016. Prediction

Israel was nothing more than an aggressive, scrappy street child when he was discovered by England and Palestine. Palestine appeared confused by his aura, one that only nations possessed, but he still spoke to him in soft words like one would do with a child.

Now those words were harsh, brimming with hate and distaste for him.

When England told Palestine that the child was possibly the personification for the Jewish settlers, Israel became frightened at how the older nation's face twisted and contorted. But it faded and the country swallowed something in his throat, looking in pain. He stroked the Israel's messy hair and quietly murmured, "If that is his true identity, then this child and I are doomed to be enemies for eternity."

And that grim prediction had come true.

017. Fortitude

"Mabrook Janoob Sudan!"

South could barely keep himself from crying. The only thing keeping from him doing so was that he wouldn't lose face in front of his new leaders. He wouldn't want his new bosses' first impression of him to be a crybaby.

This day was a day he had been wanting for so long. 56 years to be exact.

"South!"

South turned around with a beaming smile. Uganda matched that wide grin from ear to ear as he ran up to shake South's hands. "I'm so happy for you! I know that you've wanted this for many years!"

South nodded fervently in agreement. "It's taken me so long, I can barely believe that I'm getting my independence from him!" He couldn't help but let one overjoyed tear fall from his eyes. Uganda noticed this and quickly wiped it away. "Wouldn't want to be embarrassed when you look back on photos and see yourself blubbering." he chided.

At the celebrations, many people stood up and began to speak of fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, and many more who were lost in the battle. They were only part of the 2 million that perished from the violence. Sometimes, they were overcome with emotion, remembering loved ones lost in the conflict and started to cry, wishing South Sudan to become a prosperous and wealthy nation.

South Sudan felt uneasiness burrow itself into his stomach. "I hope that their lives were not lost in vain." he thought. They all wanted him to lead them on to prosperity and happiness. He couldn't help but wonder if he could fulfill those high expectations that his people had in him.

Then Uganda seemed to tense up. "Oh... Look who's here..." He softly murmured under his breath. South would have heard it anywhere, though.

South shot a glare that could obliterate a small army flat on the ground to his older brother. Shockingly, he and his boss had arrived in the celebrations, despite the fact that his boss had been proven guilty of genocide.

"Hello there, South." Sudan said behind a simpering expression. "It's so nice that you have finally gained your independence."

Hopefully, Sudan did not see his younger brother's fist itching to give him good smack on the nose.

"It must be a great day for you. You know, you were able to fend off my army with your shoddy militias and soldiers. I must admit I am a bit surprised as well."

He took a look at the crowd and continued, "I hope that you are satisfied with yourself. I, for one, think that unity would have been better," he took a pause here to smile a thin-lipped sneer. "but, like my boss has said, unity should not come through war."

South couldn't hold it back anymore. "Unity should not come through war? What are you talking about? You have sent your army to bomb kill my innocent people in attempt to unify us. I split from you for a reason, Sudan."

Sudan's expression darkened and he hissed, "You see all those people, looking at their own nation, expecting something great to emerge. Well, they're wrong. You are but an infant, and a bratty infant at that. Your people will never have the great country they want, only a baby plagued by ethnic violence and rebellions, Abid."

"My government and country may be far from perfect, but if I stayed with you, I would perish under your god awful rules." South retorted to the older nation. "Better to die with this one day of happiness in mind than to die under your laws with not a single day of happiness in memory, pig."

Sudan looked like he wanted to throttle his younger brother. Luckily for both of them, Uganda stepped in at that point. "Stop it you two, that's enough, we shouldn't let such dark thoughts dampen such a wonderful day." Both brothers opened their mouths to protest, but not before Uganda forcefully took South's hand and led him away from his older sibling.

He led them to a quiet corner, a strange sight in the middle of the celebrations."You must show fortitude, South Sudan. Don't let him humiliate you on your day to shine. He has damaged you enough and you have proved yourself to be strong enough to break away. There are many more things to face down this road, harder than your independence war, maybe." Uganda looked into his eyes deeply. "Trust me. I've been through this as well."

The uneasiness in South's stomach grew into dread at Uganda's ominous prophecy. But Uganda spoke truth, violence always simmered near his home, never far away from erupting. But such thoughts were to be forgotten for this day, for a day like today had no place for such foreboding words. Uganda gave him a small smile and both of them walked back to the parades and flags.

018. Vacation

"Am I Shiite or Sunni? God, I don't even know..."

America scratched his head. This seemed very familiar. "Iraq, I think you need a vacation. You're not even drunk and you're already chattering gibberish!"

The said Iraq looked up from his water and glared at the American.

019. Gray

"Breaking News, Ethiopia! War has been declared by all! Austria declares war on Serbia who declares war on Germany who declares war on France who declares war on Turkey who declares war on Russia who declares war on Bulgaria who declares Britain! Ottoman Empire almost declares war on itself!" Ethiopia's boss read out from the newspaper, looking over urgently to his nation's personification.

Ethiopia took one glance to his boss before going back to reading his novel. "Those silly little European nations. They'll be struggling to remember who's an ally on who's not." He tutted disapprovingly. "Can they not see that everything is not as black and white as they claim it to be? There is no true 'good' or 'bad'. We all are gray, both bad and good, some darker and some more lighter." He took a sip of his drink and said to his boss, " Would you like some coffee? I think there's some more in the pantry."

020. Blood

Sometimes Seychelles truly wondered if she really worth anything.

She wondered her value as a nation, a representative of her citizens.

Her history was far from blood free; it had its beginnings from the pirates that took residence in her land, to the hurricane that ravaged her land and people. Blood would always stain her white sand, England hissed at her when he was forced to leave again because of another one of his military attempts to take her from France's control. And sometimes, she was afraid it was true.

Because to the other countries of the world, she would never be anything more than a tourist island, a bunch of useless islands stuck in the middle of the ocean. A battlefield for more important countries.

I love Seychelles so much omg

Number 16, GO! The the land that is now known as Israel was inhabited by Palestinian Arabs before. During the 20th century there was a large movement for Jews to return to their ancient homeland because of the anti-semitism Jews faced. After WWII, witnessing the horrendous Holocaust, the UK (Palestine's colonist) decided to hand Palestine over to the Jewish settlers. The Palestinian Arabs already living there protested this mightily since the Jewish settlers already there were a constant source of ethnic violence between the two groups.

Okay, for for number 17, Mabrook Janoob Sudan means Congratulations South Sudan. Some of you may remember in 2011, South Sudan's overwhelming majority voted to get independence from Sudan, for a good reason as well. Sudan wanted to assimilate South Sudan into a more Arab state; the north considered itself to be Arab and followed Islam while the south was 'black', and followed Christianity or indigenous religions. There's this sort of hierarchy in Sudan that the paler and more 'Arab' you are, the higher in status you were considered. The Arabs often look down upon those who are 'black' and use a derogatory term towards them, "Abid", which literally means slave. South Sudan also holds almost three quarters of Sudan's oil reserves and even today, the two are still arguing over how to split the oil profits. So it's understandable why Sudan would want to keep South Sudan down, for the oil money. However, another reason why South Sudan split was because even though he was the one extracting the oil, he never saw the profits or development in the area because Sudan had the ports and therefore, the one who decided how to spend it. When the Southerners questioned this, the northern government basically replied, "Why should we bother giving it to you?" So, the second sudanese conflict started. Both sides committed human rights violations, for example, both sides forcibly recruited child soldiers. For 22 years, the violence raged through and in 2003, Darfur, a western region of Sudan, basically went through what is called "history repeating itself". They launched their own rebellion and the Sudanese government, already uneasy with the South and border conflicts, decided to ruthlessly crush the rebellion with janjaweed, Arab western Sudanese sponsored by the gov. Whenever they came upon a village, they would ethnically cleanse the area by raping the women on large scales, massacre entire communities, burn all the houses, and dig up the food sources and pour petroleum on them to blow them up. And then, they would purposely ruin water supplies by dumping the dead bodies into the water sources so that village could never recover. Even though that occurred in a different area, you guys can probably understand why South would want to break away. Sudan's president actually did attend South Sudan's Independence celebrations despite being charged for genocide for his actions in Darfur. I used Uganda because Uganda has always had close political and cultural ties to South Sudan, before and after South Sudan's independence war. (South calls Sudan a pig here because muslims consider pork to be unclean)

HAha, for 19, you guys probably know that I took that from the Onion's fake newspaper page. But seriously, it kind was like that in 1914. A quick crash course: WWI began when Austrian Archduke, heir to the Austrian Hungarian Empire, assassinated by a Serbian man. To be honest, Franz was kind of stupid to visit Bosnia on June 28, because one, it was the anniversary of the Serbs' defeat at Kosovo Polje, and two, it was Saint Vitus's day which was a celebration for Slavic nationalism. And a Bosnian Serb decided that the best way to celebrate Slavic nationalism was to kill old Franz. The Serbians were particularly keen on expanding at this time and so the Austrian-Hungarians actually had to do something about the expanding Serbs and Bosnia's Independence. Their thinking basically ran down as this- If Serbia can get bigger, all the other places will think that they become independent, and soon, you don't have an empire anymore. So a month after the assassination, Austria issued a take it or leave it deal, which issued conditions so harsh that the Serbs had to refuse it and got to war. In that month long delay, they were busy talking to Germany to make sure that Germany would be there for them if Russia happened to attack since it saw itself as the defender of all Slavic nations. Russia began to mobilize sometime later and Germany told Russia to sit the fuck back down, but Russia said no and then France began to mobilize on Russia's side and Germany did the same on the same day. On August 4, Germany invaded Belgium to quickly take out France as they hoped, but then the Brits got involved, basically telling the Germans, "Get out or else". Germany chose "or else", so Britain declared war. Turkey was the Ottoman Empire at the time and was quickly failing and since Russia was naturally the Turks' enemy, they were on Germany's side and declared war on the Allied Powers. Everybody was trying to get Bulgaria on their side but Bulgaria chose the Central Powers in hopes of annexing the Serbian province of Macedonia. With how complicated it already is, you can probably bet that the nations were pretty darn confused at who was 'good' and who was 'bad;.

I love how Ethiopia is just "I don't give a shit" when it comes to World Wars and stuff because for the most part, he was very capable at defending himself. He's also an old fart, probably 4,500+, going back to the kingdom of Punt. He's king of in the same situation as China, seeing the younger nations as little children, thinking themselves to be gods. He saw Egypt's mom, Mesopotamia, and innumerable others fall to dust and so he and the other oldass nations kind of have this mutual understanding between one another that no one will last forever and the cycle of 'shit's gonna hit the fan again' in the tale of human strife. (PS: Ethiopia's boss probably wouldn't have even called him Ethiopia, probably Abyssinia instead; I used Ethiopia here to evade confusion)