#MoSCoW method

[happytalepanda]

A beginner's guide for MoSCoW prioritization

In this infographic, we will get to know about MoSCoW prioritization. The acronym MoSCoW represents four categories of initiatives: must-have, should-have, could-have, and won't-have, or will not have right now……

[elegantballetalk]

Today’s watch:

The Little Humpbacked Horse, Bolshoi, 1964

[tumbleofdorks]

Okay, Cardassia, Soviet Union, 90's cultural relevance, here we go.

*deep breath*

The late 80's into the 90's was a super weird time, in general, but it was especially weird for the Soviet Union/Russia, and it all happened quite publicly, globally speaking. This absolutely and clearly influenced the creation of the Cardassians, and even more so their arc throughout Deep Space Nine. First, we gotta go back further for some context though, come on, take my hand.

Ah, here we are.

Right, so the primary writers for DS9 were mostly in their 30s and 40s when the show started (Ira Steven Behr was 39 for example), which means the looming threat of the Red Menace was omnipresent in the American psyche their whole lives. I cannot emphasize enough how much space the USSR took up, rent free, in the minds of Americans throughout the many decades of the Cold War.

Every spy novel, comic book series, and action movie had to have a Russian-accented baddie for the noble American hero to fight against. A quick aside, this is why Chekov being on the bridge in TOS was a Big Deal. Roddenberry was basically saying, "Someday all humanity will be working together in harmony, yes, even the Russians." Anyway, my point is, Russian villains saturated the media that the DS9 writers would have grown up with.

While the fiction was popping off, the real stories of life in the USSR from defectors were being consistently drip-fed to the outside world. Stories of dramatic show trials, where the guilt was already determined and the whole trial was just a display to sway public opinion. Stories of prodigious propaganda on every street corner, in every newspaper, and on every TV and radio. Stories of forced labor in gulags in the many USSR occupied territories. And oh yes, let's not forget the NUMEROUS stories of the Secret Police, the most infamous of which was the Committee for State Security, the dreaded and powerful KGB. A spy agency, full of sleeper agents behind enemy lines, experts in deception, espionage and assassination. Hm, now, where have we seen such things?

Also, let us be frank, we have the Romulan empire, the Klingon empire, the Terran empire, lots of empires, but Cardassia and its occupied territories are the Cardassian UNION? C'mon.

Okay, but then we get to the 90's and DS9, and this is where it gets REALLY juicy, so bear with me here.

In January of 1991, the Next Generation episode "The Wounded" introduced us to the Cardassians, and "Ensign Ro" in October set up the Bajoran occupation. While they didn't have the accents, they had a few likenesses to the American idea of Russian authoritarianism, a brutal military, religious suppression, gulag labor camps, strange torture methods, but it was still vague at best.

However, in December of that same year the USSR collapsed, the Soviet Union was no more, and it was WIDELY televised. The Western world watched on in various degrees of shock, joy, and trepidation as the seemingly invincible Soviet Union broke apart. The formerly occupied regions declared their independence, and the Russian central command (seemingly) withdrew all of their forces and government operatives quite suddenly back to Moscow.

Half a year later, in the Summer of 1992, Deep Space Nine began pre-production, and the Cardassians were chosen as the primary initial antagonists and the abandonment of Bajor as our backdrop. Through DS9 Cardassians gained a notable spy agency, the Obsidian Order, and a reputation of beuracratic record keeping and efficiency (the USSR was famously meticulous in its record keeping and "at least the trains/shuttles ran on time"). We explored their kangaroo courts, the friction between their military leadership and their civilian leadership (Stalin taking over from Lenin, anybody?), the consequences of rapid withdrawal of a controlling force, and the effects of economic instability on a super power. Mere months after the real collapse and withdrawal of the USSR, the DS9 writers choose to make the collapse and withdrawal of an authoritarian Union the driving plot point of their new show?

The writers, as they developed the show, were clearly exploring the themes that were playing out in the world around them. To the folks watching at home these would have been immediately recognizable, something that could be connected to contemporary events, as well as the lifetime of USSR figures in media that they were accustomed to. It was a familiar string to pull on and draw the audience in.

Ahem, so as you can see, the depiction of the Cardassian Union not only parallels the Soviet Union, but was uniquely relevant to an audience in the 90's that was watching the collapse of the USSR in real time on the nightly news.

However, it wasn't all the standard anti-soviet themes one would expect, which is how we ended up with Garak. The ways the writers used him thematically were so fascinating and so uniquely Star Trek. He LOVES his planet and his people, he's almost a spiritual successor to Chekov in that way: blindly loving of his home, claiming it is the best in all things. In the face of decades of anti-soviet media Garak was depicted as a morally-gray spy, yes, but in classic Star Trek fashion also fiercely loyal, noble, loving and multi-faceted. An enemy that can be made a friend if one tries hard enough, as long as there is a kernel of "humanity" within you both.

Star Trek hopecore is present even in the darkest of the TNG sibling shows.

[sleepymarimo]

୨୧. 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬

: ̗̀➛ following a job, toji wants nothing more than to spend time with the person who makes him feel more man than monster.

pairing: toji x fem!reader cw: not much, but i'll give a warning for suggestive themes near the end! very slice of life. the two of you shower together, just talk about your day and plan a date for tomorrow :) wc: ~2.3k an: currently pushing the 'toji is so, so soft with you when he's in love agenda'. blame my moscow mule and whiskey shot for this.

there's something about not having to pretend, about not having to put up a front, that makes toji realize just how tired he is.

his job is finally done, a few hits followed by using some not so friendly methods to gather up a bit of information for one of his clients.

throngs of people, neon lights and the honking of cars fade into echoes as he takes the local subway lines toward your neighborhood. he taps the fare card at each station's exit, it's balance never running dry.

it's one of the little things you do for him, keeping it stocked, allowing the assassin to get to where he needs to go.

he's so damn excited to see you.

this most recent gig has kept him away for a solid three, maybe four days at this point.

his body barely reacts to the jerks and turns of the train's car, arms crossed as he leans against the wall. there's not many people on the train and it's not like they would sit by him, anyway.

with a small grunt he cracks his neck, allowing his mind to wander. he doesn't need to pay attention; he's confident that nothing will slip past his senses. while he wants to believe that you'll be sound asleep in your shared bed, a part of him figures that you're up waiting for him.

"shit." he thinks, one of his hands absentmindedly running through his hair. he was just in shibuya. maybe he could've grabbed you something from that specialty store you trekked to nearly every weekend or checked if that café was still collabing with the series you'd been gushing about.

the thoughts in his head are all but useless now, the train making it's automated announcement before coming to a rolling stop at the station that had become all to familiar to him these past few months.

he steps off, tapping his card to the reader and resisting to urge to roll his eyes at it's chime.

it's not a far walk, though there's a stark difference between this neighborhood and the rowdy inner city streets. there are no brilliant lights or flashing signs, but the occasional lamppost and crossing signal.

each step to your apartment feels like a weight off his shoulders, the corner of his lips curling into a small smirk as he punches in the code to the front door.

as he enters the apartment, the sliver of light from beneath your door tells him all he needs to know.

he kicks his shoes off and lets out a controlled breath, the bedroom door creaking slightly as he pushes it in and playfully scoffes at the sight of you clinging to consciousness on the bed.

the way your eyes light up, almost squinted as they're squished in by the apples of your cheeks, sends a ripple of warmth through his chest that he can only compare to the sensation of being stabbed. the only difference is that he'd gladly run into your blade, no questions asked.

"i thought i told you not to wait up, angel." he chides, through there's no bite in his words as he walks over until he's standing beside where you're laying on the bed.

his gaze flickers over to the television where one of your shows, a rerun, he's sure, is playing on the screen.

"oh shut up." you rise to a seated position, the blankets pooling at your waist as you continue with what you both know is a lie. "i wasn't tired."

he hums in acknowledgement, the sound so soft that he has to wonder if it really came from him. when you hop out of bed, standing before him, his brows raise in mild curiosity, his hands coming up to rest at your waist as he silently marvels at the warmth clinging to you.

"sure, angel." his thumbs lightly massage your skin over your clothes. "so what's the plan then?"

whatever show you're watching is quickly forgotten. you shrug, your hands resting on his. tilting your head toward the bathroom, you respond. "shower. you're not getting in bed all gross like that."

he doesn't protest, instead lowering his head and nudging it against yours, taunting you with a smirk. toji is aware that the scent of cigarettes and the stale air of some shitty bar cling to him like an unwanted coat. "who're ya callin' gross, huh? i'm clean enough."

yet, even as he speaks, he's guiding you toward the bathroom with a strong palm resting on your lower back.

the true white lights cast a somewhat harsh glare on the room, but the familiarity of your touch, of the sanctuary that is your apartment, only serves to soften him.

you navigate through the space with ease, the pipes hissing as the shower comes to life. it takes only a second for water to start spraying, the curtain rod clinking as you patiently wait for things to heat up.

"how'd the job go, anyway?" your hands find the hem of his shirt, gently tugging it up. he gets the hint, tossing the garment off to the side without hesitation before he does the same for you. “it was a long one.”

he doesn't bother hiding his admiration for your bare flesh, a noise of approval emanating from his chest as he leans forward and places a kiss on your cheek before helping you with your bottoms. the routine is familiar, grounding, to the man who thought he'd sworn off of any sort of domesticity.

the light thud of your clothes hitting the floor is drowned out by the sound of water droplets pitter pattering against the walls of the bathtub. "don't worry about that shit, angel." he replies, not unkind, eyes twinkling with amusement as he wraps his arms around you and brings you closer. "it's not for you."

it's hard fighting the instinct to roll your eyes, the water starting to heat up as indicated by the slow building of steam in the bathroom. the warmth of his body is much welcomed, your hands busying themselves with grabbing a shower cap and stretching it over your head.

"oh, c'mon, i can handle it." you protest, ever curious about the things he sees, the things he does. "i watch dateline, i know all about crime."

your words earn a chuckle from him, felt more than heard, his head lifting as he angles you toward the tub. "that right? sorry to burst your bubble, but it's not the same." his free hand comes up to press against your shower cap, the plastic wrinkling under his touch. he's always thought the accessory made you look silly, another gruff chuckle leaving him as his palm lightly swats at your ass. "get in already, it's cold."

the echo of your laughter is a siren's call he isn't about to leave unanswered. he steps in with you, a steady stream of water cascading down his skin and melting away the tension that had been clinging to his frame these last few days.

he's content to be pampered by you, to listen to you, to exist in your presence without pretense. for so long his life had been a series of transactions, whether he was selling his skills or himself. but here, he doesn't feel the need to put up any walls or act like something he's not.

with you, he's just a man.

a satisfied grunt leaves him as you massage body wash into his chest, your hands expertly spreading the soapy mix into the muscle before sliding them up to his shoulders. he can't help but take note of how focused you are, the sight almost comical, especially with that stupid shower cap atop your head.

"you're just feelin' me up now." he accuses, though he makes no move to stop you.

your hands pause for a moment as you let out a sarcastic chuckle, encouraging him to stand under the spray of water to rinse off. "there's not much to feel." you lie, doing your best to remain serious, but a smile unwillingly curls at your lips.

he hums in amusement, knowing damn well that you purred like a cat when you had your face pressed into his chest. "you're a fuckin' liar." he points out without much remorse, his eyes tracking your every movement while he purposefully flexes the muscle beneath your fingertips. "but sure, tell me there ain't nothing there."

in your mind, he's the one acting like a cat, his head tilted back and a lazy smirk on his face. it makes you want to snicker, push his buttons in that way you know he likes. "i spoil you too much."

"hm? sounds like a you problem." he lowers his head, your comment igniting a familiar playfulness. then, it's replaced with a rare sort of thoughtfulness, one of his hands coming up to rest on your hip.

he remembers what he was thinking about on the train, perhaps wanting to do a little spoiling of his own. "say, why don't we head to shibuya tomorrow? get you that mug from the café that’s doing that collab shit for the show you like."

toji feels like the best boyfriend for remembering such a small detail, knowing it was sure to earn him some points.

the steam starts to fog the mirror, the water hitting the tub in sporadic splashes as you rinse off your own body wash. your hands wipe some water off your face, shoulders lightly jumping with the laugh you give.

"they stopped doing it, like, two days ago." you reveal, smile a bit too smug.

he's momentarily dumbfounded, silently cursing himself. one of his hands runs through his still wet hair, pushing it back. some annoyed grumbles leave him, lips almost set into a pout. "shit, sorry angel."

truthfully, it's not that big of a deal, and you can't help but be amused by his mannerisms. you nudge him with your elbow, letting him know that not all hope was lost. "a café in kyoto is doing the 'collab shit', too. that one is still open."

"well fuck, why didn't you say that?" he nods, eyes wandering to the ceiling as he mentally maps out his schedule. "tomorrow then, let's go. we'll get ya all that overpriced shit with your favorite character on it."

the sound of your laugh is enough to make him smirk, his eyes following the path of the water as it runs down your skin. a day with his favorite girl, no crappy jobs or seedy clients, sounds like a damn dream.

"what if i had plans already, asshole?" you counter with a grin, challenging him, playfully goading him on as the last of the suds flow down the drain.

his eyes narrow and he scoffs, his demeanor nothing short of puckish. he knows you too well, figuring that the highlight of your day tomorrow would've been going out to grab a coffee or something. "no you fuckin' don't, angel. don't test me."

your lips press together as you ponder your next move, but you relent. "okay, fine, i don’t have anything to do."

"good." he replies, softer now, palm rising to rest on your damp cheek. there's a moment where he just blatantly admires you, thumb running across your lips. "tomorrow. you and me are gonna take the first train to kyoto, alright?"

you loved when he looked at you like that, but oh you hated how it made you feel like a damn school girl. still, you nod and lean into his hand. "yeah. me and you."

it could be from his gaze or from the thick steam in the bathroom, but you figure it'd be wise to get to bed. turning toward the faucet, you reach your hand out to shut the water off.

toji has a different plan though, a part of him not wanting this moment to end quite yet.

"wait, c'mere." he orders, bringing you close as his voice drops to a murmur. "forgot to kiss ya when i came in."

his actions make your stomach flip, your head angling upward to meet his lips for a kiss. his touch is firm, filled with intent, telling you everything you know he feels but struggles to say. a rough palm plants itself on the base of your neck, tilting your head to deepen the kiss.

he can't even begin to explain how you feel against him, his senses honing in on all you have to offer. the heat of your skin, the scent of your body wash, the taste of your lips… hell, he swears he can even hear your heart beating in your chest.

it's not enough for him and he pulls away, only to pepper kisses along your neck and shoulder.

a smile curls at your lips and you sigh in delight, hands planting themselves on his bicep, your thumbs running along the contours of his muscle and the occasional scar. when he pulls you closer, when you feel him, you click your tongue in mock protest.

"you're gonna make it hard to take the first train to kyoto." you whine, though each swipe of his tongue or grazing of his teeth breaks you down even further.

toji seems to know this, his grip on you tightening, his smile felt against your skin. "we'll get ya to kyoto tomorrow, angel." he assures, ensuring you're kept warm under the showerhead. "we can spend all day there. i'll buy you whatever you want, yeah?"

there’s no way you could complain about that, so you let yourself go.

nodding, you succumb to your fate, succumb to him, wholly.

it's a blur from there, but by tomorrow morning, the two of you are on the second earliest train to kyoto.

at your reserved seats, you watch the scenery roll by with interest, everything almost a blur due to the high speed. he's given you the window seat, his frame protectively placed between you and the rest of the train car's occupants.

your head resting on his shoulder, arm hooked comfortably beneath his bicep, toji allows himself a moment of respite, no pretending, no walls.

it's just you and him, and he feels like one lucky bastard.

[sayruq]

The International Criminal Court seeks a warrants against Netanyahu and Yahya Sinwar

The International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the October 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, the court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview on Monday. Khan said the ICC is also seeking warrants for Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as two other top Hamas leaders — Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader of the Al Qassem Brigades and better known as Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader. The warrants against the Israeli politicians mark the first time the ICC has targeted the top leader of a close ally of the United States. The decision puts Netanyahu in the company of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom the ICC issued an arrest warrant over Moscow’s war on Ukraine. A panel of ICC judges will now consider Khan’s application for the arrest warrants. Khan said the charges against Sinwar, Haniyeh and al-Masri include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention.” “The world was shocked on the 7th of October when people were ripped from their bedrooms, from their homes, from the different kibbutzim in Israel,” Khan told Amanpour, adding that “people have suffered enormously." The charges against Netanyahu and Gallant include “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict,” Khan told Amanpour..”

You can read the statement by the ICC prosecutor here

[allgarbo]

According to Sven Borg, who studied drama in Stockholm and was Garbo’s interpreter during her first years in Hollywood, it was common knowledge in Stockholm theater circles that Stiller was looking for a beautiful female puppet through which to express himself. After Stiller made Erotikon, according to Victor Seastrom, he was obsessed with this idea. He had suggested his scheme to several Swedish actresses, but they turned him down. When he cast Greta in Gösta Berling, she was more than twenty years younger than he, and while he was famous, she was unknown; surely, he could mold her. To become the clone of a teacher violated the Delsarte system, but Greta was overwhelmed by her swift promotion from a neophyte to the world’s greatest actress, which was what Stiller promised her she would become as his protégée. He also wanted to mold her into a version of his female self. Stiller was masculine and tough, but he had a feminine side. Since he wasn’t willing to represent it himself, which might reveal his homosexuality, he decided to create a woman in his image. According to Victor Seastrom, Stiller wanted his ideal woman to be sophisticated, scornful, and superior, but humanely warm, like Tora Teje, with the deep emotion and mysticism that Mary Johnson displayed in Sir Arne’s Treasure. In using these words, Seastrom described not only the mature Greta Garbo but also the ideal beauty of Garbo’s era: sophisticated, scornful, and superior, but humanely warm, and deeply emotional and mysterious—in other words, “glamorous,” which was Hollywood’s watchword in the 1930s. In coaching Greta, Stiller acted out her scenes for her, and then, when she did them, he praised her extravagantly one minute and criticized her severely the next, to break her down and reshape her. During the filming of The Saga of Gösta Berling, he put her through many retakes. Garbo said that she went through Gethsemane in making that film—a reference to Christ’s dark hour in the garden of Gethsemane before the crucifixion. Sometimes Greta broke down, calling Stiller names and crying, until he put his arms around her and soothed her. “Moje knows what is best for you,” he would say. (“Moje” was his nickname.) When he was displeased with anyone, Stiller would say, “I think I go home now,” meaning where he lived. Nils Asther, who studied with Stiller and serviced him sexually, stated that “Stiller had demonic control over all of us.” Silent film star Emil Jannings called him “the Stanislavski of the cinema.” In the Stanislavski method, actors go deep into their memory to use their past experiences to create the characters they play. Konstantin Stanislavski was a director at the Moscow Art Theatre, not that far from Stockholm; Stiller must have known about his technique. Garbo identified with Stiller. While they were in Stockholm, he taught her how to dress, to wear makeup, to walk and talk. He took her to fine restaurants and introduced her to his friends, who were surprised by how much she copied him. She went with Stiller in his roadster to towns and villages around Stockholm, buying antiques for the manor houses in The Saga of Gösta Berling. It was Stiller who first said, “I think I go home.” That phrase, rendered in dialect as “I t’ink I go home,” became a famous “Garboism,” the silly sayings American journalists attributed to her. Stiller refused to give interviews about his past or his private life, and Garbo eventually adopted that stance, too. She picked up “his pixie sense of humor, mixed with a dead-pan appreciation of the ridiculous,” as well as his perfectionism and his ironic attitude toward life. Yet, her identification with Stiller was never complete. When filming The Torrent, her first MGM film, she wrote to Mimi Pollak that she couldn’t stand having anyone control her, although she added that she felt as though she was married to Stiller—or she was his unmarried widow, a confused explanation of their complex relationship. Greta Garbo in The Saga of Gösta Berling (1924) directed by Mauritz Stiller

[megastamp]

The first issue of Tuva postage stamps took place at the end of October 1926. The miniatures were printed using the lithographic method. The issue consisted of 10 stamps with the same design but different colors. All the miniatures depicted the Buddhist "Wheel of Fortune" Dharmachakra (also featured in the first coat of arms of the republic). The denomination of the stamps ranged from 1 mungo (kopeck) to 5 tugriks. All the inscriptions were made using the old Mongolian Uyghur script. All the stamps were produced at the Moscow printing factory "Goznak" and were printed on standard sheets of 100. The stamps entered circulation on February 8, 1927, all of them are rare on envelopes and other items sent by mail from Tuva.

[mariacallous]

For 700 years, Moscow has expanded through relentless land grabs, growing into the largest country on Earth while subjugating countless nations.

In a recent video address, President Zelenskyy appeared wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Make Russia Small Again.” But this isn’t just a catchy phrase—it’s a call for historical justice and a reminder of Russia’s centuries-old imperial ambitions.

The T-shirt displays a map of the Grand Duchy of Moscow as it was in 1462, under the rule of Prince Ivan III, who sought to break free from the Golden Horde’s dominance. This era marked the beginning of Muscovy’s expansionist campaigns, during which it claimed lands beyond its borders. In the following years, neighboring principalities such as Yaroslavl, Tver, Ryazan, and Rostov were conquered—the same region that made headlines in August 2024 when Ukrainian forces advanced into it.

Even back then, Moscow employed methods that would become its standard practice for centuries—deportation. After conquering the Novgorod Republic, Moscow forcibly relocated its population to other regions. This move was designed to crush any resistance, as Novgorod had long been independent and a powerful rival to Moscow. By dismantling its center of influence, Moscow eliminated any hope for independence and silenced the potential for protest.

It was Ivan III who first declared himself “Tsar of All Rus,” even though he had never ruled over the lands of Kyivan Rus and merely aspired to conquer them. Over time, his ambitions extended to the northern territories of modern Ukraine—Siveria and Chernihiv regions.

The territory of Tatarstan, where the BRICS summit took place in Kazan in 2024, was conquered in the mid-16th century. These lands have never historically belonged to Russia.

In the following centuries, Moscow simultaneously pushed in all directions—deep into Siberia, south to the Caucasus, even waging war with modern-day Iran, while also advancing westward. The empire continuously grew, fueled by a desire to extend its global influence. When Peter I proclaimed the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, he claimed to be “reclaiming lands,” but in reality, it was a relentless campaign of conquest. Like every other empire, Russia’s expansion was built on the systematic expansion of its territories and subjugation of the peoples within them.

A particularly revealing example is Alaska. Russia sold the territory because it lacked the resources to maintain control, while the U.S. initially hesitated over whether it was worth purchasing.

Even in the 20th century, after the collapse of the Russian Empire and the rise of the Soviet Union, Russia continued its territorial conquests. In 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact—a secret agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—was signed. This pact divided Poland and carved out spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, effectively igniting the start of World War II.

While global empires were letting go of their colonies and former vassals were gaining independence, the Kremlin remained focused on expanding its influence. Moscow backed the war in Korea, as well as numerous other military conflicts, particularly in Asia. Its socialist-communist reach extended well beyond Asia.

Russia is a vast prison of nations. Over centuries, it has conquered vast territories, and in doing so, has not only seized land but also sought to erase the identities of the peoples it subjugated—just as it did in Novgorod. Native inhabitants were deported and resettled elsewhere. Crimean Tatars were forcibly expelled from Crimea, while people from central Russia were relocated to Ukraine’s Donbas.

The “Make Russia Small Again” T-shirt symbolizes a call for historical justice: Moscow was a principality in 1462. The history of the territories beyond serves as a reminder that Russia’s big size is the result of imperial conquest, with many nations still trapped in a sprawling colony.

[mesetacadre]

Hello! In one of your posts you mentioned Anna Louise Strong's The Soviets Expected It, where she describes that Belarusians did not turn on their Jewish neighbors when Nazis invaded the USSR. Then you said that in 30 years the USSR managed to extirpate antisemitism from the general population. Was this something Strong said in the book explicitly? I'm interested in the topic and I was wondering whether Strong's book is worth reading for her analysis on how the USSR managed to eliminate antisemitism or whether she only mentions it briefly. Thank you!

Hello! After searching for it, @komsomolka helped me find this quote. It wasn't by ALS as I remembered, but rather by Vic L. Allen in his book The Russians are Coming: The Politics of Anti-Sovietism:

It was German practice as they entered Soviet territories to encourage the local populace to engage in pogroms against the Jews as a first stage in their genocidal policy. They had some success in those areas which had become part of the Soviet Union since 1939 but in the Soviet Union proper there was no evidence of spontaneous anti-Semitism. A Jewish historian commentated that "In Byelorussia, a conspicuous difference is evidenced between the old Soviet part of the region and the area which had previously belonged to Poland and was under Soviet rule from September 1939 to June 1941. Nazi and anti-Jewish propaganda drew a weak response in the former Soviet Byelorussia: we encounter complaints in Nazi documents that, "it is extremely hard to incite the local populace to pogroms because of the backwardness of the Byelorussian peasants with regard to racial consciousness" Another view of the cause of the racial attitudes in Byelorussia was given in a secret memorandum by a collaborator to the chief of the German army in August 1942. He wrote: "There is no Jewish problem for the Byelorussian people. For them, this is purely a German matter. This derives from Soviet education which has negated racial difference... The Byelorussians sympathize with, and have compassion for the Jews, and regard the Germans as barbarians and the hangman of the Jew, whom they consider human beings equal to themselves...".

The Russians are Coming: The Politics of Anti-Sovietism (pages 144-145), Vic L. Allen, via ebook-hunter.org

This book goes into some detail regarding jews in the USSR, the sixth chapter, in part II, is dedicated to this.

Anna Louise Strong also wrote about antisemitism in the USSR, although just like almost any other subject in her books, she tackles it through a collection of anecdotes and observations, though I still think she paints a clear picture that's corroborated by Allen's book, for example:

Acts of race prejudice are severely dealt with in the Soviet Union. Ordinary drunken brawls between Russians may be lightly handled as misdemeanors, but let a brawl occur between a Russian and a Jew in which national names are used in a way insulting to national dignity, and this becomes a serious political offense. Usually, the remnants of national antagonisms require no such drastic methods; they yield to education. But the American workers who helped build the Stalingrad Tractor Plant will long remember the clash that Lewis and Brown had with the Soviet courts after their fight with the Negro Robinson, in the course of which they called him “damn low-down nigger.” The two white men were “deported” to America, disgraced in Soviet eyes by a serious political offense; the Negro remained and is now a member of the Moscow City government. The devotion of long-suppressed peoples and their willingness to die for their new equality is the prize that the Soviet national policy won for the present war. The Jews in the Soviet Union especially know that they have something to fight for as they see beyond the border Hitler’s destruction of the Jews and the anti-Semitism that spreads from country to country. When I last visited Minsk, which under the tsar was a ghetto city, and under the Soviets was the capital of the Byelo-Russian republic, with more than one-third of the population Jews, I asked the young Intourist guide, “Don’t you yourself, as a Jewish woman, ever encounter racial feeling in your daily contacts?” “I haven’t for years,” she answered. I wonder what she encountered when the Nazis entered Minsk.

The Soviets Expected it, Anna Louise Strong, via redstarpublishers.org

I recall across the years one of the Birobidjan leaders who went on the same train with me to Moscow. His energy and teasing laughter made him the life of the train. He frequently sat in the compartment with two Red Army commanders, joshing them about the quantities of edibles they consumed and declaring that he would have them arrested for upsetting the food balance of the country. Later he told me that these two commanders gave him more delight than anything on the train. He told me of his own early life in the Ukraine amid constant pogroms. He repeated the discussions with the two Red Army commanders. They had been asking whether the Red Army gave adequate help to the Jewish settlers. “We hear they made you a road. Was it a good one? Do they help you properly with your harvest? How are relations developing between the Red Army and the new immigrants?” “Can you imagine what those questions mean to me, a Jew of Birobidjan?” he asked. “No, you can never imagine it, for you cannot live my life. Those Red commanders are the sons of the Cossacks who used to commit the pogroms! And now it is all gone like a dream! They want to know if they help us adequately! They are too young even to remember pogroms. But I remember; I am old enough.”

The Soviets Expected it, Anna Louise Strong, via redstarpublishers.org

How much discrimination there was against Jews in educational institutions is hard to tell. It was never general but certainly there was some. It was evasive and struggles always developed against it. My best friend felt for a time undermined in her university job because she refused to yield to the anti-Semitism which seemed to be promoted by the Party secretary at the university. One day she came home exultant. “Now I know the Party doesn’t stand for anti-Semitism,” she said. “They removed A… He was in charge of universities here for the Central Committee and was behind much of this anti-Semitism.” This anecdote shows the confusion that existed. Anti-Semitism was sometimes promoted by people high in office, but always with evasion. The basic law that made it illegal was never attacked, challenged or revoked. The disease of anti-cosmopolitanism passed, and anti-Semitism with it. Not by law or decree, but because of three facts. In 1950, the USSR reached the highest production in its history, with comparative abundance of goods. The USSR also attained the A-Bomb — the threat of America’s monopoly was gone. And, also in 1950, the Chinese People’s Republic was established in Peking, and at once made alliance with the USSR. The sick, excessive patriotism bred by the cold war could not survive close contact with an eastern, equal ally, whose inventions began a thousand years before Russia’s, and whose present intelligence and achievements even the most successful Russians had to acclaim.

The Stalin Era, Anna Louise Strong, via redstarpublishers.org

In simple oratory the worker and peasant deputies to the new National Assemblies told of their tortured past and of their happiness when the Red Army arrived. Women told how in former days young boys had been held on anthills by landlords’ agents in order to break the spirit of rebellion, how a mother picking up fuel in the woods to heat water for a newborn baby had been caught by the lord’s forester, beaten, and afterward turned over to the attack of fierce dogs. It was a gruesome account of medieval conditions. Deputies from Grodno told how the Jewish and ByeloRussian workers of the city had organized their own militia before the Red Army came and had rushed out and helped build a bridge for it into the city under the fire of Polish officers. “As soon as the Red Army came,” said a carpenter from Bialystok, “we asked them to set up Soviet power for us. But they told us: ‘Soviet power is the power of the people. Organize it yourselves, for now you are the bosses of your lives’.” A simple peasant women deputy said: “Let the priests pray to God for Paradise, but for us the daylight is already come; the bright sun is come from the East.” Letters telling a similar story reached America from Jews in the occupied regions. They especially commented on their rescue from death, for they had been threatened both by German bombing and by anti-Semitic bands of Poles. “If the Red Army had been a day later, not a Jew in our town would have been left alive,” wrote a man from Grodno. Other letters marvelled at the new equality. “To the Bolsheviks everyone is equal; there is no difference between Gentile and Jew.” There was a grimmer side to the story. Poles in fairly large numbers were deported to various places in the Soviet Union. Letters received by their relatives in Europe and America showed that they were scattered all over the U.S.S.R.; the sending of the letters also indicated that they were not under surveillance but merely deported away from the border district. The Soviet authorities claimed that former Polish officers and military colonists had done considerable sabotage and kept the people disturbed by rumors of imminent invasions by Rumanian and British troops. After the conclusion of the Soviet-Polish alliance against Hitlerite Germany, these Poles rapidly joined the Polish Legion under the Red Army High Command. Most of them then stated that they fully understood the necessity of the Red Army’s march into Poland.

The Stalin Era, Anna Louise Strong, via redstarpublishers.org

The new people’s government of Lithuania had appointed as governor of Vilna an able Communist, Didzhulius, not long since out of prison. Prison had injured his health and he had gone to a rest home, but had not been able to take the time to get well. People were needed for Vilna, and so he came. When I saw him he had held office only three days. “We must end this evil process whereby first Poles suppress Lithuanians and then Lithuanians suppress Poles,” he told me. “Under Smetona only thirty thousand people here had the vote. We have given it at once to everybody. “There were one hundred thousand unemployed here. We at once began road-building and other public construction; we are setting up public relief. The old Polish pensioners had buildings and funds which Smetona did not let them touch. We have made their possessions available to them for the relief of those most in need. We have done more to relieve the misery of starving people in three days than Smetona did in six months.” One of the first decrees passed was that government officials must hear citizens’ requests in whatever language the citizens choose. For this purpose officials are sought who can speak as many languages as possible. Schools also are to be in all the local languages. “Under the Poles education was only in Polish; under Smetona it was only in Lithuanian,” said Didzhulius. “Now we shall have to have schools in our languages since there are four chief languages in this district: Polish, Jewish, Lithuanian and Byelorussian.”

The New Lithuania, Anna Louise Strong, via redstarpublishers.org

Overall, I think the picture ALS paints is a nuanced one. The USSR made a lot of progress removing racism and nationalism from its population, although it was not perfect and some decisions like the deportations were negative for the moved population (though not as genocidal or malevolent as most like to paint it), they did an outstanding job at the task of removing prejudice from their society at a time where that was not happening anywhere else, and this was reflected both in laws and in action. We have a lot to learn from their policies, both their many (even to this day) unparalleled achievements as well as from their flaws.

To these third party accounts I'll also add Stalin's own words:

In answer to your inquiry: National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism. In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty. J. Stalin

Anti-Semitism: Reply to an Inquiry of the Jewish News Agency in the United States . J. V. Stalin, 1931. First published in the newspaper Pravda, No. 329, November 30, 1936

[itsgerges]

Best Regards The Solar System Design Analysis https://app.box.com/s/dqbysn55yvzrfnsi77m7fjl2xxeirlqe or https://app.box.com/s/dqbysn55yvzrfnsi77m7fjl2xxeirlqe or https://gerges2022.livejournal.com/255339.html Paper Argument The Current Solar System Description Is Wrong Because It Depends On (5 Wrong Concepts) which are 1 The physicist Supposes The Planets Motions Are Independent From Each Other 2 Planet Formation And Nature (The Major Discussion) 3 Space Nature And Properties 4 The Sun Rays Creation Theory 5 The Solar System History (The Big Bang Concept is Wrong) Paper hypothesis No. (1) The Gravitational Waves Are Produced By The Planets Motions Energies And Not By The Gravitational Field- ALSO - (The Sun Doesn't Produce A Gravitational Field) Planet motion produces energy (1/2 mv^2) and this energy creates waves in the space- and these waves move by its planet velocity- for example- Mercury (47.4 km/s) moves and its motion energy creates waves in the space and these waves move by equal velocity (47.4 km/s)- means- the planets move and their motions create waves in the space and each wave moves by its planet velocity- AND the planets revolve around the sun in the same one direction for that their motions energies create waves in the space and these waves move perpendicular on the revolution direction (Toward Pluto orbit) AND in Pluto orbit these waves are unified together into one unified wave- this unified wave moves by a velocity= 205.8 km/s where The 9 planets velocities total=176 km/s but I add the Earth moon velocity (29.8 km/s) that makes the total to be 205.8 km/s – I add the moon velocity because the energy is stored finally in the moon orbit- This Unified Wave Is The Gravitational Waves –AND- the gravitational waves are reflected three times in the solar system – from Neptune to Saturn (1st reflection) and from Uranus to Jupiter (2nd reflection) and from Venus to Mars (3rd reflection) The gravitational waves reflection causes effects on the planets data because the reflection defines the energy motion direction- Also the gravitational waves reflection causes to square the wave velocity- means- if a gravitational wave velocity is (v) and this wave is reflected- its velocity after the wave reflection will be (v^2) Paper hypothesis No. (2) The Sun Is Not Doing Nuclear Fusion To Produce Its Rays- Instead- The Sun Rays Are Produced By The Gravitational Waves Motions Energies- let's see this article This Is Extraordinary: Gravity Can Create Light, All on Its Own https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/this-is-extraordinary-gravity-can-create-light-all-on-its-own/ar-AA19YL5d?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=620db4352aa943e2b454919a7b724604&ei=83 This new article tells the gravitational waves can move by speed of light and can produce a light beam- I claim The Sun Rays are produced based on this method by the gravitational waves motions energies and not by the sun nuclear fusion process AND Paper 1st hypothesis stated- The Gravitational Waves Are Produced By The Planets Motions Energies- and NOT By The Gravitational Field Shortly the Sun Is Not Doing Nuclear Fusion To Produce Its Rays- Instead- The Sun Rays Are Produced By The Gravitational Waves Motions Energies- AND- The Gravitational Waves Are Produced By The Planets Motions Energies- Means- The Sun Is A Phenomenon Created By The Planets Motions Energies (CONT) Gerges Francis Tawdrous +201022532292 Physics Department- Physics & Mathematics Faculty Peoples' Friendship university of Russia – Moscow Curriculum Vitae https://www.academia.edu/s/b88b0ecb7c E-mail mrwaheid1@yahoo.com gergesgerges@yandex.ru ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1041-7147 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/gergis.tawadrous VK https://vk.com/id696655587 Tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/blog/itsgerges Livejournal https://gerges2022.livejournal.com/profile Pocket https://getpocket.com/@646g8dZ0p3aX5Ad1bsTr4d9THjA5p6a5b2fX99zd54g221E4bs76eBdtf6aJw5d0?src=navbar

box https://app.box.com/s/47fwd0gshir636xt0i3wpso8lvvl8vnv Academia https://rudn.academia.edu/GergesTawadrous publications http://vixra.org/author/gerges_francis_tawdrous Slideshare https://www.slideshare.net/Gergesfrancis

[elegantballetalk]

Today’s watch:

Bolshoi Ballet Academy 2024 exam (excerpts)

[thewinter-eden]

psycho | han jisung (6/20)

6 : the knife

Pairings: HAN JISUNG x OC | LEE MINHO x 2nd OC

Rating: mature, dark

cross posted on AO3 under the_winter_eden and wattpad under alone-at-last.

Warnings: discussions of murder, torture, rape.

Cass's notes Minho's notes

psycho masterlist

< last chapter | next chapter >

pov : minho

How are you today?

He killed one of us last night. An eleven year old. Lily.

According to the pile of missing persons documents at the precinct, eleven-year-old Lily had to be Lilian Williams, an Idaho resident disappeared from Moscow ten months prior.

Minho adds her photo to the stack of notes that he reports to Captain Bang.

“Damn it.” Bang holds the poster loosely in his hands. He looks genuinely distressed by the news, the heavy bags under his eyes dragging at his features. “I’ll have someone check the dump sites we know of, see if we can find her body.” He shakes his head with a disheartened sigh. “Damn it. That makes thirteen.”

Has he hurt you since yesterday?

It was my turn after Lily.

What did he do?

You don’t want to know.

Please tell me.

He ripped out four fingernails.

Minho’s stomach lurches violently at the note in his hands. He feels like he’s going to puke, images of bloodied fingers and fleshy nail beds screaming through his brain.

He doesn’t know what to say back. What does one say to that? ‘I’m sorry’ seems so woefully insufficient. How can she endure it? How do any of them?

His hands shake as he pens a pathetic response.

I can bring antiseptic and bandages.

We have things to keep our wounds clean. But if you have pain medication, some of us will need it in a few days.

I’ll get some. Is something happening?

The next thing he takes is a finger.

How do you know?

He has a list. Some of the girls are farther through it than I am.

Captain Bang corroborates this information. According to all of the bodies so far, many of the girls are scarred and wounded in the same places, by the same methods. Some of them had more injuries than others, and they could now assume with some certainty that those girls had been in captivity for longer.

“We found Lilian Williams’ body this afternoon,” Bang says. “She’s missing her left ring finger. It looks like it’s mostly healed. C.O.D has been determined to be a stab wound to her throat, occurring some time during the night before last, which supports your pen pal’s story.”

His pen pal. What more will it take to convince this man that he’s truly communicating with a victim of Cain Roberts? Minho stares at his hands, watching the skin whiten and redden as he clenches and loosens his fists. “What was her most recent injury?”

There’s a moment of tense silence before Bang swallows audibly and answers. “Coroner identified signs of sexual assault and traces of semen. Based on the amount of tearing, it appeared to be her first occurrence of penetrative assault.”

Ten months.

That’s how far down the list the girls had to be to reach sexual assault.

“Were all of them killed around the ten month mark?” Minho asks at last.

To this question, Bang can offer some relief. “No. Time in captivity hasn’t been a consistent factor. We’re not sure what’s causing him to decide to kill them.”

That seems like both good news and bad news.

Minho grits his teeth. He’s tired of reading about the misery and pain down below and doing nothing about it. He’s sick of disappointing Cass, giving her meaningless reasons for their persistent inaction. It’s driving him mad. “Can we go after them now?”

They have a body. He brought proof. To any rational person, it would be more than enough.

Cassandra Young is exactly who she says she is, and she’s being tortured as they chat over sandwiches.

Though, in his defense, he hasn’t touched his ham on rye.

But Captain Bang just nods solemnly. “I’ll take this to the lead agent. He decides where to go from here but this—this is conclusive evidence. Well done, Officer Lee.”

That much is obvious.

Over the next few days, all Minho can scrounge up are copious amounts of over-the-counter painkillers, which he lowers to Cass in little cloth bundles that she can keep hidden.

He also sends down as many food items as will fit through the tiny hole in the ground and then through the narrow grate of her vent.

Her next request is for a knife. It doesn’t surprise him, but it takes a full hour of convincing the captain to allow him to give the girl a blade.

After that, he hears nothing from her. By the time she’s missed three of their check-ins, he doesn’t know where to let his mind go.

Half of him expects her to come stumbling out of the darkness to meet him, with seven girls in tow.

The other half of him expects to find her body dumped in a ditch.

But then, finally, after nearly thirty-eight hours of complete silence, he gets a message in shaky handwriting, the paper splattered with blood.

No more weapons.

He’s so relieved to get a response from her that he forgets to ask her what happened to the knife.

For the next few days, he does everything he can to supply her with food and medication, enough that she can share with the others.

He tells her about the weather, when it’s raining and when it’s sunny. He tells her what color the sky is, and when the grass starts turning brown.

She asks about his homework, which almost makes him smile. He’s a part time freshman at university, and his grades are suffering for her sake, and he can tell that she knows.

He just doesn’t know why she cares.

He tries to blow her questions off, to focus on her and more important things, but she keeps coming back to his assignments. She wants to know about his essay topics and his classes. She wants to know why he double majored, and why one of the majors is math.

He soon learns that she was supposed to be a freshman at the same university, and that she had enrolled as a student of political science. They probably would have met each other in classes and study groups, and it makes his heart clench.

So he tells her all about his classes, and tells her which ones she’ll probably have to take and which ones to avoid. He tells her about his professors, most and least favorites.

She asks him if the food in the cafeteria is any good, and he tells her about his favorite coffee shop on campus (which is also his favorite coffee shop in town).

He feels terrible, telling her all of the good things about the life she was supposed to be living, and he feels even worse telling her about the less-than-ideal things.

What does he have to complain about, when she’s living underground at the mercy of a serial killer?

But she keeps asking.

He doesn’t sleep. He barely eats. Seungmin has to physically prevent him from taking up residence in the sewer, just in case, and forces him to go home. He barely makes it to class. He misses many of his assignments.

How can he go home and sleep when there are eight girls under his feet, suffering?

Two weeks after he first discovered Cass, he lowers his first note of the day. A simple ‘good morning, Cass. Is there anything I can bring you today?’

The response is immediate. ‘Can you contact my parents? Tell them I’m ok.’

“Absolutely not.” Captain Bang refutes firmly. “If we track down and inform the families, we lose the investigation. The feds have been abundantly clear on this.”

The more he reports to his superior, the more Minho wants to throw him against the wall and hit him until he feels bones breaking. Every time he brings more irrefutable proof that these helpless girls need rescuing, Bang gives him another worthless excuse for not even trying.

“She’s asked for her parents, Captain. They have a right to know what’s happening with their daughter. And if she deserves anything, it’s to hear from her family.”

Bang raises his hands calmingly, which achieves nothing. “I know, Lee. I get it. But if I start bringing in parents, then we lose control of the situation.”

“We don’t have control of the situation.” Minho explodes. “The man just raped and murdered an eleven year old girl and you’re worried about what? Embarrassing him on the news?”

The captain’s eyes harden. “This isn’t a matter of Roberts’ pride. It’s a matter of operational integrity. I am not at liberty to tell you any more than that.”

So he has to tell Cass that the police won’t let him reach out to her parents, and he doesn’t have a response when she writes the word ‘why’ so forcefully into the paper that the pen rips right through.

There’s no answer good enough.

He hears her crying faintly through the vent, sounding a thousand miles away, and all he feels is shame.

pov : anna

Cain and Lily appear in her dreams for days following the incident. Every time she closes her eyes, her mind is pummeled with the shadowy figure of her captor and the deadened eyes of Lily. The coppery scent of blood scrapes through her nostrils and down her throat.

It’s nearly a week before she sleeps any more than an hour or two.

At first, Anna refuses to meet with the others when Han opens her door for evening meal. Instead, she remains on her cot, clutching her burned hand to her chest, and does everything she can not to think about the pool of blood that used to stain her floor.

She focuses on the sting of her ribs to keep the memories away, but it doesn’t work. It only hurts.

Han tries to get her to join the others, to gain strength from their company. He kneels by her bed and whispers empty consolation to the empty look on her face, and when that doesn’t work he leaves her alone. In an attempt to remove the pressure but not the invitation, he doesn’t close the door until it’s time to herd the girls back into their rooms.

It’s four days before she allows herself to crawl off the bed and seek the comfort of the other prisoners, and in that time she has received a matching burn on her other hand.

Han is so relieved that she’s exhibiting signs of life that he personally escorts her into their shoddy community room, a thin arm wrapped so tightly around her waist that her ribs scream in protest, and deposits her directly into Ruby’s arms.

The older girl already has two scarred over, burned hands. She welcomes Anna into her embrace like she doesn’t have enough rage and pain in her own soul to fill the halls of Hades. Ruby lets the newest captive weep into her shoulder with broken abandon, shedding her own tears in solidarity.

None of the girls are unaffected by Lily’s death.

Even Sara, who had been unresponsive the last time Anna saw her, is quick to offer a hand of comfort and commiserate the loss of a friend.

But none of them seem surprised.

“You can never stop reacting.” Ruby whispers, running her mangled hands through Anna’s hair. “You can never let your mind wander or take you away from that chair.” Her tears soak both their faces. “If he doesn’t get to watch you respond to his work, you lose all worth to him.”

Anna doesn’t get it.

She hears Ruby’s words, and she heard when Han told her the same thing. She saw the emptiness in Lily’s eyes even before the life had left them, and watched the resulting knife plunge into her throat.

But she doesn’t get it.

“Why does he do this?”

The other girls share glances. They’ve stopped asking those questions.

Ruby takes a deep breath and runs her fingertips over the scabs beneath Anna’s collarbones. “Cain has a very specific fascination with the way all of us experience the pain that he puts us through. There is no variation to his methods. He does the same things to all of us, on a schedule. We all have these,” She taps the cuts. “And these,” Her arms squeeze only slightly over Anna’s ribs. “And these.” Her hands take Anna’s and lightly touch the bandages over the burns. “You haven’t gotten the rest yet.”

Anna’s face twists in horror and her eyes trace the familiar markings on all of the girls that surround them. “Why?”

They look at her with so much pity and anger in their eyes.

“He likes to watch.” Ruby pulls back to cough into her elbow and recovers slowly. “He likes to see what he can turn us into. But when we stop showing him the progress he wants to see, he ends the experiment. The murders are his only aberration.”

Anna glances over the seven faces before her and wishes she didn’t still see the eighth in the back of her mind. “Lily was so…” Her words choke her. She pulls herself up and forces herself to look at Ruby without falling apart. “It’s like she wasn’t there anymore.”

Fresh tears slip down the older girl’s cheeks. She nods, a sour smile curling her lips. “I hope she wasn’t.”

After Cain steals Anna from her bed to crush the bones of her left arm beneath the heavy swings of a pipe wrench, one of the girls finds her during evening meal. Her name is Cass, one of the girls who has been in captivity for less than a year. In movements obscured by her own body, Cass passes Anna a handful of little white pills.

“It’s just aspirin, but it should be enough to take the edge off.” She whispers, and helps Anna throw it back with great gulps of water.

Anna takes it without question, eyes darting as though Cain might be hidden in the shadows. She wonders if it comes from one of Han’s field kits, but he’s never given her medication before. After all of his caretaking, she assumes that if he has access to painkillers, he would already be giving them. “Where did you get this?”

Cass lifts a finger to her lips, gaze jumping to the vents in the ceiling. She pulls Anna aside by her good arm and brings her face close to whisper. “You can’t tell anyone, not even Hannie. If Cain finds out, he’ll hurt him worse than he hurts us.”

Anna can’t even imagine that.

What’s worse than broken bones and seared flesh?

She finds the shape of Cass’s hand in the dark, and a new kind of horror seeps down her spine.

What’s worse than missing fingers?

Did Han have all of his fingers? Did Ruby? She can’t remember.

“Someone found me.” Cass hisses, her voice hardly more than a breath. “He drops things to me through the vent in my room. He gives me aspirin.”

Anna’s heart flutters. Someone has found them? “Is he going to get us out of here?” She can’t choke down the excitement in her voice, even if she does remember to whisper it. “He’s going to rescue us? When? What do we do?”

Cass’s hand clamps over Anna’s mouth and her eyes widen with urgency. “Quiet.”

That’s when Anna notices the pooling in her eyes. There’s no hope there, no excitement. Cass shakes her head and lets her hand fall. “The police won’t help. They know we’re here, they just…won’t help. They won’t even let me write a letter to my parents.”

Rage floods Anna’s entire body. “Screw them.” She snaps. “If we have someone outside of this place who can help us, let’s find a way out of here.”

Cass just laughs. For a little bit, neither of them say anything as the optimism falls flat between them. Her chin dips and her watery eyes focus on the floor, catching a rasping breath. She yanks a hand through the tangled strands of her dark hair and pretends the bandages of her mutilated hand don’t catch on all the knots.

“I asked him for a knife,” She says at last, and the tears fall. A sniffle punctuates her words, followed by a wet cough.

All of them have a cough by now, even Anna.

It’s hard to know if it’s because of the damp and mildewy conditions, or if it’s the stabbing of their broken ribs.

Anna’s excitement is strangled the moment it starts. “What happened?”

“I waited for the best moment, when he wouldn’t see it. I tried to kill him, I swear I did. But he just pulled the knife out of his stomach like it was nothing.” She pinches her eyes shut and something like guilt enters her expression.

“Did he punish you for it?”

Cass shakes her head. “It wasn’t worth going off script, apparently. He just went ahead and cut my finger off anyway. It was Hannie that he punished.” Her head tilts back as she tries to control herself, but the sobs keep coming. “He thought Hannie gave me the knife.”

Anna thinks back to that morning, and the day before. She hadn’t noticed that Han had any new wounds, but her mind had been on the fire of her burns. Anna bites back a rush of shame. “What did he do to him?”

Cass presses her hand to her stomach and bites her lip. “The same thing I did to him.”

Anna waits until Han brings her back into her room after evening meal to look for the stab wound. He guides her into her room and is surprised when she doesn’t immediately head for the bed and curl up under the tattered blanket. When she just turns to face him in the doorway, he falls still and stares back.

Her eyes go to the bag slung across his back that he carries their medical supplies in, and then fall to his abdomen. She can’t see anything through his sweater, though part of her expects a massive blood stain to bloom across the fabric before her eyes.

Han watches her gaze move, and he looks down abruptly at her sudden attention, like he’s expecting the same flash of crimson to appear. “What is it?” His voice is tight.

She wonders if it feels like his intestines will spill onto the floor if he speaks too loudly.

“Can I see?” She asks softly, and his hands raise to cup his stomach.

His eyes are wide at her question. “See what?”

Anna nods towards his abdomen, wishing she knew why it bothers her so much to think of him taking a knife to the gut for Cass. “The stabbing. Cass told me.”

Han’s expression lightens with understanding and he shakes his head. “I’ve bandaged it. It’s fine.” He ducks his face towards the floor and moves back to reach for the door. “Don’t worry about it.”

Before he can close her into her room for the night, she steps forward. “Please?”

Her insistence surprises him, especially after she’s spent the past two weeks holding him at arm’s length. For a second, he just blinks back at her, mouth agape.

It’s plain as day, the longer she looks at him. The way his shoulders are hunched inward, curving his spine. The way, his hand is always hovering near his stomach. The way his lower abdomen and hips tremble with every step. He’s badly hurt, and he’s doing everything he can to keep up their routine for them.

But her door is the last in the hallway, and she knows he doesn’t have anything to do but go back to his own room when he’s done with hers, so she reaches out a hand.

He looks at it and stops breathing. Questions are written all over his face when his eyes flick up to find her again, to find answers.

Her hands are wrapped in relatively clean, white bandages. Her ribs are snugly wrapped the way he secured them that morning. Her left arm is immobilized in a gentle sling that he wrapped around her neck only an hour before. She’s lashed together by his own efforts and he’s just standing there with blood actively rushing from his face, barely able to breathe.

“Please let me look.” She says again, and steps closer.

Han looks down at himself, fingertips reaching for the hem of his shirt, not sure what she wants. “I’ve bandaged it.” He reminds her. He turns just slightly to show her and his knee buckles.

A soft grunt passes his lips as he finds himself draped over her right side, her arm gently catching his waist.

He’s tiny. The bones of his spine bite into her bicep, his ribs ridged against her arm. She curls her fingers around the sharp edge of his right hip and pulls him against her. When his weight settles over her shoulder and right side, he’s far lighter than she ever thought he would be.

She wonders what they feel like to him.

His breath stutters under her touch and his body curls into the strength that she offers, seemingly without his permission. “You don’t have to—” He tries to say, but he just hunches in on himself like the words hurt.

Anna brings him to her bed and makes him sit, carefully peeling the field bag off of his back. “Does he feed you?” She asks softly, noticing the freaking Grand Canyon of his clavicle as he gasps shallowly for air.

“I eat what you eat.” He responds, which isn’t a comfort.

Bread and broth twice a day has been enough to strip the flesh from Ruby’s bones in her two years of captivity, and it’s doing the same to Han.

Anna catches his eyes for permission before lifting his shirt up away from his abdomen. He holds it against his chest so she can see the brown bandage that he’s taped over his stomach. Disgust roils in her gut and she rips open the field bag. “Is this a used bandage?”

Han closes his eyes and throws his head back against the wall. “You all need the fresh ones. I can’t take from your supplies.”

“Screw that.” Anna snaps, yanking out all of the items that he used for her cuts. The gash is shallow, as though the knife had been small.

If it had fit through the ceiling vent, it had to have been tiny.

Han hisses when she peels the bandage off of his skin and begins to clean the freshly bleeding wound. “You don’t have to do this.” His free hand is clutching her blanket, clawing a fistful of it to hold onto.

She doesn’t answer him, focused on doing her best at something that she has no idea how to do. Anger is the only thing moving her. Rage dampens the fire of her hands, fury drowning out the exploding pain of broken bones.

He’s so stupid, to use old dirty bandages on an open wound. What an idiotic boy, to wander around here carrying their weight while his abdomen splits down the middle.

She cleans it as well as she can and packs it gingerly, ignoring the way his muscles clench and he writhes beneath her touch. She wishes she has Cass’s aspirin, but even if she was willing to give away her secret, she doesn’t have any.

Han leans into her as she wraps the bandage as many times around his waist as she can and tucks it securely.

When she finally looks up at his face again, pulling his shirt from his clenched fist to lower it back over himself, his teeth are bared and grinding, face wet with tears. His eyes are closed. The way he’s gasping through his teeth drives a spear of fear through her heart, but she keeps her mouth shut.

It wasn’t a deep wound.

He’ll be okay.

Anna sits back on the floor and gives him space to recover. She hopes that Cain isn’t coming back imminently, because Han looks like he’s trying not to black out, or be sick, or both. Her focus lands on tucking supplies back into the field kit and zipping it up, wishing there was more she can do.

His gasps slow.

She places the packed kit in his lap and draws her hand back into her own.

Han’s spine loosens, lifting himself carefully from the wall that he’s been staggered against. There’s still surprised in his eyes when he drops his chin to see her kneeling on the floor, watching her knees. “Thank you,” He rasps.

She just nods, golden blonde hair falling over her face.

He braces his hands against the thin mattress and forces himself to his feet, stumbling. He slings the field kit back over his back with hitched movements, and takes a few steps towards the door.

She feels his hand touch her hair, fingertips sliding over her scalp for a second, before the touch disappears. “Thank you.” His voice whispers again, and then he’s gone and her door locks behind him.

That night, they all hear it when Sara is picked.

They hear her screams, her hurled abuse, howls of rage bouncing off the walls. Flesh strikes flesh as she fights her captor and shouts Lily’s name, over and over.

They hear Cain wrestle her down the hall, grunting against the force of her struggle.

They hear Sara wail furious accusations, and the sounds of pain and heavy impact follow.

And then they all hear the resounding silence, and a single set of footsteps walking away.

[icebluecyanide]

Fanfiction Master Post 2024

It's already February, but I realised that I never made a wrap-up post for last year, so here it is!

In total, I wrote exactly 34.5k last year, spread over 10 fics, all for the Alex Rider fandom. Hopefully this year I can write even more! Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to read and leave kudos and comments on my fics, it means a lot <3

Yassen & Alex

Adjournment (T, 5.3k) - The Queen's Gambit AU/Cold war chess AU. Chess prodigy Alex Rider is attending the 1981 Moscow Invitational when a moment of curiosity leads him into trouble, and lands him an impromptu rematch with the World Champion, Soviet Grandmaster Yassen Gregorovich. Written for @strangesoulmates.

Paper Target (T, 2.7k) - Post 3x04 fic where Yassen makes Alex shoot the targets. Alex still refuses to shoot at the human-shaped targets. Yassen decides to help him overcome his reservations.

For Training Purposes (T, 2.0k) - Scorpia book fic where Alex watches videos of Yassen's assassinations at Malagosto. A new lesson at Malagosto reveals the traces of Yassen's legend at Scorpia, but might show Alex more than he wants to see.

The Dawns Are Quiet Here (T, 2.6k) - MCD fic where Alex dies holding Yassen's hand. When Alex is left fatally injured after a mission, Yassen offers what comfort he can.

Yassen/Alex

A Surprising Holiday (E, 3.4k) - Alex gets tied up and gets a blowjob. Alex runs into Yassen while on holiday in Greece and sees a chance to flip the script of their encounters. Yassen isn't entirely convinced, but is willing to play along. Sequel to A Binding Promise. Written for @myulalie.

A Debt Repaid (E, 1.3k) - Dubcon blowjob with past unrequited John/Yassen. When John refuses to let Yassen thank him for saving his life, Yassen is left with no way to pay his debt. Until Alex.

A Hushed Affair (E, 3.3k) - Dubcon handjob in the forest. Yassen catches Alex while he’s chased through a forest by guards, and decides to test Alex’s ability to stay quiet. Sequel to A Surprising Holiday.

Miscellaneous

Disciplinary Action (T, 4.4k) - Skeleton Key AU where Sarov makes good on his threat to have Alex whipped. "There will be no more outbursts," Sarov told him, his tone brooking no disobedience. "You will be quiet, and you will watch. And when Juan's punishment is over, you will take his place." Written for @lastlymatt.

Need To Know (G, 2.9k) - Pre-canon fic where Ian finds out John is a spy. MI6 keeps its agents on a need-to-know basis. As Ian Rider discovers, that apparently includes the fact that his brother has been working for secret intelligence for close to a year already.

A Lesson in Restraint (E, 6.1k) - John/Yassen lesson on bondage turns into something more. It was important, Hunter had explained, to be able to escape handcuffs even when distracted. Yassen just hadn't expected his method of distraction, or where it would lead them. Exchange gift for @limnall.

[justyaraya]

COD OC: Karina Cherepanova

Name: Karina Cherepanova

Nikename: Black Widow

Date of birth: February 12, 1987

Age: 29 (at the time of the events of 2016-17)

Place of birth: Moscow, USSR🇷🇺

Citizenship: 🇷🇺

Rank: none

Specialty: mercenary, Makarov's right-hand man, leader of the Black Widow Squad

Unit: Ultranationalists

Family/Relationships

Mother: unknown❌

Father: unknown❌

Love interest: Vladimir Makarov❤🇷🇺 [Professional relationship]

Reference/appearance

Parameters

Hair: blonde

Eyes: brown

Pigmentation on the body: -

Scars: on the face and hands

Height: 165 cm

Weight: 58 kg

Body type: normal

Equipment

Body armor: lightweight

AK-47 assault rifle

Pistols: M9 and Makarov Pistol (PM)

Cold steel: Tactical knife

Personality

On the surface, it will seem that Karina is calm and harmless, but in fact she is short-tempered and cruel, especially in her methods of unleashing the language of hostages during interrogation. At first, she waits patiently, but the vase of her angelic patience immediately cracks and uses force. She loves to be sarcastic, especially Makarova, and even makes fun of him, she likes his ardor.

Fears - It's hard to say

Biography

Life in the 90s was quite difficult for many people, especially when banditry, theft, robbery, and murder flourished. Karina, one might say, lived in a real hell, in an immoral family, where noisy drunkenness periodically took place, there were fights. Karina does not have a father, her mother found a life partner when the girl was still little. But the one his mother chose was not the one he pretended to be, Instead of a "kind daddy", he showed a cruel man, and his upbringing was beatings, and Karina had a hard time, like her mother, but she believed that she was within the norm, but it affected Karina's emotional state. Due to the turmoil in the family and the lack of money for food, Karina had to work part-time to earn at least some penny, from which she slipped in her studies, graduated from school with grief in half, but then she had to work part-time, and everything in her life turned upside down. One day, unable to bear the anger of her stepfather and the next beatings, Karina took a knife in order to scare, protecting herself and her mother. She was scared at the time, which led to a state of passion, and inflicted a fatal blow on the man, which led to imprisonment for a certain period. The mother did not somehow defend Karina, having been surprised that her daughter was a murderer. Until 2016, Karina became a mercenary.

The meeting with Makarov is rather vague story. Karina decided to try to join his people as a volunteer, even if it was risky, at that moment Makarov needed people. Karina has been training for a long time, on an equal footing with others, and she also trained dogs, making them fighting dogs. Karina also has a four-legged companion, Doberman Fang, the same fighting dog, as well as a guard who always accompanies his mistress. The girl also provided assistance to the ultranationalists by supplying weapons, medicines, equipment, etc. Makarov, although he trembled with her arrogance and barbs, but appreciated her effectiveness in her work, allocated her a small detachment in which she became the leader, and the "Black Widow Squad", a shorter name "Spiders", appeared. They stayed in different parts of the world, Karina had to hide and work in the shadows, because loyalists followed her, which did not always make it possible to deliver a kind of "goods" to Makarov on time. As for her relationship with Vladimir, they are more professional than amorous. She continued to act unflinchingly, as if ignoring all the cold stares and sarcastic remarks, which only increased his irritation. In those rare moments when they were on the same wavelength, a spark of mutual understanding almost ignited the steppe of tension in which they were both immersed. As time passed, and as if in a dance of fate, they began to dance on the edge of a professional relationship, where each step could easily end in collapse or unexpected harmony.

[Biography may be edited]

[contemplatingoutlander]

In August [2020], the Senate Intelligence Committee reported in exhaustive detail how Russia sowed division in the United States and sought to meddle in the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump. Immediately, Republicans and Democrats battled over whether the Trump campaign had engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” with Russia, or “collusion,” or “cooperation,” or established “ties”—or whether, as the White House claimed, Trump was the victim of a massive liberal conspiracy. Years after 2016, Russian election interference continues to reap dividends for Moscow by turning American against American.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is particularly adept at psychological warfare because he has been practicing it for decades. He learned the art of destabilizing his opponents from the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police. Russia now uses the same techniques. However, it not only targets individuals; it torments entire countries. [...] The East German secret police developed a method known as "Zersetzung" or “decomposition” to stamp out rebellion without the use of overt force. The idea was to chip away at a dissident’s sanity so that he would lose the will to resist, or in the words of a Stasi guide, “[provoke] and [enforce] internal conflicts and contradictions within hostile-negative forces that fragment, paralyze, disorganize, and isolate” the opponent. The first step in a campaign was to identify the target’s weak spots—health, family, finances—then strike them over and over. [...] In recent years, Russia has reportedly used the methods of decomposition against individual journalists and diplomats. Putin’s real innovation has been to weaponize "Zersetzung" against countries. [...] Russia seeks to weaken a foreign adversary from the inside, paralyzing its ability to resist. It partners with a range of allies, such as oligarchs and journalists, and uses a diverse toolbox, including propaganda and cyber attacks. Moscow begins by locating the target country’s weakest point, whether it’s an ethnic, religious, or partisan cleavage. Then Russia manufactures a sense of distrust to destroy the social contract. Whereas the Stasi might break into a man’s apartment in the middle of the night and turn on his electric razor—just to freak him out—Moscow uses hackers and trolls to propagate conspiracy theories and cultivate a skepticism of authority.  

___________________ For related articles, a NYT reader (who commented on a recent NYT article) provided information about the above Atlantic article and also recommended these articles:

How Putin’s oligarchs funneled millions into GOP campaigns [Dallas Morning News] Russia’s State TV Calls Trump Their ‘Agent’ [The Daily Beast] Russian Operative Said ‘We Made America Great’ After Trump’s Win [Bloomberg] Russia Funded Facebook and Twitter Investments Through Kushner Investors [The Guardian]

[ddagent]

FWB AU please and thank you!!

I am open for prompts (ficlets and full fics), from your ideas to mine. Prompt away!

The elevator stopped on five. Margo nodded at Sergei, and Doctor Alpert who had also joined them for this particular elevator ride. "Good night. I'll see you at the panel tomorrow."

"Looking forward to it!" Sergei called out, and Margo tried not to wince at his audible enthusiasm. But that was Sergei Nikulov: every IAC conference, the man was just so delighted at the prospect of making friends, connecting with his colleagues. It was endearing, really. But also a little disheartening when Margo wondered just who he had to connect with back in Moscow.

Out on her floor, Margo made quick work of the few paces to her hotel room. She unlocked the door, kicked off her shoes, and took off her jacket. Her watch told her she had a good nine minutes for Sergei to reach floor seven, say goodnight to Alpert, and come back down the empty flights of stairs towards her hotel room. Just enough time for her to tidy a few things away, roll down her pantyhose, and take a quick drink of the brandy from the mini bar. It wasn't nerves, like it had been that first year during the '85 IAC conference. A newly divorced Sergei, an incredibly stressed Margo with no piano in sight. An argument in an elevator and an offer nervously made. No, this was different.

This was clear anticipation.

Two short knocks on the door. A pause. Then two more. Sergei. Margo reached over, opened the door, and allowed him to enter. He closed the door softly behind him, the latch catching with an audible snick in the quiet of the room. Margo heard her own uneven breathing, the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears. His slow, methodical walk towards her. Fuck. Sergei's gaze was burning: he took in the undone buttons of her blouse, the bare legs under her skirt. The missing heels and the turned down bed.

He finally closed the distance between them and cradled her face, pulling her up for a long, searing kiss. His tongue slid inside her mouth and all the stresses of her work began to melt away. No Jamestown reports; no Senate oversight committees. Just Sergei's tongue running along her own as he held the back of her neck, his other hand firm against the small of her back.

Pulling away, Sergei pressed his forehead against Margo's. He then left a kiss on the curve of her cheek, teeth nipping at the line of her throat. "I have thought of nothing else since leaving Moscow."

"Just since leaving Moscow?"

Sergei chuckled. "Perhaps longer. And you?"

Margo wasn't going to admit how often she thought about Sergei. Her attempts at stress relief often featured him, now, and the things he had done to her during the last two IAC conferences, that seminar in DC a few months back. That telephone call after Margo had got her new cell phone. But admitting that would put her at a disadvantage. So she didn't respond; just pushed his jacket from his shoulders and slid her hand along his jaw, drawing his mouth back down to hers. Margo felt Sergei smile against her lips as she deepened their kiss.

Mouths barely moving from each other, they made it to the bed. Margo hiked up her skirt; Sergei fiddled with the zipper of his pants. Like last year, they didn't worry about losing any more clothes. Margo enjoyed the feel of his mouth against her breast through the layers of fabric, the damp cotton cool against her skin. She relished how the material of his pants rubbed against her inner thigh as he rutted against her. The weight of Sergei's fingers pressing into her thigh as she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him close.

Inside her, moving slowly, Sergei stared down at her in wonder. He opened his mouth; Margo pressed two fingers to his lips. "Whatever you're about to say, I don't need to hear it. I just need you."

Sergei blinked, nodded, and buried his face in the juncture between her neck and shoulder. He would leave marks – teeth marks in the fabric; bruises upon her skin. Last year she had flushed with embarrassment, afraid that everyone would notice. But half the attendees were in bed with other engineers; it was also October in the UK, so high necklines were acceptable. It was a better use of Sergei's mouth, too.

Margo didn't need to be told she was beautiful. She just needed to feel a release.