#rape during war

[coochiequeens]

This is why I hate it when men complain about how it’s unfair that they can just be sent into war. Women in war zones face rape, forced marriage and seeing their children die so men don’t want to go to war then stop causing them.

Abducted and enslaved by Boko Haram. Coerced into an abortion by soldiers. Two children dead. The ordeal of Aisha shows how women's lives have become a battlefield in the 13-year war between Islamist insurgents and the Nigerian military.

By LIBBY GEORGE and PAUL CARSTEN

Filed Dec. 14, 2022, 11 a.m. GMT

AISHA vividly recalls her family’s last time together. It was a pleasant evening in the summer of 2014, in her Nigerian village near the Cameroon border. The rainy season had nourished her father’s grain, pushing the stalks knee-high. Her father, mother, two brothers and a younger sister were all at home.

The village had been repeatedly attacked over months by armed Islamist insurgents seeking to expand their territory, she told Reuters. Aisha’s father had ordered the sons not to leave their house, lest they be caught up in the violence. That evening, their mother stepped outside to cook.

Gunfire erupted about 5 p.m. and continued for hours, Aisha said. Amid the shooting, her mother collapsed, struck in the chest by a stray round. Aisha, then 18, and her 14-year-old sister made frantic efforts to bandage the wound, but their mother bled out and died.

“My mother’s death is the first thing that pains me,” said Aisha, now 26, weeping quietly. By her account, that night marked the end of a secure childhood in a loving family – and the beginning of a hellish ordeal at the hands of both the Islamist militants and the Nigerian military, who have been locked in a 13-year war over control of the country’s northeast.

That war is being carried out, in part, upon the bodies of women and children. Thousands of women and girls have been kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by Boko Haram and its Islamic State offshoot. The Nigerian military has responded to insurgents’ brutality with brutal tactics of its own, as revealed in two recent Reuters investigations.

Citing witness accounts and documents, the news agency reported on Dec. 7 that the army has run a secret abortion programme in the northeast, ending the pregnancies of thousands of women and girls freed from insurgent captivity. On Dec. 12, again citing dozens of witnesses, Reuters reported the army has intentionally killed children in the war, under a presumption they were, or would become, terrorists.

Nigerian military leaders told Reuters the abortion programme did not exist and said children were never targeted for killing in the war. They said the Reuters reporting is part of a foreign effort to undermine the country’s fight against the insurgents.

Aisha’s ordeal encompasses some of the most extreme hardships the war has inflicted upon civilians: enslavement by Boko Haram, forced abortion by the military, the loss of one child in a military bombing and another, she suspects, to poisoning by soldiers. The war also took the life of a brother, in addition to her mother, and all but destroyed one of her arms, Aisha said.

Dozens of women in northeast Nigeria told Reuters of similarly wrenching experiences during the ongoing strife, which has claimed more than 300,000 lives, including those of civilians killed by violence, starvation and disease. Like Aisha, they said they chose no sides in the war but were targeted by both.

Reuters could not reach representatives of Boko Haram or its offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province, for comment.

Major General Christopher Musa, who leads the Nigerian counterinsurgency forces, said Aisha’s story, as described to him by Reuters, could not have happened. “No,” he said, “not by us, not by Nigerian Army troops, who don't have any reason to do that.”

Aisha spoke to Reuters on condition that only her Muslim name be used, citing fear for her safety. Reuters is not naming her village, as well, to protect her identity. Her story was corroborated in part by her sister; a friend and fellow captive; one of her brothers; and a neighbour. Each said they witnessed some of the events or heard about them afterward from Aisha. These people spoke on condition they not be fully named.

Aisha related her experiences in interviews over the course of more than a year, often speaking in a numbed monotone, occasionally breaking down.

“I saw it, exactly, with my own eyes, and I heard,” she said. “That’s why I don’t have any hesitation to share with you my account.”

Aisha smiled as she recalled her younger days, when she would pound, roll and fry “kuli kuli,” a peanut treat she sold with her mother at the market near their farm. Her family was sustained both by her mother’s work and her father’s cultivation of maize, guinea corn and millet.

“They showed me the way to look after myself, to seek out knowledge, how to be in and to live in the world,” she said of her parents. “We had everything we needed, really.”

Unlike some fathers in the region, she said, hers had made a priority of securing an education for his girls, and he never beat them. In high school, Aisha had a boyfriend in a neighbouring village whom she hoped to marry. She said she dreamt of becoming a soldier, an accountant or even a doctor – a secure livelihood in the economically depressed region. She hoped one day to have children.

But after the 2014 attack, school was out of the question: She was trapped in Boko Haram’s then-spreading caliphate.

At first, she said, the insurgents didn’t show “any signs that they were going to kill people.”

But after the attack that killed her mother, they started to kill the adult men in the village, she said. One brother vanished; she heard later that he died. Another brother fled elsewhere in Nigeria and survived. A third brother had already sought safety in Cameroon before their mother was killed.

RELATED CONTENT

U.S. State Department 'deeply troubled' by report on Nigerian army killing children

U.N. secretary-general calls on Nigeria to investigate report of forced abortions

Hungry and malnourished, northeast Nigeria endures humanitarian crisis

Aisha and her younger sister stayed with their father, who told them not to leave. At first, Boko Haram did not disturb villagers in their homes.

But by October 2014, the militants were enforcing extreme sharia law in her village, Aisha said. The fighters interrogated a well-known local midwife and herbalist, whom they accused of witchcraft. The insurgents took the woman, in her 50s, to the village square and, in front of as many people as they could gather, beheaded her with an axe. Aisha said she can’t forget the woman’s head and body dangling as blood spurted from her. She began to feel terrified.

Her father, who was in his 70s, fell ill, she said, and he died by the end of the year. Now the two young, unmarried sisters were living alone. Boko Haram men often came looking for them, knocking on their door and forcing them to hide.

For months, Aisha and her sister survived on the beans, maize and guinea corn that their father had stored. Then the food began to run out, and Aisha decided they should make a run for it.

Plotting her escape

They left their house in the middle of the day in search of any town nearby that was not controlled by insurgents. They hadn’t gone far when they ran into Islamist fighters.

The men forced Aisha and her sister into different open-bedded trucks, each filled with other women, she said. When the sisters were separated, “we both cried and pleaded to God,” she said, weeping.

The trucks arrived nearly a week later in Sambisa Forest, a massive woodland near the Cameroon border that served as a Boko Haram stronghold. Then her captors lined Aisha up alongside other women for militants to select as wives. One man, named Musa, pointed at Aisha.

“Suddenly you have a husband, you’ve become husband and wife, by force, without ever having seen each other,” she said.

Compelled to live with Musa inside the forest encampment, she tried to resist his advances, but her new husband repeatedly beat and raped her, and he threatened to kill her, she said. When he went off to fight in the war, she said, “I would pray to God that he’d be killed.”

Almost immediately, she was pregnant and sick nearly every day. Yet when her son, Bana, arrived, she could not help but love the boy. She longed to escape the brutality, hunger and fear that marked virtually every day of her captivity. But she did not believe she could do so with Bana, as boys were  particularly valued in the Boko Haram community. She said she also feared a boy associated with the insurgents would face stigma outside Islamist-held territory, where he would be seen as a potential enemy.

“I just prayed, constantly, looking for a way to get out, to leave Sambisa behind,” she said.

As soon as she stopped breastfeeding Bana, she was pregnant again – and asked God for a daughter. The arrival of Fatima, a happy and amenable baby girl, steeled her determination to escape.

“For Bana…I didn’t let myself have hope for him,” she said. But Fatima, she said, “was a gift from God. I thought, if God allows for it, that girl will go to school.”

In the end, the Nigerian military decided Bana’s fate. One morning about four years ago, when he was roughly 3, the military launched an airstrike on the camp. They blew up the hut where the boy slept. Aisha, who was nearby, ran to save him but was too late.

“He cried out once, then again, and then he died,” she said.

The explosion also hit Aisha, burning her severely and leaving one arm nearly useless, she said. She showed a reporter the arm, which she typically keeps hidden under her flowing hijab. She cannot use it, even to hold a drink.

Aisha took months to recover after the bombing attack. Lying in the insurgent camp’s infirmary, she plotted her escape, intent on saving Fatima from a future of hunger and rape under the militants. By then, she had been in captivity for more than three years.

In 2019, with 1-year-old Fatima tied to her back, Aisha slipped from the camp in the middle of the night along with six other women and two young children besides her daughter. They zig-zagged through the wilderness for four days, trying to avoid detection.

On the fifth day, they found a group of Nigerian soldiers, identifying them by their boots. At long last, she thought, she and her daughter were safe.

No traces of her

The troops took the women and children to a nearby encampment in the town of Madagali – a cluster of five army tents and a thatched hut, she said. There, they underwent interrogation and medical check-ups. The soldiers took samples of their blood and urine.

The following day, they told Aisha she had a vaginal infection. They injected two vials of medicine into her buttocks, without telling her what it was, and gave her an assortment of pills, she said. An hour later, she said, she was in wrenching pain and began bleeding heavily from her vagina.

Eventually, she said, she saw blood and a lump of what looked like flesh pass from her body. She had not known she was pregnant.

She realised she had been tricked into an abortion, but was too afraid to confront the soldiers. They told her later that they had done her a favour, she recalled, because a child of Boko Haram would be ostracised and a burden on her and her community.

Aisha had not wanted another child from a Boko Haram father, she said, but abortion was against her Islamic faith.

art 1. The Abortion Assault

Part 2. Smothered, Poisoned and Shot

Several days later, soldiers said Fatima needed medicine to keep her strong after being so long in the wilderness. They gave her and other children injections. Afterward, the mothers and children were piled into cars and returned to their villages.

After their arrival at the family’s former home, within hours of the injections, Fatima started acting strangely, Aisha said.

She would not breastfeed, her eyes became distant and glassy, and she developed a fever. A local pharmacist told her the child must have been bitten by a bug and gave her a syrup to lower her temperature.

Before dawn, Fatima went cold. She died in the same room where Aisha watched her mother bleed out years earlier. Aisha believes that the girl was poisoned by the soldiers.

Later in the morning, neighbours who heard Aisha’s sobs came to help her bury the tiny body in the local cemetery. One neighbour, Musa, confirmed Aisha’s account of that episode, saying he saw the girl before she died, and saw Aisha grieving afterward.

After Fatima’s burial, Aisha had no traces left of her daughter. Phones were forbidden for women in the militant camp, so she had no pictures or videos. They had escaped only with the clothes they were wearing.

Some joy, many sorrows

With Fatima gone, Aisha was alone. She made her way to a displaced persons camp in the city of Yola, a crowded and chaotic place populated with many other women as traumatised as she was. There was little food, and no money.

In the camp, Aisha found a new friend, Felerin, who held her as she cried over her losses. Felerin had suffered, too, telling Reuters she’d had a forced abortion and lost two young sons after soldiers injected them with poison at Giwa Barracks in Maiduguri. She confirmed to Reuters that Aisha had confided in her about her ordeal.

Weeks later, Aisha’s sister found her at the camp. She had escaped from another part of Sambisa Forest. The young women screamed with joy, drawing a crowd of curious spectators.

She was so emaciated, “I barely recognized her,” Aisha’s sister told Reuters. “I didn’t think it was her.”

The sister, who said she’d been a servant to the wife of a high-ranking Boko Haram leader during her captivity, had not seen Aisha since their arrival in Sambisa Forest. After they reunited, she said, Aisha shared the details of her life during their time apart – including her escape, the abortion and the suspected poisoning of Fatima.

REUTERS INVESTIGATES

More Reuters investigations and long-form narratives

Got a confidential news tip? Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters

After leaving the camp, Aisha and her sister stayed for a short time with an aunt in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, but she treated them as a burden, saying they had “the attitudes” of Boko Haram, Aisha said. The sisters have since settled in their former village together at their old house.

Aisha says her sister is a comfort and a link to her tranquil early years. Her sister has a daughter, now 2, who entertains them both.

But with her damaged right arm, Aisha cannot pound and mix kuli kuli to sell. She and her sister now sell fried groundnuts on the side of the road, earning barely enough to live.

Aisha mostly keeps her story to herself, and has avoided most old friends. She fears being called a “Boko Haram bride,” a slur thrown at many of the women who escaped captivity.

Still, Aisha feels compelled to pray for forgiveness – for failing to save her two children, for the sinful abortion and for the anger that won’t leave her. Until September, she used to fast twice a week in supplication to God, but she became too weak to continue.

She does not know if her life will improve.

“Who can truly know, if not God?” she asked. “But we pray to see things change, for the world to become better again, like it was before.”

#Women in War #rape during war #Forced abortion #poisoning children #Nigeria #boko haram

[burningtheroots]

Something that shows how cruel and heartless men can actually be is their treatment of women during and after war times, and society as a whole enables them.

Women and children are the primary targets in military conflicts — they‘re seen as property, and both the enemy countries AND the home counties of these women and children view them as livestock and objects they can claim & use however they please.

Whilst men fail to acknowledge that men cause wars and that rich men take advantage of poorer men during these times, they love to complain about how women are "privileged" during war. However, when we take a closer look, the whole picture changes: rape of the enemy‘s women is one of the most prevalent war crimes, and women make up the majority of death victims in post-war times (combat deaths only make up a small percentage of war deaths in total, most deaths are civilians).

Women are "claimed" and therefore abused by soldiers who see them as their enemy‘s property, and not only that — the men from these women‘s home countries commit rape as well, and force pregnancy & childbirth upon them to make up for the losses during military conflicts.

Women are also the ones who keep their home countries going, and have been the ones who re-built them in the past (see Germany after WW2). Just because men believe that women are "inferior" (hence banned them from combat, and the women in the military are often raped by their male peers!) and think that torturing them in their homes instead is a "privilege" doesn’t mean it‘s true.

And societies, whether during or post war, whether part of the conflict or not, usually uphold the belief that women‘s suffering is meaningless, collateral damage if anything, and even put blame on the women for being in the conditions men put them in.

With the Ukrainian/Russian war nowadays, we see once again how the women are victims of war crimes, yet get belittled and harassed for it. For example, you‘ll see how people shame these women for getting pregnant during such times whilst completely disregarding that they don’t have the options to prevent it in the majority of cases. I‘m not saying that every single pregnancy in these times stems from rape, but a massive number of them do. And even those who don’t still happen during a time where these women have no access to appropriate healthcare and protections.

In short …

Woman: *gets reduced to property and livestock, gets abused, raped, forced into pregnancy and childbirth, struggles for survival*

Society: How does she dare to be this irresponsible?!?!!!???? and Look at all those poor men instead, they‘d love to have these privileges!!!!!!!!

That‘s what it basically comes down to.

#women deserve better #radfem #radblr #radical feminism #feminism #radfems do touch #radfems do interact #radfems please touch #womens rights #sex based rights #war trauma #war time #ukrainian women #women during war #war crimes #rape culture #male violence against women #terrorism #forced birth is a crime #forced pregnancy is literal torture #military conflicts #protect women and children

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

Thinking about the Sabine women who were kidnapped...

(This post mentions rape and misogyny.)

So, in Roman mythology, the founder of Rome was a chap called Romulus. Romulus is a pretty weird founder-figure because he's such an asshole:

Killing his brother Remus over a spat about where to locate their town.

Inviting criminals, hooligans and runaway slaves to build the town, because apparently nobody "respectable" (by Roman standards) wanted to follow him.

Nearly getting himself and his followers slaughtered for kidnapping, and perhaps sexually assaulting, a bunch of their neighbors' daughters.

See, no woman wanted to join Romulus and his little band of nobodies in their malaria-infested swamp. So the Romans invited the Sabine tribe over for a festival and just...kidnapped a bunch of their daughters. And then had kids with them. (Whether consensually or not depends on which version you believe.)

Obviously, the Sabines and other tribes were outraged. War broke out, and was only shut down when the kidnapped women ran out between the armies and begged both sides to stop fighting, because they didn't want to lose either their husbands or fathers. And so the Sabines joined their tribe with the Romans.

The Rape of the Sabine Women is a disturbing legend. You could analyze it as a tale of Stockholm Syndrome, of forced assimilation, and of rape apologism. Even the Romans seem to have found it uncomfortable: Livy takes pains to portray the Romans as only resorting to kidnapping out of desperation, and asking the women very nicely to marry them, rather than sexual assault. Cicero and Dionysus of Halicarnassus write similarly.

But no matter how much you try to pretty it up, it still shows the Roman men as selfish, violent, deceitful crooks. Why on earth would the proud patricians trace their lineage back to this?

Other aspects of this story stand out to me:

It portrays women's intervention in politics as a good thing. They're arguably the most heroic characters here.

It asks us empathize with the women's point of view, and with how they feel torn between both sides.

It asks us to listen to rape victims instead of assuming we know what's best for them.

It reminds us of the horrors and losses of war instead of glorifying it.

As daughters, the women are passive, but as wives and mothers, they gain a voice.

Based on how Roman men tried to soften the story, it clearly confronted them with the ugliness of sexual assault.

Remember, this is a legend that Romans told each other, not historical events. Why would the patriarchal Romans preserve a tale that portrays the men so poorly, and asks us to listen to the women? I have a thought.

If you were a Roman girl, you would probably be married off as a teenager, to a man at least 8-10 years older than you. You would probably have very little say in the matter. Perhaps you would see yourself in the Sabine women, carried off by men they hardly knew, forced to submit to sex. Or maybe you'd relate to how they felt torn between their husbands and children versus their birth family, or to their fear of losing their loved ones in war. Maybe, like the women, your voice would grow stronger as an older adult and mother, and one day you would demand to be taken seriously.

Maybe you would tell your sons this story, in hope that they would hear the pleas of the Sabine women. And perhaps you'd tell your daughters, to reassure them that life goes on even after sexual trauma, and that one day their voices will be heard.

#jlrrt speaks #ancient rome #sabine women #rape mention #the story seems to have risen in prominence during the samnite and social wars #so it may have been a political allegory for civil war and integration #but i can't help imagining what it must have sounded like to Roman women #jlrrt essays

[autismserenity]

Nothing you say will change the undeniable fact that Israel has killed more than 1% of the civilian population of Gaza through indiscriminate bombing since the start of this war

this is why Hamas only reports total people killed, and doesn't separate out civilians and combatants. because it knows that you'll assume they were all civilians, despite zero reason to assume that. nobody else does it that way. every single country on earth reports civilians and combatants separately, because killing civilians is a war crime.

Part of the reason that this is really good propaganda is that if someone responds by clarifying that it was only ____ civilians, they will sound like they're minimizing, which will lead to immediately dismissing their point.

Hamas is honestly masterful at propaganda.

Which sucks.

Anyway, if you want Undeniable Facts or at least Numbers: there are 2.3M people in Gaza, of which 30,000-40,000 are Hamas military. An unknown number are Hamas leaders, cybersecurity, military academy staff, etc. None of that really makes a dent in a number like 2,300,000, though. As of the beginning of December, more than 5,000 of the 15k+ it had then killed were Hamas members, for a civilian:combatant casualty ratio of almost 2:1.

Meaning that it had killed almost 10,000 civilians. Which also sucks.

For the curious, here are the ratios of civilian:combatant deaths you get with the numbers here for various wars:

Mexican Revolution  1:1

WWI close to 1:1

WWII between 3:2 and 2:1

Korean War about 2:1

Vietnam War 2:1 at highest estimate, 1:1 at lowest

Russia-Afghanistan War between 5.6:1 and 20:1

Israel-Lebanon War 6:1

Both Chechen Wars 7.6:1

NATO in Yugoslavia most likely 4:1

Afghanistan War 0.4:1 (or if you treat the civilians as the basis for comparison, it's 1:2.5)

Iraq War 1:2 thru 2015, then 4.5:1

U.S. Drone attacks in Pakistan 1:5

Second Intifada between 1:1 and 2:1, with 59% of Palestinian and 69% of Israeli deaths being civilians

2008 Gaza War 3:2 

2014 Gaza War between 1:1 and 3:1

Ukraine: 1:6 as of end of 2022 - surprisingly, this is the lowest ratio of any of the wars I've looked at

Israel-Hamas war as of beginning of December: 2:1. (15600 total, more than 5000 combatants.) 

As of Dec 19, Israel has killed 19,667 people in Gaza. Let's see if we can get an actual number for how many of those are civilians.

I can't find an up-to-date number for combatants. It was 5,000+ on the 6th, and 7,000+ by the 10th,

It's been primarily fighting in Hamas strongholds that aren't SUPPOSED to have any civilians in them. Given that it killed three hostages, that's obviously not guaranteed. But that's why the number went up so fast.

As of the 19th, Israel has killed 4,000 people in about two weeks. At least half of those are combatants. But it's also wildly unlikely that it's only killed civilians since the 10th. Guessing that half of those deaths were combatants seems reasonable; it should be more, based on all the info we have.

That means that Israel may have killed 11,667 civilians, of maybe 2.27M civilians in Gaza. And killed 8,000 Hamas members, of maybe 30,000. (700 have also surrendered, last I checked.)

To be fair, separating out the combatant deaths doesn't do a lot to change what percent of civilians have been killed, because 2.3M is such a big number.

It's 0.6% with them, 0.5% without them. (Not 1%, fortunately.)

But it's always worth noting that Hamas is a lying group of liars that lied about having raped civilians en masse, lied about having killed civilians en masse, lied about wanting to specifically fight Israel and not Jews in the rest of the world, and is even happier to mislead people than it is to lie outright.

By contrast, it's about 30% of Hamas, between Israel killing its members being killed, and them surrendering.

I don't particularly like the number of terrorists killed either, tbh. Despite how enthusiastically some people misinterpreted what I said, I don't like it when anybody gets killed.

#it really bothers me that people minimize the absolute goddamn horrors of every genocide by calling this a genocide #genocide is not an adjective you use to show that you're REALLY REALLY EXTRA against the killing #you can be REALLY REALLY EXTRA AGAINST WAR without minimizing the genocidal rapes and the mass mutilation and all the rest #I have driven past rivers that were filled with blood during the California Genocide ffs #this is not about anon #anon didn't say anything about genocide #it's just making me think about how many groups had 60%-90% of their people wiped out in the most brutal ways possible #the kind of stuff that resembles what Hamas did but not what is happening to Hamas #i am going to stop thinking about examples of what Hamas did and not list them here in the tags #bc it is bad for everyone's mental health #mine included #this does not mean i will not post about it one of these days tho #wall of words

[haruchicken]

That @whenmagicfilledtheair blogs blatant antisemitism while simultaneously denying it scares the shit out of me.

Yeah, they are by far the worst I've seen.

The thing that I find the most frustrating about people like them, and why I even bothered to comment on their pinned post is that they demand answers to questions, but do so already knowing nothing anyone says will appease them. They are not looking for a debate or even open to changing their mind in anyway. You can see that if you look through their blog and see how they respond to anyone trying to provide them with evidence of their antisemitism.

That's why I didn't try to answer their pinned post, because I'm not going to spend hours going through their their blog taking screenshots and then compiling my own sources for why what they said is wrong or antisemitic when they will just deny anything they don't agree with as wrong or Israeli propaganda.

The thing is, it's easy to criticize Israel without being antisemitic--just look at how other Israelis have been doing it for years. But that's not what this person wants--they want to paint Israel as the most evil country on Earth, with the most evil people, who do uniquely evil things that no other country has ever done before.

I'm not Israeli, I'm not even Jewish, so for the most part I haven't said anything about this war. I come to Tumblr for memes, art and fandom shit. Yet, the rise of Antisemitism is really worrying me, especially when it's so easily brushed off with the excuse that it's just Israeli propaganda.

Like, I just don't understand why it's so hard to admit that, yeah, given how old antisemitism and how it's shaped a lot of cultures worldwide that it's possible some of it has slipped into the 'free Palestine' movement. This doesn't mean it's an inherently bad movement or that Palestinians deserve to die or lose their homes. It just means that maybe sometimes people should take a step back and see if some of their inherent biases have effected how they talk about this war as opposed to others that do not involve the Jewish State of Israel.

#antisemitism #bad blog is really fucking bad #like i'm sorry but when did we start not believing rape victims? #or just excusing mass slaughter of civilians as fine if they were the 'wrong' side? #I mean the fact they even have to ask 'what should have Hamas done instead of killing babies and small children?' is ridiculous #idk maybe blow up the wall around Gaza or attack military targets or soldiers? #in the very least don't go door to door killing children #and like if Hamas is allowed to kill children to save it's citizens why is Israel not allowed to do the same? #Also I do take issue with people calling it a genocide simply because i think it obscures a much bigger and tougher subject #which is that modern warfare has become extremely okay with mass civilian casualties #and even old wars did at times purposefully target civilians in order to win (take Sherman's march during the American Civil War) #civilian casualties have become acceptable collateral damage and their numbers have risen as populations go up #and weapons become more deadly #mass civilian deaths are not unique to Israeli warfare #carpet bombing is just how modern wars are fought #and it's not as if Hamas does not want to do this--they fire hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilian centers as well #they just have cheaper artillery and Israel has the Iron Dome which destroy most before they land #I'm positive that if Hamas had assess to better bombs and airplanes they would do the same shit Israel is #because that's just how wars are fought now #which i think should bother people #but fixing this issue isn't as easy as stopping Israel's 'genocide' because the solution there is just stop bombing #and ignores that civilians everywhere else in the world who are living through wars #are still getting bombed to pieces by the thousands

[loveistheonlytruth]

enough is enough actually. how much more. the usa is breeding ground for world terrorism. no more. we don’t want it anymore. bring back culture>capitalism

#we dont want your weapons we dont want this animosity you create #we want peace again. we want all the artifacts you destroyed in iraq during the war. we want all the women you raped in afghanistan #palestine wants their olive trees back. the native americans want their land back. #congo and sudan want to liveration from mining stuff forbur cars and phones #hell country. the world is better without it

[blackwaxidol]

The subject of the atomic bomb leads you to understand you are only scratching the surface of a very "evil nature", if you seek researching it. Though I think a person makes a grave mistake to see it as an action for the sake of being evil, you lose focus to frame history in this manner.

World War II is a "perversion" on a grand scale but never an anomaly. The war crimes, they are not unusual or vulgar in a society and a public conscience that has been built up to enable them. They are not unprecedented, things like the Holocaust or the Rape of Nanking for examples are not the insular ideal of a single madman. They precede or continue an idea, but they do not happen in a vacuum.

The saying "Everything happens for a reason" is not to blame a victim, (though "Look at what you made me do" mentality is used to justify, you see it in every retaliation against resistance) rather to express that there is a reason something has been allowed to happen in the way it did, something or a thousand somethings over the course of years or decades have led up to the perfect moment the perpetrator has done what he has done, and allowed him to do it again and again and again without repercussion.

This "cause-and-effect", and the erosion of the means to enforce consequences are part of that cause-and-effect. Who is enabling? Why? What causes this enablement? How far back do you have to go to find it? Is it years? Decades?

Fascism is not just ideological hatred, the instilled belief of supremacy is what so strongly enforces it amongst the masses (who as great benefactors are then motivated to enforce the system themselves regardless of how they feel personally towards the "lesser"), saying "This is why the system works", but it is not the heart of the system—which is why it cannot be defeated with love or understanding.

I'd advise learning of it, of WWII, what caused it, the atrocities it allowed whether in the moment or years after the fact—not so that you become some noble "witness to suffering" (guilt is a useless emotion), but rather so that you can keenly see where history begins to repeat itself, and why.

Else, you are left prostrating and wailing, asking to nobody but yourself "Who could have allowed this to happen?" and you will continue living none-the-wiser.

#I could phrase it better but I think my point is understood. #Or ask what I mean if you are uncertain. #long post #The Rape of Nanking preceded WWII but it is on my mind because it does not exist separately from Japanese war crimes during WWII.

[good-old-gossip]

“Since the 7 October attacks, Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of committing sexual violence during its incursion. Many mainstream western media outlets have paid considerable attention to these allegations, despite a lack of concrete evidence. But while reporters must always take such accusations seriously, it is equally important for them to uphold journalistic standards in the process - and there appear to have been serious lapses in that regard.

At the same time, allegations involving Palestinian women in Gaza have received far less airtime.

Despite a UN report citing testimonies from Palestinians who said they were sexually assaulted and beaten while in Israeli detention, the mainstream western media has failed to give this issue much attention.

In addition to the UN report, there are many documented cases of Palestinian women who described sexual abuse at the hands of Israeli forces. Detainees reported being stripped to their underwear, beaten, searched and threatened with rape. Despite all the documented cases of sexual assault, however, Israel has used a single incident to refute them all. After Al Jazeera recently covered an alleged eyewitness account of the rape of a Palestinian woman by Israeli forces at al-Shifa hospital, the network backtracked upon learning the claims were fabricated, with a former managing director saying the woman had misled people “to provoke an emotional response”. After the report was debunked, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz suggested that the UN was wrong to take any such reports seriously. This is a dangerous position, considering that the UN and other human rights groups have recorded myriad other incidents of sexual assault and humiliating treatment of Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers. All of this has left us in a situation where Israel, despite being accused of sexual violence in the ongoing war on Gaza, continues to benefit from the silence of mainstream western media - and sometimes the silence of the victims themselves.”

By - Feras Abu Helal

#free Palestine #free gaza #I stand with Palestine #Gaza #Palestine #Gazaunderattack #Palestinian Genocide #Gaza Genocide #end the occupation #Israel is an illegal occupier #Israel is committing genocide #Israel is committing war crimes #Israel is a terrorist state #Israel is a war criminal #Israel is an apartheid state #Israel is evil #Israeli war crimes #Israeli terrorism #IOF Terrorism #Israel kills children #Israel kills innocents #Israel is a murder state #Israeli Terrorists #Israeli war criminals #Boycott Israel #end Israeli terror #end Israeli occupation #end Israeli apartheid #Israel is a genocidal state #free Palestine 🇵🇸

[coochiequeens]

Don’t let leftists who want to use Ukraine to boost their activist image suppress discussion of the sex based violence Ukrainian women are facing.

“The United Nations reported in June it had collected 124 reports of alleged acts of conflict-related sexual violence but qualified that number as "the tip of the iceberg" and added that it did "not reflect the scale of sexual violence in the context of Russia's war against Ukraine."

See rest of article

#Ukraine #Rape during war #Male violence

[lorynna]

In World War II, Nazi Germany established brothels in the concentration camps (Lagerbordell, Sonderbauten or Freudenabteilungen "Joy Divisions") to increase productivity among male inmates.

In the end, the camp brothels did not produce any noticeable increase in the prisoners' productivity levels, but instead, created a market for coupons among the camp VIPs.

Here's a few of the locations where this happened:

Mauthausen/Gusen, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Neuengamme, Dachau, Dora-Mittelbau, Sachsenhausen, Flossenbürg and others

The women forced into these brothels came mainly from the women-only Ravensbrück concentration camp, except for Auschwitz, which "employed" its own prisoners.

In combination with the German military brothels in World War II, it is estimated that at least 34,140 female inmates were forced into sexual slavery during the Third Reich.

The brothels form the subject of "Das KZ Bordell" (The Concentration Camp Brothel) by Robert Sommer, a book that has been hailed as the first comprehensive account of a little known chapter of Nazi oppression in World War Two.

It explores the origins, structure and impact of the "Sonderbauten" (special buildings) run by Heinrich Himmler's SS in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe.

"In the collective memory and written history of World War Two, the camp brothels were for a long time taboo," the 35-year-old Berliner told Reuters. "The former prisoners didn't want to talk about it: it was a difficult subject to handle."

"It didn't fit so easily into the postwar image of the concentration camps as monuments to suffering."

According to concentration camp survivors the women in those brothels were replaced every 6 months and the women who got replaced were killed in gas chambers.

It is important to note that we distinctively speak of sexual slavery here and of rape.

I wanted to point this out especially because I have been seeing liberal feminists talking about this topic, calling it "forced sex-work", "forced sex-labour" etc.

It is beyond disrespectful to call these female victims "sex-workers" or "employees" when their sexuality was brutally exploited, their diginities taken, their health was sacrificed, they were raped repeatedly and then executed after 6 months, even though they were promised to be released after those months. But those promises of course were never honored.

Liberal feminism and radical feminism differ a lot when it comes to views on the topic of prostitution but this does NOT excuse labeling victims of abuse and rape as "sex-workers" or calling their suffering "forced sex-labour."

#feminism #radical feminists do interact #radblr #radical feminism #world war 2 #radical feminists do touch #radical feminist community #radical feminists please touch

[girlfictions]

I cannot even begin to tell you how hollow it sounds when you cry and shit yourself over dead Palestinian children while a few days ago you were celebrating the deaths of innocent Israeli children and saying they deserved it, calling BABIES colonizers and cheering on the wholesale rape and kidnapping of women and children who have yet to be released. I guess childrens lives only matter so long as they aren’t Jewish.

Usually I wouldn't bother engaging with Zionists because it's not worth the energy but this is actually a great learning opportunity for other people to see exactly how the Zionist narrative works.

"I cannot even begin to tell you how hollow it sounds when you cry and shit yourself over dead Palestinian children"

Absolutely insane way to start off your message. Just pure dehumanisation of the nearly 3,000 children who have been murdered since October 7th, not to mention the 1,434 children who have been killed by Israeli forces from 2008 to October 6th 2023. I am not "crying and shitting myself" over dead children, I am mourning them. I am grieving for them and the lives they should have rightfully lived. I am aghast that thousands of children have been killed while the world watches.

"a few days ago you were celebrating the deaths of innocent Israeli children and saying they deserved it, calling BABIES colonizers and cheering on the wholesale rape and kidnapping of women and children who have yet to be released"

Show me exactly where I said anything even remotely close to this egregious statement. Every one of my posts about this situation has been tagged with #palestine, so it should be easy to prove your claims. I have never celebrated the death of an innocent child because I am not a complete fucking scumbag. I have never called a baby a coloniser because I am not stupid. I have never, ever cheered on the rape and kidnapping of women and children and it's disgusting that you'd even accuse me of doing so. These blatant lies are honestly shocking; why do you feel the need to put words in my mouth? Is it because your narrative falls apart without it? Or are you just projecting how you feel about Palestinians onto me?

"I guess childrens lives only matter so long as they aren’t Jewish."

What a pathetic attempt at moral posturing. And, of course, the classic Zionist move of accusing those who support Palestine of anti-Semitism. Never mind the fact that 500 Jewish protesters were arrested for calling for a ceasefire at the U.S. Congress last week, or the hundreds more, including rabbis, who were arrested just yesterday during another ceasefire demonstration. I get it — you're losing the PR war. It's hard to get away with supporting a genocide when there are millions of us bearing witness, so you've resorted to sending hysterical, vitriolic anons. I hope you realise no matter how desperately you try to paint this situation as anything but a one-sided massacre, nobody believes you. We will fight for a free Palestine and we will see a free Palestine.

من النهر إلى البحر

#palestine

[kneelingshadowsalome]

FATUM NOS IUNGEBIT 3/4

König x F!Reader

Summary: You have seen him in your dreams. The seer has divined his coming. But nothing has prepared you for witnessing him in the flesh. (Historical AU where König fights for the Roman Empire in an auxiliary unit, finds a cute barbarian woman and decides to keep her as his own.) Part 1 Part 2 Word count: 9.4 k Tags/warnings: 18+ ONLY. Spoils of war/enemies to lovers trope, graphic depictions of violence, historical gruesomeness, pining, odd banter, mixed feelings, romantic fluff, dubcon cuddling, eventual smut. Captor/captive dynamic. König is a brutal warrior... and a gentle giant. A/N: König takes liberties with his mouth. Dubcon is at its most dubcon in this chapter so please tread carefully <3 The actual smut happens in the next (and last) part. Long chapter because these two just can't behave!!

The days are getting warmer now. 

The sun warms the tent during the day, and the sound of birds searching for a mate threatens to drive you to madness. They sing during nighttime, too, and you miss the sturdy clay walls of your hut that blocked at least some of the sounds from outside. Now you are barely sheltered from wind and rain that beat the tent every now and then and can escape the swelling song of spring and lovesick birds to nowhere. König only snores with steady content as you mull over your strange fate there in his cozy bed, wondering how crazy it is that he never lets you go when he sleeps.

If König has an early council, you spend the morning eating breakfast in bed while studying odd parchments the translator gave you. The old man was quite insulted, not because you asked, but because you showed interest in the documents that, apparently, were of least importance to him. 

You don’t care that they’re “only” travel guides because they’re filled with Roman letters and numbers and usually illustrated with pictures of columns. You don’t understand a word they say and how those strange papers could ever be a travel guide to anyone, but you like to trace the letters and pictures with your finger. König clearly understood your fascination with them: he left you this morning with another smile, which told you he only thought you were simply adorable this way. He tried to tell you that the letters represent towns and the numbers tell the distances between those towns, but they still remain bizarre pieces of paper to you.

Men pass by occasionally; you can hear it from how their gears clonk and clatter and swish. You can hear the soft thump of sandals on the dirt, but you pay it no attention because you’ve always trusted that you are safe here. As long as you stay inside the tent, no one will touch you, even if they can currently see you because the flap is left open a wink. 

The only times his men witness you are when König takes you out for a walk in the woods so that you can take care of your bodily needs. Everyone can see that your hands are never tied, your face is never bruised, and your posture is still that of a proud, unbroken woman. And everyone looks at you with both hunger and wonder. Apparently, you are an even tempting spoil because you are not yet spoiled. 

The special treatment was rubbed in your face one time when you passed by a Roman soldier disciplining his slave, a woman who had shared your fate and clearly was having the worst of it. The other half of her face was unrecognizable, but the man kept beating her, and you stared in horror as whatever deed she had done to anger the man was now being punished far too cruelly. 

“Romans very dumb,” König said from next to you without even shedding a glance at the morbid scene. No one seemed to give a shit about what was happening to that poor woman, but you would never have expected such a comment to come from König’s mouth. When you asked him what he meant by that, he only shrugged and said: “That man piss on his luck.”

You wonder if the only reason why you haven’t been raped yet is because you are some sort of a lucky charm to him. The mere thought has the effect of making your blood boil, but some distant, tender voice inside you reminds you that König is not Roman. He does not share Roman customs, even if he fights with and for them. Perhaps slaves are treated differently in his land. Perhaps in there, it is considered an outrage and an insult to the gods to beat a woman, free or not.

Whatever his reasons are for not beating and raping you to death, it was a tremendous stroke of luck that König found you first. You dropped right there on his feet when he was victorious, so of course his men allowed him to take you as his: you were clearly a gift from the gods. But now that time has passed, you understand you are by no means safe if you wander outside this tent. König can protect you only when he is present or when you are safely tucked away in his own personal space. 

It’s a false feeling of safety, however, because you soon learn that out of sight is out of mind for these soldiers. Now that you are on display, sweetly and neatly on the bed, a tiny little wrinkle forming between your brows from studying the peculiar parchment, you are like fresh livestock on the marketplace, even inside the tent. You notice that someone else is in here with you only when you hear the sound of munching and turn. 

A relatively big soldier is standing in the doorway, eating an apple, watching you like he would rather have a bite out of you.

And you thank all the gods and stars above you, all the spirits and the Mother below you, that he doesn’t even get to take a step before a sword impales his chest.

König kills his own man so casually that all the thoughts of him falling to the gentle side of giants disappear instantly. He even twists the sword inside the broad man from daring to cast eyes on you. And you probably should feel bad for him… But you don’t. Not at all. The apple falls into the dirt and rolls away, but the man slumps into the threshold of the outside world and the safe womb of the tent, like an offering to guardian spirits - or to you.

You look up at König, eyes wide only because you are yet again speechless, but this time because of odd, bashful gratitude. 

“No touching,” he says without even blinking – it sounds like a stern explanation.

“No touching,” you agree with a whisper. König only nods, wipes his gladius clean on the dead soldier’s cloak, and carries the body into the woods.

…

You don’t know if he has lost some of the favour he enjoys among the Romans after killing one of their soldiers. You suspect he has not. Actually, you are sure his reputation only soared for it. He just showed everyone that his prize is not to be touched: you are not to be even looked upon. Romans probably respect such a thing.

A few wagons arrive one morning, carrying various supplies for the soldiers. There are many other items too, completely unrelated to warfare but all to do with pleasure and gambling and trade. You assume König gets to pick his favourites among the first soldiers, if not the first soldier, from the abundant cargo that arrived, because he brings his spoils to you with boyish excitement. There is close to nothing there for himself: only a thick, heavy cloak, made of dark wool with lush fur on the shoulders. It looks like something a northern king would wear, and you find yourself quite happy for him, but the other items he’s carrying are clearly all hand-picked just for you. 

There is a dress, a pair of sandals, a bone comb, some fruit and a large, round copper dish. It serves as a mirror as you change into the dress – a Roman one, dyed ocean blue – just to appease König and get him off your back. It hurts your heart to see how happy it makes him to see you accept his gifts. He holds the dim, uneven mirror in front of you when you get the dress on, and you’re feeling strangely meek: you’re not even sure if you have put it on properly. The bone comb is milk white and has two horses carved on it – it reminds you of the offering that was never made to appease the Great Mother because it couldn’t have prevented the Titan from coming to your lands. It’s another odd omen: black horses now turned to white, but an omen for what, you can’t say. 

And then… he kneels. 

König falls at your feet and starts putting the Roman sandals on, tying the strings around your calves so gently that it makes you feel like you’re made of clay. The sandals are not the kind he wears: they’re made for women, apparently, because they’re so skimpy and delicate. The strings reach the upper part of your calf, and when he’s done with you, happy to have now clothed you in Roman garb, he caresses your thigh and presses a kiss above your knee. 

And he looks up at you like you’re everything but his captive. He looks at you like you’re a queen. He stares at you like he’s the slave here.

“You like?”

The soft rumble catches you off guard, as does the fond caress he gives your leg. He doesn’t even try to move his hand upwards and under the dress; he just admires you from the ground, looking a bit foolish while crouched there at your feet. You swallow arduously and nod. What else are you supposed to do? 

He smiles with his eyes and gives you another kiss. He presses it on the sensitive part where your calf meets the inside of your knee. He even raises his hood to do it, and you finally feel his breath as his lips meet your skin, hot but tender. You fight the urge to shrink from him, and despite it only being a soft peck, a lover’s touch, the kiss leaves a burning sensation on your skin.

Then he tucks your dress down, like a slave who simply stole a little kiss from his mistress. You’re rendered weak and silent before such reverence, but then the playfulness returns as he raises one finger, as if telling you not to say a word because he just had an idea. You look at him with odd curiosity as he crawls on all fours and reaches for something underneath the bed. You panic a little, fearing he might notice that you’ve been there, too: rummaging through his things and throwing the pieces of jewellery back there without caring to ensure that they are placed back in the same position you found them in. But he doesn’t seem to care or notice.

He tries to offer you the golden pendant first, the one that has three discs on it. It’s a little too much, and you shake your head, fearing you will upset him by declining his gift. He tries to offer you a more delicate necklace next: full of cute, filigreed beads, but you shake your head again. He wishes to give you a trinket so badly that you finally raise your hand and graze your fingertips over a leather string holding a few chunks of amber. It also bears the claws of some animal: fox, perhaps. He looks very pleased with your choice and puts your new possession around your neck. You reach for the copper plate yourself this time and hold it up to see how you look in your odd Roman dress and your humble but powerful new necklace.

“Sehr schön,” König says behind you as you take in the wobbly image. He is so, so happy - you have never seen him quite so happy. It looks like he thought this to be the prettiest, most compelling piece of jewellery too; as if the gold and beads were simply currency for him, too. As if it was obvious that you would be interested in bones and sea gold instead of the gold of men. Then he pulls out something from under his tunic: another leather string that has a large hunk of bone hanging from it. He’s presenting it to you like he wants to show how you two are now very much alike.

“What is it…?” You ask, trying to determine whether the bone came from an elk or a deer.

“Bear cock,” he says proudly while dangling it in front of you like it’s the most natural thing in the world for a man to carry the penis bone of a bear around his neck. “Makes man strong in battle and bed.”

“I don’t think you need that,” you whisper while looking up at him. It’s your first joke to him, and he laughs. Heartily.

“Kleine Fee. You have only seen me fight.”

He puts it back under his tunic as if it’s his secret amulet now. You really don’t think he needs any more luck in war, or in any other… field. He seems like the kind of man who can pleasure women all day. It’s a bitter thought, somehow, and makes your heart feel heavy. You wonder how many women he has had already when you have refused to open your legs for him.

“We can try how good it works in bed,” he offers, as cheerfully as ever.

Oh. 

Oh… 

“I’m—I’m hungry. I think I need to eat something,” you summon an excuse out of thin air while raising your hands against his chest to keep him away. As if you could get your breakfast down after him saying things like that…

“Hungrig? I can feed you,” he suggests, still in the happiest of moods. Then he sweeps you off your feet and carries you to the table. He’s ever generous today: you get to sit on his lap as he starts to feed you grapes.

And you didn’t think he’d actually, veritably feed you. But that’s exactly what he does. You get an entire meal: ripe fruits, a thick handful of bread, a fine slice of fat, delicious cheese. Wine to wash it down, and then some more grapes. He holds them gently on your lips until you open your mouth a little so that he can push them onto your tongue. He watches with utter content how you eat everything he offers you. He even gives you a few bounces with his knee, and every now and then, he gropes your tits: just squeezes them and plays around with them while you eat.

It is quite evident that this man really, really likes your boobs. Perhaps that is why he carries the statue of Great Mother around… To your horror, you realize the piece of carved wood is not an idol of worship for this man, just a lewd image he probably digs up and looks at when he wants to stroke his cock.

Gods... This man is even worse than you thought.

You begin to pout again, and he draws you flush against him, seeing that he somehow managed to make you displeased. Unaware as to what could have caused this, he gives you another bounce and tries to find the reason for your sudden change of mood.

“Are you fed now?”

“Yes,” you mope even more as you realize you would very much like him to continue feeding you even if you’re full. To just… do that thing with the grapes again. Just a few more.

“Gut. We have to leave soon.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “To fight.”

The camp is packed up in such haste that you find yourself under the sun in practically no time. You stay as close to König as possible without being glued to him, seeing that the new dress and hairstyle you made with the comb is high currency among the war-torn, lust-filled soldiers. Someone gives you a long whistle, which is followed by a few harsh comments you luckily don’t understand, but all the stares are cut off when König stops preparing his horse, rises to his full height, and wraps his fingers around the handle of his gladius.

You don’t get a single look after that, not even a sideways glance. Everyone acts like you don’t even exist.

The army moves at a slow pace at first, leaving a heavy dust cloud behind. It’s a fine day for travelling because there isn’t a single cloud in the sky. Everyone seems to be having a good time except for the slaves, and König is the only one who is vigilant, watching his surroundings at all times, head turning from side to side, hand never leaving his sword. 

You get a horse – his horse – and a lot of hateful stares from the other women, none of whom you have ever seen before. Captive girls from other villages, you presume, and they all hate you now because you get to ride a strong black stallion while they have to march in a dust cloud with their hands bound and their feet full of blisters. Their captors don’t give much thought to feeding or giving water to these poor women, mainly because they’re too busy laughing with each other and having hearty gulps from their wine sacks. You wonder if these men have ever fed these women a single grape during their campaign.

König, on the other hand, marches next to you like he’s your servant. He offers you his waterskin, his wineskin, too, and as the march goes on, an awkward knot starts to form inside your belly.

He’s behaving so oddly. You can’t find any other reason for his behaviour than that he simply has no full understanding of Roman customs because he comes from somewhere else. (Mountains, he said, when you asked him.)

You only now notice that he has servants but only uses them to pack or set up the tent. Other high-ranking officers and commanders have their servants with them at all times, tending to their every need. König is the only one who behaves like a foot soldier: he pours his own wine, gets his rations and supplies himself, lights his oil lamps without help and never lets anyone else touch his armour or swords. 

The servant he uses the most is the translator, a slave who’s clearly responsible for teaching König more and more of your words. He also serves as a mediator when König gets ready for another battle. You have naively wanted to forget the reason why these men are here in the first place, and as you see König putting on his full armour the next day, tying the swords on his waist and leaving to search for his shield, you feel like bursting into tears or a scream. You look away as he gets dressed, and refuse to give him a single kind look that morning. You stand with your hands crossed over your chest as he’s finally ready and fetches the old man to the tent again.

The Roman soon stands next to him as König takes a step and falls on one knee before you.

“He asks you to bless him,” the old translator says – weary and bored.

You stop breathing for a second and look at König, there at your feet again, head bowed, leaning on one elbow placed on a strong knee.

Bless him… For going to slaughter another clan? Give your blessing to him leaving people fatherless, childless and homeless? 

Is this some sort of a joke?

“Are my words… correct? Master asks that you give him your blessing for the upcoming battle.”

You bite your lip in frustration. You want to put your hand over this proud warrior’s head and send him away with words of might and fortune, but even the thought of wanting to do that is about to make you sick.

“I will do no such thing,” you say coldly and earn a sad, confused stare from König, who raises his head to look at you with a horrifying, pleading gaze. This man doesn’t beg for anything from anyone, and yet here he is, in his full armour, armed to the teeth and looking like the God of War again, asking for a kind word or two. You turn away, not because you deny him, but because you can’t stand to be under that defenceless gaze. The Roman sighs behind you, and from the clatter of König’s gear, you can hear that he has gotten up and is about to leave. 

You turn again, only to face his withdrawing back. Tense, and already beaten.

He grabs the satchel, the one that holds his Mother, but stops to look at it like it’s simply an ordinary object instead of a powerful entity. Then he places it back down on the table with a sigh. You look with horror as he leaves for war without taking his amulet, idol, fate, source of luck and joy – whatever the statue represents to this man – with him.

It doesn’t take long before you regret you didn’t give him your “blessing”. 

It somehow feels wrong that he left without it. You’re his captive, but he has fed you, clothed you, kept you warm. He has practically done no harm to you except hold you through the night and have a few gropes at your tits, which you haven’t found harmful at all… The least you could do to thank him is to lay a hand upon his head or sword before he left. Just a simple little gesture, not even a true blessing… Just a little something would have sufficed, to help him go into battle with a slightly lighter heart. 

Because as much as you loathe this man, you don’t actually want him dead. You don’t want him to march into battle and think you wish him ill. You don’t want König to get careless just for the sake of feeling miserable about the thought that his little slave girl despises him.

Because you don’t despise him.

You just don’t… like him. 

And he’s your captor still. Why should he deserve your blessing?

But the image of him cutting through his enemies with sorrow and bleakness in his stare, walking into a spear just because he’s had enough of life and more than enough of difficult, uncaring, ungrateful women, makes your heart bleed. He could’ve taken Mother with him since he didn’t get a good luck’s wish from you, but he chose to leave even Her behind. As if his faith had failed him, as if the few things and people he has ever placed his trust in have now abandoned him. 

The night rolls in, and the moon crosses the sky slowly, so slowly, as you wait for his return. The old Roman looks at you sideways every time you peek outside the flap and sigh. Your guard is a weak, old man, but you reckon that if you were to escape, the tired slave would simply follow you out of the camp and tell König which direction you have gone so that he can hunt you down when he returns. The few Romans left to guard the portable garrison would probably seize you and take you as their plaything before you managed to set a foot outside the vallus, and even if König came back to claim you, you could be a bloody heap by the time he returned.

And it’s not even caution keeping you inside the tent. You don’t actually think about fleeing at all. 

In the dead of night, you go to his satchel and pull out the statue of the Great Mother.

“Dear Mother... Great Mother. Please let him have his victory. Please let him come home unhurt. Even if he fails, please let there not be a scratch on him as he falls. Please, please, please…”

You improvise your prayer as you go, thinking about something to offer Her while being captive and not having access to most of the resources you would normally go to.

“I’ll give you my next moonblood. I will give you amber and fox claws…”

Your heart hurts, knowing you just promised the necklace König gave you as your sacrifice. But it’s a small gift for his safe return, and you renew your prayer, over and over again, while squeezing the Mother between your hands and pressing Her against your forehead.

You’re not sure if She can even hear you, because haven’t you wished this man dead not too long ago? You return the Mother to her satchel and pace around the tent, about to go mad. When the first horses arrive, you almost run outside to see if you can see or hear him coming. Soldiers march into the camp: there is so much din and racket outside that you know this is the least opportune moment to go outside and show yourself to the survivors who clearly have their morale and cocks up high from the recent battle. You wait and wait and wait, thinking about whether your god is among the wounded, being carried to some other tent where they treat injuries. You go and sit on the bed; you rise up and sit on the table. Then you go and press your ear to the fabric of the tent and try to listen like a fox. 

The flap is, blessedly, finally drawn aside, and you hurry to meet whoever has arrived. It’s König – of course – breathing heavy, looking slightly high-strung but primarily unscathed, and you forget yourself completely when running to him.

“Are you hurt!?”

He takes off his helmet and takes in a good breath of air, eyes melting into pure love when he sees you.

“Nein. Not a scratch.”

You swallow your relief – of course no one can get to this man. Your fears have been stupid and ridiculous. But in the deepest chasm of your heart, you thank the Mother three times. You promise to deliver her your sacrifice as soon as possible.

“You fear for me?” He asks, so excited again that you have to dig your nails into your palm so that you won’t go and clutch him and cry from joy. You don’t nod or shake your head; you only stare at him with what must look like a frightened deer stare.

Your giant comes to hug you so tight you can’t even breathe. Then he lifts you into the air, and there is nothing you can do - there is nothing you even want to do but to be there in his stout embrace. You’re so relieved that he is alive and unhurt that there are tears in your eyes, and he sees them, and smiles.

“Don’t worry, little Fee. Ich könnte dich niemals verlassen.” His voice is throaty and parched; apparently, he has shouted his throat raw on the field. 

You almost say you’re sorry that you didn’t give him your blessing, but seeing how pleased, triumphant, and gleeful he is causes you to shut your mouth and shut it tight. It’s enough that you have babbled prayers for him all night, praying your knees and tongue sore.

König returns you to the ground and leaves, only to return with ample loot. Two slaves carry in a small but heavy jute sack of coin, a tiny chest filled with honey, two bottles of scented oils, three gorgeous jugs of milk, a beautiful bronze sword, all laid there at your feet.

“Für dich,” he says, throwing a wide arc with his hand to gesture that all this is now yours. You watch all the stunning, lavish, extraordinary gifts, again picked with care just for you. You remember how there was not a single coin in this tent before you were dragged in, no bronze, no gold, no milk nor honey. No fine dresses, no stolen, scented oils. How many families did he have to kill to bring all these fine goods for you?

“I don’t want your loot,” you whisper on the brink of tears.

“What…do you want?” The smile in his eyes fades, and it stabs your heart full of pain. “More sea honey?”

“No, I–”

“Slaves?”

“No,” you step forward. If only you two could have met some other time, in some other place… “I just…I want my freedom.”

“What will you do with freedom…?” 

You finally get to see what König is like when he argues. He cannot understand your logic; he can’t understand what more he must do to satisfy you and make you happy. 

“Your chief is dead,” he says bluntly, causing your head to feel two times too small for your anger and pain. 

“You don’t have to remind me,” you blurt, equally bluntly. Because whose fault is that? This man is a thick-skulled, thick-cocked idiot.

“You have no husband. No village.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Why angry?”

“Because you are infuriating,” you almost shriek.

He looks at you, lost and confused, not knowing how to calm you down or make you pleased again. And it must be confusing: some gifts work, some don’t. Other times, you look at him lovely and sweet; other times you sulk and pout. You have luckily stopped your crying, but now you have suddenly decided to yell at him?

He approaches you after seemingly coming to the conclusion that you must want him to either pet or fuck you. He tries to raise his hands to touch you, but you push him away.

“Don’t you fucking dare grope me again!”

He withdraws quickly, now utterly nonplussed. If you don’t even want to be held, then what is he to do? This goes against all the laws of this world: he has arrived, triumphant and joyous from the battle, clearly favoured by all the gods, above and below, and favoured in full. The only one who doesn’t grant him a boon is you. His head tips to the side - it always does that when he’s curious or thinking hard. Then his eyes light up with understanding, and you know you’re about to hear more nonsense coming out of that oafish mouth.

“You don’t want me to fight?”

“I don’t…care what you do,” you scoff.

“Ah. You hate Romans?”

“Yes, I hate Romans. I wish they would all die. I hate their stupid battles and their stupid campaigns. And I hate you too,” your spirit rises with your words, your voice gaining volume and strength as you hurl all your frustration at him. 

And he’s shocked. Not at your first declaration, nor the second, not even the third. It’s the last sentence that clearly drives a dagger straight into his heart. 

He steps back, nearly toppling a milk jug as he pulls away from you. Then he mumbles something under his breath, something in his own crude language. The words are muffled by the mask as he scratches the back of his neck and leaves the tent without even taking his blood-stained armour off.

His name, the name that sounds so foreign to you, never leaves your mouth. But the following words do.

“Wait, I didn’t… I didn’t mean it.”

Not all of it.

He’s out of the tent by then, and you’re left with your beautiful gifts, your bitter sorrow and regret. You sigh and look up, hoping you could see the sky and whisper your inquiry into the night air. 

Why on earth did you two have to meet like this? Why does he have to be so thick-skulled and so… So him?

You calm your racing heart and start to organize the loot he brought you. You have never liked messy places and have done your best to keep this tent from getting cluttered. You taste some of the milk he brought you and inhale the sweet scent of those oils; you dip your little finger inside the honey jar and have a taste. The golden liquid tastes like the food of the gods when paired with milk. You put the blade on the table where König usually keeps his swords and settle to wait for him. 

And you have to wait for a long time, so long that you eventually withdraw to the bed, alone and with a heavy heart. When König finally returns, you can hear he has had a drink. More than one, too: he has probably drunk an entire jug of wine alone. He doffs his armour with curses and sighs, and lets it drop on the ground with a sloppy clang that makes you jolt under the furs. He eats something very noisily while throwing his helmet somewhere to the ground too, burps loudly, and sighs again: so deeply that it makes your heart burn. After getting rid of the tunic and his sandals – an operation that takes him more than a while – he crawls on the bed with a heavy breath. Your heart is at your throat as the stench of wine hits you, and his hands are clumsy and stern when he comes under the same fur and reaches for you.

“König—”

Your whisper ends abruptly as you are pulled against a familiar, broad chest. He growls at you for being awake – or at himself for waking you up with a drunken racket.

“I don’t… I didn’t…” you start weakly and have to clear your throat as he huffs against your neck, listening to what you are trying to say. 

“I don’t hate you,” you finally whisper.

He grumbles against your back and buries his masked face in your neck. The arm around your middle tightens and tightens, and you hurry to praise his gifts.

“The honey is delicious. And the oils are–”

"Fee… Du machst mich verrückt."

He speaks through gritted teeth while panting laboriously in your hair. You're relieved to hear sorrow instead of anger in his voice, but it’s his body that makes you arch your back and guide your bottom to meet his crotch.

The biggest mistake you’ve ever done, surely, because the whole body behind you grows taut. He gives you a tight roll of his hips, pushing his cock against you with immediate fervour. His balls meet your bottom, tight and heavy: you have gone to bed in your ridiculous Roman dress because you were feeling cold, but you can still feel them. You can feel all of him.

“König… We–We need to sleep…”

You sound like a bitch in heat, not at all like a woman who wants to stop wherever this heated cuddle is spiralling into. König is letting out noises you didn’t even know a man could make, and it makes your cunt wetter than ever before: tight and throbbing and embarrassingly needy. You try to remind yourself that this is not the proper time or way, that you don’t want it to happen like this: with the smell of wine and blood and dirt and sweat surrounding you, with him soon thrusting that cock between your thighs and shooting his seed on the bed before he can even get it in. You don’t want him when he’s drunk, and you don’t want him when he’s clearly a bit angry with you still. You place a weak hand over his, the one currently wrapped around your middle like a bond. 

“Please, I mean it…” 

“Not the time for sleep, little one,” he rasps on your shoulder, mask dragged aside and mouth breathing hot against your skin. His voice is gentle but his body is not: it turns out he has only been waiting for the slightest little cue to have the permission to take you. Unfortunately for you, moaning and grinding your hips against him is more than just a cue.

“Göttin der Erde... Gib dich mir.” 

He grunts odd, boorish words on your shoulder, leaving you breathless with another tight roll of his hips. It feels like a spell or a chant, the way he speaks. You want nothing more than to give yourself to him, and fear that whatever tie has been knotted between you two, whatever shackle has bound your souls together, has also granted him the ability to hear your thoughts. He must’ve heard them, or then he must smell the change in the air, because he rolls you on your back and pushes a knee between your legs.

“Meine Königin... Ich werde dich sehr glücklich machen,” he mutters more incantations in your neck, broad thigh forcing your legs further apart. He doesn’t even need strength to coax them open: they drag up and aside by themselves. 

“Ah–Why can’t you talk like normal people…” 

You sigh your silly thoughts out into the night air, and your fierce giant turns his head a little, now right there next to your cheek.

"Normal? Was ist das…?"

Your lips draw into a quivering little smile – you just can’t help it. Him lying half on top of you, asking what the word ‘normal’ means while smelling like an entire wine house just burned down makes your lips and heart flutter. Your soft laugh makes him raise his head a little, drunken, half-lidded eyes now fixed on you.

“The opposite of you?” You offer innocently and try not to laugh, but it’s no use. You start to snicker, then giggle, and the way he growls only makes things worse. 

“You little–I will go crazy because of you,” he whispers, drunk as a heartbroken man can be. Your own heart seems to open with a flood.

“Then go crazy,” you whisper back. 

And gods… He takes your sigh as a permit to go absolutely berserk. He crawls on top of you and rips your dress apart from the middle with both hands, exposing your breasts to him and the cold night air. There's a weight in his gaze that turns your nipples hard; a gaze of promise, just before he descends.

He attacks you like a starving man, devours and licks and sucks your breasts until you shake and moan on the bed, until your hands come to cradle his head with greed.

“I will make you scream tonight,” he pants roughly on your tits – you can feel the words on your skin. You’re veritably afraid that this man will swallow you before he even gets to the main event, which is no doubt to satiate the need to fill you with potent seed. He doesn’t exactly caress you, no: he gobbles you like your body is an entire feast, the generous kisses almost turning into bites when he reaches your hips.

“No–no teeth, König,” you try to whimper, somewhere on the borderline of tension and lust.

"Fee... I promise I'll fuck you like king. I'll fuck you until you cry.”

Your head goes blank from his words; from terror and love and lust. There's no time to decipher whether you should be afraid, because he scoops up your thighs, grabs you like a wrestling partner, and draws you against his face.

“Wait—What are you–”

Your words are cut off as he drives his nose up your cunt and breathes in your musk like it's divine incense. It doesn’t matter that you’re still covered by the skimpy dress he just ripped to shreds: the fabric is so thin that he could be virtually sniffing you through sheer gossamer. 

There’s no escape now; he can feel how wet you are. He can practically taste it.

“König—”

You can't understand why he would want to push his face there, so you mewl and try to push him away – very weakly – but he’s immovable, glued to your scent down there, panting into your warm, wet cunt with harsh breaths and starved groans. You're lying there at his mercy, dress torn to pieces and breasts heaving, thighs spread as far as they can go.

It's futile to even try reason with a starved giant between your legs, a cunt-deprived warrior about to finally take what's his. You should've known better than to joke around and play with a man who could snap you in half – either with his hands or with his cock – and Mother was wrong: you're not smart at all, teasing a beast like this. A beast whose teeth are currently bared over your most vulnerable place protected only by a thin veil soaked with your wet. 

König lashes his tongue out and presses it flat against your dress, on your throbbing womanhood, and your words turn into an ample, lewd moan.

“A–ah…”

You fall weakly back on the bed, head spinning although you haven’t drunk a drop of wine. The broad body almost trembles there between your legs. 

“Ah… You want cock, ja? I can taste it,” he grunts, blunt as ever. The thought of that thing being bullied into you inch by thick inch makes your cunt clench tight. Gods, you want it, but it will never fit, never…

Unless he… Unless that's why he's down there, panting hot inside you, trying to coax you open with his mouth. Perhaps he's not that dumb after all...

“Please,” you beg for him to love you, taste you, take you, your pride melting into copper and gold, pooling somewhere down, down, down… 

“Don't worry,” he speaks straight to your cunt like a man intoxicated with something far better than wine. “I will give you cock. All night.”

He lifts the dress with his nose like a dog, nuzzles under your ruined attire like it's his shelter for the night, headed back towards his plump prize. There will soon be nothing between his mouth and your poor, throbbing cunt, aching to be licked and loved by a cruel giant. A giant who brings you milk and honey and grapes and gold in all its forms… 

But just when you have finally forgotten that beasts possess teeth, he sinks them into you. He sinks them into your inner thigh, waking you up from the dream with sharp, harrowing pain.

The fucking idiot actually bites you, hard.

“You fucking—Go to hell!”

You push him away in earnest now, using his shoulders to propel yourself away from him. His teeth threaten to pierce and tear skin because he's so reluctant to let go, and the horrors of the battlefield seep into your skin; the safe warmth of the womb turns into a suffocating darkness. 

Your kicks have enough power to make him rise from between your legs, and the clear-cut pain in his eyes makes you want to both hug and hit him. You do the latter and hurl your fists at him, not bothering to even try to hit a target or cause pain; you just want him to stop making you afraid. 

Of course, he takes your breathless state and lust-filled rage as a cue to leave – and he does precisely that, but not before he has struggled away from you and your fists in an overly dramatic manner. It would look funny in another situation, especially when he's as hard as ever, cock jutting high towards the sky just from having a little taste of your love. Drunken and slightly wobbly, he almost falls when he grabs the tunic from the earthen floor as if his tent is a site of execution where he will soon be stoned. 

At the mouth of the tent, he stops, throws his head back, and roars. The guttural, booming rage echoes towards the gods like a furious curse, and you’re quite sure that the entire camp is awake by now. Every soldier nearby must be dying of a scared heart, thinking that there are either bears or Gauls upon them.

You hold your arms against your chest and safeguard your soft belly as you take in all his fury and frustration, then watch him stagger into the night, head hanging heavy between slumped shoulders. You’re left breathing, afraid and alone in the darkness, thinking about what the hell just happened… And spend the next moments in shock. Soon enough, the cold and terror fades, melting into something more palatable. You're shivering and wet, but intact, at least on the outside.

And the oddest thing is that you find yourself missing him. You miss his presence, his body, you miss his dumbness and his jokes. You fucking miss him.

The man who almost raped you.

With his… mouth.

You curl inside the furs and try to get some sleep with a hammering heart, ending up thinking about him all night. You thought he was going to pound you with that ridiculously long cock all night – and wasn't that his threat, too? – but what you didn't expect was that the giant barbarian who rips people's throats open with his teeth would want to lick and lap you into submission. You never would have thought that König wanted to bury his face between your legs, and eagerly at that.

Perhaps you understood his silly words wrong in your half aroused, half scared state. What if he meant to make you scream and cry from pleasure, not pain?

The burning bruise on your thigh reminds you that you are probably wrong, but you still wake every now and then from a thin sleep, glancing around you in despair, only to see that he’s not there. You feel so hollow that you think for a moment whether König has left the camp entirely, whether he is wandering away, towards some other adventure, exhausted with you and the war and the Romans.

The most unbearable thought in your head is not that he has left you for his dogs, however. It’s the thought that has abandoned you. That he has finally had enough. Because you realize… König hasn’t gone anywhere. He simply left to have his fun with some other woman. Perhaps he’ll be back in the morning, but his patience is gone; it has finally ended, your silly little game. A difficult slave girl who won’t even let him lick her cunt is simply no amusement to him anymore. 

Just before dawn, your will breaks; it splits in half. You can almost hear it. The sound of cries is muffled in the bed that nowadays has both his scent and yours: both of your scents combined, mixing together into a wonderful haze of love and despair.

…

König comes back when the dawn is already turning into a full day.

He strolls into the tent the same way he left: with a hunched posture and unsteady feet, but the fervent vigour from last night is gone. Actually, you have never seen him so weak. The dramatic sighs, the groping and the bullying have turned into a piercing silence. His muscles have lost their strength, his head is hanging heavy between those once proud shoulders, and his eyes are cast down as if he’s hoping there wouldn’t be such a bright orb in the sky. He drags his feet as he enters the tent; he doesn’t even look your way when he goes and slumps in his chair.

You are so glad to see him that you nearly jump from the bed and fall right there at his feet. You want to kiss his thighs and grab his hands and look up at him, doting and adoring like a good little slave. You want to whimper and beg that he can give you love bites everywhere he wants.

Instead, you snap at him, voice filled with poison.

“Did you have fun raping women last night?”

There are leaves on his mask and dirt on his shins and knees. Even his hands are a little grungy, and the proud red Roman tunic could also use a wash. He sheds you a tired side stare, then sighs.

“Was?”

“Were you with women,” you spell out every word slowly like you’re talking to a child. The venom on your tongue threatens to spill out as froth. And you almost say, 'other women'. Almost.

König raises his head and looks at you with a slight tilt in his head. He’s curious again, so, so very curious. He has clearly fleed the sun into his tent rather than seek your gracious presence, which shouldn’t make you this glum... But what you just said has managed to brighten up his entire day.

“Meine Fee… She’s jealous,” he points out in a far more jovial tone.

“No. Not at all,” you hurry to say, chin drawing back from his stupid accusations. 

“You are,” he says with unbridled fascination. 

“I assure you I’m not.”

Your cheeks are heating up, and the nervousness inside your belly roils like a snake. How does he always manage to get you into a trap? 

König leans back in his chair, now with his usual dignity on those shoulders. He even crosses his fingers loosely in his lap, looking like the conversation he’s about to have with you will, yet again, become another favourite of his. You’re not sure why you always feel like you’re being interrogated on the sly with him because König is the most simple, straightforward, blunt object of a man you have ever met. And still…

“Fucking other women is bad?” He asks innocently from that chair.

“Bad?” You huff. “Yes, if you have to force women under you, you are a brute.”

“And… ugly?”

“Very ugly. The ugliest man in the world.”

"Hm. But who say anything about forcing?"

König looks at you, calmly, as your stomach sinks from his words.

You can only stare at him as the world seems to fall apart around you, crumble into nothingness when there's sun shining and birds singing outside. Kicking him out of the tent – and almost kicking him in the face in the process – because you got afraid when he gave you a fervent little nib seems like the stupidest idea right now. If you were so willing to part your legs for him and moan under his tongue, surely some other insane woman would want to do that as well? Surely there is at least one woman in this camp who would gladly be pleased by this giant who doesn't hit or force women. Who only likes to… bite and squeeze and lick them.

You pout at him, lip almost trembling now, and he’s smiling, so, so very wide behind that mask. Gods damn him. 

Then he rises and walks to you, suddenly looking like he isn’t suffering from a hangover after all. He strolls towards you with slow purpose, and you swallow the tears down, trying not to show him how they turn into ice inside your stomach. 

“I have not touched women. Only you.”

He towers above you, looking down at you like you are indeed the most adorable thing in the entire world. You are not sure whether his words are to be believed, but something inside you says that this man never lies. As dense and dumb as he is, he is the most trustworthy human being you will ever meet.

“Only sleep with earth last night,” he says and starts to caress your hair. He even weighs some of it in his hand before sweeping it over your shoulder. Like you are simply his precious, silly little wife who has been spoiled too much.

“It was a cold mistress,” he laments, overly dramatic again, like a poor actor in a tragic play. Your heart aches, badly – you swear König is the most annoying man you have ever met, the most insufferable and lovable. You wonder if he has spent his seed on the cold, hard ground too. Given it to the Great Mother, who is a cold lover sometimes indeed… But not as cold as you.

You wonder how crazy it is that you have the power to drive this giant into the cold night from his own tent. König has had to face his hangover by waking up to a chilly dawn. His hand is not as warm as usual, and you start to worry that he has caught the wrath of wind spirits outside, soon rendering him weak and feverish. His skin is not supposed to feel this cold, not when he’s almost always blazing.

“I know a plant that might help,” you say diplomatically. “With your… Head.”

He looks at you, more and more curious by every passing moment. You hope he doesn’t weigh in his mind whether you are trying to poison him when he is weak. But he’s not that clever, perhaps, because he only looks at you like you’re an entire sun now, and very unlike the one that is giving him a headache today. You turn away from his hand – but not too quickly. You’re only feeling shy. And a bit uncomfortable.

“You should eat something. And drink water, not wine.”

“You care about my head?”

Gods… His voice is so, so soft. He’s seeing past all your defences again, and there is nothing you can do about it. You want to curse him but can’t. You simply can’t. 

“Just… Eat some fruit, alright? And I need a kettle so that I can boil some water for the herbs.”

You rise from the bed and try to ignore his adoring stare. He doesn’t attempt to touch you again; he merely watches as you go about and eat a little something as if to show that when it is morning, people should have breakfast. Like you’re a mother trying to lead by example or a fussing young wife who is trying to help his husband. Your lips are a thin line as you search for grapes that aren’t too soft and a piece of bread that doesn’t yet have mould in it. You grab some figs: you know they are his favorite, and bring them to him to tell him you’re serious about him needing to eat.

And you feel silly. 

You can’t even look at him. You’re feeling so odd, so weak, so warm inside, and it’s not because you’re disgusted; hell, it’s the opposite of being disgusted….

“I have fallen in love with you,” König says as he accepts your humble offering of food. You freeze in the middle of setting them on his palms, held upwards as if content with whatever you give him, even if it’s only a piece of bread and a few figs. 

Gods. Mother… Don’t do this to me–

“That how you say it?”

You breathe in and out, calm, collected – you're not going to faint because some crazy giant thinks he's in love. Yes, that’s it… Everything’s alright. He’s just being silly again. He’s just playing his own little plays again. 

But when you look at him, there is no actor there, no silly play: he’s just… König. He returns your helpless, cornered stare with warm kindness, reminding you of something, of some Roman or Greek god… Apollo. Yes, that’s it. Laureled sun god Apollo, the one everyone loves so dearly, because he always drives fear and doubt and darkness away. He’s Apollo, even though he doesn’t even prefer a bow. 

And has the translator taught König the correct words? Has he memorized them so that he can say them to you when the time is right? Your lip starts to tremble, and you fight to not shudder a sigh. The old seer was wrong: this man will be your downfall.

“I’ll go get that plant,” you whisper, soft eyes wide and chest curled tight. 

“Nein,” he says cheerfully, full of life and hope again. “Not alone, little one.”

…

A/N: Please don't send me death threats. Remember, big bang bang next chapter! Huge!!

Translations:

Sehr schön - Very beautiful

Kleine Fee - Little fairy

Hungrig? - Hungry?

Ich könnte dich niemals verlassen - I could never leave you

Für dich - For you

Du machst mich verrückt - You drive me crazy

Göttin der Erde… Gib dich mir - Goddess of the Earth… Give yourself to me

Meine Königin... Ich werde dich sehr glücklich machen - My Queen... I will make you very happy

Was ist das? - What is that?

#könig fanfiction #könig x reader #könig x you #könig x fem reader #könig x female reader #könig cod #konig x reader #konig x you #historical au #Roman soldier!König #könig smut

[bfpnola]

ID 1: Screenshot of a post by @/key48return on Instagram. Background is of a globe with pinpoints of the israeli flag all over North and South America. Title reads in all caps, “israel is involved in oppression all over the world not just in Palestine…” A yellow arrow points right underneath the title. End ID

ID 2: In all caps, “ISRAEL'S INVOLVED IN:

THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE - 1994

ISRAEL EXPORTED SUBSTANTIAL WEAPONS AND ARMS TO THE HUTU MILITIAS WHO MASSACRED OVER 1 MILLION TUTSI CIVILIANS IN RWANDA ACROSS THE DURATION OF 100 DAYS.

WEAPONS USED IN THE GENOCIDE INCLUDED ISRAELI-MADE 5.56MM BULLETS, RIFLES AND GRENADES. THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE IS RECOGNISED AS THE WORST GENOCIDE IN MODERN HISTORY. ISRAEL HAS REPEATEDLY ATTEMPTED TO CONCEAL THEIR ARMS EXPORTS TO RWANDA BEFORE AND DURING THE GENOCIDE, FEARING PROSECUTION.”

Black and white photos below are shown of various Rwandan children in graveyards or in makeshift tents just trying to get by. End ID.

ID 3: In all caps, “ISRAEL'S INVOLVED IN:

APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA 1948 - 1994

ISRAEL WAS A STAUNCH ALLY TO THE SOUTH AFRICAN APARTHEID REGIME, PROVIDING ANTI-RIOT VEHICLES AND ARMS TO USE AGAINST THE NATIVE BLACK POPULATION, ASSISTING THE REGIME IN CREATING NUCLEAR BOMBS AND ISRAEL ALSO OPPOSED THE GLOBAL EMBARGO AND BOYCOTT OF APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA.

FOR DECADES, THE ZIONIST FEDERATION IN SOUTH AFRICA HONOURED MEN SUCH AS PERCY YUTAR, WHO PROSECUTED NELSON MANDELA FOR SABOTAGE AND CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE STATE IN 1963 AND SENT HIM TO JAIL FOR LIFE. (FOR WHICH HE SERVED 27 YEARS)”

Black and white photos below showcase a Black man being held in a chokehold by a white man, two Black people on their knees and hands up trying not to get shot, and a sign that reads in english and afrikaans “white area.” End ID.

ID 4: In all caps, “ISRAEL'S INVOLVED IN:

MAYAN GENOCIDE 1960 - 1996

THROUGHOUT THE GUATEMALAN CIVIL WAR FROM 1960-1996, OVER 200,000+ INDIGENOUS MAYANS WERE MURDERED BY STATE FORCES, AND OVER ONE MILLION MORE DISPLACED, IN WHAT IS REFERRED TO TODAY AS THE MAYAN GENOCIDE.

THE GUATEMALAN STATE FORCES RESPONSIBLE WERE ARMED AND TRAINED BY ISRAEL. WHEN THE U.S. GOVERNMENT SUSPENDED MILITARY FUNDING TO THE GUATEMALAN STATE FORCES IN 1977 IN THE MIDST OF THE MAYAN GENOCIDE, ISRAEL GAVE THEM OVER $38 BILLION WORTH OF ARMS TO FILL THE GAP. THE 'GALIL' ASAULT RIFLE, AN ISRAELI-MADE WEAPON, WAS STANDARD ISSUE FOR THE GUATEMALAN ARMY BY 1980, WITH THE STATE OWNED SMALL-ARMS PRODUCTION FACILITY IN ALTA VERAPAZ PRODUCING ITS AMMUNITION UNDER ISRAELI ARMS LICENCES.”

Below are multiple in-color photos of Mayan families mourning, one photo in particular which shows indigenous Mayans carrying a seemingly endless line of coffins off into the distance. End ID.

ID 5: In all caps, “ISRAEL'S INVOLVED IN:

SREBRENICA - 1995

ALSO KNOWN AS THE SREBRENICA GENOCIDE. IN 1995 OVER 8,000+ BOSNIAN MUSLIMS WERE MASSACRED BY SERBIAN ARMY FORCES ARMED AND TRAINED BY ISRAEL. SERBIAN FORCES ETHNICALLY CLEANSED OVER 250,000+ MUSLIMS IN TOTAL ACROSS CROATIA AND BOSNIA.

TENS OF THOUSANDS OF OTHERS WERE WOUNDED, STARVED, WOMEN WERE MASS RAPED AND MANY WERE INCARCERATED IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS. MANY OF THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GENOCIDE FLED TO ISRAEL, WHERE THEY WERE GRANTED ISRAELI CITIZENSHIP IN ORDER TO AVOID ARREST AND PROSECUTION FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.”

Once again, the in-color photos below show various peoples mourning. Two of the photos specifically show people reaching their hands out over extremely long lists of just names of people who have died. End ID.

ID 6: In all caps, “ISRAEL'S INVOLVED IN:

TRAINING U.S. POLICE

SINCE 1990, HUNDREDS OF AMERICAN POLICE OFFICERS, INCLUDING AGENTS FROM THE FBI, CIA AND IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), HAVE EITHER BEEN SENT TO ISRAEL THROUGH POLICE TRAINING EXCHANGES, OR ATTENDED SUMMITS WITHIN THE U.S. THAT WERE SPONSORED BY ISRAELI LOBBY ORGANISATIONS.

THE KNEE-TO-NECK 'RESTRAINT' THAT DEREK CHAUVIN MURDERED GEORGE FLOYD WITH, IS OFTEN USED BY ISRAELI POLICE AND SOLIDERS AGAINST PALESTINIANS.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.”

Photos below are in-color and show various B.L.M. protests. End ID.

ID 7: In all caps, “ISRAEL'S INVOLVED IN:

ARMING INDIA'S VIOLENCE IN KASHMIR

INDIA IS ISRAEL'S LARGEST ARMS CLIENT, MAKING UP OVER 45% OF ISRAEL'S ARMS SALES. BUYING ISRAELI AMMUNITION AND AIR-TO-GROUND MISSILES, ON THE PREMISE THEY HAVE BEEN 'BATTLE-TESTED' ON PALESTINIANS IN GAZA. ISRAEL PROVIDES INDIA WITH THE ARMS INDIA USES TO MILITARILY OCCUPY KASHMIR AND BRUTALISE KASHMIRI'S.

SINCE 1989, OVER 100,000+ KASHMIRIS HAVE BEEN KILLED BY INDIAN FORCES. WITH OVER 7,200+ KASHMIRIS BEING MURDERED IN INDIAN POLICE CUSTODY, OVER 110,000+ KASHMIRI CHILDREN HAVE BEEN ORPHANED, AND MORE THAN 11,000+ KASHMIRI WOMEN HAVE BEEN RAPED BY INDIAN OCCUPATION FORCES. IN ADDITION, OVER 7,000+ UNNAMED MASS GRAVES HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED WITH THOUSANDS OF VICTIMS.”

The photos below show israel and india’s leaders shaking hands and various armed indian soldiers stopping Kashmiris for unnecessary checks. End ID.

ID 8: In all caps, “ISRAEL'S INVOLVED IN:

PINOCHET COUP - CHILE 1973

CIA BACKED DICTATOR, AUGUSTO PINOCHET TOOK OVER CHILE ON SEPTEMBER 11, 1973. OVERTHROWING ITS DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT, SALVADOR ALLENDE. THE NEXT DAY HIS FORCES BEGAN KIDNAPPING ANYONE THEY SUSPECTED OF BEING LEFT WING AND PLACED THEM IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS.

PINOCHET'S SECRET POLICE, DINA (DIRECCION DE INTELIGENCIA NACIONAL) RAN THOSE CONCENTRATION CAMPS AND TORTURE CENTRES, AND THEY FREQUENTLY ABDUCTED, 'DISAPPEARED' AND EXECUTED CHILEAN CIVILIANS. ISRAEL TRAINED DINA AND WAS ALSO ONE OF PINOCHET'S MAIN ARMS SUPPLIERS.”

Black and white photos below showcase various scenes of armed DINA officers, with one photo in particular showing them in a tank over bodies on the ground, presumably dead. End ID.

ID 9: In all caps, “ISRAEL'S INVOLVED IN:

ETHNICALLY CLEANSING ARMENIANS - ONGOING

ISRAEL HAS BEEN FUNDING AND ARMING AZERBAIJAN'S MILITARY SINCE 1988, ARMS WHICH HAVE BEEN USED TO KILL ARMENIAN CIVILIANS THROUGHOUT AZERBAIJAN'S ONGOING ETHNIC CLEANSING OF ARTSAKH. THE ISRAELI REGIME SUPPLIES AZERBAIJAN WITH OVER 70% OF ITS MILITARY ARSENAL.

IN ADDITION TO PROVIDING THE ARMS TO KILL ARMENIANS, ISRAEL ALSO REFUSES TO RECOGNISE THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE, COMMITTED BY THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE (TURKEY) FROM 1914-1923, WHO SYSTEMATICALLY MURDERED OVER 1.5 MILLION ARMENIAN CIVILIANS.”

Photos below show israel and azerbaijan’s leaders shaking hands, azerbaijan’s soldiers menacingly standing in front of someone wrapped in an Armenian flag, and Armenians mourning over a shrine with their flags all around them. End ID.

ID 10: In all caps, “THE PALESTINIAN STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IS CONNECTED TO STRUGGLES ALL AROUND THE WORLD.

BECAUSE OPPRESSORS LIKE ISRAEL ARE NOT ONLY UPHOLDING OPPRESSION AGAINST ONE POPULATION, ITS ALWAYS INTERCONNECTED TO OPPRESSING MANY MORE.

FREE PALESTINE.” No photos at the bottom of this slide. End ID.

#reaux speaks #oppression #genocide #ethnic cleansing #apartheid #israel #palestine #free palestine #black lives matter #history #rwanda #africa #south africa #nelson mandela #mayans #guatemala #srebrenica #muslim #police brutality #kashmir #india #narendra modi #benjamin netanyahu #augusto pinochet #chile #armenia #artsakh #azerbaijan #bosnia #serbia

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

all „advantages“ women face are a direct result from male actions and misogyny.

strangers trust women more.

well men pose the big majority of kidnappers, are more prone to random and brutal acts of violence, more likely to rob and and rape you. men are also more likely to inflict harm onto strangers. no wonder people tend to trust women more.

people trust women more around kids.

the vast vast majority of pedophiles are men, as well as the majority of child rapists and abusers, and the sexual violence they inflict tends to be more brutal. on top, women are raised to be more caring and maternal. no wonder people trust women more around kids.

people take womens mental issues more seriously.

i have to laugh. women have been called hysterical for centuries, have been lobotomised, institutionalised and abused for being uncomfortable, not even necessariy mentally ill, but also in those cases. and put under male conservatorship. men‘s biggest issue is that they are being taught not to open up about their feelings. and who is trying to make them open up more? women.

women are usually not drafted into the military.

who usually wages war? men. who overwhelmingly joins the military on a voluntary basis, when there is no draft? men. is the culture in the military open to women? only if they‘re prostitutes. men systemically rape women during war times. there is plenty, plenty of stories from women who did join the military and faced constant sexual harrassment and even sexual abuse. military is a men‘s club, because men made it so.

men die earlier.

and there is plenty of reasons for that, that are not women‘s fault. men tend to do more physical labour which is taxing to the body - but when women try to enter these male dominated fields, they face systematic harrassment, misogyny and abuse. men constantly communicate to women that we are too weak to do hard physical labour anyways, while simultaneously complaining we are not doing this. also men tend to exhibit more risky and self-damaging behavior, which is partly due to caring most about themselves, while women care about others like their families and kids more. men tend to die in accidents because they tend to cause accidents. etc

men kill themselves more.

yes, and they also kill others more. it is way more likely for a man to attempt to kill someone else than himself. also, this is not necessarily an indicator that men‘s mental health is worse; women attempt more often but choose less brutal methods, and murder-suicides are counted in those statistics as well as suicide to avoid accountability, usually for crimes.

women get more attention.

women get more SEXUAL and unwanted attention. our art, research, and other accomplishments on the other hand get way less attention and are sometimes even sold off as male accomplishments.

women are more believable victims.

if this was true, it might be due to the fact that women are victims more often than we are offenders: sexual or domestic violence especially. men also generally portray us as weaker. when women sexually assault men, it‘s usually less brutal, not in groups, and not random. male culture is based on portraying men as hypersexual, and men are the ones reinforcing this idea. men are still more likely to be sexually assaulted by other men. if you think that women have less shame to come forward about these experiences, it only shows your misogyny: you think women feel more comfortable being the victim because that is the role assigned to us socially, but then complain that we are allegedly believed more. women tend to doubt themselves more, and be doubted more as well.

#mine #meninism #misogyny

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Blames Drink For His Plight," Windsor Star. January 13, 1943. Page 12. --- London Man Gets Five Years After Admitting Attack on Woman ---- LONDON, Ont., Jan. 13-William Thomson, 37-year-old watchman at a local foundry, who blamed a Christmas Day liquor party for making him "insane like a lunatic," pleaded guilty In Supreme Court Tuesday to an attempted criminal attack on a 62-year-old woman. Justice J. H. Barlow sentenced him to five years in penitentiary, without lashes.

Victim of the attack was Mrs. Florence Scott, of suburban Cheapside street. She related she was walking home from a concert late Christmas night when she was attacked on a lonely lane near her residence. In the struggle with Thomson which lasted several minutes she received injuries that required hospital attention.

Police were called by neighbors who heard Mrs. Scott's screams, and a radio cruiser crew reached the scene as Thomson was dragging the woman toward a barn.

Constable Gerald Knight quoted Thomson as saying at the time, "I am glad you came before something terrible happened. I'll get five years for this, and probably lashes."

[AL: Thomson was convicted of attempted rape, though that is not written in the paper. His police file is empty of previous convictions or reports, and his jail fail indicates he was an intemperate drinker with "poor judgement "below par" mentality and little education. Not an excuse but a definite profile of someone who, in a drunken rage, would randomly assault someone on the street. He was Scottish and had immigrated to Canada ten years before, but was not naturalized. At Kingston Penitentiary he was convict #7173 and worked as a carpenter. A good conduct prisoner, he was transferred to the low-security Collin's Bay Penitentiary in mid-1943. There he was inmate #2074. He was deported to the United Kingdom in November 1946.]

#london ontario #drunken stupor #drunken assault #nightwatchman #first time offender #street crime #attempted rape #cw rape #sentenced to the penitentiary #kingston penitentiary #canada during world war 2 #crime and punishment in canada #history of crime and punishment in canada

[radiofreederry]

To the Salvadoran military the Americans were too good to be true. The Salvadorans quickly figured out that they could do anything, really anything, and the gringos would cover for them. If they raped and murdered US nuns, Secretary of State Alexander Haig would testify that perhaps there had been an "exchange of fire," that perhaps the nuns were armed. When six Jesuit priests were killed in 1989 on a university campus surrounded by the army, Ambassador Walker suggested to the press that they had been killed by guerrillas dressed as soldiers. After each massacre or assassination US officials swore that this time they were serious, the money was going to dry up, that continued funding depended on a full investigation and prosecution for - and here the phrase varied over the years - the killing of Archbishop Romero, the nuns, the Sheraton Hotel murders, the murder of four Dutch TV journalists, the murder of civilians in the village of Las Vueltas, the village of Los Llanitos, the village of Las Hojas, Armenia, [El] Mozote, or San Sebastian, the murder of the Jesuits... Fourteen of the military's fifteen top commanders had, during the course of the war, led troops responsible for illegal executions or disappearances. But by 1990 not a single officer had been convicted of a human rights violation, and the money kept coming. The gringos were bluffing. They were always bluffing.

Tina Rosenberg, Children of Cain

#history #latin america #el salvador #cold war #quotes