As A Russian I Thought It Was Obvious Allusion And That From The Beginning It Was Clear That She Is From

as a russian I thought it was obvious allusion and that from the beginning it was clear that she is from Order, apparently it's not xD And I grew up AFTER the Cold War

BUT actually Dejar is more like a member of Fifth Directorate of the KGB, not a politruk (which is military rank) (in case anyone is interested)

I tend to think of DS9 as fairly recent (likely because, if you compare it to TOS, it is recent), but sometimes I get reminded that the audience it was originally written for had a different set of outlooks. When we discuss that, we tend to focus on issues of social justice, but it’s not just that. 

My parents grew up during the Cold War, with the Soviet Union on the other side of the Baltic Sea. As the country was neutral, Soviet was not quite as closed off as to people from countries allied with the US. That, of course, meant that not only was the humanity of regular Soviet citizens more obvious, but the sense of everyday brutality was more well-known. (I promise this is relevant.) 

While my parents been Trekkies since the 90s, they didn’t watch DS9, so I showed it to them a few years ago. I was excited to show them Destiny, because it’s a great episode, and I love Cardassians, and there are some great twists in the story. 

When Dejar, the stony-faced undercover Obsidian Order operative, turns up at Quark’s, my parents both sat up straight and shouted: ‘Politruk!’ My reaction was ‘what? What’s that?’ ‘She’s a politruk - a political commissar, like the ones the Soviet Union would send with delegations to keep and eye on them - she’s there to make sure they don’t step out of line!’ I was flabbergasted. I definitely got a weird vibe off Dejar when I first watched the episode, but I didn’t figure out she was Obsidian Order before it was revealed towards the end. But my parents knew exactly what she was and why she was there. 

For some reason, that moment really stuck with me. There are things in DS9 that may be obvious to people who grew up during the Cold War, which to me, who only caught the last few months of it, doesn’t register. 

illustration for Chapter 1 of "seeking a friend for the end of the world" by @scary-grace (Bard/Thranduil Zombie apocalypse-AU)

it's 100/10, i recommend everyone to read

I've started sculpting this Thranduil with intention to go as much stylised as possible... But apparently this is all I'm capable of 😑 Before deliver me heavy critique, keep in mind pls that I'm hard surface modeler, not character artist 🙄 And I'm not myself when I see section "chromatic aberration" in post process options xD

Shaxs: “Please, please, let me shoot their warp core! I have been very good this month.”

Freeman: “Evasive pattern Sulu alpha.”

Shaxs: “Oh, come on!”

Here’s Shaxs’s reaction in a separate gif in case you need it

Star Trek: Lower Decks, Season 1, Episode 6, Terminal Provocations

Rammstein - Dicke Titten (Official Video)

Sherlock Holmes (2009) dir. Guy Ritchie