#cross border shipping companies

[pridegrouplogistics]

If you're looking for a way to get your items from Canada to the United States, Pride Group Logistics is your go-to service. We specialize in cross-border shipping, so you can rest assured that we'll be able to handle any shipment with ease.

We're a small company but big on quality service and reliability. We have been in business since 2001, so we know what it takes to provide safe and secure transport services.

We work closely with our clients to help them understand what they need before they begin working on their project or business plan. This way, you'll be able to get everything put together quickly and efficiently—which means more time for other things!

We also offer free estimates for all our services so that there's no reason not to give us a call today!

[mihirvora]

Cross Border Shipping Made Easy with the Best Ecommerce Courier Service in India

Ecommerce has taken the world by storm, allowing businesses to reach customers across borders and continents. However, one of the key challenges for online retailers is efficiently shipping products to their international customers. This is where the best ecommerce courier service in India comes into play, making cross border shipping easy and hassle-free.

With the growth of ecommerce in India, there has been a surge in demand for reliable courier services that can handle international shipping with ease. The best ecommerce courier service in India understands the unique requirements of cross border shipping and offers a range of services tailored to meet the needs of online retailers.

One of the key advantages of using the best ecommerce courier service in India is their extensive network of partners and connections across the globe. This allows them to offer competitive shipping rates and ensure timely delivery of products to customers in different countries. Whether you need to ship a small parcel or a large shipment, the best ecommerce courier service in India has the expertise and resources to handle your shipping needs efficiently.

Another important factor to consider when choosing an ecommerce courier company for cross border shipping is their track record of reliability and customer service. The best ecommerce courier service in India prides itself on its commitment to customer satisfaction, with a team of dedicated professionals who are always ready to assist you with any shipping queries or concerns.

In addition, the best ecommerce courier service in India offers a range of value-added services such as tracking and insurance options, to give you peace of mind and ensure the safe delivery of your products. This level of transparency and accountability is key to building trust with your customers and maintaining a positive reputation for your ecommerce business.

When it comes to cross border shipping, it is essential to choose a courier service that understands the complexities of international logistics and customs regulations. The best ecommerce courier service in India has the expertise and experience to navigate these challenges and ensure that your products reach their destination without any delays or issues.

In conclusion, cross border shipping can be a complex and time-consuming process, but with the best ecommerce courier service in India by your side, you can streamline your shipping operations and focus on growing your online business. From competitive rates to reliable delivery services, the best ecommerce courier service in India offers everything you need to succeed in the global marketplace. So why wait? Choose the best ecommerce courier service in India today and take your cross border shipping to the next level.624Cross Border Shipping Made Easy with the Best Ecommerce Courier Service in India

In today's global economy, cross-border shipping has become essential for businesses looking to expand their reach and tap into international markets. With the rise of ecommerce, the need for reliable and efficient courier services has never been greater. For businesses in India looking to ship their products across borders, choosing the right ecommerce courier service is crucial for ensuring smooth and hassle-free deliveries.

When it comes to cross-border shipping, there are a multitude of factors to consider, from customs regulations and duties to delivery times and tracking capabilities. That's why it's important to choose a courier service that has experience in handling international shipments and can navigate the complexities of cross-border logistics with ease.

In India, there are several ecommerce courier companies that offer cross-border shipping services, but one stands out as the best in the industry – ShipKaro. With a reputation for reliability, efficiency, and exceptional customer service, ShipKaro is the go-to courier service for businesses looking to streamline their cross-border shipping operations and reach customers around the world.

One of the key reasons why ShipKaro is considered the best ecommerce courier service in India is its extensive network of partners and carriers. With connections to leading logistics providers in countries around the world, ShipKaro is able to offer businesses a wide range of shipping options, from express deliveries to economy services, ensuring that packages arrive on time and within budget.

In addition to its extensive network, ShipKaro also offers a range of value-added services that make cross-border shipping a breeze. From customs clearance assistance to real-time tracking and notifications, ShipKaro provides businesses with the tools they need to stay on top of their shipments and keep customers informed every step of the way.

But what truly sets ShipKaro apart from other ecommerce courier services in India is its commitment to customer satisfaction. With a dedicated team of shipping experts who are on hand to assist with any queries or concerns, businesses can rest assured that their shipments are in good hands with ShipKaro.

So, if you're a business in India looking to take your products global, look no further than ShipKaro for all your cross-border shipping needs. With the best ecommerce courier service in India by your side, expanding your reach and reaching new markets has never been easier. Choose ShipKaro and make cross-border shipping a smooth and seamless experience for your business.

[bombinocourierservice]

Efficient E-commerce Logistics: Bombino's Solutions for Seamless Cross-Border Shipping

In today's global marketplace, the ability to efficiently manage logistics and shipping can make or break an e-commerce business. This is especially true when it comes to cross-border shipping, where complexities increase significantly. Bombino, a recognized leader in the logistics industry, offers tailored solutions that address these challenges, helping businesses streamline their operations. This article explores how Bombino's integration of services such as cheap international courier service from India, reliable ecommerce courier company operations, and efficient cross-border shipping practices empower businesses to expand their reach globally without compromising on service quality.

Revolutionizing Cheap International Courier Service from India

Bombino has been at the forefront of transforming cheap international courier service from India into a more reliable and efficient option for businesses looking to expand globally. Their services break the myth that low cost equates to low quality, by offering competitive rates without compromising on delivery speeds or package safety. This cheap international courier service from India is designed to help small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) compete on a global stage, providing them with access to international markets without a hefty price tag.

Through partnerships with global carriers and a network of international logistics experts, Bombino ensures that even the most affordable service tiers receive the attention and care they deserve. This approach not only enhances customer satisfaction but also boosts the confidence of e-commerce businesses in utilizing cheap international courier service from India for their international shipping needs.

E-commerce Courier Company: Bombino's Expertise

As a specialized ecommerce courier company, Bombino understands the unique needs of online retailers. From automated warehousing solutions to integration with e-commerce platforms, Bombino offers a range of services that streamline the fulfillment process. This ecommerce courier company has developed technology-driven solutions to handle orders, manage inventory, and track shipments in real-time, providing transparency and control to e-commerce businesses.

By reducing the logistical load on these businesses, Bombino allows them to focus more on growth and customer engagement. The efficiency brought by this ecommerce courier company also means faster delivery times, which is a critical factor in customer satisfaction and retention in the e-commerce industry.

Streamlining Cross-Border Shipping

Cross-border shipping can be fraught with challenges, including customs clearance, regulatory compliance, and potential delays. However, Bombino's expertise in cross-border shipping simplifies these processes for e-commerce businesses. The company's comprehensive understanding of international trade laws and regulations ensures that shipments meet all necessary requirements, reducing the risk of delays and additional costs.

Bombino’s cross-border shipping services are built to handle the intricacies of international logistics seamlessly. By providing end-to-end tracking and support, Bombino ensures that both businesses and their customers are always informed about the whereabouts and status of their orders. This transparency is crucial for maintaining trust, especially in international transactions.

Conclusion

Bombino's integration of cheap international courier service from India, its role as an ecommerce courier company, and its expertise in cross-border shipping make it an invaluable partner for e-commerce businesses aiming to succeed in the global marketplace. These services not only provide cost-effective shipping solutions but also ensure that these solutions are reliable, efficient, and tailored to the needs of e-commerce.

With the ongoing growth of e-commerce and the increasing demand for international shipping services, Bombino's role is more crucial than ever. Businesses looking to expand beyond their borders can rely on Bombino to navigate the complexities of global logistics, ensuring their products reach customers quickly, safely, and affordably. As e-commerce continues to evolve, partnerships with experienced logistics providers like Bombino will be key to unlocking new opportunities and achieving sustained success in the competitive world of online retail.

[crosschartering]

Yacht Shipping

Sail confidently with our specialized yacht shipping services, ensuring the secure and timely transport of your vessel across oceans!

[keoriette]

🌹Hungry Eyes - Luffy x Reader

[NSFW + NO MINORS]

🌹Charater featured: Luffy, Sanji, Zoro, Nami, Chopper (for now) 🌹Summary: Its crazy that's your sick buts its ok ur with luffy

The door creaks open and you whip your head to face it, eyes wide and alert.

Luffy’s head pokes around the door, his big brown eyes meeting yours. “Are you hungry?” he hisses through the darkness.

You blink at him. “It’s past midnight,” you whisper.

Luffy blinks back. “Sanji said you didn’t eat dinner.”

“Didn't want any.” Truth be told, even the thought of eating made you sick. Chopper said it might be an offshoot of the concussion you had when they brought you aboard the ship, but for the few weeks you’ve been on board you haven’t been able to keep much more than a single sandwich down.

“Chopper says you have to eat. Sanji too.”

“You’re not my captain, you know,” you say bitterly.

Luffy just looks at you. “You’re on my ship. And you’re my friend.”

You frown. You were starting to understand Luffy’s nature, the delicate balance between his selfishness and loyalty to the people he cares about.

As soon as you were taken aboard, barely conscious and only half alive, Luffy had taken a liking to you. He had a knack for that, you’d heard, for picking up people based on very limited interactions and whisking them away to be part of his crew.

You weren’t interested in the crew part, and Luffy understood that. But because he had decided to become your friend he couldn’t just drop you off at any island: he needed to take you someplace you’d be safe.

Chopper has barely let you out of the medical room, only allowing a short daily walk if the weather permits. Otherwise, you’re stuck in the small cabin, the other crew members too busy to bother with your company. You aren't a mean person by any means, but your silence around others was usually seen as arrogance. The lonely nights you’ve spent in the room have only been broken up by thoughts of this pirate captain; and his strong, thick, slender fingers in places you wouldn’t mention aloud.

“I was having a snack,” he continues, creeping into the room. The only light filters through the small window, lighting his body with cool moonshine. “I thought you might want some. Only a little, though, because I ate the rest.” He offers you a few cubes of meat on a plate. You sit up and accept it wordlessly, placing it at the end of the bed.

Something in the moonlight catches your eye, and you turn to face him before your lips part slightly in surprise. Oh my god, you think, cheeks starting to burn. He’s shirtless.

The glow of the light catches on his burn scar, crossing across his muscular chest. He folds his thick arms over it, and your gaze drops to his shorts, hanging low on his hips. You shut your eyes.

Luffy squats down in front of you. “Hey, are you okay?” he asks softly. “You look like you’re gonna pass out.”

“I just need some sleep,” you say through gritted teeth, “but I’m fine.”

“Not until you eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Eat. That’s an order.”

“You’re not my captain.”

“So? I’m still your friend, and friends feed each other.”

Your mouth twists. It was hard to argue with him because of his natural bluntness. “Don’t you have something else to worry about?”

Luffy shakes his head.

“Like marines? Or Kaido?”

“Not right now.”

He sits down next to you and his forearm brushes against yours. You peek at his fingers, calloused and thick, in his lap.

“I don’t like seeing you hurt,” he mutters.

You blink at him. He's moving a little fast, and you're straining to keep up. But you suppose that's just how he is.

“When you’re hurt. I really…” He takes a deep breath. “I really don’t like it. It makes me feel bad.” He turns to face you, his eyes big and brown and full of something that borders on desperate. “Will you please eat?” He says softly, taking one of your hands in his.

You go rigid, eyes widening. The feel of his skin on yours makes your entire body tingle. His hands grip yours tightly, and you find it hard to meet his eyes.

“I…” you start. You try to unravel your hands from his, but he doesn’t let go, searching for your eyes. You finally let them meet, and it’s then when you realize that he doesn’t see you as a regular crewmate, or even a friend: Luffy wears his heart on his sleeve, and his eyes speak volumes about how he feels about you.

Little things start to click into place. He’s here, late at night, when he loves to sleep. He brought you meat even though he wouldn’t let most of his crew touch it. He peeks his head in when he thinks you’re sleeping. Chopper had mentioned, once, completely offhand, that Luffy asks about you almost daily.

What you don’t know, however, is that the entire crew has picked up on his crush on you and that you weren’t being avoided because you come across as arrogant: you were being avoided so that Luffy could have some space with you. It’s necessary, actually, because although the crew is oftentimes more than willing to get to know a new person on board, Luffy is anything but subtle: the most obvious example being when Zoro found him with his ear pressed against the crack of the door, fisting his cock in his hand, hanging onto every tinny mewl and moan of yours as you whispered his name, your fingers breaching your entrance and rapidly circling your engorged clit.

Zoro knows better than to interrupt Luffy, even when it’s this desperate of a case. He just let the rest of the crew know, in hushed whispers, that you were kind of off-limits, and that the next island would be approaching soon. Nami had sighed because she thought you were cute. Robin had sighed because she thought you seemed smart. Sanji had sighed because you’re a girl, but they all swallowed their annoyances because it’s their captain: and how can they trust him to lead them when you’re the only thing on his mind?

They noticed that this was a real crush and that he was thinking with his heart and not just with his cock. It was usually the latter, and he’d come back to the Sunny only a little before sunrise, after a full night of partying on an unknown island, exhausted. It was clear he always made the most of his time anywhere.

You try again. “I…”

Luffy takes this moment to get a little closer and your breath catches in your throat. His lips are so close to yours you can feel him breathe, and he gets closer and closer and to your horror, you realize that you’re not pulling away. That you don’t want to pull away.

The kiss isn’t what you expect—it’s not clumsy or sloppy. It’s gentle but firm and surprisingly practiced. His lips are so warm against yours, slightly chapped and a little salty. When he parts your lips with his, you let him, and his tongue isn’t hungry or invasive. It’s the best kiss you’ve ever had, and when he cups the back of your neck you gingerly touch his bicep. The muscle moves when he does, and you feel a rush of wetness down below.

It actually doesn’t really surprise you, the more you think about it. Luffy is always stopping at different islands, some more exciting than others, and people naturally flock to him. You assume that this also means women, and his high bounty and cheerful demeanor as well as his broad shoulders and muscular frame were enough to light a fire in some of the young women they came across. Besides, you thought absentmindedly, he has to get his energy from somewhere.

The kiss gets a little hungrier before it stops, and you realize that he’s left you breathless. Your hand fists the sheets involuntarily, already thinking about what you’re going to do the moment you’re alone.

“I like you,” he whispers, rubbing his nose against yours.

Your mouth snaps shut. “Why?”

Luffy shrugs. “I don’t really know. I’m just kind of…” he laces his fingers with yours, and you drop your eyes down to look. “Drawn to you, I guess.” He scratches the back of his head with his free hand, pulling away slightly. “I like girls. I know people sometimes think I don’t, but I do.”

You chuckle a little.

“Maybe it’s because I’m short,” he muses.

“You’re not that short,” you tease. “You’re at least two inches taller than me.”

A glint appears in his eyes as he peers at you. “How do you know?”

You frown. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve never been this close. How do you know I’m taller?”

You fidget uncomfortably, caught between a rock and a hard place. On your brief walks around the ship, you often glance over in Luffy’s direction; and a few times you even got close enough to see the many repairs that had been made to his treasured straw hat.

“I just…you’re a guy, right?” you say, at a complete loss for words. You can’t believe that’s the best you can come up with.

Luffy laughs then, leaning forward for another kiss. It’s more gentle this time, but his hands start to roam over your body. Nothing too explicit, just your lower back as he fingers the hem of your thin t-shirt, but even that has your cunt clenching around nothing.

Wordlessly, you break the kiss to grip the bottom of your shirt, pulling it up and off of your frame in one sure movement.

You hunch over a little, your blushed face slightly embarrassed that even you were taking things quickly in such a direction, but these weeks on the ship have left you needy for any sort of contact. Plus, he had just admitted that he likes you, and you'd be lying if you said you didn't have his wanted poster in your room back home. The thrill of finding out that he had rescued you was tempered by Chopper's strict instructions and the crew's indifference. But every time you saw him on the ship, whether it was fishing or bringing you a cup of soup, made you grip into the pillow and cry out his name as softly as you could.

He leans in to kiss you again, this time gently running his knuckles over the side of your breast. You let out a soft whine, your hand falling from his hair into his lap, directly on top of his hard length that is throbbing painfully in his shorts.

He hisses at the contact, catching your lip in his teeth and biting lightly. His hands leave your body to remove his shorts, his cock hot in your hand as you give it a few tentative strokes.

He dips his fingers into the side of your panties, and you do your best to shimmy out of them.

“You’re wet,” he whispers, his fingers softly rubbing your soaked folds. Luffy presses against you until you’re laying down on the mattress with his body keeping you there. “I like it when you’re really wet,” he mumbles.

He pulls back, sucking on his fingers with eye contact so heavy you feel pinned to the bed. Slowly, he makes his way towards you again, nipping at your jaw.

He presses his face into the crook of your neck. “I’m gonna pick you up, okay?” he breathes into your ear, and you nod. You wrap your legs around his waist, pressing his cock into his contracting abdomen as he places one hand under your bottom and the other around your waist. He stands, and you lift off the bed, his strength making you drip with arousal. Luffy’s steps stammer as he tries to keep kissing you while walking towards the wall, the cold surface making your nipples perk up as he presses you against it.

His lips leave yours and you chase his mouth with a whine, but gasp when you feel his leaking tip prod against your wet entrance.

“I really, really want to,” he gasps against your neck, pressing his face into your warm skin. “I-I’ll try to be gentle, I just really want you…”

Your hands grip his back, trying to pull his body closer to yours. A soft moan escapes your lips when he hits your clit. “I really want you, too,” you murmur.

His cock is long and stiff, and your eyes roll back just from thinking about it inside you.

Slowly, he starts to breach your entrance, hissing as the fat head is swallowed by your desperate cunt. You gasp at the pressure, squeezing your eyes shut.

“Jeez,” he mutters through grit teeth, sweat starting to glisten on his face. “You’re tight.”

You clench around his length as he continues to push inside, his hands gripping your body with bruising force. The concentration on his face is endearing, and your heart melts a little. He wants you to feel good, too, and he’s trying his hardest to keep from fucking you as hard as he can.

His cock bumps something inside you and you let out a lustful moan.

Luffy twitches inside you. “Th-that noise, make that noise again,” he groans, starting to move. He starts out gently, but it isn’t long before he’s bottoming out with each thrust. You moan louder, tears pricking at your eyes as his cock hits deeper. His thrusts become harder and rougher and more impulsive and you can tell he’s getting close. You moan again, the noise escaping from your lips involuntary despite his begging.

“I’m gonna cum,” he says through gritted teeth. “Is-is it okay if I…?”

You grip his shoulders tightly. “Please cum inside me,” you whimper.

It’s music to Luffy’s ears, and he wastes no time in pushing his cock up to the hilt inside you. You tighten around him as his orgasm starts, his hips stuttering and eyes fluttering closed.

The shots of his hot cum painting your tight pussy walls make you groan aloud, your head falling back to rest on the wall. Your thighs are burning from being held up, but nothing could distract you from his labored moans and stuttering breaths.

He rests his head next to yours as he comes down from his high, his heart rate slowing to normal. He places his hands under your thighs, still holding you up, his strength obvious and unwavering.

“Sorry…” he mumbles, still breathing hard.

You shake your head. “It’s okay,” you whisper. You have to admit you’re a little surprised, you had assumed his stamina matched the rest of him.

His cock twitches inside you, and you realize with a start that he didn’t get soft. “Let me try again,” he murmurs against your neck, walking back to the bed.

He drops you down and you giggle for the first time in weeks, earning a warm smile from him. It feels like the sun, even though it’s the middle of the night. He climbs on top of you, slotting his body between your legs, pressing a hot kiss to your lips. One of your hands pulls his head down closer, the other grips the defined muscle on his arms. He hums, then pulls away, looking down at you with hungry eyes. His gaze flits from your eyes to your lips, shifting his weight so he can run his big hand over your breast. You whine, and he gets bolder, pinching your nipple almost to the point of pain.

“Ah-“ you grunt out, body jerking. With you caged in under him he decides to chart your body with his hands, finding the spots you like to be touched the most. He's already used you for his pleasure, embarrassing as it may sound, and now it’s your turn.

He places a wet kiss under your jaw, taking note of the noises you make. He remembers listening to you from behind the door, the squelch of your wet cunt being rubbed by your own fingers, his name falling from your lips in soft pants. He continues to pepper you with kisses, running his hand down your stomach to settle in between your lips. He spreads them gently, earning a small moan from you, and seeks out your sweet little bud of pleasure. He figures that you like how strong he is, judging from how much you dripped when he picked you up. He flexes his chest and abdomen a little bit, and you hungrily run your hands over him. He smirks at you, and you know you’ve been caught. You smile sheepishly.

He presses his hand against yours, stopping you right over his heart. It thumps under your hand, and the gesture is so intimate, so mature, that you fight to urge to burst into tears.

The aching in your core is unbearable now, and Luffy’s inexperience becomes known as he clumsily rubs your clit. You assume that most women are content to be used as his own little cocksleeve, bouncing away to orgasm on his lap as he settles his face between their breasts. Or, more likely, he pins them against a bed and ruts endlessly until he spills.

You’re different, he can tell, and you’re not blinded by his notoriety.

Luffy bites his lip. He knows this isn’t his strong suit, but he’s determined nonetheless. You replace his hands with yours, rubbing practiced circles on your clit as he explores your folds. He dips a finger inside, sighing at your wetness. His fingers feel nice, but nothing compared to his fat cock, and you use your eyes to beg for it.

Your fingers stay at your clit while he presses his cock into your tight heat.

You whimper as he continues to push, stretching you open at an angle that has tears in your eyes. It's so much deeper than when he was fucking you against the wall, and when he finally bottoms out, you let out a delicious moan.

Luffy grits his teeth, his hips repeatedly pressing against yours, forcing the metal headboard to smack against the wall. "Th-that sound..."

He reaches down to feel your hand, and the closeness of it as well as Luffy's eagerness squeezes another hot moan from your mouth.

"I want to feel what you're doing," he pants into your open mouth before sealing it with a kiss. You continue to rub faster, his hand on yours adding a luscious pressure.

Your voice starts to come through in more than moans and whines, little squeaks of praise about how good his cock feels inside you. He desperately wants you to reach that high you're chasing, but your pussy is starting to clench around him and the thought of you cumming around his cock has him holding in his orgasm like his life depends on it.

"I'm close again," he gasps. "Can you cum for me? Please?"

That does it. The tight coil in your belly snaps, and you toss your head from side to side, crying out as you shake under him. "Luffy--" you shout, your voice strangled.

He continues to thrust into you, babbling praise. "I've never done it like this," he gasps, tripping over his words. "I really liked seeing you cum, and I like how wet you are. I like that you're so tight and I like the noises you make and I--" He whines your name as he cums again; his cum dripping out from between your red, swollen lips.

He looks down at you, panting, the lids of his eyes heavy.

"That was..." you start, "unexpected."

Luffy chuckles. "But good?" he asks hopefully.

You look away. "It was perfect," you whisper. "I...kinda want to tell you something."

He rolls off of you and you scoot over, barely making any room on the tiny medical bed. He opens his arms and you climb in between them, grateful for the time to rest. You lay your head on his chest as he strokes your hair tenderly. "What is it?"

You take a deep breath. "I have your wanted poster up in my room at home."

Luffy pauses, the gears turning in his head, then laughs.

You giggle. "I know, I know..."

He rests his arm on your shoulder, the other stroking your forearm. "It's cute," he says finally, "I like that."

You smile against his chest. Maybe joining a pirate crew isn't such a bad idea.

[matan4il]

Update post:

Yesterday, the identification of two bodies brought back to Israel from Gaza by IDF soldiers to Israel was completed.

The victims were identified as 36 years old Ziv Dado, who was murdered on Oct 7, and his body was kidnapped to Gaza by Hamas, and 27 years old Eden Zecharia, who according to one Israeli journalist, was kidnapped alive. If this is true, it means Eden was murdered in captivity.

After the identification of the bodies was completed, the IDF was able to confirm that Israeli soldiers Gal Meir Eizenkott and Eyal Meir Berkovich were killed by a detonated IED while clearing the perimeter for this operation.

IDF soldiers are reporting that the number of terror tunnels and shafts is much bigger than expected, as well as that there is almost no house they enter in Gaza, which doesn't have some weapons stashed. In some houses, they also found orders and plans for the Oct 7 massacre. Kept in residential homes. In one house, the soldiers found, side by side, weapons like an RPG, and documentation of the chemotherapy treatment that an 8 years old boy was receiving in Israel, mere weeks prior to the Hamas massacre.

The desecration of Jewish religious sites under Palestinian rule is not a new phenomenon, despite the fact that the Palestinian Authority is supposed to be legally committed to the preservation of the Jewish holy sites Israel agreed in the Oslo accords that the PA would control. Today, we got another example.

The prevalence of antisemitic and anti-Israel content and messages on social media is not new, either. After Jewish celebrities and content creators had confronted Tiktok on its antisemitin and anti-Israeli bias, there are now Jewish employees of Tiktok, who are speaking out about the fact that this is happening by the design of the many antisemitic, anti-Israel moderates of the company, and not by blind chance. They also talk about how they are discriminated against, in comparison with anti-Israel employees.

Several residential homes in the north of Israel were directly hit by Hezbollah, one in the town of Metulah was completely destroyed. The only reasons there are no casualties, is because Israel evacuated the northern towns, just as it did the southern ones.

On the day when the UN is celebrating 75 years anniversary of the human rights declaration, the families of Israeli hostages are demonstrating outside the ceremony, to remind everyone that those who had been kidnapped on Oct 7, have been robbed of all of their human rights for over two months now, and that international organizations such as the UN and Red Cross have barely even commented on this.

The IDF's spokesman in Arabic has tweeted this morning, that aid trucks have been waiting for an hour and a half to enter Gaza, because they had to wait for someone on the Gazan side of the border (meaning, Hamas) to open the checkpoint.

The BBC is reporting that Human Rights Watch has denounced the Iran-funded Houthis' attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea, and declared these attacks to be war crimes. It's nice to see that when the ships targeted are no longer supposedly Israeli ones, HRW is capable of doing its work.

The other day, soldiers who were a part of an operation to clear the neighborhood of Shujayiah, entered a terrorist ambush. During the fight, there was suspicion that one of the soldiers was kidnapped by Hamas through a terror tunnel. The highest ranking officers on the ground personally joined the battle, to help the fighting, and also to coordinate the different forces, in order to minimize the possibility of a friendly fire incident. 10 soldiers were killed in this battle, among them two of those high ranking officers, Colonel Yitzhak Ben Basat and Lieutenant Colonel Tomer Greenberg (meanwhile, the highest ranking commanders of Hamas are sending their terrorists to die, while they themselves hide in terror tunnels, behind the human shields of Gazan civilians and Israeli hostages). These are the fallen soldiers from this battle (Greenberg top right, Ben Basat top left):

This is 38 years old Lilia Gurevich-Vasilkovsky.

She was murdered at the Nova music festival on Oct 7. She was a molecular biologist, who was hailed for her ability to think outside the box. She was working on developing a sweet protein, that would replace sugar. If she had been successful, this could have improved the health and lives of countless people around the world suffering from diabetes. I'm one of them. Reading about her made me stop and think about the fact that, especially when considering the many young victims, we will never fully understand how much the world has lost on Oct 7.

This is 36 years old Itay Perry.

In the photo, he's holding up the note that his 6 years old son sent him. The note says, "I love you, I miss you, Dad. I hope you won't get injured." Itay carried the folded note on him since he got it, including when he was killed in Gaza. Itay's dad mourned his son, saying that no parent could have a kinder child, and that Itay was also an amazing father and husband.

May the memories of all of the fallen be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[elliewiltarwyn]

FFXIV Write 2024 | #2: Horizon

Word Count: 775

Third Umbral Moon, 28th Sun

The boat left this morning, and we’re on it. It’s finally happening: we’re on our way to Tural.

Some of the sheer excitement that had churned in my stomach the day we met Wuk Lamat is beginning to return now that the day has arrived…which would be great if it didn’t manifest as a bit of seasickness. Been holding it together better than Mia, though: she’s planted herself on a chair in our cabin and is determinedly staring out the porthole at the horizon to try and keep herself from pitching up breakfast. It’s hard enough for her already, and the waters are calm and inviting right now; I dread to think what’ll happen when a storm approaches, which is practically a given with how long the voyage is. Poor baby.

She insists that we shouldn’t dampen our excitement on her behalf, though, that we should go and chat with our shipmates about our destination to see what we can learn - as if I haven’t spent a good part of the past several moons in the company of the Third Promise of Tuliyollal, hearing her excitedly explain to me the wonders of the nation she seeks to claim rule over. And I’ll not deny: Tural sounds incredible. Wondrous sights the likes of which Eorzea can only dream of, an incredible mixing pot of culture and peoples - if nothing else, I think this journey will be worth it just to confirm the wonders she speaks of, that’s certainly an adventure in itself.

And yet…

There’d been a hesitation in her whenever she spoke to us of her home, and till today I’d never been able to put my finger on what that was. The realization dawned on me and Lily as we spoke to the other passengers on the ship; some of them were merchants that spoke in awed respect of the Pelupelu’s shrewdness and aptitude for bargaining; someone else spoke of the Turali names for the races, such as Hhetsarro and Xbr’aal for what we call the Miqo’te and the Hrothgar. Then there was the one Mamool Ja merc who got two sentences into the “simple-minded brute” act before groaning about it becoming impractical, with how more people were visitng Tural and learning what they were actually like…

It occurred to me then: Wuk Lamat had spoken to us of how she grew up as a daughter of the Dawnservant, how well she got along (or didn’t) with her older brothers, and the various awesome feats her father had performed in uniting Tuliyollal under one banner. She spoke of things like her favorite foods or favorite sights of the capital, and she spoke of how much she loved the Tural her father built… but this was the first time Lily and I had heard of things like the Pelupelu or the Turali names, or how rich and varied the Mamool Ja are as a people despite whatever assumptions Eorzeans concocted about them. Things beyond the borders of the capital city.

“I don’t think she’s been hiding them from us or anything,” was Lily’s take. “I think she might not actually have seen as much of Tural as she feels she should have as the Third Promise.” She giggled and added, “It’s funny that she felt it was easier to cross the ocean to Eorzea and ask for help to explore her own homeland.”

It certainly is funny, but I think there’s a little more to it than that. It’s obvious Wuk Lamat doesn’t have a dishonest bone in her body; she’s bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, incredibly earnest, and very extremely naive. She’s excited to learn what her homeland has in store for her on her upcoming journey, but she’s also well aware of her own limitations and need for support from experienced adventurers like us. She put on a brave face when she first met, but as I look at her now standing upon the ship’s bow, grinning wildly at the distant horizon as she anxiously stretches her arms… she looks so young. I’m not certain she’s older than I was when I lost my parents.

But she’s determined to reach that horizon regardless. And, well, if there’s something I can do to support her in that endeavor, I can reach out and be the hand I needed in times like that.

…gods. I just told Lily this, and she gasped and looked at me, delighted, and whispered “El, you’re adopting her as your protege!” I immediately protested, but stopped mid-sentence because. Yeah. Yeah that’s definitely what I just wrote. Gods dammit. I’m getting older, but I’m not old enough to be a mentor, am I…?

[general-ida-raven]

I Hate You The Least - Chapter 1

Summary: Jude Voss has had her life flipped upside down twice in her life. The first time when she was thrust into a galaxy-wide war as a Separatist strategist, and the second when she was taken hostage by Clone Force 99. A prisoner turned unexpected baggage when the war came to a brutal end, she alongside the Bad Batch have to navigate the aftermath that is the Empire as well as navigate everything in between- down to how they feel about each other.

Pairing: eventual Hunter x Jude

Mostly follows canon, SLOW BURN, enemies-to-lovers, angst, eventual fluff (no smut)

I don’t remember who made this chapter divider, if it’s yours please let me know so I can credit you :)

chapter 2 is up here!

Captured by Republic forces was not how Jude Voss planned to finish out the war. 

More realistically, watching these clones fall under her hand was what she’d been envisioning.

She’d thought that the shifting tides were temporary, that the Republic’s advances would soon fall back and take a tragic loss. After all, that was what had been happening over the last many rotations. Why would this be different?

But, from her place in the strategy room reading and rereading their formations until her head hurt with the strain of the screen, was where she heard the first explosion.

One and then another, shaking the building and causing her to stumble. 

And then they’d arrived; a small squadron of five soldiers clad in red-and-black armor.

Their stun blasts had struck her before she could even fully turn from the console she’d been bent over, and everything had gone dark. 

Jude’s eyes drew open slowly, harsh light greeting her from overhead as she blinked heavy eyelids. Her limbs were weighed down with the after effects of the stun blasts, head swimming with incoherent thoughts and lungs weighted with her breaths. 

It took her all of two heartbeats to realize her hands were cuffed behind her back. She yanked at the restraints, grunting faintly and straining to free herself until her shoulders ached. Slumping back faintly she let out a defeated breath, moving her attention to the surrounding ship.

The interior was void of any other presence but her, opposite wall ridged with a pillar of bunks and storage crates shoved beside and underneath. Her body rocked with the shudders of the ship, body weight lurching this way and that as the engine hummed through the hull.

Jude turned her gaze quickly toward the cockpit as the door whooshed open. The visor that met her gaze was dark, the clone crossing his arms and causing his sniper’s pauldron to jut out more prominently. His lanky form regarded her in silence for a long moment, a low hum that sounded more like a snake’s hiss escaping him before he turned and stalked back toward the cockpit.

“Sarge,” Jude heard the clone’s voice hiss, a growl laced permanently into his tone as he spoke. “Girl’s awake.”

A beat later the lanky clone reappeared, a shorter one at his side. The latter’s head turned down toward her as he regarded her in silence before gloved hands moved up, easing his half-white helmet away from his head. Deep burgundy curls fell around his face, barely restrained from getting in his eyes by the stark red bandana that bordered his forehead. His slate gray gaze met Jude’s, intense as he slowly knelt to her level, half of his face darkened by both the tattoo that took up his skin and the harsh shadows that the overhead lights cast down on them. 

Jude held his gaze for a long moment, shifting as she tugged at the restraints that pinned her hands. “What do you want with me?”

“You already know the answer to that.” The clone’s voice was husky, tone breathy like smoke as he watched her carefully.  

“You were in the mood for my company,” Jude guessed dryly, her brows drawing together as she frowned up at him coldly. “Let me go before my forces come to find me and kill all of you in the process.” “Didn’t you hear?” The clone tilted his head almost mockingly, his dark brow raising and bringing his eyes more into the light. “General Kenobi found and killed Grievous on Utapau. The war is about to be over.”

“On your feet.”

Jude let out an involuntary grunt as a gloved hand closed around her arm and pulled her to her feet. The squadron’s sergeant- Hunter, he’d been called- locked firm fingers around her upper arm, pushing her toward the lowering ramp and prowling like a dangerous shadow after her.

Don’t touch me. She didn’t dare bite out the words, wary of what kind of reaction she’d earn, but she thought them nonetheless.

Harsh sunlight poured down on her skin like acidic rain as she stumbled out of the ship, hazel eyes squinting against the sudden brightness. Hunter brushed past her, moving toward the Republic base built into the cliffside, on which they’d just landed.

Finally at a Republic base and I’m the one in danger. Figures.

“We should not have brought her here.” Jude glanced over her shoulder at the growled voice behind her, just barely restraining a roll of her eyes as she watched the clone jab his scomp arm not-at-all subtly in her direction.

“I’m not the one calling the shots.” The marksman’s tone came out dry in response, slipping off his helmet and propping a toothpick between his lips as he tucked his bucket under one arm. “Don’t cry to me.”

“Stow it, Crosshair.” 

“What. You seem to forget that’s not my problem.” The marksman’s gaze slithered upward, meeting Jude’s and narrowing as he rolled the toothpick in his teeth. “Got something to say, princess?”

Jude felt her fingers draw up into tight fists behind her back, jaw setting as she met Crosshair’s gaze. “Wouldn’t you like to know, skug.”

The sound Crosshair made was somewhere between a hiss and a scoff. His arms crossed over his chest, marksman leaning into one long leg as his darkened gaze moved up. Hunter moved into Jude’s line of sight, sergeant holding his helmet in one hand as he trailed toward the rest of his squadron.

“Command says to wait here on Anaxes,” the sergeant informed, as smoky as earlier but less hostile when addressing his squadron. “More Republic forces should be arriving soon and we can load her up then.”

“Echo wants to keep her,” Crosshair commented, flicking his toothpick toward the scomp-bearing clone. Echo scowled in response, watching the toothpick bounce off of his chest plate.

“That’s not what he said!” The largest clone was, as it seemed, not the brightest on sarcasm. He frowned down at Crosshair, huffing loudly. “He said he doesn’t like her.” 

“Think with that little brain of yours, Wrecker,” Crosshair hissed in response, sending the largest clone a look as he miraculously produced a new toothpick to perch between his teeth.

“Enough.” Hunter’s interruption snipped off whatever Wrecker was prepping to say, the sergeant sending them both cold glances as the biting wind sent locks of dark hair over his forehead. “We have a mission to do.” “Technically, our mission has been completed.” Jude looked toward the taller clone who’d spoken; the only one of the squadron who wore white and also the only one who hadn’t spoken illy of her. At least, not in her earshot. “The target has been apprehended.” “We haven’t handed her over to command yet,” Echo commented, refusing to look Jude in the eye. 

“You’re right. So let’s get her ready to do so.” Hunter’s hand closed around Jude’s upper arm, earning an involuntary grunt from her lips as the sergeant pulled her toward the wide hangar that served as shelter for the clones and Republic soldiers.

Jude’s eyes flickered around rapidly as they crossed the landing pavilion toward the hangar, soaking in every detail she laid her eyes on. Square barracks of dark gray, shuttles lined neatly into rows, soldiers moving about in coordinated groups and transporting gear from one ship to another.

The second I get the chance, I can run to one of those shuttles. Could hot wire��� then get back to the outpost and contact one of the Admirals for backup…

“See something you like?” Crosshair’s voice was dry as he stepped into her line of sight, his form lean but broad enough to block Jude’s view of the shuttles. Her gaze raked up to meet his, her eyes narrowing as she frowned before looking away from him. 

“That’s what I thought. Don’t bother trying to escape.” The marksman’s hand connected with her shoulder, shoving her stumbling forward a few steps for good measure. “We’ll only catch you all over again.”

Jude looked ahead, keeping her distress off of her face as best as she could. Her heart flipped in her chest, the woman keeping her breathing steady despite the way she wanted to let herself panic. 

Don’t panic. Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t-

A blaster shot rang out.

Hunter stilled in front of them, turning to look over his shoulder, and slowly Jude did the same. Her turn had barely completed before blaster fire came, over and over, the sound a wicked cacophony in the air. 

The faintest flicker of hope grew in Jude’s chest, hope that maybe the Separatists had come for her, hope that she’d be saved, as she shoved around Crosshair’s and Wrecker’s forms to see past them. 

The blaster fire stopped as she peered around them, smoke still curling from the surrounding clones’ blasters as their weapons lowered. 

And the Jedi lying on the ground at their feet was dead. 

tags: @bananasugarwarrior @high-ct5555

[crime-wives]

wip wednesday (totally not thursday)

thank you so much for the tag @sssammich :D

the first snip is from my supercorp rift fic in the format of the five stages of grief. this is from the denial section

Kara Danvers is Supergirl. It’s an ugly loop, constant record screeching in her mind. Louder every second. Her eyes fixed on the bloody corpse of her brother. Smoking gun heavy in her hand.  Lena feels a sickening, violent twist in her gut. It’s so blatantly obvious, how could she have ignored all the signs?  Denial, people see what they want to see.  . . She pastes a plastic smile on her face, wine bottle clutched like a lifeline. She laughs, and gestures, and says all the right things despite the fury that simmers beneath the surface. There’s a familiar ache lodged in her chest, splintering in all directions.  She looks into Kara’s soft blue eyes [insert something] . . Lena sells Catco to Andrea. If she’s honest, she only bought the company for Kara [rephrase + expand] . . It’s been two months since she found out and not a word from Kara. Baby blue eyes filled with trepidation when they fall on her.  Each interaction punctuated with a breathless Lena— Everytime Lena thinks maybe, maybe Kara will finally come clean.  She never does.

this is from my swan queen enemies with benefits fic

She’s furious, storming into the station when she sees Regina perched on her desk, legs crossed, expectant look on her face. And Emma just wants to- fuck, throw Regina against a wall and- She feels her mask slip, but only for a second. “Madam Mayor, what a nice surprise.”  A lazy smirk forms of her face, “Miss Swan, I was hoping we could discuss [insert thing that pisses emma off]” “You’re such a fucking pain in the ass.”  “The feeling is quite mutual.” And she’s so smug, that when she stands, brushing the non-existent lint off her pencil skirt (that somehow managed to ride several inches up her thighs) Emma can’t help but grab her shoulders and slam her into the nearest wall. The tiny gasp Regina let’s out is worth it. Regina looks up at her, pupils dilated, lips parted.  “Miss Swan! Unhand me this instant!” She does nothing to move, and her words lack their usual bite. In fact, her cheeks are flushed, her tongue darts out to wet her lips.  Emma feels a hand pressed against her stomach. Snaking further up her bare skin, ghosting the underside of her breast. Emma feels her body unwillingly lean closer. Close enough that she feels Regina’s breath on her lips.

another snip from a swan queen neverland rewrite (it may be added to the ewb fic lol)

“You sure you can do this?” Emma moves to lay a hand on Regina’s arm, offering comfort. She retreats, fingers outstretched midair, when Regina flinches. “After everything, after the—” Torture. “Of course I can,” Regina scoffs. “Henry is everything. I would do anything for him.” The devotion pours off her in waves. “I know you would.” The ship rocks, as they stare into inky water. It’s quiet, almost frighteningly so. The sounds of their breathing fills the air. “I would too, you know.” Regina raises an eyebrow. “Do anything for him. I would too.”

and finally, my meddison 2x04 wip

It’s inescapable, she’s a constant presence in the hospital. Copper red hair around every goddamn corner. Cutting jokes about threesomes and unexplainable kindness when Meredith’s best friend ends up on the OR table. God, Meredith hates her so much.  . . “Meredith, she gave me divorce papers. She filed,” Derek asserts. Voice bordering on patronizing.  “I know,” Meredith says. That shuts him up quickly. He tilts his head, baby blue eyes imploring gently. “She told me,” Meredith sighs. “Addison told you?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “I didn’t think you were on speaking terms.” “We’re not— It’s complicated Derek.” 

no pressure tags :) @emily-prentits @nostradamus0 @thecasualqueer @sillyfroggremlin @walshies @peridotglimmer @fazedlight @flyingpotstickers

[mariacallous]

While the failure to break through Russia’s fortified defensive lines on the southern axis this summer has been disappointing for Kyiv, the news on the diplomatic and political front is far more alarming.

Speaking about the progress of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in early December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told The Associated Press: “We wanted faster results. From that perspective, unfortunately, we did not achieve the desired results. And this is a fact.”

While Ukraine has achieved some limited successes this year, with results in the Black Sea in the summer and a Kherson-region bridgehead firmly established east of the Dnipro River in the fall, the lack of significant territorial gains is a bitter pill to swallow for Kyiv.

But despite these setbacks, with the final taboos overcome regarding providing the heavy weaponry and long-range missile capabilities needed to win this war, the trajectory of the conflict was still arguably trending in Ukraine’s favor, according to many Western military experts, just as long as the coalition of democratic nation states maintaining Ukraine’s wartime economy held strong and the arms transfers kept arriving.

Winter’s developments, however, paint a far worse picture. Given the immense risks ahead, it is imperative that Kyiv starts preparing now for a future in which that coalition has fragmented.

In Europe, election victories for allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Slovakia’s Robert Fico and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders have potentially added further blocks on European Union financial and military aid packages. Hungary’s Viktor Orban now has more leverage in his attempts to disrupt the bloc’s Ukraine policy, including holding up a new round of sanctions on Russia and a proposed 50 billion euro ($54.9 billion) aid package, even if his opposition to the EU opening accession talks for Ukraine has been successfully navigated by the bloc.

Orban was previously isolated inside the EU, which overtook the United States as the largest overall donor of aid to Ukraine over the summer. If Wilders manages to form a governing coalition and become prime minister, it could not only imperil the planned transfer of Dutch F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, but also become a major threat to future EU aid packages going forward.

Winter has also seen a truck driver protest in Poland and Slovakia, which have been blocking Ukrainian border crossings in a dispute over EU permits for Ukrainian shipping companies, which has in turn impacted the flow of volunteer military aid coming into Ukraine.

While Kyiv will be disappointed by these events, they are not insurmountable. Support for Ukraine remains high in Brussels, and Orban has proved himself capable of relenting on similar packages in the past, leveraging Hungary’s veto in exchange for EU concessions toward Budapest. Individually, member states such as Germany and the Baltic nations also continue to send substantial military aid to Kyiv outside of the structures of the European Union.

The news from the United States, however, is far more bleak. Speaking to reporters on Dec. 4, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan laid out in stark terms that the funds allocated by the government for Ukraine were spent, warning that if Congress did not pass further funding bills, it would impact Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

“Each week that passes, our ability to fully fund what we feel is necessary to give Ukraine the tools and capacities it needs to both defend its territory and continue to make advances, that gets harder and harder,” Sullivan said.

The White House has been trying to pass a $61.4 billion aid package for Ukraine (part of which would go to replenishing U.S. Defense Department stocks), tied together with a package of aid to Israel and Taiwan, which is being blocked by congressional Republicans in a dispute over the Biden administration’s border policies.

Despite a majority of Republicans supporting increased military aid to Ukraine, bills trying to secure further funding have stalled in both the Senate and the House of Representatives since the caucus of far-right, pro-Trump House Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as the speaker of the House of Representatives, replacing him with Ukraine military aid opponent Mike Johnson.

After Johnson was elected speaker, he appeared to walk back his opposition to Ukraine funding, in an apparent bid to win over some of his Reaganite skeptics in the Republican Party. However, he has chosen to try to leverage the urgency of the Biden administration’s Ukraine package to advance the Republicans’ anti-immigration platform.

This is no longer isolated to the House, as even pro-Ukraine senators, such as Lindsey Graham, joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in blocking the White House’s security package amid chaotic scenes in the Senate. With Senate Republicans falling in line with the legislative agenda of the House’s hard-right “Freedom Caucus” Republican wing, Ukraine will enter the Christmas period under sustained Russian aerial bombardment with depleted air defense ammunition stocks.

The United States is incapable of replenishing those stocks due to the domestic political wrangling of a small band of hard-line, anti-immigration Republican lawmakers, and Ukrainian civilians will likely die as a result of this amoral legislative obstinance. In Kyiv, where I live, the sense that these conservative lawmakers are willing to recklessly endanger Ukrainian lives for selfish political ends is palpable.

The Biden administration has expressed a willingness to compromise in order to try to break the impasse, but there is no certainty in where these negotiations could go. The size of this aid bill is itself a strategic move. The $61.4 billion package dwarfs any of the previous U.S. aid packages to Ukraine (which as of August 2023 totaled more than $77 billion), representing a more “one and done” approach to meeting Ukraine’s military aid needs for the entirety of 2024 and the remainder of President Joe Biden’s term.

If it passes, there will be no further opportunities in the short term for the Make America Great Again caucus to hold Ukrainian aid to ransom.

But the problems don’t stop there. The United States and Europe��have both failed to produce enough artillery ammunition to meet Ukraine’s needs, and this shortfall led to South Korea becoming a larger supplier of artillery ammunition in 2023 than all European nations combined. But Korea’s supplies are not limitless, and U.S. and European production is still not at the levels needed to sustain Ukraine going forward. If this shortfall is not addressed, the consequences could be disastrous.

There are more hopeful signs that these problems are well understood, and that the coalition of nations supporting Ukraine remains committed to the cause in the long term. “Wars develop in phases,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in a recent interview with the German public broadcaster ARD in early December. “We have to support Ukraine in both good and bad times,” he said.

Everything now points to a long war in Ukraine, although none of this should have been unforeseeable for Western policymakers and defense chiefs. Ukraine’s top military c, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, gave a much-publicized interview with the Economist in November, in which he said “just like in the first world war, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.”

These comments, however, despite appearing to create the impression of a public rift between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, are not a concession of defeat from the four-star general. Zaluzhny made clear that he is trying to avoid the kind of grinding attritional warfare that favors Russia’s long-term strategy for wearing Ukraine down.

But a long war also heightens one of the biggest threats. Even if the Biden administration manages to get the new aid package over the line, effectively securing Ukraine’s military funding for 2024, the specter of another presidency for Donald Trump still looms large on the horizon. The polling for Biden less than one year away from an election is deeply concerning, and Trump’s prospects for victory need to be taken seriously, even in the face of his growing legal jeopardy.

A second Trump presidency would imperil not just U.S. democracy, but also the entire global world order, and the consequences for Ukraine could be potentially devastating. Trump’s refusal to commit to continuing to support Ukraine should be setting off alarm bells—not just in Kyiv, but across Europe too, where the greatest impacts from this change of policy would be felt.

Trump’s first impeachment was over his attempt to extort Ukraine to search for compromising material that he could use against Biden in the 2020 election, and there is no reason to believe that Trump has moved on from this. Many in Washington expect that a second Trump presidency will be marked by his desire for revenge against anyone that stood in his way. As the U.S. analyst and author Michael Weiss told me, “Trump’s first impeachment was over Ukraine, and he sees it as an abscess to be lanced. … A Trump presidency would be an unmitigated disaster for Ukraine.”

There are also signs that the Russians are acutely aware of this, and that their strategy in the short-to-medium term is simply to hold out in Ukraine long enough for a Trump presidency to pull the plug on the vital military aid keeping the Ukrainians in the fight. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu recently remarked that the Russians expect the war to last beyond 2025, and in an address to his own propaganda think tank, Putin said that Ukraine would have a “week to live” if Western arms supplies were halted.

Ukraine cannot plan for a war that may extend beyond 2025 without preparing for a potential Trump presidency and all that would entail. The Ukrainian government must prepare for every eventuality, including a White House that is actively hostile toward Kyiv. To his credit, Zelensky appears to have acknowledged this possibility, going as far as inviting Trump to visit Kyiv.

Putin has made it perfectly clear that he sees his war in Ukraine as being part of a wider war that he is waging against the entire West. Western policymakers to take him at his word on this. Putin and his regime have been waging a hybrid war against the West for many years, and he considers his support for European extremists such as Fico, Wilders and France’s Marine Le Pen to be part of that war and part of undermining the Western liberal democratic institutions, such as the EU and NATO, that stand in opposition to Putin’s tyranny.

But there is no single individual on the planet more important to Putin’s global war agenda than his pet authoritarian in Mar-a-Lago.

Moscow’s goals in Ukraine remain unchanged; the Putin regime still maintains maximalist aims in Ukraine and is in this war for the long haul, with the total subjugation of Kyiv as its goal. Putin made his position very clear during his annual news conference. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also been explicit about this, and Europe should take the ongoing threat that a Trump administration poses to Ukraine seriously. There may well be a potential future in which Europe is forced to carry the burden of Ukraine’s war without its North American ally at the helm of the coalition, or even at the head of the collective defense strategy at the heart of European foreign policy.

Looking forward to 2024, there remains no path to peace in Ukraine without a Russian defeat. Looking beyond 2025, the future of Ukraine as a free and democratic nation-state, and potentially the entire security of Europe, hang in the balance.

This is why Europe, in particular, cannot afford to be complacent in the face of the rising threat of a Trump presidency. Opening EU accession talks for Ukraine is a good start, but until the bloc can match or outperform Russia’s current levels of ammunition production, the tide will start to turn against Ukraine if U.S. leadership on this war continues to falter. The truth is that U.S. leadership on this and on any other pressing international issue cannot be guaranteed.

For Ukraine to stand a chance of victory, its allies must begin preparing for catastrophe now.

[girlactionfigure]

🔅ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime

🔻SUICIDE DRONE from HEZBOLLAH - LEBANON at Moshav Arbel - Lower Galilee, miss - hit open area (not exactly, meters from a family home), no sirens in impact area but there were at border area where it crossed.  Moshav Arbel, explosion heard, children in school and kindergartens rushed to shelter.

🔻ROCKET from HEZBOLLAH - LEBANON at IDF post in the Western Galilee.

▪️IDF SAYS… struck and killed terrorist who launched rockets from Gaza within minutes of the launch.

▪️HOUTHIS SAY… “We have no choice but further escalation.” (( Their honor is tied to the fact they committed to affecting Israel and Gaza but aren’t effectively doing so. Are they willing to sacrifice their fighters, civilians, cities to their honor? Yes. ))

▪️RAMADAN SWEETS FOR GAZA?  “Although Ramadan is not expected to affect the ongoing fighting in Gaza, the possibility of importing aid into the Strip that would allow Gazans to celebrate the holiday was discussed at the cabinet meeting, Haaretz reported.”  

▪️COUNTER-TERROR OPERATIONS.. overnight in Beit Omer, Hebron area, Shoafat camp, East Jerusalem, Qabatiya, near Jenin, and Jebel Al Mukhabar neighborhood of East Jerusalem, and Aqat Jaber camp near Jericho. Heavy clashes and firefights in Qabatiya.

▪️ATTACK ON PM? “A suspicious envelope was found in the Prime Minister’s office. Under investigation.”

▪️EARLIER REPORT OF GUNFIRE AT CARMIT.. Police: criminal conflict between 2 factions of the same (Arab) family.

▪️MORE ON ATTACKED SHIP.. the ship struck by the Houthis was flying the flag of Belize, registered to the UK, and operated by a Lebanese company. Oops.  Updated report says the bulk carrier is carrying AMMONIA.  If it leaks its cargo, and it was earlier said to be in danger of sinking and the crew abandoned ship - the environmental damage may be EXTREME.

[fungalittleweirdo]

Nineteenth Century ROTTMNT AU

tagging @spoopyblues214 here because they love the meme with the four character archetypes (but instead of the victorian englishman it's a spanish revolutionary in this) potentially crossing paths due to them being from the same time period and i want to dedicate this post to him <3 i'd even credit them for the idea if i didn't write it down first (silly)

side note: this derives from canon SO MUCH but this is the best way i could make it work in my head to make everything fit into place

~

the year is 1827. twenty-seven-year-old raphael is on the run, wanted by the spanish monarchy for inciting rebellion in the spanish colonies. he ended up in texas where he found michelangelo, a twenty-five-year-old ex-mercenary cowboy planning to return east. the two meet at a saloon, drinking sarsaparilla together.

"i seen your poster 'round down south of the border they're buildin'. spanish king'd pay a pretty penny to have you behind bars."

"you haven't seen any thing like that."

"relax, i ain't doin' none of that no more, jus' wanna go east. i am beat from all the heat 'round here."

the two agree to travel together, since bandits in that area are dangerous to deal with alone. raph realises mikey is hella fantastic with a whip while mikey acknowledges raph is a hella good shot. raph prefers his knives though, it's easy to put the blade between his fingers, even if he runs the risk of cutting himself. the two travel from corpus christi to new orleans, resting in town for a little while.

after some time the two come across a former samurai, homeless and starving in the streets. they take him in, feed him and mend his garb. he carries a splintered bo staff and what little he has in a rucksack with a persistent frown on his face. twenty-six-year-old donatello expresses his gratitude by giving raph his unused sai and mikey an unused kusari-fundo because of his whipping skills. the three of them live in louisiana for a couple months, enjoying the bayou until raphael felt like he was being watched. there is still a price upon his head, the lingering worry deepening the stress lines on his forehead. the three manage to board on a boat headed to new york. mikey and raph leave their horses with a free woman, april and her friend casey, who plan to travel on land masquerading as a slave owner with his slave. those two plan on meeting with casey's cousin, cassandra, moving in the lower east side to keep her company.

the three turtles board a ship with an annoying stock boy and a crew of rogues who call themselves the purple dragons. as much as the three avoid these bothersome pains in their necks, they always meet with the stock boy when they need food. they always cross paths with the purple dragons when they need to get to starboard for fresh air. a few months of enduring these bullies and their luck got worse once the ship was rounding the coast of the tip of florida. a crew of pirates came across their ship and donatello was sick of it, fighting the pirates off after they threw stock boy and the dragons overboard.

twenty-six-year-old co-captain leonardo and donatello hamato were at a stalemate at port, raphael was held back by capitán piel and michelangelo pinned señor hueso down at starboard.

"aye, swift with your staff, hm ?"

"your blades are faulty, marauder !"

leo quirks an eyebrow and drops his swords, raising his arms in surrender with a smug look.

"let's strike a deal, fox-eye."

the co-captain gives piel a look and he lets go of raph, then mikey gets off of hueso, who stands and glares at him. donnie quirks an eyebrow and stands with his staff on the plank his feet are planted upon, waiting for leo to continue.

"my blades are faulty to you ? what do you know about blades ?"

"usually concerns for pirateers like you are gold and jewels."

"answer me or you'll have the shogun to answer to."

donatello stills and drops his staff, lifting his hands up.

"if you would allow me to reach for my family blades ?"

leonardo watches carefully as donatello unsheathes his twin odachi, carefully resting them upon his hands and holding them up with a bowed head. the pirate drops his swords, reaching for the presented blades.

"i have given you the last of my metallic weapons. now please leave my brothers and i alone."

mikey and raph were surprised to hear donatello refer to them as his brothers, but they connected the dots quickly and kept their smiles to themselves. leo observed the odachi in his hands and gave them a test swing, grinning to himself from how easy his technique came to him. he looked up at donatello, the samurai's head still low.

"aye, look at me."

donnie listened, a glint shining in his eyes as he blinked up at leo.

"you best be ready for another lad to join your family, because i am right here."

raph, mikey, and donnie join the crew of leo's ship. while capitán piel is the true captain of the ship, he lets leo lead pillages for fun. definitely not for the fact that the kid has a natural talent for leadership, he just had to learn the hard way how to watch for his crew. unfortunately, leo couldn't acknowledge the fact that a pirate crew is not expendable. señor hueso thinks the only reason why he and his brother are the last ones alive from the original crew is because they're the ones still truly in charge. the turn of events for leo to adopt three strangers from different corners of the world as family all of a sudden had them questioning his motives.

the ship manages to arrive in virginia for a break, which is where the four crew turtles decided to watch big mama's travelling circus. piel and hueso got to stocking up for food and supplies in the market. so the brothers saw the leading act in said circus was a lean middle aged man, going by the stage name lou jitsu. donnie recognised he was a martial artist by the way he moved, fighting all the big burly men ringleader mama pitted against him, but mikey could tell by the strained look on his face that he was tired.

lou jitsu was exhausted, he had been fighting for big mama's circus for over a decade. he was once part of a prominent family in japan until he ran away against his grandfather's wishes, travelling the new world as an actor until he ran out of money. he managed to stay with a witch doctor in louisiana, baron draxum. the yokai bewitched lou jitsu body and soul, granting him more money and fame... but at a price. lou jitsu started acting and travelling again, even going back to japan. unfortunately, four of his lovers bore children draxum cursed to be half-turtle half-man. lou had some idea, because he occasionally received letters from them believing them to be fans who wanted to bear his children.

raphael's mother in south america raised him despite ridicule from the townsfolk. leonardo's mother abandoned him and sr. hueso was the one who took him in and he and capitán piel raised leo as their own little brother. donatello's mother tried hard to keep him hidden until samurai raided her home and took him away to be raised by a high status family instead. they thought of him as their good fortune. michelangelo's mother had to sell him to some farmhands, so he grew up tending to livestock and keeping them together in one spot.

once lou jitsu spots the four turtles in the audience he experienced a transformation like no other, the dormant part of the curse draxum put on him taking place. he quit on big mama, leaving the circus to join the turtles.

"surely... you can give me a chance to be in your lives... ?"

the turtles hesitantly agreed and the group went back to the boat to escape big mama, leaving the harbour to get to new york. the crew arrives and they meet casey and april in the harbour, mikey and raph glad to see their horses again.

the ragtag group of raph the spanish revolutionary, leo the pirate, donnie the former samurai, mikey the cowboy, and lou jitsu the ex circus performer settle in the greatest city in the world– shenanigans ensue !

[crosschartering]

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[kiliinstinct]

The Forbidden Woods

A Genshin Impact Au Pairing: Aether/Xiao Urban Fantasy and Supernatural Romance Find on A03: [Here] Special Thanks to @genavere: My beta. Chapter 1: / Chapter 3:

---

Chapter 2: Golden Gaze

Someone was watching him.

The gaze was a subtle one that Aether hadn’t noticed at first. The kind of stare that builds over time until the pressure on the back of your neck became too distracting. 

And this certainly distracted him. 

The first few days in his family home were full of coughing and sneezing as he struggled to clear a space enough to consider his temporary bedroom. The rest of the home looked like an abandoned, haunted house that beckoned him to every shadow with promises of exploration and horrors. Dusty sheets covered old furniture, the remains of mice and other excrement could be found in every corner, and a musky, staleness filled the air.

In any other circumstance, this place could be seen as a bio weapon, unfit for the living, but he made do. Opening every window he could to air out the first floor, he struggled with the upstairs rooms to do the same. (Many locks had rusted over, making his hands itch and sore with the attempt to open them.)  But once the layer of dust was out of the way, sunlight streamed inside, illuminating every room with a calming, natural light. 

Amusingly, it brought to light just how his parents had left all those years ago. Ratty books, moth-eaten and dusty, still sat on the shelves and toys he had thought lost, were left on the floor as a frozen memory to their former games. Plaques and pictures still hung on the walls, reflecting those memories with the forever smiling faces of his family. 

Just what had happened to make them leave in such a rush? Aether couldn’t recall, temple pounding as he struggled to remember anything beyond  the car ride full of excited laughter as they crossed the border.

When he called his sister, Lumine, the first night to tell her of his jitters, she laughed and told him to not watch any horror movies while alone. Considering the lack of wifi, cable, and satellite access, it should have been an easy enough suggestion to follow. 

But no one ever claimed he was wise. Well, he did, often enough, too. Who better to be his hype man than himself?

The data on his phone was more than enough to bring up a couple true crime videos in the dead of night while he lay in bed. (Which was more a glorified pallet of his own sleeping back and linens he’d brought with him.)  Lumine’s early morning text calling him an idiot made him cackle through an exhausted yawn. It had come before he’d decided to admit his poor choice in entertainment, and the call out was enough to make the house feel just a little bit lighter. Unfortunately, the laughter turned to a string of sneezes from the dusty air.

That was then. 

Three days of toil later, Aether questioned his life choices. Was it even worth cleaning the place up—the only interest in the land was a company hoping to use the acres for its warehouse. Gone would be the house, the untilled land waiting to be used again. And gone would be the memories he held dearly in the treasure trove of his mind, examining them with fond nostalgia when he had the time.  The old fence, shed and forest boundary aligning the edges of the land would be replaced with industrial metal and merchandise, shipping in and out of the area. 

He ignored the way this reality clutched at his heart and settled in his gut like a sickness. 

The logical voice in his head claimed ‘no,’ but a louder part of him refused to acknowledge it. 

Even before he’d agreed to pay the house one last visit, making Lumine wait to sign the papers, Aether had felt the urge to return. Whether it be the old, nostalgic dreams and memories that plagued his sleep or just a feeling in his heart he couldn’t explain, he couldn’t ignore it. And so, he put himself to work, cleaning every room with his hair tied back in a messy braid and a mask fitted over his face. (It didn’t work. He still coughed each time he unearthed a new pile of dust bunnies under the old, moth-eaten furniture.)

It was the evening of that third day when he first began to consider the feeling of being watched as something other than his ridiculous love of horror and true crime documentaries. Anytime he passed by a window, the entry doors, or just laid on his makeshift pallet to rest, his skin crawled. Ignoring the way goosebumps settled along his arms, Aether would shut the blinds to every window he crossed in a fit of paranoia and irritation.  

The difference it made was zero. As if the presence could see through the old fabrics with relative ease. He had considered buying new ones before shoving the thought aside. He was just being ridiculous, he knew that.

When Lumine’s daily check in was answered with his worries, she held no sympathy for her twin, texting back her thoughts with humorous teasing. 

‘Is it bigfoot? He saw your pretty hair and is planning to take you away, ooooh~’

‘This isn’t helping, Lumine.’

‘You’ll wake up in the midst of night, being carried off like a princess, curled up in the arms of the hairiest beast alive!’

Aether would not let her know just how easily she pulled a bark of laughter from him, replying petulantly, ‘I’m ignoring you, now.’

It would be minutes later, when he was already busying himself with more cleaning, that his phone dinged with her final remark:

‘Can’t wait to see your new boyfriend. :P Take lots of pictures for me!’

Instead, he took a shot of her stolen bunny slippers currently resting on his feet, and laughed when her ensuing outrage caused a cacophony of notifications to ring from his cell. Lumine: 0. Aether: 1.

Unfortunately, the feeling persisted.

The fourth day came and went. As did the fifth. When a full week had passed, the sensation became a companion to Aether’s every movement; one he was constantly aware of.

Lumine’s sense of humor persisted, ‘It’s the calm before Bigfoot comes for you.’

‘You’re seriously not funny…’

‘Maybe he’ll leave you a gift?’

‘I’m burning your slippers.’

‘NO!’

Aether: 2

Whatever was watching him seemed only interested in doing just that: watching.  And with no visual proof of anyone on the grounds, Aether accepted it might be in his head. 

Another thought came to mind, one whispering of the old tales enshrouding the perimeter of his backyard. 

“These woods are the home of ancient spirits and demons,” he remembered hearing as a child. “They guard the land possessively, scaring away all visitors that mean it and its denizens harm. Those who don’t belong will find themselves lost in the accursed fog they create. Never cross the boundary, child, for those who do will never return.’

A silly tale, all things considered. He recalled the tale, written in a children’s book, but repeated by teachers and his parents alike. It was something aimed to keep children from wandering and getting lost in the woods, but he couldn’t get the story out of his mind.

In Aether and Lumine’s youth, they were fascinated by the stories and tested the limits by making their play location right along the boundary lines. He had the feeling they had even passed the lines once or twice, but the memories were too foggy to confirm. Like a dream that refused to fade away. Either way, there were no actual records of people disappearing, not in his lifetime, and he scoffed every time the thought crossed his mind. Considering his and his sister's penchant for exploration, he doubted the stories worked for any child with a healthy curiosity. 

No, he had to accept the fact that maybe, just maybe, all those late night podcasts, being alone in the middle of nowhere, and an active imagination were helping the tales take form into something darker in the back of his mind. His paranoia grew a life of its own without anyone else around to help keep him grounded. 

Not for the first time, he wished Lumine (or even his little sister, Paimon) had come with him. While the three had lived without their parents for the last two years, he had never, truly been alone. Not like this and it was fraying the edges of his sanity if he stood still long enough.

If Lumine knew he was regretting his want for being ‘independant’ and ‘capable,’ he’d never hear the end of it. So he urged his siblings to trust he was more than okay, and continued to bite down on the rising need to check over his shoulder every moment. He even considered taking Draff up on his offer for a night or two, just to get fresh air, but no…Stubborn pride kept him there. Soon enough, after  the house looked, for the most part, liveable, if a bit dated. 

When he finally took his attention to the exterior, dressed in a pair of overalls he’d pulled from storage (he wanted to look the part!) that were covered in dirt and grass strains coupled with one of his low-cut shirts and handkerchief for his hair, he noticed the state of the yard. Draff had done a good job in the upkeep throughout the years, visiting often enough to keep the weeds and overgrowth at bay. 

From an outside perspective, one would almost think the yard and untilled farmland was still occupied, like a summer or winter home. That didn’t mean the yard didn't need work, however…  Old pathstones were barely visible beneath the overgrown lawn and what was once a blossoming garden held no resemblance of the love their mom had poured into it. Gardening tools that had been forgotten in the moment sat against the wooden gate, rusted over, and  brought a feeling of sorrow to Aether. 

A part of him wanted to grasp the tools in hand and see what could be done with the old garden, to restore it to the vibrancy he remembered. But he wasn’t here for that, and stomped down those feelings. He’d clear away the old and leave it open for the new— whatever form that would be. And if possible, he’d just borrow some of Draff’s tools instead. The current ones looked close to falling apart if disturbed. 

These were issues he could tend to later. With another two months left of his visit, Aether already knew what he wanted to do that day, and spending more time cleaning wasn’t one of them. At least, not when it came to the old house and its fields. He had a more childish aim. The old stone shrine near the edge of the woods: his and Lumine’s childhood haven. 

The yard was large, covering a few acres and needing a riding mower to keep the grass at bay, but Aether enjoyed the walk. He kicked at sticks and pebbles that littered the old, almost non-existent pathways and enjoyed the treeline at the end of the path. It still held an air of mysticism for him; one born from the childhood fantasies he tailored in his youth. The trees had grown enough for their branches to bend over and out, stretching forth over the yard. 

Between them, as the limbs swayed in the wind, a flash of familiar teal caught his attention. He squinted his eyes, breath catching in his throat as he caught sight of a bird, slightly larger than the one he remembered, but matching in colors. It kept watch on the branches, head tilted as it observed from above. 

Recognition brought a burn to his eyes and a lump formed in his throat. “Did my old friend have kids?” he asked out loud, grinning wistfully. The fowl in question, ruffled its feathers and jumped to another branch, ignoring his query. Laughter bubbled up in Aether’s chest. 

“Must have. You have the same temperament!” 

Somehow, that thought brought him more joy than he’d felt in the last week.  Relieved laughter bubbled in his chest as his shoulders shook with a rising happiness. Was this the source of his paranoia all along? Feeling this swell of emotion, he withdrew his phone to take a picture. Lumine would love an update on their old birdwatcher, he was sure of it!

But before his fingers could pull up the app, the bird had warbled an annoyed cry and took off towards the woods, careening Aether’s excitement down to the bits of his stomach, “Aww, you couldn’t stay for just two more seconds?”

 He felt his shoulders drop, maybe he’d have another chance later. Instead of a picture, he sent a quick, ‘I think our bird friend had babies!’ to his sister and pocketed his phone once more. He’d check later for a reply. 

Later would come much later, Aether realized. When he came upon the stone altar, he saw the state it was left in and gawked. Far messier than the rest of the yard. Draff hadn’t been asked to clean so close to the boundary fence due to his aversion to the woods and it showed. 

“The Mistwatcher would prefer his boundaries respected,” Aether recalled over hearing the man say over the phone months after their departure. Despite the inconvenience, his parents didn’t fight over the local superstition and the altar paid for it.

Debris from storms and over growth littered the small clearing and the old stone seats he and Lumine had carefully dragged into the area were covered in moss and fungi poked out from the shadows. Old, dead leaves littered the ground, while dried vines and other plant life had reclaimed the area. 

Aether had come to see it for the sake of nostalgia with no intention of making it what it once was, but the urge to fix what was lost swelled in his chest and he moved to clear off the altar without a second thought. They didn’t need seats, or the old blankets and streamers that had been left behind long ago. Even the old rope, tied to the nearest tree for swinging, could stay broken and festering on the ground, but the table itself…he couldn’t leave it as it was. That wasn’t right. 

He thought, for one insane moment, that his old, childhood friend, unseen by anyone but himself, would be sad at the state of things. This had been his home, after all, made up in the minds of two kids who wanted to believe the world was more magic than not. And while he no longer believed in imaginary friends, he was determined to return things to the state they were before. It was an illogical, desperate pull at his fingers and mind that refused to loosen its hold on him.

He HAD to clean it off.

Pulling thick, leather gloves from his back pocket, he pulled them on and went to work, brushing off every bramble he could. 

It was almost meditative. Each task a pattern. Tear off a vine here, brush dirt away there, move the debris off to the side. He fell into a rhythm, humming as he worked. It would take more time than he had in the day to complete, but he continued with a smile.  

He began to zone out, body moving on autopilot while his mind drifted into the skies and all the thoughts in between. He wondered when Lumine would text him back, when she would have the next meeting with their prospective buyers, and just how much was being offered for the land. As much as he understood that the land was wasting away while they struggled to pay off the debts left to them in their parents' wake, Aether couldn't help but think no amount of money could truly equal the amount his childhood home was worth.

After all, it had been the most constant place in his life until they were spirited away to Sumeru City. 

The thought made him laugh, snorting at himself as he refocused his attention. The top of the altar was clear now, but the decades of grime and moss would need something more. A hose, perhaps? I could bring one out from the shed, he thought. While rusted over, he recalled the tools left behind. All he would need was more time to unearth the old relics.

Perhaps they could be sold, too? He began to consider the logistics of a garage sale or donating to the local flea market. It was as good a train of thought as anything else and he considered the particulars as he worked. As the minutes passed, a pile of debris began to grow by the old oak tree  while his mind continued to wander. The pile pulled a frown at his lips and displeasure began to color his mood. Did he really want to sell these items?

His train of thought was interrupted by a large gust of wind, picking up a torn vine as it blew back into the woods with a flurry of leaves. He watched it cross over the gate, but froze when he returned his attention back to the altar, eyes widening in surprise. 

The bird was back. It bounced on tiny talons across the flat surface, picking bits and pieces of leftover twigs with its beak. Was it the season for building nests, Aether wondered, reaching for his phone for a quick search on bird behavior. But the question was moot as he watched the bird drop the twigs to the side, clearing the space as it went.

Aether blinked. Then blinked again. Its agile movements belied its apparent thick size, feathers ruffling any time it failed to fit something in its mouth. Any failure was quickly dealt with, however, as it renewed its hunt for what Aether left behind with vigor.

“...is,” Aether muttered breathlessly, voice so low he could barely hear himself in fear of chasing the fowl off, “is he helping me?”

The ball of feathers continued its task and Aether marveled at the intelligence behind its tiny eyes. Too afraid to ruin the moment, he stayed in place to watch silently while his fingers itched to record it on his phone. 'Lumine would find this so cute-' 

His hand was already moving before he could reconsider it. With slow, mechanical movements, he readjusted his phone and smoothly swiped his thumb along the screen to his camera, eyes trained on the bird the entire time. He didn't glance at the screen, too afraid to break the magic.

So when he pressed what he hoped was the record button, the sudden flash that occurred not only surprised him but sent a jolt of panic through his veins. “No, no, no-!”

He fumbled the phone, quickly trying to change it, but dropped it to the leaves at his feet instead. Dazed by his own mess up, he noted in confusion a sudden pain on his head as he dove to retrieve it, but the pain persisted. It stabbed him again and again and again until he processed all events and recognized the sound of angry squawking just overhead.

When he stood back up, phone firmly in hand, his now angered bird friend stopped its constant attack to Aether's skull and dive bombed his fingers instead. Talons grasped his thumbs as the point of its sharp beak pecked away rapidly.

Aether couldn't help it when the phone fell again as he jerked his hand up to shake the bird off, shouting, “I'm sorry! Ow!“ He tried to grab the phone again, but the bird persisted, landing on the screen to peck at not just him but the phone itself. ”Hey, stop! I need that!“

A quick tussle followed as Aether cursed to the skies above and finally had to admit defeat. He couldn't count the amount of times he'd dropped his phone as the crazed bird continued its attack, far braver now than it had appeared an hour ago. After the umpteenth time of the device flying to the ground, Aether changed tactics and used the side of his foot to slide it across the yard instead—

Which ended in his shoes being attacked just as viciously. Any onlookers would find it a comical sight. (It relieved Aether to know that wouldn't be possible this far from the nearest town.) By the time he made it to the back door, he was feeling less apologetic, focusing on swiping the bird away in a last ditch effort to protect his phone.

”Shoo! Go Away!“ He said, once more sliding the phone further from the bird's manic grasp. The rush to save the device made him miss the change in terrain as the grass became scarce the closer to the porch they came. Giving the phone less friction to fight again, it grinded across loose dirt as his final push sent it sliding straight under the back porch. 

Mouth agape, Aether wanted to scream in frustration. That was his only connection to the outside world. The thought of not calling Lumine, or hearing Paimon’s voice as they checked in on each other filled him with a boiling, desperate rage, but the Bird's relentless attack had switched targets. Landing on the bannister, it watched him with angry eyes, boxing itself up again with the fluffiest of feathers (a view Aether would have found adorable in any other circumstance). When he stepped forward, the bird trilled an angry warning and bounced on its feet back and forth, preparing another dive bomb.

Nope. He was done with this. “Augh, fine!” If he couldn't brave the dangers under his porch for his phone or enter through the backdoor then he'd simply retreat and come back when the risk was safer. 

“Don't you have a nest to make? Or a female to attract?” He threw his arms up, tangling his fingers in his hair. “I...I can't believe a bird is this evil!”

Grumbling the entire way to his front door, Aether thought he felt the bird following him, or a faint laughter. The sound and sensation disappeared as soon as it had begun, and in retaliation he slammed the door behind him without a second thought. He'd be back for his phone, the world and that demonic bird be damned!

Though, after a quick examination of the shallow bites left by a surprisingly sharp beak that littered his arms and possibly his head, he sighed. He'd run back into the demon’s realm for his phone after he cleaned himself, he amended. 

Thankfully, the adventure to retrieve his phone wasn't nearly so harrowing an experience as it had been to lose it. After disinfecting the tiny marks on his arm and checking his scalp (surprisingly undamaged, he noted.) a hot shower, and lunch to mollify his angry stomach, Aether decided it was time to try again. If anything, he needed to attempt before the sun went down and the need for dinner distracted him.

And he hoped—no, prayed to the very stars that the tiny menace had long lost interest and went off to do whatever birds did. Another thing he considered searching for out of inane curiosity, but how could he with his phone MIA?

As luck would have it, his once tentative friend now turned enemy was nowhere in sight. He almost let out a sigh of relief, but if the bird's nest was nearby, he couldn't sit on his laurels just yet. He'd have to be quick. And that's exactly what he did with arms wrapped in ace bandages and covered in a long sleeved sweater for extra protection. It was hot being bundled up like that in the afternoon heat. Ridiculously so, but he'd rather have some form of armor than nothing. 

Aether was lucky that most things didn’t disturb or creep him out. When he finally crawled under the wooden deck with what little light his small keychain flashlight could manage. Cobwebs left and right and other bugs did not disgust him, and what little spiders that lived there, scurried off as he disturbed them. A second shower would be needed to get rid of the itchy feeling caused by their presence and the cobwebs above. Gritting his teeth, he moved quickly, determined to find his phone.

Surprisingly, it was not too far away, just enough for him to crawl his entire body inside to reach. It glinted in the light from his flashlight, a faint blue hue outlining its surface to notify him of missed messages. He'd check that later in the safety of the house. Swiping from the dirt, he shoved it into his pocket and quickly inched back out. A shiver of disgust ran through him as he stood and tried to dust himself off and rid himself of the crawling sensations. 

A quick glance around for his enemy brought not a single chirp or a flash of teal. Perfect. He dashed through the back door without a second thought and slid to the floor in a heap.

“Hah,” he breathed sharply, “take that you little demon.” Smiling triumphantly, he withdrew his phone to look it over, turning on the screen to check his messages.

His jaw dropped.

The screen was broken in many places, punctured by a tiny beak. The screen still worked, but the lock screen was discolored and he had to squint to read most of the notifications.

He was the kind of person who'd consider himself an animal guy. He loved all kinds and wanted to adopt any critter he came across, but at that moment: Aether wanted to go hunting and have fowl for dinner.

[scrumptiousbeardturtle-blog1]

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