#Finnic people

[gregor-samsung]

Олык марий пылвомыш вате-влак [Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari] (Aleksei Fedorchenko, 2012)

[dashing-luna]

Everyone’s yapping about wanting a book on Haymitch’s game or Finnicks game but you know what I want? I want the first ever quarter Quell, the 25th Hunger games. To those who don’t remember the whole premise of the first quarter quell was everyone had to VOTE who got taken into the games! Which is already a horrific concept. This could either take place with the victor themself as the perspective ( a way to explore other districts, preferably one of the career districts, especially 2), OR a personal idea of a perspective from Tigris in her designer days! So not only do we have more insight into the games, and capitol, but the deterioration of Snow and Tigris’s relationship.

[novemb-r]

Rune singers Iivana Onoila and Jelisei Valakainen in Terijoki, 1911.

Runesong is a genre of folk music, or a form of oral poetry, historically practiced among the Baltic Finnic peoples. Originating in the Finno-Ugric belt from the Urals (Russia) to Finnskogen (Parts of eastern Norway and Sweden). With the oldest songs being over 4000 years old, the runesong often has a religious content, partly incantatory, but can also have a historical summary content with myths. Some of the incantations were linked to the desire for protection and healing, i.e. the medical rune chants.

[kalevalaandothers]

"Maiden of Ananyino Culture" by Valentin Zhdanov, 2001.

From Perm Museum of Local Lore.

The Ananyino Culture is an archaeological culture of the Iron Age, which was widespread in the Middle Volga region (from the Vetluga River to Ulyanovsk) and in the Kama River basin from the end of the 9th to the 3rd centuries BC. In the Volga region and Lower Kama region, traces of the Ananyino culture were lost in the 6th century BC, in other areas - in the III-II centuries BC. The name is given after the first open burial ground near the village of Ananyino near Yelabuga (Tatarstan), excavated by P.V. Alabin and I.V. Shishkin in 1858.

This culture is considered Finno-Ugric.

[bartxnhood]

right here waiting | f.o

finnic odair x fem!reader

summary: after the quarter quell you vanish, no sign, no trace. you left behind your boyfriend, finnick, who could just not wrap his head around your disappearance. what happened?

warnings: typical hunger games violence, blood, torture, strong language, descriptions of wounds.

a/n: this fic is a long time coming. i love finnick and is one of my favorite characters but i can never find the right storyline for his character. it’s also been a hot minute since i’ve watched the movies so if there are any inaccuracies just look away lmao. hopefully, i can continue to write for him. i hope you guys enjoy this one !! feedback is appreciated ! also since i haven’t written in a very long time this came out shorter than i wanted it too. sorry about that.

requests open

not proofread

Copyright © 2023 bartxnhood. All rights reserved. This original work is not allowed to be reposted on any platform in any format.

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“run!!” your voice echoed, the dome was collapsing. “finnick, run!” you turned around, grabbing his wrist to pull you along. the arena was exploding as you tried your best to dodge the debris. katniss had used one of her arrows and shot the border of the arena causing it to collapse. now, all the victors began to spread out to take cover from the panels.

“holy shit, y/n, look out!!” finnick was ripped from your grasp as the ground below you rumbled and sent you falling.

"y/n!? “y/n!" you could hear someone calling your name in the distance, it was a panicked finnick searching the forest floor for your body. you opened your eyes trying to search for him but your vision was too blurry. everything was spinning. "finnick."

in seconds you were back on the ground and eyes falling back, slipping into unconsciousness.

it had been weeks since your disappearance, at first most people just assumed you had died that day in the arena. either by debris or the capital, but finnick knew that you were still out there somewhere.

for finnick, it was a nightmare. he barely left his room. every day that you stayed missing he slowly began to lose hope that he’d find you again. so, he began to mourn.

he was almost unrecognizable. finnick was letting himself go. he began to neglect his health, he refused to eat, he couldn’t sleep, and he was killing himself.

guilt heavy on his shoulders after losing you, even though the people around him had assured him that your disappearance wasn’t his fault. but finnick thought that had he held on to your hand just a little tighter you would’ve made it out.

katniss came to him one day, finding him lying on his bed staring at the ceiling like any other day. “this isn’t like you.” she stated. finnicks eyes found her, standing at the edge of his bed. the girl sighed, crossing her arms. “you’re killing yourself.” he shrugged. “what else am i supposed to do?” “fight for her?” “how?” katniss fell silent, she wasn’t sure how to proceed with the news she had just received. slowly, she moved to his side and sat down. “she’s alive.”

everything froze, he was sure he even stopped breathing. finnick sat up slowly so he could face katniss. “what?” “she’s in the capitol. with peeta.”

the bright fluorescent light of the hospital room burned your eyes, you brought your hand over your eyes to adjust to the light. once your eyes adjusted to the light you scanned your surroundings. you looked at your hand, you had an iv in, and you heard the faint beeping of the monitor next to you.

what happened? how did you get out? where were you? you barely remembered what happened in the capitol, it was all a blur. you began to panic, searching around the room wondering if you could get out.

the door opened, and you looked to your left and saw someone entering. “kat?” your voice was scratchy and hoarse. she now stood at your bedside holding your hand. she hummed, “hi, y/n/n”. “thank god” you breathed, tears welling in your eyes. “i thought id never see you again” katniss hushed your cries, wiping away the tears falling from your eyes. “shh, it’s okay. you’re okay” she smiled. caressing your cheek.

you had lost a lot of weight at this point, your face was sunken in. your body thinner than it had ever been, and you were beyond exhausted both physically and mentally. “oh, honey” she coaxed. you held onto her hand tightly, “there’s someone here who wants to see you.” she gently escaped from your grasp, walking to the exit.

"fin. you breathed, watching him enter the room. it felt like a dream you had wanted to see him for so long. it felt like an eternity. the one you loved so dearly, the one who has saved your life multiple times. "y/n" he walked over to your bedside. he was hesitant at first, but when you held your hand out for him he gained confidence.

"you're here." you weakly smiled, reaching for his hand. he found himself on the edge of your bed, holding you

“of course i am, sweets. where else would i be?" he chuckled softly, and you hummed. you brought your hand to his cheek. you examined his face and he placed his hands on yours. finnick studied you, making sure to soak in every detail.

"you'll never have to go through that again, y/n. i promise i'll do anything to keep you safe." he kissed the top of your head.

you smiled as he pulled back, and tears fell from your eyes again. "i know, fin" you said softly. "you look tired, love" he sighed. it had been such a long time since you'd been in his embrace, you missed everything about him. his jokes, snarky comments, his grin. he was your everything. "i am." you hummed, while he sat holding your hand. “rest, i’ll be right here when you wake up.”

[homunculus-argument]

One way people unintentionally tell on themselves a lot is by assuming that their own biases or thoughts are universal, and then accusing others of something they never said. When you assume the worst of someone you don't know, you're just publicly broadcasting the worst things you can think of.

You can pretty much always tell whether or not someone speaking finnish is a native speaker. The pronunciation is distinct and differs from all but a few related languages, finnic languages do not even resemble any other language family in Europe. Save for a few Estonians - whose language is so similar in phonetics that someone who speaks neither language could not tell them apart - every finnish-as-a-second-language speaker I have met has had an accent, no matter how faint. And the grammar rules are infinite and absurdly complex - someone who has lived here for 20 years and speaks finnish fluently will still make mistakes that a native speaker wouldn't, but more subtle and nuanced ones.

The sheer fucking amount of times I've had someone go "how dare you say that" when I aknowledge the finnish language is like this is astonishing. Who said that not mastering finnish flawlessly is a personal failure, or fault in one's character? I did not, nor did I imply so. The accuser did, seeing their own shadow on me and deciding to attack in self-righteous fury. Every time I hear someone speaking finnish and notice how they conjugate a verb the wrong way - often in a way that would be more logical than how native finns say it - I'm only aware that they probably memorised conjugations from a textbook, and that if I had not learned this language as a native, I could not do what they have done.

I've had people who have never seen finnish romani come at me for saying that they're easy to notice in a crowd by the way they look. They hear me say that and the first picture that pops into their heads is the assumption that I am claiming that the way they look or dress would be bad. No, you said that, without knowing better. Finnish romani are the downright cleanest and tidiest people I have met, putting a lot of effort into being well-dressed and presentable is literally a part of their culture. And as much as ethnic features are always morally neutral, I would still go as far as saying that they are remarkably beautiful people.

Politely pretending to not notice matters that are obvious is how polite people tactfully handle things that are bad or mortifyingly embarrassing. By insisting that it's rude to merely aknowledge how people who are different from me are different from me, you're just airing out what you are thinking. And people like this get offended when I tell them their assumptions were wrong, and will go "how was I supposed to know?" And the thing is, you weren't supposed to know.

You just supposed that you knew.

[dresshistorynerd]

Hey, I noticed that in one of your posts you showed an Iron Age Finnish woman's dress. Would you happen to have a good idea of what Finnish men were wearing in that era? The information on it seems sparse. I do have a relevant book that I'm about to look through, but I'd like to hear your insight too!

Hi! Thanks for the question (and sorry for the slow answer), I do love Finnish Iron Age clothing so it's always my pleasure to write about it. I've been wanting to do a deep dive into this for a long while, so maybe I'll do at some point a post about women's dress too.

Unfortunately no one has good idea of the Finnish Iron Age men's dress (and if you find any book or other source that claims otherwise, do not trust it), since there's much fewer archaeological finds of men's dress than women's dress. The most accepted theory on why the textiles of women's dress survived surprisingly well is because of the bronze ornamentation commonly sewn into especially the fine women's dresses of the era. The bronze protected them from decomposing fully. Presumably men's dresses were not decorated similarly then. There are some finds though and we can piece together at least some kind of vague picture.

I will be discussing the period from Viking Age to Crusade Age in Finland. Viking Age is often defined to cover 800s to mid-1000s and the Finnish Crusade Age started right after the Viking Age and ended in the end of 1200s, where the Finnish Medieval era begins. Crusade Age refers to the period where mostly Swedish (also German) crusaders in the span of couple of centuries conquered lands of the Baltic-Finnic pagans. The crusades of this period targeted pagans all over eastern Baltic Sea, including Baltic-Finnic Karelians, Livonians and Estonians, and Baltic peoples, and the Scandinavia too, where Sámi people were targeted. After that the Finland and Sápmi were colonized by Norse people and stayed that way untill Finland was transferred under Russian rule, but to this day Sápmi still stays under colonial rule, including Finnish colonial rule. The current Finland was very multicultural area, mostly populated by Finno-Ugric peoples, including Sámi people, Karelians and various Finnish peoples.

It's important to understand that even just Finnish peoples where not homogeneous, but had distinct, yet of course strongly related cultures. These were Finns (suomalaiset) (yes most people we now call Finns were not in fact called that) in the coast of southwestern and western Finland, Tavastians (hämäläiset) in central-western lake-Finland and Savonians (savolaiset) in central-eastern lake-Finland. This means we can't mix findings from all over Finland to reconstruct a dress without evidencing that all the elements were actually used in one place. These three tribes had broadly similar base for their clothes, but distinctive jewelry and detailing. The big divide was and has always been between eastern and western Finnish peoples. This is because western Finnish people were in close contact through the sea with Norse people and southern Baltic-Finnic peoples, while eastern Finnish people, Savonians mostly, were influenced a lot by their proximity with Karelians. Another dividing factor was the very different environmental conditions between western and eastern Finland. The Finnish coast especially in west is very flat and fertile land, while the lake area, especially in eastern Finland is very rocky, hilly and quite infertile. The main way it effected clothing differences was that western Finland being more wealthy had more elaborate clothing. Tavastians in both occasions fall quite in between, but they tended to be more in the western cultural camp.

My most important sources are a study by a doctor of cultural anthropology, Jenny Kangasvuo, Savon historia I (Savonian history) digitized and open sourced here and the digitized archeological collection of Finnish Heratage Agency. They are all in Finnish so not very useful for most people unfortunately.

Finnish Men's Dress in Viking and Crusader Ages

The basic garments men wore were broadly similar as women. They wore a shift/shirt, knee or above-knee length dress, cloak, belt, shoes and some kind of headwear. Wool was used most commonly, though the shirt would sometimes be linen too. Even evidence of silk has been found in some western Finland graves. I would assume that would be from a dress of some great man, who traveled to gain riches, possibly with vikings. Embroidery and decoration with metals was a typical feature of the whole Eastern Baltic Sea area. In Finland during this period bronze was the most common decorative metal, but silver was used too. Decorative elements were usually woven with small bronze spirals into all kinds of patterns. Here's examples from the reconstructed Ravattula's dress (Finns) used by women.

Shirt

The shirt (in Finnish shift of both women and men was called shirt) was basically a long shirt or under dress. We can assume it was similar to those of women's except shorter since the dress men wore was shorter too. They were made from wool or linen, I would assume wool was used in winter and linen in summer, when linen was even available. The neckline had a cut and closed with a bronze brooch. Horseshoe brooch was common. The first one is a quite typical bronze horseshoe brooch with a bit of ornamentation from Salo (Finns). The second one is from Tuukkala, (Savonians), it has exceptional ornate detailing and is uncommonly silver, not bronze. The third picture has two quite uniquely ornamented horseshoe brooches, first from Köyliö (Finns), second from Kurikka (Finns).

Legwear and footwear

Very little of men's legwear has survived and it's unclear weather men wore pants or separate pant legs, leg wraps or perhaps long socks. Evidence of strings decorated with bronze spirals and tablet woven band has been found in leg area of men's graves. This could mean that they wore either leg wraps, long sock or some sort of pant legs that needed to be secured with string or band under knee. Women used strings and tablet woven tape to secure leg wraps and socks, which I think supports that theory. Sometimes both bronze decorated string and tablet woven band was found in the leg area, which would still be explained by this theory, since it was common to decorate the ends of the bands with bronze decorated strings. Here's an example of sock bands just like that from the earlier mentioned reconstruction of the Ravattula's women's dress. Since men's dress was shorter, I think it would make sense if they still wore some kind of pants or separate pant legs with socks or leg wraps like that.

However, the strings and bands could have also been part of the shoes. Everyone probably wore similar shoes - laced leather shoes with a bit of pointed end. They might have been short or ankle length and the lacing was done with either leather cord or tablet woven band, which would also explain the findings. Socks or feet wraps would have been used in them, and straw or wool could be added as filling for warmth. Here's a pair of traditional Izhorian shoes from Estonia from early 1900s, and a pair of traditional Sámi shoes. The designs were likely roughly similar in Viking and Crusader Ages, though obviously more simple, and it's probable that Finnish shoes very something like that too. Here's a 1893 drawing of what findings of shoe material from Korpiselkä (Savonian or Karelian) might have looked like. Considering the quality of archaeology of that time, copious amounts of salt should be applied. And finally as a fourth picture there's reconstruction shoes from Ravattula's dress.

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive theories. The lacing of the shoe could have been laced up the leg and used also to secure either sock or leg wrapping, or they could have been separately secured in ankle and knee respectively.

In some graves twill fabric has been found in the leg area. It could be part of pants or for example leg wrapping, which was often made of twill. One theory about pants is that they were similar as some findings in Sweden, where fairly tight pants made of twill were secured at the hem with buttons similar to cuff studs. These kinds of cuff stud buttons are quite a common find in Finland and some have been found in men's graves close to legs.

Dress

Again there's not much findings of dresses, but a little more perhaps. It was usually from wool. The shape was either a tunic or an open coat. In Karelia there's findings of men's dress suggesting tunics thicker than women's dresses and made from sarka, a type of broadcloth. On the other hand, in Masku (Finns) they found buttons in a row on top of the torso, which suggest a coat closed with buttons. The first picture is a drawing of the grave find. Similary coak closing amounts of buttons have also been found in other places in western Finland. This suggests that Finns and probably Tavastians too wore long coats buttoned to the waist and Savonians wore tunic of Karelian influence. Below there's couple of version of what might this western Finnish men's coat dress could've looked like. The first is an imagined version of the coat based on the Masku grave finds, second is just as imagined version based on Eura (also Finns) grave finds.

Take these "reconstructions" with a strong dose of salt. These are more artistic reconstructions than scientific, since there's not enough material and too much guesswork needs to be done. And because we can see in the Masku grave drawing right here that the other deceased has a large buckle to (probably) close the shirt (to be fair, it could for a cloak too), like was typical, I find it implausible that the coat neckline would be small and round covering the buckle. If you make a decorated big buckle, I assume you want to show it. I would find a v-neckline more probable. It's also easier to make without wasting expensive fabric.

The buttons are interesting. There were what you would imagine - your typical buttons made of bronze like seen in the first artifact from Hattula (Tavastians). But then there was silver jingle bells used as buttons, found for example in both Masku and Eura graves, Eura findings pictured below.

It's possible, even probable I'd say, that the hemlines of men's dresses were finished with tablet weaving patterns, like women's dresses. Also I would assume the pattern of the men's dress (and shirt) was mostly similar to the women's underdress/shirt patterns. So here's couple of different reconstruction patterns for women's dress. Different historians have made different interpretations of the patterns, so it's very much undecided what it really was like.

Belt

This is likely the most ornamental part of men's dress. They could be made out of leather or tablet woven band. And there's another east-west cultural divide here. Karelian belts were made out of leather, were usually 1,5-2,5 cm wide, decorated with iron or bronze studs and had a buckle made out of iron or bronze. These types of belts have been found in Savonia too, for example in Tuukkala grave find, which you can find very cool pictures of in this photo documentation of the dig in pages 173-175. In western Finland a "hela" belt was the common style. I don't think there's a world for hela in English. It's a sort of decorative lamella, small metallic plate (not necessarily square but often so) attached to fabric or leather with studs or sewing. Hela belt came from the Permians of Kama river, who were one of the many Finno-Ugric peoples who used to populate much of European side of Russia. Karelians lived closer to Permians, so you might think Permians would influence eastern Finland more, but my theory is that the costal Finns, who frequently joined viking crews and at least were in close contact with merchants including vikings, who would travel along the eastern route through the eastern European rivers, where they could go all the way to Kama river or at least meet traveling Permians. Here's yet another Finnish source more on the Finno-Ugric people around Kama river.

Anyway, hela belt was made of leather and filled with small decorated lamellas, often in square shape, but various other shapes too, like animal ornamentation. In this period hela belt helas were bronze. First image is a nice full set of hela belt metal pieces found in Pirkanmaa (Finns). Second is an older example, right before Viking Era, from Vaasa, costal settlement, (Finns), depicting a very Permian style. The third one is a lion hela found separately in Pälkäne (Tavastians). They are also found in Tuukkala, showing that both eastern and western cultural influences were present there at the same time.

Another western Finnish belt type for men had intricate tassels decorated with bronze spirals hanging on the waist at the end of the belt. They could be made out of leather or tablet woven band. First image depicts a reconstruction of such tassel. Belts in east and west would have strap dividers to hang straps for things like purse, knife and sword. The first picture above has couple of those, but the second picture below has two more of them in more detail in the middle of the picture. These finds are from Lieto (Finns).

Cloak

Like women's cloak, men's cloak was woolen and either a square or trapezoid. Cloak is yet another east-west divide. In western Finland men's cloaks have embroidery with bronze spirals. They in fact appeared earlier in men's cloaks (in 900s) than in women's cloaks (1100s). They were also a little different in men's cloaks. The spirals and the patterns themselves were bigger and the fastening thread itself was also used for the pattern creation, unlike in women's dresses, where the thread was mostly covered. In eastern Finland there has been no finds of bronze decorations in men's cloaks, mostly only cloak brooches have been left of them. Unsurprisinly same applies to Karelia. This also means there's very little fabric left too. There's one exception. In Tuukkala (Savonians) they found a piece of fabric probably from men's cloak, though it could be from a men's dress too. It was striped, with possibly white or brown base and wide stripes of red, blue and yellow. So perhaps eastern Finnish cloak was not non-decorated, but the decoration was in the fabric pattern. Unfortunately it's hard to know how common fabric like that was, when so little of it is left.

Accessories

It's safe to assume men too wore some type of headwear, but none of those has survived. It probably means it was entirely made out of fabric whatever it was. Some type of hat or cap was certainly used in cold weather at the very least. Tablet woven headband was also possible option for not too cold weather.

In Tuukkala there was couple of interesting jewelry finds too. Two graves had a necklace type mostly found in Karelia. It was birchbark tape covered with nettle fabric and had square helas sewn into it. There were also more typical Finnish necklaces made of beads and bronze spirals.

Razors have also been found with men in their burials, so we can assume shaven faces or at least trimmed beards and moustaces were fashionable.

[kidvoodoo]

He never should have gotten lost

Truthfully, it was not Bojan’s fault. The caravan was hurried across the icy roads in fear of the approaching blizzard, the mounted guards pushing the desperate people and stock animals alike. It wouldn’t matter, they were doomed across the Käsivarsi, it was always too treacherous for a band of inexperienced Traders. The panic and hurried chaos found some of the wagons sliding and the animals pulling them spooked and scattered. The guards shouted for the rest to grab the horses lest they be lost in the wilderness.

And so he found himself here, lost in the frigid woods following hoof prints that disappeared under the freshly falling snow.

Bojan shivered as he moved silently as possible through the trees, afraid to whistle for the missing animals lest he attract unwanted attention…

“Susia,” the gruff voice of a bearded hunter warned, they had stopped briefly in a village overlooking the Kilpisjärvi. “Wolf packs. They travel together, hunting animals like your horses. Will kill you in your sleep, they stay away from fires. Sleep in shifts.” The guards took any advice from the locals, trusting their knowledge of the wilds.

“And boy,” the hunter addressed Bojan who startled at the sudden attention. “You watch for Väki. He hunts for people like you. Foolish people.”

The guards all snickered at that, Bojan huffed and pulled his coat tighter, stomping out of the hunter’s shack.

Foolish indeed, he scowled as his fingers and toes froze. He could find the road again, to hell with the horses-

BAM

Something slams into his back, throwing him face first into the snow. For a brief and panicked moment he thought one of the horses had charged him, the force was so strong it knocked the wind from his lungs, but as he scrambled to crawl away, he heard a deep growl.

Wolves

In his panicked state he let out a yell and felt a powerful grip grab at his shirt collar, wrenching him onto his back.

Oh God it’s gonna tear my throat out-

The cold press of metal against his windpipe startles his screwed shut eyes open.

Green.

Bright, glowing, inhuman green irises bore into his hysterical brown ones. A deep snarl, like a wolf erupts from human lips. Human?

No, not this creature.

His skin is a pale greyish-blue and his ears are pointed and curved, he’s shirtless save for a thick cloak of pelt’s around his neck and shoulders, strong and powerful looking arms level a curved and pockmarked knife to Bojan’s throat. The creature’s other arm is raised, his hand not flesh and blood but a twisted claw of tree roots and bark, fingertips hooked and wickedly sharp. His expression is pulled into a fierce glare, dark brows furrowed over even darker eyes that hold two glowing orbs at their center, a hypnotic and terrifying stare meant to shatter the bravery of any foolish man who strays from the path…

Just like Bojan did.

“P-please-“ Bojan stutters, grasping his barely-there knowledge of the Finnic language to attempt to communicate. “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to trespass-“

“Caravan.” The creature growls back, Bojan spots sharp, canine-like teeth behind his scowl.

“Yes! Yes I am with the Caravan on the road, we only need to find our horses-“

“Horses gone.” The strange being spits, slowly pulling the long knife away from Bojan’s throat. “They run far out in the forest, wolves will chase them down” He moves to stand back, not letting his guard down or stowing his weapon. “You not find them in time.”

Bojan slowly pulls himself up out of the snow, his back now soaked with melted snow and making his breath catch from the cold.

“Y-yes. You are probably right, I will go back to my people, I-I’m so sorry I disturbed your territory-“

“Not mine.” The creature says, Bojan sees now that he’s actually taller than the creature, but it doesn’t make him any less intimidated.

“You die before finding horses, too cold for your kind.” The stranger huffs and sheds his wolf pelt cloak, handing it to the shaken human. “Take. I find your horses”

Bojan looks dumbfounded, shivering hands grasping the cloak.

“But-“

“I bring them when your people asleep. You tell no one about.” The being glares, his burning eyes piercing through Bojan. He raises his twisted root hand and curls his fingers open, Bojan swivels around to the sound of cracking wood and stares in awe as the forest’s dense trees bend open to reveal a path.

“Follow, your people not too far away.”

Bojan shakes himself out of his gawking to turn and thank the creature-

But he’s gone.

His gaze darts around for any signs of the strange being, but not even footprints are left in the white blanket of snow. He is pulled out of his shock by a harsh shivering of his frozen body, quickly pulling the thick coat of furs around himself.

Warmth.

It’s unnaturally warm. Smelling of thick pine and iron and something undefinably sweet. He burrows into it further.

As he goes to follow the path in the parted trees, he spares one more glance behind him, a small smile on his face.

“Thank you” he whispers to the empty air.

<><><>

I’ve been reading all about Finnish folklore lately and what better way to express my excitement than to make an au no one asked for :D

[thydungeongal]

Anyway counting Finnish military casualties of the Continuation War as "victims of Stalinism" is historical revisionism and very close to laundering Nazi propaganda. Finland was co-belligerent with Nazi Germany during the Continuation War and it was informed by nothing but mindless nationalism and a desire to create a "Greater Finland." During the short period Finland occupied East Karelia they tried to divide the population up based on whether they were "national" (Finns, Karelians, Estonians, and other Finnic people) or "foreign" (Russians and Ukrainians), often putting the latter into prison camps. Lamenting the casualties of that war as "victims of Stalinism" is senseless.

[indigenouswisdom]

The Chuvash (Russian: чуваши) are a Turkic people, related to the Oghurs, who are native to a region extending from Central-Western Russia to Siberia.  Many live in Chuvashia and ethnic communities throughout Russia, and continue to speak Chuvashi language, which diverged from other Turkic languages over a thousand years ago.  They have been subjected to much outside influence, not only from Russian and Turkic peoples, but also from neighbouring Finnic tribes, with whom they have been wrongly identified for centuries.  Today, many Chuvash practice a syncretised form of Orthodox Christianity and Shamanism. Traditional clothing of Chuvash women is complex and varies greatly between regions. A distinctive feature is the rich ornamentation of headdresses and jewellery with decorative silver coins. The most unusual feature is called shulkeme - the breast adornment worn by a young married woman. The full set of jewellery a Chuvash woman would wear during the ceremony could weigh up to 16kg. Traditionally, the size and weight of the jewellery displayed the wealth of the bride's family and was a fundamental part of her dowry. The traditional headdress of a married Chuvashi woman is called khushpu. It is worn over the surpan, a strip of white fabric with embroidery at the ends. The khushpu pictured here is one of the oldest and rarest in existence, dating back to the 18th Century.  📸 Alexander Kimushin

[best-non-english-word-torunament]

Final round: Haikea vs многоꙮчитїй, mnogoočitii

(poll at the end)

Haikea (Finnish)

[ˈhɑi̯keɑ]

Translation: A feeling of quiet, melancholic, sometimes even mournful longing. "Wistful" comes fairly close as a translation, though it's not exactly the same.

Finnish is an Uralic language belonging to the Finnic branch spoken by 5 300 000 people in Finland, where it is one of two national languages (the other is Swedish though it is less used, Finnish is the main language).

Motivation: It's one of the most beautiful words to say in Finnish, IMO; it has a beautiful flow to the vowels, and it almost sounds like a sigh. It's also an emotion often associated with a lot of Finnish art, literature, music and culture in general, and thus it's a strong part of Finnish identity.

многоꙮчитїй, mnogoočitii (Old Church Slavonic)

IPA not found

Translation: many-eyed

Old Church Slavonic is an extinct language that belonged to the Slavic branch of Indo-European languages. It’s closest related to today’s Macedonian and Bulgarian, but was standardised based on the dialect of Slavs living near 9th century Thessaloniki in today’s Greece by missionaries, who translated Christian literature so they could convert people easier. Old Church Slavonic was then used as the liturgical language of various Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches. A later version of the language called Church Slavonic is still in use in churches today.

Motivation: This particular instance of the word appears once in a manuscript from around 1429. It is the book of psalms, and the word is used in the phrase "серафими многоꙮчитїй," to mean "many-eyed seraphim," as in an angel. the "ꙮ", or multiocular o, is one of my favorite Unicode symbols and also symbols in general. In the next version of Unicode it's going to be updated, because it doesn't even have enough eyes as the original manuscript gave it! Looking past the ꙮ fixation, though, I'm a fan of angels and angelic imagery, as well as eye imagery. A single word for "many-eyed" is really cool to me, since I don't recall there being one in English. It's a useful phrase for more than just angels, like spiders, molluscs...

[gregor-samsung]

Олык марий пылвомыш вате-влак [Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari] (Aleksei Fedorchenko, 2012)

[nordickies]

I'm curious, how do you view Åland in your head? Are they Sweden and Finland's kid or something else? How about Faroe, what is their relationship to Denmark? Or Greenland (I know for a fact that Greenland's relationship with Denmark isn't good)

Sorry for the long ask ;w;

Hello anon! It's not a long question! I just don't really know how to introduce these guys, so let's start with an oversimplified relationship chart, I guess?

Quick explanation under the cut. I don't know why it is so scary to talk about my OCs publicly, aah

Åland isn't Sweden and Finland's kid, but she's significantly younger than them, and they did end up practically raising her together. I've been going back and forth on whether I want her to be their "kid" or not - but in the end, I decided to apply the same logic I use with Denmark and Iceland; it's some kind of guardianship.

To me, guardianship means person X is looking after person Y and being responsible for their upbringing. In these instances, we're talking about significantly younger Nations that have been juveniles for most of their lifetime; someone has needed to take the custodian responsibility over them. But because the relationship can be interpreted as parental or siblinglike (with a significant age gap), I just prefer to use the term "guardian."

Faroe, just like Iceland, was raised by Denmark. Except unlucky for him, he's still stuck with the old man. Faroe just tends to get forgotten a lot. He's a friendly young gentleman, the "easy" child in a messy household, if you will. Though he wishes he made more of a noise about himself - to remind everyone that he exists and show that he's indeed an individual. Well, at least he has Åland to keep him company, since they're both doomed to sit at the "kids' table" during family gatherings. And yes, they're the same age as Iceland

While Denmark has been Greenland's "guardian" on paper, they never developed that kind of relationship. She doesn't feel particularly close to him and for various reasons, she never adjusted to her "adoptive" family. The relationship is rough but they still try to make it work somehow. Nowadays, she's happier with home rule, slowly making her way toward potential full independence. Greenland, Kalaallit Nunaat, has been inhabited by indigenous people for thousands of years. But this isn't the same Greenland that would have been around during the Viking Age. I'm just basing that on the fact that the ancestors of the modern people of Greenland, the Inuit, came to the island from the east in the 13th century, referred to as the Thule culture, which replaced the former Dorset/Tuniit culture.

Sápmi is the oldest Nation of the bunch by a long margin. Because of this, she has acted as a mentor figure to the Fennoscandians in their youth and is often referred to as their "aunt." Sápmi's relationship with her neighbors has been extremely turbulent. But still, she remembers them as hopeless little kids getting lost in the wilderness, whom she taught survival skills. She sees them as her unruly boys but feels especially bad that Finland had to grow up so soon. She still finds herself scolding Sweden, who to this day acts like a little kid around her. Norway views her in high regard, someone he goes to with his worries and feelings. She's a nation with no state, but tries her best to represent her people and culture to the world.

Karelia is an older Nation as well, perhaps older than the Scandinavians. Karelia is a Baltic-Finnic nation extending from Lake Ladoga to the White Sea. She has longtime connections with Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Ingria, Sápmi, Russia, and Ukraine. But she has always been a nation between East and West, being literally split between them even to this day. Karelia's borders have changed constantly throughout history, making the region extremely diverse. Because of this, and her people being broken apart multiple times in recent memory, her identity feels a bit shattered. Yet it's incredibly strong, with colorful culture, traditions, and language - being unique from the other Finnic groups.

I personally think that Nations and their relationships with each other don't have to be 1-1 adaptations to their real-life counterparts, where every single historical event plays out exactly like in a textbook. History, culture, politics, and, most importantly, people's personal experiences and relationships with their country will always be individual even to people from the same group. But we also shouldn't completely ignore and sugarcoat history, thus downplaying or, in the worst case, contributing to the ongoing harm. So, as rich as the source to create OCs is in this fandom, it's also an endless loophole with no clear answer to anything. But as long as we're ready to be respectful, be willing to learn, and keep an open mind, I don't see a problem with it <3

[nonspeakingkiku]

Since y'all know Kiku is part of a system and other system mates sometimes use this accout Kiku has decided to make a list of frequent fronters and a little info about them (and Kiku of course). Kiku is planning an update to Kiku's intro but not sure when that will happen.

Body is an adult. Body is unreliably speaking. Body is autistic, ect.

Kiku is a child/teen alter, but doesn't talk about it much because some people might not understand. Age is complicated with plurality. Kiku is usually around 15 but also age slides younger/has a sub system with a little part (like Kiku said it's complicated).

Kiku | 🍉 | He/Fae | FTM | AroAce | Age slider | 0-7, 15, 19 | Age regressor | 0-5 | Host | Nonhuman alter | Primary user of this blog. | Prefers to communicate with gestures, noises, a bit of signing, echolalia, and our communication device (mainly Proloquo, P4T, and Touchchat) | Finnic Fox, Shiba Inu, and bunny therian |

Jellybean | 🍬

| Fae/Faer | System kid/little | 0-7 | Host | Nonhuman alter | Communicates mostly with sounds and gestures/pointing/leading | Shiba pet regressor | Kiku when age slid down/Kiku's little part

Percy | 🦊 | He/Him | Genderfaun | FTM | Bi, Oriented AroAce | Age Slider/subsystem | 0-6, 12-16, 21 | Age Regressor | 0-3 | Host | Nonhuman alter | Prefers to communicate using LAMP wfl, picture cards, and PODD | Red fox, flame point siamese, and bernese mountain dog therian | Kitsune otherkin |

Oliver | 🚀 | He/Him | Genderfaun | FTM | middle | 12-16 | Age regressor | 0-3 | Host | Nonhuman alter | Communicates using LAMP and picture cards | Red fox therian | Kitsune otherkin | Percy when age slid/middle part

Oli | 🍼 | He/Him | boy | syskid | 0-6 | nonhuman alter | red fox | communicates mostly by pointing/gestures, and a few sounds | Percy's little part

Lavender | 🐺 | He/Fae | Genderfaunet | FTM | Age slider | 0-7,13, 15, 22 | Age regressor. | 3-5 | Host | Nonhuman alter | timber wolf, cross fox, holland lop, draft horse therian | werewolf otherkin | Communicates using P4T, Proloquo, LAMP, P2G, signing, echolalia, and letterboarding.

Ender | 🖤 | Genderfaunet | FTM | Middle | 13 | Age regressor | 3-5 | Host | Nonhuman alter | Fruit bat, wolf, therian | communicates with P4T and Proloquo mostly, some ASL and letterboarding | Lavender when age slid/ Lavender's middle part

Moonbeam | 🌈 | Genderfaunet | He/Fae | Syskid | 0-7 | Host | Nonhuman alter | bunny, fox therian | mlp pony fiction kin | communicates using gestures, sounds, echolalia, Proloquo, letterboarding (with in system help), and occusionally picture cards and our podd book | Lavender when age slid/little part |

That's the hosts. Because of how the subsystems work (we think median subsystems, or something like that) Kiku, Lavender, and Percy each feel like one person/alter (Kiku is distinct from Lavender, ect) but Kiku's parts feel like still Kiku (less distinct).

Other frequent fronters

Frisk | ❤️ | FTM | He/Him | Syskid | 5-11, usually around 9 | Age Regressor | 3-5 | Fictive | Mute | Communicates with ASL and writing and occasionally Prolquo4text (highly prefers ASL) |

Strawberry | 🍓 | Female | She/Her | Ageless (?) Adult (?) | Caregiver | Nonhuman | Pink Raccoon | Generally doesn't interact with meatspace |

Jamesy | 🦕 | cis boy | He/Him | Little | 2-6 | Fictive | Doesn't interact with people outside the body much but likes hanging out in the front room when his interests come up |

Soldier | ⚫️ | cis male | He/Him | Adult | Protector | Doesn't use the body much, stays with Jamesy in Headspace |

Lili | 👻 | Trans girl/enby | She/They | Grey Aro | Bi | Age Slider | 0-3, 19 | Protector/Caregiver | Communicates using Proloquo4text |

Barney | 🎃 | FTM | He/Him | Gay | 20 | Fictive | Hasn't fully fronted yet (he's new) |

Anthony | 🍝 | cis male | He/Him | Gay | 27 | Fictive |

Angel | 🕸️ | Cis male | He/She/It | Adult | Nonhuman | Spider Demon | Fictive |

Wither | 👾 | Male | He/Him | Ageless | Nonhuman | Animatronic | Fictive | Caregiver/Protector | Communicates using deafblind manual |

Peter | 🟥 | FTM | He/Him | Teen alter | 16 | Age regressor | 1-3, 6-12 | Fictive | Caregiver | Communicates using LAMP, gestures, noises, and Echolalia |

Max | 📜 | FTM | He/Him | Gay | 17 | Gatekeeper/ISH |

Recent fronters:

Buck | 👨‍🚒 | FTM | He/Him | Bi, Demi aroace | 28 | Fictive | Caregiver, Protector |

Eddie | 🔥 | cis male | He/Him | gay | 33 | Fictive | Protector |

Munson | 🎸 | male | Hi/Him gay | 20 | Fictive |

Steve | 🩷 | male | Bi |He/Him | 20 | Fictive |

Yadriel | 🗡️ | FTM | Gay | 16 | Fictive |

Ending here for now. This took forever and we aren't completely done. Oops 😅

[kalevalaandothers]

An exhibition dedicated to the culture of the Ryazan-Oka burial grounds in the Shilovo Regional Museum of Local Lore. From Рязано-окцы. Артания on vk.

[homunculus-argument]

out of curiosity, what's the book you're reading abt slavery in the middle age called? it sounds like something i might be interested in

Idän orjakauppa keskiajalla by Jukka Korpela. Unfortunately it's in finnish, and focuses mainly on trying to figure out the extent of abduction and enslavement of finnic peoples.