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#best ngo of the year
best-o-boingo · 10 months
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grasshoppergeography · 4 months
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Hey All,
I've been away for some time, as we've been working really hard on something quite exciting:
let me present to you the world's first ever global ocean drainage basin map that shows all permanent and temporary water flows on the planet.
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This is quite big news, as far as I know this has never been done before. There are hundreds of hours of work in it (with the data + manual work as well) and it's quite a relief that they are all finished now.
But what is an ocean drainage basin map, I hear most of you asking? A couple of years ago I tried to find a map that shows which ocean does each of the world's rivers end up in. I was a bit surprised to see there is no map like that, so I just decided I'll make it myself - as usual :) Well, after realizing all the technical difficulties, I wasn't so surprised any more that it didn't exist. So yeah, it was quite a challenge but I am very happy with the result.
In addition to the global map I've created a set of 43 maps for different countries, states and continents, four versions for each: maps with white and black background, and a version for both with coloured oceans (aka polygons). Here's the global map with polygons:
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I know from experience that maps can be great conversation starters, and I aim to make maps that are visually striking and can effectively deliver a message. With these ocean drainage basin maps the most important part was to make them easily understandable, so after you have seen one, the others all become effortless to interpret as well. Let me know how I did, I really appreciate any and all kinds of feedback.
Here are a few more from the set, I hope you too learn something new from them. I certainly did, and I am a geographer.
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The greatest surprise with Europe is that its biggest river is all grey, as the Volga flows into the Caspian sea, therefore its basin counts as endorheic.
An endorheic basin is one which never reaches the ocean, mostly because it dries out in desert areas or ends up in lakes with no outflow. The biggest endorheic basin is the Caspian’s, but the area of the Great Basin in the US is also a good example of endorheic basins.
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I love how the green of the Atlantic Ocean tangles together in the middle.
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No, the dividing line is not at Cape Town, unfortunately.
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I know these two colours weren’t the best choice for colourblind people and I sincerely apologize for that. I’ve been planning to make colourblind-friendly versions of my maps for ages now – still not sure when I get there, but I want you to know that it’s just moved up on my todo-list. A lot further up.
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Minnesota is quite crazy with all that blue, right? Some other US states that are equally mind-blowing: North Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming. You can check them all out here.
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Yes, most of the Peruvian waters drain into the Atlantic Ocean. Here are the maps of Peru, if you want to take a closer look.
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Asia is amazingly colourful with lots of endorheic basins in the middle areas: deserts, the Himalayas and the Caspian sea are to blame. Also note how the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra are divided.
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I mentioned earlier that I also made white versions of all maps. Here’s Australia with its vast deserts. If you're wondering about the weird lines in the middle: that’s the Simpson desert with its famous parallel sand dunes.
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North America with white background and colourful oceans looks pretty neat, I think.
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Finally, I made the drainage basin maps of the individual oceans: The Atlantic, the Arctic, the Indian and the Pacific. The Arctic is my favourite one.
I really hope you like my new maps, and that they will become as popular as my river basin maps. Those have already helped dozens of environmental NGOs to illustrate their important messages all around the world. It would be nice if these maps too could find their purpose.
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digimarksposts · 1 year
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This New Year Pledge to Educate an Underserved Child!
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As one year ends and the new one begins we all look forward to it with renewed hope and positivity.  And maybe that’s why we tend to always make a New Year resolution! Well, this time along with working to bring a change in our own lives, can we think of touching the lives of underserved children to make it better? Game for it? Then go ahead and read on.
 If your instant thought was “Let me search for children NGO or NGO for education”, then here’s one NGO you can most certainly trust and extend your support to, i.e., the Each One Educate One Foundation, also known as the e1e1 Foundation. This NGO has 27 campuses spread across 20 districts of three states. Currently nurturing 3,000 students, it is counted as the best charity to sponsor a child.
 In the pursuit to provide education and care
 The e1e1 Foundation is a registered, for impact, not-for-profit organisation that offers free, holistic, values-based, quality education to rural, underprivileged children in India. This Foundation strongly believes that every child has the right to education and we shall all collectively take steps and measures to make education accessible and available to all. It is also cognisant of the fact that there are interrelated factors that contribute to education. Hence, as an NGO for education, alongside imparting academic lessons, the e1e1 Foundation takes care of all the basic necessities of their beneficiary children such as food, accommodation, clothing, daily and personal care essentials.  
 Highlights of the e1e1 Foundation
 If you are not aware of the e1e1 Foundation, then it is common to ponder what makes it the best charity to sponsor a child. So, here’s giving you a closer look at the Foundation’s work.
 The e1e1 Foundation has three thoughtfully designed Edu-Care Programmes namely, Each One Educate One, Each One Embrace One, and Each One Higher Educate One. The objective of all the three programmes is to provide support to the beneficiaries at different stages and it encompasses the following:
●      Quality education, free of cost from grade 6 to university level
●      Values-based activities
●      Personality and skill development
●      Internship programmes for graduates
●      National and international education trips
●      Safe, secure separate campuses for boys and girls
●      Wholesome, nourishing food
●      Academic essentials like books and stationeries
●      Daily and personal essentials
●      Complete end-to-end care
 Creating a tangible and sustainable impact
 The vision of the e1e1 Foundation is, “To realise a world where every child has access to quality, values-based and holistic education”. And the Foundation believes that it is possible only through a collective collaboration between the Society (Samaja), the Government (Sarkara), and the Institution (Samstha).
 The beauty of supporting this NGO for education is that you not only transform the lives of the beneficiary children, but also make a huge difference at the societal level.
●      Impact at an individual level:
-        Children receive education
-        Gets moulded into self-confident & competent individuals
-        Grows up to be skilled & empowered citizens
-        Becomes inspired & motivated to serve the society
●      Impact at a societal level:
-        Community development
-        Socio- economic development
-        Gender equality
-        Eradication of poverty & other social evils
-        Power parity
-        Nation building
Ready to educate a much-deserved child in 2023?
 Your involvement as an Individual Donor, CSR Partner, or a Fundraiser will help this NGO for education to continue its holistic service for rural, underprivileged children. So, this time, as a New Year resolution, extend your support to the e1e1 Foundation, the best charity to sponsor a child and enable 3,000 much-deserved children to begin 2023 with renewed hope, joy, and positivity.
Author Profile:
e1e1 Foundation is an Indian NGO that provides quality and values-based education to rural, underprivileged children. It implements three Edu-care Programmes namely, Each One Educate One, Each One Embrace Once, and Each One Higher Educate One. Currently, the Foundation has 3,000 beneficiaries in 27 campuses across 20 districts in three states. Being a registered NGO, donations of ₹500 and above towards this Foundation qualify for tax exemption under Section 80G of Indian Income Tax Act.
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itadorey · 8 months
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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐒
pairing: gojo satoru x reader summary: in an attempt to distract gojo, yaga sends him on a quest to locate you; a missing member of the zenin clan with prophetic dreams. genre: pre-relationship, humor, fluff notes: college gojo makes me feral. i think he would've been a menace. i also kind of want to continue this as a series of one shots (set in the same universe but not necessarily a multi-chapter fic). wc: ~3k song inspo ♫: ruby sparks by monet ngo
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"i saw you in my dreams."
gojo chuckles at the words, a flirty smile appearing on his face as he tilts his head up to look at the person that's speaking to him. he can't help the way his eyes briefly widen when he sees your face, recognizing you as the very person he was sent to find.
he understands that yaga wants to give him a distraction, a getaway from all the shit that has happened to him in the past few years. but going undercover at the university of tokyo to locate you, a supposedly important jujutsu sorcerer, wasn't exactly how he wanted to spend his post-high school years. now that you're standing in front of him, he can't really find it in himself to complain. not when he realizes just how pretty you are.
he quickly composes himself, leaning back in his seat before motioning for you to sit. you glance at the seat across from him uncertainly, refusing to move. there's a conflicted look on your face as you scan your surroundings, almost as if looking for an escape route. you look like you regret speaking in the first place.
"i'm flattered, really," gojo says, shamelessly checking you out over his sunglasses. "but that's kind of a cheesy pickup line, isn't it?"
your nose scrunches up at you look at him, and you stutter a few times as you lean against the table. gojo watches with an amused smile that quickly drops when you finally gather your thoughts. "ew! that was not an attempt to flirt with you!"
there's a moment of silence before you sigh and slip into the seat across from gojo. you place your elbows on the table, head in your hands as you stare down at the table. another minute passes before you look up, making brief eye contact with gojo's sunglasses before fully laying your head down. "listen, this is gonna sounds crazy."
"try me," gojo says, smirking as he leans forward. one of his elbows rests on the table, check in hand as he watches you struggle with your thoughts.
he's never met you before, hell, he hasn't even seen you before this moment, but the faint cursed energy that surrounds you lets him know exactly who you are. you're a member of the zen'in clan, labeled as missing when your parents fled a couple years after you were born. the discovery of your prophetic dreams had made you an instant target, and you had been so well hidden from society that even gojo and yaga had had a hard time finding you. there was absolutely no information on your childhood or adolescence, and the only way they had managed to locate you was due to a wayward curse you had taken upon yourself to exorcise. the recent spike of your cursed energy had caused an uproar in the jujutsu community, and a race had begun to see who could get to you first.
between jujutsu high, the zen'in clan, the higher-ups, and a special grade curse, gojo thought he was the best option.
"okay, come on," gojo says, standing up and stretching before pushing his chair in. you finally look up, frustration visible on your face as you stare at him. your expression quickly morphs into confusion when gojo gently grabs your arm, tugging you up from your seat and slinging your bag over his shoulder before interlocking arms with you.
"where are we going?" you ask, stumbling after him. he's taller than you, and you find yourself struggling to keep up with his long strides.
"we're gonna go get some coffee!" he says, smiling at you. "i know a place. besides, i wanna know all about those dreams you had of me."
"you don't think i'm lying to you?" you say, eyeing him skeptically. "or that i'm crazy?"
your question goes unanswered, but the look he sends you makes your stomach twist with nervousness. there's a glint in his eye that catches you off guard, and you find yourself wondering if he knows more than he's letting on.
your mind races as he walks you off campus, chatting your ear off as you go. he doesn't receive a single response from you, yet your silence doesn't seem to bother him. if anything, it only motivates him to talk even more, and you find yourself almost enjoying the way he doesn't let the silence last more than a few seconds.
"oh look! there it is," gojo says, fully capturing your attention as he motions towards a small café. it's a small, charming place, one street over, visible through the alleyway the two of you are currently standing in front of. you come to a full stop when he makes a move to walk down the alley, inadvertently pulling him back to your side when he realizes you won't budge.
"what's wrong?" he asks, leaning down to catch your eye. you're met with a startingly blue gaze, and you shift from one foot to another as you tear your eyes away from him. "oh, i know! i bet you're nervous for our date!"
"this isn't a date!" you snap, finally pulling your arm away from him. you can feel a headache coming as he giggles, shoving his hands into his pockets as he walks into the alley. "wait!"
gojo halts at your words, turning around to fully face you. he watches you curiously as you take a few tentative steps forward, a shiver running down your spine when you enter the alley as well. there's a coldness seeping through your bones as you approach gojo, and when you turn to look behind you, it feels as though you've left the busy streets of tokyo completely.
"what's wrong?" gojo asks, the smile still on his face as he observes your reaction. you're almost certain that he knows something you don't at this point.
"this alley," you start, wringing your hands as you take a step back. "this is where we were. in my dream, i mean."
"and what exactly were we doing here?" gojo asks, his teasing tone earning a scowl from you. "this alley is quite inconspicuous, and we're all alone."
the insult you had ready dies on the tip of your tongue as you notice movement behind gojo, and his eyebrows furrow as he notices the sudden change in your demeanor.
"so, in my dream we were here. and you were in danger. i couldn't do anything to help and you—," you cut yourself off, nervousness coating your words as you start to close in on gojo. you ready yourself to fight, remembering every detail about your dream as the curse lurking in the alleyway reveals itself. you curse to yourself as it notices you, and you absentmindedly note that it seems be a grade 1 curse.
"and i?" gojo asks, curiosity coloring his words as he tilts his head in confusion. he hasn't moved at all, and you find yourself wondering if he can sense cursed spirits. in your dream it seemed like he could.
you inhale sharply as the curse lunges, and you notice too late that this scene isn't playing out the same way it had in your dream. you throw yourself at gojo, eyes wide with panic as you realize you're just a bit too far to reach him.
"you have to move!" you shriek, your heart pounding as gojo simply grins at you. he raises his hand silently, fingers twisting as he mutters something under his breath. the curse is killed instantly, and you find yourself collapsing to your knees as you look at gojo in shock.
"y-you—"
"me!" gojo cheers, cutting you off as he approaches you. he hauls you onto your feet and loops his arm with yours once again, guiding you past the disintegrating curse and emerging on the other side of the alley. you spare another glance back at the corpse, swallowing harshly before turning to look at the sorcerer standing next to you.
"who are you?" you ask quietly. the smile doesn't slip from gojo's face as he holds the cafe door open for you, following closely after you and guiding you to an empty table.
"how about we order first? and then i'll answer all of your questions," gojo says, picking up a stray menu and flipping through it casually as if he hasn't just taken down a grade 1 curse with ease. he notices your stare but doesn't comment on it, instead choosing to place the menu back on the table before waving over a server.
"can i get a slice of cake with two forks? oh! and two glasses of chocolate milk please."
gojo twiddles his thumbs as the two of you wait for your order, and you find yourself fully studying him for the first time since you approached him. he's sitting casually, leaning back slightly in a relaxed manner as he hums a song under his breath. when he notices your stare, he sends you a small grin and proceeds to go back to observing his surroundings.
he's much too relaxed for someone who just had an encounter with a curse, and you realize that he truly does know a lot more than you originally thought.
"here's your order!"
gojo thanks the server enthusiastically as you mutter your appreciation, your hands closing around the glass he pushes towards you without much thought.
"so, who are you?" you finally ask, repeating the question that gojo had ignored earlier. he laughs at your words, grabbing one of the forks and taking a bite of cake as he extends the other one to you. he waits for you to grab the fork, using his own to pick up another piece of cake before he notices you don't make a move to take it from him.
"what? you want me to feed you instead?" he asks, eyelashes fluttering as he gives you a flirty smile. he places the fork meant for you back on the table, leaning in closer and bringing his own fork to your mouth. "i guess that would be more date-like. okay, say ah!"
his enthusiasm dies down when he notices the frown tugging at your lips, and he deflates in defeat when you push his hand aside and reach for the other fork. you fiddle with it for a couple of seconds before placing it back down and looking at him with a glare.
"who are you?" you demand once more, your eye twitching in annoyance when gojo opens his mouth. you have no doubt he's about to say something stupid. "if you don't tell me, i will scream for help."
his mouth clamps shut as he studies you quietly, taking another bite of the cake before sighing.
"my name is gojo satoru," he finally says, holding his hand out to you as he introduces himself. you place your hand in his hesitantly, a gasp leaving you when he brings your hand up to his mouth and presses a soft kiss against your knuckles. "and you, you're a zen'in."
gojo watches as your eyes go wide at his words, and you yank your hand out his grasp before looking around nervously.
"no, i'm not," you say quietly. "i've never heard that name in my life."
you receive a funny look from gojo, and he crosses his arms before snorting. "yeah, ok. i totally believe you."
"how do you know that name," you say quietly, your eyes still scanning your surroundings. your shoulders are tense, and gojo can tell that you're seconds away from sprinting out of your seat and away from him.
"it's a pretty well known name in the jujutsu world," gojo responds, his head tilting as he looks at you questioningly. "so you know about curses, but not about the clans?"
"sorry, i'm afraid learning about the politics of the jujutsu world was the least of my worries," you reply sarcastically, rolling your eyes as you do so. gojo thinks it's kind of endearing. "the information on curses was much more important, so i kinda just tuned out my parents when they gave me that lecture."
gojo chuckles, shaking his head slightly at your words. he leans forward without much thought, holding out three fingers as he speaks. "there's three big jujutsu families that exist. there's the kamo clan, the gojo clan, and the zen'in clan. you and i belong to two of those. and all three of them are looking for you."
you shift in your seat at his words, giving him a wary glance before shrugging nonchalantly. "so you found me first. now what?"
there's a slight nervousness to your tone, causing gojo to frown. he shrugs, grabbing his glass and taking a drink. "i dunno. i wasn't sent on behalf of the gojo clan. i was sent by yaga masamichi, the principal of tokyo jujutsu high. we have no plans to turn you over to the higher-ups, it that makes this situation any better."
"then what do you plan on doing?"
"now that, i also don't know," gojo confesses. he notices the look of irritation on your face and chuckles. "all we know is that your power is too strong to be left unchecked. now, i'm not necessarily kidnapping you, but i am asking you to return to the school with me and speak with yaga. we think there's a way that your dreams could help jujutsu sorcerers know what they could possibly be dealing with on a mission ahead of time."
"i don't think that'll be possible," you mutter, frowning down at the table. you seem lost in thought, and gojo gives you a moment of silence before he speaks.
"what do you mean by that?" gojo's voice is soft, his eyebrows knit in concern as you give him a worried look.
"i mean that i don't think my dreams are reliable," you whisper, panic lacing your words.
"they're prophetic dreams!" gojo yells quietly. "what do you mean they're not reliable."
"ok, look," you say, pausing to reach for the half-eaten slice of cake. you finally take a bite, eyes lighting up as you hum with delight. "that is good! ok, anyways, i don't think my dreams are truly prophetic."
"that's literally not possible," gojo argues, eyes wide in disbelief. "it's a part of your cursed technique! everyone knows that the zen'in clan members with this ability are never wrong."
"well they are now!"
"what do you mean by that?"
"i mean that my dream wasn't accurate," you explain, taking another bite of the cake. you ignore gojo's confused look, sighing before pushing the plate back towards him. "that dream i had of you? yeah the real-life scenario didn't play out the way it was supposed to."
gojo's stare hardens as he processes your words, and he pushed the cake aside as he looks at you questioningly. "what do you mean it didn't play out the way it was supposed to?"
"you were supposed to die," you confess, your voice no louder than a whisper. the silence between the two of you is heavy, and you wonder if your admission was much too harsh. "in my dream, the curse attacked you after i failed to protect you. i don't know what changed."
"well, i'm the strongest sorcerer alive, so there's your answer," gojo says, an uncertain smile on his face as he tries to lighten the mood. "besides, i had to step up my game. i wasn't going to leave someone as precious as you to defend yourself."
his efforts pay off as you huff out a laugh. it's weak, but it manages to dispel the heaviness that had been previously present.
"listen," gojo begins, his tone uncharacteristically serious for the first time since you've approached him. "i'm not trying to freak you out or anything, but that's incredibly strange. there has never been a zen'in prophetic dream that didn't come true. i really think you should speak with yaga, or tengen. but i won't force you to."
"tengen?" you ask, confusion on your face as you look down at the table. "who's that?"
"long story," gojo breathes, making the decision to let yaga fill you in on that. "but what do you say? i'd really like to figure this out, but i kinda need you in order to be able to do that."
there's a moment of hesitation on your end, and gojo finds himself tensing up as he waits for you to speak. he's almost certain that you're going to decline, and he's afraid that once you walk out of the café, you'll be gone forever once again. his fears are dispelled when you look up to meet his gaze, determination clearly visible in your eyes as you nod.
"okay, i'll go with you."
"great!" gojo says, his grin reappearing as he stands. he places a small wad of cash on the table before walking around the table to you and offering you his hand. you've barely slipped your hand into his before he tugs you towards him, his grin getting wider as you bump into his chest. you don't get the chance to say anything before he's walking out of the café, throwing a cursory glance around before heading down the street. "let's get out of here. we shouldn't stay in one place too long, just in case."
gojo chatters endlessly once again as you presumably head towards tokyo jujutsu high, and you find yourself staring at him as you recall your entire day in your mind. gojo satoru had single-handedly disrupted the course of fate, and neither one of you had any idea as to how.
you can feel a headache coming on the longer you stare at him, and you finally look away when he glances back at you and gives you a charming grin.
you have no idea who gojo satoru is, but if he has the power to change the course of your prophetic dreams, then you're determined to find out more about him.
and he sure as hell wasn't going to complain about that.
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reblogs are appreciated <3 thank you for reading!!
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afeelgoodblog · 7 months
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The Best News of Last Week - September 11, 2023
Sorry for not sending last week's issue as I got covid again :/ I passed it, so here's the best things that happened last week :)
1. The IRS plans to crack down on 1,600 millionaires to collect millions of dollars in back taxes
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The IRS announced on Friday it is launching an effort to aggressively pursue 1,600 millionaires and 75 large business partnerships that owe hundreds of millions of dollars in past due taxes. The newly announced tax collection effort will begin as soon as October. “We have more hiring to do,” Werfel said. “It’s going to be a very busy fall for us.”
2. The NGO African Parks announced it would purchase the world’s largest population of privately owned white rhinos
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Africa’s beleaguered rhinos have been thrown a significant lifeline with the announcement that nearly 2,000 semi-wild rhinos owned by South African rhino breeder John Hume will be “rewilded” into reserves across South Africa and other parts of the continent over the next 10 years.
3. Mexico supreme court decriminalizes abortion across country
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Mexico’s supreme court has unanimously ruled that state laws prohibiting abortion are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights, in the latest in a series of victories for reproductive rights activists across Latin America.
Wednesday’s ruling came two years after the court ordered the northern state of Coahuila to remove sanctions for abortion from its criminal code, a decision which prompted a tortuous state-by-state process of legal battles. So far 12 of Mexico’s 31 states have decriminalized the procedure.
4. The first human organ created inside an animal opens the door to manufacturing ‘spare parts’ for people
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It is a historic image. A team of researchers in China has successfully generated a blueprint of a human organ in another animal for the first time. The experiment, conducted with humanized kidneys in pig embryos, represents a step toward the still-distant dream of using other mammals as source of organs for transplants.
5. Study Shows a Single Dose of Psilocybin's Astonishing Impact on Depression and Could Change Medical Treatments of Mental Health Forever
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Psychedelics are making a comeback, and this time, they're dressed in the respectable garb of clinical research. Recent studies have reignited interest in these substances, particularly psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, as a potent treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD).
6. Missing cat reunited with owner after it disappeared during Alaska flooding
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Twenty-six days after he went missing, an adorable black and white cat named Leo has been reunited with his family. Brave Leo went missing after historic glacial flooding swept away his home and all his owner's belongings.
7. Dogs perform Mozart with orchestra in Denmark
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A classical music festival in Copenhagen, Denmark, has opened with some canine additions to the orchestra.
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That's it for this week :)
This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation here:
Buy me a coffee ❤️
Also don’t forget to reblog this post with your friends.
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irisltrs · 4 months
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A workshop teaching Zionists how to edit Wikipedia pages to be more favorable towards Israel. This is just one of many Israeli projects to manipulate Wikipedia, social media, and the Internet in general.
The speaker in the video is Naftali Bennet, a high tech millionaire and a right-wing Israeli minister close to the settler movement.
In 2010 two Israeli groups began offering a course in “Zionist editing” of Wikipedia entries. The aim was “to make sure that information in the online encyclopedia reflects the worldview of Zionist groups.” A course organizer explained that the use of the word “occupied” in Wikipedia entries “was just the kind of problem she hoped a new team of editors could help fix.”
Again in 2013, there was evidence of pro-Israel tampering with Wikipedia. Israel’s Ha’aretz reported that a social-media employee of NGO Monitor edited articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an allegedly biased manner. “Draiman concealed the facts that he was an employee of NGO Monitor, often described as a right-wing group, and that he was using a second username, which is forbidden under Wikipedia’s rules,” according to the paper.
Such actions have had an impact. A website critical of Wikipedia said in 2014 that there were “almost ten times as many articles about murdered Israeli children as there are articles about murdered Palestinian children,” even though at least 10 times more Palestinian children had been killed.
Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper reported: “The organizers’ aim was twofold: to affect Israeli public opinion by having people who share their ideological viewpoint take part in writing and editing for the Hebrew version, and to write in English so Israel’s image can be bolstered abroad.”
There was to be a prize for the “Best Zionist Editor”—the person who over the next four years incorporated the most “Zionist” changes in the encyclopedia. The winner would receive a trip in a hot-air balloon over Israel.
How Israel and its partisans work to censor the Internet
Israel and partisans of Israel have long had a significant presence on the Internet, working to promote the lsrael narrative and block facts about Palestine, the Israel lobby, and other subject matter they wish covered up.
Opinionated proponents of Israel post comments, flag content, accuse critics of "antisemitism, and disseminate misinformation about Palestine and Palestine solidarity activists. Many of these actions are by individuals acting alone who work independently, voluntarily, and relentlessly.
In addition to these, however, a number of orchestrated, often well-funded projects sponsored by the Israeli government and others have come to light. These projects work to place pro-lsrael content throughout the Internet, and to remove information Israel doesn't wish people to know.
One such Israeli project targeting the Internet came to light when it was lauded in an article by Arutz Sheva, an Israeli news organization headquartered in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
The report described a new project by Israel's "New Media desk" that focused on YouTube and other social media sites. The article reported that Israeli soldiers were being employed to Tweet, Share, Like and more."The article noted, "It is well known nowadays that what happens on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has great influence on events as they occur on the ground. The Internet, too, is a battleground." It was"comforting," the article stated, to learn that the IDF was employing soldiers whose job was specifically to do battle on it.
Full article here 2018
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reasonsforhope · 10 months
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One of the things that I really appreciate about this blog is that now, every now and then, when I hear about some new awful thing in the world, it will be in the context of "and this is what people are doing to fight it". That's so much less paralyzing.
(If you have any sources to recommend for experiencing more of that, me and my mental health would be further indebted.)
Ahhh, I forgot about this message, sorry! Been a hectic couple of months.
I absolutely have more sources!
One of the biggest is the media collaboration The Solutions Journalism Network, which focuses on just that: closing the massive gap between people reporting on problems and people reporting solutions.
I have a giant bookmark list of sources for this blog, for good news stories and hope, so here's a bunch of links! Roughly in order of how good I think they are (in terms of size of stories, previously uncovered stories, good editorial standards, accuracy, detail, number of stories, etc. etc.)
We're gonna start with the ones that do good news ONLY, because sometimes you fucking need that, and then below I'll link some excellent sources that have a higher than average number of quality pieces on good news, even though they also publish other stuff too.
Good and hopeful news sources:
Future Crunch - If you only read one of these sites, read this one!!! It's a MASSIVE biweekly roundup of international good news stories with really high quality reporting--a lot of UN and WHO and major NGO reports as their sources. I cry from hope at LEAST 30% of the times I read this, and tbh it used to be like 100%, about a year ago when I started realizing that hope for the planet and for humanity was something that was REASONABLE TO HAVE.
Reasons to Be Cheerful - Fewer stories, but FANTASTIC quality of reporting, especially on fantastic local stories, many of them in international communities, that you've definitely never heard of before
Positive.News - Good coverage and especially roundups, mostly Europe-focused.
Good News Network - This one is awesome for the high number and approachability of its stories, but unfortunately also includes more "That's not news that's just a heartwarming anecdote" and "That's not good news it's actually dystopian" pieces than I'd like.
Jane Goodall's Good For All News - Really awesome focus on international issues, a lot of news from Africa, a lot of news about youth organizers and youth-led projects, and a lot of focus on how helping the environment and helping communities are inextricably connected. Yall Jane Goodall is doing SO MUCH amazing work out there even at her age, and most people also have no idea.
Good Black News - Mostly posts on music and entertainment, and doesn't post all that often, but they're great.
Good Good Good
The Good News Hub
Only Good News Daily
( ) for Tomorrow - Directory of grassroots solutions to all types of issues and "proof that no solution is too small to have an impact"
A Plus - Dedicated to uplifting stories in video form. I'm sure they're awesome, I just don't rly use them bc videos can set off my sensory issues
The Happy Broadcast - Illustrated good news tidbits! I haven't been using them much but it looks like they've (recently?) added more text and sources to each image, so I might change that. Illustrations are pretty cute tbh
Sources that publish a lot of good news, but also other not good stuff:
Euronews.Green - Environmental section of European news org
Yes! Magazine - Excellent solutions-focused journalism, excellent focus on BIPOC content and underrepresented communities
TheMayor.EU - EU-focused, discusses a lot of good projects and cool local developments/programs
Grist - Solutions journalism, fantastic corage especially on environmental issues
Mongabay - Billed as "News & Inspiration from Nature's Frontline," they are amazing and have some of the best goddamn reporting I've ever seen. They mean "frontline" very literally: there's a TON of pieces about and by and interviewing communities on the front lines of environmental conflict, especially developing nations and Indigenous communities world wide. That said there's also a lot of bad news on nature's frontline still, while they report a lot of amazing and powerful good news, make sure you're in a resilient mood when you visit this site, because some of the stories are also pretty upsetting.
Indian Country Today and Native News Online - two of the leading news orgs for Indigenous communities in the United States. Kind of like Mongabay in that they have a lot of good news stories from Indigenous communities that often no one else is reporting on, but also plenty of coverage of things that are definitely not good, so better to read when you're in a resilient mood.
If you have any good news sites/sources you'd like to add, please drop them in the replies or comments! I'm always looking for new good news sources (though I def don't always have time to use all of them, rip!). Plus, let's support these sites by giving them some traffic!
We could all use more ways to get some more good news.
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juana-the-iguana · 5 months
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Navigating media during war
Here are some tips to navigate the conflict without a paid subscription. Disclaimer, I am based in the United States and this advice is for people in the US. These tips may apply for all wars, but I wrote this with the Israel-Hamas conflict in mind.
My qualifications: I am a reporter who has worked on both local, state, national and international stories. I have covered breaking news, and have done enterprising news and investigative journalism. I will graduate with a MA in Journalism in a month. 
Reasons to question my authority: I have less than five year of professional experience. I have never reported on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or anywhere else in the Middle East. I speak neither modern Hebrew nor Arabic. 
Moving on:
The best tip I can give you is pick a few good news sources and wait two days after any given event or incident before claiming to understand what happened.
In the United States, our news industry is incentivized toward breaking news, which means that organizations sometimes air information without having time to thoroughly fact check it. This becomes especially evident in times of war, when it is hard to obtain information and even on-the-ground reporters don't have the full picture of what's happening.
You are not going to find a perfect news organization. They're all going to fuck up in some capacity. If you have a strong stance on this issue, you're going to be more sensitive to those mistakes and real or perceived biases. (And, for the record, it is possible for one organization to hold multiple biases depending on the time of day, presenter and facet of the war being discussed.) That's why it is genuinely important to consume multiple news sources.
So if you're wondering why I chose these sources it's because a) they're free, b) they issue corrections when they're wrong and c) they do not engage in disinformation.
In no particular order: BBC, Reuters, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, AP. You should not rely on only one of these. You should fact-check these against bias sources that don't outright lie. 
Now onto the sources you should avoid. Let's get into disinformation: What is it? 
Disinformation is the intentional spreading of false information. It's lying. Misinformation is inaccurate information that is spread around, but not done with malice.
All news organizations have misinformation at some point. You should NEVER trust a news organization that engages in disinformation, about anything, unless several years have passed, the people responsible for the disinformation have been thoroughly purged from the group and they cite every goddamn thing they said.
The two big organizations I recommend avoiding because they engage in disinformation are Fox News and Al Jazeera.
Fox News lied about the 2020 election in the United States and actively contributed to an attempted insurrection. Al Jazeera is an arm of the Qatari state and has lied repeatedly about, well, just about everything of interest to the Qatari government, but especially Israel. They have made several highly consequential lies in this ongoing conflict that have had tangible, catastrophic consequences on the entire globe. 
Advocacy groups are not news outlets.
Also, don't trust terrorist organizations. Yes, the UN, WHO, Amnesty International and pretty much every NGO under the sun and the vast majority of news organizations cite them, but that's not because they're reliable, it's because they're the only group releasing information from Gaza.
You shouldn't take the IDF at face value either, but if what the IDF is saying is verified by the US, EU and/or other reliable, third parties, then that information is probably true. 
No news source is perfect. That's just a fact. I cannot stress the importance of looking at multiple sources.
Here are some things to look out for when watching/reading the news.
- If a news source is attributing facts to two different sources, ask yourself, "why?" Information is hard to come by. Sometimes one source doesn't report everything you want to know. But sometimes you know your source is unreliable, you don't have any alternatives, so you want to distance yourself from that. What does this look like? 
You might see people cite two sources to report death counts in Gaza: the Palestinian Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, and Save the Children which analyzes information about the number of children killed. Save the Children gets the estimated number of deaths from Hamas. 
- Does it make sense to have this information at this time? If there was an explosion and a government states that 500 people died in it, well, how much time did it take them to count those bodies? Does that sound feasible?
- When you're listening to eye-witness interviews, do their perspectives or narratives match up with the physical scenes you are seeing? They might not be lying, it could be a miscommunication, but for the context it is presented in, it might not be accurate.
Language to look out for:
Occupation, blockade, siege, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, ethnic cleansing, legitimate military targets and apartheid are all distinct things. All of them, with the exception of apartheid, have specific legal definitions. If people are using these things interchangeably, maybe they're sharing opinions. That doesn't mean that what they're saying isn't valuable, but it does mean that you probably shouldn't cite them when debating international law.
Now let's elaborate on "occupation" for a second. Egypt occupied Gaza from 1949 to 1967. Then Israel occupied Gaza until 2005. In 2007 Israel started the blockade on Gaza and last month, after the 10/7 massacre, they started a siege. As noted above, these are distinct things.
If people are talking about occupation or settlements in the context of this conflict it means either one of four things:
- They are talking about the West Bank, which is under occupation and where settlements do exist
- They are talking about the history of Gaza pre 2005
- They do not know that Gaza isn't under occupation and that there are no longer settlements there (which means that they are not an informed source)
- Or they assume the entire Israeli state is occupying Palestine which, whether you like it or not, is not factually or correct
Just because something feels wrong doesn't mean it is illegal. Occupations, blockades, sieges, the use of white phosphorous and bombing areas where you know there are civilians are all legal in certain contexts. 
Legality might not matter to you personally, but when you're watching the news and trying to assess who is sharing facts and who is sharing opinions, you should keep this in mind.
Other notes:
- Rockets need fuel. Ventilation systems in tunnels need fuel. 
- Movies and tv shows are filmed in Gaza and the West Bank. If you see a photo of someone in a body bag texting or women laughing while painting a baby doll red, it might be a behind-the-scenes video from one of those things.
- There are a lot of AI generated pictures being used, especially in propaganda. Count fingers, arms, legs and look at backgrounds to see if what you are seeing makes sense. But for the love of god, if you don't like something, that doesn't mean it's AI.
- There are a lot of photos circulating from past wars. Be careful before you reblog. Reverse Google image search is your friend. 
- If you are not sure if something is real or not, wait a week. If the US, EU and dozens of journalists say it is true, believe it.
Finally, social media. When is it appropriate to use social media for news?
News aggregates are usually okay. I'm talking places like r/worldnews. They are pulling from other news organizations, so they can repeat those flaws, but they give you a mix of headlines from multiple sources. And they'll very often post large parts, if not the entirety, of articles from sources from the New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal that have paywalls in the comments. But also beware the comments because they can be disgusting.
Social media is also very good for sharing the individual human experience. The issue with that is that you can't always vet the person on camera or being spoken about, so they could be lying, spreading misinformation and it isn't the whole picture. 
This needs to be said again and again: social media dehumanizes people. You know this, but you will fall victim to it anyway. Your algorithm will do its best to show you the best versions of the people and groups you like, and the worst versions of the people and groups you don't like to make you feel justified in adopting dehumanizing beliefs. 
For anyone interested, I'm going to update the list of news sources I think are trustworthy in the next few days. I've found a few small, independent and/or foreign outlets that use open source intelligence (OSINT) in their reporting and they seem pretty reliable to me, but I want to vet them a bit further.
EDITED: Removed the name of a news organization that I previously said I thought was reliable. They did not issue a correction after uncritically repeating Hamas's lie that the al-Ahli hospital parking lot bombing was an Israeli airstrike that killed 500 people, and spent days repeating these false claims as if they were fact.
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highball66 · 7 months
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Sorry if this was asked before but what kind of living residence do you think the characters (Leon, Chris, Claire, Jill, and Rebecca mainly) would have? Like living in an apartment or house- what kind of decor they’d have?
We’ve seen Jill’s apartment in Resident Evil 3 remake briefly and it seems she keeps her living situation simple.
Hehehe this is actually something I was thinking about recently too.
In terms of house vs apartment that's fairly dependent on their salaries and where they live. There's a lot of unknowns in this situation, especially since we don't know what city anyone but Leon and Rebecca (presumably) live in, but I'll do my best to take things into account.
Rebecca works as a researcher, an advisor to the BSAA and the DSO, and has been a professor at a college. Realistically, she's going to be making a lotttt of money. She also presumably lives in Chicago currently since that's where she works (the Alexander Institute of Biotechnology), so I'm going to go with either a nice house or a luxury apartment. She probably makes the most income out of all of the characters. We know she lived and worked in Western Australia for a little bit previously, so she doesn't seem to be the type opposed to moving around. I'd assume she'd probably have either a very neat or a very messy living area. It'd either be an ikea show room with lots of white and a minimalism vibe or there'd be papers strewn everywhere from late nights of research.
Claire's situation is very complicated since TerraSave is an NGO and we don't know much about the organization. Generally speaking, NGO employees make around 30k a year for smaller organizations but since TerraSave is international and a fairly large, well-known organization in-universe, I'd assume she'd be making fairly decent money (similar to that of UN NGO employees). Since she's out of the country/her state fairly frequently, I could see her going for either a house or an apartment. I'm leaning toward apartment more cuz that'd be easier for her to maintain (not having to worry about a yard, maintenance, etc). I think she'd be similar to Rebecca in that it'd either be very clean or look like a paperwork bomb went off but I think she'd have a more of a rustic or contemporary decor style. She likes motorcycles and Queen so I'm seeing a more dark wood/finishes and stuff like that.
Chris and Jill are in the same situation, both have pretty much the same job and would likely live in the same area since they work for the BSAA. We don't know *where* the US-BSAA base is, only that it's likely near an AF base, but I would assume possibly the DC area or somewhere out in California. Both have a high cost of living, but Chris and Jill would likely make a decent salary. I'm going to go with apartment since we know Jill had an apartment in re3 and, like I said with Claire, it'd probably be easier for them to maintain since they're often out of the country.
Chris's apartment would be a disaster, he's canonically a messy person (or at least he was back in RE1) so he's definitely got a pizza box on the counter and some dishes in the sink. I don't think Chris would care enough about interior design to really pick out one specific style, so I think he'd just get what he wants. Lots of vinyls hung up, dark furinture, lots of rugs, stuff like that.
I don't know enough about interior design to describe what style Jill's apartment from RE3 was but I'd assume it'd at least be pretty similar
Leon almost certainly has an apartment. He lives in DC since that's where the DSO is based, and DC has a high cost of living. Federal agents, even special agents, don't make a whole lot (especially taking into account the COL) and considering they have no incentive to give Leon any kind of fair wage (since he was *forced* to work there), he's probably not making much. I feel like he's got pretty basic furniture, probably all a darker finish too but lotsss of knickknacks. Posters for things he likes, paintings he found that he thought looked cool, little trinkets he's collected over the years, things like that. I feel like the status of his apartment would be wholly dependent on his mental state. When he first comes back from a mission or isn't in the best mindset, the apartment is probably a mess. Every glass he owns is sitting on his nightstand full of water and god knows what else and there's clothes all over the floor, half the sheets are also on the floor. I feel like his room would be a mess and probably the kitchen too but the living room area would probably be ok.
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yurimother · 1 year
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Final Volume of Sapphic School Band Romance Series 'Hello, Melancholic' Released in English
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On Tuesday, the third and final volume of Yayoi Ohsawa's Yuri romance manga Hello, Melancholic was released in English digitally by Seven Seas Entertainment. The publisher will release a print edition of the volume on December 20.
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The coming-of-age story follows lanky and awkward first-year high school student Asano Minato. Despite her talent with the trombone and large frame, she does her best to fade into the background. But she catches the eye of her bubbly and charismatic senpai, Hibiki, who wants nothing more than for Minato to join her newly formed and won’t take no for an answer. The manga follows their growing relationship and daily life in school with the band.
Seven Seas describes the final volume:
Chika and Sakiko’s past has struck a chord with Minato. But just as she starts to confront her feelings for Hibiki, the two clash over the future of their aspiring band.
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The series has received positive reviews from audiences and critics. Hello, Melancholic! was serialized in Comic Yuri Hime from 2019 until its conclusion in November 2021. Ichijinsha publishes the series in three Japanese volumes. It is translated into English by Margaret Ngo, with adaptation by Marykate Jasper and lettering by Mo Harrison.
You can check out the final volume of Hello, Melancholic digitally today and preorder the third volume in paperback ahead of its December 20 release: https://amzn.to/3ATWUWN
Reading official releases helps support creators and publishers. YuriMother makes a small affiliate commission from sales to help fund future coverage.
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mariacallous · 8 months
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Belarusian Paralympic athlete Alexei Talai was waiting on the platform of Minsk’s main train station as a locomotive glided in and dozens of children from Ukraine’s besieged Donbas region spilled onto the platform, where they were greeted with a bunch of brightly colored balloons. According to reports in state media, their journey from eastern Ukraine to Belarus was organized by Talai’s charity with the personal backing of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, a man who has described himself as “Europe’s last dictator.”
A broadcast on the state-owned City TV about the children’s arrival last September painted it as a feel-good humanitarian deed: The children surrounded Talai’s wheelchair, chanting “Thank you, thank you.” To international legal experts and U.S. government officials, it is potentially a war crime.
Of all the atrocities that Russian forces have been accused of since the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year—a list that includes mass graves, torture, and the bombing of hospitals—the systematic deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and the territories it occupies was the subject of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin and a top advisor earlier this year. Ukrainian officials estimate that some 20,000 children have been taken to Russia in what researchers at Yale University have described as a systematic program for the forcible adoption and indoctrination of Ukraine’s children.
While Russia’s role in the deportation of Ukrainian children has been well documented, details have only just begun to emerge of a similar operation in Belarus—details that could expose those involved, including Lukashenko, to war crimes charges.
“I think anyone involved could be charged under the same theories,” said a senior U.S. government official, speaking on background under ground rules set by the Biden administration, noting that the deportation of civilians to Belarus followed a similar “fact pattern” as those to Russia.
The arrival of groups of hundreds of children from eastern Ukraine to Belarus, where they are sent to large recreational camps, has been well documented in the country’s state media, which hews closely to the government’s line. But rights advocates and foreign governments are only just starting to grapple with what happens to the children from there.
“Information about those camps is really in short supply,” said Wayne Jordash, a human rights lawyer who is assisting the Ukrainian government’s war crimes investigations.
Parents themselves have been some of the best sources of information about the deportations, said Kateryna Rashevska, a Ukrainian human rights lawyer who is investigating Belarus’s role. As swaths of Ukrainian territory were liberated in a counteroffensive last year, stories began to emerge of desperate parents traveling to Russia in search of their children. But those taken to Belarus have come from regions that are still under Russian occupation and beyond the reach of investigators.
Pavel Latushka, Belarus’s former minister of culture-turned-opposition figure, has the most detailed public accounting of deportations. By tracking posts on social networks, reports in the state media, and from its own sources, his organization, the National Anti-Crisis Management Group, found evidence that at least 2,100 Ukrainian children were taken to Belarus from occupied territories between September 2022 and May of this year. What they found was evidence of “systematically organized, [large] scale war crimes, led by Lukashenko personally and supported by some individuals and so-called NGOs,” he said in an interview.
In June, Latushka handed over a dossier of information about his findings to the International Criminal Court (ICC). A spokesperson for the court declined to comment.
When contacted for comment for this article, the charge d’affaires at the Belarusian Embassy in Washington, D.C., Pavel Shidlovsky, responded with a link to a news article in the Belarusian state media in which Lukashenko dismissed concerns about the deportations as “simply ridiculous” and suggested that Ukrainian children were being trafficked to the West to have their organs harvested. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The public face of the deportations is Talai, a Paralympic swimmer, motivational speaker, and strong supporter of the Belarusian regime. According to the website of his eponymous foundation, they began facilitating the transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus as early as August 2021, before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion. The move was backed by a decree signed by Lukashenko, according to a statement by the presidential press service. Starting last September, reports of the deportations became more frequent. Among the facilities they have been dispatched to is Dubrava, a large children’s summer camp run by the state-owned fertilizer behemoth Belaruskali, which is already under sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department. The Talai foundation did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
It can take investigators years to tie battlefield atrocities to senior commanders and a country’s leadership, but efforts to transfer Ukrainian children en masse out of the Donbas into Russia and Belarus have been carried out in plain sight and been widely documented on social networks, in the state media, and in remarks by top government officials in both countries, which is likely why it was the subject of the first ICC arrest warrants.
The deportations to Belarus have been funded by the Union State, an economic and political union between Moscow and Minsk, according to statements by a senior official involved. In October, Dmitry Mezentsev, a Russian official who serves as the head of the union, visited the Dubrava camp. “We are participants in their future,” he said during the visit, according to a Russian government newspaper. The Union State had already given tens of millions of rubles to support Talai’s efforts and would continue doing so, he said.
Social media posts by the Talai foundation and reports in the state media describe the children as being drawn from a variety of backgrounds: orphans, children with disabilities and those from impoverished families, and those living in children’s homes. Latushka’s team claims to have identified at least 50 orphans that were among the children taken to Belarus.
The Geneva Conventions, which serve as the backbone of international humanitarian law, provide detailed provisions regarding the treatment and evacuation of children in wartime: Children are to be evacuated to a neutral third country if possible, and written consent by guardians must be secured when they can be found. The deportations to Russia and Belarus are a flagrant violation of those principles, experts say. “It’s difficult for Belarus to assert that it is a neutral country,” Jordash said, as Belarusian territory was used by the Russian military to launch the assault on Kyiv.
In instances where parents have offered written consent, it’s difficult to argue that they have done so of their own free will. “Cities are under siege, and there is a lot of shelling. And when a man with a gun shows up at your house and offers to send your child to a summer camp, it’s hard to say no,” said Katya Pavlevych, a policy advisor on child deportations to the Ukrainian nonprofit Razom. Parents have sent their children to summer camps in Russia for a few weeks in the hopes of offering them some respite from the war without being told that the children would not be returned.
The Geneva Conventions explicitly prohibit any efforts to change the identity or nationality of children evacuated from war zones. One of the most controversial aspects of Russia’s deportation of Ukrainian children has been Moscow’s determination to indoctrinate them, erase their Ukrainian language and culture, and fast-track their Russian citizenship. The smattering of information about the fate of Ukrainian children in Belarus suggests that reeducation efforts may be underway.
An Instagram post by the Talai foundation from last June showed a group of children from the Donbas visiting a unit of the Belarusian security forces that specializes in crowd control. The unit was involved in the violent repression of pro-democracy protests in 2020 after another fraudulent Belarusian election. In an interview last October with Sputnik, the international arm of Russian state media, the head of a Minsk region mining and oil trade union suggested that Ukrainian children from the mining regions of the Donbas were an ideal “target group” to be trained to work in Belarus’ mining industry.
In an interview with Belarusian state TV, Olga Vokova, whose organization “Dolphins” is based in the unrecognized separatist Donetsk People’s Republic and has worked with Talai to bring children from the Donbas to Belarus, described children from newly occupied regions, such as Mariupol in southern Ukraine, as “pre-programmed” for evil. She said that they had to do “everything so as to melt their hearts and show them that we [people from the separatist regions] are not evil.”
Rashevska, the Ukrainian human rights lawyer, said similar efforts were underway in Belarus, as in Russia, to quash their identities.
“In these camps, the national identity of Ukrainian children is eradicated. These children are brainwashed, Russified, militarized,” she said.
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naturalrights-retard · 11 months
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Globalist billionaire Bill Gates has been exposed pumping tens of millions of dollars into the campaign to remove the age of consent around the world, arguing that children are “sexual beings”, and essentially making young children fair game at the hands of pedophiles.
Bill Gates comes from a long line of eugenicists and his father Bill Gates Sr. served on the board of Planned Parenthood. Now Bill Gates has been exposed funding the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), a group that is also campaigning for kids to be sexualized from an early age.
The IPPF was originally created by Planned Parenthood’s original founder, Margaret Sanger, a eugenicist and proponent of depopulation, in the 1950s.
This group has been operating in the shadows for years, influencing governments and educational institutions, and it’s time to bring their activities into the light.
Before we begin, make sure to subscribe to the channel and join the People’s Voice Locals Community to support the channel and gain access to uncensored and exclusive content.
So what is it exactly about removing the age of consent around the world and decriminalizing sex with children that Bill Gates, Jeffrey Epstein’s old friend, finds so appealing?
Gates has pumped $80 million into the IPPF in recent years as they continue the push to convince the world that children are “sexual beings” and it’s unfair to deny them their right to experience sex.
Bear in mind, the only lesson Gates said he could draw from the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s demise is that “we have to be more careful.”
Watch:
Does Gates have our children’s best interests at heart? It’s highly doubtful considering he can’t stop smirking whenever he talks about children dying.
In 2017, Gates’ IPPF released a toolkit which provided a revealing insight into their depraved agenda and demonstrated exactly how they are attempting to teach sex education to children around the world.
The shocking toolkit was first flagged by Nicole Solas of the Independent Women’s Forum.
According to the IPPF, children under 10 must be taught that they were “born sexual” and they should know that sex comes in many forms, including prostitution.
“Sexual activity may be part of different types of relationships, including dating, marriage, or commercial sex work, among others.”
The toolkit said that children under 10 should also be told: “As you grow up, you might start to be interested in people with diverse gender identities.”
“[S]ex positivity acknowledges that human beings, including adolescents and young people, are autonomous sexual beings,” the NGO adds.
But it gets even worse. According to Bill Gates’ IPPF, educators must have an “Understanding of young people as sexual beings” because “[A]ll people are sexual beings with sexual rights, regardless of their age.”
As a consequence of this twisted logic, the IPPF is arguing that we must remove the age of consent, as a matter of urgency, around the world.
Young children must have “the right to say yes or no to sex; the right to express sexuality, including the right to seek pleasure; the right to enjoy bodily autonomy…”
And Bill Gates can’t stop quietly donating huge sums to this organization that is obsessed with the sexuality of children.
Should we be surprised? Or is Gates hiding in plain site? After all, this is the man whose wife divorced him because he refused to end his friendship with the most notorious pedophile of our era.
Bill Gates’ support for IPPF wouldn’t be such a problem if the organization didn’t wield significant influence on global sex education, comprising 120 independent organizations in over 146 countries.
The globalist elite have been working behind the scenes for decades to construct the reality we are living in right now and Bill Gates is not the only member of the elite working to remove the age of consent around the world and decriminalize sex with children.
The World Economic Forum in Davos has made it a central tenet of their evil agenda and they are using their leverage with corrupt and infiltrated governments to create a world that is not safe for our children.
Here at the People’s Voice we will continue reporting on the crimes of the elite and exposing their dark occult agenda. But we need your help. Share this video with anyone who needs the information and subscribe to the channel to stay up to date with our news reports. To support the channel, join the People’s Voice Locals community. I hope to see you there.
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sidhewrites · 3 months
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23! Everything is lovely! Kaz and Lucy get to go on a proper date, and we get some lovely halloween fun. Nothing goes wrong at the end of this chapter, don't even worry about it.
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For the next few days, I stand at my window, staring at the spot behind the church where I know Magnus's bones lay. I can't see it well from my vantage point, and I don't know what I'm looking for, but it doesn't matter. Nothing happens. Magnus is gone, sealed in a jar at the bottom of his grave -- hopefully for the rest of eternity.
Renfield is fine. Despite being pure white, and occasionally appearing to glow, he's back to his old self, snoring and purring and meeping in the hopes that I'd give him some cold cuts or catnip -- which I do anyway, since he's old and arthritic again, and deserves the best for however long he has left. I'm thinking of talking to Mr. Ngo about purchasing a plot in the cemetery for him. It's expensive and stupid, but I'd want him buried next to Lucy when he goes.
Lucy meanwhile, is getting stronger and stronger each day. Though she still can't exist in this world when the sun is up, she can occasionally manipulate physical objects and leave the cemetery for longer and longer before feeling weak.
She doesn't have any telekinesis just yet, which disappoints her more than she wants to let on, but I know exactly what that little pout means. For three hours straight, we sat in the graveyard together. I nursed my first cup of coffee slowly as she stared hard at the second, hoping to at least tip it over. In the end, though, nothing happened until I lifted it myself and drank it down.
"Mmmm," I said. "Ghost coffee." And then, because I was restless and stupid, I said, "You wanna go out with me? Like -- as a couple?"
She looks at me with her big brown eyes, and I think a bit of color rises in her pale face. "Oh?"
"Yeah. You know, maybe." I shrug. "There's this Halloween carnival-fest-thing in two days. You know, on actual Halloween. I thought it would be fun if I could take you out and show you the sights, and you could tell me the history of carnival games and food and stuff."
"Ah..." She hesitates, looking down at her gown -- the same one she's worn for 150 years.
"Don't worry about the costume. I'll wear something to match. Yeah?"
She looks up at me again, and smiles. "Yeah."
#
The sun is still high in the sky as the carnival opens up. Kids run around in costume, playing games to win stuffed animals or waiting in line for the rides. Black and orange bunting stretches over the streets leading into the picnic area just past the treeline of Sutton Regional Forest. [Describe the fun stuff]
I've never felt better. After a shower, and a serious nap, I don a black suit and tied a cape around my neck. "Bleh bleh bleh," I say to my reflection, striking a most dramatic and spooky vampire pose, before racing down to load up on caffeine. It's the last night Lucy will be able to leave the graveyard in a while, and I intend to make it perfect.
She's waiting for me at the edge of the graveyard, her black veil thrown over her face. She looks like a wraith in the afternoon light, and I glance down to see how sturdy she is. Despite appearing solid as anyone else, there's a slight translucence to the hem of her gown. I hope she's able to maintain a form in this world long enough to last until the costume parade if nothing else. Childish as it is, I want to walk down Main Street holding her hand, looking like a couple for all the world to see.
"What is this?" I say with my poor attempt at a Dracula voice. "An innocent maiden, so far from home at this hour of..." I glance up at the late afternoon sun. "Day?" My words are garbled around the plastic fangs in my mouth, and she laughs.
"You'll have to do better than that," she says. "I'm afraid it's not quite easy to suck my blood."
"Oh no?" I ask, and waggle my eyebrows. "Then I shall simply have to steal you away to my castle!" She giggles, and I strike another dramatic pose, before holding out the various things I've brought. "You ready?"
"I know what those are." She points at the two plastic jack-o-lantern buckets hanging from my wrist. "But I'm at a loss for the rest."
"Perfect. Sit down, let me learn you Halloween."
She raises an eyebrow, but does so, arranging herself prettily on the nearest bench. I dump my various things next to her and present them one by one -- a slap bracelet, glow-in-the-dark vampire fangs that somehow always taste like dental cement, a tiny knife that fills with blood if you squeeze the handle, and her favorite -- a little ghost key-chain makes ghost noises and ominous music whenever you press the button. It seems to take all her strength not to reach out and grab it, so I press the button a number of times, filling the air with ghostly wailing and organ music, as well as Lucy's laughing.
Finally, music starts echoing out from the fairgrounds in downtown, and I grin. "Come on. Let's go trick-or-treating."
Lucy sticks close to me, but I make sure to give the crowd a wide berth as we make our way to the fair grounds, leaving no chances of someone accidentally walking through her. I probably look crazy, laughing and talking to myself, but I don't care. Lucy is here, taking in the sights, awestruck and overjoyed at every little thing. We barely make it past the balloon arch before she stops to point out a feat of modern engineering -- the extension cord.
"These have always amazed me," she says. "Not only can you generate or harness electricity, but you can keep pushing it further and further away from the source. Isn't that amazing?"
It is. She is.
We make our way through the streets slowly, skirting around the carnival rides that have probably been in operation longer than I've been alive. Our first stop is a food stand, decorated in autumnal reds and oranges.
"Anything I can get for you two?" the worker asks, and Lucy looks at me in shocked delight.
I nod at her, having no explanation as to why he can see her, but not wanting to question a good thing. We find a bench a small ways away from the crowd.
"These have always looked so delicious," Lucy says, and watches closely as I take a bite. It's a little weird, but it's worth it to let her live the modern Halloween dream, vicariously or otherwise.
"They're amazing. I love them. I nearly ruined my braces one year because I got away from my parents and stole one from the booth."
"You're a veritable criminal. What's it taste like?"
"Well, I mean. It's a caramel apple. It's, uh..." I frown, trying to figure out if caramel would be different now than it used to be. It's just fancy, goopy sugar, right? Plus a load of high-fructose corn syrup, I guess. "It's sweet and gooey on the outside. You know, caramel. And the apple's sour underneath, and crunchy. It's two completely different things, but they come together into something awesome. Kind of like us." It's the cheesiest thing anyone has ever said in the history of the world, and I can't help but cringe as soon as it's out of my mouth.
But Lucy only laughs. "Just so."
Her dark eyes shine as she looks out at the fair. The Jack o lanterns grimacing, the kids running around and laughing. Electricity and music and fun. After I finish the apple, we just walk around, Lucy pointing out things she recognizes and giving me a brief history, or asking me about things she doesn't know. I list off no shortage of video game characters running past us, kids dressed up as heroes and monsters hyped up on sugar and fun. The last of the sun's rays dip behind the horizon, and the electric lights fill the world with a hundred different colors.
[Lucy is enamored with it all, westruck and almost alive in the warm carnival lights.]
She's so beautiful in the moment that I forget myself and reach out, thinking to tilt her face towards me and kiss her. Of course, the second my hand brushes against her chin, a bolt of frozen dread shoots down my spine, and I flinch back with a yelp. 
Lucy looks over, trying and failing not to laugh as she apologizes.
"No, no, that was dumb of me. I forgot for a minute."
"What were you thinking? You know you can't touch me."
I shake off the heebie-jeebies, and shrug, keenly aware of how hot my face had suddenly become. "I was just thinking about how gorgeous you are when you get excited, and that I really wanted to kiss you."
A faint pink blooms across her cheeks, the only color in a sea of grayscale, and I grin like an idiot. "Come on," I say. "Let me take you trick-or-treating."
We follow a small crowd from shop-front to shop-front. Lucy grins, shouting Trick or Treat every time and watching our little pumpkin buckets fill up with candy bars and goodies. I put a vampire sticker on my bucket and show it off. We're acting like kids, but I don't care. It's fun, and she's laughing, and it's all I can do to stop myself from kissing her again and again and again.
Hours later, we've gone through a small maze of hay-bales, entered and lost a costume contest, and applauded as a flash mob performed a few dances in the middle of the food area. I took her to the row of carnival games next, featuring a mix of new games with basket balls and water guns, and, much to her delight, more traditional games. Lucy makes a beeline for the milk bottles, and tells me the rules even if I already know them.
"You want me to win you a prize? Go on, pick your favorite."
She beams, and looks over the rows of stuffed animals to win. "That one," she says, indicating a teddy bear dressed up like a vampire on the top row. It's at least two feet tall.
"As you wish," I say, and pay the nice man to play. I know the games are rigged, but I don't care. I'm too strong and too stubborn to do anything but make a show of winding up my first ball, and tossing it -- only to miss the pyramid of milk bottles entirely.
Lucy laughs.
"Right. Okay. Just warming up. This one's gonna do it, first try." I throw again, but it goes wide once more, hitting the back of the game booth with a soft thunk.
"Come on, Kaz. You've got this."
"I've got this," I say, with confidence I don't deserve. It's the last ball, and I close one eye, doing my best to focus on the target, and not the beautiful woman next to me bouncing on the balls of her feet, watching me with all the earnestness and support in the world.
I pull my arm back. I breathe out. I aim.
I throw.
And miss.
Lucy cheers uncertainly.
I play three more games, determined to get Lucy the vampire bear, but in the end, my biceps mean nothing when my aim is shit. I managed to hit one single bottle of the top of the pyramid, and win a little palm-sized Frankenstein instead. I pout when I take it, even if Lucy makes a show of cooing over it to make me feel better.
As it gets closer to midnight, we make our way to the outer limits of the fair now, walking together with the spoils of the night. Candy, stickers, key chains, and little Frankenstein. Lucy recounts the plot of the actual book to me, and I tell her about the various movies and how Boris Karloff basically shaped what we see as Frankenstein today.
It's cold out now. I shiver every now and then, but Lucy is untouched by the cold as always.
[sitting on a bench Somehow she hands something to Lucy, who feels brave enough to try touching something, only for it to not work.]
"Ah..." she hesitates, hand still outstretched as we look at the toy, sitting askew on the bench between us. It's a sad sight. "It seems the veil can only thin so far." There's such a forced lightness in her voice that I feel something tugging in my chest.
Nothing can ruin this night for her. Not even little toy Frankenstein. I pick him up and manipulate the doll into doing a silly little dance, while putting on a stupid voice and singing an old show tune.
When her laugh doesn't convince me, I reach out with my free hand to put it over hers. She may not be able to interact with the rest of the world, but I'll give her as much as I possibly can. But rather than phasing through and suffering from a bout of heebie-jeebies, my hand rests gently on top of hers. It's not quite solid, something fragile and barely there, but it's her hand, tangible and real. "Oh," I say.
"Oh," she agrees.
 My face burns, and I look up to meet her gaze. Her brown eyes, nearly black in the low light, looking right back into mine.
My stomach twists in an anxious, hesitant joy as I start to lean forward. My heart leaps in my throat. Lucy leans forward as well, lips beginning to part. My stomach flips again.
My stomach twists into knots.
I turn away just before it turns itself inside out, and I vomit into the ground. Black bile splatters on my shoes, and the smell makes me heave all over again.
I look up miserably, thinking to make a joke about eating too much sugar -- but my mouth moves of its own free will, with words that aren't my own. "Well," it says. "It's about time I got a handle on things around here."
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spnyuri · 2 months
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once again God really has kept an eye on me and put me on the best path for my future. at this time last year i started gaining an interest in copyright law, but somehow i was too sick to submit my application for the internship in copyright law that i wanted, and my article on copyright law for my university law review was rejected. at both of these instances i was DEVASTATED, but looking at where i am now... i wouldn't have felt fulfilled working on copyright law in comparison to this. i have a new research project focused on international law under a mentor who supports me, i got to work with an international ngo through a legal clinic to support children's rights, health, and safety.
i know for the non-religious folks this is more of a case of persevering in the face of challenges (which is also so good and important!) but i honestly would not have gotten through it without my faith & God watching over me. whatever happens, i'll make it through. سُـبْحانَ الله
<3
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ammg-old2 · 9 months
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For months, forcibly transferred children, ages four months to 18 years, were listed in a public Russian adoption database without mention of their Ukrainian origin. That they were in the database at all was not widely known until May 31, when the Russian dissident outlet iStories exposed its use in an article alleging that the children were being made to sew camouflage nets for the Russian military, which some were even forced to join.
The iStories revelations prompted Russia to scrub the database of all information about the Ukrainian children. Fortunately, much of it had been scraped by at least one group of open-source intelligence (OSINT) investigators who asked not to be named in order to continue their sensitive work. Such groups are scouring publicly available databases, social media, precision satellite imagery showing the locations of camps, and other sources to track the disappearing Ukrainian children.
The Ukrainian government officially estimates that about 19,500 Ukrainian children have been taken to Russia since the start of the war. The exact number is unknowable, and keeping track of all of the children is nearly impossible—some of the parents have been killed or lost touch with their children as Russia shifts them from place to place.
At the beginning of the war, some parents in eastern Ukraine sent their children to what the Russians told them were summer camps. The parents believed that the camps would keep their children safe, or provide them with enough food to eat, Syniuk says. Reports have since alleged severe abuse at the camps. No matter the conditions, the camps now appear to have been a pretext for luring the children away from their parents and into Russia. As Raymond said: “They can be given caviar every day, riding horsies and having the best day ever, and it’s still a war crime.”
Dozens of these camps are scattered across Russia, according to Conflict Observatory, an American NGO that collects and analyzes evidence of war crimes in Ukraine. The camp farthest from Ukraine is 3,900 miles from the border, in Russia’s Magadan Oblast. The facilities apparently specialize in political reeducation; some reports suggest that military training is also part of their program.
When Ukrainian parents are ready to bring their children home from camp, many are told that the children will remain in Russia, or that there is a “delay.” Some families have managed to recover their children, but only with great difficulty; others report that their children are not allowed to leave, have been transferred to different camps, or have become unreachable. Now, says Veronika Bilkova, an author of an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe report about the forcible transfer of children published in May, “it seems that really the Russian Federation is getting ready, legally speaking, to be able to adopt these [camp] children as well.”
Not all of the Ukrainian children in Russia came by way of the camps. Others are evacuees, removed by Russian soldiers from areas of Ukraine that Russia’s shelling had made perilous. Anya belonged to this group. Still others were transferred through a process of filtration, in which they were separated from their parents at camps like Bezimenne, in Donetsk, where Russian forces detain and interrogate Ukrainian citizens in Russian-held territories. And then there are the children from Ukrainian orphanages raided by Russian troops, taken across the border to orphanages in Russia.
Many of these supposed orphans actually have parents: In both Ukraine and Russia, families who fall on hard times commonly send their children temporarily to orphanages, experts told me, expecting to later recover them. But once the children are in Russia, according to the OSCE report, “the Russian Federation does not take any steps to actively promote the return of Ukrainian children. Rather, it creates various obstacles for families seeking to get their children back.”
At the moment, the younger the child is, the bleaker the prospects of a return to Ukraine. The only children to have made it home so far, according to legal and human-rights advocates I spoke with, are those old enough to have called their parents or guardians—provided that they have any. Some of those who have made it home reported seeing younger children they knew in Russia—but with the carousel of stolen children still spinning, those sighted likely won’t stay in the same place for long.
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swoopswrites · 3 months
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shoulder to shoulder hc's
Remus
is a really good cook from looking after Gracie but refuses to look after himself properly so only ever makes pesto pasta or noodles at uni, but when he's home and in a good mood he whips up the turkish dishes of his childhood for his sister
has a lightning bolt shaved into his short back and sides as a kid because he thought it'd make him faster on the field
originally played nine because he was a mouthy motherfucker at age twelve but when he hit puberty he grew too tall and his coach moved him to fifteen, but he ended up loving it
is actually still on good terms with his secondary school girlfriend, who sometimes takes Gracie on day trips with her and her little sister
he still has all his old jerseys in a box under his bed, saving them for if he ever has kids.
was filmed shirtless for a promotional video for his first world cup and overnight became a figurehead for body positivity and had instagram accounts dedicated to his abs. Sirius finds the latter hilarious and encourages to post thirst traps to his own professional account to give them new content. Remus begins working with charities on campaigns that help children feel comfortable with their visible differences, publicly talking about his scars in a way he thought he never would.
used to tell people Gracie was his daughter when he was eighteen for a laugh and to see the horror on their faces.
moves into a flat in Bristol with Sirius after graduating; equal distance from Remus' training and James' parents house. Gracie moves in with them after four years, after another accident forces Lyall into rehab.
Sirius
joined rugby in year seven because his first proper friend James said it was really cool and he knew it'd piss off his mum
got his tattoo's with a fake ID at seventeen the week after he moved in with the Potter's because he couldn't think of a better way to retake ownership of his body
a prolific vinted seller, makes bank by upcycling the cast-offs of his friends and re-selling them. in his final year, it gets featured in Teen Vogue and the exposure gets him fashion internships for post graduation.
(follow on) can sew. Effie taught him on the long nights he couldn't sleep post-running away, and so many of his clothes he's made himself
aside from his one night stand in first year, Remus is the first person Sirius has done bits at uni with because he was always too scared Peter would find out
swore himself off rugby boys and was so rude to Remus at first because he couldn't bear to admit his attraction
ends up working with NGO's to help queer youth, pioneering for the inclusion of queer kids in sport, helped by Remus' professional connections
Lily
had a weeny crush on remus when she first met him, and spent the first two weeks of uni gushing to her school friends about 'the cute welsh guy in my lectures' until she realised he really needed a friend, and she did her best to be that for him
likes her sleepovers with remus bc as a kid her and petunia used to share a bed but petunia stopped when they were fifteen and Lily always sleeps better next to someone else
used to hate being Ginger but her year 10 crush once told her it made her 'unique' and now she loves her hair
always wearing black winged eyeliner, even just to make a tesco run
has a tiny butterfly tattoo on her ankle that she got matching with her sister before her sister went to uni, back when they were on better terms. she hates it now, and tries to always wear socks
lowkey such a daddy's girl. watches the rugby with him and they have matching Ulster jersey's and scarves
James
had initially wanted to be a cricketer like his dad but his primary school had had a rugby club, and it was love at first training session
was genuinely shocked to be voted captain, doesn't realise how widely loved he is
obsessed with pickled onion monster munch
favourite song is unironically the rockerfeller skank by fatboy slim
his mum insisted he also take bollywood dancing lessons as a kid because she was scared private boarding school would make him lose his connection to his culture
was the main love interest in his year eleven school play after auditioning for a joke with Sirius and now has a genuine love of theatre and can still rattle off his lines
went to primary school with Peter and didn't know how to say no to him when he asked to join their second year house
gets invited to join the England team at the end of his final year of uni, and is genuinely more excited at the prospect of playing against Remus than he is to play for nationally.
he and Remus become known as a 'dynamic duo' amongst rugby fans, and create a fake twitter rivalry as a laugh, before staging a huge 'reconciliation' in the form of running their own summer training camps for underprivileged and disabled children. Gracie is the first to sign up.
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