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political marriage meta

the shostakov’s job as a married couple was to promote the soviet lifestyle.     that was the bargain of their betrothal.     they were advertised.     their relationship was one giant propo:     the nation’s premiere test pilot & the bolshoi’s prima ballerina,     russia’s finest example of loyal,     successful party members.     they were given the story of how they first met as press fodder,     but their marriage was political & arranged from the beginning.     neither of them were ready to be in love with each other yet.     

alexei’s flight schedule made it virtually impossible for them to have shared more than a handful of moments after their first supervised meeting or before their engagement was announced in 1957,     & even then he was only able to make it into moscow for a photo before heading back to base the next morning.

before natalya agreed to even continue with the engagement,     barnes told her he thought alexei was an “ass” & i can only agree.     he was privileged,     arrogant,     he was going places & he knew it,     he made a reputation for himself as an asset to the party,     but he didn’t appreciate being forcibly removed from a decorated,     vital responsibility to his country in order to play house with a ballerina.

natalya had quit the bolshoi to join the black widow ops program by the time their relationship came to pass,     but she remained with the company publicly & alexei’s promotion was fast tracked,     his flight time cut back in order to accommodate the new task of convincing the nation they were in love.      they were both required to give up their freedom of choice in order to fulfill their duty.

alexei moved off base only 2 years after being accepted to the space programme in 1955 & into a handpicked apartment in moscow where the two of them would live as a married couple until his “passing” in 1963.       after the vows were exchanged the shostakovs were required to make public appearances & were to be displayed like shiny objects in order to promote,     distract,     & compel at their superior’s bidding.

alexei & natalya were heavily monitored by intelligence.     both had some taste of the spotlight before their engagement,     but neither of them had experienced this extent of the public & private scrutiny of their personal lives.

the first year of their marriage,     after negotiating,     alexei was permitted to stay on base in murmansk for 3 months for further testing with the stipulation that he would be followed by soviet news media ,     murmansk is literally a day away by train for reference,     but after the 3 months were up he was reassigned closer to home & the close quarters of daily life saw the affection the couple had for one another grow.

no one outside of the pair of them could possibly understand what it was like to live the way they were living.      finding love in a cold,     calculating arrangement forced on them by their superiors was rebellion,     it was freedom.

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“Some of us vanish out of habit, guided by some blood-orchestral pulse— the delirium chorus of a rowing mind.”

— blud, ‘poem written with a sawed-off typewriter’ by Rachel McKibbens

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vernulsya​:

the snow crunch beneath boot sole & the crack of steel wreathes his brother’s entry into the wood behind the house.     the axe-bit finds its bed in a log & sasha stoops down to catch the handle of his tea cup between thumb & forefinger in a moment’s respite.     [ the breadth of his brother’s shoulders haven’t dwindled from the pinhole light of childhood memory,     but his soft edges have sharpened with the clarity of adulthood. ]     when he looks at his brother he sees houses burning,       his soul bleeding out warmth into the air around him with the cloying sweetness of grave-rot & the copper threads in his hair catching fire in the sunlight.     when he looks at his brother he sees fragility,   a vulnerability that needs to be clawed out from the heart.

again,     the swing of his axe cleaves wood & thought in twine.     the bite of the handle clenched in his fist feels enough like the skull of his brother to tamp the battery-acid sting in his throat & brimming violence in the ride of his tongue.     

he tilts his head in reference to the warm glow of the kitchen where the shadow of their wives reside,       diving into inanity to avoid landmines.     « aleysa’s a good wife.     she’ll teach natalya well. »​

sasha is a cage looking for a bird *.     steel bars for bones & a mouth reminiscent of the maw of a cave.     he covets,     he’s greed & hunger pretending at docility.     a monster courting the image of humanity.     [ but there’s a child in him & there’s that boy in the ash still in his eyes ]     when alexei looks at his brother he sees family,     a savior in the echo of a boy.     he’s lost & impartial to the knife-sting of bitterness,     but home lives within him.     he’s a precious artifact.     his brother’s jaw holds back his fire-breath,     [ no,     not fire,     the remnants of one.     wet cinder on a cold tongue, ]     & whatever escapes the clench of his teeth will first be picked at like crows over the dead by his foresight & cunning.

alexei digs his hands further into the depths of his wool pockets once the words are finally loosed,     bracing against the chill.     he can’t reconcile sasha’s indifferent comment with his image of either woman,     but he leaves it where it lies,     bloodying ground.     « did alesya get that promotion ?     the head of psycho-something…     conditioning ?     for otyets’ department ?     she wouldn’t say. »

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hi i normally wouldn’t be doing this because i know times are tough for everyone but i genuinely don’t know what else to do or where to turn to. i am seriously struggling to find a job and the situation at home isn’t the best, along with the fact that i still have private medical exams to get done & about /four/ months until i graduate (and said graduation comes with extra fees). my mom is doing olympic level financial gymnastics to keep us both afloat but it’s just getting harder and harder each week. if you’re able to help with at least $1 here’s my paypal (i’m outside of the united states so there isn’t many apps available outside of that one).

if you can’t i would still tremendously appreciate just a quick reblog and that’d mean the world to me thank you 💙

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hello, i am in need of help to pay my credit card. i need 60 dollars (usd) until the eleventh of this month. you can use this link to donate or contact me privately for my paypal email.

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hi i love alexei alanovich shostakov

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LOUISE GLÜCK x RAFAEL M. MILANI

‘Parados’, Ararat (1992);

Untitled photographs, Fata Morgana series (2016)

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“ does your brain ever just crap out on you? ”

thought fogs against the glass separating words from tongue & fingers itch to press around his throat like a tic,       his body trying to remind him he’s alive by puppeting his limbs to root for a pulse.       the question warren peels out in that rounded out dulcet thrum from his mouth rings true.       « mmm »       is all he manages [ a tired acknowledgement that someone has spoken. ]       he watches the angel’s ruffle of plumage,       tracing the weary paths of rain & reaches out to interrupt a crystal stream of water with a broad thumb,       unselfconscious about realizing the impulse.       they sit shoulder to shoulder & the press of flesh against his own serves as an anchor,       not a means for further submergence.       knowing warren’s quick mind will parse through to his intention,       « there are times--- »       his damned cumbersome prosody [ mist in the mind ] unable to form the words properly,       « there are times i think i’d be better off if you spoke for me. »       a tease & an admission.

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“ i’m not great at this kind of thing. ”

the sweetest years won’t tarry * upon the backs of eyelids squeezed tight against their light,      because memories dim when you prod at the wound of them as you would a sore in the mouth,       when you look at them only to punish yourself.       pain replacing love.       a hand hovering between sight and the sun.       still,       it’s hard to hold anything dear here [ untainted by time ] & so the past fades to black & the future stretches on,       farther & wider than ever imagined.       her voice crosses the short distance between them after a long bout of silence.       they usually prefer quiet commiseration.       « the boredom or the…? »       a nod to her arm tucked protectively against her side.

yelena’s eyes don’t focus enough to meet his gaze.       she looks like she’s struggling to breathe around the knife-tip of pain dug between muscle & bone [ definitely a broken rib ] but he makes no move to comfort her.       soft touch has become unto marketable commodity or a ruinous reminder of liberty [ never offered,       hardly accepted ] so he keeps his distance.       he doubts she’s referencing rough treatment,       anyway.       « for me it’s the waiting. »       she won’t come       « shield,       durst,        whoever comes after...        they’ll die,       blur together,       & i’ll still be here waiting. »       his head hits the cold wall of the cell & he sends his gaze upward leaving her to her silence with a false twist of his mouth,         « i’ll tell you this for free: you suck at opening up. »

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*    LOWKEY  AWKWARD  SENTENCE  STARTERS .

contains  mild  swearing ,  cigarette  mention .

“ hey, uh… you dropped this. ”

“ sorry, i didn’t see you there. ”

“ i thought you’d be taller. ”

“ fuck, sorry, what was your name again? ”

“ i’m not great at this kind of thing. ”

“ that made a lot more sense in my head. ”

“ does your brain ever just crap out on you? ”

“ watch where you’re going! ”

“ you’re not supposed to have that. ”

“ you can’t smoke in here. ”

“ aren’t you a little young to be doing that? ”

“ aren’t you a little old to be doing that? ”

“ no offense, but you’re not at all what i expected. ”

“ seemed like the kind of thing you’d like. ”

“ you were a lot cuter in high school. ”

“ so what, you’ve peaked? it’s all downhill from here? ”

“ all i’m saying is, they hyped you up a lot. ”

“ my feelings are complicated, okay? ”

“ what’s going on up there? ”

“ jesus, just kill me now. ”

“ i’ve been trying to tell you i’m into you for months. ”

“ no, that’s okay, i’ve got it. ”

“ is it true, what they said about you? ”

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*james barnes is literally five foot nine

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me: alexei is the russian answer to captain america not just in theory or serum ok he’s got such a wonderful big heart he just makes really shitty decisions driven by anger in dedication to an ideology that doesn’t favor him.

every comic: arch villain extremist with a weird vocabulary.

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winter guard #1 or WHY AREN’T YOU FLYING THE PLANE?????? LIKE I’M SURE YELENA IS A FANTASTIC PILOT BUT YOU LITERALLY HAVE ONE SKILLSKET THAT SUPERCEDES ALL OTHERS AND THAT’S YOUR FUCKING ABILITY TO FLY A PLANE MY GO D-

Leads: Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian & Yelena Belova aka White Widow. Characters: Carol Danvers, Black Widow, Crimson Dynamo, Red Widow, Vostok, Perun, Chernobog, Vanguard, Darkstar & Ursa Major. Mentioned: Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk. Teams: Winter Guard & Avengers. Programs: Red Room and Wolf Spider Spec Ops. Written by Ryan Cady

Background: Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk was arrested by the Winter Guard for crimes against the Russian government, assumed kidnapped and tortured, and any agent affiliated with the Russian intelligence community who disclosed anything about Walters’ arrest will be prosecuted or otherwise punished by the Russian government. The Avengers are incredibly invested in finding Walters and opposing the Winter Guard.

We start off in the Avengers Secure Holding Facility in an undisclosed location in the Pacific Northwest. Yelena Belova is being interrogated by Carol Danvers under suspicion that she worked with the Winter Guard involving Walters’ arrest.

The Wolf Spider Spec Ops group attempts to break her out in order to capture or kill her for her assumed admission to the Avengers regarding Walters and she escapes in the process. Before a Spider can kill her Black Widow gets her out on the back of her motorcycle (this is sapphic culture we stan) and takes Yelena to her San Francisco Base of Operations where Natalya informs her that the Winter Guard is at war with the Avengers and that her reluctance to join sides means she will continue to be a Person of Interest to the Avengers.

(She’s referred to as the White Widow multiple times??? I’m not sure what the basis for this is, I haven’t read enough comics with Yelena to know if this is a new thing, but it does put her in direct thematic contrast to the main baddie of the comic: Red Widow. However the whole Black Widow, White Widow, Red Widow thing is giving very much Suess energy.)

Yelena discloses to Natalya that she’s working alongside Alexei because they have similar interests in the motherland and that their mission did not involve anyone else, including the Guard, or at least it wasn’t supposed to. She doesn’t want any of the Guard dead. Her relationship with the Guard here I believe is supposed to be a reference to the broader theme of Yelena’s (& many Russian people’s) complicated and nuanced relationship to her homeland as well as a storyline that hasn’t been revealed yet.

Mikhail, Ursa Major, is revealed to have been killed, although not by an Avenger, but at the hands of “Red Widow,” a mysterious Red Room graduate that Natalya describes as possibly inhuman. The main story of the comic begins as Yelena agrees to tell Natalya why “Alexei and I went home...and why I do not hate the Winter Guard.” 

Three weeks before...

Yelena and Alexei are working together to break into a highly secure base in order to steal mission details for something called Operation Snowblind, the Red Guardian’s last assignment.

Red Widow is shown working for the Security Council and leading the Winter Guard.

As she’s assigning the task of hunting Yelena and Alexei down she describes Alexei as the U.S.S.R’s “failed response to Captain America,” “declared MIA after the Cold War,” and “resurfaced in the United States after rotting away for years in prison.” But also frames him as a childhood hero for most of those present at the meeting. She describes Yelena as “Yelena Belova aka White Widow, aka Black Widow, aka the Red Room’s second biggest mistake.”

There’s a throwaway line where Red Widow mentions that the Winter Guard doesn’t question orders. But several members like Darkstar, Crimson Dynamo (the defacto leader), and Ursa Major express discomfort at their assignment.

Crimson Dynamo aka Dmitri Bukharin comments that hunting down Yelena may be in their purview but that Alexei was a national hero and he didn’t agree to lead this new iteration of the Winter Guard to be a hit squad. Vanguard aka Nikolai Krylenko seen above in red, says Alexei may never have been someone to idolize and if he was, that person is long dead and that those who looked up to him should be the ones to bring him down anyway.

Alexei and Yelena recover the hard drive containing information on Operation Snowblind. Yelena is skeptical of the hard drive’s worthiness of the impending fight with the Winter Guard and Alexei responds with the Russian proverb: “What the pen writes the axe cannot erase.”

Yelena engages the Winter Guard while Alexei secures an “exit strategy.” The only remarkable thing from the fight was this weird interaction between Mikhail and Yelena (and yes, Mikhail, as in the guy Natalya said the Red Widow killed 3 weeks from now):

I’m holding out hope but the stereotyping so far is either purposeful in order to be refuted and used later but right now it’s in place of Mikhail having an actual personality. I have no earthly, yawning fuck why it was necessary to mention that Yelena smells like Alexei in this other than bearlore but ok. Reading forward this dynamic can be inferred, at least to me, as a very close friendship or allyship that eventually turned adversarial as Mikhail and Yelena continue to snipe at each other’s choice of work:

This is interesting twofold: one, we have no idea what Operation Snowblind is and why it would make Yelena choose to forgo her usual operational mystique in order to obtain the hard drive, but from what is shown in Widowmakers she’s disillusioned by the government and contract work in general and may be moving onto more loftier pursuits in the name of the Russian people. Two, it’s interesting in a story building sense because Yelena’s love for her country being directly at odds with that country’s love for her is very relevant in modern Russia:

WIDOWMAKERS PANEL 1:

WIDOWMAKERS PANEL 2:

...i digress.

During Yelena’s fight with the Guard Alexei is doing something with the hard drive (???) and is interrupted by Vanguard, who’s wearing an iteration of the Red Guardian’s OG suit, he then boomerangs the kid through a window which was funny. But if I have to suffer through this boomerang again after waiting until 2019 to get a proper shield I’m rioting.

I simply hate him, your honor. 

Anyway, Alexei reveals there’s a traitor in the Winter Guard who’s helping him, he then presses a button and blows up Crimson Dynamo. Darkstar appears like she might have gotten to Dmitri quick enough but I think the implication is that he’s dead or critically injured.

Red Widow pursues Alexei and Yelena as they run to the plane, but Yelena incapacitates her. From the following panel I think that Red Widow and Yelena are going to become dedicated enemies moving forward.

The issue ends with Yelena chiding Alexei for murdering or attempting to murder Crimson Dynamo. From what Alexei says, Operation Snowblind has something to do with the “enlightening of superheroes” which he describes as “rarely a painless process” therefore murder is justifiable, I guess?? It’s still not clear if the spy working with Alexei is Red Widow or someone else entirely.

I didn’t mind this issue. Clearly it's attempting to tie in different themes from the film in order to pull in the movie’s audience, but I don’t hate it. What I’m getting more nervous of is another fucking villain arc for Alexei. They appear to be setting him up as a foil for Yelena: Modern Russia vs Soviet Ideals. I really hope this isn’t the case or if it is I hope he’s redeemed in a way that doesn’t involve another death. 

The next issue is released September 29.

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natasha being mad at yelena for hanging out w her ex husband is so funny im sorry

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i think what i’ll do for the winter guard is write a full analysis like i did with the marvel’s #3 after every release. i’ll incorporate screenshots and quotes and keep it under “read more” just in case and once the last issue is released in november decide how best to include or not include the run in my portrayal.

i’m gonna read the first issue tonight and post the analysis this week!

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covers for winter guard (1-4). summaries below. 

1.  WINTER COMES FOR THE WHITE WIDOW & THE RED GUARDIAN! Russia is cleaning house! And when the Red Guardian starts hunting down state secrets, he puts himself right back in his home country’s crosshairs — dragging the White Widow along with him. But the motherland has new heroes now…and not even the Red Room could have prepared Alexei and Yelena for the Winter Guard’s retribution. (Release: August 25)

2.  The Winter Guard team must split up in hopes of catching up to Red Guardian and the White Widow, who seem to always be one step ahead of them. It’s a race across Russia as the team must venture to Red Guardian’s hometown in hopes of discovering the secrets of project SNOWBLIND. But with Crimson Dynamo in critical condition, can the Guard keep it together to uncover the truth in time? (Release: September 29)

3.  A SEAT AT THE TABLE! The White Widow and Red Guardian are ready to strike a bargain — but not with the Winter Guard. Red Guardian enlists help from a shocking source…but this is spy business, and “trust” is a mythical thing. Betrayals abound in the darkest corner of Russia as the hunt for project SNOW BLIND heats up! (Release: October 27)

4.  CHECKMATE! The final issue! The Winter Guard has its hooks in the White Widow—but she’s not out of tricks yet. And the Red Guardian is ready to make his last move...but when is he gonna loop in his reluctant ally?! The answers come from a source no one expects, and secrets still abound as Project SNOWBLIND rushes to its bloody conclusion. (Release: November 17)