#‘ACTUALLY it’s a MALE name in RUSSIA’

[theprideful]

if you’re wondering why you can’t reblog the gendered names post it’s because i’ve revoked reblog privileges. y’all are annoying me

[dira333]

Of Tremors and believing in Love - Yaku x Reader

Yaku’s not sure what he expected. 

Maybe some buff Russian guy like they show in action movies, or an elderly gentleman that makes him feel like a Celebrity with a private driver.

Not you. 

You’re gorgeous, even in the unforgiving light of the airport exit area, holding up a sign that spells his name in bright red Kanji. 

He swallows nervously, hands clammy with sweat as he approaches.

He hadn’t been that nervous, he thinks, leaving Japan for an unfamiliar country. It was Volleyball and he knew Volleyball. He could rely on his talent if everything else failed, and on his iron stomach to handle whatever the Russian kitchen was going to throw at him - Lev’s tales hadn’t left him with much hope.

But he’s never been that good at talking to girls and his perpetually single status is either a symptom or the cause of this predicament.

“Hi,” he greets you, voice breaking over that one-syllable word.

“Hi,” you smile and bow in greeting. “How was your flight? Are you hungry, tired, or anything else?”

Your Japanese is perfect. He can even hear hints of a Kansai dialect hidden somewhere in between.

“A little hungry,” he admits, “I… uh… I’m Yaku, by the way. Morisuke.”

He wants to facepalm so badly. Where’s his usual coolness? Where’s his confident tone?

“Sorry,” you apologize immediately, offering your name. “I got caught up in the moment. How about we grab something to eat and get to know each other?”

Yaku nods, glad that’s something he can answer without opening his mouth and making a fool of himself.

As it turns out, he was right.

You grew up in the Kansai region, moved to Russia with your parents when you were a young teen. 

He can’t help but search for familiarity in your features, half expecting to be reminded of Lev, or Alisa. He berates himself immediately. Just because you’re Japanese-Russian too doesn’t mean you have to look like everyone else who’s Japanese-Russian.

“How did they find you?” Yaku asks as he slips into the booth, “The agency, I mean.”

“Oh, I work for Tigr Ekaterinburg. I handled your contracts. They asked me if I would be willing to show you around and be a helping hand the first few months and I agreed. Japanese players are often polite and easy to work with. Do you think you’ll be able to handle the Russians though? They can be pretty rough.”

Yaku laughs. “I do think I can. I’ve played in quite a few different teams. My classmates called me Demon-Senpai.” He laughs again at the memory, fondness washing over him.

“Tell me more about that,” you ask, your question so unusually direct for the polite tone you’re using. You flip open the Menu. “I’ll be ordering. Any allergies?”

-

“So you’re the Mom-friend of the Group,” you summarize, popping the last tiny pancake, or Syrniki, as they are called, into your mouth. You chew slowly, not letting him out of your sight.

“That’s interesting. I’ve never met a male Mom-friend.”

“I’m not-” he tries to defend himself, even though he’s heard it often enough from Kenma and Kuroo, Kai and Lev. “You really think so?”

“There’s an easy test,” you tell him with a smile. “Did you know I have actually a headache? It’s been bothering me all day.”

Worry washes over him. “Really? God, why didn’t you say so? You should rest then. Did you drink enough water?”

You laugh, the sound tinkling around him like droplets of silver.

“You failed the test. Mom-Friend detected.”

He pouts and you still. For a moment, no one speaks.

Eventually, you move again, clear your throat, and take a sip of your drink.

“Sorry,” you say. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m not offended.”

“Good.” You nod, your voice calm and distant. “If you want, I can show you you’re apartment now.”

- - -

Yaku’s not the first guy you get to drive around town nor will he be the last, probably.

You drop him off at his apartment, show him the few things he could have trouble with - no rice cooker in the kitchen and the bathroom works a little different over here - and leave for the office, determined to finish that project you’d been working on all week.

Hopefully, work will flush out whatever’s bothering your heart, causing it to race at the adorable little pout on Yaku’s lips.

You told him you’d pick him up later for a night out, so you leave a little early - still not done with that damned project - to put on something fancier, add some smoke to your make-up.

Yaku’s waiting in the lobby when you step in and you swallow thickly at his sight.

Most athletes like to dress as casually as they can in their free time. Jeans and a shirt are often the most you get to see. Yaku, however, is dressed in an expensive suit, hair combed back. 

You can tell he’s not a stranger to wearing suits, moving just as easily in it as he did in his tracksuit earlier.

He gets up before you can call out his name, cheeks turning a soft pink at your sight. 

That eases your nerves a little, knowing you still have at least some effect on him.

“Ready to go?” You ask, trying to ignore the way he takes you in. There’s a warmth in his eyes that’s a little unnerving. 

-

He’s even prettier under the twinkling lights of the city, leaning in when you explain something, expensive Cologne wafting around you.

“Do you want to dance?” You ask, after you’ve wandered through the city center. “Or something to eat?”

Yaku ponders the question for a moment.

“How about a bite first? I’d love to take you out to dance, though.”

His words leave you flushed and angry. That’s not what you meant, but correcting him would sound weird. 

When you suddenly have to weave through a group of tourists, his hand presses against the small of your back, warm and steady, and in way you don’t want it to. But you can’t bring yourself to tell him off, nor to move away from his touch.

-

“First year was tough”, he remembers over a bowl of Pelmeni, “Kuroo and I didn’t get along.”

“Who was Kuroo again?” You ask, offering him one of your Pirozhki.

He swipes his thumb over his phone and turns it, so you can see a picture of his old Volleyball team. Yaku’s easy to find, almost the smallest of the group. He’s grown since then, though not much, if you had to guess.

“That’s Kuroo. I know his hair looks awful, but he claims he can’t do anything about it and that it’s natural. He was our Captain in our third year. The pudding head next to him is Kenma, our genius setter. These two have been best friends since childhood.” 

He tells you each name, warmth in his voice as he remembers. It’s not hard to tell that they were close.

“Are you still in contact?” You ask, surprised when he nods. 

“With all of them?” His eyebrows wander up.

“Yes, why? Is that surprising to you?”

You feel caught and look away, but you’re unable to escape his eyes, it seems.

“A little,” you admit finally and hope that he drops it. 

Thankfully, he does.

.

Yaku’s easy to talk to. 

All too soon you find yourself walking out of that restaurant and into a nightclub, his head so close as he listens to your explanation that you could kiss him, if you wanted to, without even having to move much.

But you don’t. Because it would be weird, right? And unprofessional.

His hand is warm in yours as a new song starts and he pulls you in.

It’s a slow one and you can’t tell if that’s good or bad. 

The dance floor is packed and you’re soon pressed against him, your own heartbeat echoing in your stomach. There’s a tilt to his mouth that makes you wonder how it would taste and before you know you’re leaning in a little and he’s leaning in too.

His lips are soft and warm and he tastes like the wine you shared earlier.

His teeth graze your lower lip, just the faintest touch, but it shakes you out of your dream-like state better than a bucket of ice water ever could.

You snap back and purse your lips like they’ve offended you personally.

“I…” You hesitate, your voice breathless, “I’ll wait for you at the bar.”

.

There’s a tremor hiding in your bones.

You check your hands in the seconds it takes him to catch up to you, but you can’t tell from the outside. Good.

“I-”

“You can dance with someone else,” you tell him, voice as polite as can be. “I am only your guide, after all.”

“I don’t want to dance with anyone else.” He reaches for you but you step out of reach.

“Please,” you ask, but he shakes his head.

“Very well. Do you want to take a walk?”

.

The sky is clear above you, though it’s hard to see the stars beyond the glow of street lamps. 

Your hands are buried in the pockets of your jacket in case he tries to take one.

“Do you believe in love?” You ask after a minute when the street clears and you’re on your own. “Not in general, but in like… love for yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Makes sense.”

“It does?” Yaku looks over, confusion written all over his face.

“Sure. You’re good-looking, smart, easy to talk to. It makes sense.”

He smiles, but your stomach churns violently.

“Yaku-san,” you stop, address him in the politest way you can. “I don’t believe in love. I am sorry I just kissed you. But I cannot offer you anything of that kind.”

Yaku’s quiet for a while. His face does not give anything away. 

Eventually, he nods.

“I understand. But we can be friends, right?”

“Friends as in you’re waiting for me to change my mind about it?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Friends as in friends. I quite like your company, but I can deal with a rejection.”

You hesitate for a second before you nod.

“Friends would be nice.

- - - xxx - - -

“Have you eaten yet?” Yaku’s standing in the doorway to your office, two identical looking Bento Boxes in his hands.

“Eh?” You look up from your Desk. “No, but what are you doing here?”

“I figured. Want to share?”

You’re just about to decline when your stomach grumbles loudly. 

Yaku grins and steps closer. “I think that was a confirmation.”

-

“Hey,” Yaku’s grin is warm and inviting, his hair dripping wet. “We just finished training and the boys want to hit the city. Do you want to come along? I heard they have great Syrniki.”

He absolutely butchers the name and you can’t help but correct him.

“So?” He cocks his head to the side, waiting. “It’s just a hangout with the guys. You know at least one of them, well, besides me, I mean.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll come.”

-

“Are you coming to the game this weekend?” Yaku asks as you meet him in the lobby. He always comes in early for extra training and while you haven’t yet figured out at what time he arrives, he’s already got your schedule memorized, waiting for you with a coffee and a pastry.

“I wasn’t planning to,” you admit, “My parents are coming into town. They’ve moved into the countryside a few years back.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” He nods. “I hope you’re having a great time together.”

“We will.” You take a sip of coffee and can’t help the teasing comment slipping through your lips. “Aren’t you going to tell me that you’re going to play much worse now that I’m not there to cheer you on?”

“Your presence or lack thereof isn’t going to affect my game,” he tells you, voice serious, confidence so deeply laced into his tone it catches your breath, “But I prefer to celebrate my wins and losses with the people I care about.”

“O-oh…” you stammer, suddenly overwhelmed, “I… guess that makes sense. W-we can celebrate on Monday.”

-

“Girl, I don’t know how you do it,” your best friend comments and you can almost smell the alcohol on her breath - through the phone. “You decline every offer to have a relationship yet you have these fine men running after you? Why does this never work for me?”

“You can’t say no.”

“True.” She chuckles dryly. “But it’s a shame you didn’t get to watch that game. He was looking fine. I might not have understood all that much but he was doing well. At least if you believe the commentators.”

“I’m sure he did his best,” you tell her calmly, yet unable to keep from biting down on your fingernail. 

“Don’t worry, I recorded it. I’m sending the file over now.”

Your home computer dings with an incoming mail and you heave a sigh. 

“I don’t have time to watch it tonight. My parents just left and I’m exhausted.”

“Don’t tell me they asked you about grandchildren…”

You sigh again and she laughs. 

“Go, take a nap. The world will look better in the morning.”

And it will… but you can’t help yourself, press play instead of going to bed as you intended.

And your friend is right. 

Yaku looks good. He moves with the calm confidence of a professional.

If you could convince yourself that attraction is all it takes to lead a healthy relationship, you might have taken a leap of faith. 

-

Staying up late comes back to bite you in the butt.

No amount of concealer can cover the dark rings under your eyes.

“Long weekend,” Yaku asks when he meets you in the Lobby, coffee and a pastry in hand.

“Mhm,” you nod and take a large sip of coffee, hoping for it to fuel you. It doesn’t.

You chat for a bit but you need to get going and so does he, so you part with the quickest of hugs.

There are only a few steps leading down to the elevators, steps you’ve taken day after day after day for years, but today, you miss the last one.

Your right foot lands wrong, pain shoots through your ankle and you yelp. Your half-empty coffee cup goes flying, just like your pastry and you can see the mess you’ve made but all you can do is cower and clutch your ankle.

“Are you okay?” Yaku’s voice cuts through the ringing in your ears. There’s worry in his eyes. It lights the cold fire of shame in your veins. God, you just rolled your ankle, there’s no reason to make a big fuss about it.

“Sure, yeah, all fine!” You tell him, grinding your teeth as you get up. Nausea wells up inside you but you swallow it down. 

“We should get it looked at,” Yaku insists, hands hovering just a few inches above your skin.

“Stop worrying!” You bite out, tone harsher than necessary. But he doesn’t flinch.

“I know it’s a lot, but it will only take a minute, okay?” He insists, voice warm and soft and calming, like hot cocoa on a cold day. You can feel the tremor coming back, want nothing more than to sink into him.

“I’m fine,” you insist, taking one cautious step. It hurts, but it’s nothing you can’t handle.

“Yeah, for now.” He follows you, bends faster than you to pick up the coffee cup and the pastry. Someone’s going to have to mop the floor, but Yaku’s already waving at the receptionist and you’re too focused on grinding your teeth against the pain to complain.

“Stop worrying about me, okay?! We’re not that close.”

Hurt flickers over his face like candlelight. 

“I’d do this for everyone,” he insists. “I don’t mess with accidents. Please? It’s only a short trip down the hall for a first check-up. If our doc thinks it’s nothing I won’t bother you anymore.”

You agree, mostly just to get this over with.

But it’s not nothing. 

.

You must have fallen asleep, face pressed against the window of his car, because his hand is warm against your cheek and your name falls softly from his lips.

“Yaku?” You ask and he nods. 

“We’re at the hospital. Can you walk?”

“Sure,” you insist, grind your teeth through the pain. Yaku must have seen through your lies, though, getting a wheeling chair at the next chance.

He’s with you through the whole ordeal and you hate it but you don’t ask him to leave you alone. His warm hand on your shoulder is the only thing that keeps you from crying.

He’s there until the very end when they plaster up your leg up to your knee and you can’t help but laugh at the fact that you’ve made it so far in life without a broken bone, yet a single missed step has changed it all.

“I’ll take you home now,” Yaku insists as soon as you’re back in his car. “Are you hungry? We can stop and get some food on the way.”

“I just want to sleep,” you admit. “Forget this happened.”

“I think that’s going to take some time. The plaster stays one for the three weeks.”

“Don’t remind me.”

.

It’s only when he parks in front of your apartment block that you realize.

You live on the fifth level. No elevator. 

Stubbornly you grab your crutches and move toward the first step when Yaku stops you. 

“Do you want to carry me up?”

“No!”

“Okay,” he nods. “But you can’t make that trek. Not today for sure, and not every day for the next three weeks. Do you have any friends you could stay at where that’s not a problem?

You hesitate. Most of your friends have similar apartments and if they don’t, they can’t offer more than an air-mattress on the floor for you to sleep on.

“You can sleep on my couch,” Yaku’s voice is low, soft, and casual. This is nothing big to him, not like it is to you.

“Or I carry you up and you have to take the next three weeks off because you cannot get up and down here without help.”

He’s right. 

And it’s not that you have to work, you’re pretty sure you classify for sick leave at this point, not to mention that you have enough vacation days saved to take off half of the time without a problem. 

In the end, you oblige. And because you want to pack your own things, you agree to a piggyback ride up the stairs.

If Yaku notices how your face is pressed into his neck, your tears soaking his shirt, he doesn’t mention it. His hands are warm and steady around your thighs and he carries you up without breaking a sweat, telling you a funny story to distract you all the way.

-

It’s weird. It’s cozy. It’s everything at the same time.

You get to go through his list watchlist - which feels more personal than going through his underwear drawer - and watch him prepare Dinner for the two of you. 

You sit naked in his bathtub - door closed of course - and open the bottles of shower gel and shampoo to sniff at them like the crazy person you are but when the door opens and you limp outside he’s sitting at his desk practicing Russian, not even sparing your scrubbed clean form a glance.

Yaku’s switched his routine without a second thought, makes breakfast at home now and drives you to work.

He’s the best friend one could ask for, a man so good you wouldn’t believe he existed without the proof you have. But he has a hissy fit in front of you when his friend from school makes a joke about his size. 

And maybe that’s the last straw, the last proof you needed. 

Because people aren’t just always good. People are people, human and fallible, and there’s always something that makes them break their perfect facade.

For you, it’s the pain of having to rely on someone else.

For Yaku, it’s the pain of being looked down on.

-

Tomorrow your cast will come off.

Tomorrow you will move back into your own apartment.

You’re not sure how things between the two of you will be then.

But since there’s no way to turn back time, to go back to how things were before, you can try and find out how things could be instead.

“Yaku?” You ask into the silence of an early night.

“Yeah?” His voice is scratchy and sluggish like he’s just on the border of sleep.

“Are you still awake?”

“Am now.”

“What if I changed my mind?”

“About what?”

“Love.”

Silence. Then, the rustling of sheets and soft steps on the floor.

“Are you being serious?” He asks and his voice sounds so warm and excited, so young and full of anticipation. 

“Yeah.”

“Well,” he clears his throat awkwardly, now only two steps away. “It depends if you mean me with that change of my mind. If you mean someone else I think I’ll have to get a lawyer before I answer.”

You laugh. “Yeah, I meant you.”

He giggles and there’s a slap as if he’s clamped a hand over his mouth urgently. 

You turn a little on the Couch, try to make him out in the dark.

“Do you want to cuddle?” You ask and there’s the swoosh of quick movement as he leaps onto the Couch.

“Boy, do I ever!”

- - - xxx - - -

The air smells the same, but maybe it’s just the airport. 

Yaku’s hand takes yours, warm and safe and well-known.

“Excited?” He asks, laughs when you pull a face.

“They’ll love you,” he insists and leans in to kiss you, not caring about all the people around you, or the fact that Kuroo’s going to be here any second to pick you up, or that your hair is a mess and you’re not wearing any make-up.

His lips are soft and warm, just like they were on that first night. 

You sink into the touch and when his teeth graze your lower lip and the tremors come, you embrace them.

Even if you shiver, you’ll never freeze.

You’ve got Yaku there to warm you, after all.

[lookingforhappy]

The Birth Locations/Suitcase Reveal Sucks

before you read please don't take this too seriously, I don't have a problem with people who enjoy this reveal I just wish more people would consider/analyse this as I feel like it's very half-assed and not at all well thought out

I know I've written something like this before and i'm sorry to write this again, but I think my arguments have developed and I want to explain better why I hate this decision.

I am referring to this set of posters for season 3

as the stickers on the suitcases were revealed to be their birth locations by Jeff King (executive producer and director) on instagram

the actual answer to his question is "lila's sticker" but semantics/specifics who cares (me)

why I distrust the theory/trivia as a whole

something I think should be considered here is that this is the only confirmation of this piece of trivia.

another example of TUA trivia that has been confirmed by the creators is the statement by Blackman (god ik just ignore that part for now, that isnt the point of the post & he's still a/the creator) on a reddit AMA that Grace helped the siblings choose their names based on their birth countries

however, these are both poorly researched/prepared pieces of trivia because they blatantly contradict each other

Luther's birthplace is Sweden, but Luther isn't a Swedish name, nor was is popular in either 1989 when he was born or 2002 when he was first seen using his name.

Diego is always a fairly popular name in Spanish speaking countries like Mexico but it's hardly high on the list (only statistic I can find is ranked at 31.)

Allison is neither a South African name nor is it listed as it's top names.

Klaus is Germanic (kinda fits the theme) but as far as I can see Klaus is not a biblical name which is much more typical of the Amish. Klaus is also not listed amongst the top Amish names that I've seen.

Five obviously is an outlier here.

Ben is clearly not Korean, and while I have had fun discussing the roots of his name with others (Jae-min becoming Benjamin, and Bin becoming Ben) I don't think that there's any way that the creators will acknowledge this. Ben has origins in Hebrew and is not at all popular in Korea.

Vanya (the applicable name, as Viktor wasn't yet revealed) is a male name in Russia. it's female in other countries like Bulgaria, but not Russia. It's a nickname/evolution of the name Ivan. Vanya is also not a popular name in Russia, but Ivan does seem to be. And I seriously doubt that they're going to reveal that Viktor originally named himself Ivan while he was identifying as female and then decided to change his name anyway?

which is to say, the word of the creator cannot always be trusted/believed, because that's not necessarily what will be reflected in canon or by the other creators.

there is quite a history in fandom of creators not understanding the themes/plotholes of their own creations, so i'm a little stunned at how quickly everyone integrated this into their canon without a second thought.

i have arugments as to why these locations are bad choices for the characters, but first lets take a look at what i believe these stickers were meant to represent

Placing down a read more because this became huge.

what the other stickers reference/mean

it's no secret that i think the stickers were hints to the events (related to each character's arc) of season 3.

but before i get to that let's breakdown the rest of the stickers and their meanings:

all of the umbrella's have an umbrella sticker. Lila is the only one who doesn't (so if we're playing the "who is the odd one out" game then it still falls as Lila because she is the only one without the umbrella sticker)

Luther

Luther dies in Hotel Obsidian, and never makes it physically inside Oblivion or has any part in powering it - so his sticker has the colours/design of Obsidian.

Diego

Diego is one of/the first to discover Hotel Oblivion, so he has the Oblivion colours and logo.

Allison

Allison is involved in Reginald's plot to use Oblivion to reset thte universe, so gets Oblivion's logo instead of Obsidian.

Klaus

Klaus was the one to know and direct them to Hotel Obsidian, so he has that logo.

Five

Five's revelation that he was the Founder of the Commission, and the impact of that discovery, links him to the Commission more so than either hotel.

Viktor

viktor has the hotel Obsidian logo because he has very little impact on anything to do with Oblivion and is one of the votes that decides to remain and die in Obsidian.

Lila

Lila has the Commission because she was raised in the Commission, not the Umbrella Academy.

Lila has the Obsidian logo in opposition to Diego's Oblivion logo as she chooses the opposite of Diego (I personally believe they should have swapped these two but..)

why the birth locations are more likely/appropriate as hints for the events of season 3

Luther - Stockholm, Sweden

This is probably my strongest argument: He is made fun of for having "Stockholm Syndrome" within the show

found: Season 3, episode 3, minute 13.

Luther, obviously spends all of his character development/moments with the Sparrows and Sloane - being kidnapped by them and developing "Stockholm Syndrome" for Sloane (romantic) and for the Sparrows as a whole (platonic/idealism/escapism)

Luther's mother's newpaper cutting also mentions 911 being called, but 911 is not the emergency number of Sweden, 112 is. Argentina, Canada, Dominican Republic, Jordan, Mexico, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, the Philippines, Sint Maarten, the United States, and Uruguay use 911 but not Sweden.

If Monica wasn't in Sweden at the time of Luther's birth, then Stockholm is hardly his birth location.

throughout the seasons we get a few instances of Diego, Ben and Viktor speaking their native languages, hinting that the 7 were all taught their mother's languages (with Allison at least likely learning all 7)

But if Luther is Swedish, why didn't he or Diego know what Oga For Oga meant if that's Luther's mother's language? and why was Five the only person who seemed to understand Swedish when he's not the Swede of the family? Why did Diego not at least recognise his brother's supposed second language? Or Luther for that matter?

Luther was a part of the Academy for 23+ years, longer than anyone, yet Reginald (who expects the best of his children) didn't bother enforcing this as a part of his education? his number one had a worse education than his number 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7?

Diego - Mexico

Diego apparently doesn't even get the luxury of a city, place or region. But I can confirm that his mother's newspaper cutting states that he was born in a "small town in Northern Mexico".

However, Diego's sticker could instead be a reference to the Aztecs or Mayans - his sticker has mayan/aztec pyramids on it, I believe maybe Chichen Itza specifically?? Ancient civilisations that were very advanced for their time, and that are somewhat frequently involved in alien conspiracies.

Diego is one the one to open Oblivion when he removes the harpoon, and is the first to enter it and confront the Guardians.

Oblivion is an Ancient building/place built by an Ancient civilisation of what is assumed to be aliens, and Reginald (confirmed alien) is the one to have directed them into Oblivion at first as well.

Allison - Cape Town, South Africa

Nelson Mandela is pretty famous for his part in the anti-apartheid (segregation) movement, helping to end segregation in South Africa. He was jailed in a Cape Town prison for attempting to sabotage the pro-segregation government, and then later his office as president was located in Cape Town.

an easy connection to make with Allison's arc in season 2, and the significance of it in her arc in season 3, with her dealing with PTSD, grief over Ray, and feeling alienated by her family who didn't have the same experience as her in the 60s.

Allson's mother has nothing connecting her to South Africa outside of this, as far as I'm aware.

Klaus - Pennsylvania, USA

This one I will concede is about his birth location. But in this case, it's also heavily related to his season 3 arc, as he is the driving force of the mothers plotline and literally travels to Pennsylvania.

PA is a strong and relevant hint for his s3 arc.

Five - Dublin, Ireland

Five could be connected to Ireland in multiple ways.

(there is a link between Five and JFK, "the 1st Irish American President" but I can't see the link to s3 here so honorary mention only).

A link that I understand is a somewhat touchy topic for any Irish citizens is the stereotype of drunkeness in Ireland. While there have been studies to prove that Ireland doesn't drink more than other countries such as England, it remains a well-known stereotype and the Irish people are statistically more prone to alcohol dependency/addiction.

There is also the phrase "make it Irish" which means to put alcohol in a drink, one of the more popular drinks to do this to is coffee. Which brings us back to Five - he is known for his love of coffee and for getting spectacularly drunk.

season 3 in particular features his drinking addiction in it's full glory. it's also plot relevant as his drunkness causes the murder mystery setup of the final episodes.

(also, while it's not great to have Ireland be the hint to alcohol, it's also not great to have Five, the alcoholic of the series, be the Irish representation)

Another interpretation could be the root of the name "Dublin" meaning "black pool". It was likely derived from the River Poddle which would have been stained black with peat. This could be a hint towards Five's elusive role as the Founder, as his life so far has been stained with childhood abuse, the apocalypse and his foray as an assassin, making the reveal of the Founder a shock.

One other interpretation is the Irish vs. English. Five is perhaps the most skeptical of Reginald throughout season 3, moreso than even Luther or Diego. While England has enraged many countries, Ireland is one of the most well known for it's dislike of the English, and has a lengthy history of war and altercations with England. So Five's sticker may be a hint for his re-ignited distrust of Reginald. It also works well as a predictor for Five and Lila's (English) bathroom fight.

Five's mother's newpaper cutting has several contradictions to the Ireland, Dublin location. First and foremost being that she is cited as being from both a "small seaside community" and from "county clark".

There is no County Clark in Ireland, but there is a County Clare and a County Cork. However, County Clare is on the opposite side of Ireland to Dublin and County Cork is even farther away,

Dublin, as the Capital City, is also not a "small seaside community" by any stretch of the imagination.

And the Irish police would likely not be referred to as "provincial" but instead be called Gardaí or The Garda Síochána.

Viktor - Moscow, Russia

Moscow is seen in season 1, episode 1 very briefly as Reginald arrives to adopt Viktor. You can see both the Spasskaya Tower and St Basil's Cathedral. Viktor also speaks Russian, something that none of his siblings have demonstrated.

However, this is not actually Viktor's birthplace (if we believe that the props have canon information, as most argue that Diego is definately from Mexico due to his cutting stating his mother was in Northern Mexico, etc) as according to his book Viktor was born in "small town off the Southern coast of Russia".

Moscow is nowhere near the coast and is not exactly southern either, nor is it a small town. And while this isn't exaclty specified that the "small town" he visits is the place he was born, it wouldn't make much sense if it wasn't, as Viktor was able to track his mother down via newspaper articles about his birth.

Moscow could mean a lot of things for Viktor's arc:

it could be a reference to s1, ep1 but instead of his exact birth location, it could simply hint to his mother's country and toward Harlan's involvement in the mothers' deaths - and the long reach of his powers from America to Russia.

It could also be a hint to Viktor's significance as a much more involved and aware plot driver this season as Moscow is the politcal centre of Russia as its capital city.

It might also hint at his disconnect from his family (not being a part of the Academy and not understanding the hard decisions and necessary teamwork that come with it) causing tensions, as while Moscow is the political capital, Saint Petersburg is considered the cultural capital.

Plus Moscow's history as the capital works well as a parallel to his journey with his powers, and works as a hint to Viktor developing his powers with Harlan because Moscow also briefly lost its status as the capital to Saint Petersburg, possibly a parallel to Viktor, the most powerful of the Umbrellas, losing his powers to Reginald's drugs. Moscow was later restored as the capital, paralleling Viktor's regaining of his powers.

Lila - Berlin

Lila is nice and simple, she was considered the outlier by Jeff King anyway as her suitcase doesn't match her confirmed birth place (London), and instead is a pretty obvious hint to her time in West Berlin, Germany, with Trudy and Stan.

why i dislike the chosen locations as the birth locations

in general I think it's silly to choose almost all capital cities: Dublin, Moscow, Cape Town, Stockholm, Seoul..

I know these are populous places but there must have been some variation? (aside from Klaus, who has plot armour for this point due to his Amish origins, and Diego, who is the only non-capital city purely because he wasn't given the dignity of a named city/town/village)

it's also lazy writing (and i believe somewhat racist?) to have every sibling come from the country/continent you'd expect?

the latino is mexican

the black woman is african

the asian man is asian

the blonde haired/blue eyed man is scandinavian

even Klaus, Five and Viktor are all white men from predominantly white countries.

at least try to subvert expectations?

to an extent i understand that they were trying to incorporate the actors ethnicities with Justin having korean roots, and David being raised in mexico. But the only irish thing about Aidan is his surname, and Emmy has no known connection to South Africa. I'm also pretty sure Tom isn't swedish at all and Elliot isn't russian.

it's lazy, poorly planned and honestly highly questionable writing at best

[wereallydobevibing]

Oh, to Find Love in Russia | Konig x Reader

I used to post my stories on tiktok under the username @codlover but I figured since tiktok might get banned I should delete that account and post it here. Here’s one of the stories.

Feel free to use my work as a prompt/inspiration. Better yet, feel free to write your own ideal part 2 just MAKE SURE YOU CREDIT AND TAG ME.

WARNINGS: Mentions of injury, specifically written for my delulu girlies💕

The ice, cold air of a wintery Russia rushed through your body like death through Pompeii. With your lips an ungodly shade of purple and your fingers feeling so stupidly numb, you follow the public map displayed on the side of the nearest building to meet a short term comrade in a common tourist area.

It took you some time, having never been to Russia before, but you eventually find yourself walking alongside a very large man who names himself König. He leads you away from the tourist path and into a market area where you both enter a less than busy bar. You agree you’ll talk here, where it was warm and your shivering didn’t hinder your ability to speak.

The next two hours was a conversation of confirming your roles here and the goals that were set to be accomplished – you both were sent to gain intel, but König’s main focus was to serve as your armor, and gaining intel was especially assigned to you, dear reader.

You were not a special forces operator because you were big and strong, or because you had a particular set of skills pertaining to combat at all. Your task-force had elected you to become one of it’s soldiers because you were a holder of intelligence – you were the brain, and everyone else was the body.

Your skills lied in your ability to speak and understand a multitude of languages. Your looks and personality made you attractive to others both romantically or otherwise – people couldn’t help but make themselves known to you. You were good at making them feel so special that it hurt too much to not spill all their flavors into your cup.

Blackbird, they called you; a symbol of beauty and intelligence. You were your team’s little warbler – whatever they needed to know, you were sent to find out, and you always came back chirping your sweet song of intel.

König was quite taken by you from the very start – he’d never met a woman in his field that carried herself with such grace. Overtime, many women in special forces became much like their male colleagues; rough around the edges, heavily drinking and/or smoking, cursing like wounded sailors.

You? You were so clean. Not a single profanity fell from your glossed lips, your voice was smoother than the finest of silk velvets. Your eyes are still warm with the hope of a better world and twinkled with the gentle promise of eternal youth.

Granted, you were still rather fresh in age being in your early 20s. Still, you were special.

As you both got familiar with each other over the next few hours, König grew firmer in his belief that the radiance of your skin was actually your golden soul shining through your pores.

The safe house you’d both been given had been put together at the last minute. A fact that was clear by how it was a small cabin with only a couch in the living room and one bed in the bedroom, certainly not prepared for two. The kitchen was stocked with little snacks and such, but if either of you ever got the taste for a real meal, you’d have to eat out or go grocery shopping.

König was quick to offer you the only room, as you were a lady deserving of privacy.

Over the course of two weeks, you took turns cooking and choosing restaurants. But by week three, you’d become so focused on your task of manipulating a Captain in the Russian anti-group that you’d end up spending every free moment of your day at the desk, documenting the day’s occurrences and future strategies. König became responsible for making sure you both ate – it seemed that if he didn’t feed you, you’d simply forget to do it yourself and starve.

Week four was when the storm arrived, the great finale that signaled the nearing end of every mission – Blackbird had collected everything she needed and was ready to fly on home and feed her findings to her kin. Things were wrapping up and, naturally, that meant shit was going down.

The final day would end with König wounded – he fought well, your knight in shining armor. Of course he won, but he was losing blood from his abdomen and you knew he was in pain.

The jet that was assigned to pick you both up would not arrive until morning. Your due date was not until two days from now, but you’d finished early. Until then, you used what you had to stop the bleeding and make him comfortable.

You leave him on the bed that you’d been sleeping in for the last five weeks, flat on his back. If not for the pain of his stab wound, he might’ve enjoyed drowning in the lingering, feminine scent of shampoo and perfume stuck to the sheets and pillows you burrowed yourself in at night.

You bandage him with delicate fingers – such a stark difference compared to the medics back at the KorTac base. They were always so rough, like hornets pricking and prodding at his body.

He doesn’t notice how your focus was divided between his wound and his bare chest. Your impulsive thoughts, if you gave in to them, would’ve had you resting the palms of your hands flat on his muscles and grazing your fingertips over the ridges.

You tried to be respectful, the man was in pain – but you just couldn’t help your nature as it demanded to behold the glorious sculpture settled before you. Thousands of years ago, König might’ve been the model for ancient Greek statues. He was beautiful.

König sits up on the mattress when you finish, which now is stained with speckles of blood, clenching his jaw as he did. Your hands come up on his bare chest and you stop him.

“What are you doing?” You ask, bewildered, “You have to rest, König, you’re hurt.”

“This is your bed, schatz,” König grunted, “I will go to the couch.”

Now that the mission is over, you suddenly feel a wave of guilt come crashing down onto you. You’d been so busy thinking about what you needed to do, how you were going to get your hands on the information you’d been sent out to receive that you didn’t ever stop to think about König’s comfort. And here he was, spending every single day of the last five weeks watching your back, making sure you ate, and that you were comfortable. All he did was think about you.

As you stare at him, your heart begins pulsing erratically. Your face grows warm with the sudden realization that this big, brutal, soldier of a man was such a gentleman. He’d been so kind and considerate, looking over your shoulder for you like he was born to do it and not just because it was his job.

Your hands raise to cradle his masked face. You think about how this six-foot-ten beast had been sleeping on that tiny, poor excuse for a couch for nearly two months for the sake of your comfortability, and how he would do it even now when he was in pain.

Without a second thought, you go in and kiss him through the fabric of his mask – a little peck of admiration for his chivalry, a humble praise for being a rare man.

König stares at you when you pull back, he’s stunned. All these weeks of very subtly flirting with you … he thought you’d never notice, or even reciprocate his interest. König figured that you both would separate at the end of this story like Orpheus and Eurydice, he’d be damned to never know you again and you’d forget him as soon as he was gone.

With your hands still holding either side if his jaw, you tell him, “Lay down, König. Here.”

He brings up a large hand to meet one of yours, using the other to hold himself upright and stroking your wrist affectionately with his thumb, “You will not sleep on the couch, schatz.”

“No,” You agreed. “We will both stay here, on the bed, and that way if you need anything, I’m right here to help you.”

Still not believing what’s happening, he tries again to rise from the bed, only for you to guide him back down until his head rested on one of the pillows.

You ask, “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

König, beneath his mask, feels his lips curling upward as he laughs breathlessly.

He grins, “Okay?”

It was perfect.

[j3ss3jam3s85]

Evidence of Exodus

Many often wonder if there is any factual evidence proving the Bible being true.   What if I told you that not only can I point you to strong evidence of the old testament Exodus being real, I can point you to a person in Exodus who has a real life replica of himself. Being possibly the only person mentioned in the Bible that we can truly see how they appeared.  (With the exception of Vladimir Putin's recent 2024 claim that he has an original painting of Jesus Christ that has been in Russia).

bNow, if you're not familiar with the book of Exodus (chapters 1-14), I suggest you taking a moment to read it. Otherwise, what I'm about to say may not make much Sense. Or, read this and then read Exodus, and things might make more sense to you as it's being read.  Either way, I highly recommend reading it.

Archeologically, we're able to prove many things within the Bible, however, Exodus is not one of them. Matter of fact, some of the things are extremely questionable.  For example, where are all these Israelites coming from mentioned? There are no records of a man named Moses in Egypt. Many movies depict the enslaved Israelites were building the pyramids, however, The pyramids were built long before the Israelites were enslaved. There are many things that people question in the book of Exodus, you might as well. Maybe I can help with any doubt that you may have. In hopes to open your eyes as to the possibility that these things really could have, and did indeed happen.

Let's go back to the story of  Joseph. Joseph is one of the 12 sons of Jacob, also named Israel. (Remember God changed his name to Israel because of his faith in willing to sacrifice his son). They fell into a Great famine Aunt resources grew very slim, so they went searching for a better life elsewhere. Can you guess where they ended up? That's right, Egypt! This is where we get "The children of Israel", also known as, the Israelites.

Joseph's gift from God was the ability to interpret dreams. In doing so, he was able to interpret the Pharaoh's dream which ultimately helped save Egypt from a great famine.  So how did his people, his family, end up in bondage?  Answer is, the Israelites were living and the delta and we're living a pretty prosperous existence. Up until the moment a new pharaoh becomes in charge. This Pharaoh knows nothing about Joseph.  For none other than narcissistic  reasons, the new pharaoh is upset that the Israelites are living such a lavish life.  He ordered task masters to watch over them, which is when they became enslaved.  This Pharaoh is historically documented saying  to his midwives, "watch the two stones." Meaning, Egyptian women often give birth while sitting straight up to let gravity help them with the birthing process. Often, they would sit on two stones to help assist them during  labor. This correlates with the Bible when pharaoh ordered the death of all the Israelite males that were being born.  This is around the time that Moses was born. With Moses's mom afraid of him being murdered, she sent him away, down the river, for a chance at life.

Another questionable biblical text says that the pharaohs daughter finds Moses and the river and takes him in as her own. An Egyptian naming their child Moses, which is Hebrew is not very likely. Leaving some skepticism. Let me push that skepticism aside. 

Remember, Moses is sent down river, so when he's found, he's found in the reeds. Now the Hebrew word massa (משא) means brought out.  However Moses, Moses is actually a pure Egyptian name, which means Born. Just think about Ra-Moses, Ra means God and Moses means birth in Egyptian, God is Born. Another common Egyptian term is  Toth-Moses.  So therefore, just because the name Moses doesn't appear as someone's name being an actual person, it does not mean he did not exist. Moses literally means birth and Egyptian. Something someone would say or call a newborn baby. 

Moses later has an encounter with God through a burning bush. God tells Moses that he is going to be the one to help set the Israelites free and lead them into the promised land. Moses, brings his brother Aaron with him to go speak to the pharaoh. Moses performs many miraculous wonders and so do the pharaohs magic wielders. So it's like they're in competition for a moment. Moses has a staff and he throws it down and it turns into a snake. Then Pharaoh has his people throw a staff and they also turn into snakes.  It was almost like this was something that they've seen before, and we're unimpressed.  Now you can take it exactly how it was written and think that a staff was thrown down and turned into a snake and both parties were able to do so. What I think happened is, the staff happened to be a cobra snake that was stiff like a staff with the head as the handle. When you throw the snake down onto the ground it then is able to slither away. This is a known practice and Egypt then and even today which would explain why people wouldn't be impressed.  Moses and Aaron came back time and time again with  9 different plagues. Trying to convince Pharaoh to let his people go. Pharaoh gets annoyed and Now orders that the Israelites are no longer going to be given prepared straw to mix with their bricks. Leaving them to cut their own straw to mix with clay in order to make their own bricks. Giving double work with the same deadline. None of the plagues presented so far didn't seem to phase the Egyptians whatsoever. By this point, God says enough is enough and lets the pharaoh know that if he does not cooperate, he will take all the firstborns of families who do not have a blood sacrifice over their door frame.  Of course Pharaoh did not take this threat seriously, so there was no blood sacrifice and he ended up losing his son. This is what makes pharaoh say okay, You can have your freedom, you can go.

When the Israelites leave, the Egyptians are all mourning the deaths of their firstborns. So, when the Israelites asked for gold and silver upon leaving, they just handed it over with no issues. So the Israelites are able to leave rich with gold and silver.  Rightfully so in my opinion. They just spent approximately 430 years, in slavery and are now heading to the promised lands.

As the Israelites were on their way, Pharaoh quickly changed his mind and decided to go after the Israelites and bring them back. This is when the famous part of Exodus happens that most people are familiar with. Did the Israelites really cross the Red Sea on dry land? While the Egyptians get swallowed whole by the water? There is a lot of skepticism about rather or not they truly did part the Red Sea.

Here the Israelites are leaving on foot with all this gold and silver. We know that they lived in the Delta part of Egypt so we can kind of figure out the route that they took. They don't take the Philistine route because Palestine is highly guarded with watchtowers. So what they do is go through the marsh. Now the misconception lies with where exactly they crossed at. Which they actually crossed through the Sea of Reeds and not the Red Sea. Now in the Bible it says that  Pharaoh's chariots were clogged. Sounds like they were going through mud. If you ask me. Which if I'm on foot I can get through but if I'm in a chariot I cannot. So Pharaoh's men ended up perishing while God helped the Israelites make it through safely.

In playing devil's advocate, if this story is true then why is there no record other than what is mentioned in the Bible of this particular situation? The answer is Egyptians were horrible at record keeping in general. Their record keeping is mainly made up of what is written in tombs or on Stella's. Which never mentioned anything about any of their defeats. Egyptians only kept records of victories. Honestly, this entire situation only really mattered to the Israelites. No one else really cared. But this was the beginning of their entire religion.

Biblically they never say who the pharaoh actually was. Historically, Egypt didn't even have a pharaoh at this time. Who ever was in charge would technically be a king. So where does the Bible get Pharaoh from?  It's actually a conjunction of 2 Egyptian words, that meant house, great. Which Pharaoh meant the one who lived in a great house. Fitting for someone living in a palace.

A clue in the Bible as to who this pharaoh may be is when they speak of the Israelites building the store cities  with bricks. Is it a coincidence that one of the cities names is Pi-Ramess?  They are using bricks, which historically we can narrow down the time frame in which bricks began being used to build the storehouse in these 2 cities mentioned.

i'm going to agree with Bob Brier, an egyptologist who suggested the Pharaoh in the book of Exodus is...... Ramesses the Great. Why?

Ramesses' built his capitol right beside the Delta, which would be close enough to the Israelites. Especially during the times Moses and Aaron were traveling back and forth trying to convince him to let his people go. The Israelite slaves built the city of Ramesses out of brick and he was the one who built these cities.  There is a sentence written on a Papyrus that explains grain ratios to be handed out to the soldiers and apperu (now I know I butchered inthe spelling of this word, but I spelled it the way it sounded).  Which The translation is thought to mean Hebrew. Many scholars believe that this is our Israelites. Other scholars believe that Merneptah was the ruler over The Exodus. They believe this because the first time Israel is mentioned is during the reign of Merneptah, which is Rameses 13th son and his successor. However, when Merneptah mentions Israel on his Stella. It is referred to as a people and not a country or a foreign land. Meaning around this time the Israelites were still wondering. Therefore, if they are wandering at this time, that means they must have left right before he began his reign.  Biblical scholars believe The Exodus happened in year 20 of rameses reign.  Guess what else happens right around this time? Ramesses loses his firstborn son, Amonhirkhopshef.

In the Egyptian museum, you can now see the mummy of Ramesses the Great. Which very well may be the only face you can look upon that is a real biblical figure.  I love it when science, history and the Bible correlate. 

References:

Brier, Bob. The history of ancient Egypt. (2013). The great courses.

Exodus 1+14

[jarenka]

While I am drunk I want to tell you a story from Russian-speaking twitter.

There is a twitter user Mikhail Pletnev (I use his real name because his twitter account is named like that) who is a Russian immigrant in Tbilisi, Georgia. Once he started to complain that he is too shy to pick women up. Other Russian-speaking user from Tbilisi called him out for (as they assumed) lies. They claimed that Mikhail actually slept with half of Tbilisi. Mikhail Pletnev argued that he didn't sleep with half of Tbilisi. He claims there are about 450-500 immigrants from Russia in Tbilisi (I don't know how to translate it, but he meant anti-war immigrants from Russia who moved in 2022-2023), he knows about 250-300 of them, about half of them are women (130-150) and he slept only with 13 of them. He claims that every other person who goes to kink parties or just more open to dates with random people has more partners than him.

It caused a lot of jokes in Russian-speaking twitter including ones about local newly emerged alpha male dude (I don't want to use his name because I don't want to promote this grifter), which are going like that:

%alpha dude%: complains about women who are too egoistical to have sex with him.

Mikhail Pletnev: had sex with 13 women only in Tbilisi despite being too shy to pick up.

Which one of them deserves to have a course about seducing women?

(also the fun addition: Mikhail is (I am sorry) the most average balding slavic dude, every alpha male-adjacent incel would say that he would never get a girl, but he actually got more girls that any incel can dream)

[braucherei]

Just finished seeing Napoleon (2023) for the first time! I liked it more than I thought I would. The comedy bits were funny and the core relationship of Napoleon and Josephine was engaging even if all the other characters were pretty flat.

I don’t know much about Napoleon post-emperor but the history at least before that was unsurprisingly pretty all over the place.

SPOILERS (this is a bullet pointed list of moments mostly from the first quarter of the movie set during the French Revolution/Directoire) (EDIT: I just saw the movie for a second time so I added amendments/clarifications in red)

the movie opens with a text scroll summarizing in very vague terms what led to the French Revolution

The first real scene is Marie-Antoinette being guillotined while Ça ira is sung. Her execution is then immediately followed by Robespierre giving his “Terror and Virtue” speech very menacingly

Didn’t care for the guy casted as Robespierre didn’t really look like him and was too old. He just comes off as a generic “power hungry” politician in a powdered wig

When Napoleon first charges at the siege of Toulon a cannon hits his horse right in the chest and Barras has to awkwardly help Napoleon off the ground

The next day Napoleon is awarded for taking Toulon and for some reason the gored horse is still there. Napoleon reached his hand inside the horse and grabs the cannon ball

A scene or two after Toulon they show Thermidor where the whole convention turns on aspiring dictator Robespierre

Barras is in the balcony of the Convention and specifically yells that Robespierre wants to be “judge, jury and executioner”

This Robespierre runs away as a crowd of deputies chase him up the stairs. Someone in a chair that might have been an 18th century wheel chair falls over but the scene happens so fast I wasn’t sure

I believe it was just a regular chair tossed over during Thermidor but I’m still not entirely sure since there is some kind of either design or mechanism on the side of the chair

Robespierre pulls a gun on the mob of deputies chasing him but the gun jams so he pulls out a second gun and shoots himself

Barras says “you missed” and then fingers his jaw wound to I guess parallel Napoleon and the horse

A little later Napoleon is at the Victim’s ball and Josephine is seen there next to Barras.

Thérésa Cabarrus is also in the cast list but she is never named in the movie so I assume she will be in the Director’s cut

Josephine and a woman hug while leaving prison so that’s probably Cabarrus but her name is never said

There’s also a scene that starts with Barras and Napoleon goofing around together and throwing nuts at a wall which is sweet I guess

Weirdly Barras is the only male character Napoleon seems to be genuinely friendly with

I was wrong it was his brother Lucien not Barras that Napoleon was goofing around and throwing nuts with which makes more sense. I must have gotten their mullets confused

Napoleon returns from Egypt in this movie because he hears Josephine is cheating on him

the newspapers he gets from the English aren’t stories on how the Directoire is unpopular/corrupt but instead cartoons of him being cucked

(This is foreshadowing for the worst part of the movie)

The only real Fouché scene is when Napoleon is sitting with the Directors telling them how he’s going to coup them and it’s going around the table getting their reactions as Napoleon calls their names

Then Napoleon says Fouché and it cuts to a guy standing in the corner of the room

Talleyrand is a more important part of the movie and is given some of historical Fouché’s moments (I liked his actor a lot actually and he’s the best character besides the core two)

Barras also stops being a character after he agrees to resign as director but he continues to show up in the background throughout the movie

This is SPOILERS AGAIN for the end of the movie but I have to mention this because it was an insane decision

———————————————————————

While Napoleon is in Elba the Tsar of Russia rolls up to Josephine’s manor in a carriage and is “entertained” by her

Napoleon sees a cartoon of him being cucked again in the newspaper and that is why the Hundred Days happens

[vahvah]

Bros, the ideas that circulate in canon and fanon around eastslavic siblings really seem strange to me.

It is strange to expect a japanese man to be well versed in the intricacies of eastern european history of the early and high Middle Ages, but to expect this from an english-speaking fandom (mostly northamerican, let's face it) is also, it seems to me, pointless.

Let me explain. "Kievan Rus" is an artificial construct adopted from russian imperial/soviet historians. Moreover, it’s not just a matter of the name, as, you know, the late Rhomean Republic is called the “Byzantine Empire”, it’s just that there was LITERALLY no such state as “Kievan Rus”. In the space approximately from the Baltic and White to the Black Seas, there were numerous proto-urban and urban settlements of slavic, finno-ugric and baltic (as well as other) tribes, which entered into alliances with each other, sometimes quite strong, but still remained isolated. Of course, it would be disingenuous to say that since the beginning of time the urban educated population did not develop some kind of common identity… for some time.

But if we talk about actually existing cultural regions, determined by geography and economics, then, in fact, it is worth highlighting Northern (Novgorod) Rus' and Southern (Kievan Rus' itself), in a very simplified scheme. One of them was tied to the countries around the Baltic Sea, like the scandinavians, the baltic tribes and northgerman cities, as well as the slavs of modern East Germany. The other constantly encountered nomads, “Byzantine Empire" and, to a lesser extent, the western and southern Slavs (and magyars!). They were never able to truly become a unified state.

Of course, this is a simplification, because in addition to the Rurikids in the North, who subjugated the South and over time moved there (while the south over time began to separate itself, in particular, into the Novgorod Republic), there was a separate center in Polotsk and some others, but it approximately reflects the essence and, if I were asked about personifications, then I would make two separate MAIN personifications for Rus', Novgorod in the North (male) and Kiev in the South (female), which would be the parents of the future Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

But if you asked me in even more detail, then Belarus should stand a little aside. You know, in fact, historically it is more archaic and “stagnant” than Ukraine in the south and Russia in the northeast. Did you know that lithuanians called belarusians an ethnonym derived from the name goths lol? Plus, genetically and partly culturally, belarusians, like some poles, are closer to the baltic peoples, and not to the rest of the slavs. Taking into account the independent center of statehood in Polotsk, independent of the Rurikids, I would say that Belarus DEFINITELY must be older than Russia (which in the strict sense could only have been born as the Vladimir-Suzdal Principality/North-Eastern Rus' with more ancient names, let’s not clutter the text ) and POSSIBLY older than Ukraine. Perhaps she is an adopted child.

Of course, in reality we have many problems in studying the region for objective reasons, such as a lack of written sources, but… I still love Eastern Europe, these are my roots, after all. And it's really interesting.

[amphibious-thing]

Philippa Gregory and Lazy Research: the Issue With Pop History as Exemplified by the Misinformation Surrounding Geneviève d'Eon in the Book Normal Women

If you frequent bookstores or libraries you might have seen Philippa Gregory's new book Normal Women in the best sellers or most wanted displays. The fact that Geneviève d'Eon, a trans woman, is included in a woman's history book is marvelous. D'Eon has been denied her place in woman's history for far too long. So what's the problem? Well Philippa Gregory's lazy research is the problem.

For full transparency I have to admit I didn't read the whole book. And honestly based on what I did read I probably wont read it because the short section I did read left a lot to be desired. While the section on d'Eon is short Gregory sure can pack a fair bit of misinformation into 7 paragraphs.

The most glaring error is d'Eon's name. Gregory claims her name was Lia however this is simply not true. D'Eon's full name was Charlotte-Geneviève-Louise-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Eon de Beaumont, or Geneviève d'Eon for short. When d'Eon transitioned she changed her first name to Charlotte, but she actually went by her middle name Geneviève, which was one of her baptismal names. The name Geneviève had both personal and religious significance for d'Eon having been given to her by her godmother. She talks about this in the draft of her autobiography:

I did undertake to make a novena to my patron saint, Geneviève, in the hope of gaining insight, since the name Geneviève was given to me at baptism by my godmother, the sister of my father and of my uncle.

(The Maiden of Tonnerre, p9)

She also mentions her name when writing about the joy of being able to live openly as a woman:

At present I am living in profound peace; and my joy is so great that I praise God in three languages so that a greater number of people may partake of the happiness of the angels in this life while awaiting the crown of ordinary martyrs, Nunc Genofeva d'Eon est nomen meum; quam suave et dulce est laetitia mea! [My name is now Geneviève d’Eon; how delightful and how sweet is my joy!]

(The Maiden of Tonnerre, p87)

[Ticket for Geneviève d'Eon's fencing display at Mrs. Bateman's house in Soho, c. 1793, via The British Museum]

The only evidence that suggests d'Eon may have used the name Lia is from a flirtatious letter written by her then boss the Marquis de l'Hôpital during her mission in Russia. L'Hôpital, who was 30 years her senior, calls d'Eon "ma chère Lia" and "ma belle de Beaumont". In other letters l'Hôpital often complains about d'Eon's lack of sexual activity, often making comments about her penis. It's unclear how d'Eon felt about the name Lia or the multiple sexual remarks made by her boss. (see Mémoires sur la Chevalière d'Éon by Frédéric Gaillardet, p16, 77, 80, 94, 99 & 110 for the l'Hôpital letters)

Gregory isn't just confused about d'Eon's name, she also mixes up details of d'Eon's life claiming that d'Eon dressed as a woman during her mission to spy on England in preparation for an French invasion, stating that d'Eon "moved in London society as Lia de Beaumont." I've never seen any strong evidence that d'Eon was dressing in woman's clothes for this mission and Gregory doesn't provide any evidence of this either. Certainly d'Eon claimed to have dressed in women's clothes during her mission in Russia but not England. (see The Maiden of Tonnerre for d'Eon's claims that she adopted a female alias in Russia)

Gregory also claims:

In August 1777, Lia de Beaumont chose a male identity and wore a grenadier's uniform to volunteer for military service in the American War of Independence, but was prevented from joining the conflict

While d'Eon did attempt to rejoin the French army in 1778 & 1779 she did not "chose a male identity". D'Eon asked to be able to rejoin the army as a woman. In February 1779 d'Eon published an open letter to "several Great Ladies at Court" hoping for support in rejoining the army:

Foreseeing that there will be less fighting on land this year than last, I earnestly entreat you to use your influence with the ministers, in favour of my petition (as stated in the enclosed copy of my letter to the Comte de Maurepas) to serve as a volunteer in the fleet of the Comte d'Orvilliers. Your name, Madame, is one to which military glory is familiar, and, as a woman, you must love the glory of our sex. I have striven to sustain that throughout the late war with Germany, and in negotiating at European courts during the last twenty-five years. There is nothing left for me to do but to fight at sea in the Royal Navy. I hope to acquit myself in such a way that you will not regret having fostered the good intention of one who has the honour to be, with profoundest respect, faithfully yours. La Chevalière d'Eon.

(Originally published in Correspondance Littéraire, Philosophique et Critique, translation by Alfred Rieu in D'Eon de Beaumont, His Life and Times, p233)

Nowhere in this letter does d'Eon claim to be a man. In fact she writes "as a woman, you must love the glory of our sex" (emphasis mine) and signs it in the feminine "La Chevalière d'Eon."

Gregory also includes the following quote from Madame Campan's book Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette:

He was made to resume the costume of that sex to which in France everything is pardoned. The desire to see his native land once more determined him to submit to the condition, but he revenged himself by combining the long train of his gown and the three deep ruffles on his sleeves with the attitude and conversation of a grenadier, which made him very disagreeable company.

I have to ask why Gregory felt this needed to be included? Why is Campan's speculation on d'Eon's gender given more weight than any of d'Eon's own writings on gender? Shouldn't we prioritise what d'Eon said about herself over the speculation of an acquaintance of hers?

Why not include this quote:

I would prefer to keep my male clothes, because they open all the doors to fortune, glory, and courage. Dresses close all those doors for me. Dresses only give me room to cry about the misery and servitude of women, and you know that I am crazy about liberty. But nature has come to oppose me, and to make me feel the need for women’s clothes, so that I can sleep, eat, and study in peace. I am constantly in fear of some sickness or accident that will, despite myself, allow my sex to be discovered …. Nature makes a good friend but a bad enemy. If you chase it through the door, it just blows back in through the window.

(Monsieur D'Eon Is a Woman by Gary Kates p71)

Or this one:

If certain modern philosophers do not approve of my conversion, it is because they do not believe in God, the law, or the King. God forgave me, the living law vindicated me, and the legal systems in England and France awarded me full rights to wear a dress. Louis XV and Louis XVI were my patrons, the Queen who is the daughter of the Caesars had me dressed in her court by Mademoiselle Bertin; the very woman who dresses the Queen did not turn up her nose at dressing Mademoiselle d'Eon grandly.

(The Maiden of Tonnerre, p134)

Or maybe this one:

Having been a decent man, a zealous citizen and a brave soldier all my life, I triumph in being a woman and in being able to be cited for ever amongst those many woman who have proved that the qualities and virtues of which men are so proud have not been denied to those of my sex.

(La Vie militaire, politique et privée de Melle d’Eon (1779): Biography and the Art of Manipulation by Anne-Marie Mercier-Faivre)

Gregory isn't alone in the choice to highlight Campan's speculation over d'Eon's own words, Wikipedia also does this, which makes me wonder if she originally got this quote from d'Eon's Wikipedia page. Perhaps Gregory doesn't know what d'Eon wrote about gender because she hasn't read anything d'Eon wrote about gender.

It's clear that Philippa Gregory's research on d'Eon was frankly lazy and nothing exemplifies this as much as her thinking d'Eon's name was Lia. But why does Philippa Gregory think d'Eon's name is Lia when primary source evidence clearly shows otherwise? Well it's certainly a common myth that d'Eon used the name Lia de Beaumont as a alias while working as a spy in Russia. The assumption was originally made by Frédéric Gaillardet in his largely fictitious book Memoires du Chevalier d'Eon. Gaillardet assumes that d'Eon used the name Lia de Beaumont because of the letter from the Marquis de l'Hôpital in which he calls her "ma chère Lia" and "ma belle de Beaumont". Whether or not d'Eon even did have a female alias while working as a spy in Russia is a controversial point amongst historians. However even if we assume she did use the name Lia as an alias its still not really her name.

I don't think I've seen a single historian claim d'Eon's name was actually Lia but I have seen many people on social media claim this was her name. The logic seems to be that if d'Eon used Lia de Beaumont as an alias that it was probably her preferred name. With most secondary sources on d'Eon using her deadname and never identifying d'Eon by either her first name Charlotte or preferred name Geneviève the issue gets confused. Lia seems like the preferable choice of name to people who don't want to deadname d'Eon but also aren't aware of any other feminine name she went by.

But why does Philippa Gregory think d'Eon's name is Lia? Surely Gregory isn't getting her information from social media? Right? But none of her cited sources identify Lia as d'Eon's name. In fact one of her cited sources, D'Eon Returns to France: Gender and Power in 1777 by Gary Kates, is one of the few secondary sources that does mention that d'Eon's name was Charlotte. Is Gregory even reading her own sources?

This issue isn't unique to Philippa Gregory it's a common issue in pop history. If you want to cover a broad topic that will appeal to a wide audience, like 900 years of women's history, you almost certainly are not going to study every aspect in significant detail. Can we really expect Philippa Gregory to do in-depth research into one individual she only talks about for 7 paragraphs? Of course not. So the research gets lazy.

[colorfuldonutrunaway]

I made a character sheet for one of my ocs. Took a lot of bravery to do it, but I made it.🥲 I wasn't sure how to handle the two boxes under the main picture, and I should add that this character is AroAce.🏳️‍🌈

Metrics explained here:

*Name: Peter Romanov was named purely by his mother. I would go into detail about how his patronymic works but I'm not very sure on how it works in Russian culture, so I'll keep my mouth shut. Anyways, Roman prefers to be called, well, Roman because he despises his first name for some reason.

*Nicknames: If you want to avoid a death glare, call him by Roman or Wolf.

*Race/Species: Before he became the Wolf, he was a first-generation Russian American human. After getting diagnosed with a supposedly rare fatal muscle wasting disease, he secretly began injecting himself with wolf DNA on the genetic level. This was actually working really well...until an assistant startled him during one such procedure and he injected a massive amount into his cells...and mutated into his current state. The unstable state of his cells means that every 5 days, he turns back into a human, and after five days again, he returns to the Wolf, rinse and repeat.

*Age: 30 as of 2024, being born in 1993 after his parents left Russia for the Americas.

*Gender: Born Male, identifies as such.

*Alignment: Wanting to follow the pursuit of knowledge and science for the betterment of mankind, Roman ignores the fact that he was stripped of his license to run a laboratory (after the genetics incident) and continues operating to create new inventions. Problem is, he can't patent them under his own name...

*Class/Job: As stated above, Roman shouldn't be operating a laboratory. He was banned from the high council of intellectuals and was forbidden from ever using their tools to create or invent again. That hasn't stopped him from creating a laboratory from materials gathered on the black market, hiring minions from criminal origins, and operating secretly underneath a normal Pennsylvanian town as a scientist.

*Perception and Communication: He takes advantage of his improved wolf senses to observe every detail around himself. As for communication, he's a great orator and debater, but he can get frustrated if people don't understand his high tech jargon.

*Persuasion and Mediation: He listens well and can use it to his advantage when trying to persuade someone into doing something for him and when mediating an issue between two groups. He's not the best at it, but he's good enough for most scenarios.

*Literacy and Creativity: Raised by a genius mother who noticed that her child's intellect was increasing at an abnormally fast pace, she opted to guarantee that his childhood was to be surrounded by folklore, documentaries, and educational materials. This led to a man that could be omnidisciplinary in Engineering, Robotics, programming (Python/HTML/C++), Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Genetics, mathematics, and neurology. Not surprising for an IQ that reached 300 at 16 years old. (he refuses to do actual medicine though.) He also grew up speaking English and Russian at home.

*Cooking: He can bake, but actually making original meals is kinda hard for him. Especially as the Wolf, because it's led to him just settling for any food with meat in it, even if it's raw.

*Tech Savvy: From as young as 4 years old, he was fixing phones and taking apart cars.

*Combat: Roman took martial arts classes at 16, but rarely uses what he's learned. Especially after becoming the Wolf, because now he has boosted strength that allows him to easily knock out people with a punch or throw them. Not very good with guns either.

*Survival: He learned basic survival skills from the numerous books he's read, but has never really exercised it or gone camping to hone it. As the Wolf, he does have some natural instincts that help.

*Stealth: Ugh. He's never had a reason to be stealthy as a human. This worsened when he turned into a hybrid, because his clunky, furry body is harder to hide. Being 6 ft 7 inches in Wolf form doesn't help.

*Street smarts: Roman has never known a normal childhood due to his rapidly increasing intelligence netting him media attention and breezing him through school. Therefore, he's never been able to make friends with kids his age, and his overprotective parents kept him from exploring the world, leading to his street smarts being shockingly low.

*Seduction: No...just...no.

*Luck: Not anymore or less lucky than a normal person.

*Handling Animals: When in Wolf form, it's very difficult to handle animals without them freaking out on him. In human form? Animals love him.

*Pacifying Children: He's good at distracting kids with a story or a piece of candy, but his stronger senses mean that a child crying is painful to listen to.

*Strength: Probably due to his wasting disease, he's weaker in human form, (as in, weaker than the average human), but notoriously strong as a Wolf.

*Dexterity: Pretty average. Struggles in Wolf form due to not being used to the big furry paws.

*Health: As mentioned before, weak in human form, strong and vibrant in Wolf-man form.

*Energy: Usually in the middle.

*Beauty: Considered handsome in human form. Considered cute fluffy doggo in Wolf form.

*Style: While he's usually in a lab coat, whenever he ventures into the town, he's wearing designer clothes that fit his Wolf form well.

*Hygiene: So for some reason, Wolf still has human lymph nodes in the usual spots, meaning that he also sweats from those areas. So he has to shower daily or else he develops a pretty wild smell.

*Intelligence: From the age of 2, Roman's brain suddenly developed at an insanely fast speed. Nobody knows why this happened exactly, but they had no choice to accept it as Roman began to pass classes flawlessly, finish entire novels in hours, and do complex equations by himself. He's graduated highschool by the age of 12 and helped teach college classes at the age of 15.

*Happiness: Despite his current situation, he's really good at seeing the bright side of things. Roman actually enjoys being in his Wolf form, and feels more free now that the council isn't constantly watching over his back.

*Spirituality: Raised Christian, Roman became agnostic around his pre-teens, and had stayed that way since.

*Confidence: He's very confident in his skills, but not to the point where he thinks he's infallible.

*Humor: His humor tends to vary greatly. While he doesn't make jokes himself, he does find other people's jokes and references entertaining.

*Anxiety: Like with the Happiness stat, Roman doesn't let much get to him. His Wolf affliction actually saved his life, as it stopped and partially reversed the progression of the wasting disease, leading him to be relatively positive.

*Patience: He's learned to be patient with the average person since they can't make hundreds of calculations a minute in their brain like he can, though it does have limits if he can tell if someone is intentionally trying to be an obstacle in his mission.

*Passion: Developing his love for science from his mother, Roman wants a world that is as free from suffering as humanly possible, and he will invent and create as much as he can.

*Charisma: While he gives off a cool and professional aura, his social development was still stunted by his strange childhood.

*Empathy: He can feel like other people, but he sometimes thinks that other people blow things out of proportion, or can solve their problems more easily than they think.

*Generosity: Gives to those that severely need it, doesn't give to much of anyone else.

*Wealth: How does Roman fund a laboratory and a couple dozen minions? Hacking banks obviously. He's good enough that the possibility of police discovering that it's him doing it is so unlikely it's insane, and he usually steals enough that it can pay the bills and all of his minions while still having some left over for leisurely pursuits.

*Aggression: He can be fierce when he needs to be, but prefers giving off a stoic energy usually.

*Libido: Never had much of one at all. Being aromantic asexual helps in making sure that this isn't ever an issue he needs to care about anyway.

I'll add more later, but I'm tired and it's getting late.

[forestanomaly]

East slavic naming guide

From a ukrainian artist who grew up in russia-influenced culture and has russian friends. Probably can also be applied to other east slavic nationalities, but I can't talk for them, so I strongly advice to do additional research.

So, you desided to make a character that is russian, ukrainian, belorussian or perhaps rusyn. It is very nice, we'd love some representation! But how to name your new east slavic creature in a way that would sound right for their real counterparts? Let's go over some frequent mistakes I notice in names of slavic characters.

Structure of the name

Our names consist of name, patronymic (usually) and surname. There can be exeptions from the established rule, but usually name and surname is a must.

Name

Gender is stupid, but if you want to be aware of it, then please mind which gender the chosen name represents. There are names that can be considered unisex in their nickname form, like Alexander (m) and Alexandra (f) is commonly redused to Sasha (f/m/whatever), or Evgeniy (m) and Evgeniya (f) can be nicknamed Zhenya (f/m/whatever). Mind that nicknames are usually used by friends and family, and it is considered polite and respectful to refer to a person you don't really know/who is much older than you or is of a higher rank or position by their full name and patronymic/matronymic (ex. "...so my teacher, Alla Ivanovna..." "Andrey Romanovich, can I ask you something about the task you gave us earlier?") (more on that later) Full, unshortened version of the name is rarely used in friendly and family settings, especially if the name is long and common. No friend or family would call you Vladislav if they don't mean it in comedic way or using your Full Name (tm) when they're angry (you know what I mean, your parents do that too), on a day-by-day basis people who know you would usually just call you Vlad. I encourage you to look up common nicknames for names when you choose them and to think about how other characters would refer to your east slavic depending on their manneurisms and relationships. Some nicknames are more often used in sertain settings than others, for example, here's name Sergey. Common nickname is Serezha/Serega, but on the streets (tm) it can be shortened to Seryi, which literraly means Gray, so have fun with that.

Surname

Please please PUHLEASE WATCH THE ENDINGS OF THE SURNAMES Most of the words in east slavic languages are gendered, especially surnames and patronymic/matronymics, that change their endings depending on who they belong to! Ex: If a character is male, then his SurnameNamePatronymic would be Sobolev Alexander Vasilyevich. If a character is female, her SNP would be Soboleva Alexandra Vasilyevna. You see where I'm going, right? There are some surnames that don't change, like Onyshenko, or Yakovenko, for example, that stay the same, no matter who they belong to. Be aware of that when you choose a surname and check how it changes and if it does at all, please. We would appreciate it greatly.

Patronymic/matronymic

Most of the time you meet people with patronymics, aka derivative word from the name of their father. It is uncommon, but not unheard of, for people to have matronymics (same but with their mother's name) or have neither. They pretty much always change depending on the gender of a person, ex.: There is a dude named Bogdan. His son would have patronymic Bogdanovich, his daughter - Bogdanovna, and his nonbinary child would probably choose a plural form of the word - Bogdanovni, but there are no rules for that in languages I know, so I'd ask actual east slavic nonbinary people how they go about that. People usually actually use patronymics/matronymics combined with full names in official settings. NP/NM is usually used by students when they reffer to teachers, by subodrinates when they talk to their boss, by kids when they talk to their friend's parents and etc. It's basically ms./mrs./mr. of the east slavic languages. It is also common for older people to call each other only by patronymic/matronymic if they know each other well, like if they are neighbours, colleagues or friends. They also usually shorten the patronymics/matronymics when they do that, so Ivanovich becomes Ivanich and so on. People younger than, like, fourty, usually don't do that and just use names if they know each other well. It's always good to double-check the spelling and pronounciation of specific everything (name, surname, patronymic/matronymic), because boy do they hold linguistic surprises. Thank you for reading, have fun, do your research, don't be afraid to try new things and ask questions!

[tomorrowusa]

Executing your own troops must do wonders for morale. No wonder Russia is losing.

Those comparisons of Putin to Stalin and Hitler are not really hyperbole.

“We have information that the Russian military has been actually executing soldiers who refuse to follow orders,” U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a press briefing in Washington on Thursday. “We also have information that Russian commanders are threatening to execute entire units if they seek to retreat from Ukrainian artillery fire,” he added. “It’s reprehensible to think … that you would execute your own soldiers because they didn’t want to follow orders,” Kirby said. “And now threatening to execute entire units. It’s barbaric.” [ ... ]

Kirby said Moscow appears to have resumed the “human wave tactics” of throwing hundreds of poorly trained soldiers at the Ukrainian lines, which the Kremlin first used in the winter offensive last year. “Russia’s renewed offensive is a sobering reminder that President Putin has not given up his aspirations to take all of Ukraine. As long as Russia continues its brutal assault, we have to support Ukraine,” Kirby said.

If Russian troops know that Putin's Mafia-style enforcers are probably going to shoot them, they have plenty of incentive to shoot the pro-régime henchmen first. 💡

It's Day 614 of Putin's 3-day "special operation" in Ukraine. It's getting increasingly difficult for Russia's dictator to find people who will voluntarily fight for his cherished goal of restoring the decrepit Soviet Union in all but name. Just yesterday you may have seen a post here about how kids in Russia are being militarized.

The best advice we can give to Russian males of military age is GET OUT.

Neighboring Mongolia and Kazakhstan are supposed to be beautiful in the autumn. It's the perfect time for a vacation.

Putin has ruined Russia for at least a generation; it's gradually turning into a large version of North Korea. Even if the war ends tomorrow there is little future for anybody in Russia – except maybe in Putin's secret police.

Leaving Russia may be difficult but staying there could become catastrophic.

[pricescigar]

Yuri Korolyov

Anja belongs to - @adlerboi

Born: 12th of September 1952

Age: 18 (As of 1970) & 29 (As of 1981)

Nationality: Russian

Gender: Male

Height: 187.96 cm (6ft2)

Parent(s):  Anja Petrochenka & Mikhail Korolyov

Hair colour:  Brown

Eye colour:  Blue

Nicknames:  N/A _________________________________________

Personality: Much more reserved, calmer, more understanding than his father. Yuri knows from right and wrong. But if necessary he wouldn't hesitate to show what he's capable of, should you dare to cross him.

Likes: Cats, working hard, collecting first edition novels, collecting vintage furniture, going to theatre performances, cooking, getting new tattoos

Dislikes:  People doubting him, liars, hot weather, dogs, his family being mistreated, the past being mentioned

_________________________________________

Backstory:

As far as Yuri could remember and recall, he rememberd very little of his mother before she left Russia for good. He grew up with only his father by his side. He had a isolated childhood, spending most of his life in hiding due to his father's crimes. And also because of Mikhail's underground business fell apart in the process.

With no other family members, the only kind of family he had was his father and close friends of his.

At first for Yuri it was lonely but he quickly grew used to the feeling, sometimes he asked about his mother, where she went, vice versa. But when his father gave no answer he eventually stopped asking.

Yuri was homeschooled throughout his childhood, a good student, finishing his studies early he went out to find work at the ahe of 16. Working here and there just to make up some money, from the moment he turned 18... What was left of Mikhail's business was inherited to him, and for the better. Yuri changed it for the better.

Yuri actually valued his life, with the money that was given to him. He cleared all dirt on the family name, and pledged to do good rather than bad. He didn't want history to repeat itself, like what it came to his father.

Asides from working, Yuri is laid back, wanting to catch up on things he missed out on. He also loves Cats, he has a Russian blue cat named Maxim.

Around 1970 he easily tracked down his mother Anja, the two reunited. At first he was hesitant and a but reserved. But over time his guard came down.

By 1981 his business was still progressing perfectly, giving weapons to the right people than for bad intentions. After the death of Volkov, Yuri housed his mother, and his step siblings.

One of Yuri's talents is that he can memorise his favourite book from heart, his favourite book is The Brothers Karamazov.

Despite the tensions of the Cold War, Yuri does love some Western cars outside of Russia.

[romanovsonelastdance]

hi, do/did Grand Duchesses outrank princesses in Russia?

Yes, Grand Duchesses were higher than Princesses in Russia.

The confusing thing is that in the original Russian, what we translate as 'duchess' and 'princess' is actually the same word. So it's really more like "Grand Princess" vs "Princess" (or "Grand Duchess" vs "Duchess") which makes it more obvious that Grand Duchess is the higher title. It's confusing in English, but the Romanovs themselves used Grand Duke/Duchess in English (for example, Sandro's book "Once a Grand Duke") so it's the translation I prefer, even if it's confusing.

The daughters and granddaughters (through the male line) of an Emperor were given the rank of Grand Duchess (and obviously foreign princesses who married Grand Dukes), but once you get to great-granddaughters, they were 'only' Princesses, and instead of Imperial Highnesses, they were just 'Highness.' OTMA's cousin Irina is a confusing example because she's only a HH Princess, even though she's the granddaughter of Alexander III, but that's because she's a granddaughter through her mother Xenia, but only a great-granddaughter (of Nicholas I), through her father, and she gets her rank and title from him.

Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich was a the grandson of an Emperor (Alexander II) so he was entitled to be a HIH Grand Duke, but his children were only the great-grandchildren of an Emperor, so they were only HH Prince/ss. But when he named himself defacto Emperor in 1924, he elevated his children to grand ducal status.

[farasen]

I've been putting it off for too long, hoping that I'd finish at least one thing with dwk AUs, but I've lost interest and didn't come up with design for those who are left, so I'll just spill out what I have

So it's a Russian reality AU. The events are happening in the mid 2000s (like 2005-2007), and I haven't decided on the rest, but I thought they could like fight with people (aka The Ubeatables, Cool Kickers and 1FC) from other neighbourhoods, gang on gang kind of shit. Normal activities of 2000s kids. But they're pretty harmless, just being noisy teens.

Now design concepts (names are based off English dub, since this version is more common to Russians)

Peretc Rinat Sabirovich 

That's Deniz. He's tatar in this reality. Same old rich boy, who has a good computer at home and buys original clothes and not on the market square. Wears an earring in his left ear, which some people call him gay for, but it's actually for the sake of the music. Also people joke about his surname, because it literally means "pepper" and he tells them "Kit mannan Na kutak".

Butkova Vasilisa Lavrentievna

Vanessa, as you can see. Half-Ukrainian, her parents moved to Russia after USSR collapse. Unlike her original version, doesn't like to be called by full name and preferes Asya or Vasya. The meme is that Vasya is a male name.

Khazanovsky Dima Fedorovich

Jojo. Don't have much to say about him. His Би-2 (Bi-2) t-shirt is the only thing left by his father. He also wears rubber bracelets from a local shop. Likes ''classical rock'' like said Bi-2 and Kino.

Belyaev Roma Valentinovich

Raban, can't say much about him either. He's like a nerd goodie-goodie, even his clothes are more 80-90s.

From now on I don't have any reference sheets, so it's just information about the characters.

Veresov Kolyan Mikhailovich

That's Leon. Even though his name is Kolya, Vanessa calls him Nikita (an asshole name in Russia). Jokes on nefors (subcultures like punk or emo), but actually doesn't mind them.

Veresov Tolik Mikhailovich

Marlon. He and his brother are also known as Tolyan and Kolyan duo. Mostly listens to hip-hop like Detsl, but also listens to Korol i Shut, Kino and some other foreign artists. His style of clothes is more hip-hop-like so some people call him ''not true rock fan'', even though he never stated he was lol.

Temirov Kirill Timofeevich

That's Markus and I don't have any headcanons on him. Like zero. But he might be an emo.

That's all for now, maybe I'll come back to it at some point and at least finish the concepts :p

[lesbianlenas]

what is supercorp? I tried to google it, is it the ship name for alex and maggie from supergirl?

the way that i said supercorp is supergirl and lena luthor and ur like is it maggie and alex 😭 no as i said it is supergirl aka kara danvers & lena luthor. so basically kara is supergirl obvs & lena is the younger sister of lex luthor who is superman’s archenemy obvs but she wants to do good to fix her family’s name after what they had done. so everyone at first thinks lena is evil anyway but kara looked into her eyes and could tell she’s not (real quote) and becomes bffs w her bc she is the only one who believes in lena no matter what even when she’s framed and everyone thinks she worked w her mother who is evil like lex to create a device to kill aliens. but kara never stops believing lena is good even when lena doesn’t believe in herself…..so kara is like obsessed w lena and lena loves kara bc kara is the only one to not treat her like a luthor and kara also loves lena bc lena is the only one to love her so much as kara and not as supergirl bc lena doesn’t know she’s supergirl. and as time goes on kara realizes she’s missed her chance and now lena will never forgive her for not telling her bc lena will think kara didn’t tell her bc she didn’t trust her when in actuality by the time kara was ready to tell her lena & supergirl had a falling out and then after that kara was too afraid that lena would hate her forever if she told her she was supergirl and she would lose her. so then lex tells lena that kara is supergirl and lena decides she is going to brainwash the whole world not to feel emotions anymore so no one can ever hurt the way kara hurt her but not before she hurts kara back first! so when kara finally does tell lena she is supergirl lena pretends like she’s ok w it (and she doesn’t reveal kara’s secret like she planned bc she loooooves her) and then eventually lena reveals her plans to brainwash everyone and kara tells lena that this was the biggest mistake of her life and she’s so sorry but lena doesn’t care. and everyone tries to convince kara that lena should be treated as a villain now but kara still insists lena is NOT a villain and she can get thru to lena. but lena doesn’t want to speak w her and kara tries to alter the past by telling lena she is supergirl at different points throughout the show but no matter what it always ends badly. so then at the end of the season lena realizes her plan was bad and they’re forced to team up to stop the bad guys and they make up w each other and then kara is sucked into the phantom zone for like 8 eps or smth bc melissa benoist was on maternity leave??? i think was the reason???? but after she comes back they are basically just gfs who wax poetic to each other abt how brave and amazing the other is every ep and then there’s a whole bit abt lena being a canadian witch that we ignore and they end the show w neither of them having a love interest and having an emotional speech to each other abt how they changed each other forever….

also there is a plot line where kara gets cloned and her clone has none of her memories and is taken in by lex in russia and all she remembers is the name alex (kara’s sister) who she thinks is lex and also who lena is….and she is obsessed w lena from lex telling her abt her and when she goes to national city (where the show takes place) she reads kara’s diary abt lena does not care abt seeing alex and goes and finds lena and pretends to be kara and stares at her like 👁️👁️ and when she decides to ignore what lex told her and lex is furious at her she says “this is abt lena” and lex says “i thought you were stronger” implying kara’s clone is in love w lena meaning it is such an intrinsic part of who kara is she remembered it over everything else ❤️

that being said they were never canon despite being insanely in love and they tried to shoehorn in male love interests for them both at different times but none of them stuck bc supercorp is superior. also melissa and katie are two of the hottest women ever. supercorp endgame 🤩 classic case of them corping right here