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handspunyarns · 27 days ago

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You Were Marked: Day Thirty-One point Five.

pairing: din djarin x plus size / reverse age gap / fem!O/C

word count: 12K

chapter summary: Din and Marathel both struggle with the truth, Marathel tells a story about an old friend, and Din goes clothes shopping.

warnings:  ALL THE ANGST, mention of female bodily functions and medical issues, past abuse and SA, mention of murder and infanticide, mention of child SA, self-harm, mental illness, English and Mando’a cursing

***Please feel free to comment, kvetch, or otherwise speak your mind about my work. ***   

You Were Marked: Masterlist

You Were Marked: <- Previous Chapter

Marathel felt completely incapable of speech. A Captain stood before her, and she was convinced that he was there take her away, that there was another Hold somewhere out there like her old Hold, with another Hunter and another Duke and another Bishop, and there was no way in Frith she would ever go back into a Hold to become a Diwhyn and be beaten for existing and kicked for being female and her hair pulled out for not obeying whatever a male desired to inflict upon her, and she wanted to scream no but the only noise she could make was a gurgling sound in her throat as she pulled on Din’s arm.

Din could feel the pull of her hand, the tremble of her arm, could practically smell the fear radiating from her, and he turned towards her, wondering if she was going to fight, flee, or freeze. He carefully gripped her hand on his arm, wrapping his fingers around the heel of her thumb, which he hoped would prevent her from slipping away. “Ma’mwsh ha’laa,” he said softly. Her eyes, with pupils dilated to nearly the size of her irises, flicked to his visor. “Don’t be afraid,” said Din, in a tone he would use with Grogu. “It will be all right.” Marathel shook her head and pulled even harder. “I know this man, Captain Teva. He’s a …” She whimpered and shut her eyes tight as he said Captain, and he realized why she was panicking. “No, ma’mwsh ha’laa. No. He’s not a Captain like that Elder monster. It’s a title, it’s his rank; this is a good man. He has helped me before. I believe he is here to help you. Will you trust me?” To Teva’s credit, he did not interrupt or step in; he merely stood still and softened his expression, waiting.

Ya-Bito stepped in to create a barrier between Marathel and Teva. “Sir, you are trespassing in a secure ward, and you are upsetting my patient.”

Doctor Dine’ and two others Din didn’t recognize came forward from behind the New Republic officers. Doctor Dine’ said, “They are not trespassing; they have the hospital’s permission to speak to this patient.” Just behind them was Siewan, who caught Marathel’s eye, mouthing I’m sorry.

“Dwy’tu’ar!” spat Marathel. “You said I’d be safe! You … pinky swore, you …” She wrenched her hand free from Din’s, leaned against the wall, and covered her face. Din gently touched her arm, but she shied away, which hurt Din’s heart in a way he didn’t expect.

“I’m sorry, my mesh’la …” began Din, surprising both Marathel and himself. Her heart leapt at the endearment, but figured it was only a force of habit, and then sank deep into despair. Who can I trust? These doctors, these nurses? Can I even trust Din?

The voices of the Dahls came to her again, sinister and so frighteningly loud. You can’t trust anyone who says they’re going to help you. You don’t deserve help. You are worthless, you stupid whore cu—…

“I have had enough of you!” whispered Marathel, pressing her fists into her temples, pulling hard on her hair. For a few moments all she could hear was her own breath going in and out, and then a new voice, this one calm and quiet:

The only one you can trust right now is yourself, old girl. And the truth is, you will have to tell your story many, many times. You owe it to the four women who died for you, that you tell people what was done to every female in that Hold. If you don’t, you will hate yourself even more.

She took one last deep breath, exhaled, and straightened up, muttering, “I’ll speak to this … Captain …”

Din nodded and began, “I’ll be right there with you …”

“No can do, Mando. My specific orders are to keep you two separated,” said Teva.

Din turned back to Teva. “Excuse me?”

“Lady ap Bishop goes with these doctors and officers; you’re with me. Let’s go.”

“That doesn’t work for me.”

“Can’t be helped. This is the way, Mando.”

Din glared at Teva, who at least looked apologetic. He turned back to Marathel, who stood there, staring at the floor, looking sad and lost and … alone. He squeezed her arm and said, “It will be all right.” She shrugged and looked away. He dropped his hand and said to Teva, “Let’s go.” The little group broke up into two factions: Marathel went with the doctors and the female officers, and Din went the opposite direction with Teva and another man who said he represented the hospital. As he passed Siewan, he couldn’t help but feel betrayed on Marathel’s behalf. He muttered to Teva, “So how’d you find us? I slingshot those holos …”

“We sent away teams to both Unmanarall and here long before that, Mando. We put a tracker on your ship.”

Haar’chak. “Nice to hear that things haven’t changed much since the Rebellion.”

“I have a wife and little daughters, Mando; you can’t just drop hypotheticals about a planet like that one and expect me to leave it alone.” They came to a small conference room and went inside. As the hospital rep shut the door and frosted the windows, Teva said, “Look. I appreciate the fact you figured out where they came from, originally. We just want to get some official findings on paper before involving the Lew’elan Parliament.” He motioned for Din to sit. “The reports I’m getting so far from the crew on the ground are exceptionally distressing. The women that remain run the gamut from suicidal to murderous to …” Teva sighed, unable to think of a word.

“Propositional?” Din thought of the little Hold girl, who had offered her body to him, and shuddered.

“You could have warned me.”

“If you’d read the damn report that I sent with the holos, you would have seen that I recommended sending only female human scouts. They’re terrified of everything else.”

“So, Mando, tell me why that is.”

Din did his best. Answer the question and offer nothing, as buir would say. Unsure of what answers Marathel would give, he briefly described receiving a tip through the Unreliable Mercenary Grapevine (leaving Karga out for … reasons) about a sub-ether call for a bounty hunter, using an old unrecognizable language with sketchy coordinates. He glossed over the fact that he lived in her house for a full six days, the fact that Marathel had a … bond with the Dahls, and especially the fact that bond made Marathel screw his brains out. Unfortunately, Teva wasn’t impressed.

“A bounty, to return a woman, who lived within walking distance from the guys who wanted her back? That makes no sense.”

Din shrugged. “I don’t judge. It was a job.”

“You got paid?”

“A few Old Republic coins. Not worth much.”

“Then why not just grab her and drag her up to those guys right when you got there?” asked Teva.

“They also wanted eggs.”

“Eggs?”

“Dahl eggs.”

“Those things lay eggs?”

Din tilted his helmet, and thought fondly of Marathel as he replied, “Of course they lay eggs. What else would they do?”

Teva asked, “So … what? You just hung out at her house until the eggs showed up?”

Din shrugged. “It was only a couple days.”

“Long enough to … well, ‘fuck her’ as the remaining women say. No, wait, I have that wrong,” said Teva, scrolling through his holopad. “She fucked you, and her intended Elder got mighty pissed.” Din sat silently, unmoving. “Do you deny that?”

“What she specifically said was ‘I took him’ …”

Teva raised an eyebrow. “And did she ‘take you’?”

Din tilted his helmet and glared at Teva for half a minute before he continued. “Her saying that did make her intended Elder — who was also her biological father — mighty pissed, yes.”

“Enough to … how did they put it? Make a Belwhyn out of her. So, you just left her there to be raped and tortured? Got your bounty and took off?”

Din did his best to say evenly, “I made a grave mistake by allowing them to take her into the Hold. When I attempted to rectify that, I was beaten unconscious.”

Teva nodded. “That was confirmed by the woman Klelia ap Duke, or, as my ground crew called her, the crazy blonde with the fireplace poker.” Din frowned at the choice of words under his helmet. “So, you were unconscious but were tended to by four women from the Hold: Olba ap Captain, Lorica ap Bishop, Tymfy ap Hunter, and Hylma ap Duke. These are the same women who brought out the injured Marathel and something called a … marchwyl?”

“A beskar hammer.”

“Are you still in possession of this hammer?”

Sort of. “No.”

“Why’d the women bring her out to you?”

“I … Olba asked me to take her for help. Olba raised Marathel from infancy and was her adoptive mother. Normally, when a woman is … made a Belwhyn, it is a death sentence. But since I had come from elsewhere, and had a ship …”

“Where’d you take her?” Din remained silent. “Why did you bring her back?”

“She …” Din couldn’t continue.

Teva tilted his head. “She what?”

“She told me to.”

After another hour, Din felt like he’d been run backwards through his mother’s old wringer clothes washer. Whether Teva got the answers he wanted, Din didn’t care. He said only as much as he felt he could without inviting any more questions, leaving out Grogu entirely, and only speaking of the Dahls as weird, ugly critters howling off in the distance. Teva didn’t want to leave that alone, though. “These Dahls … the women of the Hold all seem to agree that Marathel could control them.”

Din shrugged. “Marathel lived alone among them for thirty years. Maybe she tamed a few of them. Maybe they just liked her and saw her as part of their pack.”

“Any explanation why these critters would suddenly rise up, enter the Hold, and rip only the males to pieces?”

“They have good taste?”

Teva pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long-suffering sigh before changing the subject. Din was willing to speak about the physical evidence of the brutality that he’d witnessed on Marathel’s body, and the torturous Dilimgau. Those were important matters, not the actions of freaky goat-lizard-cat things that did the galaxy a favor, in Din’s opinion.

Teva folded his hands and took a breath before asking, “Describe this Dilimgau to me.”

Din swallowed and said, “It was a cylindrical tube of metal, slightly flared on one end. The surface was studded with sharp points. It had been … inserted into Marathel’s vagina, and then … kicked into place by the Captain, according to a little girl of the Hold, who then asked me if I would be her Elder and offered to fellate me.”

Teva blanched. “Sweet baby Jawas …”

The hospital rep — not a doctor, but a bean counter, by the look of him — whispered, “I think I’ve heard enough,” and left.

Din continued, “The women removed the Dilimgau from her on my ship when they were trying to render aid. The screams that I heard from Marathel when they did that ... I have never heard such agony. Then, Lorica ap Bishop threw it at my feet, blaming me for Marathel’s injuries. Marathel later told me that it was the only one, and it was never cleaned, so flesh would rot on it, and it was used as a deterrent for misbehavior from the women. Marathel developed sepsis directly because of that … thing.”

“Where is it now?”

“I’m going to assume that since you tracked my ship, you have also searched it. There is a divot on my floor from where both she and I beat the shab out of it with a hammer, and then I shot it out the airlock so she could blast it to bits with my ship’s lasers.”

Teva sighed again and rubbed his face with his hands. “Well, I can appreciate that action.” He drummed his fingers on the table for a few moments, looking over his notes. “But the rest of this situation … this is all a pile of bantha shit, Mando. It makes no kriffing sense! You said yourself you didn’t make any money on this venture. You probably went broke ferrying this woman back and forth; why would any mercenary put himself in that position?” Din did not answer. “You’ve given me nothing here! Why did she go into that Hold of her own will? Why did you take her away from there? Why did you take her back? Why did you leave her there? Why did you suddenly go back to get her? Why didn’t you bring up the situation there to the New Republic before now?”

“I’ll answer the last question first,” said Din, picking imaginary lint off his glove. “Primitive culture, blah, blah, blah.”

“So, what about the rest of it?”

Din sighed. “You really want to know?”

“Yes, dammit!”

“Off the record?”

Teva folded up his holopad and shoved it back in his bag. “Off the record.”

“None of your kriffing business.” Din stood up and moved towards the door.

“Mando …” Din turned back to Teva. “If her story is dramatically different than yours, we’re going to have to do this all over again.”

Din ground his teeth for a moment. “Are you going to extradite her back to Lew’el?”

Teva shook his head. “We’re not going to. The high magistrates of Lew’el might. After all, she is allegedly responsible for the deaths of 142 men, children, and infants of Lew’el descent. Does she wish to go to Lew’el?”

Din shook his head. “We haven’t had an opportunity to speak on much of anything. She was in bad shape and required surgery; she only woke up a couple hours ago.” Teva nodded and stood as well. “Are the remaining women being removed? Taken to Lew’el?”

“Probably. Not sure yet. A lot of paperwork must be done before that. It’s still a triage situation right now.” Teva cleared his throat. “Look, Mando … I had to interrogate you because the situation on Unmanrall is so kriffing horrible. And weird. None of us can wrap our heads around how horrible that place is. You did a good thing, helping Marathel, alerting us to the situation in that Hold. If it had been me in your boots… I don’t know. I don’t know what I would have done.” Din said nothing, but opened the door. “What does your … pet think of her?”

“My …? Oh. He loves her.”

“What about you?”

Din paused, his hand on the doorknob, but he didn’t answer. He stepped out and saw Siewan sitting on a chair in the corridor, holding Marathel’s blanket on her lap. Din turned back to Teva and said, “By the way, get your kriffing tracker and your people off my ship.” Teva and Din squared off for a moment. Then Teva nodded and went back up the corridor.

Once he’d gone, Siewan stood and came up to Din. “Mando, I promise you; it wasn’t me. It was nurse Brey that alerted authorities.” She sighed. “He doesn’t quite get it, that some situations need time to let the victim work some things out themselves. That they need … a damned moment to wrap their heads around what they’ve endured.” She handed him the blanket. “Marathel won’t want to see me; she believes I’ve betrayed her. She called me something, did you hear it? Something like …”

“Like doo-ih-tuh-air? Yes, I heard it.”

“She said it before, right when she first woke up. I was sitting with her in recovery, talking to her like I normally would. Saying things like, wake up now, you need to wake up. But then I said, wake up, Mando is worried about you, and she screamed that word. Do you have any idea what that means?”

Din remembered hearing the word as well; Marathel had said it while in a semi-conscious state aboard the Crest. He was holding her, his bare skin against hers, trying to get her warm as she’d carried on a one-sided Oldtalk conversation. “Marathel speaks a dialect of an ancient language. It’s befuddled a couple protocol droids so far. It’s rather colorful. She once told me to rhaff codieh.”

“Which means?”

“‘Piss up a rope.’”

Siewan laughed. “Damn, I like her.” Me too, thought Din. Me too. The two of them started walking back towards Marathel’s room. “What else has she called you?”

“Oh … let me see … tymffod, which means ‘asshole’, cigpell pudyn, which means … ‘meatball dick’ …” Siewan laughed so hard she snorted. “And then there was gwyr’dwp bai. ‘Stupid brat boy’, apparently.”

“What did you do to earn these epithets?”

“Exist in her presence.”

Siewan laughed again. “Ya-Bito said you have a pet name for her. What was it? Mah-moosh hah-lah? Is that from her language too?”

“It is. It means ‘wounded acorn.’ I was actually …” Din let his voice trail off.

Siewan looked at him, waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, they walked in silence before running into Ya-Bito. “They’re still in there, and that Captain Teva just joined them,” she said, nodding her head towards a closed door. “They took a short break a little while ago.”

Din asked, “How did Marathel seem?”

Ya-Bito considered his question for a moment, then replied, “Quietly stoic.” That sounds bad, thought Din. As if she’d heard his thought, the green-skinned nurse said, “It worried me. She’s trying too hard to keep her emotions bottled up. It seems to me she desperately needs to talk about her trauma, but she either won’t or can’t. I think you’re the only person she seems to fully trust, but …”

“But, what?”

I think she is heartbroken over you, thought Ya-Bito. Out loud, she said, “I think Marathel has decided she must build a fortress around herself to survive. What are your plans for her when she is released?”

“I … haven’t fully figured that out yet,” said Din.

Siewan, who had been looking at Marathel’s chart, said, “Well, you better figure it out quick. Her chart says that she seems well enough — physically — to be released tomorrow. If she can keep herself out of the psych ward, that is. You brought her in wearing only that blanket. Can you bring her something to wear for when she leaves?”

Din thought about her bag, remembering that the only other clothes she had were a set of those blue clothes that he hated seeing her in, and those were soiled from fixing the hyperdrive console. “Could she not … just leave with what she’s wearing now?”

Din had never in his life received such withering looks as the nurses before him were giving. He believed that his beskar helmet might melt from the fire in their eyes. “I … uh … what do you suggest?”

The two women said together, “Mise-Tusil.”

Din grabbed his weapons from the trauma center lockers, made a quick run to the Crest, and was now walking across the footbridge that spanned over the busy traffic on the Strip below. As he walked with the throng of tourists, he looked up this Mise-Tusil on his holopad. Apparently, it was quite the swank and well-loved department store of Canto Bight. It was, however, about 8 klicks away, and Din did not want to be gone too long. He’d already left Grogu in childcare for far too long today, and now he was fretting over Marathel’s mental state. He didn’t know what Canto’s laws about involuntary psychiatric commitment were, but he felt that the nurses were trying to tell him — without telling him — that Marathel was straddling an emotional crevasse that she could fall into at any moment.

And yet, they send me shopping? Haar’chak.

Well, who in blue fuck else is going to get things for her, Djarin? She has practically nothing!

Din figured clothes were clothes, so he walked into the first shop he saw that featured female mannequins in the window. Naturally, he drew a lot of interested glances as he entered. The shop featured loud music and shiny displays of even shinier clothing. Hoping for something appropriate, he went straight to the counter, behind which a not-so-young woman with enormous yellow hair and far too precise makeup stood. Woof, thought Din. This is one hard-looking woman. She thrust her enhanced cleavage back at him with a smile. “Help you with something, metal man?”

“I’m looking for a set of clothing for a woman. Something soft and comfortable, please.”

“Well, I’m sure we can find you something that fits the bill,” said the saleswoman, with a voice that sounded like she ate death sticks instead of smoking them. She led Din to a display next to the lingerie department. “Comfortable, you say? Perhaps, something like … this?” She held up a strappy short — dress? — that looked about as comfortable as the rigging that held Marathel up in his fresher on the Crest, but nowhere near as practical.

Din tilted his helmet. “I believe I said soft and comfortable.”

The yellow-haired woman pouted her over-lined and painted poofy lips, saying, “But this is the sort of thing I like to wear when I want to get comfortable ... with someone special … who has big guns.” She reached out with a long, painted claw and ran it down his vambrace.

Nope, thought Din, drawing his arm away. “I would prefer something that the woman in question could wear as she leaves the hospital. Soft comfortable pants, and a shirt, something easy to wear.”

“Oh, well, then perhaps something more in our athleisure line, then. We have some great stuff if the woman is busty like me.” Yellowhair led him with her hotpants-clad flat ass towards the center of the store, where a redheaded woman — this one simply dressed and nowhere near as overly made-up as the yellow-haired woman — carefully folded stacks of simple shirts in a myriad of colors. “What do you think? Something in a nice blue, perhaps? Or hot pink?”

“I like the yellow one,” said Din, nodding at the shirt the redhead was currently folding.

This apparently tickled the yellow-haired tart, who sidled up against Din’s side and cooed, “Ooh, my favorite color! Well, metal man, I knew you at least had some good taste.”

As Din side-stepped slightly away from Madam Yellowhair Hotpants, the other saleswoman said, “It is a pretty yellow, but I know that this top is a bit on the sheer side, and really form-fitting.”

Yellowhair said, “It looks terrible on her, but it fits my form just fine.”

Din caught a slight eyeroll from the redhead, who said, “I recommend this. The fabric is very soft, and more substantial.” She held up a shirt with a slightly scooped neckline in a dusky purple that reminded Din of twilight on Unmanarall. He nodded in approval. “What size does she wear?”

“I’m honestly not sure. She’s a … slightly larger woman,” said Din, reaching into the bag he carried, which held Marathel’s blue clothing.

Yellowhair scoffed. “Is she fat? We don’t carry things for fat people here. They don’t deserve to have clothing like this …”

Din, fully annoyed now, turned to Yellowhair BitchFace and snapped, “You are excessively rude. And ugly. I would prefer to not speak to you further.”

Yellowhair blanched and spat, “You can’t speak to me like that! My husband owns this shop!”

“Then he has my complete sympathy, believe me.”

“What … you … walking dustbin! Peckerhead Mandalorian! Your dick probably wouldn’t fill my left ear anyway!” Yellowhair stomped towards the front door. “I’m going for a caf,” she screeched as she threw the door open and left.

Din turned back to the redhead, who was obviously amused by the exchange. “Please, excuse my behavior.”

She laughed. “Excuse, nothing. She’s an utter bitch. You made my day.”

“Is she going to cause you trouble?”

The redhead, who had freckles and a pretty smile, said, “Nah. She’s only wife seven of ten. And the only one he makes work!” Din chuckled. “So … did you have something there I can look at the size?” Din held up the blue shirt. “Well, unfortunately, it’s true, we don’t have anything that will fit your lady. This place does fit only skinny people. I recommend Mise-Tusil. That’s where I shop.”

“Then why do you work here?”

She laughed. “I get an employee discount, and my kids love these clothes. My cousin works at Mise-Tusil; let me see if she’s working today.” She tapped into a holopad for a few moments. “Yes, she’s there now. Take this token; it gets you a quickcart ride up there. Ask for Dursi. She’s expecting you.”

Din took the token. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind. Again, I apologize for causing trouble.”

“Please, no worries. I won’t see her for the rest of the day. When she says I’m going for a caf what she really means is glug glug glug!” crowed the redhead, holding up an imaginary bottle to her mouth. With a laugh, she sent Din on his way.

Din stepped up to the line of quickcarts —which were little more than a droid on wheels — and got in. He dropped the token in the appropriate slot and programmed his destination on the screen. As the cart zipped off, he felt utterly ridiculous, riding this rolling crate that seemed only slightly larger than a scooter for a toddler. As he was wondering if Grogu would enjoy such a toy, the cart stopped suddenly, making Din lurch forward in his seat. “You have arrived,” chirped the cart from a tinny speaker.

Din stepped out and looked at the impressive brass-and-glass edifice before him. Mise-Tusil, the sign read in illuminated letters in an elegant font. Din walked inside, the glass doors hissing. Here, he was greeted by fine marble floors, crystal chandeliers, and the sound of a musical trio playing pleasant music, music not unlike what he and Marathel danced to aboard the Crest. Well, this place smells expensive, thought Din.

A young Omwati man came forward and said, “Welcome to Mise-Tusil, sir. How may I be of service?”

“I am here to meet with a Miss Dursi,” replied Din.

“Of course, sir, I will let her know you are here. May I offer you a caf, or tea?” Din simply tilted his head, and the Omwati said, “Well, sir, if you would be so kind as to wait here, Dursi will be with you shortly.”

Din nodded his thanks and stood, waiting, feeling again like a ragged, drunken hobo standing somewhere so posh. At least they’re letting me hang on to my weapons, he thought as an amazingly stunning woman approached him. She looked quite exotic, taller than he but with a broader build, her skin deeply colored as rich black velvet night but with bright golden eyes and teeth, dressed in a classically cut pantsuit as scarlet as every sin Din never had the nerve to commit. “Mi- …” Din’s voice box failed him, and he had to clear his throat. “Miss Dursi?”

“Sir Mandalorian! Please, it’s just Dursi.”

“In that case, it’s just Mando.”

“Excellent! I am so pleased to meet you. Please, come with me.” Din dutifully fell in step beside Dursi as she led him to the top floor of the store. “I understand that you’re looking for some clothing for a plus-sized woman?”

“I am. She is scheduled to be released from the medical center tomorrow. I would like to find something appropriate for her.”

Dursi led him to a tall table in the center of her department. “I am sorry to hear that she is hospitalized, but I’m glad to hear she is well enough to leave there soon. It is a very good medical center; I know they take very good care of their patients. What is her name?”

“Marathel.”

“What a beautiful name. Tell me about her.”

Din was surprised that she was asking about Marathel, as opposed to starting to find clothing immediately. “I don’t know her size, but I do have some clothing of hers …”

“That’s excellent and very helpful, but please tell me about Marathel.” Din just looked at Dursi, unsure what she wanted to know. She asked, “What does she look like?”

“She’s … uh … she’s tall, almost my height. She’s between 45 and 50 years old. She’s, well, heavyset, but not overly so. She has very pale skin and silver hair and eyes.” Din was kicking himself for not being able to describe Marathel in more eloquent terms. He felt like he was giving a description to a marshal for a suspect in a crime.

Dursi smiled indulgently. “What is she like as a person?”

“She is … kind. And caring. Generous. Generous of her time and talents. Smarter than she’ll give herself credit for. Always thinking of others first, wanting to please. But … she’s fragile, and … sad.”

Dursi tilted her head and smiled. “And she’s in the hospital. I won’t ask why; that is none of my business. But here is a question I always like to ask about a lady I’m assisting: does she realize that she is beautiful?”

Din’s throat felt thick at the profound question. He thought of Marathel standing in her hut in that yellow dress, looking shocked and embarrassed that Grogu had woken him up by jumping nearly right on his groin. That was the … the first morning after. She chose to wear a dress when she’d only ever worn utilitarian clothing. She … maybe wanted to look pretty for me.

Din remembered that Dursi was waiting for an answer. “No. No, I don’t think she does.”

“So, I’m hearing that Marathel needs clothes that give her comfort, as well as give her some confidence, some elegance, some pride in herself,” said Dursi.

“Erm … sure.”

Dursi laughed. “And I’m hearing that you, Mando, are way out of your comfort zone. You have something of hers in the bag?”

“Uh, yes … here,” said Din, handing over the blue pants and shirt. “Be careful; they are soiled with engine grease.”

Dursi chuckled and pulled a pair of latex gloves from a box under the table. “Thanks for the warning.” She spread the shirt out, gave it a cursory look, and said, “Well, this is dreadful. Does it fit her?”

“Sort of?” said Din with a grimace. “I mean, it is big enough for her, but it’s …”

“The fabric is stiff and doesn’t hang well. Tell me, is Marathel more of a rounded shape or curvy?” Din tilted his helmet. “Does she have a definitive waist?”

“Well … yes.”

“Fuller on top?” Din blushed and nodded. “Any tummy? Is her, ah … aft section also on the fuller side?” she asked, chuckling at her own joke.

Din shifted side to side on his feet, clasped his hands behind his back and said quietly, “Erm … both.”

It’s a good thing this guy is a Mandalorian, thought Dursi. He’s so embarrassed I can see steam coming out from under that helmet. She unfolded the pants and saw pins holding the waistband a little tighter. “Well, that answers that question. Your Marathel is curvy.”

“I hate those pants,” blurted Din. “They are too big on her, and all those pockets make her look bigger than she is.”

“So Marathel has nice legs?”

“Her legs are wonderful,” said Din before he even realized he said a word, and he froze.

Dursi grinned. “And were the pants too long or short?”

“Too long, actually. She had to roll them up.”

“Excellent to know! I can get a measurement off these, then.” Dursi pulled out her tailor’s tape and deftly took several measurements, jotting the numbers down on a pad. She then took another look inside the bag and pulled out a purple top and green vest that Din had never seen before. “Well, these are quite nice. How do these fit her?”

“I have no idea.”

Dursi hummed and kept looking through the bag. “Oh, good, she does have some undergarments. She pulled out a folded bra and pair of underpants, grinned at Din, and said, “Don’t worry; I won’t ask you how well these fit.” She noted the sizes on her pad and put the items away. “I think we might have enough information now to find her something.” She folded the blue clothes and began to place them back in the bag.

“Could you … would you just please toss those out? They’re soiled, they’re dreadful — as you say — and I honestly would rather not see them on her again,” said Din.

Dursi frowned, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes. “These clothes belong to Marathel; do they not? If they are her clothes, only she should have the power to get rid of them. Do not take her power away.”

Din felt as small as he used to as a child, when his father would ask him the Five Whys of Root Cause Analysis. He rocked back on his heels and muttered, “Yes, ma’am.”

Dursi lightened her expression. “My goodness, Mando. I’m not going to morally censure you; I’m only reminding you that Marathel has her own mind. Lighten up a little, for the love of Frith.”

Din’s head snapped up. “What did you just say?”

“Did I say ‘Frith’? Holy loth-cats, I haven’t said that for years.” Dursi chuckled. “My cousin, Meejil, the one that sent you here? Well, we’re not actually cousins, but we grew up next door to each other. Her great-grandmother told us these stories from her childhood about a rabbity-kind of creature called Frith. Silly children’s stories from the planet Great-Nan came from; what was the name of it …?”

“Was it Lew’el?”

“Yes, Lew’el! I had forgotten all about that. I even had the books as a child. I read those …”

“Books?”

“Oh, yes. A whole series of stories. Great-Nan insisted they were ancient stories told for hundreds of years, back when they spoke a different old language, before Basic.”

Din couldn’t believe his ears. “Do you … would you please write down the name of one of these books?”

Dursi wrote one down immediately and handed the note to Din. “And there you are. Enough of that; let’s go pick out some things for Marathel.”

In the end, Din was exceptionally relieved that he’d finally come here. Dursi was so efficient that they’d picked out a few essentials for Marathel in a trice. They’d found two comfortable tops — one in a similar dusky purple to the one he’d seen in the other shop, and one in a russet-red color that he never would have chosen for her.

“There are three colors that all women can wear: purple, red, and teal blue,” said Dursi. “No matter their skin tone, no matter their size. Now, obviously, there are shades and tones and tints, but, that russet will put some color in her cheeks.”

Din believed her and bowed to her expertise. They also picked out a simple pair of soft jersey pants with a stretchy waist and pockets. Here, Dursi had more wisdom. “I’m sure you’ve wondered your whole life what the hell do women want? It’s very simple: Women want to be treated with respect. And women want pockets. And that’s it.”

Din shook his head. “It is certainly much more complicated than that.”

“Only if you make it more complicated than that, Mister Man. Now, let’s get her a few more foundations.”

It was shortly after that that Din learned what foundations were: underwear, and Dursi took a bit of delight in having Din pick some panties out for Marathel while she searched out a bra in Marathel’s size. He quickly chose full-coverage briefs in a simple black — he remembered Xi’an always wearing black because black hid a multitude of stains. He also didn’t want to have Marathel misconstrue anything by picking out a more … brief and revealing style. Dursi found a simple seamless bralette that had exceptionally soft fabric and hooked in the front so it wouldn’t rub on her damaged skin. She chose a pale pink color, wondering if Din would comment that they didn’t match the underpants. He did not. He thought about it, however, wondering if such a thing was allowed. Xi’an was not quite so endowed as Marathel and rarely wore a bra — which would also be black. Also, the prostitutes he’d enjoyed tended to be color-coordinated with their foundations, which generally contained one-tenth the fabric of the underwear he had in his hand.

“This should all do for now, but I expect you to bring your Marathel in once she’s released tomorrow. This is nowhere near enough for her to start her life over again.”

“I never said she was.”

“Mando, considering you brought me mostly soiled clothing and mini bottles of toiletries, I can only assume that what’s in this bag is everything she owns in this galaxy. I’m not sure what future Marathel is heading towards, but I guarantee that she will need more than this small pile here. I believe that even you have more clothing in your dirty laundry than what’s right here. Speaking of …” Dulsi closed Marathel’s bag, then held it in her hands, instead of sliding it across the table to Din. “I believe I will take home this bag and launder these things for her, so that it will be one less worry for her. Also, that means she must wear her new clothes and show herself she is beautiful. Besides, I want to meet her. I think I’ll like her very much.”

As Dursi was walking Din back to the entrance, he saw a colorful display for the children’s department. “Do you mind? I think I should see what the well-dressed toddler is wearing this season,” said Din.

“You have children? You and Marathel?”

Din stammered, “No, uh … no. The boy is a foundling, my traveling companion. Marathel and I are not a couple.”

Dursi, who couldn’t keep a Sabacc face if her life depended on it, managed to keep from laughing out loud. Oh, please, Mando. If you weren’t besotted with her, you wouldn’t have been so embarrassed by my simple questions. Still, she asked questions about Grogu’s size and play habits, and located some items for Din to consider. After a brief look at appropriately-sized clothing, he decided the boy had enough clothing for now. His eyes did fall on a large, pillow-type stuffed frog nearly Grogu’s size. Din would never admit it, but he wanted to get toys for Grogu, although he almost never did. The Crest was too small; and anyway, Grogu seemed to be the type to prefer to play with the box a toy came in. But the pillow frog was relatively useful as both bedding and a toy, and besides, the kid had been a real trouper lately.

He purchased the pillow frog, making sure to use his own credit book. Most of the purchases lately had been on the credit book that was technically Marathel’s. Captain Teva had been correct: he’d lost practically all his funds on this venture. He and Marathel would have to chat about that. She’d said before that she didn’t want the money, but that was before she’d essentially become a fugitive, and she would now need to learn about how to handle finances and take care of herself.

You also might as well contact Karga; get that ball rolling again. Things are what they are. It’s for Marathel’s future, and she needs all the help she can get.

By this time, Dursi had walked him back to the concierge. “Thank you, Dursi, for your kindness and expertise. I am grateful.”

Dursi held out her lovely hand for Din to take. “You are most welcome, Mando. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Here is my direct contact information; please let me know when to expect you and Marathel.”

“I will.”

“Please consider also, that we have a fine restaurant here as well as a salon; Marathel may well need some pampering to rejuvenate her soul after a hospital stay.”

“Perhaps.” Din was concerned about the costs of such things; he had little experience in these matters, and he didn’t want to overspend Marathel’s money for her. The clothing seemed to be good quality but was substantially more expensive than what he’d normally buy for himself. Again, he only had his experience with Xi’an in these matters, and he felt that the first store he’d visited was more her style. Still, Xi’an had better taste than Yellowhair Hotpants, thank Frith. Damn, that woman was janky. Belatedly, he asked, “Oh, where do I get tokens for the quickcarts?”

“There is a vending machine on the other side of the footbridge, or, in your case, I give you one. No, two, actually.” said Dursi, dropping two tokens into his palm. “One for tomorrow.”

“Thank you again.”

“My pleasure, Mando.”

Din left Mise-Tusil and walked across the footbridge to catch a quickcart back to the medical center. On the way, he made a quick detour to purchase some things from a food vendor; he felt that he’d been taking some advantage of the childcare’s snack arsenal. Hoping that Marathel had finished with the New Republic officers, Din went to the tower where Marathel’s ward was and left his weapons in their lockers before going upstairs, giving no fewer than three spit samples to access Grogu. He gave a couple of the purchased meals to the childcare workers, collected Grogu, and went back to Marathel’s ward, where he was met by a closed and locked door.

Siewan was now on duty, and she met Din by the door. “She finished up about an hour ago. The shrinks still want to talk to her, but they think she’s run out of spoons and needs a break.”

“Run out of spoons?” Din rattled his helmet in confusion. “Do these spoons have something to do with the fork?”

Now it was Siewan’s turn to be confused. “Fork? What fork?”

“Marathel made a point of showing nurse Ya-Bito a fork on her lunch tray. I had no idea what that meant.”

“Oh … my. I need to talk with Ya-Bito,” said Siewan. “Here, I’ll let you in. When Ya-Bito brought Marathel back here she immediately went into the fresher.” Siewan swung the door open. The room was empty, but Din could hear water running. The gowns Marathel had been wearing were in a pile on the bed along with her blanket. Siewan went to the cupboard and pulled out towels, two fresh gowns, and a folded padded something that Din didn’t recognize. Siewan tapped on the door leading to the fresher, calling, “Marathel? Mando and his little boy are back.” There was no response. “May I come in for a moment? I have towels and fresh gowns for you.” Din heard a muffled okay from behind the door as he set up Grogu on the chair next to the bed with a box of fried fish nuggets. Siewan disappeared into the fresher room, saying, “Honey? Are you doing okay?”

Din heard Marathel mutter, “I’m okay. I’m all right.”

Siewan then said, “I just want you to know that I wasn’t the one who told those authorities about you. The person who did meant well, but that is not something I would have done without your permission. I am sorry that you had to go through that against your will.”

Din heard Marathel sigh. “It’s okay.”

“Can I get you anything else?” Din didn’t hear Marathel answer; she must have shaken her head, because Siewan said, “Okay, then. If you need some help when you’re done in here, just press that button there, and I’ll come help.”

“Okay,” Din heard Marathel say flatly, thinking that Marathel sounded about as okay as he’d felt after that Blurrg of Kuiil’s had thrown him for the fourth time.

Siewan came out of the fresher room and looked at Din, shrugging. As she passed by him on the way out, she patted his arm and whispered, “Good luck.”

In the fresher, Marathel was sitting on a hard bench that she’d folded down from the wall. She rather liked this fresher. It was bigger than the one on Tatooine, and probably three times as large as the one on Din’s ship. There was no lip to step over to get inside, and the drain seemed to be at one end of the cubicle instead of the middle. She was curled over, her elbows on her knees as she hugged her shoulders, letting the hot water spray hit her upper back. She’d unbraided her hair and it had been pushed forward by the water over the top of her head, where it hung nearly to the floor. When she’d first sat down in here, she’d put the elastic band from her hair around her wrist, and she’d snapped it hard against her skin over and over and over, relishing both the noise and the painful sting it made. But it visibly abraded her skin after a while. She didn’t want new wounds where others could see them, so she removed it from her wrist and placed it on the extra fresher stool that sat against the wall.

She had no idea how long she’d talked to the women in that closed room with her, the doctors and the women in the grey-green uniforms, and then, eventually, that Captain Teva. She just kept talking and talking, like how she’d spilled her guts to Din on Tatooine. But unlike that time, she kept certain pieces of information to herself. Certain things were for her memory only. Certain things were to protect Din and Grogu.

She didn’t tell them Din’s name, only referring to him as the Bounty Hunter. She didn’t say Grogu’s name; she didn’t even mention the child at all. They’d questioned that, for some of the remaining women mentioned a green child, and Marathel shrugged and said, “I don’t know what they’re talking about.”

They asked, “How many days was he there alone with you?”

“A couple.”

“Did you have sexual relations with him?”

“No.” She was surprised at how comfortable she was, telling that lie. But I wasn’t fully myself anyway, so, not quite a lie.

“Why did you tell the Elders that you did?”

“So that they would take me into the Hold; that meant the Bounty Hunter would get the coins as a reward.”

“You knew about the coins?”

“Yes.”

“How many coins were there?”

“I don’t know. I never saw them.”

“Where are the coins now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did the men of the Hold hurt you so badly?”

“That’s what men do. That’s how a Belwhyn is made.”

“When the Bounty Hunter took you away, do you know where you went?”

“No.”

“Why did you want to go back to your home planet?”

“I was too scared to be anywhere else.”

“Why did the Bounty Hunter take you back there?”

“I told him to.”

“Why did you go back into the Hold, Marathel?”

“The Elders needed to die. They’d only ever hurt me, abused me. They killed the women who helped me.”

“Did you kill the Elders?”

“Yes.”

“All four?”

“Three of four. The Duke died before I could get to him.”

“How many men did you kill?”

“All the males are dead.”

“Let me rephrase that, Marathel. How many men did you directly kill?”

This took a while. Marathel closed her eyes and recounted each life she took, starting with the one who caught her staring at the Round Wall, and ending with the Bishop in the courtyard. She described the manner each one had raped her on the platform, the ways they had abused her, then the manner she’d taken his life, all in great detail. She also told them about the men that she’d injured but had not died in front of her, like the boys she’d shoved down the stairs, and the underling the Hunter shoved at her. And then, Talric, who’d cut his own throat. Once she’d finally finished, the women in the room whispered to each other until Marathel asked, “How many?”

One of the Republic officers blanched and said, “Thirty-four.”

“Hmmm,” mused Marathel. “That many? I suppose so. That’s a good portion of the adult males who raped me on that platform. The little boys who did things to me would have been in the long building.”

“The little boys and infants that the Dahls ended up killing, yes?” Marathel shrugged. “Why did the Dahls do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did the Dahls get into the Hold? It was a walled and gated courtyard.”

“I left the gate open.”

“Why did you do that?”

“So that I could get out.”

“You intended to escape?”

Marathel shrugged again. “If I could.”

“Did you think you might die?”

“Perhaps.”

“Did it matter to you if you survived?”

“Not especially.”

“Why did the Bounty Hunter come back for you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Marathel, did you know that the Bishop was your father?”

“Yes.”

“And you were to be his … Whyn, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“We understand a Whyn to be a concubine, that is, a dedicated sexual … slave, for the lack of a better word.”

“… Yes.”

“A Whyn is also tasked with bearing children. Her father’s children. Sometimes, her brother’s, or her uncle’s children. And sometimes, even her son’s children?”

“That is correct.”

“And this is done willingly by the girl in question?”

“I don’t understand.”

“They would — you would do this of your own free will?”

“What other way would I have known?”

“But you know a different way now?”

“Yes.”

Such a good girl. You used to be such a good girl, my sweet girl, until you spread your cunt wide open and became a fucking whore, inbred incestuous monster whore for a criminal who feels nothing for you …

There was a tap on the door, which startled her, and she was back in the fresher. She turned her head towards the door, could just see it through her veil of wet hair. “What?”

The door opened a tiny bit. He heard Din’s mechanical voice saying, “It’s me, Marathel. Are you all right?”

She turned her gaze back to her hanging pendant, watching rivulets of water drain from the clam shell to the tops of her feet, down her toes and towards the drain. “I’m okay.”

Din, on the other side of the door, looking away from where he’d cracked it open, asked, “What can I do for you?”

“I’m all right.”

Din didn’t believe her any more than he believed Xi’an that one time she’d tried to convince him she was pregnant shortly after the land mine incident. He’d dragged her to a termination center, where it was discovered that she was not pregnant, but had lied to hang on to him, she’d said. He was so different after the land mine injuries, she’d said. He might have been okay with her catching pregnant, despite his vasectomy by explosion, despite her promising that she had ten-year implants, but the lie had been the last straw. He’d then told her, shove a blaster up your cunt and ride it straight to hell, bitch, and left her there. Even she didn’t deserve that, he thought to himself. That had been the moment their relationship ended, not the land mine blast itself.

Have I always been such a bastard asshole sonofabitch meatball dick? A stupid brat boy?

Din tapped on the door again. “May I come in?”

“Suit yourself,” replied Marathel.

Din opened the door so he could get through. “I’m averting my eyes.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Din looked at her, sitting hunched over on a bench, her hair hiding her face, the water sheeting down her back, following the lateral scars and dripping off her sides. He scanned the rest of the skin he could see and noticed a series of shallow puncture marks on her thigh. He pulled up the extra fresher stool next to her and sat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, mimicking her pose again, stretching the hair band over his gloved fingers. “I’m sorry about Teva and the Republic officers.”

“It doesn’t matter. I suppose I should answer for my crimes sooner than later.”

“I don’t think you’ve committed any actionable crime, Marathel.”

“But you’re not in charge of law and order, are you?”

Din blinked. “What do you know about law and order?”

“Cobb told me. He explained what a marshal was.”

Cobb, again. Haar’chak. “Teva told me that the Republic more than likely won’t seek legal action. They will, however, bring it up to officials on Lew’el. “

“Lew’el. I think I saw that painted on the Large Round Wall. I’d been looking at those squiggles my whole life, not knowing there were such a thing as letters, until Cobb showed me. He … wrote, is that the word? Wrote my name on a paper and gave it to me. That’s how I knew they were letters. Painted on the Large Round Wall. Then I killed a man for calling me a cunt. The very first one. The first one out of thirty-four. I even thought to myself, would Din love me more, now that I’m a murderer, like he is? How stupid of me, thinking like that. Now I know better.”

Concerned that she was now babbling nonsensically, Din said, “I’m turning off the water, Marathel.” She only shrugged. He stood and reached across her back to shut off the spigot. He took a towel and wrapped it around her shoulders, carefully blotting the water off her back and arms. “Dry off and get warm, Marathel. I don’t want you to get chilled again.”

Again? “Okay.”

“Do you need help getting dressed?”

“I’m all right.”

Din stepped out, but remained on the other side of the door, listening. It was a few minutes before he heard her moving about. He heard the rustle of towels, her sighing dejectedly, and some muttering that sounded like bloody things as he heard something sliding against her skin. He then heard a sharp intake of breath and a whispered ow ow ow. “All right in there?”

Inside, Marathel had pulled up the hated disposable underwear with one hand but couldn’t manage to get the gowns on. “My shoulder. I need some help after all.”

“May I come in?”

“Yes.”

Din opened the door and saw Marathel, back-to, wearing only what he assumed were some kind of hospital underwear and the clam pendant. Under the harsh light in the tiny room, all of her red and half-healed wounds on her back glowed like beacons. He shut his eyes for a moment, and then took a gown and held it in front of her, unsnapping the shoulder closure so she wouldn’t have to maneuver her arm in a weird position. Once on, he re-snapped the shoulder closure and tied the two ribbons in back. He then repeated the same action with the second gown, but as a robe. He took her by the elbows and led her to the bed, sitting her down. He found the fuzzy socks and dropped to one knee to put them on her feet. He stood back up, found her hairbrush, and carefully brushed her hair — it was much less tangled this time around — and braided it just as he had done before, using the hair band at the end.

Marathel, who had been silent this whole time, said, “You were the one who braided my hair before, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Marathel.” Din lifted Marathel from the edge of the bed and placed her in the center, spreading her blanket over her legs.

Marathel’s eyes fell on Grogu, still sitting in the chair, working his way through the box of fish nuggets. “Hello, my little Godynferth. I’ve missed you today. What are you eating?”

“Burra fish nuggets.” Din peered into the box. “Could’ve left a few for me, kid.”

Grogu cooed and Force-carried the one remaining fried nugget to Marathel. She plucked it from the air, saying, “Thank you, love.” She took a bite and said, “This is awful.”

“They’re better hot. Grogu likes them,” shrugged Din. He took the half-eaten nugget from Marathel, turned his back, lifted his helmet, and popped it into his mouth. Turning back, he said, “C’mon, you bottomless pit. Let’s wash those hands.” He picked up Grogu and took him to the sink.

Marathel felt her spirits lift slightly, reminded of those simple days on Unmanarall when they were a family. “Where did you go, anyway?”

“I went shopping.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I bought you some clothes.”

Marathel colored. “You didn’t have to do that. I had clothes in that bag.”

Din turned, drying Grogu’s hands. “They were soiled. And awful. They didn’t fit you.”

“Fennec bought those for me. And I liked the pockets on those pants. You didn’t have the right to get rid of them, Bounty Hunter,” snapped Marathel.

Din blinked. “I’m … I didn’t … I didn’t throw the blue clothes out, Marathel! In fact, they’re being laundered by the woman who helped me pick these new things out for you. I just wanted you to have something clean and comfortable to wear if they release you tomorrow.”

“If I get released? The doctors said I …”

“Ya-Bito and Siewan are worried you may have to go to another ward here in the hospital for at least another three days. A ward for people with broken minds … Like yours.”

Marathel sat up and folded her legs under her. “By myself?”

“Yes. Alone. I couldn’t … we couldn’t be there. And if you can’t show improvement over three days, you’re kept longer.”

“But they could help me.”

“They might be able to. Maybe find the right … medication, therapy …”

“Din,” said Marathel, looking straight into his visor. “Maybe you don’t need to stay. Maybe you shouldn’t take me with you.”

Din’s thoughts went back to the sight of the small punctures on her leg. Punctures in rows of four. As if they were … the times of a fork. His heart hitched in his chest, and he sat next to her on her bed. “You’re hurting yourself?”

“I don’t know how else to cope, Din. Ya-Bito said that place — the psych ward — is not a good place to be, but I’m wondering if it might not be a good idea. And I need the little bit of pain, Din, to direct the pain …”

Din reached out and cupped her cheek. “Ma’mwsh ha’laa. I know the pain. I’ve had that pain. But I cannot leave you behind again, even though I … you’re my …” Unable to complete his sentence, Din dropped his hand and shook his head.

Marathel said quietly, “Tell me what happened, what you experienced, after I ran away from you on Unmanarall.”

Din took a breath, and began, “I didn’t even know which way you’d gone. I had taken off my helmet; I didn’t have the monitors and sensors to find you. I was screaming for you. Then, Grogu came to me, telling me it was time to leave. I went up into the ship, and by the time I’d closed the door, I had forgotten you. I didn’t even remember what planet I was on. I was compelled to leave, go to Manda’lor.

“But I somehow remembered that I had forgotten something. You weren’t quite a memory, not quite gone. I found a loaf of your bread and I knew it was important. I caught your scent off one of the blankets and I could almost see your face. Grogu kept trying to tell me who you were, yelling Mama! And then I kept losing big chunks of time, as if I’d been sleeping for two-four hours, but still awake.

“And then Cobb sent a holo of you. It was during the hours that you spent baking bread, but he’d made changes to it.” He looked through his holopad, bringing up the doctored holo.

“He was making a recording of me,” said Marathel. “I don’t understand what you mean, though.”

“Look closely at your image. He took off your face-wound and given your teeth back.” Marathel, even though she knew better, reached up and touched her forehead to see if it was miraculously healed. “He’d never seen you without your injuries. He said … he wanted to see who I had fallen in love with.” Marathel looked back into his visor, holding her breath. “He also said that if I had left you behind, that he would never forgive me.

“Seeing your face, how I remembered it, how I still see you … I finally remembered you. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten you, how I felt about you, how much I loved you. I knew I had to turn around, come back and find you.

“And then, it was as if I had been shot through with ice. I couldn’t breathe, and I was terrified I would forget you again, but it turned out even worse. I forgot that I loved you. I was calling you ner kar’ta just moments before, and then I had no more feelings for you than I would a stranger. Marathel, I don’t know what happened. Even Grogu felt it. Do you know why that was? I think you do know. Please, Marathel …”

“I will, Din, soon, I promise. Just tell me the rest first.”

“I was still trying to wrap my head around what had just happened, then I was instantly on fire. Not just the bite mark, but my entire left side. I was in agony. I fell to the floor, sure that I was having a heart attack.”

Marathel, who had just resigned herself to the loss of Din’s love, was suddenly confused. “A what?”

“A heart attack, cardiac arrest. My heart was beating erratically, and then stopped altogether. I fell unconscious, scaring Grogu half to death, probably. I managed to call for help, and Captain Teva boarded my ship to provide medical help. The medic told me I’d shown all the symptoms of a heart attack and a stroke, but without throwing the blood clots that would cause those … That must have been when Rodanthe died.”

“You fainted?”

“Well … yes,” said Din, suddenly uncomfortable. “I mean, you’ve told me that the pain you experience when you lose a Dahl is immeasurable …”

Marathel was still dubious. Yes, the death of a Dahl was painful indeed, like being sliced by a dull knife covered in salt, but … “I’ve never fainted.”

Din tilted his helmet, wondering if Marathel was taking the piss. “It might have been worse, since it was Rodanthe.”

“Perhaps it was just wai wchlas.”

“I beg your pardon?” asked Din.

“Wai wchlas. That’s what we called it when the men would get sick.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Man flu.”

“Excuse me?”

Someone knocked on the door. Marathel called, “Come in.”

Siewan entered, carrying a tray. “Hello, Marathel. I have your dinner. I’m sure you don’t feel hungry but try to eat anyway. You need calories to heal. Right now, all calories are good calories. Okay?”

Marathel nodded but didn’t look up. “Okay.”

Sensing that she had interrupted an important conversation, Siewan said, “I’ll leave you now. Buzz if you need anything.” She left.

Marathel pulled the rolling table towards her, and sat up, folding her legs under her (criss-cross-berrysauce, she sang in her head) and lifting the cover from her dinner tray. Some sort of meat and vegetables in sauce over mashed tubers. A thick slice of toasted bread. A cup of tea. Another container of ice cream. “That all looks halfway decent,” remarked Din.

“Siewan was right. I’m truly not hungry. You should eat it, since Grogu ate your portion too, apparently.”

“No, Marathel. I’m fine. You need to eat.”

Marathel shrugged, and methodically began to eat, tearing the bread into quarters, working her way slowly across the entrée, not tasting it. Din watched her hands, realizing he’d rarely watched her eat. She ate in complete silence, staring at the wall before her, looking at nothing. The quiet made Din uncomfortable, so he got up and found the shopping bag with the pillow frog.

“Hey buddy, I got something for you today, too.” Grogu bleated, and then cooed when Din put the pillow frog in his little hands. “You like it? Thought you might. You’ve been something else, lately … I just thought you might like something soft to crash on.” As Din sat back down, he noticed Marathel gazing at Grogu with a little smile.

“What a wonderful thing,” said Marathel. “Is your new friend going to have a name?”

“Fawg!”

“Fawg, of course. That will be easy to remember.” Her smile faded, and she went back to her dinner in silence. The ice cream was pink this time, and tasted like sweet berries, which she liked better than the plain stuff. She finished her tea. She then lifted her fork, showing it to Din. He nodded, and she made a show of placing it on her tray, then pushing the rolling tray away from her. She sighed deeply, and then turned her head to look at Grogu, who would alternately hug the pillow frog, then pat its plush face, quietly saying Fawg Fawg Fawg. “I had a friend like Fawg once. Tymfy made her for me. She was small, made out of old grey rags she’d sewn together. She was a lumpy thing. Probably stuffed with more old grey rags. Shaped like a lump, too. No arms or legs, no face, but I loved her. I remember the day Tymfy gave her to me. It was a terrible day. The Bishop had done something horrible to me for the first time, and I couldn’t stop crying.”

“Did your friend have a name?” asked Din quietly.

“I called her Fi’Basha. That means ‘little me.’ I kept her hidden, because if the boys knew I had her, they’d take her away from me. Tear her up. But then, Tymfy had her first baby. We were changing at the same time, but of course, I wasn’t getting regular, so … Tymfy had a little girl, so I gave Fi’Basha to the baby. If it’d been a boy, I would’ve kept her. A boy got enough attention. Didn’t need a Fi’Basha.

“Then Olba took me out of the Hold and brought me to the hut. I was so scared and lonely there at first. In the beginning, Olba would come over more often. Even the Cyiloggs coming after me was a distraction. But they stopped trying to take me back. In the courtyard, before I ... the Bishop finally told me why that was. It was the Dahls. They would attack and kill anything male that came near me. They were protecting me from the men of the Hold. And Olba stopped coming out so much. She was probably getting beaten for it, going out to see me but not bringing me back, not coming back to the Hold like a good girl should. But I was so alone, so I made a new Fi’Basha out of the scraps of fabric Olba brought me. She was as big as Grogu, and she had arms and a head and a body. I called her Tym’Basha.”

“‘Little Tymfy,’” said Din. Marathel nodded. “Why didn’t she have any legs? Did you run out of fabric?”

Marathel shook her head. “I made myself believe that if she didn’t have legs, no one could hurt her there. Such a stupid thought.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “By this time, I’d made a drop spindle and my loom. I spun brown yarn for her hair, and I put brown eyes on her, from tree nut shells. I wove my own fabric and sewed little dresses for her. I loved Tymfy, so I wanted Tym’Basha to look like her.

“But then … Olba said it was silly for me to have Tym’Basha. I was a full-grown woman, regular or not, and no full-grown woman needed such a childish thing. So … I took her apart. Took her apart right back down to all the scraps I’d sewn together. Then, I took the pile of scraps to the cliff and threw them off the edge. I went back to the hut, and I folded the little dresses and shoved them to the bottom of a basket.

“Then … however long it was after that … you and Grogu showed up. The Dahls left you alone and allowed you to come to me. They killed every other male, but they left you alone. And when I saw that little pitiful rumpled pile of clothes you had for Grogu, I remembered those little dresses. I found the dresses and cut them shorter to make those little shirts for Grogu. I made the jump-ups from whole cloth I had, but the shirts, I made from the dresses. I saw no point in keeping them in the basket if they would fit Grogu. And I knew I was going to die anyway, and I loved Grogu, just like I loved Tym’Basha, and …”

Marathel’s throat closed, and she could no longer speak. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at her blanket. Grogu jumped from Din’s lap to the bed, holding up his new pillow Fawg to Marathel. Marathel timidly took the pillow frog and hugged it tightly while she cried.

Din stood up and removed his pauldrons, his cuirass, his rerebraces, and his vambraces before climbing into the bed with her. He drew her back against him, holding her tightly against his chest as he lay back on her pillow. Grogu climbed up on Din and held on to Marathel’s thumb, both holding her while she wept until she fell asleep against Din’s shoulder, clutching pillow Fawg. After a while, both Din and Grogu, both so sad for Marathel, dozed off too. Sometime later, Siewan quietly came into the room to collect the tray. Smiling at the sleeping trio, she took the tray, turned off the lights, and left, locking the door behind her.

You Were Marked: Day Thirty-Two

#din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian angst #mando angst #din djarin angst #star wars fanfiction #starwarsficnetwork #pedrostories #din x plus size fem oc #mando x plus size oc #reverse age gap #plus size oc #i will finish this

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giuliettacapuleti · 10 months ago

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An obnoxiously long summary of Frank Wildhorn’s Carmen absolutely no one asked for:

The musical was originally put on in the Czech Republic in 2008, and actually became so popular it broke box office records for the theater. Despite this, I’d never heard of it until I read that the Budapesti Operettszínház is putting it on soon. It’s been put on in Japan, Korea, and Austria, and seems to have been popular in Korea but not Austria (not sure about Japan). There’s an English demo but I can only find 2 songs from it.

If you are familiar with Frank Wildhorn’s work you’ll know he likes to play fast and loose with accuracy regarding the source material. The plot is a huge departure from the opera, which is fine with me but probably not so much if you like it.

The musical is allegedly actually an adaptation of the novella that the opera is based on, but it doesn’t really resemble that either. The musical partly takes place in a circus and this makes Carmen’s posse a group of performers instead of smugglers which to me is neat but again, not for everyone.

Overall the plot is. Well. Something. It’s got some trademark Wildhorn-ness going on that if you’re familiar with Dracula and Jekyll and Hyde you will likely be annoyed with but not surprised by.

I am not 100% sure on the time period in which the musical takes place, it appears to be the 50s but there are a few hints that it’s more current than that, so I’m not sure. It’s possible it’s deliberately meant to be vague.

On to the Summary (FULL DISCLOSURE IT’S 100% NOT SERIOUS AND REALLY LONG SORRY)

The musical starts off with a flamenco dance off between a random woman and the sexy and confident Carmen, who more or less steals the random woman’s dancing partner. The random woman isn’t having it. Suddenly a bunch of random people with torches burst in and start fighting with soldiers (???). Then they stop fighting and just chill because I guess the dance-off is more important. Carmen and Random Woman continue their dance-off, which culminates in Carmen either waving a knife at or actually slashing Random Woman across the face.

A woman (possibly fate itself) sings about fate. It wouldn’t be a European musical without someone singing about fate.

Meanwhile, the citizens of a picturesque town in Spain (?) are celebrating the engagement of police officer José Rivera and Caterina, the mayor’s daughter. The mayor gives a speech about how moral and Totally Not Secretly Corrupt the town is. Two seconds later, the mayor and José’s superior, Captain Zuniga, laugh about how the currently moral José will soon become as corrupt as they are (side note: I think they are meant to be Spanish but the officers’ uniforms are giving Carabinieri). We immediately know the mayor is shady because he wears sunglasses and a white suit, has a pinky ring and smokes a cigar. That and the fact he sings about how corrupt and greedy he is.

José and Caterina sing a sweet little duet about how much they love each other despite only knowing each other for a few months. We all know love duets mean impending disaster in European musicals so stay frosty.

Caterina leaves and Carmen and her friends appear in the mist, talking about how they want something fun to do in the boring, vanilla town. Carmen notices José standing there and kisses him after giving him a rose. José has no object permanence I guess, and forgets Caterina, immediately running after Carmen. Prime bf material right there.

The next day, the circus performers are hanging out at the Carnival. Carmen sings a song about how desirable she is, which would sound vain except for the fact that literally everyone wants her, so she’s just telling us how it is. José appears with the rose Carmen gave him. José’s bff and fellow officer Inmar, aka the only sane person in this entire musical, appears and tells José to fucking chill. Zuniga, AKA Officer Creep, suggests they arrest Carmen for no reason so they can take her in for “questioning”. A bunch of men try to assault Carmen, so she pulls a knife on one of them. Zuniga uses this as an excuse to have her arrested, and orders José to take her to the station. Carmen sings a song about how no one owns her (yas queen), and José tells her he has morals and is totally not weak and definitely won’t cheat on his fiancée no really he’s cereal. José is Madonna-Whore Complexing on main and calls her a devil, comparing her to the angelic Caterina. His crisis of conscience lasts LITERALLY two seconds, and he and Carmen start making out, only to be interrupted by Zuniga, who tells José off and gives Carmen the ultimatum of sleeping with him or being put in jail. Carmen rejects him and runs off, while he calls her a whore and chases after her (peak rejected guy on bumble behavior).

Meanwhile, Caterina is in her room worried about José. Her aunt calms her down by singing her a song about how she should totally have sex with José and recounts her own romantic exploits. Caterina is reluctant because she wants to honor her mother’s memory and not disappoint her dad (ew). Later, José comes through her window and basically tries to pressure her into sex because Carmen made him horny (what a guy!). Caterina sings about her conflicting feelings and almost has sex with him, but they are interrupted by Caterina’s sketchy dad knocking on the door. He exhibits creepy behavior and then leaves.

The next day, girls from the town are at a beach, talking shit about Carmen and her crew. Enter Carmen and her crew. The townsgirls make fun of them, but Carmen is unbothered. One of the non-hostile girls asks Carmen to teach them how to be sexy, and we get a song about that. Admittedly, the song starts out about how to be sexy to men, but it turns into a nice bonding moment and ultimately is about being confident so I’ll allow it. Unfortunately, Inmar and José ruin everything and tell Carmen and her posse return to their camp. One of Carmen’s friends says what everyone’s thinking and wonders wtf Carmen sees in José. Carmen and José start grinding right in front of Inmar’s salad, and Inmar is understandably pissed at him for remaining with her. José reminds Carmen he Totally Won’t Cheat on Caterina No Really. Carmen hints that she is unavailable too and is dating (?) a really scary guy who apparently even scares police (more on this later). Then it’s Real Sadgirl Hours for her and she sings about how everyone is ultimately alone and she really wants José for reasons that are still a mystery to literally everyone.

Back at the police station, Inmar calls José out and berates him for wanting to cheat on Caterina. José doesn’t listen and is all ‘it’s so hard being me uwu’. Despite his friend being a fucking idiot, Inmar is a real one and warns him about Zuniga anyway. They sing a song about how José should/should not sleep with Carmen. Listening to José talking about how it’s soooo hard to not cheat on Caterina is like. That’s so sad world’s smallest violin Alexa play despacito etc. Then the mayor and Zuniga join in and sing about how they also want Carmen. Lana Del Rey was right the boys the girls they all want Carmen.

That night, the circus puts on a free show for the town. Everyone goes, including the now Carmen-ified townswomen. Inmar gets a cute moment with one of the girls (fuck everyone else I respect YOU).

Carmen and her girlies appear and perform a very catchy song about living in the moment and having no regrets. The townspeople are vibing but the party is crashed by Carmen’s Very Scary bf (?) Garcia, who owns the circus but has been off somewhere (it’s never explained where but whatever). We know he’s Bad News because he wears a black leather coat, a chain necklace + black boots, has an eye scar, an excessive amount of black eyeliner, a chest AND neck AND arm tattoo, and throws knives around.

Ok, on one hand, the interesting thing about the opera (though not the novella) is that José starts out being a good person but descends into evil and this guy being obviously Bad from the beginning removes that theme, but on the other more important hand, I eat this stuff right up and I’m not mad about it. Dolhai Attila and Homonnay Zsolt are playing him in the upcoming Hungarian version but you know who would have been PERFECT?? Szabó P. Szilveszter that man would make this dude PATHETIC.

Anywhoo, Garcia is pissed that Carmen put on a show for free and apparently he’s another guy who thinks he owns her. Obviously he missed the multiple ‘I only belong to myself’ songs she sang whilst he was off doing fuck all. Where is Elisabeth singing Ich Guhör Nur Mir when you need her? José arrests Carmen again to protect her from both Zuniga and Garcia, who apparently gets a pass for throwing knives at people in front of the entire police force but whatever he’s a knife thrower so maybe they figure that’s just what he does.

Caterina is upset that José is taking Carmen in, but he explains that she’s not safe with the increasingly thirsty Zuniga. Which, ok, is true, but we all know damn well that’s not the main reason.

Carmen and José are about to have sex but are interrupted by Zuniga AGAIN. He pulls a gun on Carmen (or José I literally cannot tell) and demands Carmen have sex with him. But here comes Garcia with a steel chair Garcia has ALSO been following them and attacks Zuniga. Carmen and José run away while Garcia fights Zuniga. I NEED to mention that Garcia is wearing a vest under his jacket but is otherwise shirtless. What does the vest even DO. What is the point of a vest if you are shirtless under it like ugufhddhgddhdh

There’s a neat little fight scene until Garcia remembers he’s a knife thrower and literally has knives in his pants, and stabs Zuniga before shooting him with his own gun. He then frames José for the murder.

Act I ends with the entire town singing about fate and fateful decisions (did you notice they are themes??) while Carmen and José are finally about to have sex without Zuniga interrupting them (RIP asshole).

The police force is not only corrupt, but corrupt and stupid, so they don’t dust for fingerprints on the gun used to kill Zuniga or anything and go straight to assuming José killed him. The mayor is Big Mad, not because José killed Zuniga (lol) but because he cheated on his daughter, who is worried about losing José (girl why, just let the trash take itself out). Garcia is Big Mad and jealous, and gets a line about how he is ‘the fear they can’t outrun’ just in case you weren’t already 100% certain this is the Big Bad. Like. Just in case. In case you didn’t get it.

Now we have a nifty circus scene full of circus performers (I just KNOW Opi will have a field day). Hopefully later productions do without the zoo animals :(

Carmen confronts Garcia over framing José for murder, and he responds by accusing her of having real feelings for José before singing a song about how he owns her and she can never escape him (tbh just typical boss/employee behavior). Despite the (obviously) disturbing lyrics it’s kind of a bop. I do think it’s dependent on the singer - the Czech actor has a rough and unpolished voice that’s perfect for the song, but I can see it sounding weird when sung by guys with a different vocal type. You know whose voice would be perfect for his songs?? Szabó P. Szilv*gunshot*

Despite the fact he spends the entire song flinging her around the stage, the thing that really upsets her is him saying José will never go for her when he has Caterina. I understand the bar for men is in the Grand Canyon but THAT is what upsets her??? The thought of losing the most Mid man on the planet?? Not the increasingly possessive and violent guy following her around ??? Side note: there is a giant circus poster on stage of Garcia looking sinister while holding knives just in case you somehow still didn’t get that he’s bad news by this point. If you didn’t - no worries! You will be reminded many more times before the musical is over.

Garcia warns Carmen that if the police don’t find José he will kill him and everything he loves.

Meanwhile, the police have been given orders to arrest José or kill him. I’m not all that familiar with police procedure but it seems weird they would kill someone outright just because the mayor tells them to. Why is the mayor even giving orders to the police force ?? I understand he is corrupt but ?? ???? ?????

Inmar, who again, is the only Real One, warns his bff and tells him to get out of town. José actually takes some accountability for his actions but immediately ruins it by forcing poor Inmar to sit through a song about how he is stupid and is not going to leave Carmen. Inmar, for reasons I cannot possibly fathom, still cares about José, and promises he will watch for Garcia at the circus. He leaves but José is not done with his song and forces us to listen to his whining for a few more minutes.

Carmen urges José to run away with her, but he refuses because he wants to clear his name. This man is so stupid !!! He is SO stupid !!! He cannot get worse at this point !!!

Carmen warns him about Garcia wanting to hurt everyone José cared about. It takes José a few seconds, but he eventually realizes that means Caterina.

Apparently he can get worse at this point, and urges Carmen to warn Caterina. THIS IS MAYBE ONE OF THE DUMBEST PLOT POINTS IN ANY SHOW EVER ASIDE FROM WHATEVER WAS HAPPENING IN LOVE NEVER DIES. Alas, it is needed because Carmen and Cat need a showdown.

And showdown they do have - in a church no less! They start off antagonistic (and Caterina finally has a Bad Bitch moment!!) but then bond over how stupid they are for falling in love. They are soo right I could not agree with this song more. Girlies you are stupid. They have a cute little moment where they hold hands and you start to hope they will run away together and leave José behind but NOPE. Caterina has the potential to be such an interesting character but noooooo we had to go the ‘personality amounts to loving a man’ route. We had hints Caterina could be an interesting character !!! She mentions feeling desire but feeling guilty about it because of religion and feeling like she is disappointing her family !! More of that !!! More deconstruction of the Good Girl trope instead of playing it straight !!! They could have went with her realizing she didn’t really love José and just was doing what was expected of her but spoiler alert this does not happen !!!

Caterina, who now realizes Carmen actually loves José, suggests to her that they work together to protect José and expose Garcia as the murderer. WHY ARE YOU PUTTING YOUR LIVES IN DANGER TO PROTECT THIS SKRUNKLY ASS MAN MAMMA MIA HE IS NOT WORTH IT. Carmen believes it’s too dangerous for her, but Caterina says she is tired of playing it safe. Caterina’s aunt pops out of nowhere and tells them it’s totally a good plan. They decide to draw out Garcia at the circus (HE OWNS THE CIRCUS AND IS A KNIFE THROWER WHERE TF ELSE WOULD HE BE WHY DO YOU NEED TO DRAW HIM OUT OH MY GODDD).

The circus is about to put on a show (presumably for money this time), and the townspeople are congregating to watch. Jeff Bezos I mean the mayor arrives wearing his sunglasses at night, causing that song to be stuck in my head along with the admittedly catchy songs from this musical. We get more circus performances featuring a lot of fire (I cannot WAIT to see the Does My Health Insurance Pay For This amount of fire the Hungarian version is going to go with).

You came to see a musical but SURPRISE! You’re getting a circus performance too. Does this make up for the wonky plot points? You decide.

Garcia arrives on the scene to sing about how the circus and everyone in it belongs to him and that everyone should be totally scared of him because he has knives in his pants and can kill people. Inexplicably they are scared, even the fucking whole ass police force that showed up. I understand he can throw knives but I don’t think that would be any match for, say, seven guns. CALL ME CRAZY. I also don’t think he has actual jurisdiction over anything just because he has a circus. Call me crazy again.

Anyway, the song is banger but is alas, too short. Why do the bad guys always get the bangers and bops ??? I’m not complaining but it’s a valid question. You know who would play this part perfectly - ?? * gets dragged away *.

Garcia grabs Caterina and makes her part of his knife throwing act. For some reason the mayor allows it. Whatever, I’ve given up trying to understand. Before he can throw the knife, Carmen appears and offers herself as the target. While it’s a badass moment and cool of Carmen to save Caterina, it makes no sense. But whatever! It’s dramatic!

Anyway, Carmen offers to have knives thrown at her by an extremely violent guy who explicitly says he wants to kill her. He tells her that he would definitely kill her in front of everyone because he is not afraid to die. First off, I don’t think the audience (of the circus) was meant to hear him saying that but I wonder about how much they heard considering they look freaked out when he violently grabs Carmen by the neck. Second, you gotta appreciate a villain who talks the talk and walks the walk. So many bad guys are all *surprised pikachu face* when they actually die, so shoutout to this asshole who is actually committed to his cause.

Garcia, being the professional performer that he is, tells the audience they are going to see something they’ve never seen before (presumably Carmen’s death). Before he can throw the knife, José jumps in front of her. Garcia very loudly and explicitly tells the audience that he is going to kill someone, but the police straight up do not care. José accuses him of killing Zuniga, but his dramatic moment is ruined by Garcia straight up admitting it in front of everyone. He waves his knife around and continues telling everyone how he is going to kill someone. Again, the police just casually watch. Go girl give us nothing.

Garcia throws his knife at José (tbh at this point I was rooting for it) but nooo Carmen jumps in front of him and gets stabbed instead. Inmar (who again is the only bitch I ever respected) fatally shoots Garcia but it is too late. Carmen dies in José’s arms before she can tell him she loves him. To reiterate, this bad bitch died for the most skrunkly ass dude on the planet we HATE to see it.

Caterina walks away from both her sketchy dad and José (yas queen) to follow the procession leading Carmen’s body away.

The personification of Fate, who has apparently also been a fortuneteller at the circus this whole time, tells us the story’s over. Carmen, presumably now in Heaven, sings about how she wouldn’t change anything about her life if given the chance. WELL I WOULD, CARMEN. I WOULD.

….AND YET ??? Barring the plot and some character personality choices I ??? Liked it ??? It has a ton of potential if they just change some things about the plot and characters (I’m serious). The songs have been stuck in my head for days and I like the fact they gave Carmen some depth beyond the standard Femme Fatale archetype. Unfortunately, the wonky plot points and José exist.

#carmen #carmen frank wildhorn #carmen the musical #shoutout to the one person who will read this i am smooching you on the cheek

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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ISTANBUL (JTA) — “Jews not allowed,” read the sign in English and Turkish above Rağman Şahaf, a used book store next to Istanbul University and not far from the city’s famed Grand Bazaar.

Even after the sign was taken down on Friday, the store’s owner said he stuck by the message.

“I do not want to buy anything from Jews right now, I do not want to sell anything to Jews right now, this is how I tell them,” Ozkan Mustafa Küçükkural told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“Maybe it should have said Zionist or Israeli, but I was angry and emotional,” he added. “My brothers in Palestine are dying.”

Anti-Israel banners and graffiti, along with Palestinian flags, have become commonplace across Istanbul, as many of its citizens fume over Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that left over 1,400 dead. Images have also circulated of taxis with signs saying that their drivers would not serve Israelis.

Antisemitic incidents have taken place beyond Istanbul, too. In Izmir — a city once home to tens of thousands of Jews now in the midst of a small-scale Jewish revival — a synagogue was defaced with graffiti that read “Murderer Israel” on Saturday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has had an up and down relationship with Israel over the course of his 20 years as Turkey’s head of state, has come out firmly defending Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7, calling the terrorist group a “a liberation group.” In response, Israel recalled its diplomats from Turkey on Saturday.

It has all amounted to a tense atmosphere for Turkish Jews, who now number around 15,000 and descend mainly from Sephardic families but also include Ashkenazi, Romaniote and Mizrahi communities. That number was close to 80,000 in the founding year of Turkey’s republic in 1923 — exactly 100 years ago on Sunday.

Antisemitic rhetoric has spread throughout Turkish politics, too. A day after a hospital in Gaza was hit by rocket fire on Oct. 17, a politician from Turkey’s ruling AKP party, Süleyman Sezen, representing a small municipality called Atakum in the Black Sea city of Samsun, said at a public hearing that he was praying for the soul of Hitler, adding that the world will find peace when it is cleansed of Jews and that the Holocaust was “unfinished.” Evidence showing that the explosion was likely from a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket has not nullified such outbursts.

“The Hitler rhetoric is not new in Turkey,” said Turkish-Jewish publisher and author Rifat N. Bali, who has written about political Islam’s portrayal of Jews. “I cannot say that it comes from ultranationalist political fractions… Why? Because they are fed day in, day out, pictures of ‘babies killed by IDF.’”

On Oct. 10, Huda-Par parliamentarian Şahzade Demir addressed the Turkish parliament, calling to revoke citizenship for Turkish Jews if they volunteer for the Israeli military. Days later, Yeni Akit, a far-right media outlet, called for Turkish Jews to be denaturalized, under the false claim that they all have dual Israeli citizenship. (The Hrant Dink Foundation, a Turkish NGO devoted to minority issues in the country and named after a murdered Armenian-Turkish Journalist, has called out Yeni Akit as among the most prolific publishers of hate speech in Turkish media.)

“This fear scenario is not new. It was also brought up during the Mavi Marmara controversy, and the issue of citizenship of Jews who are citizens of the Republic of Turkey and who served in the Israeli army was brought to the agenda,” said Serdar Korucu, who writes a column on antisemitism in Turkey for the Jewish site Avlaremoz. He was referencing a deadly clash between the Israeli army and a flotilla of pro-Palestinian activists from Turkey in 2010. “There has never been such a practice in the history of the Republic of Turkey. The harshest sanction would be to prevent them from doing military service in the future.”

Several large pro-Palestinian protests have taken place in Istanbul since Oct. 7. In one demonstration, Turkish protesters briefly breached the fence of the Israeli consulate before being dispersed by Turkish police.

Erdogan, who had warmed to Israel in recent years, has regularly met with leaders of Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and most Western powers. His foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday that it rejects the idea that its rhetoric on Israel has been antisemitic.

“We reject the baseless accusations of anti-Semitism, and the slander and insults against our President and our country,” read the statement released on Sunday. “It is known to everyone that Türkiye’s track record on this issue is spotless — unlike many countries that support Israel unconditionally today.

“It is a truth acknowledged by all historians that Türkiye has been a safe haven for all those who were oppressed throughout history, including the Jews,” it added.

In 1492, the Ottoman Sultan, Bayezid II, sent ships to Spain to ferry exiled Spanish Jews to his empire, resulting in the country’s large Sephardic community of today. But Turkish Jews have also faced several periods of oppression, including an infamous tax in the 1940s and pogrom in the 1950s which have become the subject of a popular Turkish Netlfix series.

The local Jewish response to the situation has not been all shock and dismay. Jacob Behar, a Turkish Jew who owns a shop around the corner from the Istanbul shop that had the “Jews not allowed” sign, expressed disappointment at the sign but said it didn’t make him feel insecure.

“It doesn’t represent the general ideals of Turkish society,” he told JTA. “My family has been here over 500 years, we wouldn’t still be here if we didn’t feel safe. Of course, there are individual things, but there are also individual things in Israel.”

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gavroche-le-moineau · 1 year ago

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This evening I'm catching up with Les Mis Letters so here are some language notes from the last few chapters:

LM 5.5.6 - The Two Old Men Who Do Everything...

1. A fun pun! Marius says: “The men of the revolution are so great, ... and each one of them seems to me an antique memory.” In French the last part of this line is: “... et chacun d’eux semble une mémoire antique.” M. Gillenormand then responds with “Moire antique!” meaning antique moire - a rippled or wavy fabric - and the next day he buys a dress of this fabric for Cosette. If you haven't spotted the joke yet, "antique memory" in French is "mémoire antique" so M. Gillenormand either only heard or only chose to hear the very last part of what Marius was saying and interpreted it as Marius talking about the fabric.

2. In one of M. Gillenormand's long speeches he says “... I am always harping on your people, but do look favorably on my dealing a bit of a slap to the bourgeoisie. I belong to it.” The last sentence is exactly the same wording in French that Grantaire uses in his line "Vive la République! J'en suis." translated in Hapgood as "Long live the Republic! I'm one of them." It's such a common phrase that I don't expect much was meant by it but I found it to be an interesting parallel.

3. “[Aunt Gillenormand] went regularly to service, told her beads, read her euchology, mumbled Aves in one corner of the house, while I love you was being whispered in the other,” This is just kind of interesting- the "I love you" in this sentence is written in English in the original text. I'm not sure why.

LM 5.6.1 - The 16th of February 1833

1. There's a missing sentence in Hapgood's translation after: “Collé, Panard and Piron flow from it, enriched with slang.” The sentence after it is: “On crache de là-haut sur le peuple le catéchisme poissard.” which I would translate as "One spits vulgar catechismes (summary of a religious doctrine) on the people from up there."

2. Very shortly after the previous sentences, there's the line “Uproar reigns in front, tumult behind.” I feel like Hapgood didn't really capture the vibes of the language correctly here because the words used for "uproar" and "tumult" are "Brouhaha" and "Tohubohu" respectively. Brouhaha can be kept as-is in English, and apparently Tohubohu can be translated as hurly-burly although I've not really heard that expression before, but both give a more accurate sense of the onomatopoeic nature of the words being used.

3. I can't comment on all of it right now but there's SO much fun argot being used in the conversation between Thénardier and Azelma- my version of the French text has a ton of its rare footnotes to explain all the slang. One tiny thing that's bothering me about the Hapgood translation is Thénardier ends with “That don’t matter. You must try. You understand me, Azelma.” but the French ends with “Entends-tu, Azelma ?” so it really should be "Do you understand, Azelma? / Do you hear me, Azelma?"

These chapters are a bit longer as we approach the end here! I think I'll have to save the next one for tomorrow, but now I'm only one behind.

#les mis letters #lm 5.5.6 #lm 5.6.1 #lm 5.1.23 #les mis language

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sakuhina · 11 months ago

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Hi! Do you know any books in English about the Estado Novo Dictatorship and the subsequent 25 Abril Revolution?

Anon you asked this like months ago sorry I'm only answering this now, are you still here.

(Sorted alphabetically)

Estado Novo:

Fado and Fátima: Salazar’s Portugal in US Film Fiction

From the Armed Struggle against the Dictatorship to the Socialist Revolution: The Narrative Restraints to Lethal Violence among Radical Left Organisations in Portugal

Under the Sky (documentary about Jewish refugees in Portugal during WWII, audio is in English but subtitles in Portuguese)

Meeting Salazar: Irish dignitaries and diplomats in Portugal, 1942—1960

Home Bound: The Construct of Femininity in the Estado Novo

Memory of Resistance and the Resistance of Memory: An Analysis of the Construction of Corporatism in the First Years of the Portuguese Estado Novo

NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe (Chapter 9: The secret war in Portugal)

On student movements in the decay of the Estado Novo

Portugal, Jewish Refugees, and the Holocaust

Re-reading the Photographic Archive: The Propagandistic Staging of the Portuguese Estado Novo in the Braga District

Salazar: A Political Biography

Salazar, The Dictator Who Refused To Die

Saloio Women: An Analysis of Informal and Formal Political and Economic Roles of Portuguese Peasant Women

Sixties Radicalism and Social Movement Activism - The War Against The War: Violence And Anticolonialism In The Final Years Of The Estado Novo

Territorializing Maoism: Dictatorship, War, and Anticolonialism in the Portuguese “Long Sixties”

The Memory of the Portuguese First Republic throughout the Twentieth Century

The Opposition to the 'New State' and the British Attitude at the end of the Second World War: Hope and Disillusion

The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution

To Talk or Not to Talk: Silence, Torture, and Politics in the Portuguese Dictatorship of Estado Novo

Women's Organizations and Imperial Ideology under the Estado Novo

Ghosts of war: China’s relations with Portugal in the post-war period, 1945–9*

Wartime Macau: Under the Japanese Shadow*

Colonial War:

Amílcar Cabral's writings in English

Evading the War: Deserters and Draft Evaders from the Portuguese Army during the Colonial War

Killing Hope U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War (Mentions the CIA's role in the Colonial War + subsequent involvements in Africa during their civil wars)

Modern African Wars (2): Angola and Mozambique 1961-74

Portugal’s African Wars: Angola, Guinea-Bissao, Mozambique

Portugal's Guerrilla Wars in Africa

Samora Machel Speaks, Mozambique Speaks

The Retornados from the Portuguese Colonies in Africa

The United States and Portuguese Decolonization

25 de Abril / Carnation Revolution:

Another Country (documentary about the revolution seen first-hand by foreign journalists, available in solidaritycinema)

From the Armed Struggle against the Dictatorship to the Socialist Revolution

Out of the Shadows: Portugal from Revolution to the Present Day

Portugal, the impossible revolution?

Revolução (small video from 1975 with images and speeches from the time)

Scenes from the Class Struggle in Portugal (documentary, quality is a bit bad)

These are all the articles, documentaries and ebooks I have in English, but I have plenty more in Portuguese if anyone wants. Some of these are not *necessarily* what you asked but eh. Do note I haven't read all of these. Let me know if any of the links don't work!

#portugal #25 de april #colonialism #anti colonialism #carnation revolution #anti fascism #history #idk what else to tag it as #not much stuff about estado novo or 25 de abril here #i also have books about timor in english but they are mostly about the indonesia occupation and independence in 2002 #not about their first armed struggle against portugal until 1974. but if anyone wants i can link them too #and i have one about macau about the 'negotiations' for the handover but it didn't really fit here so i didn't add it #among other stuff #feel free to reblog and add more stuff btw if you want #long post -#hopefully tumblr won't kill this post because of the links! but i saved it it's fine #m.text

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nesiacha · 5 months ago

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Proclamation of Louis Delgres

I have already spoken about Louis Delgrès’ sacrifice in this post https://www.tumblr.com/nesiacha/751677840407330816/on-this-day-die-louis-delgres-freedom-fighter?source=share, but I only wrote it partially. Here it is in full (translated into English):

To the Entire Universe

The Final Cry of Innocence and Despair

It is during the most glorious days of a century forever celebrated for the triumph of Enlightenment and philosophy that a class of unfortunate souls, destined for annihilation, is compelled to raise its voice to posterity to make known, once they have disappeared, their innocence and their suffering.

Victims of a few bloodthirsty individuals who dared to deceive the French government, a multitude of citizens, ever faithful to their homeland, find themselves ensnared in a proscription devised by the very author of their misfortunes. General Richepance, whose powers we do not fully understand as he is only introduced as an army general, has only revealed his arrival through a proclamation so carefully phrased that, even as he promises protection, he could deliver death without deviating from the terms he uses. By this manner of speech, we recognize the influence of Admiral Lacrosse, who swore us eternal enmity... Yes, we would like to believe that General Richepance, too, has been deceived by this treacherous man who knows how to wield both daggers and slander.

What threats of authority are we facing? Do they intend to turn the bayonets of these brave soldiers, whom we had hoped to see arriving as our protectors, against us, when just yesterday they were only directed at the enemies of the Republic? Ah! Rather, if we are to believe the acts of authority already inflicted at Port-de-la-Liberté, it is evident that the system of a slow death in dungeons continues to be pursued. Well then! We choose to die more swiftly.

Let us dare to say it: the most atrocious maxims of tyranny are surpassed today. Our former tyrants allowed a master to free his slave, and everything indicates that, in this age of philosophy, there are men, unfortunately too powerful due to their distance from the authority from which they derive, who wish to see men of black color, or of such origin, only in the chains of slavery.

And you, First Consul of the Republic, you philosopher-warrior from whom we expected the justice that was our due, why must we lament our distance from the source of those sublime concepts that you have so often made us admire? Ah! Surely one day you will come to know our innocence, but by then it will be too late, and the wicked will have already taken advantage of the calumnies they have spread against us to complete our ruin.

Citizens of Guadeloupe, whose difference in skin color is a sufficient reason not to fear the vengeances that threaten us — unless one wishes to accuse you of the crime of not turning your weapons against us — you have heard the reasons for our indignation. Resistance to oppression is a natural right. Even divinity cannot be offended by our defense of our cause; it is the cause of justice and humanity: we will not tarnish it with even the shadow of a crime. Yes, we are resolved to maintain a just defense, but we will never become the aggressors. As for you, remain in your homes; fear nothing from us. We solemnly swear to respect your women, your children, your properties, and to employ all our means to ensure they are respected by all. And you, posterity! Shed a tear for our misfortunes, and we will die content.

#napoleon #slavery #guadeloupe #france #napoleonic era #one of the reason I hate Napoleon #louis delgrès #revolt

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theculturedmarxist · 2 years ago

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Putin delivered his annual report to the Duma, Russia’s analogue to the US State of the Union, at noon Moscow time. It was delayed from its typical year end slot due to Putin having a raft of important international meetings then. Some Western commentators are oddly referring to the timing as three days before the anniversary of the Special Military Operation, when it is the anniversary of Putin’s speech on February 21, 2022, in which after a very long preamble, he proclaimed:

I consider it necessary to take a long overdue decision and to immediately recognise the independence and sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic.

The US and Europe launched their economic war against Russia, with their shock and awe sanctions, on February 22, before Putin gave his February 24 speech announcing the launch of the SMO.

I normally prefer to work from Kremlin transcripts, since as Alexander Mercouris points out, Russian has subtleties than can be marred in a live or rushed translation, and the official English Kremlin version will most accurately reflect what Putin intended to convey. However, the EU’s Josep Borrell and NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg are holding a joint press conference NATO Sec Gen Jens Stoltenberg with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on the heels of Putin’s speech, so they will be working from live translations. And recall also that Mercouris called out a raft of Western officials and the press hyperventilating over what they depicted as China presenting a peace plan later this week, when as Mercouris pointed out, all China said it was doing was presenting a position paper. So as usual, it will be important to watch for cherry picking or other misconstruing of what Putin said * * *

Western hawks and combat junkies must have been enormously frustrated by Putin’s 1 hour 45 minute talk. Even though he discussed the war in Ukraine, and the impact of the war permeated his speech, he announced no new battlefield initiatives, and stuck to reprising old themes: how Russia did everything it could to prevent the war, how the West ignored neo-Nazi assassinations and reprisals, how Russia saw Kiev seeking heavy weapons, planes, and even nuclear weapons. Putin stressed that Western leaders have admitted to their treacherous behavior as if they are proud of cheating and lying, are accustomed to colonialism and hegemony, and played similar deceptive games in Libya and Syria. Russia recognized the next target after Donbass would be Crimea, as the West has acknowledged.

Putin’s one big move on the geopolitical front came at the end of his remarks, that Russia would suspend its participation in the START treaty. This should come as no surprise to Russia-watchers. Putin reiterated the Russian grievances: the US had been withdrawing from treaties and operating in a more openly hostile manner, while in the earlier phases of security agreements, the US and Russia had developed more trust. Specifically, the US was not allowing Russia to inspect US facilities yet was demanding Russia do so. Putin also pointed out that nuclear armed France and UK were outside these pacts, yet had their weapons aimed at Russia (the official translation may be clearer on this issue, but it was clear in context that Putin was pointing out they were acting as US operatives and just inspecting US facilities, even if that were on, now seemed inadequate).

The speech was mainly what I call “pothole Putin”. Putin seems to genuinely relish exercising power in comparatively mundane ways: launching new programs that improve material conditions or security and getting them completed. Perhaps this is a bureaucrat’s version of edifice complex. Perhaps it’s because more elements are under his control and with realistic time frames and competent officials, the odds of success are pretty good.

But the many many plans that Putin described each by each might not seem that significant, all together they represent a substantial commitment to invest in science, technology and education, transportation, housing, hospitals and schools, to manage the impact of the war, from integrated programs for veterans and families of the fallen to reconstruction in the liberated oblasts, to supporting the arts and culture. Putin was explicit that Russia, particularly its elite, had been seduced into thinking the West offered opportunity and security. Even though he noted that ordinary Russians shed no tears for oligarchs who’d had funds and property seized by the US and the EU, and if they decided to remain outside Russia, they’d be second class citizens, he said there would be no witch hunts. He encouraged them to come back to Russia and rebuild.

Mind you, as a non-Russian, I do not know to what extent the raft of initiatives are new, versus extensions and improvements of existing programs. For instance, Putin mentioned meeting target to have all major roads upgraded to national standards, IIRC by 2025; this was an affirmation that an existing target would be met. Ditto another on school building. But most sounded new or upgraded. And they might sound hand-wavey if you hadn’t read the public portions of Putin’s meetings with senior staff. This seems to be the level of detail he uses for directives: a high level sketch with some discussion of key points and problems to be solved.

Putin mentioned up the impact on the rest of the world: the paltry spending on poor countries versus the amounts deployed in Ukraine, a dig at Borrell for depicting the world outside the US/NATO garden as a jungle. But he was clearly speaking mainly to a home audience and stressed the intent of the West end Russia as a country. Despite foreign leaders now casually admitting to those designs, many of the usual media suspects have taken to depicting that part of his talk as the sole/major focus and yet another Russian conspiracy theory. For instance, from the BBC:

President Putin’s speech today was full of patriotic bluster.

The Kremlin leader once again portrayed his country as the victim, claiming it was the West, and not Russia, that had started the war in Ukraine. Russia, said the president, was just trying to stop it.

He reeled off a long list of historical grievances, before announcing that Russia would be suspending its participation in a key nuclear weapons agreement with America.

Ironically, once you get past the Daily Mail headline (US slams ‘absurdity’ of Putin’s national address as Vladimir says Russia will no longer participate in nuclear arms treaty and accuses the West of starting Ukraine war in bid to spark global conflict and achieve ‘limitless power’), the opening para is not too bad:

President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday vowed to continue with Russia’s year-long war in Ukraine and accused the U.S.-led NATO alliance of fanning the flames of the conflict in the mistaken belief that it could defeat Moscow in a global confrontation. Addressing Russian lawmakers in his annual state-of-the-nation address (shown left), he claimed Russia had tried ‘everything possible’ to avoid conflict, before he launched his invasion of Ukraine on February 24. He said he was addressing them ‘at a time which we all know is a difficult’ and vowed to ‘systematically’ continue with the offensive in Ukraine. His speech comes days before the war in Ukraine passes the one-year mark on Friday. Putin ordered his forces into the country on February 24, 2022 in what he calls a ‘special military operation’ instead of a war. Since then, tens of thousands of men have been killed, and Putin, 70, now says Russia is locked in an existential battle with the West. The address came the day after US president Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv to meet Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky

Putin paid considerable attention to the effects of the war and what the government would do in response. He had a very long section early on thanking the many who had contributed, from children writing to soldiers at the front and pensioners donating to war foundations, to military priests, doctors and medics, construction workers, factory employees working extra shifts, and even journalists going to the front. He also stressed how well Russia had adapted “on the fly” with business and construction lending up more (and more than in 2021 v.2020), banks in the black, unemployment at a record low at 3.7%, GDP down only by 2.1% and inflation expected to reach 4% by second quarter 2023. He particularly praised the productivity of the agricultural sector, with exports hitting a level that would have seemed inconceivable 10 to 15 years ago.

But Putin’s plans are ambitious, for wholesale reorientation and improvement. He said that Russia had fallen in with the Western short-term economic model which resulted in focusing unduly on commodities. Putin wants Russia to focus more on what economists would call value added, with aggressive investment across the board: the development of new logistics corridors and investment in Black Sea and polar shipping, in basic R&D, in vocational schools, in medicine and pharmaceuticals, electronics, nuclear, construction, and administration. He also called a wide range of new schemes, from stronger deposit insurance and pension protections, better access of small companies to capital markets, subsidized loans to encourage factory building, housing subsidies for young scientists, tax breaks for companies that use Russian IT and electronics, modernization of primary health care, free gas for kindergartens and hospitals….and more.

Putin stressed that Russia has everything it needs. His vision is not quite autarky; he expects Russia to trade. But he want to develop internal capabilities across the board so Russia can be more self reliant and self sufficient.

Putin implicitly presented the war as something Russians can manage with effort and some individual sacrifice, as opposed to have dominate their society. And so far, that is how it is shaking out.

#putin #vladimir putin #russia #special military operation #ukraine conflict #us imperialism

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razrubio · 2 years ago

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origins & family

Full Name: Horaz Hugo Rubio

Reason for name: Named after his uncle on his mother’s side.

Nickname(s) and how they got them: Raz, shortened vs of his name.

Date of Birth: August 15, 1996.

Age: 26, turns 27 in August.

Gender: Male

Place of birth: Keystone, South Dakato

Places lived since: Boston, MA. Barcelona, Spain. Los Angeles, California.

Social Class: Upper Middle Class.

Parents’ names, backgrounds, occupations: Isabel and Gerard. Mother’s from Barcelona, father from Dominican Republic. Mother’s a attorney, father a surgeon.

Siblings: Only child.

Relationship with family (close? estranged?): Estranged with his abusive parents. Had a cousin he was close with, but they fell off with communicating.

Children of his/her own?: None.

If so, relationship with child’s mother/father?: N/A

Age he/she became a parent: N/A

physical

Height: 6’2”

Weight: 237 lbs

Build: Tall, muscular.

Race: Hispanic.

Nationality: American.

Face Shape: Rectangular.

Distinguishing Facial Features: Has a strong jaw line.

Hair Color: Black.

Usual Hair Style: Out in curls or braided.

Eye Color: Dark brown.

Complexion (freckles, acne, skin tone, birth marks, scars): Light brown complexion, light freckles around his nose, birth mark by his mouth but you’d have to be very close to notice.

Disabilities (physical or mental, including mental illnesses): Depression, healing from childhood traumas.

Health (usually sick? or very resilient? allergies?): He has really bad allergies and usually has to be very medicated during the spring.

What do they consider their best feature?: Their smile, but he doesn’t capture it on camera much.

Worst they’ve ever been injured (what, how did it happen)?: Broken arm after a car accident.

Ticklish: He used to be but he had a cousin who used it against him so he trained himself not to be.

appearance

Style of dress/typical outfit(s): Whatever mood he’s in, it varies.

Typical style of shoes: Sneakers or slides.

How does he/she dress up?: Dress down?: Dress down.

Favorite outfit: Birthday suite, no clothes.

Glasses? Contacts?: Neither.

Personal Hygiene: Very importantl to him.

Grooming (makeup? shower daily? wear only clean clothes? pluck eyebrows?): Does his eyebrows, showers daily or twice a day, maintains a neatly shaved beard and hairline. Washes frequently to always wear clean, neat close.

Jewelry? Tattoos? Piercings?: Earrings, lots of rings, necklaces, and watches. No tattoos, but his ears are pierced.

What does their voice sound like?: Deep, hoarse.

Style of speech (loud, mumbler, articulate, etc.): Quiet.

Accent?: Spanish accent.

Unique mannerisms/physical habits (bites nails, talks with hands, taps feet when restless): Rubs the back of his neck when nervous. Paces. Expresses emotions with his eyes a lot.

Left handed or right?: Left handed.

What does their writing look like?: Usually writes in cursive, sloppy at times.

Do they work out/exercise?: Yes, frequently.

beliefs & intellect

Level of self esteem: High, confident in himself but varies with his music.

Known Languages: Spanish, English, Some French.

Zodiac (sign and if they lend any credence to it): His sign is a leo.

Gifts/talents: Singing, writing, playing the piano and drums.

Shortcomings: Taking on too much responsibility at once.

Most sensitive about/vulnerable to: His music.

Happiest memory: His childhood with his mother.

Life philosophy: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde.

Religious stance: Christian.

Political stance: Hates politics but gets involved for the better.

Pet peeves:

Vices: Pride z

Bad habits: Talks over people in arguments, staying in toxic situations z

Neuroses: Overly critical of his music.

Disgusts: Foods like chitterlings.

Superstitious: Very.

Sense of humor: High, finds humor in anything.

How do they deal with stress?: Locking themselves away to recharge.

What do they do to get pumped up?: Very social, wants to go out and do things.

What do they do when upset?: Yells, takes his frustration out on something, plays video games to relax.

What about angry?: Same as being upset.

How do they react to frustrations (get worked up, calm down and think through it logically, give up, etc)?: Gets upset quickly, yells if needed, has a method to calm himself down but that rarely works.

How do they accept failure (both from themselves and others)?: Feels pathetic at first especially in his career.

Level of comfort with technology: Fair.

Believe in the supernatural: Yes.

Believe in an afterlife: Yes.

Believe in happy endings: Might be starting to.

How do they want to be remembered?: He’s trying to figure that out now.

Good with their hands (if so, practical/crafting or fine arts)?: Yes, he’s always doing new crafts or home improvements on his own.

How fast do they learn new things? Better with book knowledge or hands on approach?: Better with reading it through.

How do they feel about asking for help? Hates it.

“Left brain” or “right brain” thinker?: Right brain.

Optimist or pessimist: Depends

Extrovert or introvert: Introvert

Leader or follower: Leader

Makes decisions based mostly on emotions, or on logic?: Both

Cautious or daring: Daring.

Spontaneous or planner: Spontaneous.

Thinker or doer?: Both

Organized or messy: Organized.

Worrier or carefree: A little of both.

Artistic?: Very.

Mathematical?: No, hates math.

sex & intimacy

Current marital/relationship/sexual status: Taken

Sexual orientation (is it something they question or a secret): Bisexual

Past relationships and sexual partners (if applicable):

What is their “type” in regards to looks in a partner?: Leo

Ideal mate/qualities they look for in mate: Someone who understands his humor and has their own, smart, ambitious, clean, fun to be around but also relaxing to be around, caring.

Primary reason for being broken up with: Ghosting and not sure of what he wants.

Primary reasons for breaking up with people: Not compatible, always arguing or disagreeing, disloyalty.

Views on sex (one night stands, promiscuity, etc): He’s over the one night stands and wants something more secure now.

Age and story of first kiss (if any—if not, how does he/she want it to happen?): 15 with his partner at the time, sloppy.

Age and story of loss of virginity (if any—if not, how does he/she want it to happen, if at all?): 16. In high school in the locker room, happened so fast.

Level of sexual experience: High, diverse.

Do they have any unfulfilled sexual fantasies?: Ues

Wildest/strangest sexual experience? Would they do it again?: Sneaking around with his professor. Not now.

Do they have any fetishes or kinks?: Yes

Have they lied about their previous sexual partners to current/potential partners?: No

Love or Lust: Both

Ever been in love?: No.

Do they fall in love easily?: No.

Do they take relationships seriously?: Yes.

Worst thing they’ve done to someone they loved?: Abandoned them.

Do they desire marriage and/or children in their future?: In the far future.

Believe in true love or soul mates?: Yes.

Thoughts on public displays of affection?: Loves it.

How do they flirt: By joking around with them, joking on them.

How do they show affection/love to their partner?: He buys them gifts, surprises them with spontaneous acts or dates, kisses, hugs, and touches them a lot.

Thoughts on cheating/cheaters? Have they ever cheated?: Cheaters are selfish and don’t really love their partners. No.

Idea of perfect date: Day at the beach.

relationships

Social Habits (popular, loner, some close friends, makes friends and then quickly drops them): Loner.

How do they treat others (politely, rudely, keep at distance, etc)?: Politely at a distance.

Do they trust people easily or tend to be wary?: Wary.

How often do they see friends and family? Very rare.

Are they good at keeping in touch? If not, does this bother loved ones?: He used to be. Now it’s a burden.

What is relationship with parents/family?: He has no relationship with his parents, disowned them.

Any roommates or close neighbors: One close neighbor who’s now his gym buddy.

Person most dependent on: His boyfriend.

Most comfortable around (person): Leo.

Oldest friend: Max from college.

Closest friend: Leo.

Worst enemy: Father.

Rival (at what and why): No one.

Most important person in their life?: Leo.

Who do they most respect and why?: Leo because of how he lives, how ambitious he is.

Who would they turn to if they needed help and why?: Leo.

How does he/she think others perceive him/her?: As not a people person, but he can be.

How do others actually perceive him/her?: He has no idea.

Argue or avoid conflict?: Argue.

Thoughts on large groups of people?: Fun for group trips, festivals, road trips.

Main quality they look for in people: Trustworthiness.

Have they ever lost anyone close to them? How did they handle it?: His mother, not by death. It hurt him for years.

How do they show affection?: Gift giving and pda.

Do they act differently around strangers than friends? If so, how differently?: Not really, a bit quieter.

Would they ever consider adopting a child? Why or why not?: Yes because it might be his best choice apart from having a surrogate. He’d love to give a child a loving home. Something he never had.

vocation

Level of education: Bachelor’s Degree.

Profession: Song writer, musician.

Describe their work space: A spacious room with his instruments, a studio, and his comforts.

If no job, where do finances come from?: Has a job.

Past occupations: Barista, waiter, retail associate.

Dream occupation: Song writer of the year.

Passions: Working out, music, traveling.

Attitude towards current job: Positive.

Attitude towards current coworkers, bosses, employees: Depends on the musician he’s working with. It varies.

Salary: $120k yearly

Spender or Saver? Why?: Saver because he’s afraid it’ll all come crashing down like his parents kept telling him.

Which is more important – money or doing something they love?: Doing what he loves.

#l.a task

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elimgarakdemocrat · 2 years ago

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"""

On behalf of the great Kendra Province, The Land of the Rolling Valleys, let me express my solemn gratitude for your votes and for the honor of addressing this convention.

Bajor is at a crossroads today. The next few years will be more decisive for our future than any since the days of the resistance. Bajor stands today poised to either join the Federation or become an Empire in our own right.

Many of us are hopeful. Many of us are tired. And many of us are terrified.

Some of my comrades today have discussed the spiritual consequences of joining the alien's power games. I [gestures to vedecic robes] agree with them wholeheartedly. But to be honest, I am not terrified for the spiritual damage; I do not fear the prophets love. I am terrified for what this will do to our Culture.

The Terrans, in their most common language, English, have a phrase: state of war. As is traditional in their languages, it is a pun, meaning it has two distinct but profoundly related meanings. The first is the condition of being at war: for example one might say Breen state of war Romulus. The second is a nation whose foundation is war: for example one might say Romulus be state of war.

The Federation embodies this. In the last 260 years it has been at peace for only 58. It has been in a state of war. And as a result, it has become a state of war.

Look around you. Look at the "scientific and diplomatic organization" of Starfleet. Do the scientists at the University of Dahkur carry guns?

[crowd: no!]

Do the delegates at the Chamber of Ministers carry military rank?

[crowd, louder: no!!]

Do we want to live in a world where the only thing in the way of a coup is a military captain saying no?

[crowd, even louder: NO!]

So I say: for the sake of the prophets of Bajor, for the sake of the culture of Bajor, and for the sake of the people of Bajor, choose Peace!

[Crowd Cheers]

Thank you, and may the prophets smile on you, and may the prophets smile on a free and truly independent Republic of Bajor.

"""

- Koral Patina, in acceptance speech for the nomination, at the Peace Party's first Convention, October 2375

This is part of a series I'm calling Exarchates, about the politics of Bajor and Cardassia post DS9. The text in orange here represents words spoken in English rather than Bajoran.

#star trek #politics #ds9 #bajor #cardassia #starfleet #starfleet is a junta #oc #Exarchates

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mechrepto · 1 year ago

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Warning! Celestial Decadence is a Worldbuilding project in development created by MechRepto, although many events and elements in this project reflect real historical events or are scientifically based, C.D. should not be taken as a source for anything, be it historical, biological, paleontological etc, many of the elements in this project are purely fictional. Nothing on the C.D. should be used to spread fakenews, hate speech, racism, homophobia or apology for Nazism, fascism, dictatorships, wars, genocides and all the disgraces related to these topics. Many projects inside C.D. have an anti-Nazi and anti-war message as their goal!

I'm going to focus on the CD story only, the ww1 version is in a parallel universe that I might explore further, but that's probably only going to be in RPs or art, their official story is in my chaotic and nonsensical WorldBuilding called Celestial Decadence.

also, one more warning, my English is pretty broken, I used translator here, so sorry if something is not right or out of place. now... it's time for the big text

Divided by a great mass of dead and desolate land, Linus and Lorenz are two young soldiers and dreamers, Linus is a soldier of the North German Empire, Lorenz is a soldier of the South German Republic, they met in the Grey Zones and began to develop a friendship that later became a romance, their superiors did not accept this relationship, but a war against an unusual enemy allowed them to spend more time together.

And... it's time to give a lot of context, since I rarely said anything about the many Germanies in Celestial Decadence. we are in the 43rd century, the world is different and devastated, there are places known as "Dead Zones" or "Grey Zones", there is one that crosses part of Germany, dividing North from South, this place is a big no man's land, there are many abandoned and even inhabited trenches from previous wars, not many things are born and grow there, this place is dominated by Beasts and deadly Creatures, Mercenaries, bandits and other criminals make this place their home, many wrong things happen there, sale of drugs, dangerous weapons and artifacts with celestial influences, risks for the society, this place must be monitored and nothing must get out of there, so Soldiers from the North and South live in these zones, fighting against many different groups and preventing Austria from getting close, why? Because they went backwards, they became fascists (how? I don't know, I need to develop this man, kek).

Linus and Lorenz met in the Zone, at first it was just respect for each other, then it became a friendship and soon a romance, the two started sharing letters and whenever their squads met they were together, their superiors noticed these interactions and started to get worried, Obviously they didn't like this interaction, North Germans don't trust South Germans, and South Germans don't trust North Germans, they thought that one of them might be some kind of spy and asked them to stop these interactions, they were soldiers on duty and should act like it, but one afternoon would change everything.

It was getting dark, everything was starting to get in a bluer shade, a strong fog covered the desolate and destroyed landscape of the Grey Zones, trenches and more trenches, the North Squadron was a few meters away from the South Squadron, just monitoring the area, when suddenly shouts and shots came from the South, the South German soldiers were being attacked by some unknown enemy, the North Squad decided that they would wait for the dawn to come to investigate the situation, the suspicion was an attack of mercenaries or coming from Austria. The next day Linus was afraid, Lorenz might be dead, there was no sign of life coming from there, so they went to investigate, looking in every corner, tense and alert! Then they found a strange soldier wearing a familiar uniform, but at the same time new, it was a Nazi! Member of some SS, but where did he come from? Austria was Fascist but they didn't wear Nazi stuff, that soldier came from some unknown place, soon they found more and more of them, dead, together with South German soldiers, Linus was even more scared, was Lorenz still alive?

Exploring the trench further, the soldiers found the Superior from there, he was alive, but wounded, he had lost a lot of blood already, he needed medical attention as soon as possible, but Lorenz was also alive! He was barely hurt, helping his friends and comrades, Linus was relieved, but there was someone else there, one of those mysterious Nazi Soldiers, he was alive and unconscious, he was captured and taken to the Northern Squadron base. Upon interrogating the mysterious soldier, he said he came from another Planet, Hanrenthe! Where there was a nation called New-Germania, the New-Germanian Reich, they wanted to reconquer the German territory, after much discussion, bites and blood, the North Squadron together with the South Squadron decided that they would stay together for now, so they would have more chances against the New-Germanians, Linus and Lorenz were happy with that, they could stay more time together now! But still they were sad and worried, a New War has started, a war against an enemy that is still unknown, the only certainty is that they were Nazis and that they should be stopped at all costs!

Officially it was declared that North and South would help each other in this war, New-Germania was strong, they started to attack more and more, they wouldn't give up this crazy idea, but neither would the Germans, they wouldn't accept to lose in any way a war against Nazis... space Nazis by the way, Linus and Lorenz, together with their squads, started to work more together, punching Nazis in the face, putting them to run, but not only that.

And Yes, Celestial Decadence is kinda nonsense and I love it UHSUSHSAUHSA! So that's it for now, I tried to summarize this little story better, but I intend to make a short Comic about it, sorry if something got confusing or I didn't give more details of some things, it would be too LONG, but why Hanrenthe is inhabited? A long time ago some space colonies left the earth for reasons I will try to explain later along with other things. Sorry if something here bothered you, I really don't want to offend anyone, besides Nazis of course, I just want to tell the story of a decadent land where history repeated itself a few times, because it happens in real life all the time, unfortunately. If it's not clear yet, Linus and Lorenz are boyfriends! My gay couple! :D

..., btw, that's it for now, TSCHÜSS!!!

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didanawisgi · 2 years ago

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The Role of Biological Warfare in China’s Drive for Global Hegemony

The Role of Biological Warfare in China’s Drive for Global Hegemony by Clare M. Lopez

“In July 2021, Congressman Mo Brooks (R-AL) issued a Press Release that, to date, stands out for its courage and honesty. Rep. Brooks wrote about a meeting he’d attended with Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a Chinese medical doctor, Ph.D. virologist, and whistleblower, who fled to the U.S. from Hong Kong in 2020 after being threatened with being “disappeared” for speaking out about the origins of the SARS-CoV-2. Her mission since then has been to warn America and the world about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s offensive Biological Warfare (BW) program.

That program, a seamlessly linked effort directed by the CCP in collaboration with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), dates back to Mao’s 1949 takeover of China. In the wake of WW II, Japan’s horrifying use of BW against the Chinese people became known to the world. The Imperial Japanese Army killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese during the war under the auspices of Unit 731, that had been established in Manchuria in 1932 under the leadership of the notorious Gen. Shiro Ishii, chief medical officer of the Japanese army. Japanese occupiers performed hideous experiments on captive Chinese, including infecting them with cholera, gonorrhea, and plague. Japan’s BW program was also weaponized. Cholera was used to infect water wells and fleas infected with bubonic plague were dropped in aerial bombs over Chinese towns and villages.

What may be less well-known is that Mao’s Communist regime did not eliminate Japan’s BW program in China after the Japanese defeat in WW II, but instead took it over and developed it further. Despite the fact that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) acceded to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1984, the PRC’s so-called “civilian-military fusion” policy directs its offensive BW program to this day. “Civilian-military fusion” means that every medical or biological lab, research center, or even university academic program dedicated to basic biology, epidemiology, or virology is obligated to operate under CCP-PLA orders and to share any and all research with regime officials.

Writing in her 2021 book, What Really Happened in Wuhan, Australian author and investigative journalist Sharri Markson noted that “Intelligence agencies and Western governments have known for decades that China has a bioweapons program…Chinese military-affiliated scientists were discussing the weaponization of coronaviruses publicly and openly—and they did so five years before the Covid-19 pandemic”. Quoting from this author’s own December 2021 piece at American Greatness, we have an example of that openness in the May 8, 2021 edition of The Weekend Australian, in which “Australian journalist Riah Matthews revealed the contents of a 2015 document entitled (in English translation) ‘The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons’ that was co-authored by a group of Chinese scientists, including bioweapons experts and PLA scientists”. Even though the U.S. State Department reportedly has this document, no one from senior levels of the U.S. government has commented on it to date. Given the explicit language used by the Chinese bioweaponeers about SARS coronaviruses as part of a “new era of genetic weapons” that can be “artificially manipulated into an emerging human disease virus, then weaponised and unleashed in a way never seen before”, it might be thought that Congress would have held hearings on this, the National Security Council or State Department would have issued some statement, or the White House itself would have brought this to the attention of the UN Security Council. But none of that has happened.

This 2015 document from Chinese bioweaponeers is hardly the only source that attests so brazenly to the CCP-PLA BW program. In September 2019, Jeff Nyquist, a deeply knowledgeable analyst of communism and Marxism, posted “The Secret Speech of Chi Haotian” at his blogsite. Chi Haotian served as the PRC’s Minister of Defense until his death sometime after 2003, which is when he addressed a gathering of high-level CCP members. Quoting once again from this author’s December 2021 American Greatness piece, in this speech Chi spoke “in terrifying terms of the need for ‘special means’—biological weapons—to ‘clean up America’ and make room for Chinese to find ‘lebensraum’ [living space]”.

Pre-dating these documents, of course, is the 1999 Chinese military manual, written as their M.A. degree thesis by two Chinese PLA colonels and published as Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America by the PLA. Among the two dozen “methods of operation” listed within is included “Bio-chemical warfare”. On the page preceding that list, the PLA notes that “The American military is naturally inadequately prepared to deal with this type of enemy psychologically, in terms or measures, and especially as regards military thinking and the methods of operation derived from this. This is because they have never taken into consideration and have even refused to consider means that are contrary to tradition and to select measures of operation other than military means”.

To this point, we have discussed the various open sources that attest to the CCP-PLA’s well-developed offensive BW program. The question, scarcely mentioned by senior U.S. or Western officials, that may naturally be posed is “Why?” “Why are they doing this?” The fact that this question as well as the entire topic of China’s BW program is almost never mentioned, even after the massive devastation of the COVID pandemic, is curious at best and will await further discussion for the moment. But here let us delve into the malevolent motivation that drives the current CCP regime to wield such horrific weapons against us in the first place. For if we of what we like to think of as the Free World are successfully to resist being “assimilated” by an aggressive and expansionist would-be global hegemon (as David Goldman put it in his 2020 book, You Will Be Assimilated: China’s Plan to Sino-form the World), we must understand and confront those malign intentions.

It may be useful to begin by recalling what the famous Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu wrote some 2,500 years ago in his Art of War. This work, perhaps the most important military treatise of the last couple thousand years, presents a set of skills necessary to waging successful warfare. Among those skills, the most important lessons are those on how to avoid kinetic warfare in the first place, by instead deploying cunning, deceit, and psychological manipulation against an enemy poorly prepared to recognize or counter such measures. The PLA authors of Unrestricted Warfare and the CCP’s Party Chairman (perhaps for life?), Xi Jinping are steeped in the study of such strategies. Recalling the PLA’s all-too-accurate assessment of American military readiness (as written some two decades ago), we must somehow be jolted out of our “woke” stupor in time to recognize that China’s deliberate development of deadly pathogens in its military and civilian labs is being done with the explicit strategic military intent that they be unleashed on U.S. and world populations. The psychological warfare component that preceded the 2019 pandemic was pure Sun Tzu, beginning with what Peter Schweizer has told us is a CCP policy of “elite capture”.

With senior leadership of our government, media, and public health institutions co-opted (wittingly or unwittingly) to CCP stratagems, the American public has had no way of understanding the CCP’s plan to dominate the world, beginning with the development and unleashing of a deadly pathogen that we were pre-conditioned by CCP information operations to fear irrationally. The refusal to challenge the CCP-PLA’s decades-old BW program and an almost hypnotic willingness to lock down and thereby destroy our own economies, is pure textbook Sun Tzu. Almost three years into this organized attack, and except for a few courageous Members of Congress, there still has been little official or public pressure to hold the PRC responsible.

Xi Jinping has just been given his third 5-year term as CCP Party Chairman. The world witnessed on live TV his ruthless display of power when former Party Chairman Hu Jintao was dragged out of the Party Congress hall as Xi looked on impassively. Xi is quickly consolidating power, with the appointment of solid loyalists to the Politburo Standing Committee. Xi now has the power he sought to push ahead with plans to seize Taiwan, but also to continue development of what he considers the PRC’s most powerful weapon, Biological Warfare agents. Over the years, China has weaponizedanthrax, cholera, dengue, various coronaviruses (including the SARS family), plague, and tularemia as well as toxins like botulism and ricin. Such pathogens are studied at the PLA’s sprawling network of military labs as well as at ostensible “civilian” labs like the now infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology. U.S. intelligence likely knows about this but chooses to keep silent.

Remember above all that the PRC declared a “people’s war” against the U.S. in May 2019—and it didn’t just mean a trade war to counter then-President Donald Trump’s sanctions. It meant Unrestricted Warfare, which explicitly includes Bio-chemical warfare. It’s about displacing the U.S. as the world’s pre-eminent power. It’s about achieving power dominance for a liberty-crushing totalitarian system of governance. Deployment of BW agents is not necessarily about racking up a high death count, either: getting the U.S. and the world to paralyze our own economies and education systems without firing a shot while simultaneously manipulating us into avoiding any serious attempt to hold the CCP responsible is sheer psychological warfare brilliance.

Time to wake up.

How a CCP Operation Ensnared the US GovernmentHow HHS became compromised during the COVID Crisis

“As described in my earlier guest essay for this Substack, “Long history of China's CCP and Biowarfare”, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in collaboration with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has a long history involving development of its offensive Biological Warfare (BW) program. That piece explained how the CCP took over the Japanese Imperial Army’s WW II Biological Warfare program that brought such horror to the Chinese people from Japan’s Unit 731 based in Manchuria. Here now, we should first expand on how the Soviet Union teamed up with the CCP to develop both of their Biological Warfare programs into the massive state-run networks that they are today.

Then to get at the main theme for this essay, I will delve into the way the CCP eventually – I believe deliberately, methodically, and maliciously – ensnared the U.S. public health system and its leading officials in its own Biological Warfare program by way of partnerships on Gain-of-Function (GoF) research at the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill, the Galveston National Laboratory, and through U.S. Government (USG) funding for the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) channeled through Peter Daszak’s New York-based EcoHealth Alliance Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). While China certainly welcomed U.S. funding and technology, it did not actually need either: the CCP-PLA already had long been conducting GoF research, likely in collaboration with Russia. What the CCP did want, I believe, was to ensnare the USG in complicity for this or another Biological Warfare pandemic that it has repeatedly declared is a weapon of choice in its “Unrestricted Warfare” arsenal against the U.S.

When Ken Alibek, the First Deputy Chief of the USSR’s sprawling Biopreparat network, defected to the United States (U.S.) in 1992, he revealed for the first time how the Soviets had built a massive KGB/military-controlled biological weapons program under cover of ostensibly civilian labs and research centers. Some were managed by the Soviet Ministry of Health while others were overseen by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In fact, the entire apparatus was under the control of the Soviet Communist Party by way of the Politburo. Alibek’s book, “Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World—Told From Inside by the Man Who Ran It” was first published in 1999.

In “Biohazard”, Alibek confessed that, while still at Biopreparat, he had authorized Gain-of-Function work at the Vector Biological Warfare facility that was intended to create a “powerful new smallpox weapon”. Sergei Netyosov, Deputy Scientific Director at Vector, led a team of scientists who’d begun work on creating a chimeric virus that would combine Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) with vaccinia, a nonpathogenic virus related to smallpox. If successful, the result could have been a Biological Warfare double-agent capable of triggering both VEE and smallpox at the same time. Later, according to Alibek, Vector researchers reported success at inserting a gene for Ebola into the vaccinia genome to create an Ebola-smallpox chimera weapon. It is not known publicly whether Russian GoF efforts at creating such chimeras either continued or ever succeeded. But we do know that the CCP-PLA ‘civilian-military fusion’ offensive Biological Warfare program conducted similar such research – and did so much more recently – as described below.

Although Alibek did not mention much about the Soviet Biological Warfare collaboration with Communist China, we know from other open sources that soon after seizing control of China in 1949, Mao Zedong established a close relationship with Stalin’s USSR. At that time, the USSR was far more advanced in every technological area than China, which almost completely lacked a national technological base. Writing in the National Review issue of December 19, 2022, Klon Kitchen recounts how the Soviets sent “thousands of scientists and engineers to help Mao build his country’s technological base…[and] nearly 40,000 Chinese were sent to Russia to receive advanced training” there in return. Kitchen does not specify BW as a field of such training but it most likely would have included Biological Warfare.

For one thing, the CCP-PLA model for its Biological Warfare program is called “civilian-military fusion”. Just as in the former Soviet Union (and likely continuing today in Russia) the Communist Party’s Biological Warfare program is concealed behind a façade of civilian labs and research centers, so too in today’s China its BW program is spread out across a vast network of both civilian and military labs and research centers—but all remain under the administrative control of the CCP and top leadership of the PLA. Chinese virologist and whistleblower Dr. Li-Meng Yan and the Citizens Commission on National Security (CCNS)’s Col. Lawrence Sellin have described much of that network and its ongoing offensive “unrestricted warfare” model of BW. Israeli Lt. Col. Dany Shoham at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies also has written extensively on the CCP-PLA’s collaborative BW program.

For our purposes here, the important points to note are the close working relationship between the Soviet-Russian Communist Party and the CCP, the apparent modeling of the CCP-PLA Biological Warfare program on the Soviet one, and the decades-long commitment to Gain-of-Function research by the Russians. Given that history, as well as more recent reporting, there is little doubt that the CCP-PLA also have long been working on GoF experiments within Beijing’s overall BW program. Again, the importance of this understanding is that China did not need U.S. input, either financial or technological, to continue its GoF research with the SARS-CoV. Rather, the methodical “elite capture” development of entangling relationships with top U.S. research facilities and public health officials ensured that when this was all inevitably investigated and revealed, evidence would show close, long-standing USG involvement, thereby spreading the guilt for a pandemic the CCP itself unleashed and perhaps irredeemably tarnishing reputations and destroying public trust throughout the U.S. health care system.

One of the key studies that revealed both CCP-PLA GoF research and US government involvement is the widely publicized paper entitled “A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence”, first published in Nature Medicine 9 November 2015. Here we see some of the clearest evidence of GoF work on the SARS-CoV in which American and Chinese scientists together “built a chimeric virus encoding a novel, zoonotic CoV spike protein”. We will note that this study was conducted with funding from EcoHealth Alliance and included both Dr. Ralph Baric, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, and Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the now-notorious so-called “bat woman”, Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi, who heads the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Also of note is that this particular GoF research was conducted not only with U.S. taxpayer funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) all channeled through EcoHealth Alliance, but that it was off-shored to the WIV after President Barack Obama had stopped funding for GoF research in 2014 because it was too risky. The Obama “pause”, however, was “voluntary”, which allowed the Department of Defense to continue research under the auspices of “national security”.

In addition to the UNC/Chapel Hill, we should also mention the Galveston National Laboratory (GNL), located on the campus of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB). GNL is the second of these two university-based maximum containment (BSL-4) laboratories in the U.S. that are focused on the study of highly infectious diseases and development of medical countermeasures. Like UNC, the GNL is part of the NIAID Biodefense Laboratory Network, directed for 38 years by Dr. Anthony Fauci prior to his December 2022 retirement. According to GNL former Director Dr. James Le Duc (who retired in 2021), GNL has been collaborating with the WIV since 2013 and also with the CCP-controlled Chinese Academies of Science. Indicative of the influence the CCP wielded over U.S. public health institutions is the August 2022 admission by UTMB that it may have broken U.S. law when it signed contracts—including one with the WIV—that gave three Chinese labs authority to order destruction by its US partners of “secret files, materials, and equipment” with no backups allowed. Those MOUs, signed by GNL Director Le Duc, have since been terminated and UTMB has asserted that no documents or other materials were destroyed.

Another disturbing revelation appears in the 2021 book “What Really Happened in Wuhan” by Australian investigative journalist Sharri Markson. On page 216, she writes that in 2015 then-NIH Director Francis Collins “formalized collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences” (CAMS), which is the PLA’s highest level research institute. The PLA uses the CAMS’ dual-use research in the context of China’s civilian-military fusion model to advance its overall offensive BW program. Perhaps Collins’ collaboration with CAMS was merely naïve; the later consequences, however, were deeply detrimental to the official USG response to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, just as no doubt intended by Beijing, when Collins told Dr. Fauci in April 2020 that suggestions of a lab leak were a conspiracy. This is how elite capture works.

Indeed, it can be shown that the entire span of U.S. public health institutions, from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the NIH, and Fauci’s own NIAID responded to the COVID crisis in a panic once they realized that that their own funding of and involvement in China’s GoF BW program may have led directly to the public health disaster that convulsed the U.S. from 2020-2022. At least one email dated 1 February 2020 obtained by the U.S. Right to Knoworganization indicated that both Collins and Fauci early on were alarmed by the links they knew they’d personally fostered between the NIH and the WIV. As we now know, a secret teleconference with a group of virologists was held that very day and touched off a concerted effort to discredit the lab leak hypothesis, which likely would have led to discovery about their own contributions to GoF research at the WIV. There followed the 17 March 2020 paper “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” in Nature Medicine which claimed “strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation”.

Documents uncovered in a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request by Judicial Watch indicated that in May 2022 GNL’s Le Duc warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of potential investigations into the COVID issue by Congress. The content of more emails, as documented in a November 29, 2022 article from the Brownstone Institute, makes it clear that the CCP, the U.S. Intelligence Community, and leadership of the U.S. public health establishment have been trying desperately to stymie any efforts at investigation of the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 because they know that they themselves are implicated in funding and collaborating in the CCP-PLA BW research that likely created it.

How they all became involved, wittingly or not, in supporting the Chinese regime’s offensive Biological Warfare program is the story of a sophisticated recruitment operation—or as Peter Schweizer tells us the CCP calls it, “elite capture”. Since at least 2005, when Epoch Times acquired a copy of The Secret Speech of Chi Haotian, we have known (or should have known) that the Chinese regime actively is working to develop “special means to ‘clean up’ America”, specifically “new bio-weapons”. Jeff Nyquistpublished the entire speech in English translation at his blog in September 2019. That virtually the entirety of the U.S. public health system allowed itself to become ensnared in such an operation that finally looks to become fully exposed in planned hearings as Republicans take control of the House of Representatives nevertheless remains deeply disturbing. The naivete, if that’s what it was, or arrogance, carelessness, greed, that allowed leadership of the CDC, FDA, NIH, NIAID and top university lab facilities to be lured into complicity for one of the worst health disasters of modern times should inform us all of how the CCP conducts the “unrestricted warfare” by which China fully intends to take down America and the rest of the free world.

We welcome Congressional hearings into the entire affair but also second Dr. Robert Malone’s call for an international tribunal to “investigate and if warranted, prosecute those responsible for the millions of deaths caused by the lab-created SARS-CoV-2”, as he tweeted on New Year’s Day 2023. The SARS-CoV-2 disaster was global. Its deliberate unleashing upon the world, on top of the virus’ actual creation, by the CCP demands that China’s communist leadership be held accountable. The worldwide orchestration of devastating lockdowns—again at the instigation of the CCP, channeled back to Fauci by way of NIAID deputy director Dr. Clifford Lane—must also be investigated and explained. The failure by Fauci under oath in Congress to admit honestly to his and NIH/NIAID’s direct involvement in GoF research by what he must have known was a massive Chinese BW program likewise must be explained to the American people.

Let us hold Congress, our public health institutions, and the USG overall to account for what was done to us. We’ll be watching.”

Clare M. Lopez is the Founder/President of Lopez Liberty LLC and Director U.S. Geostrategic Security Issues for the Near East Center for Strategic Engagement (NEC-SE)

Source: Long history of China's CCP and Biowarfare & How a CCP Operation Ensnared the US Government

#Clare M. Lopez #biological WMD #sars-cov-2 #wuhan institute of virology #wuhan virology lab #resident evil #Unrestricted Warfare #fifth generational warfare #fav #most important #important

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