When I was 17, I was on my way to graduate from high school, got accepted into the university of my choice, and had the privilege to hang out with my friends, travel with my family, and enjoy the last year of my adolescence.
This is not the case for Nader Al-Anqar (@abdalsalam1990). He is 17 years old and he, along with his large family, is surviving most of the most televised humanitarian crisis in the world. Instead of figuring out which university he should attend or what time he is free to join his friends, he is raising funds to purchase basic necessities so they can be safe and warm for the winter.
To make matters worse, his father has cancer and is recovering from a recent surgery. Nader needs to purchase medication as well as medical treatments! This is a lot for a young person like him!
So please donate and share! Let's help him raise the short-term goal of 54.5K in the next 3 days! €53,777 has been raised. There is €777 left to go!
Verification: #4 in the Spreadsheet by GazaVetters.
you are cassandra. in the middle of being possessed by the spirit of your vengeful, undead domain and feeling the world split apart with the festering carcass of your ex-lover being restored to grandeur only so she can be devoured completely, someone familiar approaches from the deck of a flying ship in active battle. your vision is warped, you're barely conscious, you don't know how it's possible that you're still alive, the figure blurs further and splits in two. one calls out to you, the same voice that has been reaching out for you all along, the same voice that called out your name the very first time and brought you to life. you ignore her. the other - clothes a little tighter, some subtle makeup, a pair of bicycle shorts patterned with a flag not known to this world. she opens her mouth - her teeth are horrible. 'blimey', she says, and you feel again. you feel something that crushes against your bones and shocks still your rotten heart. something cuts itself loose from your chest and escapes with a virulent tear of pain through your throat. lightning, bright and sharp, gushes from your screaming maw to its true purpose, and then she's gone. it's over. 'blimey', it whispers into the ethos, a memory as much as a promise to the tragedy of a dying star that may die forever. but you feel something else, you remember something or perhaps you are only now recognising it that nothing can be done. something else that lived in that void of space, you think. nothing more than a collection of cells yet, and still the weight pushes you to your knees. two lines on a stick, you reason, perhaps not even a choice to be made at all. surely not a life to be lived, you tell yourself as the memory of possibility dissolves and the void envelops the very space that baby might have occupied.
'blimey', the whispers consume what's left of your aching heart. 'blimey', you echo.
If you get scared, you can always hide behind me. I’ll be hiding behind Luke.
am i a total asshole for being kind of upset that they totally healed lydia? i know disabilities in fantasy are tough because there are spells that can fix everything but i get a bit sad imagining the new art of her without the gem standing up.
enemies in d&d die as soon as they drop to zero hit points even if they have the exact same stats as the pcs. this depends on the dm, but that's how fantasy high works with i think the only exceptions being ragh and daybreak in freshman year. they cannot be healed from unconsciousness unless they are a main character, meaning the rat grinders WERE disadvantaged from the start by the game itself. if the bad kids were held to the same rules then kristen or k2 would have to reach touching distance to cast revivify on one person at a time, and even then as far as we know enemies in fantasy high cannot revive each other.
no matter how powerful they were or how much work they put in, the rat grinders would always be held back because when they die, they die. their only way out was to take the deal - in freshman year all of the bad kids would have died fighting the corn cuties if they had to play by the same set of rules. what would they have done if their only way back was to accept rage?
don't forget that pearl remembers the vindication of finally having a friend, and one that will make the ultimate sacrifice for you. of thinking everything was lost, of being the witch to scar's wicked, of resigning yourself to fight for blood until you are truly alone. the welcoming arms into victory that finally healed her aching heart. not to have to scratch and claw your way to the gates but to be invited in.
she saw herself in him and it drove her to make a sacrifice, and he saw himself in her and it drove him to stop her.
i haven't watched pearl's episode yet. but there's something to be said about the fact that she knew scar well enough to know that, when it was the two of them, he would have too much pride to accept a sacrifice.
she doesn't want to win, and she tells him at first before she quietly tucks that secret back into its shell after scar's indignant reaction to her first attempt at self-sacrifice. she lets scar forget about it as they kill gem, and then as scar kills pearl. at no point does she try to say here, let me give this to you. she knows scar, but she also knows the pain of an ending like that.
but she misses a few swings, doesn't she? her legs don't move as quickly to duck away from his arrows. and isn't that familiar? isn't that something like a cactus ring, with two unrelenting fists and two half-hearted ones: a fight with two unwilling participants, a fight that was over before it ever really began at the insistence of one of its patrons
pearl is all too familiar with the sting of sacrifice, but then on the other side of things... scar knows all too well the tragedy of gifted victory, doesn't he?