#like i only found out that im not russian i was just born in russia like 7 years ago or so??? because my mom never tells me anything
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pears-trinkets · 4 months ago
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#really randomly fell down a weird rabbit hole today#i was watching the X-Files and finally felt like reading up on david duchovny#like i see u fellow slav what kind of slav are you#so i opened up his wikipedia article and saw that his dad was jewish and from ukraine and went like AHA WE ARE THE SAME#and just out of curiosity looked up the place he's from because im curious about jewish shtetls in the ukraine#because my whole family except my biological father is from several of them and i thought hey maybe they were neighbors#which they fucking are omg theyre just 20km apart#my greatgreatgrandma is from makhnivka which i even found articles and history about and how the jewish population grew & declined#even though i did not find any steinbergs in the archives#anyway when i read up on Berdychiv where duchovnys family is from it said#early settlement by the Chernyakhov Culture#which was an archeological culture between 200 and 500 CE existing at the same time as the roman empire#....... is this how i finally find out where my name is from??????? like?????????#i wish i knew so much more than i do#like i only found out that im not russian i was just born in russia like 7 years ago or so??? because my mom never tells me anything#all the information about my great great grandparents and where theyre from is from my grandma#and her dementia is really bad now and shes just angry and screams and calls people names#my russian is too bad to properly read up on stuff like that and theres barely anything in english or german#i just want to know idk#but genetic testing is too expensive and also very america centric and the only family i have in the us is super conservative#i had to block them on facebook when my grandma made me write to them once over 10 years agl#and i know a huge chunk of my grandmas family moved to israel too so i dont want anything to do with that either#although id be curious if it would actually find my half siblings i found out about also like 8 years ago#i just wish there were more archives and more people i could talk to about this#on my grandfathers side theres nothing really left#my grandfather passed suddenly and apparently before he did he took ALL THE FAMILY PHOTOS AND DOCUMENTS somewhere to maybe digitalise them#but we dont know where so theyre literally gone for ever#but his whole family was from kiev and is apparently named after this culture era#his dad was a higher up at a sugar factory and i still cant find anything#my grandma had so many cousins and they were so interconnected and knew so much and i literally just have my mom and no one else
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bizarreshiz · 8 months ago
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Thank you @sunlightfeeling for tagging meee☆!
Name: Vincent (or Vin as everyone calls me)
Pronouns: He/they
Star sign: Pisces 😈🐟
# of siblings/Fun facts about them: I have one older sister, and we have a 10 year age gap
# of pets & their names: I have one cat and she is called Sapphire >:3
I used to have another cat before my present one that was there before I was even born
Fandoms: God, this could be a longgggg list but I will only do MAIN main ones!
I'm mainly into Yakuza/Judgement right now as I'm replaying the judgement games, and my friend is currently playing through the yakuza series
I'm also heavily into One piece (fave character is Crocodile đŸ„°), but at the moment I have to wait to continue watching as I have no money for crunchyroll 😔 (just had Franky join the crew)
The Persona series has also been a fandom I've been in since about 12 years old (yes, all the games including 1 and 2), but Persona 4 is my favourite of all time
Ig you count Vocaloid as a fandom. I first listening to Rolling girl, by Wowaka when I was 10, due to all the animations people did on youtube with it, and then I kinda left after a bit because I was too young and didn't know anything about Miku or Vocaloid in general, but then (happily) found it again around 13/14, and have been in love ever since! I have m a n y Miku merch (and some Luka merch)
Fave colour: Red :3
Fave song: I've never been able to choose one song specifically, so when I say my fave song, it's usually what I'm listening to the most recently-
So mainly I'm listening to "Gommene, Gommene" (Im sorry, Im sorry) by Kikuo at the moment!
Kikuo is one of my fave artists/producers and a lot of his songs are ones I'm able to relate to which makes the listening experience greater soooo-
(Not a fave song, but goddamn this has been in my head ever since it came out 😭😭😭)
Fave author (including books, fanfics, webtoons etc.): I don't have a fave author TwT"
But I've always had a massive fixation on Russian history (specifically USSR Russia) since I was very young, and I've finally been able to buy a crap ton of books on people like Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky 🙏
Fave fic type: Who doesn't love enemies to lovers? I do, but it c a n get annoying in some, and I l o v e hurt with comfort. If a fic has no comfort with its angst, I'm crying rivers
Fave holiday: Halloween 😈
Do you have a partner: Yes! I have a gf of 3 years♡
Hobbies: Drawing and videogames ig 😭
Tagging (you don't have to, I just pick my mutuals) : @c-cw-f-saeko @theycouldbehere @sunlightfeeling (ik you tagged me, but u a r e a mutual) @spicyliumang
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stupidcanofpeaches · 2 years ago
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aight peeps i have some news for yall. thing is, as some of you may know, im russian. like very russian. and i currently live here, and the climate around here is Not Good and im stuck and can’t get out, not in the least bc a, im kinda broke, b, ive only just found a stable job last august, c, we’re not exactly popular in other countries rn as much as id love to move somewhere far away. 
first things first, i absolutely do not condone the current events in ukraine. i am horrified, i am ashamed. i understand if you feel iffy about interacting with me in the light of it all.
second of all, russian government just blocked ao3. stonewalled. the main reason is the content that they found there: a law was recently passed that made pro-lgbt+ content illegal as its supposedly propagandistic and harms minors (and as you can imagine its a whole different mess entirely). a good number of lgbt+ literature was banned, like heartstopper and a bunch of other novels. 
and now, ao3 is banned as well. as in, you can’t open the website without a vpn. i do have one bc a ton of other things have been blocked and using internet without a vpn is a pain. but, yeah. not to worry, ill still update my stuff there but it’ll probably be slower now (yeah i know i haven’t been posting much lately anyway but still). 
(what i personally find hysterical is that the whole ao3 ban started with a harry potter fanfic that apparently involved uhhhh sexual content about minors. which. there are multiple layers here, including jkr fans basically fucking over ao3 by proxy, and also a good hefty portion of “if we don’t discuss child abuse and block all content discussing child abuse in any way then we can pretend it doesn’t exist”).
so uhh. yeah. also tomorrow is my birthday so. hooray for being born in russia ig.
just thought id keep yall updated. 
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solardick · 7 months ago
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I don’t take care of mysekf anymore. I stoped. Back to veingbuncertain if i survive the 40th tear of veing fuckedcaround. Soend all day being fucke with by these asshole s nothing new been theough 39 of them already.
For my entire life purpose for being born is to have an entire fucken comunity of cunttards fucken with my existance. 39 years and counting and they only grow and multiply. Like rucken cockroaches.
There is ni reason why. Ist always been that way. Theres nothign to learn from it. Nothign to take abeay from it. Just to survive in a hostile worl of mind and sex raping funkinc twats.
Im fucken dome beeing supportive and helpful. It doesnt matter. My response to everyone noe is fuck off. All they domis talk about prejudice bs. Stabbing pleopl in the neck. Throwing shit at people. Sayign nothign hut derogatory bs. Joke about suicide. Bash blackpeople. Criminal empire bs. Sexual derogitories. Bashing stupid people. Riding in being assholes. Drug dealers. Queers.lowlife cocksuvkery. Every fuckeing day.
And every kindness has an ulterior motive. The day i meet a fag or another persom that doesnt fuck with me or whom isn’t a hedonist. That be the day. Im just waiting in the grand fucken finaly again. Maybe it’ll kill
This time. I expect the crows will let me know just before it happens. They always do. It’s never a full impact it gets cushioned alitle.
Time to go “hang” out woth degenerate motivationlists. Raised by them fucked by them. Thats life. Thats all ive ever known. Look at the outcome. They jsut breed and multiply. Go russia.
Biden gives the ok to hit russia with us missiles. Ou my god. Im excited. Is theres a war coming? No, limit tarde with china. China creating stringers ties eith russia. Qomde rif any of thisnis true.
Like how my name means friend in russian with an added KG. And incan pronounce properly with a ruasian accent. Isnt stead
Of a past tense verb of an indefinite article.

 uhm. Well thats what happens. Rewarded today with good things. Must be saying something right.
Some changes need to be made, to the qwerty tarot deck. Namely. Switching in Waite’s strength as harmony card in position to the lovers card. nd in its place i was thinking my Гv card. I doubt i am capable of recreating an entirely new tarot based of the jcuzen type. But things are coming to mind. And having two system aids greatly. My comparison and feed back looping. Why oh why have Waite’s strenght as harmony card on letter N. N is for negation. It would work though if the moon card, as it is, was brought into the picture. Because nobody likes the moon card. And one of the things that came to mind were letters Ч, Đš & Đ©. In relation to the star, the moon and, the sun. Doesn’t that flow nicely together? Ch, Sh, and Shsh.
If princess yokaterina comes in from the petulant fool carrying a crown to the hierophant and it leads to strength as harmony. That well thats fantastic. The negative feminine gets killed and she embraces the king. Victory for
The chariot. Though i also found it curios how her family seal has a black horse on one side and a white horse on the other. In between is the classical medieval shield emblem. Victory.
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Wonder if thats true. For it obviously resembles the russian emblem as if, it were derived from it. The two little dots ontop of the E. Being a crown. And one gets a sense of the motivations. Add the fleur de lys at its center. Save that if it’s not been meticulously fabricated. Though with the russian emblem by comparison and saint George well then it speaks of a highly depicted respectful view of the feminine and support for them. Compared to the western bs of feminist activists proves that point valid even if its only conjectural. Save that the colour of the horses aren’t the same in every coat of arms. Where both are white.
Now comes a correction of the petulant E card coming from the empress. Again waite’s fool card is traveling in the wrong direction. Moving west instead of east. In this regard his fool should be the petulant one. Walking off the edge of existence. The one commonly adopted by women. I get the pun. But it just evokes that sly cockskrs crooked smile of superiority over others. Not very enlightening. Considering theres a sun there that he’s staring at. Like fallowing the sun is a bad thing. While giving N to justice. And having the dog being interpreted as his little helper. And not trying to stop him. 🙄 that deserves the emoticon. But having a petulant fool walkign away from the empress just shows incompetent womanhood at raising their child to be man handled by the emperor. Get rid of the cliff and flip the fool to the other direction and interpreted the dog as a helper. And there you go. The proper fool. As he’s supposed to be depicted.
How else does the lover(s) card make any sense in its position. Marriage happens by the hand of the church. Both oath and loyalty. Why is there nothing in between of the empress and the emperor? 5 would be a suitable place for the lovers card too. But here is found the petulant fool. Being number as the start of the emperor. While the princess card being numbered at the start of the hierophant. It gets all muddled and confusing here. And numbers fuck everything up.
Perhaps the E fool should be the only numbered card here while Ë remains unnumbered. But symbolized by letters instead. It flows nicely with the high-priestess holding the law of the alphabets. And promotes, subconsciously or by will for the feminine to use her wits to reach the high rulership of the hierophant. Just to muse and the issues of the deck.
For if she were to be numbered she would be walking west and E would be walking east. She’s a dishelved mess he’s a dishelved mess they meet and the summof the numbers equals the tower. Being on opposite sides of the same card gives choice to the querent. This way they are both found in between the empress and the emperor. Amd on the far side theres the “magician” and the lovers. This way it works using linearly and 
 crap
 Centripetally.
In the 1984 film gremlins starts of the protagonist scene of a “boy” running past a movie theater with a dog fallowing closely behind him. Heading “west”. On the sign of the movie theatre, theres a large red letter E. In the words “A boys life Watch thE skies.
This gives another argument worth typing about. And when on his journey it opens the scene of the coming protagonist lady. In which case is introduced a antagonist head of bank. A miserable wretched woman walking up with a head with burger king written behind her.
But on current script theme of film. Was I.S.S. Being fallowed by civil war. Which means im tight on script too. Fun fun.
A fun channel. https://youtu.be/RAbVqKSRNSM?si=A5WCFuEGzwJ4V9Sd
youtube
đŸ˜‚đŸ«°đŸŒ
But, im just here born for no other purpose than being fucked. With this as my mentality. True disposition as it always, and always tried to be. Manipulated and beaten into a delinquent wreck for purposes of “teaching” me a lesson or, the fuck if i know. Did i already say that i didnt want to be alive anymore.?
And look this film was completely absent in any dissemination to me. Went into production at the same time i started casually looking at the cards in 2022 and only reached me now. https://youtu.be/bvDArsKoTOE?si=tOuvaRuOIWzrFpOY
youtube
The horrorscope. Don’t want to watch. Dont like horror movies. But, yup. Its great living in perfect conjunction to media. If you didnt pick up the sarcasm. Atleast it doesnt have my adress and innitials in it though like other films.
Use my cards instead. They’re better. Maybe they’ll become the script to neo mainstream bs. Im already popular. And always had a vague big dream of immortality. Porbably brainwashed dream. But such is life as ita always been. Everything revolves around me. Becaus ethis isnt reality its a torture chamber for sadists. Too old for a family now anyway. Ill be retiring and still have some little assholes running around fucken my peace. Not that inknow what peace and secirity are in the pressence of other people. Wonder what thats like. Nwver experiences it before. Always gotten punished way over the top from what i actually deserved.
Well that re-watch in the background of gremlins is over. Queer 80’s bs. Take the moon card and put gizmo and mohack in it. With the little drop of water falling from the moon. The gremlins remind sme of most of the people i grew up around. Hedonists, drunks, druggies, crossdressers, pinks and mischievous freaks. All wispering bs in my ear. And all written from the tarot script. In conjunction to neptune on christmass sextĩling pluto. Because sextiling isnt a verb word, have to make up a punctuation mark. And now it can be pronounced properly.
So as it is the 6 and 7th letters of the russian alphabet. The E and Ë together. Becomes. 13. The death card by tarot. Or the Wheel card by english. The crap about. Though it had it all backyards. As w stands for the moon. And m stands for thee wheel. The wheel being a solar thing. And the moon being a moon thing. Asides the fact that W starts the woman and M starts the man. Theres a reversal that plays it bs. Tarots sucks. the english E is number 5 and the russian E ia number 6 add them together. And we have the justice card. Or the lovers card. Number 11. Or imaginary card EE. Being combined with the infinity symbol of intertwining. The russian E is on the emperor and the Ë is on the hierophant which ranks above the emperor. Though by comparison the russian letter Л (L) for love as written as Lyubo(v’f’) is the 13th letter of that cyrilic alphabet. Curious no? As sex is also called the petit-mort in french french. But not so much in degerenate french of local Quebecers which seems to be a hall mark of the english speaking world.
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Though for russian looking at english. Its different. Letter Ë isn’t a diaeresis. It’s a separate letter not to be mistaken, they wouldn’t pronounce the diphthong, prolonged E. Or E\E. Though the homoglyphic nature of it’s form. Shows a strong similarity between two objects. While still showing obvious separation. The same applies for man and woman. To “wo” or the russian yo. Shows that gender clash isn’t as relevant to the everyday after this letter was formally instituted in the alphabet. Considering it’s take extra steps thus becoming a hassle to type this letter shows that with the ease function, it is learned that its importance is not too significant. And life can be understood without capitalizing the differentiation.
That said. There are still strong gramatical gender differention throughout the rest of the language. Where the sex is signified. Just not in the single lettered alphabet type set.
Of course most peoples opinions aren’t even their own. But socially engineered for political goals and civiland national ambitions.
For example for the tarot alphabet system which isn’t taught. At least not to me. Is the letters NHИ. Where the negation of letter N. is placed over the H of the lovers card and the propaganda that Russians are villains, aggressive and spies. Isn’t very well questioned. As they have always been depicted in media. And taken at face value to those whom have no association to them. There are steps taken to limits these associations at moment in the face of this so called foreign war. Which is none of our proper business and doesn’t affect the state to any staggering degree. That people are just people. And one individual isn’t to be blamed for the actions of another. Yet at the same time glorifies single individuals out. As a scapegoat. Hitler, bin laden, trump, &. That fact remains its still a collective effort. And a time posted stamp of a historical prelude.
The same applies to jesus. The minor differentiation between jesus being god and jesus being the son of god makes for a big deference. As people need some thing more tangible and recognizable to give “personal”’significance to. Which is why jesus is a person. And not an unfathomable
.. thing? This is a teaching from the hindu gurus. And i will not pray to a personable jesus. As a middle man to god. Nor blame a single person for the actions of a nation.
It would be best to recreate an entirely new tarot based of the old system to an entirely new alphabet. And the russian system devoid of any pictograms is more accurate than english.
Considering i grew out of an prejudiced, sexist, racist psychotic family structure and have to pay as their scapegoat. On the larger picture of things. Is my motivation. I suppose. Though with a learning disability form 30 uears of pot smoking only to quit and have it legalized two-years later. Doesnt sit well for me. The degeneration of mankind is only growing stronger and things need to change. Ans so far russia is the only one making a name for themselves on this regard.
Ive met trudo’s wife. Shook her i hand, i think. Nice lady at dame value.
The problematical flip side of all positive attempts of growth being sabotaged.
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pumppkinlynn · 8 months ago
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Hello.. i just wanted to share my oc with you guys :)
And if anyone has a problem with me shipping oc x canon please do not leave any hurtful comments, i wont take any criticism cause im very sensitive towards those things-
This oc was made last year, it is an alastor x oc, not onesided tho..
The ship name is radioelectric.
The sparks children was originally born in russia, the mother being turkish and the father being russian.
Her name is azelyn sparks. she was born from around al’s era, they were neighbors and all but they weren’t really close, azelyn would sometimes hang out with him. But her abusive mother didn’t like on how she would go out in the dirt. Her mother made her start modeling at the age of six. Her dad was neglectful and is alcoholic, but tries his best to be present to his children. Elizabeth had given azelyn and astrid a very strict and unhealthy diet. And they had to be good postured, big sweet smile all the time, and good manners, elbows off the table and no slouching, if they broke those rules a fork would be stabbed on their shoulder, but not too deep to bleed, the more they grew up the more the abuse.
Azelyn has one big bro, and one little sis, their twins but azelyn is older by 3 minutes. Her twin sister is named astrid, her big bro is named alex, her mother’s nsme is elizabeth, and her father’s name is william.
Alex is elizabeths favorite child, but alex doesn’t like his mother since she was a terrible wife to william. William’s favorite child is azelyn, and astrid, he didn’t quite pay much attention to his son :( which caused alex to be quite a jerk to his little sisters.
Soon, when azelyn’s father fell sick. They had to move, causing azelyn’s childhood bestfriend, alastor to be separated.
They moved to new york, to help azelyn and astrids modeling career to rise up. And to help get better doctors for curing her father.
Azelyn soon did forget about being friends with alastor, she fell inlove with kyle, her boyfriend or used to be boyfriend.
On their second monthsary, alex forced azelyn to murder elizabeth in her sleep while her husband was at the hospital. Azelyn tried to refuse but alex threatened her.
She did. Out of fear, she told kyle. At that time kyle felt disgusted. And hooked up with azelyn’s sister.
On their 3rd anniversary. William had officially died. Azelyn had found out about kyle cheating. She murdered kyle. Stabbing him in the heart 10 times, craving it out and throwing it at her sister, repeatedly yelling “there! You own his heart now! Take it you pervert!”
Astrid committed suicide at that time. Or did she?
Kyle had teamed up with azelyn. Threatening her if she didn’t use her reputation of being a wealthy celebrity model, he would rather her out of murdering their mother, so she did. Covering kyle’s murder of astrid, saying she committed suicide. After a week of that. Azelyn was murdered by her brother, she was taking a bath until many bolts of electricity fell into the tub, killing her. Alex then stabbed her heart ten times. Pinning it on her right hand at the back. Alex roamed freely after that, taking azelyns wealth and money, he moved back to new orleans. But then was murdered :3
Now-
About azelyn’s life on hell. (Shes a fox)
Sins are envy and wrath
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^^ her demon form (not fully)
Azelyn spawned on hell quite earlier than alastor, but only a few years gap, she had the time to become an overlord. And a famous model at the same time.
She met angel dust just two years earlier when alastor returned from his 7 year absence, she planned to visit the hotel, and so she did. She became a staff, industrial designer. She would help with the hotels furniture, stuff like that.
She also has electric power. Shes heartless aswell, the wound where her hand was stabbed and her chest still being there.
Shes an overlord, known as heartless shock
Whenever someone tries to fight with her, she hypnotizes them, into making them dizzy and hallucinate, while she digs her claws into their chest and crave out their heart, stabbing it on the back of their right hand, as for the remaining body
 she has them thrown into a lake.
Her veins have some like electrolytes??
She controls all of hells electricity, whenever she turns into her full demon form, all of it goes out. She grins cause a fact shows that when foxes are afraid, they grin. And foxes can have 40+ different sounds, so when she is talking, a loud siren screaming can also be heard. Her arms turn black up to her elbows, and her legs aswell up to her knees, she gets nine tails representing the myth of the nine tailed fox in asia, and the rest is what is shown in the second pic (+ tentacles)
She first met alastor in an overlord meeting, along with velvette, i like to imagine velvette singing respect less with azelyn lol. But azelyn didn’t really have much lines, because when zestial said “we cant fight without more intelligence” made her think and agree with zestial.
Alastor bumped into her in the elevator, they talked for a while and they soon reminded of eachothers childhood memories of them playing.
They also bumped into each other in a jazz club.
They also bumped into each other in rosies emporium. AGAIN.
And when azelyn saw her sister in hell, she got a panic attack and decided to move in the hotel, thats when her and alastor began to grow their connection more.
Azelyn once caught alastor playing the piano, she recognized the tone he was playing, then suddenly began singing along, al then noticed. They talked and sang a few songs together, thats when they both fell.
When charlie was doing trust exercises, azelyn came up with an idea.
They all had to pair up, and exchange stuffs they value the most, and by tomorrow they all had to return it without damage, alastor and azelyn got paired up.
Alastor handed azelyn a radio, azelyn gave him a portrait of her and her father together.
What she didn’t know is that when she was about to go to sleep, the radio turned on, playing a song, it was the song they both sang in the piano scene.
And after that, alastor spoke through his microphone and it was heard through the radio, at that time only azelyn heard.
What he said made azelyn flutter ISHSISHIANSB
He confessed and luckily azelyn felt the same way, the next morning they went out on a date PSHSBSISHBSIAUXGDJ
And thats all! Thank you for listening to my oc lore :)
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overheardatthecontinental · 4 years ago
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Kinktober Day 19: Vampire
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If Helen was being truthful, which she often tried to be, her new neighbor was
 odd. 
For starters, she had never seen him move in. One night, she went to bed and she swore the house was empty but when she woke up and opened her curtains, she could see furniture inside.
He was a night owl in the truest sense of the word. She couldn't remember ever seeing him before the moon rose but he was nowhere to be seen in the morning before work. Even on the weekends, there was no evidence that anyone was in the house save his parked car in the driveway.
After two days, the house was under construction. Every single window was replaced with tinted windows and soon she cannot see into his house. Not that she was spying. Not at all. She was just curious.
Another thing was that damn car. She looked it up and it cost as much as her little house.
That, factored in with the cost of installing tinted windows, he had to have money. Plenty of it. So why was he living in a small cottage in the suburbs?
It takes a week before she actually catches sight of him.
He is tall and dark and handsome and familiar. She knows him, vaguely.
Often, she sees him at the bar she tends in the evening. He’s a bourbon drinker and a fantastic tipper. Quiet though. Most people who drink at the bar come to have someone to talk to. They crave the ear of anyone who will listen, otherwise they’d drink at home.
Not John, though. 
He didn’t even talk to order his drink anymore. She’d see him and pour him the bourbon and he’d murmur a quiet thanks. Often, she didn’t even see him leave. He stayed till just before closing and then he’d disappear into the night.
A few times, she’s seen him standing out near the alley. Always alone.
She waves from her porch and John walks over. 
"Helen." He greets, "how are you?"
"Im well, John. I guess we’re neighbors now."
He lips quirked up in a smile, "Couldn't stand living in the city any longer.”
But knowing who her neighbor was did not make him any less strange.
Yes, John was always polite but it didn’t take away from the strange feeling she always got when she was near. Even at the bar, she got the feeling that she should be wary around the handsome man. The hairs on her neck would stand on end almost in warning.
But it seemed so silly to be nervous. 
She blamed it on the attraction. 
John was a gorgeous guy and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt another’s lips on hers, let alone anywhere else.
Soon, she started seeing him out and around in the neighborhood. It wasn’t all that strange. Of course he would habit the same grocery stores and pharmacies that she did. But she noticed that the grocery cart was nearly always empty. He’d buy a pack of beer or paper plates and the like, but never once did she see him buying food.
He had to eat, she told herself. No man with a physique like that got away without eating.
She saw him at the park, as she walked home from the subway. Again, standing by a tree, not doing anything. He didn’t even have his phone out. He would just stand there, staring into the darkness.
Weird, but not wrong. Certainly not illegal.
He offered her a ride home, one night when it was raining. The subway wasn’t terribly far but the walk from the station to her house was long enough to get her soaked. She accepted, ignoring the hair on her neck and the feeling in her stomach and every other warning her body gave her.
"How long have you worked here?" John asks as they climb into the car.
"Eight years or so? I teach second grade during the day but teaching pays shit and I needed extra money to pay for supplies for my class. And I found I enjoyed tending bar." She buckles and looks over at him, "it's a bit of a hole in the wall. How did you find it?"
His lips twitch, "I used to spend some time there back in the day."
It's Helen's turn to smirk, "you make it sound like you're so old."
"I'm older than I look."
She looks him over, not that she hasn't a hundred times before, whenever he is looking away. He's fucking gorgeous. If she had to guess, she'd place him in his late thirties. Maybe early forties, but only because he had the look in his eyes of someone who had been through a lot. 
In truth, she knows nothing about him but his address and his favored drink.
“You know,” she says as they pull out of the parking lot, “I don't think I have ever asked,  what do you do for a living?”
“Not sure I'd call it a living.” John says and that smirk just grows, “I’m a bit
 nomadic. I tend not to stay in one place for too long so I do a lot of independent contracting. A lot of investing.”
It doesn’t feel like a real answer, Helen notes. He’s said a bit but he hasn’t really told her anything and that throws her for a loop. What is he hiding?
But that isn’t the right question to ask aloud so she settles on, “Where else have you lived?”
“I was born in Belarus.”
And again, she is thrown.
He has no distinguishing accent. Nothing that indicates he is from anywhere but the United States. It’s not that uncommon in New York to find people from all over but still

“I’ve lived in Italy. Mexico. China. Spain. Russia. Canada. France. Most recently, I was in Reykjavik but I always end up coming back to New York.”
Again, her mind is blown. Utterly and completely. And he’s tossing out this information like it’s nothing and it’s completely overwhelming.
She glances out her window, watching the streets go by. She watches a raindrop race down the window as she tries to process all that. She sees herself in the reflection and is utterly underwhelmed.
She’s boring. A school teacher by day, a bartender by night.
She isn’t unattractive but she’s a dime a dozen.
She’s never left the country, not even to go up to Canada.
And she’s sitting next to this quiet man who has seen the fucking world.
She looks past herself in the reflection and her heart skips a beat. She looks for John but cannot see him. She can see herself. In the back, she can see the reflection of the steering wheel, seemingly turning of its own accord. She can see the street behind them but she cannot see John.
She looks over, sharply, and sure enough, he is there. Driving.
Helen settles back into her seat, wondering anew if he can hear her heart racing.
Or if she’s being crazy.
Because she can see the other window. She can see the reflection of herself and of the lights passing by but she sees herself almost as if John isn’t there.
She looks at him and he glances over, almost to unassuming.
Helen swallows and sits back in her seat. “It must be hard.” She says, “Moving to countries where you don’t speak the language.”
“I speak them,” John says.
“Which?”
“All of them. I make it a point to learn the language of everywhere I’ve ever lived.”
“So you speak Russian and Chinese and French and Spanish?”
“Among others.” His words sound like a taunt. They feel like a taunt, although they’re not belittling. Like he’s challenging her. 
Helen can barely breathe.
No. 
She was being crazy. She’d had far too little sleep.
John had a reflection, she just couldn’t see it because she was exhausted.
And there was a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why his house and car had tinted windows and why she had never once seen him during the day.
She had to be exhausted to even be considering

They pull into John’s driveway and Helen quickly thanks him for the ride before she rushes, nearly running, to her house. She closes the door behind her. And locks it. And the windows. Even the ones she normally leaves open on the second floor, she locks.
And maybe she’s being paranoid but she can’t help it when she sits at her computer and types “vampire” into Google.
She’s being paranoid.
At least, that’s what she keeps telling herself.
.
She stays up half the night researching a mythological creature.
And when she passes out at her computer, she dreams of John in old-fashioned garb. In old cities with cobblestones lining each street.
She dreams of John kissing her, intimately, in an empty hall. His head is buried under layers of fabric, between her thighs driving her utterly wild before she quakes around him. Only then does he move, and only inches, to where his teeth sink into her thigh.
She wakes up in her bed, alone, and gasping for air. 
It felt so real, she checks her thigh for marks and finds none.
In the fresh light of day, she shakes it off. She acknowledges that she was being ridiculous to even consider the possibility that John was a vampire.
Its utterly ridiculous.
But he's not coming out of his house.
She tells herself she's making the cookies as a thank you and not to try to get John out of his house during the daylight. In reality, its both.
They're chocolate chip, because who doesn't like chocolate chip?
She waits for them to cool before stacking them neatly on a plate and covering it with wrap.
He’s home. His car is in the driveway. It’s parked where he let her out last night so she’s fairly certain he hasn’t left since they arrived.
This is ridiculous she thinks again. She’s analyzing his every fucking move and John, for all his weirdness, has never been anything but kind to her. And here she is, acting like he has something to hide just because he’s eccentric.
Another part of her argues that this is just a thank you for said kindness. For saving her getting soaked on her commute. For that unending kindness.
She knocks on the door and waits.
Nothing.
She knocks again and listens intently. It doesn’t sound like anyone is coming.
Because the sun is out.
Or because he’s sleeping.
She tries one last time before she gives up and leaves the cookies on the porch, walking away feeling a bit defeated.
If he had come to the door, she could have assured herself she was being crazy.
But he hadn’t, so now she was feeling paranoid.
She took out a legal pad in her kitchen and sat down.
Side by side she wrote the most ridiculous list she’s ever even considered in her life.
Proof John’s a Vampire:
He’s from fucking Belarus
He spoke way too many languages for any person who lived a human lifespan to pick up. (Or he’s just wicked smart
 Or lying?)
Hot as fuck
He doesn’t live in one place for too long (cuz people will notice he doesn’t age!!!!)
He says he’s older than he looks
Says he used to hang out at the bar but I’ve never seen the owner or any of the other bartenders talk to him
I’ve never seen him during the day
TINTED FUCKING WINDOWS. No normal person needs fucking tinted windows
Wealthy but won’t say what he does for a job?
Never seen him eat
Helen banged her head into the table.
Fucking ridiculous.
She was definitely losing her mind. And figuring out whether or not her neighbor was a vampire was not how she wanted to spend her day off, so she left the pad in the kitchen and went to read on the couch. 
Helen relaxed, reveling in the freedom of actually having a day to herself. She did her best to enjoy the time and not think about her attractive, weirdo neighbor.
She made dinner for herself and ate watching the news. When she was finished, she poured a glass of wine and relaxed back to some rerun of a cooking show she hadn’t seen before.
And then there was a knock on the door.
She checks her watch. It’s nearly eight and she certainly doesn’t have friends who would come over this late without sending a text.
Helen climbs to her feet, heart already racing because, of course, it’s after sunset.
Maybe he’s just doing this to fuck with her.
Maybe he’s just been lying and teasing and trying to get into her head like some sort of psycho. That had to be more realistic than the truth, she thinks as she goes over to the door.
She peers out of the look-see and sure enough, John is on her porch.
Does he just wake up and throw on a three-piece? She wonders, opening the door. Granted, he’s technically missing his suit jacket but who wears a dress shirt and a suit vest on a Sunday night? 
“John.”
“I wanted to say thank you for the cookies.”
“You’re very welcome. I hope you enjoyed them.”
The corner of his mouth twists, “Absolutely delicious.” John pauses, “May I come in?”
She feels her eyes widen and hopes that he doesn’t notice but he just fucking asked permission to come inside? That was a thing, right? That vampires need permission to enter houses?
He blinks innocently but it doesn’t feel at all innocent.
“Is everything alright?” John asks, “You look a little
 flushed.”
She’s being ridiculous.
Helen shakes her head because John is not a vampire but she might be losing her mind. Maybe she needs to check herself in somewhere... “Of course. Come in.”
John steps through the door and the paranoid part of her wonders if she’s just made a terrible mistake.
John looks around and Helen wonders how she never realized how big John is. He’s tall and, without the jacket, she can see proof muscles on his arms that she had never noticed before.
“You have a lovely home.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I truly appreciate the cookies and you thinking of me. You’re very kind.”
“No, thank you. I’ve made that walk in the rain before and it sucks.”
“I was happy to do it. In fact, I’m at the bar most nights. I’m more than happy to stay and give you a ride home on a regular basis.”
“I couldn’t impose.” And you kind of scare the hell out of me, “Can I offer you a drink? I have water, juice, and wine?”
“Wine, if you don’t mind. And it’s no imposition. Like I said, I’m there anyway. And we are neighbors, after all.”
Helen offers a small smile as she turns towards the kitchen.
His words seem nearly laced with honey and it both excites her and kind of disturbs her.
Everything about John, vampire aside, screams dangerous.
And she’s invited him into her home and he’s almost a bit too kind. She doesn’t know what to do with that and it feels like her brain is fighting itself about John.
The logical part of her is telling her to calm the fuck down because John has been nothing but kind. The paranoid part of her is screaming VAMPIRE VAMPIRE VAMPIRE. The primal part of her seems torn between telling her to run as far and as fast as she can because John is dangerous and tearing that stupid suit off of him and jumping him then and there.
Instead, she manages to ask, “What kind of wine do you like?”
“I prefer red.” And it’s such a simple statement but his words tumble out like a taunt that just sets her on edge even more.
Helen goes to the cabinet and pulls down a glass of wine, hands shaking ever so slightly.
She has an open bottle of pinot noir in the fridge and she pours the wine as carefully as she can. It sloshes a bit over the edge and she wipes it with a dishtowel, feeling her cheeks burn even more at the small spillage.
She turns to hand John the glass and nearly drops it at the full-on smirk that graces his stupidly attractive face. She left out the list and John is reading it.
“Hot as fuck, huh?”
And it seems impossible, but her face feels worse than when she has a fever. She’s certain she must be red all over and she has absolutely nothing to stay to it because what can she say? 
I know it’s ridiculous but I thought you were a vampire?
John steps closer, leaving the legal pad behind and he takes the glass from her hand and sets it on the counter behind her. With his other hand, he reaches for her chin and tilts her head up just a bit, forcing her to look into his eyes. 
He whispers, “You really are fucking clever.”
Her eyes widen at the implication because no. No. She was definitely wrong and John was definitely messing with her but he smiles. He really smiles, not just a smirk. He bares his teeth and Helen swallows at the sight of long incisors. 
Fuck.
“You should have trusted your instincts.”
He steps closer and Helen, as a result, steps back and finds herself completely enclosed. She is pressed against the counter, completely enclosed in one of his arms while the other trails down her neck.
She can’t run. She sure as hell doesn’t stand a chance if she tries to fight him. 
“Are you going to kill me?”
John tilts her head upward, “And why,” He bends his own head down, brushing his lips against hers but not kissing her, “would I even think to destroy such a jewel?”
His arm around her tightens and she is hoisted off the ground and into the air. Instinctively, she throws her arms around her neck to keep balanced and John smirks at her, almost victoriously.
Before she can say anything, he is moving impossibly fast. She closes her eyes at the rush of dizziness that fills her at the speed and opens them only as she feels herself falling. Her back hits the bed and she bounces, sucking in a gasp as she does.
And John is on top of her before she can even acknowledge what is happening, the quick turn in events that had her from scared to terrified to, fuck, John is sucking on her neck and she is horny.
A vampire is sucking on her neck.
She hears a wanton moan and, Christ, that must have come from her.
She presses her thighs together as an ache spreads down her body, warming her tummy and sending the blood rushing south.
John’s hands tear the fabric of her cotton shirt into pieces as he rips it clean of her body before doing the same to her bra. She doesn’t even complain as John lowers his head and sucks a nipple into his mouth. He rolls it with his tongue and teases it with his teeth. The fang toys with it, dragging down her breast and the sharpness makes her whine with a sick mix of pain and pleasure. 
And then it sinks into one of her veins and his teasing is suddenly a thing of the past as he sucks and swallows around her tender flesh.
Her hand jumps to his hair and Helen realizes, idly, that she’s encouraging this. Forcing his face against her, not letting him move even as her head feels dizzy.
A large hand slides down her body and into her sunday sweatpants. A finger swipes up her slit, teasing her clit and checking her arousal.
John releases her and quickly slides down her body, ripping her sweats and underwear off with the same vigor that he had done to her shirt. She’s certain they’re destroyed but she doesn’t give a flying fuck.
Not when John is plunging two fingers inside her and curling them just right so that she thrashes and writhes on the bed. John holds down her leg with his spare hand and continues his minstruations as he sinks his teeth into her thigh.
Helen shrieks, but not with pain, as John sucks on her thigh while his fingers dance inside of her. Helen isn’t sure which is more pleasurable, his mouth at her thigh or his fingers inside of her but she knows she has never felt like this. Lightheaded and pleasured and desperate and needy all at once. 
He sucks and swallows while his thumb rubs at her clit and Helen wonders if she’s actually crying because there are tears spilling down her cheeks at the wanton desperation of it all. 
Nothing has ever felt so good. So raw.
He could drain her of all her blood right now and she would probably say thank you so long as he didn’t stop toying with her clit or moving his fingers around inside her. She could definitely die like this and be happy. 
All of the sudden, he pushes up slightly off her thigh. Just as quickly, he descends upon her other, sinking his teeth into the femoral artery. John sucks at her flesh and Helen feels her head spinning all the more. 
Why does dizzy feel so good?
His thumb speeds up along her clit and his fingers roll against the spot inside her that makes her mind melt like cotton candy. Helen comes, crying out in surprise at how quickly John had been able to completely undo her.
She feels him swallowing against her thigh as she writhes beneath him.
He’s brought her pleasure to new heights and he hasn’t even begun undressing.
Helen reaches down and grabs his hair, tugging up.
It’s laughable, really, her attempt at strength in the midst of an orgasm but John acquiesces and releases her thigh from his mouth. Blood dribbles down his chin and she has the sick urge to lick it.
John climbs back up her body. He unfastens his belt, his pants as quickly as he can before pulling himself out.
Helen finds herself licking her lips at the sight of him but it’s quickly taken from her vision as John lays down on top of her body, angling the head of his cock towards her core. With a single roll of hips, he impales her onto his length and Helen finds herself arching her back, keening at the contact.
John bends his head down to her neck and she feels his tongue tease her pulse point before she feels the quick sharp of fangs digging into her throat.
His hips move against her, driving him in and out of her slick heat while he frantically swallows against her neck again and again.
She sees stars and she still isn’t certain what it’s from.
She’s lightheaded and it shows when she tries to lift her leg to wrap around John and she finds she can’t lift it. It barely registers, however, because his hand is between them again. He keeps thrusting, keeps sucking, but now his fingers are teasing and rubbing her clit and a scream escapes her. He feels so fucking good, everywhere, and his expert fingers are bringing her back to that height of pleasure.
John drives into her as deep as he can and Helen, again, feels herself falling further and further, through the stars and into the dark.
She can’t open her eyes but she really can’t bring herself to care.
She can still feel John, pistoning in and out of her and a small rip that sounds like something tearing open. Her head is tilted up and something forces her mouth open and places something against it.
“Good girl,” she can idly hear John whisper to her, “Swallow it down.”
And as he says it, she feels something pouring into her mouth. Salty and rich and warm. It fills her mouth and again, John urges her to swallow.
She does and she hears John’s quiet praises. “Good girl. Keep going. You’re going to be mine forever.”
Helen feels consciousness slip away.
And everything is black.
61 notes · View notes
baegarrick · 4 years ago
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hi hello so i’m coming to you because you’re the only person in the zukka fandom that i’ve seen blogging about the old guard and i love that movie SO MUCH and i can’t stop thinking about immortal zukka..... aang as either nile or andy bc i can’t choose, andy wouldn’t lose her immortality, and no one would betray anyone bc i say so 😌 how do you think an atla/the old guard au would work?? (zukkababey)
ok i rly love the idea of immortal everyone but tbh!!! i really dont know enough about asian history to like... go into detail about this honestly and I really didn’t want to come off as racist by fudging some stuff, but here r some bulletpoints about Things
(also u can slide into my dms 2 talk about this if u want, or if u have a discord, sorry it too so long I literally cant stop writing when I get on Topics. I'm so sorry if this gets off topic)
Sokka & Katara
In this au they’re not biologically related, but are both Inuit
Sokka dies first in a skirmish with another group of indigenous people in northern Canada (Inuit Nunangat) sometime prior to 1800
He knows he died, his people saw him die, and he doesn’t understand what’s happening (I really don’t know enough about the Inuit people to say whether they would have rejected him or tried to help him understand what happened to him)
however, I’d like to think they’d at least tell him to talk to the angakkuq, the shaman, and would probably see this as a positive thing
Eventually his band of people would whittle down to just a dozen or so, after long winters and harsh climates, and they were forced to assimilate with other bands who didn’t have ancestors who were there when Sokka died in the first place, so he has to move on.
He travels around for a while, trading and learning and staying in bands for a few years before moving on to another group, until it’s the 1800s
Around this time, Katara is born (and dies)
She refuses to stand down against a white French hunter who wanted to take one of the young women in her village as a wife, and she’s killed, and the woman is taken anyway.
When she wakes up, she’s furious, and before she can understand what happened to her, she finds the man and kills him. She’s arrested and set to be killed when Sokka finds her.
They aren’t biological siblings, but they come from the same people, and the world is changing rapidly and they’re the only people they know who are like this. The idea of marrying Katara is the worst thing that Sokka can think of-- look at her, she’s just a baby!!-- so they call each other siblings and travel together.
Zuko
ok again i know literally 0 things about chinese history like i googled “female chinese warriors” for suki and got like 100 things for mulan
Zuko is old, probably one of the oldest of the (living) group, but younger than Aang
he was the first son of the second son of the emperor in a time of political conflict in China. His father, the prince, was at war with his own brother who Zuko considered a father figure.
zuko speaks out against his father and is killed for being a traitor, but, guess what, he doesn’t die!!! his father does it again for posterity and uhhhhhh still doesn’t die. (or rather, dies, and comes back)
here’s where my uhhhhhh lack of knowledge is Bad
would his father banish him for being cursed? for somehow being against the gods?
or would he force him to fight in his armies, against his uncle, because he can’t die?
I was going to go with “banished” but fighting for decades in a fight he doesn’t want to be in is so! much! worse!
his father wants to know the secrets of his immortality and when he can’t share it he’s tortured and tested for years, and eventually sent out to fight as an immortal soldier who can’t die.
eventually he escapes, and leaves china for a long time (he doesn’t return for centuries)
he is highly distrustful of anyone for years bc of his father!! he wanders around for years like he does in Zuko Alone (or like Quynh before Andy finds her) and while he sees small bits of humanity, he has little faith in it and their wars, because he is Not One Of Them
For money he joins bandit groups or warlords or mercenaries, because why does any of that matter to him? Everyone dies.
Eventually he meets Aang, who is Humanity Personified, and Aang asks him if he thinks they can be friends-- but they’re on opposite sides of this conflict and Zuko is too disillusioned to want that. (they part ways)
He meets a man, Iroh, who reminds him of his uncle. They travel together for far longer than Zuko normally would, because he likes having a father figure, and because Iroh lost a son about Zuko’s age. They travel for years and Zuko never ages, so eventually he has to leave. Iroh finds him a few years later, greyer and slower, but tells Zuko that he knows about Zuko.
Zuko reacts poorly to this, lashing out, but Iroh is calm. Zuko breaks down and tells him he can’t give Iroh what he wants. (what Zuko assumes he wants-- what they all want, immortality)
But Iroh’s like, why would I want that? it sounds like a curse, son. Why would I want to never see my son again?
He tells Zuko: we’re not meant to be alone
After Iroh passes a few years later, he tries to track down Aang but can’t find him. He, however, has dreams about the others.
alternatively///////// japanese zuko?????? RONIN ZUKO???? love it but im too tired to think of More Than That after typing all the chinese zuko stuff up, although im Sure a ton of it would cross over bc im vague as Hell
Aang
he’s the oldest of the group but you wouldn’t know it!!!!
Roku was his mentor, the first immortal that any of them know of. He’s thousands of years old when Aang meets him. (He’s also the first to die. He shows Aang that All Things Must Die)
Aang is Tibetan, a Buddhist monk, one of the earliest, maybe the 7th century?
He dies in a temple fire
here again my complete and utter lack of knowledge is Bad
according to Dzogchen, individuals can transform their body into an immortal rainbow light, so there’s some mention of immortality in certain parts of Tibetan Buddhist culture, but idk how widespread that is since wikipedia didnt even have a source for it
he becomes a missionary and travels around asia for decades before Roku finds him
Roku!!! he’s an Old Immortal, and probably wants to die a little bit at this point, and he eventually does!! but for awhile he and Aang travel around together, and butt heads a bit bc Aang’s pacifist nature, and Roku thinks Aang Will Change as he gets older
aang is absolutely devastated by the Mongol invasion of Tibet in the 13th century
roku dies about a hundred years after he meets aang, and aang travels around a little aimlessly for awhile, learning all kinds of things and befriending people he’ll outlive. it dampens his spirits a bit.
eventually he meets Zuko, who’s far more jaded than Roku was, even, and wants to be friends, but respects Zuko’s decision otherwise.
Eventually, aang travels with the Norse to Canada in the 15th century, but when they leave they don’t take him with them. Instead, he ends up frozen ala steve rogers. Katara and Sokka find him a few hundred years later.
alternatively////// Aang IS the newest kid. he’s the Nile of the group. He’s still a Tibetan monk, and views this as a teaching/learning opportunity. He would also probably like everyone to stop killing each other. Sokka rolls his eyes at him constantly.
Toph
toph is a struggle bc how do you deal with an IMMORTAL BLIND GIRL
I’m gonna stick w her show backstory: rich, blind daughter of a wealthy Chinese family
Is kidnapped and her throat is slit when she’s young (maybe an older teenager) and the kidnappers panic, leaving her body. She’s found, namely unharmed, and resumes life despite the fact she knows she died.
However, being a privileged young girl, she’s kept under watch and it quickly becomes known that she’s immortal.
She’s regarded as a living deity for centuries until she meets Suki, who rescues her from the place and teaches her to fight. (she becomes a myth, later, rather than a historical fact)
alternatively//////// she could have been first generation chinese-american, and therefore the youngest
Suki
Suki was a third generation female warrior of her family who guarded the boarder during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), and trained from a young age in martial arts. (insp by the story of Mu Guiying)
She’s a war orphan, and leads an army of war widows and orphan women, but meets her untimely end with some of her sisters in a reign of arrows. She’s buried by some of her sisters before she wakes up again, and has to claw her way to the surface.
Her sisters don’t know how to react to her (a lot like Nile’s soldiers) so she eventually leaves them.
After her death, she hears rumors of a living goddess (Toph) and goes to see if there really is another person like her, and finds one of the people from her dreams (Toph)
She trains Toph to fight despite her being blind, and the pair become an unusual duo for a couple hundred years.
eventually, they start dreaming about a pair of siblings in the New World (not that new!! people live there!!) and book passage there in the 1800s with the first major wave of Chinese immigration
They dream about each other. it happens a lot at first, but it tapers out over the years. it grows stronger whenever a new one (katara) is born, but Katara and Sokka have NO desire to leave their homeland to go look for these strange people until they find Aang. (what languages might they have in common? russian??? the russians came to settle alaska, I know bc my stepmom is native alaskan and russian--- the Mongols invaded TIbet and Mongolia is right next to Russia, so Aang might know it??)
When they find Aang, Suki and Toph start dreaming of them again, and so does Zuko and they all start making their way to San Francisco. The Chinese wouldn’t arrive in Canada until around the 1850s (according to google) so Sokka probably wouldn’t speak any Chinese (mandarin???? i dont know things), but Zuko might speak some English or Russian. [really just gonna be a bunch of chinese, inuit, and tibetan people speaking russian to each other, isn’t it??]
Aang greets Zuko like an old friend, and Zuko Does Not know what to do with that. he’s skirtish and shy and hasn’t really been around a lot of friendly people. Sokka does NOT trust him. At all!! (he wants Katara to stay FAR AWAY from him. stick with the harmless monk we found at the bottom of a lake, katara.)
They find Suki and Toph in a bar. Toph hustling people for money, and Suki drinking at the bar. It’s very strange to have all of them around, and it’s like, 1830. they all decide they like each other, after they get some good old fashioned stabbing in-- Katara is the only woman Sokka has been around whos like him, and she’s like his little sister, and all he wants to do is Protect Her, so he doesn’t know what to do with women who known knives. (get his ass handed to him, thats what)
I want Zuko to be a broody mess but honestly he’d probably revert back to yelling at people/things in ancient Chinese (mandarin? I’m not really sure what period he’s from exactly). He’s still got that Good streak in him, esp since he’s like, a hundred years off his adopted uncle Iroh.
and you know what? 1830 america is NOT a cool place for anyone!! least of all asian immigrants, native americans, or women of either group
So the Gaang take to helping those people out any way they can. (Aang wants Peace, but you know white people, we don’t listen). They actively get involved in the underground railroad, eventually the civil war, and also helping out native americans, as well as chinese immigrants working on the railroads.
also so sorry I know the ask was about Zukka but I had to write a million words about their backstories first
Zuko + Sokka eventually come to a truce as the only dudes in this entire group who are willing to fight. Sokka is interested in both men and women, but he’s never really shared his life with anyone, and it’s the same for Zuko. Sokka, because he was regarded as an elder with his people, and after that he could only stay a few years. He had lovers, like Yue, but they all eventually died and Sokka couldn’t do anything about it!! Zuko, because while he also had lovers, he couldn’t really bear to be around humanity for a long time after what happened to him. (he’s vehemently opposed to slavery)
I think they get together at first just kind of because there isn’t really anyone else. Suki + Toph are kinda their own thing (are they lovers? sisters in arms? who knows), Katara is like Sokka’s sister (and if Zuko touches her Sokka will end his destiny permanently), and Aang is... aang.
It’s sorta a friends-with-benefits thing, except its an immortal warrior reluctant companions-with-benefits thing because can you really call this a friendship?? (its a family, eventually). Eventually it’s just kind of always been a thing. Sokka checking Zuko first when he comes back to life, counting down the second to make sure Zuko comes back at all. Zuko tells people he’s the only one allowed to kill Sokka, because lets be honest, the first couple of months with rowdy immortals meant killing each other a lot. When Sokka is killed violently in the Civil War, he wakes up half an hour later (slow, slow), to find a field of bodies and Zuko sitting next to him with his dao blades in the dirt, waiting for him. Sokka tries to make a joke, but it just makes Zuko mad, because what if that was the last time. (sokka jokes that he’s young, yet, not like Zuko)
They don’t really talk about it, partially because they don’t live in a world where it’s acceptable. What kind of title fits when you can only use it with 5 other people? But this time, when Zuko was afraid Sokka might not wake up, thirty years after they met, after lifetimes of being alone for both of them?? Sokka has to let Zuko know he loves him. Loves him!!! He’s not just here for the meantime.
thats all I have rn bc its 9pm and I’ve been writing this for like 3 hours. again if u wanna slide into my dms or if u have a discord and wanna talk about this/other stuff hmu. so sorry this got off topic.
also, the order I had them born in is:
roku --> aang --> Zuko --> suki --> toph --> sokka --> Katara
which may or may not be accurate to my timeline lol
Sokka probably speaks all of the Inuit languages, as well as French, English, and Russian, being alive for long enough to learn it all.
Katara refuses to learn French. Hates it. Never wants to learn.
She and Sokka personally keep Inuit traditions and languages alive as elders of their community, though it’s so much harder in modern times to stay connected to their culture bc they don’t age!!
disclaimer: bc the show was written as a complete mashup of several cultures I had to like..... pick where ppl were from. I picked china for Zuko/Suki/Toph bc they have a beautiful culture and a lot of dynasties I have heard a lot about recently while half watching the history channel. I really, really don’t know a lot about non-white culture as a white american from FLORIDA (so like, literally the farthest place you can get from the Inuit people and still be on the same continent). if you know more about these cultures than I do and I said something blatantly wrong pls let me know and I will change it.
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struckbyelectriclove · 4 years ago
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Heads up this is going to be long, sorry. There has been something that I've been wondering about Kat's origin. So the Soviet Union was established in 1922 and dissolved in 1991. Kat was born in Russia in 1973 but goes to Hogwarts in the 80s. However, nobody was able to legally leave Russia at that time. Even Jewish people that tried to leave for Israel had a hard time. The only way they got out was diplomatic pressure from the west. So what I want to know is how did Kat and her family leave Russia? Did the Russian version of the Ministry of Magic completely separate itself from Soviet ideals? Did they hire a smuggler or did they have to travel on their own?
:0c i’ve actually been thinking abt kat and the cold war since my history exam is coming up, but i’ve never thought of it like this,,,
under the cut bc it’s long!
i think that since the war would be like,,, mostly a muggle thing? they’d be able to escape a bit easier than they would if they didn’t have magic. they’d still have to be discrete about it, but since i don’t think the wizarding world would be very involved (correct me on this but i think that they aren’t very involved in the muggle world in the first place? i could be wrong tho). plus they’ve got magic, so it makes slipping by any muggle detection easier? also i’m unsure what it was like in russia at the time, but in america is was mostly like,,, just hatred and fear against communists, and since no physical war was declared (at least in terms of directly russia v america) the wizard population wouldn’t be like,,,, as up in arms about the whole thing? it would linger in the backs of their minds for sure, but i don’t think they’d be too worried about it unless like,,,, real, actual threats of nuclear war started. and if they did launch missile, whos to say that wizards couldn’t just vanish them? i guess what i’m saying is that i think that there would be a degree of separation from the muggle world unless absolutely necessary. if someone wants to critique this i would gladly be willing to listen to feedback against this claim!!
oh and also i dont think that the russian ministry would separate itself entirely from soviet ideals, they’re certainly aware of them and i think that many would support it? i’m not very knowledgable about the culture of russia around that time, really only america (since. that is what my unit was on.), but since most wizards would at least see muggles on the street, i think they’d start to adopt some of their ideals since they’re so widespread?
although im not quite experienced with thinking about how magic would alter history, or economics and social structure, for that matter. for all i know the russians would have won the cold war, or nuclear war would have been declared, or any number of other things.
for how kat and her family left,,, i think there’d be some apparition-moving service that wizards use when they move long distance? again, more discretely than usual, and they’d definitely have had to pick out their apartment beforehand since they need to pick up and leave quickly due to risk of being found out by russian muggle law enforcement. not very exciting, but it’s what makes sense in my mind?
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kitaychan · 4 years ago
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Equilibrium.
Human AU
Summary: Leon reminiscences about his life, his family, and how he managed to be at peace with it.
When I was a child my father used to tell me about the day he met my mother.
He said he was 23 years old, during one of his numerous travels, he is part of a well-known company that runs along the seven seas, bringing goods to every corner of the world.
He had met her due to a trip to Hong Kong, she was the daughter of a business contact in there, the man (my grandfather) had taken him and others to celebrate a dinner at his home in Beijing, father said he was flabbergasted by how beautiful she was.
He recalled making a fool of himself, trying to impress her. My mom would later say that he was so clumsy and nervous that night that she found him quite cute.
After that, my father tried to meet her, he was nagging at Mr. Wang with made up excuses just to talk with his daughter. Father said that mom was cold and harsh the first time they spoke. On the other hand my Mother expressed that he was corny and sweet, but she was afraid of infuriating her father. After all, she depended on her family, she was only 18.
The months passed and father became a constant visitor in the Wang's household. He would schedule more trips to China than necessary, only to keep in touch with mother. She later told me that he was convincing her of escaping with him.
My father, whose business was settled in England, planned to take mother with him without Mr. Wang's approval. The reason? My grandfather wasn't very keen of him, he didn't dislike father but he refused to give his blessing, saying she was too young for marriage.
The route was from Beijing to Hong Kong and then they would take a ship to England.
They managed to arrive in Hong Kong but the plan was ruined when Mr. Wang put a reward for his lost daughter. No ship would take them out of Hong Kong without turning them in.
They spent two years more in Hong Kong, in which I was conceived, father was neither getting his payments nor help from his brother's back in England.
When I was born, they lived in a small house in Hong Kong, it was possible thanks to my mother's decision of contacting her cousins, who seeing her pregnant, took pity and helped her. When talking about this, father was always bitter, he said the cousins were prideful and would always rub their money on his face, he was especially spiteful of the Korean one, saying he was always encouraging mother to abandon him.
Father never talked to me about the following three years of my birth, he only said that those years made him realize the kind of woman my mother was, and that those years were horrendous enough for him to take the hardest choice of his life.
He saved enough money to pay the ship to take him to England, prepared the luggage and one night decided to leave, he took me with him while mother was asleep.
In the ship he got the help of a woman called Marianne, father said he promised to pay her when they arrived in England, she would sing lullabies for me at night as well as read some stories I don't remember.
I don't remember much about that, I only recall vividly my life in England, surrounded by my uncles and cousins, I remember my father's wedding with Marianne and after that, the arrival of the twins.
I do remember dreaming about my mother, she was becoming a blurry image for me, it didn't help that my father refused to talk about her anymore. He would say that she had abandoned me, that if she really loved me she would have come with us, that she had started a new life and a new family, he said that as I was no longer important to mother, I didn't have to bother to think about her.
I remember feeling jealous at the twins, for they received more attention than I did. I remember my father teaching them how to read, while he just paid a tutor for me. I remember him playing with them in the front yard, while I had to play with the nanny when I was their age,  as he was always working away.
I also remember the times he got drunk, they were a few but they still hold a great impact in me.
The first time he arrived at midnight, barely able to walk, he barged into my room and cried, he told me he was sad, that he missed my mother and she wouldn't get back ever again. That was before he married Marianne.
The second time, I had to retrieve him in the pub, while I was carrying him through the stairs,  he told me he was proud of the young man I was becoming, he said he was glad I wasn't like him and before I could question him further he passed out.
The third time was inside the house, he had received mail and was cursing and tossing things in his office, Alfred asked me to check on him, arguing that father was less likely to get mad at me.
When I opened the door, father glared at me and told me that my mother was a cruel woman, that she had married a foreign soldier, a communist he said, he told me that she didn't care about me, that she had forgotten my existence and that I should be glad he had taken me with him. I only nodded, embracing him softly, perhaps that way he would calm down, he fell silent and burst into tears, he told me he was a liar and shoved a handful of opened letters into my hands.
After that incident, father became more cautious not only with the alcohol but around me. He started to give me presents: books, clothes, souvenirs from travels. He would often try to engage in conversation with me.
I didn't want to talk with him. Not after reading those letters, they were from my mother, the oldest were long and full of anguish, asking him why he had left, how could he took me away from her, she was pleading: for him to return, to take me back to her, she said she didn't care if he didn't love her anymore, if he was with another woman, she was telling him to come back, she offered to let him bring the other woman along, she only wanted to take care of her son, her baby.
The following letters were asking for me, some were threatening him, others were sad, she was desperate to know how I was doing, she would even update her address, asking father to let me write to her. She had returned to his father, begged for his help and he had received her again in the family, she was studying to be a nurse.
There were letters saying that she was in England, looking for me, that she had come all the way from China, that she had found the house but every time, the servants would not allow her to see me. She begged father to let her see me, to give her an answer, to tell her that I was still alive.
The last one had arrived that day, she was telling that she had married, that she was moving to Russia, as his husband was from there, she was saying that she'll keep on writing from there, and she even wrote down the new address she would be having.
Those letters were the proof that father had lied for 16 years, that my mother was out there looking for me, that she was suffering, that even though she had moved on from losing father, she had never stopped loving me.
After reading those letters I grew distant of my father, I told him that I would apply to a university in Moscow, he knew why I was doing it, and he tried to dissuade me, saying that it wasn't safe in there, that it would be hard for him to send me money, that I didn't knew the language. He was right.
I decided to do my studies in England, I started sending letters to my mother, she was happy to have news from me, she would send me a letter per month, asking for my subjects, for my life in England. In return, I would ask her about Russia, about her husband, about her life in China.
It was hard at the beginning, to write to her, someone I didn't remember the looks of, someone whose voice I had forgotten. We exchanged some photographs, she was excited, told me how handsome I was. I discovered that we had an astonishing resemblance, of course she had her feminine features but the resemblance was undeniable, I only shared my father's eyebrows, while I had the hair, the eyes like hers. I won't deny that I felt warm, all my life, I had felt different and seeing that there was someone who shared my features, whom was excited to read my happenings was heartwarming.
I tried not to be so harsh with my father, he had raised me after all, and he had tried to be a good father, so I still visited him on my summer breaks in England, I got a job at the university, translating some articles. I had decided to learn Chinese and Russian in order to communicate with my mother when I'd finally visit her.
During the time, it proved to be profitable, the intellectuals were interested in the new ways these countries had revised the Marxist theory, I wasn't enthusiastic of these ideologies but the college students were curious and would pay really well for a critical article.
After a year of saving my payments and some of the money father sent me, I was allowed to go on a short trip to China. It was easier to explain a family visit, not only for me but for my mother, we agreed to meet at my grandparents’ house.
Once there, my thoughts plagued me with fear and uneasiness, what if I wasn't welcomed, I was my father's son after all, wouldn't I be a nuisance? I was more of an outlaw in the Kirkland family, wouldn't I be the same in the Wang’s household? Would I be welcomed there? What about my mother’s husband? Wouldn’t he despise me? Mother would surely have another baby by now, perhaps she didn't told me that.
My fears were cleared up when the door was opened, I was embraced tightly by a man called Im Yong Soo, he said he was my cousin or something like that, he led me to the living room and the people there stared at me. I recognized mother, she looked exactly like in the pictures, I also figured out who her husband was, being the only blond in the room.
Mother stood up and hugged me tightly, she was so excited, she started crying, I wasn't sure of how to act, so, I just hugged her back.
When she calmed down, I was presented to the rest of them.
Mr. Wang was calm but he also embraced me, saying he was glad he got to meet his grandson.
A Japanese man shook my hand, he was the most reserved but his face betrayed his demeanor, when his eyes watered at the sight of me.
A young woman called Mei Xiao hugged me tightly and said she was happy to have someone around her age in the house.
I'm Yong Soo greeted me warmly, recalling the last time he saw me, I had to embarrassedly tell him, that I did not remember him. He laughed it off and said I had grown a lot.
When it was my mother's husband turn, I felt suddenly intimidated, the man was tall, taller than all of us, I wasn't sure of how to approach him. He smiled softly at me and shook my hand. "So you are the little one who makes her smile with letters" he said in a heavily accented English.
I nodded. "You must be Ivan." I tried to reply in Russian.
He smiled and surprisingly hugged me.
After that, I realized that my fears were irrational, that they were kind and loving people, that "the communist" my father had cursed about was actually a doctor, that the greedy and prideful cousins were funny and warm, that the resentful old man, was just a preoccupied father, and I also learned that they had a totally opposite picture of my father, as a treacherous, sneaky scoundrel who had dragged mother out (although mother said to me that she went with him willingly) and abandoned her, finding another woman and running away with her.
Mother would later told me, quite sadly, that the three years after my birth, the situation between them deteriorated so much, that there were days in which they would only argue. Father was frustrated about money but would also disappear for days, only to return without a penny. Mother tried to get some money by selling her belongings but it would only infuriate him more, and when he returned from his escapades, she felt so mad that she would try to make him feel miserable on purpose.
All this new information was astonishing for me, mother tries not to touch that subject so much, to this day she still avoids the topic, she says that they both are to blame for that, and that she doesn't want to strain my relationship with father.
After all this years, I still keep contact with both, I've settled in Hong Kong, sometimes the twins visit me, sometimes Mei Xiao comes here too. What is certain is that my life depends on the equilibrium of the families I am part of.
I've learned to forgive my father, slowly, we had tried to build a better relationship, he has told me little fragments of his version of things, the real one at least.
I've come to know more about my mother, bit by bit, she tells me about her life, her studies, how she met Ivan, how she adjusted to live in Russia.
And like that, I've managed to process everything, to understand, and most importantly to live with and to love the family I have.
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nagasanis · 5 years ago
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i can't belieb i have no self control... here, take my daughter. she is sneaky. she is pretty. she will not bark but she will bite. i luv her. // im basic so her intro is p much her app
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✧ ━━ the courts of switzerland present NAGASANI BEGUM of HINDUSTAN, the TSAREVNA of RUSSIA. the TWENTY-FOUR year old has been QUIET and LOGICAL before the break of war but have now become SCHEMING and STUBBORN. SHE is often remembered by their likeness to ANYA CHALOTRA and FAITHFUL KNEES TURNED TO KA'BAH, HIDDEN FROM ALL CURIOUS EYES ; GOOSEBUMPS FROM THE COLD, ARMS SWAYING A SMALL CHILD ; BEAUTIFUL BLUE AND GOLDEN ROBES STUDDED WITH STONES WAITING TO BE WORN AGAIN. the rumour mills of europe claim that his allegiance lies with HERSELF/HER DAUGHTER and that she is for WAR.
headcanons ;
i ; daydreamer - living under the roof of sultan humayun was no easy feat. however a failure in his political position, humayun was a strict parent. he showed love, yes, but not affection. he drowned his children in expectations to be met from the moment they were born, and nagasani was no different. his father expected her to become a graceful, picture perfect poster child of hindustan - beautiful, skilled in the feminine arts and a devout wife to her husband, as her mother had become. the granddaughter of a german settler turned important merchant, her mother had converted, changed her name, made herself truly hindustani. as she grew, nagasani could never truly understand how her mother could leave behind her whole history and culture for a husband, and do it so flawlessly and easily. however, she was a happy child. in the company of her many siblings she found comfort. in her sisters, of course, she found confidantes and true friends, spending most of her time around them. in akbar, however, she found a mentor, almost. their age difference would not allow for a closer, more horizontal relationship, and her brother's claim to the sultanate left him with little time for his little sister. however the challenges may have been, nagasani had in akbar someone to give her advice, make her stronger. together, they saw their father make mistakes, and together, they would see akbar fix them in his reign. 
ii ; cold shoulder - her brother murad was never a mystery to nagasani. he was trustworthy and an all around loyal man to the sultanate, unlike many of her half-brothers. his opinion came as a surprise. how could he think that selling his little sister off to a russian man was the right choice? most of all, how could akbar keep her from weighing in on the decision? it was final, however. nagasani was to be married to tsarevich yuri, a man known for his promiscuity. she was, after all, a trading coin, she should have known. the decision drives her and her older brother apart, not only geographically as she moves to moscow, but emotionally as she becomes resentful of akbar, and murad much the same. 
iii ; tired - her distaste for the circumstances of her marriage, combined with her husband's reputation, makes nagasani weary of the betrothal from the start. the cultural shift doesn't help, and she becomes rather expressive on her opinions about her move to russian territory. she instantly dislikes the people she's surrounded by, not allowing them a chance, as well as the country itself. she sees no point in trying to love a man who is not willing to love her back, and cannot find a way to grow loyal to a country she holds no affection for. her husband is unfaithful and unbothered, and so she finds no problem in finding her own indulgences. still, she fulfills her duty as a wife when she can, if only to not be killed or disregarded completely. her true love is born out of a loveless encounter with an inebriated tsarevich and tsarevna, and despite not being considered an heir for her gender, karina brings life to nagasani's life. she is her only tie to russian lands, and although she might wish she had none, she does not hesitate in including her daughter in her plans to leave the country.
iv ; hometown glory - her grudge for her brothers do not diminish her love for hindustan, that much is true. she aches to return home, if only to see her land again, her sisters and her old friends, her nieces and nephews, her new sister-in-law whom she has yet to meet in person. going back to living as a begum, however, does not suit her interest. it is true that she has yet to come with a plan for what happens after she frees herself from russian hold, yes, but would it be so far fetched to dream of a loving marriage? would she have to beg akbar and murad not to trade her off again? she is not sure she would survive such a thing. that the future holds for nagasani is still unclear, but while that is yet to come, she makes sure to do what she can to improve her odds at getting it her way.
plot points ;
murad mirza ; chasing pavements - a game of blame is played between siblings. nagasani blames murad (although she doesn't exempt sultan akbar from his share of blame) for her failed marriage, for he was aware of her wishes to remain in hindustan. she fails to understand why roshanara was allowed to marry a once kitchen servant and her forced to marry a man like tsarevich yuri. murad blames nagasani - she was supposed to lure the man into her grace. had she not been raised to be a devout and graceful wife, after all? the dispute is bound to become clearer as siblings reunite in swiss grounds, and nagasani does not wish to mask her resentment for the actions taken by her brothers. 
tsarevich yuri ; rumour has it - her marriage was rotten from the start, that was clear as day. nagasani had no desire to be taken northwest to moscow, and yuri, on the other hand, no desire to be married to a foreign woman. his heart belonged to another, and nagasani not once hoped to gain her husband's affection (although some respect would have been nice). throughout their marriage yuri has not made an effort to hide his endeavours, and nagasani has made no attempts to stop him. she does not care and, in fact, takes his shamelessness as encouragement for her own rendezvous. unlike him, she is more secretive, for she knows a woman has more to lose than a man, and being foreign doesn't help her case. yuri is the embodiment of nagasani's curse and for that, she despises him. the only good thing that ever came from him was karina, and even then, she is unsure of her daughter's truest parentage.*
*note: karina is, in fact, yuri's daughter. i guess in the 1550s there was just no way of really knowing!!
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shiksenstuff-blog · 5 years ago
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Maybe here is the place where I can keep a distance from myself. First, there is the language. My mother tongues are German and Russian, but it is difficult for me to define whether it’s true what I write. Are they really my mother tongues? Both? I can express myself with German much better than with Russian. Russian is connected with my family, with pressure, with a country I never set a foot in. When people find out I speak Russian, they ask always if Im from Russia. No, I was born in Ukraine. But I spent only two years of my life there and my mother always speaks ill of Soviet Union. It is always difficult to explain where I come from. Yesterday, there came my flatmate’s relatives and found out I speak Russian and the same story started again...
With English, I feel I can be more objective, more far from myself; but this distance allows me on the other hand an analysing perpective on myself. Like an astral trip. I’m not bound to social expectations. My vocabulary is consists of academic wiritings I read in my studies at university, some bad classes at school and my journeys to different countries. With English, I feel free, somehow. Even though in writing this text, I have to look up some expressions and even though I’m aware of using some words and grammar not correctly. Or maybe, just in a different way.
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dvrkprinces · 5 years ago
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&&. ( ronan ludolf ) was just spotted in amsterdam. rumor has it ( he ) is a ( 36 ) year old ( alpha werewolf ) who resembles ( michael fassbender ). ( he ) has been said to be ( courageous & patient ) but also quite ( judgmental & quiet ). with all the chaos surrounding the magical underworld, he has chosen to align with ( no one / the russian bratva ). ( he ) is currently serving as ( a contracted assassin ). hopefully the city doesn’t devour them whole.
— ❝ i’ve had to burn your kingdom down.❞
( hi there, kiwi here! this is the official intro for my ‘quiet killer’, ronan ludolf. he’s a loyal assassin to the valentina family and i would LOVE to build some more relationships for his character. please let me know if you’d like to plot; i’m available through both the group’s discord and tumblr ims. ♡ )
name: ronan aleksander ludolf
birthplace: krakow, poland
birthday: october 30th | scorpio
scent: earthy, quiet forest woods on a fresh autumn day, spirited bergamot, amber, vanilla + ( signature cologne: sauvage - dior )
current familial / relationship status: ronan was one of five children, until vengeful vampires killed his peasant family in a hate crime. now, as an adult, ronan tends to push people away out of fear of growing too close and failing them the same way he failed his own family as a child. he is yet to meet his mate, but is more than content to serve as a makeshift family for the valentinas / the russian bratva, whom he considers close enough to act as surrogate siblings / children in lieu of his own family.
appearance: 6â€Č4″ and rather large. ronan came from a family of tall individuals, and he was no different; though he has no family to date these days, he suspects he looks rather like what his father did at his age. tall, broad, and muscular, from years of training as an assassin. with a shock of soft-toned red hair and a beard to match, ronan finds that his auburn hair is one of his most defining features. 
ronan has his assassin gear, which is comprised of dark clothing and cloaks, and then he has casual-wear–traditionally collared shirts and slacks, or sometimes sweaters and more relaxed pants.
personality: resourceful, strong, narrow-minded, secretive, protective, loyal, resilient.
biography: ronan was the second eldest in a family of five children, born to two loving, attentive parents in the heart of krakow, poland. his family was quite poor, and having five children (two boys and three girls) likely didn’t help matters financially, but ronan never felt he lacked anything emotionally from the care in which his family devoted to one another. His father was a german jewish immigrant, his mother a polish native, and so ronan grew up understanding polish and german fluently.
when ronan was roughly twelve years old, his family uprooted and moved to russia in what his parents claimed was a search of opportunities for the entire family. in actuality, ronan’s parents were running from debt they’d run up with some of the more
unsavory members of poland’s slums. for a few years, everything remained as was. the children learned russian, attending school and immersing themselves in the culture of the soviet union. but then, one cold november night when he was fifteen, ronan walked home after studying with a group of friends from school and found that there had been forced entry into his home. sprawled about his house were the mangled and drained bodies of his family–his mother and father, elder brother, and younger sisters. racing through their small quarters, ronan found that not a single member of his family had survived the brutal attack; instead, ronan’s wolf senses and a calling card left behind led him to the realization that the act was a hate crime committed by a group of vampires who were displeased with the ludolfs’ presence in eastern europe. for the first time in his young life, ronan felt hatred that day. and it burned bright inside of him, festering into something truly awful and deadly.
ronan allowed himself to be carved into a lethal blade then. school became less of a priority for him; as he searched the streets for anyone–anyone at all–who would help him before he risked being taken away by the state, he stumbled from proper society deep into an assassin’s guild. the guild was run by a fellow werewolf alpha who deemed the plight of vampires a plague among supernatural society and vowed to rid the world of their kind. ronan allowed himself to be seduced into their ranks, learning the skills necessary to hone his body and mind with the instincts of a natural-born killer. he wouldn’t just kill the vampires responsible for annihilating his family--no, ronan would kill all of them. ronan operated mostly independently, commissioning himself for jobs all while hunting down the vampires who were responsible for his family’s untimely death.
and then...well, then the russian bratva happened. and though ronan didn’t have a family, he had something similar to it. the human-led russian mafia opened its dark, brooding arms for ronan, embracing him. the bratva had their own grief with supernaturals and gangs wreaking havoc in europe, and they promised to shelter and protect ronan if he gave them something in return: his loyalty. hardened by the grief inside of him, ronan allowed himself to be hardened into something lethal and tangible; a weapon honed by anger and regret. he blames himself for being absent when his family was taken and murdered. since then, ronan has distanced himself from society in general; he doesn’t wish to form tight-knit bonds with anyone, lest the deep rooted fear inside of him that warns he’ll continue to lose those he cares for festers into something tangible.
as ronan grew from a young man into a hardened adult, he became involved in the crooked, corrupt world of espionage for the russian mob. specifically, as an assassin. the only limitations ronan had in his job, he argued with himself, was children; he wouldn’t touch children. but the corrupt, power-hungry rulers of the world who toyed with people and kept them in squalor and poverty? his specialty was vampires; he hunted them for sport, for purpose, for retribution. those monsters, he believed firmly, deserved his blade. and by the time ronan was twenty-five, ten years after the deaths of his family, he had tracked down every last vampire responsible for his family’s unjust homicides, and killed them all. he was known through the the seedy underbelly of europe’s supernatural community as the white wolf; a mob-affiliated alpha assassin who left no paper trail and slipped in smooth as night to finish the job left to him.
ronan views the russian mafia as his family; he’s fiercely loyal to them for taking him in and allowing him to sow the seeds of vengeance against his family’s killers. as such, he witnessed much of the rise of the current pakhan, viktor valentina, as well as witnessed his younger sister, tatiana valentina, grow up right before his very eyes. ronan considers them the closest thing to a family he has to date. though he misses his own family fiercely and with everything inside of him, he’s made his own makeshift home out of the family he serves and the people he works with.
with the supernatural tensions present in amsterdam, ronan plans on aligning himself with no one but the protection of the family he has sworn himself to. he cares very little for the politics employed by the human or angelic governments and considers himself more of an anarchist than anything else. he hasn’t found his mate yet, and at this point, ronan doesn’t have much hope for himself. there’s not an omega in the world who would bear to look at him, scarred and damaged as he is.
after all: who could ever learn to love a beast?
wanted connections: i’d be super down for some enemies especially; bring me all the vampire vs. werewolf angst ! i really enjoy getting to play ronan in a supernatural setting, so if you’ve got ideas for frenemies, contracts / clients, enemies, etc. please let me know !!
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nnumbskxull · 5 years ago
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                                                  〘  freedom is the highest right 〙
‿ hello there fabulous people!!! to those that know me, you shredded scrub daddies, just skip a few lines before I kick you in the throat and into the sUN. to those who don’t! my name’s stirling, I also play the italian kiddo here aka titus wu the macgyver, and today I have decided to bring you the russianℱ (that I may or may not have based off hannibal lector : D just less cannibal promise). jump on down below the cut to find out more about my new child (psa; i....REALLY did write a lot but I p r o m i s e you kai is incredibly secretive and it will take time for his past to be uncovered by other muses because i’m like thatℱ) MWUAH!!
oh also blah blah blah like this and i’ll show up in your dm’s or discord aYEET
( im jaebeom, male, he/him, 26. ) — i hear that KAI SOKOLOV has been living in seoul for around 8 YEARS and works as a/an CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGIST. rumor has it, they can be LEVEL-HEADED & KNOWLEDGEABLE but also VENGEFUL & MANIPULATIVE which is why a judge’s blood-soaked robes, ancient textbooks coated in dust, and bruised hand prints around one’s throat make me think of them.
                                                                   â€č ―――― „
〘  ABOUT 〙
full name: kai sokolov
nickname(s): brainiac
age: 26
gender: male
birthdate: december 23, 1993
birthplace: moscow, russia
occupation: criminal psychologist
ethnicity: russian-korean
orientation: bisexual / biromantic
status: single
languages: russian, korean, near-fluent english
pets: n/a
〘  PHYSICAL 〙
faceclaim: im jaebeom
hair: black
eyes: dark brown
height: 6'2 (187 cm)
weight: 176 lb (79 kg)
body: muscular, slim
style: street-fashion is his best friend on a normal day, sleek suits that scream professional while on the job
defining features: two moles on his left eyelid
tattoos: n/a
scars: a few on his knees, elbows, a small one on his nape
〘  MENTAL 〙
horoscope: capricorn
zodiac: rooster
element: water
moral alignment: neutral
type: INFJ - the counselor
house: slytherin
religion: catholic
fears: n/a
chronic: n/a
positive: insightful, clever, reliable, articulate, charismatic, level-headed, hard-working, incisive, authoritative
neutral: determined, distinctive, passionate, complex
negative: cold, blunt, manipulative, crafty, vengeful, presumptuous,
                                                               â€č ―――― „
TW; Violence, Blood, Death, Cancer 
Born the illegitimate child of a Russian government-working father and a Korean graphic designer mother, Kai grew up in the blankets of wealth his parents never had - the boy was grateful enough to realize the state of comparison to the families around him, and from an early age he develops a humble and high-minded personality. Thanks to his father’s well-paying job, Kai receives personal schooling and is able to indulge in as many side-activities as he chooses, although the prior solidifies a slight awkwardness in approach to other children his age due to him not being as active in their social circles. Still, Kai is avid in his hobbies - the boy seems to be able to pick up many talents with little effort, most especially being wood carving and singing. Kai takes an extreme liking to the latter, and upon his parents noticing, begins to receive vocal training that will benefit his future. The boy was as happy as happy could be, and never once did he find himself breaking out of the childlike innocence that holds him to the moment. 
Innocence
.a beautiful word. But innocence does not save Kai from the heartache to strike him at 11 years old. Too young to realize the exact intricacies of his father’s job, Kai moves on with his life while his father struggles to keep a scandal behind the scenes. Indeed the senior had made a mistake in some financial suites, resulting in the loss of a few tax funds that made anyone but pleased in the matter. His father was able to clean up the mess with no major issues, however, some people were still not satisfied.(edited)Their revenge was solidified when young Kai and his parents were out walking in a park late at night after viewing a recent showing of the boy’s favorite musical, The Nutcracker. Stopping briefly in the cold winter night to pick up a frosted-over flower, Kai was met with the sounds of screaming and bone cracking clattering against his eardrums as he watched on as a group of men surrounded his parents and beat them mercilessly with metal clubs and baseball bats. 
 And then it was over, just like that.
In less than 10 minutes, Kai’s entire life was ripped from his fingers, no inquiry given to why he was spared but only to the beaten and bloodied corpses of his mother and father. He never learned who carried out the act and who gave the orders, but as he watched on at their government state funeral decorated too lavishly for his own tastes, his hands clenched tightly at his sides, he swore he would find out.
Although inheriting all of his parent’s money, young Kai is unable to take on the mantle of responsibility due to the mental weight the incident left on him, and instead leaves Russia to live with his aunt in South Korea, his mother’s homeland. It is luckily for him that he ended up where he was and not in some random orphanage - most of his mother’s immediate family had renounced her for being with a foreigner and having a child before being married, all except for her sister whom had held steadfast in their family ties. After the murder of his parents, the last thing Kai would have wanted was to move thousands of miles away to a country he had never been to, yet he had little say in the matter as he said goodbye to the snow-topped buildings of Moscow and hello to the monstrous sun-lit skyscrapers of Seoul. 
He grows fast, although he never forgets the incident. The once outgoing and playful boy becomes a shell of his former self, a silence filling him as he takes on an icy approach. Kai is grateful for the kindness shown to him by his mother’s sister, and despite meeting her at such a disastrous time, grows fond of the woman and becomes attached to her. She teaches him Korean and English, languages he manages to pick up easily due to his mixed heritage, and he in return teaches her Russian for when she might want to visit his mother’s grave. The two grow to have a nearly inseparable bond, and although he will always hold a place in his heart and mind for his parents, Kai begins to slowly move on and finally heal. However, even at 19 years old, it seems fate is not yet done in sharing with him some of its tragedy. 
It happens quickly - one day she is as bustling and happy and ever, and the next Kai is standing over her body in a hospital bed as a doctor pulls the plug. Pancreatic Cancer, he hears them say, and almost in the blink of an eye he is back in a full circle of grief and mistrust as his heart is shattered before him. The simple pleasantries he has access to thanks to his wealth become insubordinate in comparison to the depression that sets upon him, and if not for an opportunity to present itself to him, Kai thinks he would have let himself rot away without meaning. 
From the flames of promise he had made to his dead parents in finding the perpetrators, so did rise a need to make clear of it. If not at that moment, then at some point would he make sure their heads hung from aged ropes in the winter wind. For the time being, though, his focus switched to something else; the mind. A bullet could get the job done, but Kai more so found himself wanting to understand and bring justice in other ways. Methodical and closed off from the rest of the world, he entered university for psychology and swept through with flying colors, hardly concerned with what other people dwelled on, there were hardly any distractions he allowed to take time away from his work. In the end, Kai graduated valedictorian and was immediately employed by the city’s law force as a criminal psychologist on the side of his own practice, unaware that the very man they were having understand delinquent’s minds was one himself with guarded secrets. Analyzing subjects before court cases, deeming insanity, attempting to extract information....Kai did it all, yet to him no crime was too great, and in every one he saw one of the masked men who had beaten his parents into the ground. This twisted mentality earned, in his eyes, swift punishment ― and with a silver tongue, intrusive methods, and hidden intents, he easily convinced many to initiate their own deaths or sent them to fates worse than death.
Because to him, no price was too great, and no crime too small.
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ronanvvludolf · 6 years ago
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&&. word has it ( ronan ludolf ) was just spotted around the city. ( he ) is a ( 36 ) year old affiliated with ( the russian mafia ). it’s been said that ( he ) resembles ( michael fassbender ). ( he ) has been said to be ( resourceful & strong ) but also quite ( narrow-minded & secretive ). ( he ) is currently serving as ( an assassin ).
— ❝ i’ve had to burn your kingdom down.❞
( hi there, kiwi here! this is the official intro for my ‘quiet killer’, ronan ludolf. he’s a loyal assassin to the russian mafia and i would LOVE to build some more relationships for his character. please let me know if you’d like to plot; i’m available through both the group’s discord and tumblr ims. ♡ )
name: ronan aleksander ludolf
birthplace: krakow, poland
birthday: october 30th | thirty-six | scorpio
scent: pine and cedarwood
appearance: 6â€Č4″ and rather large. ronan came from a family of tall individuals, and he was no different; though he has no family to date these days, he suspects he looks rather like what his father did at his age. tall, broad, and muscular, from years of training as an assassin. with a shock of soft-toned red hair and a beard to match, ronan finds that his auburn hair is one of his most defining features, particularly among so many dark-and-blonde-haired russians.
ronan has his assassin gear, which is comprised of dark clothing and cloaks, and then he has casualwear--traditionally collared shirts and slacks, or sometimes sweaters and more relaxed pants. 
personality: resourceful, strong, narrow-minded, secretive, protective, loyal, resilient.
biography: ronan was the second eldest in a family of five children, born to two loving, attentive parents in the heart of krakow, poland. his family was quite poor, and having five children (two boys and three girls) likely didn’t help matters financially, but ronan never felt he lacked anything emotionally from the care in which his family devoted to one another. His father was a german jewish immigrant, his mother a polish native, and so Ronan grew up understanding polish and german fluently.
when ronan was roughly twelve years old, his family uprooted and moved to russia in what his parents claimed was a search of opportunities for the entire family. in actuality, ronan’s parents were running from debt they’d run up with some of the more
unsavory members of poland’s slums. For a few years, everything remained as was. the children learned russian, attending school and immersing themselves in the culture of the soviet union. but then, one cold november night when he was fifteen, ronan walked home after studying with a group of friends from school and found that there had been forced entry into his home. sprawled about his house were the mangled bodies of his family–his mother and father, elder brother, and younger sisters. racing through their small quarters, ronan found that not a single member of his family had survived the brutal attack; instead, an infamous gang in poland had left behind their calling card. apparently, his parents’ debt had caught up with them, and the gang had come to collect.
ronan allowed himself to be carved into a lethal blade then. school became less of a priority for him; as he searched the streets for anyone--anyone at all--who would help him before he risked being taken away by the state, he stumbled from entanglement in one mob to another. the russian mafia opened its dark, brooding arms for ronan, embracing him. the russian mafia had their own grief with poland’s aggressive gang messing around in their territory, and they promised to shelter and protect ronan if he gave them something in return: his loyalty. hardened by the grief inside of him, ronan allowed himself to be hardened into something lethal and tangible; a weapon honed by anger and regret. he blames himself for being absent when his family was taken and murdered. since then, ronan has distanced himself from society in general; he doesn’t wish to form tight-knit bonds with anyone, lest the deep rooted fear inside of him that warns he’ll continue to lose those he cares for festers into something tangible.
as ronan grew from a boy into an adult, he became involved in the crooked, corrupt world of espionage for the russian mob. specifically, as an assassin. the only limitations ronan had in his job, he argued with himself, was children; he wouldn’t touch children. but the corrupt, power-hungry rulers of the world who toyed with people and kept them in squalor and poverty? those, he believed firmly, deserved his blade. and by the time ronan was twenty-five, ten years after the deaths of his family, he had tracked down every last person responsible for his family’s unjust homicides, and killed them all. he was known through the mafia and the seedy underbelly of organized crime life as the white wolf; a mob-affiliated assassin who left no paper trail and slipped in smooth as night to finish the job left to him.
ronan views the russian mafia as his family; he’s fiercely loyal to them for taking him in and allowing him to sow the seeds of vengeance against his family’s killers. as such, he witnessed much of the rise of the current pakhan, viktor valentina, as well as witnessed his younger siblings, dimitri and tatiana valentina, grow up right before his very eyes. ronan considers them his family; them, and his fellow assassin, one celine dahl. though he misses his family fiercely and with everything inside of him, he’s made his own makeshift family out of the family he serves and the people he works with.
knowing only fierce loyalty and devotion for much of his life, ronan wasn’t equipped for what would happen to him one fateful day, when he was making a routine stop at the bank for the valentinas when the establishment was robbed. instinctively, ronan flew and shielded a young, petrified girl next to him when things got angry and out of hand...and from that day onwards, it was fate. meeting emmaline bennet, even in such a traumatic way, sealed their fates; it was like looking into someone’s eyes and knowing they were made for you. ronan and emmaline fell into a whirlwind romance, consumed by passion, desire, and love.
after the two had been secretly seeing one another on and off for a time, emmaline informed him she was pregnant. what should have been the happiest moment of ronan’s life soon became a dark cloud of turbulence and uncertainty; he received a series of photos and incriminating, disguised messages in the mail one day, showing emmaline exiting the apartment she shared with her elder brother, christian (a detective for the nypd), and expertly mapping out both her and her brother’s daily schedules. someone had it out for ronan; someone who wanted to pay a blood debt for something he had likely done on behalf of the russian mafia years before.
terrified for his mate and their unborn child, ronan convinced emmaline that the only way to protect herself and her brother was to hide, at least until he could find out who was threatening them; with the help of the russian mafia and the assistance of the pakhan himself, ronan was able to fake emmaline’s death, and the two consequently fled to russia, where ronan worked at the mafia’s headquarters and kept emmaline safe from the clutches of new york city. until, that is, news reached him months later that the revered and precious russian mafia princess, tatiana valentina, had finally returned home, after being entangled in the irish mafia for so long.
now, ronan and emmaline have recently arrived back in new york city and are staying at the russian mafia’s base in brooklyn. ronan is hellbent on finding out who has threatened the life of his mate and his child, and--no matter the consequences or the price--someone is going to pay.
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larissaloki · 6 years ago
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Fandom OCs
I'm about to share my boy with you. He's very special to me and he really carried me through rough times, I loved writing him and rping him and he means a lot to me. So I hope you like him too. ^^
Marvel: Milan Egbert Oomen AKA Projekt Akela
Milan Oomen is born in Antwerpen, Belgium on the evening of July 4th, 1918. Right at the end of the first world war. His mother Arianne had an affair with a man named Victor Creed. Something her husband Sander never found out about. Milan doesn’t know of his true heritage. Milan moved to the countryside one year after his birth and grew up there. His childhood was relatively uneventful and normal until he turned 15.
When Milan was 15 his mutation kicked in for the first time when Milan fell out of a tree and broke his arm. The arm set itself in minutes at an odd angle and a crying Milan was transported to the nearest hospital to re-break and reset his arm. After that his parents kept Milan hidden away on the countryside until he turned 20. At that age he immigrated to the United States.
When he arrived in the United States Milan couldn’t speak English and because of it he had to scrape by to even get food. Eventually he got better at it and he managed to land a job at the warf. He could afford a small apartment and food from that point on.
In 1941 Pearl Harbor was attacked and it made Milan sign up for the US Army. He asked to be deployed in the pacific as opposed to Europe, he didn’t want to witness the devastation to his country and family. But what he saw in the pacific wasn’t much better. He still has nightmares about the horrors he witnessed. From villagers being used as suicide bombers to American soldiers using Japanese corpses for entertainment.
    In 1945 he traveled to Hiroshima and stayed there for a month, he witnessed little boy fall down from the sky and scrambled for cover. Due to his healing factor he survived the atomic bombing and recovered after a few weeks of regenerating. The US Army pulled him back and kept him on a secret base for most of the time. He served in the cold army in an espionage division in St. Petersburg Russia, he was eventually caught and executed with his fellow soldiers. Milan was the only one that survived and he was imprisoned by the Russians. During an American mission Milan was rescued and brought back to the states.
In 1972 he met Sarah Brown during a leave in Hawaii and after ten years of dating her he married her. Not long after their marriage Sarah was expecting their first child. When she was 8 months pregnant Milan was called away to base and she was attacked in their apartment building by a heroine addict who had gotten in and pushed down the stairs. The fall killed her instantly, she broke her back. Milan heard of the incident over the radio in his truck and rushed back home. Her baby was retrieved through a C-section but after a fifteen minute trip to the nearest hospital the baby died in Milan’s arms.
To say it left a mark on him is an understatement, a part of him died that day. Broken and with no will to live Milan tried to kill himself by placing a gun against his head and pulling the trigger. He woke up two days later in a hospital bed. Many years went by, in which Milan attempted many more times to take his own life. All failed and the mentally broken man became a ghost. He lived, breathed and did his job but that’s all he did.
In 1985 Milan was recruited for a special Army devision called NEST, a team that specializes in counter terrorism. He worked hard till he took over the leadership position in 2000. Due to most of the team being older then allowed a new team was recruited.
Not long after taking command of the NEST Team in Kansas, Milan met Kuga. The feral was on leave at the time and he spend a couple of weeks camping in the woods just one mile from Kuga’s home. Kuga came back to Milan every single day and a father/daughter bond slowly developed. Kuga’s little brother James came along with her after a couple of days and he too, took to Milan quite easily. Milan found himself fathering the two young children of 10 and 7 and decided to adopt them as his own after he heard of possible abuse towards Kuga. His request was denied by the court as there was no physical evidence of abuse going on. Milan couldn’t return for James and kuga and instead was kept on acitve duty to train for a new mission.
In 2003 Milan and his team served in the Iraq war where he dealt with his nightmares all over again. He’s directly responsible for the death of several civilians because he led them into a building that was later bombed. He blames himself for that.
In 2008 Milan took the mutant cure that became available, the cure wasn’t permanent however and Milan was forced to live on.
From 2008 till 2010 Milan gets on SHIELD’s radar and several security checks and evaluations are done to determine if he’s possible agent material. He passes and in 2010 he joins the ranks of SHIELD. He’s currently a level 4 agent working for SHIELD’s undercover department. SHIELD has a contract for him with the Army, it states that as long as he’s on active field duty he’s working for SHIELD. If events were to force him to go off active duty he’d have to return to the army.
    Milan is currently on probation after the events of the Galoyan rescue mission and the army is about to pull him out of SHIELD. That doesn’t stop him from trying to get along with the other agents though. He’ll try anything to keep his job at SHIELD, even if it means quitting the army.
Milan was pulled off active duty and he was forced to return to the Army. He worked closely with SHIELD agents of the undercover department. Mostly doing their paperwork.
And then, SHIELD fell.
After the fall of SHIELD Milan was picked up and rescued by HYDRA. The organisation captured and imprisoned him, performing multiple experiments on him. They extracted parts of his DNA in order to study his healing factor and replicate it for their next line of super soldiers. They also extracted his ability to see, smell and hear at phenomenal levels. His strength and agility markers were also copied and stored for future use. HYDRA wiped Milan’s memory after they collected all they needed and activated the implants in his brain. He stood under their full control and obeyed every command they gave him. Milan assassinated several SHIELD agents under their command.
After several test runs the implants failed, now only working at 30% capacity. With the failing of his implants, his memory returned to him. Not much, only about 10% but it’s something. He remembers three names of his past, Kuga, James and Bryce. He has no idea who these people are, just that they are somehow important to him.
Milan escaped the compound and ended up in Lebanon, Kansas. 
And My current two projects: The Barnes/Brock twins (I am aware this is very self indulgent and it's probably not any good, but I'm having fun. And that's what matters.)
Ben Barnes & Jacen Barnes (Both 17 post SM: Homecoming, timeline ignores IW)
Benjamin Edward Brock-Barnes, born as Ellie Barnes and his brother Jacen Barnes were born to Lauren Barnes and Edward Brock Jr in Queens, NYC.  Ben and Jace's father was already out of the picture at their time of birth and both boys were raised by their mother. They are the great grandchildren of Rebecca Barnes, sister to James Buchanan Barnes, and the best friends of Peter Parker and Ned Leeds (Ben) and Michelle "MJ" Jones (Jacen). 
Ben wants to be an investigative Journalist and when he's not out scouting for the latest scoop in NYC, he's bugging Peter and Ned on how they can set up their own News network. Where Peter can do their photography and Ned can run the newspaper, of course.
Jacen is more interested in his blogging activities where he calls out the injustice of the world and posts about the protests he joins whenever there's no school going on. He's often joined by Michelle in this.
Ben struggles with his trans identity and being recognized for it while Jacen is more comfortable in his gay and queer identity.
When a field trip to San Fransisco goes haywire the twins are introduced to a slimier set of twins named Sleeper and Hybrid. Shenanigans ensue with the help of Spiderman, the man in the chair and justicegirl101 and before they know it, the twins are bonded to their own symbiote siblings and they're thrown into the fight of their lives.
Venom and Eddie suddenly have a lot of parenting work to do.
And that's what I got on them so far. ha, this was fun. But it also got waay to long. So that's all I'll share today. I've got way more though.
Larissa notes:
Oh my god these are amazing , the top one is my favourite though by far!! So well thoughtout and planned i am in awe! Im in love with Milan :3
Thankyou so much for sharing them with me!
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while-my-tardis-gently-weeps · 8 years ago
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Eurovision 2016 vs 2017
.So I’ve been re-watching Eurovision from past years to get me over my PED (Post-Eurovision Depression), and I thought I’d do a comparison of this year’s songs against ones from last year, inspired by Eurosong’s post here.
Here goes:
Albania: Fairytale vs World - To be frank, I’m rather ambivalent on both songs, but I went with “World” because of Lindita’s incredible voice.
Armenia: LoveWave vs Fly with Me - Armenia always does well, and it’s not hard to see why, looking at these two songs. Neither are really my cup of tea, but I connected a bit more with “LoveWave.”
Australia: Sound of Silence vs Don’t Come Easy - Isaiah did his best, but not many can compete against the vocal tour de force that is Dami Im, and Isaiah certainly isn’t one of them.
Austria: Loin d’ici vs Running on Air - Even though both songs are quite average, the decision between the two songs are actually quite easy for me because I was completely won over by Nathan Trent’s charm, charisma, and sheer enthusiasm. And that music video, now that’s just cheating. Scenery porn at its best. 
Azerbaijan: Miracle vs Skeletons - DiHaj wins this hands down. It’s contemporary, edgy, catchy, and modern (albeit slightly marred by mystifying elements in the staging; still don’t know what the horse head is all about). Miracle, on the other hand, is, I’m sorry to say, just boring. 
Belarus: Help you fly vs Historyja majgo zyccia - This one is another no-contest: Naviband of course, undoubtedly. Not only was it sung in Belarusian, it’s also a little piece of absolute joy condensed into around 3 minutes of music. As for Ivan’s “Help you fly,” there’s something wrong with the whole production if the only memorable thing about it is the outlandish gimmick. 
Belgium: What’s the pressure vs City Lights - Perhaps against common sense, I’m going to call this a draw. I appreciated City Lights for being a contemporary song with a distinct sound, one that is completely unlike the usual Eurovision fare, but I also thought it was vastly overrated. My regard for “City Lights” only decreased further after I saw live performances of it because there’s not much stage presence and charisma to speak of coming from this one, really. On the other hand, “What’s the Pressure” might be beyond dated, but Laura’s confident, lively performance definitely made it a lot more enjoyable to sit through than, if I dare say, this year’s “City Lights.” Now, if Eurovision were a radio show, the result might be quite different but as it is, I’m for “City Lights” in terms of the song alone and “What’s the Pressure” in terms of the whole package. 
Bulgaria: If love was a crime vs Beautiful Mess - Another hard one, but this one because both songs are so good and well-deserving of their high placings. I like both, really, but I love “If love was a crime.”
Croatia: Lighthouse vs My Friend - “Lighthouse,” definitely. Mad respects to Jacques for pulling off those Jekyllesque vocals,  but “Lighthouse” is definitely the better song, both objectively and subjectively speaking. 
Cyprus: Alter Ego vs Gravity - The latter, but only barely. Possibly because “Gravity” is more recent and I remember it slightly better as a result. 
Czechia: I Stand vs My Turn - Both are quite dull, but I found Gabriela to be the better singer.
Denmark: Soldiers of Love vs Where I Am - Do I have to chose between 90s boyband raised from the dead and every single X Factor winner song ever? Okay, Anja’s the better singer so I guess it goes to her. 
Estonia: Play vs Verona - The former for sure. It’s not increasingly grating upon each repeated listen, for one. 
Finland: Sing it away vs Blackbird - I still have extremely strong feelings about Norma John’s non-qualification. Gorgeous song, excellent vocals, dark, atmospheric staging, they’ve done everything right. I just don’t get it. Last year’s NQ, on the other hand, was only to be expected. 
France: J’ai cherchĂ© vs Requiem - The French delegation definitely knows what it’s doing, choosing two stellar Nazim Khaled songs in as many years. Both are great songs, but personally I’m a lot more partial to Alma’s “Requiem.” Especially the lyrics: “Des amours meurent, des amours naissent/Les siĂšcles passent et disparaissent/Ce que tu crois ĂȘtre la mort/C’est une saison et rien de plus (Love dies, love is born/Centuries pass and disappear/What you believe to be death/Is nothing but a season).” Just exquisite. 
Georgia: Midnight Gold vs Keep the Faith - I hate myself slightly for choosing “Midnight Gold” really, because that was 3 minutes of my life that I can’t get back. Unfortunately, not much more can be said for “Keep the Faith,” despite my respect for Tamara’s vocal prowess, and at least the former sounds a little different...? 
Germany: Ghost vs Perfect Life - At least nothing about Levina and “Perfect Life” is absolutely offensive to me, which is a lot more than I can say for the former, starting with the bargain sale Kyary Pamyu Pamyu imitation fashion. If anything, parts of “Perfect Life”’s lyrics actually quite tickle my fancies. 
Greece: Utopian Land vs This is Love - I don’t like either, but Utopian Land gets some brownie points for being different. And those high notes in the live version of “This is Love” is just tragic. 
Hungary: Pioneer vs Origo - I love both songs, but went for “Origo” because of the use of Hungarian, the unique sound, and the emotional delivery. I still wish he did away with the rap section though.
Iceland: Here them calling vs Paper - Both lovely songs that I wished I could have seen in the finals. I connected with the latter song more though.
Ireland: Sunlight vs Dying to Try - Nothing to remember whatsoever vs. average song that is nonetheless memorable because of Brendan Murray’s unique voice (though not necessarily favorably so). But hell, Brendan nailed those notes during his performance in the Semi so kudos to him I guess. 
Israel: Made of Stars vs I Feel Alive - “Made of Stars” by a country mile. Hovi Star’s soulful performance was mesmerizing, whereas I still think Imri got through largely because of the running order. 
Italy: No degree of separation vs Occidentali’s Karma - Italy is my favorite Big 5 nation, and one of my favorite countries overall in Eurovision. They’ve always sent outstanding entries since their comeback, and the past two years were no different. I have great love for both songs and both singers, but that said, this one is actually one of the easiest decision to make out of this whole list. In fact, “Occidentali’s Karma” is my favorite out of all the songs from both years. The combination of catchy pop tune and deep, philosophical lyrics offering commentary and satire on Western materialistic lifestyle and cultural appropriation puts it leagues above most of the songs in this set. 
Latvia: Heartbeat vs Line - “Line” doesn’t stand a chance against the great Aminata, especially when you add Justs’ passionate performance to it (he’s no Aminata either, but he’s still pretty good). 
Lithuania: I’ve been waiting for this night vs Rain of Revolution - What happened to you, Lithuania? How did you go from the glorious Donny to...I don’t even know how to describe this? If I wanted to see Pikku Myy in Eurovision I would have gone for Elina Salo, thank you very much. 
Macedonia: Dona vs Dance Alone - I guess, because Kaliopi is a much better singer.
Malta: Walk on water vs Breathlessly - Because I actually remember how the song from last year goes. 
Moldova: Falling Stars vs Hey, Mamma! - Sunstroke Project wins this hands down. It’s a simple song, but what a enjoyable one, and what a performance! Congrats to them for giving Moldova its best placing in the finals.
Montenegro: The Real Thing vs Space - Surprise, surprise. What can I say though? The guy at least has guts for donning helicopter braids. 
Netherlands: Slow down vs Lights and Shadows - Objectively speaking, I actually think “Slow down” is probably the better song of the two, but I despise country music and always had a soft spot for well-done vocals (being a huge choir geek myself), which the latter has in spades with their stunning harmonies. 
Norway: Icebreaker vs Grab the Moment - I love both songs, and I’ve always been partial to the Norwegian entries ever since I was introduced to Eurovision with Alexander Rybak’s “Fairytale.” I’m quite close to calling this another draw, really, but I’m in a more “Grab the Moment” mood today.
Poland: Color of your life vs Flashlight - Both are average songs (though the former’s lyrics are a lot less dire), but Michal sells it a lot better with his emotional performance and gothic-chic style. I still quite like Kasia’s voice, though. 
Romania: Moment of Silence vs Yodel It! - I’ve only listened to the studio version of the former, but I think “Yodel It!” wins this round. Listening to it always make me happy, and you’ve got to give them credit for making the unholy combination of yodelling and rapping work, and work well on top of that. 
Russia: You are the only one vs Flame Is Burning - I’ve got to admit, I was kind of pleased that I didn’t have to sit through “Flame Is Burning” with the travel ban and everything. Now, let’s hope Russia wasn’t serious when they said they are sending it to Portugal next year... On the other hand, while “You are the only one” is very dated as a song in and out itself, Sergey and the Russian production team definitely performed the hell out of it.
San Marino: I didn’t know vs Spirit of the Night - Because “I didn’t know” is slightly more tolerable. 
Serbia: Shelter vs In Too Deep - Another easy pick. “Shelter” is both local and contemporary, and carries a message that packs an emotional punch and connects with you on a humanitarian level. 
Slovenia: Blue and red vs On My Way - Because “Blue and red,” while average, is at least not annoying.
Spain: Say yay! vs Do It for Your Lover - Surely this one requires no commentary or explanation? Just give each song a listen.
Sweden: If I were sorry vs I Can’t Go On - Time to be honest: I hated both songs upon first listen. The thing is though, “If I were sorry” actually grew on me little by little, to the point that now I’m only ambivalent about it, whereas “I Can’t Go On” simply got worse with each repeat. 
Switzerland: Last of our kind vs Apollo - Timebelle wins this hands down, even after they traded the gorgeous red dress and classy staging of the national finals with that bizarre Belle meets Big Bird meets Hercules eyesore. Now, I actually do think I would have liked “Last of our kind” a lot were it sang by a more competent singer, but Rykka’s vocals were grating at best. And the less said about those weird movements she made on stage, the better.
Ukraine: 1944 vs Time - Heartfelt ballad that touches you to the core vs clear sign Ukraine doesn’t want us back next year, to borrow Graham Norton’s words? No contest here. 
United Kingdom: You’re not alone vs Never Give Up on You - If you asked me this question before rehearsals started, I would have said “You’re not alone,” hands down. But Lucie Jones (and the BBC production team) made “Never Give Up on You” shine, to the point where you (almost) forget it’s nothing more than a paint-by-numbers ballad that’s been done to death already. 
The Tally:
Class of 2016 - 21 vs. Class of 2017 - 20 (1 draw not included)
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