior and legally entitled to treat others as inferior human beings on the sole basis of their faith and religious practices. This teaching inevitably leads to violence against any "inferiors" who refuse to change their faith. And there you have it—the history of Christians in the Middle East for the last 1,400 years.

Attacks on Churches

Nigeria: Muslim Fulani herdsmen stormed a church during evening choir practice and kidnapped 17 Christians on May 18. "As we were in the church, Fulani herdsmen numbering over 20 just surrounded the church and started shooting," a church member recalled.

"Everybody was terrified, but there was no way we could run because they had already surrounded the church. They were asking for the pastor's house, and they threatened to shoot us if we don't show them the house. Some of them went to the pastor's house while others kept watch over us."

Kenya: On May 17, a rampaging mob of Somali Muslims destroyed the properties of four churches—Kingdom Gospel for All Nations Ministry, Evangelical Victory Church International, End Time Army Church, and Kale Heywot Church—and injured several Christians. On the previous day, locals had called police on an outdoor Islamic event because it was getting too loud and rowdy. Citing "public disturbance," police responded by pulling the plug on the event. On the next day, "a group of Muslim adherents stormed our church building armed with stones, machetes, and petrol," the pastor of one of the destroyed churches said.

"They broke into the church and damaged everything; from chairs to sound equipment. They also attempted to set the church on fire, but police arrived and contained the situation.... After they destroyed the chairs and equipment of this church, they split into small groups and went around stealing from the nearby shops operated by Christians. This was outright persecution of the people that subscribe to the Christian faith."

Another pastor of an attacked church said:

"Our freedom of worship has been violated and we can only pray for a time when the Muslim community will allow Christians to worship without fear of being attacked. Our members are now scattered and ... we have received notes at our church warning us against going to church, praying and preaching."

"The influx of the Somali people who are majorly Muslims has posed a great danger to the churches," said the leader of another attacked church. "They have erected four mosques and are looking for portions to build other mosques. They have been threatening churches to leave so that they can build mosques on those plots."

Turkey: On May 21, police interrupted a baptismal ceremony while raiding and subsequently shutting down an unauthorized church composed of Iranian Christian asylum seekers. "Turkey does not have a pathway for legalization of churches," the report adds:

Many are instead forced to register as a foundation or association, and most even then will not be allowed to open a church building. For this reason, many like the church in Bolu are forced to exist in apartment buildings. It is common for Christians to report harassment and intimidation by the police who monitor their church services. For Iranian Christians, they are often challenged in that as asylum seekers, they are usually housed in extremely Islamic areas who do not want a Christian presence.

Iran: Authorities directly under the control of the Supreme Leader raided an Assyrian Presbyterian Church on May 9. They tore down the church's cross, changed the church's locks, and made it clear that worship was no longer be permitted at the church. Apparently the church's crime was that it used the Persian language alongside its own Assyrian language; because the overwhelming majority of Iran's Muslim population speaks only Persian, conducting church services in that language is seen by the Islamist regime as a seductive threat to the Muslims' faith.

Algeria: Citing a law that requires special authorization for non-Muslim places of worship, authorities shut down another church and its Bible school on May 22. "I am sad to have to face this injustice," its pastor said: "We prayed for those authorities who are persecuting us, as our Lord Jesus Christ commanded." The church had filled all other prerequisites for legalization, and had been waiting since 2017 for approval, which never came. This is the latest of several churches to be closed in recent years. According to the report, "Officials have yet to issue any license for a church building under the regulation...

Several churches have since received written orders to cease all activities, and authorities have closed a number of them for operating without a license. Islam is the state religion in Algeria, where 99 percent of the population of 40 million are Muslim."

Egypt: Authorities closed down another church in response to Muslim disapproval. "This is a very hard situation," said one local Christian. "You can see kids praying in tears because of their feelings of fear ... that is very painful for us as Christians personally. I don't trust in the government promises, but we have to continue praying for [a] reopening [of] the church." "Many years ago we were praying in our houses with the priest because there was not an [existing] church," said another local Christian.

"Now there are more than 400 Coptic persons in our village and the number of us increases day by day... During the last feast days (Orthodox Easter) many Copts prayed and the police had secured the building, but then the police asked Bishop Georgius to close the church because some Muslims in the village disagreed."

In a separate incident, an American professor teaching at Cairo's American University was fired for refusing to emphasize Islam over other religions during his Religions of the World Class. According to one report:

Professor Adam Duker has taught Comparative Religions at the university since 2016. His dismissal reportedly comes after a conflict with Saudi billionaire Tarek Taher, who maintains close ties to the university. Taher had requested that Professor Duker focus more heavily on Islam. When Professor Duker refused, his contract was terminated effective October 2019. Professor Duker says that Taher asked him to encourage non-Muslim students to convert to Islam and that Taher wanted his lectures pre-approved before teaching. [A more detailed report on this development appears here.]

Pakistan: "A pastor ... received a letter on May 1 warning him that his church would be the site of a terrorist attack unless he paid a ransom of more than $3,500.00," notes a report. "The threat has many church leaders in Karachi on edge and calling on local authorities to provide their communities with protection....The letter also warned that if Pastor Azeem went to police, there would be consequences like the recent terrorist attacks on churches in Sri Lanka."

Separately, 38 Christian graves at a Pakistani cemetery were desecrated; the unknown assailants also defaced several crosses fixed to the graves.

Attacks on Apostates and Blasphemers

Uganda: Muslims burned the home of a former Muslim convert to Christianity and his large family (when still a Muslim he had married three women who gave birth to 14 children). Most of the family was indoors and barely made it out in time before the charred roof collapsed. "We thank God that no one was physically hurt but emotionally are very hurt as we continue receiving threatening messages warning us of a possible attack," the father said. "The pressure from the extended family and radical Muslims is really troubling my family, and we cannot risk going back to our houses." Problems began once Muslims learned the family had embraced Christianity; local Muslims, on the same day they saw the family attend church, began stoning their home. Muslim villagers and the imam of the local mosque also began insulting and harassing the family, with one villager remarking , "If you do not come back to Islam, then expect something unusual to befall your family." "Since then," the father said, "my family became vigilant, and we even hired a guard to take care of the family during the night, but the stone-throwing continued in one of the houses while the guard was on patrol on the other side of the homestead." Even after being made homeless, the family continues to receive threatening messages. These include: "The burning of the house was just warning. If you continue hardening your hearts and fail to return to Islam, then expect a worst thing that you have never seen before." The father concluded,:

"We sincerely need prayers and financial support... My family is scattered, and the children are unable to go to school. We gave our lives to Jesus and here we are living a troubled, restless life. The law should bring these perpetrators to book."

Pakistan: On May 15, a Muslim mob attacked a Christian family accused of allegedly blaspheming against Islam. The incident began after a Christian man asked a Muslim who was loudly cursing on his phone near the Christian family home to move away. The Muslim responded with a derogatory, anti-Christian slur, which led to a physical altercation, until the Christian family managed to separate the two men. That night, the local mosque's megaphones started blaring out against the Christian household, accusing its members of blasphemy and adding: "All the lovers of Islam must gather together and force these demonic creatures out of this village." A family member explained what happened next:

"This was a horrifying moment for my whole family and other Christians. We felt totally helpless. In our panic we started to get ourselves ready to flee our homes and get far away from the village, however, we were all to slow. In no time we start to hear Muslims gather outside our home—even the children. The violent mob surrounded our home and all of them had weapons including guns—which were being shot in the air, sticks, axes, poles and farming tools. Even the small children had weapons [and] we feared for our lives. The mob began shouting outside our home asking for our family to exit our home and receive divine retribution for our sin. It did not seem very divine—we just saw raging evil violent people ready to kill us."

Seven Christian family homes were attacked before the mobs dispersed.

Sexual Abuse of Christians

Indonesia: A May 23 report says that " a new form of persecution is on the rise—Christian girls are being targeted by Muslim men... Influential leaders are literally training young men to target Christian girls to impregnate them":

They target them to try and sort of diffuse the spread of Christianity because the family of the Christian girl is so ashamed that...they're forced into marrying that daughter into a Muslim family.... The family, because the shame is so overwhelming, they agree to that... and the Muslims who are being trained to do this, they understand that. That's why they're doing that. They're taking a Christian into a Muslim family so they can influence [her]. Once girls are married into the Muslim families, they're often cut off from or abandoned by their families and they face even more difficult circumstances. In some cases, girls are the second or third wife of their persecutor and they have few freedoms.

Pakistan: Neha Pervaiz, a 15-year-old Christian girl, was raped, forcibly converted to Islam, and married to a 45-year-old Muslim man.

"I was taken by my aunt, a Muslim convert, to her house on April 28 to help her look after her sick son," recalls Neha. "But there I was asked to marry a Muslim man named Imran. When I refused, they beat me up and threatened to kill my minor brother who was with me." She was then forced into another room and raped by Imran. "They then pressurized me to convert to Islam and marry Imran." Over the following two days she was forced to convert, renamed Fatima, and taken to court where she was illegally married to Imran. She eventually managed to escape back to her parents.

Egypt: Muslims reportedly kidnapped a Christian wife and mother of three near Cairo. Her family has since received threatening messages saying that unless the woman embraces Islam one of her sons will targeted for slaughter. After the family took the matter to the authorities, the police refused to open a case. They suggested that the woman had left her home of her own free will.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of the new book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by extremists is growing. The report posits that such persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place irrespective of language, ethnicity, or location.

#Sharia #Jihad #Islam #Legal #News #Poltics

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jenniferdiazisatransgirl · 5 years

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Why LGBT people get a Pride Month while straight cisgender people don't?

So while corporations make their support of Pride apparent, for their various capitalist reasons and Pride events are being organised across the world. Once again as always, groups of straight cisgender people are coming out in opposition. Yelling at us for shoving it down their throat, asking why they don't get a parade and then when we answer, they using whataboutism.

Now before I continue with this, I am first going to get the whataboutism out of the way. While there are many other issues in the world, this post is focusing on LGBT issues. So while somewhere in the world children are starving and somewhere else, Hindus are being persecuted and elsewhere Christians are being slaughtered. This post is not about that. If every issue were expected to list every other issue happening in the world, they'd have a very long post. I'd in fact say a never ending post given the nature of humanity. So this post is solely focusing on LGBT people and issues.

The short of why we have LGBT Pride and straight cisgender people don't, is never in the history of our species has it been illegal to be straight or cisgender. Meanwhile it has been illegal to be LGBT and in some places across the world it still is. It has never been legal to discriminate against someone solely just because they are straight or cisgender, yet throughout the world and even in the the USA to this day, it remains and has been perfectly legal to discriminate against someone for being LGBT. In fact in the US, recent roll backs in legislation that protect LGBT individuals now mean it is perfectly legal for a doctor to decide they do not wish to treat a trans person in medical need. And to make this clear, that includes life threatening situations.

One of the earliest peices of legislation I know of which criminilised homosexuality is the Buggery Act of 1533 introduced under the reign of King Henry VIII. And yeah, for those of you who think being gay is a recent thing, if it is seriously so recent why is there legislation that far back. That act made it illegal in statute law in England for people to be LGBT. And laws such as this still exist in many countries across the world. In Iran and Saudi Arabia it is illegal to be gay and they often put people to death for the crime. In Iran, trans people have it slightly easier as Iran recognises transsexualism within its law, but even then trans people suffer discrimination. It has also lead to a unique situation in Iran, where sex changes are treated like a cure for homosexuality and there have been stories of lesbian and gay people in the country being forced to undergo gender reassignment by their families.

And even in countries where it is no longer criminal to be gay, there are inadequate laws to protect us. For example, I just mentioned the US where it is now legal for a doctor to refuse medical care to trans people. In some states it is legal for your employer to fire you because you are LGBT, for your landlord to evict you, for your local store to refuse to serve you and believe it or not in some States you can even make the case that discovering someone was gay was a justifiable reason for you to murder them. It is known as the "panic defense" and while it has been made invalid in most States now, I believe in some it is still perfectly valid.

And lets move to the UK, where being LGBT has been decriminlised and we have laws that protect us. Even here we suffer discrimination, just a recently a lesbian couple were beaten by a group of men on a bus. And before you say, "Oh they shouldn't have been flaunting their sexuality." If a straight couple were to kiss and hold hands in public would you classify that as flaunting their sexuality? In schools, LGBT people are still bullied disproportionately to their fellow students. People protest even the slightest education of our existence. Even a same sex couple in a childrens TV show can quickly be targetted as somehow sexualising children, yet if a straight couple were to hold hands in a kids TV show or even kiss that would be perfectly fine. How many straight kisses could you count in Disney movies alone? LGBT young people still fear coming out, are made homeless by their parents not accepting them, are forced to live in youth hostels. And just because we have law offering us some protection, it doesn't mean public attitude has caught up and is offering us equal treatment. I even know at work of colleagues speaking behind my back about myself.

And throughout history, especially in the past 50 years we have had to fight time and time again for our rights making slow and gradual progress and every time we ask for that extra bit of equality, you'd think were asking a £1 million. And LGBT people throughout history have been targets of discrimination. During the holocaust, the pink and black triangles were used to label gays and lesbians who were like the Jewish, locked in concentration camps and gased. During the Churchill's last premiership, it was reported to his Cabinet that LGBT people were being disproportionately targeted and inprisoned under a sexual deviancy act that was in place at the time and Churchill launched an inquiry that 10 years later lead to the decriminilisation of homosexuality. In New York State are bars were routinely raided as it was illegal to serve gay people alcohol and this lead to many of the bars that would serve us, to be operated by the Mafia. Safe to say the standards of these bars weren't to code. On one night, when the police decided to stop accepting bribes from the Mafia, the police raided the Stonewall Inn, which lead to the Stonewall Riots breaking out. A major turning point in the LGBT rights movement.

This riot took place in June, 50 years ago. The UK charity Stonewall is named after these riots, a year later Pride Parades were held in several cities across the US to mark the anniversary of those riots. That is why June is Pride Month, this is why we have a Pride Month. While LGBT people have had to fight for our rights and while we still have to fight for our rights. Straight cisgender people have not had to fight for and do not need to fight for these same rights. You can walk down the street holding your partners hand without worrying you will be beaten or yelled at, you can go to the doctors without fear that you will be refused treatment cos you are straight, etc.

And yes, while there are many reasons why some straight cisgender people will experience discrimination in the street and in day to day life, once again this post is not about that. This post is about why LGBT people have a Pride and straight people don't. And within this, I have missed a lot of things out because to go over every single bit of history, to go over every single way LGBT people are discriminated against in various parts of the world would simply take too long. But when you see a corporation sporting the rainbow logo, or a Pride Parade rather than acting offended, perhaps asks the reason we have those parades? Why we have this month?

#lgbt #pride #miscellaneous

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yasbxxgie · 6 years

Photo

The photograph is one of the standout images of the 1970s black liberation struggle. An African American man, his hair in dreadlocks, chest bare, stands with arms outstretched as though emulating Jesus on the cross. A white police officer is jabbing a shotgun at him with the muzzle inches from his throat. Another officer clasps a police helmet in his right hand as if preparing to whack him over the head with it.

Forty years almost to the day after that photo was taken, the same black man described how he came to be standing there on a sidewalk, half-naked and surrounded by angry police. His account was almost too graphic to grasp, sounding more like something out of a movie than the recollection of what really happened in the heart of one of America’s major cities.

It was 8 August 1978 and he had just emerged from the basement of the house in Philadelphia that his black revolutionary group, Move, used as a communal home. In an attempt to evict them from the property, hundreds of officers had just stormed the building, pummeling it with water cannons and gunfire, and in the maelstrom a police officer had been killed and several other first responders injured.

“As I emerged from the basement I had the presence of mind to let them see I was unarmed, so I took my shirt off,” the black man said. “That’s when I put my arms out wide.”

The black man is Delbert Orr Africa, Del for short. When I went to meet him he was wearing a burgundy one-piece with a white T-shirt and blue shoes. Everyone else around him was wearing the same uniform of Dallas maximum-security prison in Pennsylvania that he has worn every day since appearing in that photograph 40 years ago.

I had come to interview him as part of a two-year project in which I made contact with eight black liberationists who have all experienced long prison sentences. They each agreed to embark on an ongoing conversation with me about their political beliefs today and their battle to secure their own freedom.

Del Africa, 72, and I talked for three hours in the prison visitors’ room. He spoke rapidly and intensely, as though he needed to get it all out, relating how he had joined the Black Panther party in Chicago and then switched to the Move organisation after relocating to Philadelphia.

He also told me what happened the second after that photo was taken, as though he were narrating the next few frames of a news reel. As it turns out, that police officer really had been about to whack him.

“A cop hit me with his helmet,” he said. “Smashed my eye. Another cop swung his shotgun and broke my jaw. I went down, and after that I don’t remember anything ’til I came to and a dude was dragging me by my hair and cops started kicking me in the head.”

Del Africa is one of the Move 9, the group of five men and four women, all African American, who were arrested 40 years ago this August during the 1978 police siege of their headquarters in Powelton Village, Philadelphia. They were charged as a nine-person unit with the murder of the police officer who died in the melee, James Ramp. Each was sentenced to 30 years to life, though to this day they protest their innocence.

The ranks of the Move 9 have slowly been depleted over the years. Two have died in prison. In June, the first of the nine to win parole, Debbie Africa, was released from a Pennsylvania women’s prison.

As the 40th anniversary approaches, six of the Move 9 are still behind bars, Del Africa included. They are among a total of 19 black radicals who remain locked up in penitentiaries across America having been convicted of violent acts committed in the name of black power between the late 1960s and early 1980s.

Along with former Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army members, they amount to the unfinished business of the black liberation struggle. Many of them remain strikingly passionate about the cause, even as they strive for release in some cases half a century into their sentences.

In the case of Move members, their politics are a strange fusion of black power and flower power. The group that formed in the early 1970s melded the revolutionary ideology of the Black Panthers with the nature- and animal-loving communalism of 1960s hippies. You might characterise them as black liberationists-cum-eco warriors.

That sense of passion for the cause leaps out from the first email that Del Africa sent to me from Dallas in September 2016, after I’d contacted him asking to talk.

“ON THE MOVE! LONG LIVE FREEDOM’S STRUGGLE!” he proclaimed in capital letters at the top of the message. “Warm Revolutionary greetings, Ed!”

He then launched into a long deliberation about the “plight of political prisoners here in ameriKKKa!”. Move members are still imprisoned, he wrote, “just because we steadfastly refused to abandon our Belief in the Revolutionary Teachings of Move’s Founder” and because of “our refusal to bow down to this murderous, racist, sexist rotten-ass system”. He ended with the quip: “But, hey, I don’t wanna burn you out the first time I reply to your email.”

There was a similar robustness to the first response I received in December 2016 after reaching out to Janine Phillips Africa, one of the four women among the Move 9. Unlike Del Africa’s email, she wrote to me by hand, sending the letter by mail as she has continued to do over the ensuing 18 months.

“Me and my sisters are doing good, staying strong,” was the first sentence she wrote to me. That was remarkable in itself coming from a woman who is not only approaching the 40th anniversary of her incarceration but has had two of her children killed in confrontations with police.

“Everybody knows how strong Move men are. We’re showing the world how strong Move women are. That’s how it’s been since our arrest in 1978,” she said.

In the course of that first letter, Janine Africa, who was 22 when she was arrested and is now 62, took me deep into the “torture chamber”, the cruel solitary confinement wing where she spent the first three years of her sentence.

“There were no windows, just a section of the wall with frosted panes. You couldn’t tell when it was night or day, they kept the lights on 24/7. They were ordered to break us but it didn’t work – no matter what they did, they were not going to break us.”

Over the months, I came to learn about the double tragedy in Janine Africa’s life. In 1976, Philadelphia police officers turned up at the Move house in Powelton Village having been called out to a disturbance. Scuffling ensued between some Move residents and police. Janine was shoved and her baby, whom she had named Life, was knocked out of her arms to the ground. His skull appears to have been crushed, and he died later that day in her arms. He was three weeks old.

Then on 13 May 1985, seven years after Janine Africa was imprisoned, she received further terrible news. Philadelphia police had dropped a bomb from a helicopter onto a Move house on Osage Avenue in the west of Philadelphia in an attempt to force the black radicals to evacuate the premises after long-running battles with the authorities. The bomb ignited a fire in the Move house that turned into an inferno.

Janine’s 12-year-old son, Little Phil, was being cared for in that house by other Move adults while she was in custody. The then mayor of Philadelphia, Wilson Goode, notoriously gave the go-ahead for the bombing, and the fire that ensued was allowed to rage, the blaze spreading across the black neighborhood and razing 61 homes to the ground.

Little Phil and four other children burned to death. So too did six adults including Move’s founder, John Africa, AKA Vincent Leaphart.

I asked Janine Africa how she coped with losing two young sons during clashes with law enforcement. She was reticent. “I don’t like talking about the night Life was killed,” she wrote in April. “There are times when I think about Life and my son Phil, but I don’t keep those thoughts in my mind long because they hurt.”

In that same letter she said she had turned grief into what she contests is a force for good: deeper commitment to the struggle. “The murder of my children, my family, will always affect me, but not in a bad way. When I think about what this system has done to me and my family, it makes me even more committed to my belief,” she said.

Del Africa also heard bad news on 13 May 1985. His 13-year-old daughter Delisha was also living in the Move house. She too died in the fire. When I asked him how he dealt with being told his daughter had been killed in an inferno that had been ignited by the actions of the city authorities, he wasn’t as sanguine as Janine.

“I just cried,” he said during my prison visit. “I wanted to strike out. I wanted to wreak as much havoc as I could until they put me down. That anger, it brought such a feeling of helplessness. Like, dang! What to do now? Dark times …”

Mayor Goode made a formal apology for the disaster the following year. But a grand jury cleared all officials of criminal liability for the 1985 bombing that killed 11 people, including five children.

The only adult Move member to escape the inferno alive, Ramona Africa, was imprisoned for seven years.

All Move members take the last name “Africa” to denote their commitment to race equality and their strong bond to what they regard as their Move “family”. “A family of revolutionaries” is how Del Africa once described it to me. Unlike the Black Panther party which formally dissolved in 1982, Move is still a living entity.

“We exposed the crimes of government officials on every level,” Janine Africa wrote to me. “We demonstrated against puppy mills, zoos, circuses, any form of enslavement of animals. We demonstrated against Three Mile Island [nuclear power plant] and industrial pollution. We demonstrated against police brutality. And we did so uncompromisingly. Slavery never ended, it was just disguised.”

Deeply committed as they were to each other, the Move “family” undoubtedly had the ability to incense those around them. They liked to project their revolutionary message at high volume from a bullhorn at all hours of night and day. Passersby were accosted with a torrent of expletives.

Then there were the dogs. When the 1978 siege happened, there were 12 adults and 11 children in the Move house in Powelton Village – and 48 dogs. Most of the animals were strays taken in by the group as part of its philosophy of caring for the vulnerable. Black liberation, animal liberation – the two are as one with Move. John Africa was known as the “dog man”, as he was rarely seen without one.

The unconventional nature of the Move community which drove some neighbors to despair in turn led to demands for their eviction, and ultimately to the fatal siege. Over time relations grew more belligerent. Months before the siege Move members made visible their threat to resist attempts to remove them from the neighborhood – they stood on a platform they had built at the front of the house dressed in fatigues and brandishing rifles.

On its side, the city was led at that time by the Frank Rizzo, Goode’s predecessor as Philadelphia mayor, a former police commissioner who liked to talk tough and was fond of dog-whistle politics. He once said of the Move radicals: “You are dealing with criminals, barbarians, you are safer in the jungle!” Another Rizzo classic was: “Break their heads is right. They try to break yours, you break theirs first.”

When Move refused to vacate the premises having been issued with an eviction order, Rizzo said he would impose a blockade on the house so tight “even a fly wouldn’t get in”. He was not kidding. For 56 days before the siege, a ring of steel was erected around the house, no food was permitted into the compound and the water supply was cut off. Rizzo bragged he would “show them more firepower than they’ve ever seen”.

At about 6am on 8 August 1978 the action started. Move members were battered by water cannon as they took refuge in the basement of the building. Tear gas was propelled into the house. At 8.15am shots rang out and a thunderstorm of gunfire erupted that is captured on police footage of the incident. Police and fire officers are seen scattering in all directions as bullets whistle overhead seemingly in all directions. It looked like a war zone.

Soon after Move adults and naked children began emerging from the smoke-ridden basement. Janine Africa can be heard in the police footage screaming. Next, Del Africa appears, his hands outstretched in that Jesus pose. The camera pans in on him as he lies on the street after he was hit with the police helmet. Two police officers begin kicking him on his head which bounces between them like a ball. Three officers later faced disciplinary measures but a judge dismissed the charges.

Prosecutors accused the Move 9 of collaboratively killing Ramp, even though he died from one bullet. They said the shooting had been started when gunfire erupted from the basement where the Move members were gathered, a theory supported by some eyewitnesses.

Move’s attorney gathered other witness evidence suggesting the fatal shot had come from the opposite direction – in other words, it was accidental “friendly fire”. At trial no forensic evidence was presented that connected the Move 9 to the weapon that caused the fatality. For the women in particular the prosecution did not even argue the four had handled firearms or had been involved in the actual shooting of Ramp.

Del Africa insisted when I interviewed him that though Move had guns in the house, none of them were operative. “There was no shooting from our side,” he told me. “No one in the house had any gunshot residue, none of us had fingerprints on any of the weapons they claim came out of the house.”

The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police has a plaque for Ramp on its memorial site. I reached out to the order many times in the course of a month to hear their reflection on his death and Move’s role in it, but they did not respond.

You can get a sense of the depth of feeling by reading the comments under Ramp’s page on the Philadelphia Officer Down Memorial website. Several commentators, some of whom vividly recalled the 1978 siege, sent blessings to the deceased police officer and his family.

Others expressed anger at the lack of justice for Ramp, though they didn’t specify what they meant. One woman, whose late husband was on duty at both the siege and the 1985 bombing, was more direct. She said of Ramp: “I was so sad to hear of your passing. I felt, and still do feel so badly for your family. Move were scum and cowards, hiding as they shot. You were SO brave. Never forgotten. RIP.”

As they approach the 40th anniversary of the siege and of their subsequent captivity, Del and Janine Africa described to me how they’ve coped for so long doing time for a crime they insist they did not commit. They each have their own survival methods.

Janine Africa told me she avoids thinking about time itself. Birthdays, holidays, the new year mean nothing to her. “The years are not my focus, I keep my mind on my health and the things I need to do day by day.”

Del Africa thinks of the eons behind bars not as “prison time” but as “revolutionary prison activity”. “I keep saying to myself: ‘I will not fall apart. I will not give in.’”

They’ve both experienced long stretches in solitary confinement, a brand of punishment that the UN has decried as a form of torture. In 1983, Del Africa was put into the “hole” – an isolation cell – because he refused to have his dreadlocks cut.

He stayed in the hole for six years. He relieved the stress and boredom by organizing black history quizzes for other inmates held in the isolation wing. Russell Shoaltz, a former Black Panther, helped him devise the questions, and shout them out down the line of solitary cells. Questions such as: when was the Brown v Board of Education ruling in the US supreme court? What year was the Black Panther party founded? Who was Dred Scott? For what is John Brown remembered?

Eventually Del Africa won the right to keep his dreads. When I visited him in Dallas there they hung, salt-and-peppered now, proudly down to his hips.

Throughout, the Move prisoners have drawn strength from companionship with other members of the nine. Janine shared a cell with two other surviving Move women – Debbie Africa and Janet Holloway Africa – in Cambridge Springs women’s prison in Pennsylvania. They called each other “sisters” and did everything together. “We read, we play cards, we watch TV. We laugh a lot together, we’re sisters through and through,” she wrote in a letter in February.

There was one other member of their gang: fittingly given the history of the organization, a dog called Chevy. The prison authorities let them keep the dog kenneled in their cell as part of a program in which they train the animal for later use as a service dogs for disabled people.

Life went on like this for years, and had acquired its own normality, almost a certain tranquility. Until last month when Debbie Africa was granted parole and set free. Her departure came as a jolt.

“It’s strange not having Deb here,” Janine said. “I keep expecting her to walk in from work. They snuck her out at 5.[:]00 in the morning. We only got to hug her briefly and watch her leave. Chevy misses her, he keeps sniffing her bed.”

In June, Janine and Janet Africa also went before the same parole board as Debbie and made essentially the same case that they had earned their freedom. The board asked Janine whether she would be a risk to the public were she to be let out, and she referred them to her pristine prison record: the last time she had any disciplinary rap was 26 years ago. “The way I’m in here is the way I’ll be outside, there is no risk factor,” she told them.

While Debbie was set free, both Janine and Janet had their parole denied. The board said they showed “lack of remorse” for the death of Ramp in the 1978 siege.

Janine Africa wrote to me a few days after she learnt of the denial, speculating that games were being played with her mind. The contrast of Debbie’s release with her denial was “either to make us resent Deb or make me feel hopeless and break us down. Whatever their tactic, it isn’t working!”

Debbie’s release also made a profound impact on Del Africa. “I feel overjoyed that Debbie is out,” he wrote to me. “Her release is a breakthrough! I see it finally opening the door a crack.”

Del Africa also hasn’t had a misconduct report in prison for more than 20 years. Yet he too was turned down for parole last year and must wait another four years before his next chance to convince the parole board that he can safely be returned to society.

Like many of the 19 black liberationists still behind bars, Del Africa is caught in a trap attached to the crime for which he was convicted. He knows he will only be paroled if he expresses heartfelt remorse. But says he cannot do that.

“How can I have any remorse for something I never did?” he said. “I had nothing to do with killing a cop in 1978. Have they shown any remorse for what happened to my daughter in 1985?”

Would he show remorse to the parole board if he felt it would secure his release?

“No, never going to do that,” he said. “That would be akin to making them right. They are the ones who were wrong.” [x]

Photograph:

The arrest of Delbert Africa of Move on 8 August 1978

Debbie Africa was released in June after 40 years in prison

Members of Move gather in front of their house. They were arrested 40 years ago during a police siege.

Janine Africa preaching to the crowd in front of the barricaded Move house in the Powelton Village section of Philadelphia

Move members hold sawed-off shotguns and automatic weapons as they stand in front of their barricaded headquarters

Debbie Africa and her son, Mike Africa, whom she gave birth to in her prison cell a month into her incarceration. She was released last June.

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classyfoxdestiny · 3 years

Text

The torso in the Thames: A 20-year mystery

By Angus Crawford and Tony Smith BBC News

It’s the longest unsolved child murder case in the recent history of the Metropolitan Police. Twenty years ago, a young African boy was murdered in a brutal ritual, his head and limbs removed, and his torso dumped in the Thames.

On Tuesday the Met Police made a renewed appeal for members of the public to “be bold” and come forward with any information that may help them solve this case.

The boy’s identity has remained a mystery – he was known simply as “Adam”, a name given to him by detectives.

Over the years, there have been arrests and forensic breakthroughs. But no-one has been charged with his killing.

I have followed the case from the very beginning, even travelling to the place where it’s thought the boy may have been born, in an effort to find out what really happened.

Twenty years on, I’ve been talking to the people closest to the case. Some, speaking for the very first time.

And we have visited Adam’s unmarked grave in a sprawling cemetery in south London.

21 September 2001: The discovery

image source, PA Media

image captionThe body was found in the Thames near the Globe Theatre

It was a passer-by who found the body.

Aidan Minter was walking across Tower Bridge in central London heading for a business meeting.

It was just 10 days after the 9/11 attacks in the US and the city was still strangely quiet.

“The tide was quite high at the time, I thought it was a tailor’s mannequin,” Aidan recalls. He rarely speaks about the case. “Then it came under the bridge, and that’s when I saw the detail – the wounds and the body itself.”

Police pulled the body from the water – upstream – close to the Globe Theatre.

It’s a memory Aidan lives with to this day. “I do think about him. I’ll never forget it for as long as I live.”

image captionAidan Minter (pictured in 2021) found the boy’s torso in the River Thames

The first week

The boy, who was black, may have been in the water for up to 10 days. He had died from having his throat slit. His arms, legs and head had all been expertly amputated. They have never been found.

There were no signs of physical or sexual abuse, and he had been well fed. On the body there was nothing but a pair of orange shorts – something which later gave officers their first breakthrough in the case. The label was “Kids & Company” and the size and colour could only be found in a small number of shops in Germany.

Nick Chalmers, then a detective sergeant, was one of the police officers assigned to the case – the strangest and most complex of his career.

image captionRetired detective Nick Chalmers (pictured in 2021)

“You definitely have a tie to a case, and there’s this drive to find answers. The one thing that has lingered over 20 years is the frustration that we didn’t find all the answers,” he says. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the case, and keeps copies of many of the case files at home

Nearly a week after the body was found, detectives appealed for help from the public on the BBC’s Crimewatch UK programme. About 60 people called in, but there was no breakthrough.

African connections

Detectives took the unprecedented step of giving the boy a name, and a reward of £50,000 was offered for information leading to a murder conviction.

Tests showed that Adam had been aged between four and seven years old and had lived in Africa until shortly before his death. Traces of cough syrup were also found in his stomach. If he had been unwell, had those who killed him been concerned enough to give him medicine? Or did they use it to make him drowsy before the murder?

Experts agreed that – because Adam’s body had been expertly butchered – it had been a ritualistic murder. Some thought it had been one of the rare so-called “muti” killings found in southern Africa – when a victim’s body parts are removed and used by witchdoctors as “medicine” for a client who wants, for example, to win a business deal or secure good luck.

Other experts believed it was more likely a human sacrifice with its origins in a twisted version of Yoruban belief systems from Nigeria. A perverted offering to the goddess Oshun – a deity typically associated with water and fertility. Subsequent forensic evidence gave more credence to that theory.

April 2002: Mandela’s plea

In April 2002, the police team travelled to South Africa to meet the country’s former president Nelson Mandela. He appealed across the continent for Adam’s family to come forward:

“Scotland Yard informs me that early indications of their investigations are that the boy comes from somewhere in Africa, so if anywhere, even in the remotest village of our continent, there is a family missing a son of that age who might have disappeared around that time… please contact the police.”

July 2002: Breakthrough

In July 2002, social workers in Glasgow became worried about the safety of two girls. They were living with their mother, an African woman in her early 30s.

Council workers found bizarre, ritualistic objects in her home. At a court hearing to take the children into care, the woman – Joyce Osagiede – told a story of cults, killings and of sacrifices.

An observant police officer thought it odd enough to warrant a call to the homicide unit in London.

DS Nick Chalmers searched Joyce’s home and found clothes with the same “Kids & Company” label and in the same sizes as Adam’s orange shorts. Joyce was arrested.

image source, PA Media

image captionPolice displayed a pair of shorts similar to those found on Adam’s torso

Officers were convinced she was an important part of the story, but she was confused and kept changing her account. She said she knew nothing about Adam, but was unable to explain the extraordinary coincidence about the clothes.

Officers weren’t able to charge Joyce. She remained in Glasgow waiting for the results of her asylum claim.

September 2002: Nigerian links

In September 2002, a year after Adam was found, a memorial service was held in London’s City Hall to celebrate his life. It was attended by about 30 police officers, scientists, pathologists and various experts involved in the case.

image source, PA Media

image captionA wreath was placed in the Thames in memory of Adam, September 2002

“Probably the closest thing [Adam] had to a family were the people who knew him because of the investigation,” says Nick Chalmers.

Forensic work continued, and by December it was clear Adam’s DNA pointed to West African ancestry. Ground breaking tests on samples of bone narrowed down Adam’s birthplace to a strip of land around Benin City in southern Nigeria – Joyce Osagiede’s home city.

media captionIn 2002 the Crimewatch team investigated the case. At the time it was believed Adam was Afro-Caribbean.

Pollen samples in his gut showed he had been living in the south-east of England for only a matter of days or weeks before his death.

Also in his stomach was an unusual substance made of African river clay – including vegetation, ground bone and traces of gold and quartz. The presence of ash showed the mixture had been burned before the child was forced to eat it – perhaps that explains the cough medicine, something sweet to wash down the unpleasant concoction?

November 2002: German connection

Joyce Osagiede – the woman who had been arrested in Glasgow but not charged – was deported after the Home Office rejected her asylum application.

Nick Chalmers and his boss Detective Inspector Will O’Reilly travelled with her to Nigeria on a specially chartered private jet. It was hoped she might open up on the flight and reveal crucial information about the murder. But she didn’t. The detectives didn’t get off the plane when they landed in Lagos, and flew straight home. Joyce then disappeared.

Shortly afterwards, German police revealed that Joyce had lived in Hamburg until late 2001 – the city where the orange shorts found on Adam’s body were bought.

More arrests

In London in late 2002 there was what seemed like a major breakthrough.

When police arrested Ms Osagiede, they found that she only had two contacts in her phone – one was for a man called Mousa Kamara. He was traced to a house in London. There, officers found an animal skull pierced with a nail, liquid potions and small packets containing what appeared to be sand or earth. There was also a videotape labelled “rituals” – a drama in which an adult was beheaded. The items seemed to be associated with Nigerian rituals, known as Juju. Detectives also worked out that Mousa Kamara’s real name was actually Kingsley Ojo. With nothing to link him directly to Adam’s murder, he was released on bail.

But there was clear evidence Ojo was involved in human trafficking and so he was put under surveillance. Within hours of being released, he was back talking to his criminal associates organising the illegal entry of Nigerians to the UK. He was considered to be a major player in a gang smuggling people into the country.

image source, PA Media

image captionKingsley Ojo arrested in Stratford, east London. in July 2003

In July 2003, after following his every move and identifying his criminal associates, 21 men and women were arrested in co-ordinated raids at nine addresses across London. That included Ojo.

October 2003: The Doomsday Plant

Botanists at Kew Gardens had been sent samples of plant remains found in Adam’s gut. In October 2003, they came to a startling conclusion. Adam had been fed parts of two different plants. First, there were small amounts of the Calabar bean – sometimes known as the Doomsday or ordeal plant, traditionally used in witchcraft ceremonies in West Africa. At this dosage it causes paralysis, but doesn’t prevent pain. Second, ground-up seeds from the Datura plant which acts as a sedative and causes hallucinations were discovered.

image source, Getty Images

image captionDatura seed capsule

Detectives believed the mixture was given to Adam before his throat was cut. It would have left him paralysed and helpless, but still aware of what was happening to him.

July 2004: Kingsley Ojo jailed

Police had enough evidence to charge Kingsley Ojo – not in connection with Adam’s death, but with four charges of people smuggling and using fake documents to obtain a passport and driving licence. In July 2004, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years in jail – with a recommendation he be deported upon release.

Ojo, who was also known by a number of aliases, had according to investigators headed a “substantial” network thought to have brought hundreds of people to the UK to work in the sex trade, as domestic slaves or for benefit fraud.

Detectives hoped Ojo would still hold the key to Adam’s death.

I learned that in Brixton Prison, he gained a reputation for being a “big man”. He is alleged to have performed Juju ceremonies for money on behalf of other prisoners, one inmate informed the police.

December 2004: Inquest

In December 2004, the inquest into Adam’s death recorded a verdict of unlawful killing. It heard how he died from neck wounds suffered while he was still alive.

2005: Kingsley Ojo offers to help

From his prison cell Ojo contacted the team investigating Adam’s death. He said he had secret recordings of Joyce Osagiede recorded in Nigeria by his associates. He claimed he wanted to help track down the killer and clear his own name.

Officers interviewed him at the end of his sentence, while he was waiting to be deported. He convinced the murder team he could help – and by late 2005 was released and living back in east London, apparently assisting the inquiry.

For more than two years, he fed the police information – at one point claiming that Ms Osagiede was on her way back to the UK. This proved not to be true.

He also accused a different woman of leading the sacrificial ceremony back in September 2001. Police placed an undercover officer in her church for months – but detectives would conclude that there was no basis for the claims.

In December 2006, Adam’s body was laid to rest in an unmarked grave in a London cemetery.

The non-denominational service was attended by a handful of police officers who had worked on the case from the start – including DS Nick Chalmers and Will O’Reilly, soon to be promoted to detective chief inspector.

2008: Kingsley Ojo deported back to Nigeria

Detectives concluded they couldn’t rely on Kingsley Ojo – he was still believed to be using a false identity to commit benefit fraud even after his release from prison. In 2008, he was deported back to Nigeria.

Throughout his deportation hearing Ojo claimed that he had always “done his best” to assist the investigation.

Also in Nigeria, Joyce Osagiede reappeared and was interviewed by police. She finally admitted she had looked after “Adam” when she had lived in Hamburg in northern Germany – and had bought the orange shorts found on his body. But she said no more and vanished again.

After years of trying, I finally managed to track down a woman who actually knew Joyce in Germany. She’s never spoken to the media before.

Ria Matthes, a social worker assessing benefit claims, met Joyce and her two girls on several occasions when they were in Hamburg. She also remembers seeing Joyce twice with a small boy in the summer of 2001 who she now realises may well have been Adam. Which would make her her one of the last people to see him alive.

media captionRia Matthes, a social worker in Hamburg, met Joyce and saw her with a young boy who may have been Adam.

“I think about the case regularly,” she says. “For me he was a very shy – albeit an attentive – child. He was completely introverted and withdrawn. He remained in one spot and didn’t move.”

Joyce treated the boy as if he was a “necessary evil to her” says Ria. “[It was] like she had to drag him along with her because maybe she didn’t want to let him out of her eyesight or like she took him along so he wouldn’t have to be on his own.”

2011: Photo of Adam

For three years, investigations continued but with no new significant leads. But when detectives searched through Joyce Osagiede’s belongings left with a friend in Germany, they found a pile of photographs. One of them showed a boy of about five years old staring straight at the camera – it was taken in 2001.

Det Sergeant Nick Chalmers was sceptical about whether it could be Adam, but he had moved on from the investigation and a new team of detectives had taken over. In early 2011, the photo was given to ITV News, which tried to track down Joyce in Nigeria.

Joyce said that Adam was indeed the boy in the photo – and his real name was Ikpomwosa. She said she had looked after the boy, but had given him to a man called Bawa. For a time it seemed as if the mystery over Adam’s identity had been solved.

But detectives were unable to positively identify the boy or take the investigation forward.

2012: A meeting with Joyce in Nigeria

A year later, we found out why. Out of the blue, Joyce’s brother Victor contacted me from Nigeria. He said there had been a misunderstanding – the boy in the photograph wasn’t Adam, and his name was not Ikpomwosa. He and Joyce wanted to put the record straight.

image captionJoyce Osagiede, in Nigeria

I travelled to Benin City with Nick Chalmers, who by then had retired from the Met. We found Joyce living in a small house in a run down neighbourhood – she was pleased to see us, but at times seemed confused. She was known to have mental health problems.

Joyce told us the boy in the photo was actually called “Danny” – who Nick and I managed to track down in Hamburg.

Joyce also suggested yet another name for Adam. She called him Patrick Erhabor – something we were unable to verify.

Finally, we showed Joyce one more photograph. She instantly identified the man as someone she called “Bawa” – the person she says she gave Adam to in Germany in 2001. The photo was of trafficker Kingsley Ojo. It was the first time she had ever made that allegation.

Nick and I managed to track down Ojo in Nigeria – he would not meet us, but agreed to talk on the phone. He insisted he had no involvement in Adam’s murder. Indeed there is no evidence linking him to the killing.

image source, Facebook

image captionKingsley Ojo

But the former detective believes he may still hold the key to unlocking the case.

Responding to our report, which was broadcast in early 2013, a Met spokesperson said any new information would be “thoroughly investigated”.

2021: Remains a cold case

Since 2013 the investigation has effectively become a “cold case” with no significant new lines of enquiry.

But there has been one major development. I stayed in touch with Joyce’s brother Victor and last year he revealed to me that Joyce had died. One of the last remaining links to Adam, and potentially a crucial witness, now gone.

Aidan Minter, the man who spotted the body in the river, was diagnosed with acute post-traumatic stress disorder. He says he felt utterly helpless, knowing his discovery was somebody’s son.

“It’s the shock of – why is it there? Who did it? That’s the hardest thing. He was a small boy with a personality and it was cruelly taken away from him in some sort of ritualistic murder.”

media captionNick Chalmers is still haunted by the case.

For retired detective Nick Chalmers, the lack of answers is deeply frustrating.

“This was an innocent young child. There are people responsible for his death who haven’t been brought to justice.

“Twenty years on, I wish we knew the identity of Adam – and his parents. In reality, he is a missing child from a family, who probably don’t know he’s buried here in London.”

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scripttorture · 6 years

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I'm currently in the process of writing a sci-fi fanfic, where it follows the life of a homeless person through her teenage years to her early 20's. In the early chapters I intend to include a street gang that her older brother joins for her benefit, and when they both plan to leave Earth for the military in later chapters the gang attempts to force them into staying while one of them are home and the other in town. I guess what I trying to ask you is how do you think the gang would go about it?

That’s a pretty neat question and I think you’ve got a lot of scope withwhat you pick.

Now I am not an expert instreet gangs, so the vast majority of things I’ll be talking about come fromeither international people smuggling groups, police or the armed forces.That’s partly to do with the legal definition of torture: legally torture issomething that’s carried out by government officials while they’re on duty.

Street gang members can be legally criminals and abusers but bydefinition they can not be legally torturers.

I take questions on a lot of things that aren’t legally torture. Butwith something like this I think the distinction is important because whatarmed insurgents and trafficking groups do isn’t necessarily what street gangsdo. And my knowledge base skews more towards armed insurgents than streetgangs.

One of the patterns that come up in the UK is gangs threatening people’sfamilies.

This is particularly prevalent among people smuggling gangs enslavingpeople to grow cannabis. Young people (sometimes children) are smuggled intothe country having been promised a job and a new life in the UK. Theirpassports and identity documents are taken and they’re forced to work longhours in an occupation that means they’re at risk of arrest.

Many of them don’t go topolice or attempt to escape because of the credible physical threat the gangsgive to their families at home.

The fact they’re in a foreign country, with a marked lack of support,community and people who speak the same language also doesn’t help.

Following that pattern there doesn’t need to be any violence against thecharacters- instead the gang members need to show they’re a credible threat.

An easy way to do that is pictures. Having anonymous messages containingphotos of whichever sibling is in the gang’s territory would be reallydisturbing for the other sibling. There’s no obvious crime, nothing for apolice force to really pursue. But there is not only an implicit threat but ‘proof’the threats could be carried out.

Photos of the vulnerable sibling going about their daily routine. Photosof the places they commonly sleep. Photos of the places eat or hang out.Perhaps photos of the sorts of places the gang might commonly dispose ofbodies.

That’s a low-violence route that I think you could easily write asincredibly frightening.

A higher violence route that they still have the potential to escapefrom is- wellsomething I’d write more along the lines of what happened to this man.

It’s an unfortunately common scenario: he went to see his parents inanother country and they tried to take his passport and send him to so called ‘conversiontherapy’ to ‘cure’ his sexuality. (This basic pattern is also often used inforced marriages).

In your story the way I’d approach using that sort of scenario is havingone of the siblings ‘invited’ somewhere by a gang member they personally trustslightly more than the others. Something that appears to be a frivolous socialthing with few people would be perfect. It can be as simple as ‘do you wannahang out in this park and drink a few beers?’

Once the character arrives they find more gang members than theyanticipated and are taken away somewhere enclosed and in the heart of the gang’sterritory.

I’d suggest playing this with threats rather than actual violence. Havethe gang get the captured character to call their sibling. Have them pretend toappease the gang. ‘Oh no we’d never dream of leaving or betraying you. Ofcourse not. This is all a huge misunderstanding and of course my brother/sisteris coming back here soon.’

When the gang is convinced have them either release the captive siblingor have them escape.

Both scenarios are realistic and things your character could reasonablywalk away from (with no injuries that would prevent them joining the militaryafterwards).

From a writing perspective they play out very differently and requiredifferent amounts of space in the plot. A kidnapping is probably going to takeup a lot more narrative space than a series of death threats and consideringwhat works in the larger story is important.

And you can of course vary both of those basic scenarios.

If the pictures seem too impersonal than having the character who staysin the gang territory being stalked and harassed by aggressive gang members demandingthey bring their sibling back is also a reasonable way to write this. Verbalabuse, ransacking or stealing their belongings, verbal threats, destroying orsoiling their possessions or the place they sleep could all work in context asforms of harassment.

So is having a much more overtly violent kidnap attempt. Peoplesmuggling gangs have been known to force victims to phone their families, thenbeaten the victim in an attempt to extort money from the family.

If the gang has enough local clout they might be able to turn ordinarypeople in the town against the remaining sibling, creating an incrediblyhostile atmosphere which again, does not have to be violent. Being sociallyshunned can be incredibly traumatic and affecting. But how possible that is depends on how your gang functions. It’smuch more possible with a Mafia-style organisation with strong links to localcommunities then it is with a biker-gang type organisation.

I’m trying to avoid too much violence in my suggestions: partly becauseyou want the characters to be able to join the military afterwards and partlybecause the gang members presumably want both siblings to be physically healthif they’re working for the gang. If they still think they can bring thesecharacters round to their side then they’re unlikely to be too brutal. At thispoint that would against their aims.

Given that I think variations of the above two scenarios are probablythe best way to go.

If you feel like that potentially downplays the gang’s violent naturethen you could emphasise the reasons why they took these approaches with theseparticular characters. You could also mention much more violent consequencesbeing inflicted on characters the gang had given up on converting. Someone inthe past who tried to ‘get out’ of the life and was murdered or mutilated forinstance. A scare story that the gang can use to show your characters they’re acredible threat and the characters can use as an additional motivation to getaway.

I hope that helps. :)

Disclaimer

#tw torture #tw kidnapping #tw homophobia #gangs #people smuggling #forced labour #coercion #threats #harassment #stalking #duela-quinzel

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