I want an opportunity to live a safe life without wars.
Hello,
My name is Reham Tayseir, I am 23 years old.I write to you from the heart of suffering, destruction, hunger, and displacement in Gaza. My life was beautiful and normal, full of hope, dreams, and hard work until the war came and destroyed everything.
Before the war, I was studying Public Relations and Media at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza, and I was also working in design and editing for a company in Gaza. I had many wishes and dreams. I lived a simple but beautiful life and dreamed of a bright and beautiful future. But the war changed everything for the worse. My university was destroyed,
I lost my job, my house was destroyed, I lost family members, and I lost everything and became homeless.
https://gofund.me/7ecdec85
I was displaced from northern Gaza to the south, thinking it was a safe place, but there is no safe place in Gaza; everything around us was destroyed and became rubble. Every day we live in a nightmare, with no opportunities for education or work, and I suffer from poverty, loss, hunger, and homelessness.
I am now looking for an opportunity to live in a safe place outside the Gaza Strip, but this is very costly, and I am in dire need of your support and assistance. I want to provide a better future and a dignified life for myself my family.I believe that humanity and compassion still exist and that someone will respond to my painful voice. Every donation, no matter how small, will have a significant impact on my life. Your donations will help cover all the travel costs for me, my mother, and my father to live in a safe and stable place where there is no hunger, fear, or destruction, to give myself and my family a new life full of hope.Thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting me and my family and standing with us in these difficult times. I believe that goodness still exists and that someone shares our hope for a better life.Thank you for considering supporting me and my family. I am grateful for any help you can provide.
Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #14 )
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One of my personal nitpicks for historical fantasy is a lack of servants, staff, subordinates, and... idk... subjects? Like, their absence is not... a total dealbreaker for me, depending on the situations the characters are in and whether or not I can just assume that other people are there in the background... but so many of the protagonists in historical fantasy stuff are higher-ranking (very often royalty), and/or have busy jobs, and/or have enormous houses that would necessitate having at least part-time staff.
Like, girl, you should have a maid! WHERE is your chaperone?! WHO is driving this carriage?! Where are your footmen? Are you trying to imply that a WEALTHY DUCHESS is taking a CAB?! You know that you probably have tenants, right? Where is your steward?! Where is your lawyer? Your accountant?! (Like, yeah, you're not going to have your lawyer living in your house, but you HAVE one, right???)
Or, man, you're supposed to be a military commander and you don't even have a single secretary?! Where is your SQUIRE?! (In the spirit of historical fiction, I am jumping wildly across time periods with every sentence here.) Man, I know you aren't looking after your own boots. Where are your GUARDS?! Who set up this tent for you?! Who is looking after your horse?! Who is making and carrying the incredibly valuable maps people are recklessly stabbing daggers into?!
SOMEONE has to be scrubbing these floors and delivering the mail and cooking the meals and doing laundry, and they're probably all DIFFERENT people! My dentist has at least three different receptionists and we can't even get ONE for our court wizard here? A sorcerer's apprentice to take notes? Someone like Sherlock Holmes could get away with just having a housekeeper and taking taxis, sure, but your character is supposed to be a KING?! Why is he answering his own front door? He's going to get assassinated. His SERVANTS should have SERVANTS.
Like, yes, I understand that a lot of servants in certain places at certain times were supposed to make their labor invisible, but there have always been servants who still had to interact directly with the masters of the house?! Yeah, there are potentially really messy ethics here, class divisions are bullshit, but I don't think that completely ignoring the reality that humans have ALWAYS been doing work for other humans is better than just including some well-paid and well-treated servants and employees? Because a complete absence of them, especially where logically for the worldbuilding there MUST be servants (and probably exploited servants, or worse, for some particular worldbuilds to work), often makes me think that your main characters just don't care enough to notice the "lower class" people or know their names.
Also, even Frodo Baggins had a gardener and Samwise Gamgee might be the best damn character in the story?! Sam saved the world?! Servants are PEOPLE. Servants are often the funniest and most interesting characters, tbh, with the most to say about a society and its workings (yes, Discworld is a very good book series, highly recommend), and also the joke of some romantic scene being carefully orchestrated by a stage crew of servants frantically diving into bushes to stay out of sight never gets old to me. Teamwork makes the dream work!
I don't want to gatekeep historical fiction, especially not historical fantasy, because the worlds don't necessarily have to conform to our own and may have magic and characters are often in very unique circumstances, but... sometimes I pick up a story and it's like... "Author, please tell me that you know there is a difference between a butler and a valet?!"
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Save us from the genocide we deserve to live in peace
Hello,
my name is Basma Ramez. I am 25 years old.I write these words from the heart of suffering, destruction, hunger, and poverty in Gaza. My life was beautiful and normal, filled with hope, dreams, and hard work until the war came and destroyed everything.
Before the war, I was studying Sharia and Law at the Islamic University of Gaza. I had many wishes and dreams. I lived a simple but beautiful life and dreamed of a bright future. I never tasted the joy of graduation due to the war and the mass destruction we are enduring. I intended to become a lawyer; that was my dream. My life was beautiful in the embrace of my family, but the war separated us. I haven’t seen my family for months. Now I only want to see them and fulfill my dream.But the war changed everything for the worse. It destroyed my university,
my home was destroyed, and I lost family members. I lost everything and became homeless.
I fled from northern Gaza to the south, thinking it would be a safe place, but there is no safe place in Gaza. Everything around us is destroyed and reduced to rubble. Every day, we live in a nightmare. There is no opportunity for education or work, and I suffer from poverty, displacement, hunger, and homelessness.
I am now seeking an opportunity to live in a safe place outside of Gaza, but this is very costly. I am in urgent need of your support and assistance. I want to provide a better future and a dignified life for myself and my family.
I believe that humanity and compassion still exist, and that there are those who will respond to my anguished voice. Any donation, no matter how small, will have a significant impact on my life. Your contributions will help cover all the costs of travel for me and my parents to live in a safe and stable place, free from hunger, fear, and destruction, allowing us to start a new life full of hope.Thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting me and my family during these difficult times. I believe that goodness still exists and that there are those who share our hope for a better life.Thank you for considering supporting me and my family. I am grateful for any help you can provide.
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personal observations made by a new cane user:
you do not need to be in constant pain to own a cane.
folding canes have a clasp or band to keep them folded. losing the band is a pain in the ass.
you will get dirty looks
it does not matter what age you are. you will get dirty looks.
you have to hold it in the opposite hand as the disabled leg. this is fortunate, as I am right handed, so i hold it in my left hand to support my right leg.
people will try to steal your cane from you.
when standing still, I hold it in my right hand unless i need to do something right handedly. this does not work as well as i thought it would.
being visibly physically disabled is difficult. having a mobility aid will help with pain and movement, but some people don't get them because visible disability is treated with disgust.
if someone meets you for the first time, and you don't have your cane, then they will like you more, but they will not believe you are actually disabled.
if someone meets you for the first time, and you have your cane, they will not treat you the same.
the majority of other cane and mobility aid users I have met are homeless. I live close to a big city.
People do not want to see you being disabled.
you will not hear of the benefits of using a cane from anyone who does not use a cane.
no one will prepare you for the world of being visibly physically disabled. however bad you think we have it is usually not from the disability at all. I can deal with pain and I can deal with an indisposed left hand.
the hardest part of being disabled is the fact that no one will care until you make them care.
the disabled seats on trains are a suggestion
the disabled seats on buses are a suggestion.
you will have a different experience with using a cane than I have had.
your hand will become tired. you are using it as a leg.
your cane is legally a part of your body. this will not stop some people.
you are not your disability. but it will affect you.
i love you
theres always an invisible someone who has it worse. that person will not be affected or offended by your use of a cane. take the damn ibuprofen. put the folded cane in your bag. ask your friends for help. gd knows they need help sometimes too.
you will have to learn that things will be impossible to you. you may not run as fast anymore. you may not become a skater, like you always wanted to be. you may be left behind when everyone else runs ahead.
you deserve better.
your cane handle gets dirty. wash it.
some days pain is worse. some days you will feel it the moment you wake up.
no one deserves pain. the human condition is not to suffer. we deserve better. we deserve to be loved and not tolerated. we deserve to be seen better than from the corners of eyes. we deserve to be heard better than an afterthought at a meeting.
be quick to care for yourself. I love you.
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