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thatsonemorbidcorvid · 5 months

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“Forced marriage — in which one or both parties do not give full, free consent — is recognized globally as a form of modern slavery. My story is far from unique: Around the world, 22 million people were in a forced marriage as of 2021.

Yet, even though the United States acknowledges that forced marriage is a human rights abuse, few laws and policies are in place to prevent or punish it, and the nation has paid such scant attention to this issue that we do not even know how often forced marriage happens here.

What’s more, child marriage remains legal in most U.S. states, even though it is recognized as a form of forced marriage and a human rights abuse. Some 300,000 children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018, mostly girls wed to adult men. At least 60,000 marriages occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime.”

Note: The following essay contains descriptions of sexual assault and abuse.

They sent me off to be raped, with a party and a tube of K-Y Jelly.

The lubricant was to reduce the intense physical pain they explained I would endure while being penetrated by a stranger-turned-husband, without foreplay, without consent. Every month. Until death do us part.

The party — a low-budget wedding in 1995 at a Brooklyn venue aptly nicknamed Armpit Terrace — was to distract me from the horrific reality of my forced marriage to the stranger.

“Mazel tov!” they told me, beaming.

In the reclusive Orthodox Jewish community in New York City where I grew up, choices about whether, when and whom I would marry did not belong to me. At home and at the all-girls religious school I attended, where I learned to cook and sew and keep house, I was groomed from early childhood to expect a teen marriage to a stranger my family and a matchmaker would choose for me.

I was allowed to meet the stranger several times before my engagement, but I was not allowed to be alone with him nor to have any physical contact with him. I was a clueless 19-year-old who had never been allowed to “talk to a boy,” and suddenly I was given a matter of hours, over a period of a few weeks, to answer my family and his family and the matchmaker and everyone in the community standing there, tapping their feet, looking at their watches, waiting for me to tell them: You’ll marry this man we chose for you, right?

“No” was never really an option.

During my six-week engagement, I still was not allowed to be alone with the groom nor to have any physical contact with him, which left more time for me to begin experiencing the myriad other abuses that come with a forced marriage.

First, a virginity exam. The groom’s rabbi sent me to an Orthodox Jewish gynecologist, where I was instructed to disrobe, get on the examination table and put my feet in the stirrups. The doctor inserted her gloved fingers into my vagina and confirmed that my hymen was intact.

“Mazel tov!” she told me, beaming.

I attended one-on-one bridal classes, where the curriculum centered on the requirement that I have unprotected sex with my husband on my wedding night and on a monthly basis thereafter. A lifetime of rape.

Yes, the rapes probably would hurt, the bridal class teacher explained. Hence the K-Y Jelly.

“Mazel tov!” she told me, beaming.

My stranger-turned-husband turned out to be violent and abusive. I learned this exactly one week after our wedding, when he became enraged because he had woken up late, and he punched his fist through the wall — hard enough to leave a sizable hole.

His first threat to kill me came only days later. Soon these threats became more frequent, specific and gruesome. He was brimming with creative ideas for how he would end my life, and he took the time to describe them to me in vivid detail. A lifetime of fear.

Yet I was trapped.

My forced marital sex was carefully timed each month for when I was ovulating. The reason for this was obvious: My first child was born 11 months after my wedding, and soon I had a second child.

I love my daughters, but I did not consent to having them. A lifetime of forced parenthood.

This denial of sexual and reproductive rights was not the only shackle preventing me from leaving my marriage. My husband did not allow me to have my own bank account or credit card, and I was taught that, under Orthodox Jewish law, if my husband allowed me to work, any money I earned belonged to him. A lifetime of domestic servitude and financial dependence.

I had limited legal rights too. Under Orthodox Jewish law, only a man can grant a divorce. I, as a woman, did not have the legal right to end my own marriage. A lifetime of being locked in unwanted wedlock.

One escape route for me would have been to move back in with my family as an agunah, a “chained woman” who is bound to a husband who refuses her a divorce. The life of an agunah is brutal; she is shamed for her powerlessness, blamed for her failed marriage and treated as an outcast.

But even this dreadful escape route was closed to me, because my family refused to take me back in. A lifetime of betrayal.

So I remained trapped in my abusive forced marriage. In accordance with Orthodox Jewish law, I was considered “unclean” every time I menstruated. While I was “unclean,” I was prohibited from having physical contact with my husband, sleeping in the same bed as him, handing him anything or undressing or singing in front of him. A lifetime of shame.

Once my period ended, I needed to count seven “clean” days without any menstrual blood, during which time the rules against physical contact continued. To make sure I stayed “clean” for the full seven days, I was required to wear white panties and, twice a day, to insert a white cloth into my vagina, swish it around and inspect it in sunlight to make sure it did not have blood spots. If I found questionable marks on my panties and could not tell whether they were blood, the rabbi would inspect them and give his pronouncement.

And the rabbi would keep my panties. A lifetime of extreme patriarchy.

Each month, after the seven “clean” days, I was forced to strip naked in front of an attendant who watched me immerse in a mikvah, or a ritual bath of rainwater, which frequently left me with a yeast infection and always left me shaking uncontrollably. A lifetime of violation.

All I wanted, every time I left the mikvah, was to take a hot shower and scrub the violation off me. That was prohibited. Instead I was required to go home and have nonconsensual sex with the man who had spent the day describing to me in graphic detail how he was going to murder me. The man who would not let me close the door when I used the bathroom, because “what was I hiding from him in there?”

No matter. I had to get on the bed and spread my legs and forget what had happened to me at the mikvah and ignore the pain while I waited for him to finish, and I had to remind myself how lucky I was that he usually was done after only three or four thrusts. A lifetime straight out of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Forced marriage — in which one or both parties do not give full, free consent — is recognized globally as a form of modern slavery. My story is far from unique: Around the world, 22 million people were in a forced marriage as of 2021.

My husband would regularly search through my personal belongings in front of me, including in the pockets of the clothing in my closet and in my bag of tampons under the bathroom sink. A lifetime of subjugation. When I finally realized at age 27 that I was the only person who would help me leave my abusive forced marriage alive and I decided I would secretly save up cash for my escape, I found the only safe hiding place in the house: a box of Whole Grain Total in the pantry.

I saved more than $40,000 in that cereal box over the next five years.

During those years I also defied my community and did something no one in my family had ever done: I became a college student. My husband forbade me from attending classes. I informed him, calmly, that nothing he did to me would stop me from getting my education.

And I did something no one I knew had ever done: I threw out the limp, ugly wig I was required to wear as a married woman to cover my own thick, healthy hair. I walked outside with my uncovered head held high — the equivalent, in that community, of walking outside naked.

My family retaliated immediately by shunning me. One of my sisters notified me that my family was planning to sit shiva — or observe the Jewish mourning ritual for me — as if I had literally died. I have had almost no contact with my family since that day. A lifetime of being dead.

But I graduated from Rutgers University (as commencement speaker, the equivalent of valedictorian) at age 32, and I escaped my abusive forced marriage on my own, with my daughters and my box of Total. I fled the Orthodox Jewish community too, and I rebuilt my life.

In 2011 I founded a nonprofit organization, Unchained At Last, to combat forced and child marriage in the U.S. through direct services and systems change.

The U.S. is one of 193 countries that agree forced and child marriage are harmful practices, particularly for women and girls, and have promised to eliminate these abuses by year 2030 to help achieve gender equality, under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Yet the U.S. is not on track to keep its promise.

I refuse to accept this. Not after I escaped my lifetime of oppression.

We at Unchained are fighting back by providing crucial wraparound services to a long-ignored population: those who are fleeing an existing or impending forced marriage in the U.S. To date we have provided legal and social services, always for free, to nearly 1,000 individuals, to help give them a lifetime of dignity, safety and hope.

We also started a national movement to end child marriage. In the last few years, our groundbreaking research and relentless advocacy have allowed us to help change the law in 10 U.S. states to ban child marriage — a stunning victory for the 7.5 million girls who live in those 10 states — and we are working on the other 40.

A lifetime of preventing other lifetimes of rape.

“Mazel tov!” I now tell myself, beaming, with each triumphant step closer to ending forced and child marriage in the U.S.

Fraidy Reiss is a forced marriage survivor turned activist. She is the founder and executive director of Unchained At Last, a survivor-led nonprofit organization working to end forced and child marriage in the U.S. through direct services and systems change. Fraidy’s research and writing on forced and child marriage have been published extensively, making her one of the nation’s foremost experts on these abuses. She has been featured in books (including as one of the titular women in Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s “The Book of Gutsy Women”), films and countless television, radio and print news stories.

Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.

Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch.

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theroyalsandi · 5 months

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British Royal Family - Mike and Zara Tindall attend the world premiere of the Netflix documentary "Six Nations: Full Contact" at Frameless in London, England. (Photo by Mike Marsland/Getty Images for Premier PR) | January 15, 2024

#royaltyedit #theroyalsandi #mike tindall #zara tindall #british royal family #my edit

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theresattrpgforthat · 2 months

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do you have any suggestions for games which focus around politics and intrigue? I'm only really familiar with Court of Blades

THEME: Intrigue

Hello friend, so I’ve already got one post about Court Intrigue, as well as one about Political and Social Drama, so I definitely recommend checking those out! Here’s a few more for your consideration.

Human Ambassadors, by FUNONE Games.

Every player gets to play as an expert who has been selected to facilitate first contact with newly arrived aliens. You can count on some miscommunications.

They have requested that your group put on six events to educate them about the people of earth. You might puzzle over their feedback. In the end your group will have a big decision to make that will affect the future of humanity.

This is partially a diplomacy game, and partially just a really goofy time. You can only kind of understand what your new alien friends treasure and value, and you have to use that information to plan a number of events. At the end of each event, you roll to randomly determine the alien’s reaction, so this is definitely a game where you are trying to please an entity that has much more knowledge and power than you do.

Princely, by Michelle Jones.

The lord of the realm has announced that it is time for his eldest daughter to be married. He is holding a ball at his estate to determine the most eligible suitor to become her husband. Princes, knights, and noble sons from across the world will be in attendance, and you will be among them. However, you have a secret. You are not a man. And if the lord discovers the truth, you will be forced to leave the ball before you ever have a chance to confess your love.

Princely is a one-page RPG about courtly intrique, secret identities and queer love for any manageable number of players and one facilitator.

I don’t have a lot of information about this game, but my best guess is that it’s about navigating a royal ball and trying to pass off as a man in order to get close enough to the princess. Plenty of intrigue for sure!

Ruler’s Throne, by Gigglin’ Gryphon Games.

A Great Ruler has passed. An entire land is in mourning. And one of you is next in line for the title. If you can survive the night.

An ancient tradition calls for the greatest leaders in the lands to come together for one night of drunken celebration. Fierce generals. Heads of nations. Venerated royalty. You, the best, brightest, and richest in the lands will come, bringing the finest offerings for whomever shall next inherit the throne–and the finest deception to make certain it is you.

Using deceit, backstabbing, rumor, and a bevy of potent poisons, you must make it to the end of the night. Alive. Choose your friends carefully. And your enemies even more carefully. For only one shall claim…The Ruler’s Throne.

This is a game about poisoning your opponents, and your opponents are the other players around the table. Players use cards to contribute to a Chalice, using these cards as either actions, medicine, or poison. If you drink the Chalice and it’s full of poison, you die - but don’t worry, there’s plenty of mischief for ghosts to get up to, and you could possibly even come back to life! The last person living is the winner.

Interregnum, by vortiwife.

Interregnum is a playing card-based tabletop game of ambition and ruin set against a backdrop of backstabbing and corporate intrigue.

As the Inheritors to a vast Empire, the players must navigate a world of cutthroat politics, forge temporary alliances with their power-hungry rivals, and attempt to destroy those same rivals before they get the idea first.

Sell your soul in a doomed bid for power. Shake hands with your rivals while plotting their demise.

Interregnum involves a deck of playing cards, used as blackjack hands to determine which of your characters takes the least amount of ruin during a round of political maneuvering. An inheritor who collects too much ruin must either leave the table or make a deal with the devil, aligning with whatever Threat is facing the group as a whole in order to save their own skin.

This is a game of corruption, backstabbing, and ultimately downfall. If you want a game about scheming and karma coming to give you what you deserve in the end, this might be the game for you.

Gilded City Treaties, by Thomas.

A two-to-three player roleplaying game where you are diplomats trying to negotiate in your favour with the representative of Jasper Oro, the man who controls the Gilded City.

Jasper Oro is a powerful, powerful man, and you need his favor in order to write a treaty that benefits you and your people. If you play with two players, you can either play as Jasper and one diplomat, or both can play as diplomats, while Jasper’s responses are determined through dice rolls. If yo play as three players, one person is Jasper, and the other two are the entreating diplomats.

There’s not a lot of rules here - I’m expecting this game to be a light framework for extensive roleplay, and over in a single session.

Secrets and Sabotage, by SassWrites.

Want a murder mystery evening? Or a bitchy prom night with mean girls? How about a diplomatic affair with spies and assassins, or a fey court full of intrigue?

Play all these games and more with this system of secrets and clues.

This is a game or game module, so you could play it solo, or you could use it to replicate a battle of wit and reputation in another game of your choice. This game is also setting-agnostic, so you could have it take place in a high school, a space barony, or a noble castle. Over the course of the game, your characters will let slip their secrets, but attempt to reveal all of their rival’s secrets before their own dirty laundry comes to light. The goal is to culminate in a final round where all of the characters are making loud accusations, pointing fingers, and causing general chaos. I’d love to see what kind of fallout might ensue in the session following this game!

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #game recommendations #dnd #asks #indie ttrpg #politics #intrigue

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mariacallous · 26 days

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The governing board of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) will meet this week for a four day board meeting, during which it will discuss the Russian national organization’s relationship with the Kremlin — and whether to launch a formal investigation that could result in the suspension of the Russian organization’s membership.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is losing patience with the inaction of the IFRC. “We, Ukrainians, don’t have a lot of time. Every day the IFRC fails to act means one more day the organization supports the Russian aggression against my homeland. I am desperate,” said Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, in a joint interview with VSquare, Expressen (Sweden), Spiegel (Germany), Paper Trail Media (Germany), Standard (Austria) and Delfi Estonia.

Lubinets sent a formal appeal to the IFRC in mid-March after VSquare and our international partners exposed the Russian Red Cross’s (RRC) collaboration with the Putin regime in the Kremlin Leaks series. This cooperation includes supporting the Russian military and collecting donations for soldiers; cooperation in the organization of military camps for children; and entering into formal agreements with a number of organizations that have been sanctioned by the European Union, the United States and Ukraine for, among other things, their involvement in the deportation of Ukrainian children.

In the petition, Lubinets demanded that the IFRC condemn the RRC’s activities, conduct a transparent investigation, suspend their membership in the international movement for the time being and, if our revelations are true, expel the RRC from the organization. To date, the commissioner has received no response from the IFRC other than confirmation that his appeal was received.

(The IFRC’s press service said that the organization has been in contact with Lubinets’s office since 2022, and that there will be further communication on his latest appeal when they have further information on the matter at hand.)

In the wake of the Kremlin Leaks revelations, the IFRC said it would “review” the articles’ claims, but has not yet launched a formal investigation, which – according to the organization’s own statutes – should be carried out by the Compliance and Mediation Committee.

The IFRC has also consistently failed to respond to substantive queries from the press, but according to documents obtained through our public information requests, it held an emergency meeting at its headquarters in Geneva on March 1, four days after the first revelations were published. It was attended by, among others, representatives of the Red Cross movement’s major donors.

At the closed-door meeting, IFRC Chief of Staff Christopher Rassi pledged that the activities of the Russian Red Cross would be thoroughly investigated and that, if the matter came before the organization’s board, Russia would not be allowed to participate in deliberations. (In summer 2022, already after the full-scale invasion, Russian Red Cross President Pavel Savchuk was elected to the IFRC’s 20-member board.)

If the IFRC opens a formal investigation, RRC President Pavel Savchuk will have to step down from the IFRC board during the proceedings, according to a memo viewed by VSquare prepared by Swedish diplomats who attended the meeting. So far, the “review,”which has been ongoing for nearly six weeks, has been led by the organization’s management. According to diplomatic sources with whom we spoke, the review is now in its final stage and findings will be presented at a board meeting later this week.

The Russian Red Cross’s links with the Putin regime:

Documents leaked from the Russian presidential administration show that the Kremlin directly funds the Russian Red Cross, which was tasked with replacing the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the occupied Ukrainian territories.

The RRC President Pavel Savchuk was, at least until the publication of our first article, a member of the leadership of the All-Russia People’s Front (ONF), a patriotic organization led by Putin and actively supportive of the war. ONF holds the registered trademark for the notorious “Z” symbol.

Pavel Savchuk has also signed cooperation agreements with the internationally sanctioned organization Defenders of the Fatherland, which supports the war in Ukraine and is led by a relative of Vladimir Putin.

The RRC cooperates with the movement “We Are Together” (often referred to in Russian as #МыВместе), which supports the war and raises money and donations, including arms and personal protection equipment, for soldiers.

In January of this year, Savchuk signed a cooperation agreement on behalf of the RRC with the Artek children’s camp in occupied Crimea. It was signed by Konstantin Fedorenko on behalf of Artek. Fedorenko is internationally sanctioned for having helped deport Ukrainian children and for having organized patriotic Russian re-education camps for them (Artek is also sanctioned).

The RRC regularly participates in military-patriotic training courses for children. In these courses, children receive weapons and military training. Red Cross workers pose with children and weapons.

Pavel Savchuk, on behalf of the RRC, presented a diploma to the Russian arms factory Avangard, which produces rockets used to bomb civilian targets in Ukraine, and posed for a photo with a representative of the factory. The United Aircraft Corporation, a member of the state-owned Rostec Group, which produces fighter aircraft, also received a diploma from the RRC.

At least two members of the RRC board have openly expressed support for Russia’s war against Ukraine and one of them even called Ukrainians “Nazis.”

“This is a complex matter that is being discussed at the highest level of the organization,” the IFRC press service said in response to our query. The organization’s 20-member governing board meeting starts in Geneva, Switzerland today and is set to last for four days.

“A thorough review is in process but this takes time. Our teams are still working and ensuring we have gathered the necessary information to directly address these claims,” the IFRC said.

Last week, Christopher Rassi also met with diplomats to brief them on the investigation’s progress. During a meeting with the Swedish ambassador, he described how they worked nonstop over the last several weeks on the matter while keeping the board and the president of IFRC informed.

The IFRC does not have to look far for a precedent. Last December, the Belarusian Red Cross was suspended from the organization after it emerged that its representatives had traveled with Russian units to occupied territories in Ukraine, wearing Russia’s notorious Z symbol on their shoulders, and that its leader had spoken publicly about how they were transporting Ukrainian children to Belarus.

Dmytro Lubinets said the Red Cross’s silence so far is part of a larger pattern that began as early as 2014 during the occupation of Crimea. At that time, the RRC occupied the buildings and office space left behind by the Ukrainian Red Cross in Crimea and also took possession of Ukrainian cars and computer equipment, according to Lubinets.

“Russia does not allow [the International Red Cross] access to Ukrainian prisoners of war. And I haven’t seen any reaction from the Red Cross during this time. They hide behind the shield of neutrality. This is crazy,” Lubinets said.

Lubinets said that, in his view, the IFRC could not conduct an independent investigation as long as a representative of the Russian organization sits on its board. “But I have not given up hope. The international Red Cross community can still show that violation of the principles of the Red Cross is not acceptable. They can prove that the IFRC is not fully under the control of the Russian Federation.”

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purpleplaid17 · 3 months

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Jess Watches // Thu 21 Mar // Day 176 Synopses & Favourite Scenes & Poll

Constellation (with B) 1x07 Through the Looking Glass

Lost and alone in the woods, Jo desperately tries to reunite with her daughter.

We'd just about got back on track with following the parallel stories and timelines. A very effective and clever episode. And then [redacted] showed up. We broke down in hysterical laughter. My mate literally put her head in her hands. We came so close to understanding. What does it all mean???

Call the Midwife 7x03

A patient of Phyllis' receives a devastating diagnosis, Fred and Violet organise a beauty pageant, Magda discloses a secret, and Trixie makes a tough decision.

Why did Trixie break up with her bf like that? If he was always going to leave then he should've been the one going back to his wife. For Trixie to suggest it and not try everything to bond with his kid just seem ooc to me. Also, the woman acting with a physical disability was excellent.

Resident Alien 3x06 Bye Bye Birdie

Harry hits rock bottom, Kate begins seeing the truth, and Mike helps Liv face her greatest fear.

The girls are fighting and I'm starting to hate it here. I loved this show and these characters so much in s1. s2 was inconsistent but likeable enough. s3 started with so much potential but the forced introduction of a love interest, a caricature version of Harry, and now Asta starting drama with everyone is so ooc. Has there been a change in the writers room or in tptb between seasons?

Six Nations: Full Contact Ep 6 Pressure Cooker

With two teams on a losing streak more than a wooden spoon is at stake as they prepare to face each other in the next round.

Both Wales and Italy with young players finding their rhythm and strength as a team. Italy doing it more successfully of late.

#constellation #call the midwife #resident alien #six nations full contact #polls #tumblr polls #jess watches #day 176 #an ooc day :(

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maximumwobblerbanditdonut · 4 months

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What a game! 🏉🏉

Scotland have beaten Wales in Cardiff 26-27 for the first time in 22 years 🎉👏 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Yassss!

#WALvSCO #AsOne #SixNations2024

@86vol He’s Duhan Van Der Merwe, 28-year-old, 6 ft 4 in (1.93m tall) who currently plays for Edinburgh Rugby in Scotland as a winger. He’s a stunning player and Scotland star.

The Netflix documentary arrived just in time, ahead of the Six Nations on February 2. But the squads for this year's Six Nations have been overshadowed by the absence of several players who starred in Full Contact. Before and after last year’s Rugby World Cup in France many players announced their retirement from rugby 🏉 and in this documentary not all teams opened their doors as generously as Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

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catofadifferentcolor · 7 months

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Terrible Fic Idea #76: The Old Guard, but make it Harry Potter

I've read a lot of Master of Death!Harry Potter fics over the years and one thing that struck me is how so many of the canon MoD tropes - never aging, inability to stay dead - also can be said for The Old Guard's flavor of immortality. So I thought, why not?

Or: What if Harry Potter was raised by The Old Guard?

Just imagine it:

Six months after Merrick, on the night of 31 October, 2019, The Old Guard is woken by dreams of Voldemort killing the Potter Family.

The Guard are not unaware of magic - it's their running theory that something about their magic turning inwards at the time of their first death causes their immortality, rendering them near-squibs who cannot age or die - but they live very much on the fringes of the magical world. And even then most of their contact is with the goblin nation, who couldn't care less about wizards. So it takes some time for them to realize what and who and where.

Their search is not helped by the fact that the child they come to realize is the new immortal is largely kept in a cupboard and rarely allowed to leave the house, rendering them only the tiniest of dream details to search with. They finally manage to track down Harry a year before he's due to start primary school, c. late 2022-early 2023.

Everyone is confused as to why the immortal Harry Potter is aging - and he's very clearly immortal, having survived both the Killing Curse and the Dursley's neglect - but figure he'll stop aging once he reaches adulthood. Which is good, because none of them had any idea what they'd do with an immortal toddler.

Joe and Nicky raise Harry, who is rechristened Hari al-Kaysani after it wins the vote. Harry Potter disappears from the Hogwarts Book of Names, but since only the incoming first year names are readable at any given time, no one notices for years.

(This is helped by Mrs. Figg being conveniently away on holiday when the Dursley's are found neatly murdered in their bed. Dudley is left with most of his memory wiped at a hospital in Plymouth, is taken into foster care, and is eventually adopted by a nice elderly couple. He takes over their antique restoration business when they retire - and is very surprised when the children he and his partner have via surrogate have magic.)

And so it is a very different Hari who attends Hogwarts in 2029 - still a little marked from his childhood traumas, but with a loving, supportive family who have taught him to do no harm but take no shit. His humor is perhaps more morbid than the average 11 year old's, but he is kind and stubborn and has a sense of justice that could double as a knife. He is, naturally, a Hufflepuff.

Hari's school years largely follow canon in plot, if not followthrough. As no one makes the connection between Harry Potter - portrayed in media as an Anglo Gryffindor child savior - and Hari al-Kaysani - hard-working international desi student - he's largely separate from what drama still exists.

First year has the school in a tizzy over Harry Potter's "disappearance", with a few details re: his placement at the Dursley's coming to light in the papers. All this largely passes Hari by until Quirrel decides to kidnap him to use to get past the Mirror. This goes as well as canon, with Hari having to kill Quirrel - and dying himself for the first time since his adoption. His parents are livid and threaten to pull him from Hogwarts unless safety measures improve.

Second year has the petrifications, which Hari doesn't mention to his family, wanting to stay at Hogwarts. This backfires on him when he more or less is dragged into the Chamber by a bewitched Ginny and ends up killing the basilisk. And dying again. Hari exits the Chamber to find his family in full battle gear, preparing to rescue him - and gets the lecture of his life. As does Dumbledore, for being even more careless with student safety. And Ginny, for writing in a cursed book.

This is also when Dumbledore starts to suspect Hari is Harry Potter and adjusts his plans accordingly.

Third year is fairly quiet despite Sirius' breakout. Most of the drama occurs outside the school.

Nicky, having managed to leverage the danger Hari has been in the last two years into a seat on the Hogwarts board of governors, starts ruthlessly pushing for a reform of Hogwarts' security measures and bylaws. He not only manages to block Dementors from Hogwarts, but get most of his concerns addressed. It is one his ward updates which identifies both Sirius and Wormtail on the school grounds. Both get their trials, with Sirius going free and Wormtail being imprisoned.

Nicky manages to use this and his family name to gain a seat on the Wizengamot, which Joe takes up with a more subtle brand of ruthlessness that have all involved ruing the day they agreed to it.

Fourth year goes well, until the Goblet names "Harry Potter" as the fourth champion. As magic is about intent, it doesn't matter that Hari has never thought of himself by that name - he hadn't known his name at all at the Dursleys - the fact that the person who entered him intended for The Boy-Who-Lived to compete in the Tournament and Hari once defeated Voldemort is enough for the Goblet.

Despite Nicky and Joe's best attempts, Hari is still forced to compete. As a result Andy takes up residence at the school as "headmistress" of Hari's unnamed fourth school and makes life a pain for certain responsible parties.

This leads to a lot of drama involving several people being angry he "disguised" himself to attend Hogwarts, "lied" to them about who he was, and/or failed to live up to their expectations. The most drama should come from Sirius, who is angry Hari "hid" from him after his trial.

The Third Task ends as with canon - but with Voldie a little less snakelike and a little more rational, thanks to the immortality in Hari's blood. (And Andy, ever suspicious, manages to catch out fake Moody and reveals him far more publicly, in a way Fudge can't deny.)

Fifth Year goes better than canon. Thanks to Andy capturing Crouch, the public is aware someone tried to revive Voldie. Most believe they failed and it's a fake wandering around causing chaos, but at least they're somewhat aware of the danger.

Fudge is ousted from office, Andy is put in place as the new DADA teacher, and Dumbledore slowly tries to rope Hari back into his schemes, not realizing the Horcrux in him died with Hari during his second death (age 24 months, the Dursley's having left him locked in a hot car) - indeed having no idea of Hari's immortality at all.

The more Dumbledore tries to groom Hari, the more his family makes life difficult for the Headmaster. This should include Booker publishing a better researched, less sensational version of Rita's biography - which has Dumbledore sacked from all his positions but headmaster, though not for lack of trying.

The Guard spends most of the year trying to figure out how Voldie achieved his immortality and what his Horcruxes might be. The Order continues their ineffective business with the prophesy, leading to a big battle in the Ministry in which no children take part but several order members are killed, including Sirius.

Hari, despite never having been close to his godfather in this AU, inherits all - including the Locket.

Sixth Year has Dumbledore try to pull Hari in to private lessons, which is parents refuse to allow. The Guard quietly finds and destroys all the remaining Horcruxes save Nagini - and the ring, which Dumbledore found first. Snape kills a dying Dumbledore at his request when the Death Eaters attack the school at the end of the year... while on the grounds Nile kills a snake and Andy beheads a newly-mortal Voldemort with her labrys.

As the public believe this Voldemort is a pretender, this only gets them limited fame. Which is better for all involved.

(Snape escapes Azkaban only by sharing his memories of Dumbledore's death at his trial, but is asked not to return to Hogwarts.)

Seventh Year is a normal school year, with the adults mopping up Death Eaters on the outside - until the very end of the year, when a rogue Voldemort supporter AKs Hari in the middle of the Great Hall. Andy, who is still DADA teacher, removes the body before he can revive, and thus ends their child hero as far as the Wizarding World is concerned. In "grief" his family disappears from public and in a handful of generations Harry Potter is largely relegated to the history books.

After his death at 17, Hari stops aging and his active magic turns inwards, much like the others. Becoming a near-squib is quite a change, but he has his family and is old enough to join them on their missions in the muggle world. It's not the destiny others hoped for him, but he's happy and loved and, in the end, that's all that matters.

Bonuses include: 1) An exploration of what it means to be desi in the British Wizarding World. Extra bonus points if Hari's background is Pakistani Muslim, simply because I don't think I've seen it done before and I think it could be fascinating, particularly given Joe and Nicky's own backgrounds; 2) An exploration of what it means to be squib or near-squib in the Wizarding World. This shouldn't be a straight linear things are so much better than the past, where we just killed our squibs, but include many ups and downs in treatment throughout history - and the acknowledgement that while squibs are treated much better than they were two hundred years ago, they're still treated much worse than they were a thousand years ago; 3) the Wizarding World being presented as deeply flawed, but no more so than any government of its era. Political polarization and unwillingness to compromise should be at the root of many of its problems. Joe, during his tenure in the Wizengamot, should be renowned for gathering opposing politicians in a room, sitting them down, and forcing them to talk about their issues like unruly children; 4) A misguided Dumbledore who genuinely thinks he's doing the right thing, and 5) Hari starting a societal revolution by being the first at Hogwarts to have a smart phone that works with magic, thank you Uncle Booker.

And that's all I have. As always, feel free to adopt this bun, just link back to me if you do anything with it.

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technicaldelight · 5 months

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#six nations: full contact #six nations championship #rugby union #rugby

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allari-ammayi · 9 months

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Wife | Pt.1《Bharya》B. Deva

☆Bhallaladeva x Fem! OC☆

Synopsis: Pooja and Bhallaladeva have been married for three months, but after their wedding ceremony came to an end, Pooja hasn't seen him or heard of him since. It's not like she's his first wife she likely won't be his last- is what she thinks. But when Bhallaladeva sends a servant to summon Pooja to his quarters late one night, Pooja hopes to fulfil their unstarted martial duties, instead, Bhalla requests that Pooja do something else for him. Something Pooja never expected to hear from the ruthless king of Mahismati. 《Pt. 1, 1.9 k Words》

Note: This is the OC version of this fic. If you would like to read the Y/n version, it will be available on my Y/n masterlist page! ALSO, REQUESTS ARE OPEN!!!

𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑 》 By interacting with my works or posts, you agree to be exposed to my content and are confirming that you are willingly reading my writing!!

“It’s been two months, Mama {Trans. ‘Uncle’}.”

“For most women, it was six, my dear.”

“What’s the point of even marrying so many women if he isn’t going to talk to any of them?”

“Political reasons. Amma, Pooja, you should stop waiting for him and go to sleep, my lady.”

The loyal but helpless Kattappa spoke as ‘the King’ Bhallaladeva’s newest concubine resurfaced her face from in between her knees.

The sky was dark and Kattapa had just finished his duty of serving the lady some fruit. It wasn’t quite his duty, but something he chose to do. Pooja never had a proper father and Kattapa was the closest she had ever gotten.

Pooja looked up at the sky and thought over the past few months. It’s already been three years since the defeat of Bahubali and the raising of Bhallaladeva.

Nothing changed much for Pooja, but she knew it was only because she was the daughter of a higher official. The poorer people of the nation though, were being robbed of everything they once owned.

“Are you sure he won’t visit me?” Pooja asked, leaning the side of her face on her knees, looking off into the trees as she rested on the balcony ledge.

“I don’t think it’s likely, my lady.” Kattapa adjusted his sword back into its place and stood before Pooja as she turned her head towards him.

He gave her a sharp bow with his fist to his heart, wished her a good night’s sleep and trotted off, leaving Pooja to think by herself.

True, it had already been two months since she had been betrothed to the king of Mahismati. But not once since her wedding had she seen his face.

Even before the wedding, she had never really seen him. Maybe once or twice when the two were younger and Bhallaladeva was considered one of the high and prideful princes, always finding ways to make his mother proud.

Pooja couldn’t remember if she was merely imagining it, but she also considered the multiple moments of eye contact she and Bhalla had shared previous to their marriage full of romantic tension. Were those gazes they shared a figment of her imagination?

On her wedding day, Pooja and Bhalla had exchanged short glances and a single moment of eye contact. Since then, they had never spoken. Actually, now that Pooja thought about it, Bhalla and Pooja had never spoken even on their wedding day. Not even on their wedding night, which Pooja was eagerly waiting for.

She draped herself in the prettiest white and gold sari that she could afford and waited on the bed covered in flower petals for her beloved. High with the hopes of feeling love and giggling like a schoolgirl, Pooja waited for a few minutes.

Bhalla was not there.

She waited an hour.

Still, no one was there to entertain her or to be entertained by her.

Pooja waited for a couple more hours, her excitement and giddiness ebbing away with every second that passed, till she succumbed to the desire for her sleep.

It was a sad night and an even worse next morning. The very next morning, hoping to wake up to the face of her dear new husband, Pooja awoke to an empty bed, the flower petals on Bhalla’s side undisturbed, making Pooja realise that she had spent the night alone. Her precious wedding night.

The night in which a husband and wife would share moments of intimacy together. She had spent that night alone, all by her lonesome. The same continued for the next two months. Pooja waited patiently and eagerly in her room till late hours every night hoping that at least one day Bhallaladeva would suddenly remember his latest wife and visit her.

But it was never the case.

Pooja, being close with all of his other wives, was told several times to give up and get on with her life. That Bhalla had never visited the other wives before either, and if he did, it was only for the most important of formal reasons. If else, he would send servants.

The other wives pitied Pooja. They even saw a bit of themselves in her, but no one ever waited for Bhalla for that long like a love-sick puppy. They usually gave up after a week or two.

“Ayyo, picchi pilla, {Trans. ‘Oh, you silly girl.’}” Bhalla’s third wife spoke as she peeled an apple with the sharp end of a dagger for her, Pooja and a couple of other wives as they sat around and chatted like they always did.

“He isn’t going to come, Chinni.” Bhalla’s second wife spoke as caressed Pooja’s head affectionately.

“Kadu. Aiyna vastharu. Naku namakam undi. {Trans. ‘No. I believe in him, he’ll come for me.’}” Pooja said softly as she stared at the ground.

“Ma matta vini ayna kosam agadam maneyi, thalli. {Trans. ‘Listen to us and stop waiting around for him, my dear.’}” Another spoke up as Pooja stubbornly cushioned her chin on her kneecap as she leaned her back against a pillar. Pooja shook her head slightly and continued staring forward intently.

“Aiyna ki na meda prema undi. Vastaru. Vacchi teestaru. {Trans. ‘He loves me. He’ll come for you, just you wait.’}”

At Pooja’s words, half the wives burst out in laughter while the others quietly giggled to themselves. Pooja’s head shot up at him in half-confusion and half-anger and she glared at him.

“Enduku navvutunaru!? {Transl. ‘Why’re you laughing!?’}”

“Picchi pilla, {Trans. ‘Silly girl,’}” Bhalla’s fourth wive said, getting up to sit next to Pooja, draping her arm over Pooja’s shoulders. “Asala aiyina ki prema ante ento tellidu. Aiyna ki preminche shakti ledu. {Trans. ‘He doesn’t even know what loves is. He can’t feel love.’}” Pooja’s eyebrows came together in confusion.

“Aithe mari mimmalini ela premistunaru? {Trans. ‘Then how is he loving you all?’}” The girl asked, naively, and once again, the group of women burst into giggles.

“Aiyina mammalini evaruni preminchateledu. {Trans. ‘He isn’t in love with any of us and doesn’t love aany of us.’}”

“He doesn’t even lust after us.”

“What..?” Pooja said, her motuh agape.

“That’s true.” The first wife spoke out, wise as ever, “We’re only married to him because there’s something from our families he wants. Be it armies, money or privileges. Anything.”

“Yes. Never once has he ever shown us affection or love or anything even close.”

“Mari meeku baathaga leda? {Trans. ‘Then are you not sad?’}” Pooja asked, her eyes starting to droop in pity. The other women smiled sweetly, none in pity or sadness.

“No. Not really,” The first said, “He never gave us a reason to love him in the first place, so it was easy. We have our own lives and he has his.”

These words caused a flurry of emotions to erupt within Pooja’s heart but none so as strong as her iron will and faith in the king.

All the wives urged her to move on. They encouraged her to use her status as one of Bhalla’s wives to her advantage and achieve anything she wanted to in life.

But Pooja never gave up hope.

Or at least not till the third month.

Pooja had yet to see hide nor hair of Bhalla, the man she was made to dedicate her life to, and she was starting to lose hope.

Would she finally break and give up like the rest of the wives had? Pooja thought about it that night in the chilly, dark, open balcony.

Was it even worth waiting anymore?

Just as Pooja was about to think not, she heard the sound of shuffling footsteps advancing towards her room.

Pooja’s heart jumped and butterflies attacked her stomach.

Could it be..?

The sound of knocks on Pooja’s door echoed through the room and reached her ears, a sudden feeling of excitement starting to awaken within her, lighting up the entire room.

Pooja shot up and raced out of the balcony, running to the door, her anklets and bangels jingling and dangling as she ran, sounding a sweet harmony at the girl’s glee.

Pooja stood in front of the door, her heart racing. She gulped and reached the large lock that held the two massive maple doors together and with a final surge of excitement she dragged the doors open, her breath fast and her face pink, only to be faced with a punch from disappointment.

In front of her stood not her husband, but rather a young servant. Pooja felt her heart drop and her legs weaken as she grasped onto the door for support.

“Oh… Gowri… What is it?” Pooja asked the servant, her obvious look of excitement dissolving into a bitter look of disappointment.

“My lady, I was sent by-” Assuming that the servant was sent by one of the other wives, Pooja strayed her attention elsewhere, barely listening, holding her tears of self-pity back. “-His Majesty.”

Pooja felt herself nearly topple over as she lost grip on the door, effectively being caught by the surprised servant who helped her readjust her composure.

“Did- Did you just say ‘His Majesty’?” Pooja asked, somewhat contemplating wether she had actually gone insane from yearning for Bhalla for so long that she was now imagining things.

“Yes. His Majesty is summoning you to his quarters.” The servant said and Pooja began seeing stars in front of her eyes.

“Would- Would you please repeat that?” Pooja requested, beginning to lose grasp of herself in the chaos of her mind, her excitement and adrenaline running high.

“His Majesty has sent me to inform you that he wishes to see you in his quarters.”

“Do you know what for..?” Pooja asked. She thought she was being selfish and greedy when she had a tiny hope in her heart that the servant wouldn’t say that Pooja was needed for formal reasons.

“I believe his majesty-” Gowri gulped, tripping over her words and her eyes darting around, avoiding Pooja’s eyes.

“Yes?”

“I-I believe-” Gowri’s eyebrows scrunched together and she let out a quick sigh, “I’m unsure, your highness. I was only tasked with bringing you there.” Gowri said with unease, leaving a puzzled Pooja to wonder by she was being summoned.

“Oh… Alright.” Pooja said, mildly confused, “Aithe pada. {Trans. ‘Then let’s go.’}”

And so set off, the confused wife and the uneasy servant who seemed eager to fidget with her thumbs, desperate to leave.

“Just this way, your highness,” Gowri said, leading Pooja to a set of great big oka doors, far larger than Pooja’s. “His Majesty is waiting inside for you, your highness.” Gowri bowed to Pooja, not lifting her head up.

“But-” Pooja gulped as looked at the doors. “Is this not his Majesty’s room? I thought you were leading me to his office?” Gowri remained in a bow, not answering Pooja or liftening her head up.

Pooja gulped and begrudgingly put her palm on the door. With a slight push of uneasiness, the doors creaked open ever so slightly and with the noise of the door, the poor servant jumped and scampered away, keeping her head low in a bow.

Pooja turned her attention away from the jumpy servant and back to the door’s creak, from which the light of torches was spilling out. Pooja opened the door a little more and slowly poked her head inside, looking around to see where Bhallaladeva was and what he wanted with her.

Pooja didn’t know a thing about Bhalla’s room, for she had never been there.

Truth be told, no wife of Bhalla’s had ever gotten as close to his room as Pooja was now, so she knew it was urgent.

𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 》

None yet! Please reply to this post if you wish to be tagged in my future works, fics, and the next part to this story! :)

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