#russian recs

[i-call-me-clarence]

Anyone got any Russian TV shows they can rec me that I can find online? Soap operas are preferable but not necessary. A friend of mine is learning Russian and Duo just isn't cutting it. 

[goldetrash]

Saw @unicornpopcorn14's silly fic of Dazai's house getting put onto a cargo ship from this post

[metamorphesque]

my favourite poems by ... Anna Akhmatova

I Taught Myself To Live Simply

Everything

Requiem

The Sentence

In Human Closeness There ...

I Wrung My Hands

Last Toast

The Guest

I Was Born In The Right Time

You'll Live, But I'll Not

For Osip Mandelstam

In Dream

Muse

You Will Hear Thunder

To The Many

[hadesoftheladies]

FEMALE MOVIE/TV RECS (PART 8 / COMEDY & ROMCOMS)

got inspired from a recommendation post so decided to make a list of movies and shows with female-centric stories/female protagonists. since i can't post all of the genres in one post, i'll split it into multiple posts and y'all can save or add to the list as you wish. (disclaimer: i have watched most of these, but i only know about the existence of others. not every movie/show on these lists will be my recommendation. my recommendations will be beneath the list with reasons. also some of these are way better than others in terms of storytelling/performance--which is why i'll list my faves separately):

Common Themes/Tropes:

-Quirky girlfailures and losergirls being disastrous (and learning they're still loveable)

-Women causing carnage (sometimes) unintentionally

-Women getting into shenanigans with their friends/sisters

-Features many equally if not more dumbass male antagonists (or sidekicks)

-Financial struggle subplot

-BFFs and sisters > everything else (even the d)

-Lots of sex and money talk usually

-The Struggle of Dating TM

-I Still Feel 12 & Stupid TM

WHAT I'D RECOMMEND:

Abbott Elementary (9/10) (too many amazing female characters!)

Such Brave Girls (8/10) (Derry Girls as adults)

Kajillionaire (7/10) (the protagonist is so weird and loveable, top tier ending)

Isn't It Romantic (6.5/10) (fun and knows exactly what it needs to be)

Fleabag (?/10) (haven't watched but I know it's good)

Kevin Can F**k Himself (9.5/10) (genuinely so so so so good some of the most clever and sincere storytelling I've seen in a while)

Hacks (7.5/10) (the two female leads are hilarious in their own ways and so human!)

NOT LISTED BUT WORTH CHECKING OUT:

What Men Want

Little

Nobody's Fool

Girl's Trip

The Other Woman

Queenie

Legally Blonde

Miss Congeniality

The Devil Wears Prada

Pitch Perfect

PERSONAL NOTES

Playing House is about two friends raising a child together, which is a premise I love. High Desert is a detective comedy (way more comedy than detective, though) with a likeable protagonist who is also addicted to drugs (that isn't the punchline, don't worry).

The Hustle and Queenpins were produced by the same company (and you can tell).

Twenties is one of the few shows that feature a stud lesbian as a central character (and she's beautiful!). Insecure is probably the most famous of black female comedy shows, though.

[belle-keys]

Gothic Fantasy/Folk Horror Books: 10 Recommendations

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid

The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft

Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft

Not Good For Maidens by Tori Bovalino

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror by Tori Bovalino and others

[fistfuloflightning]

Somewhere very close he can hear shouts, encouragement and hooting. They are echoed by a woman’s crying and shrieking. With a sense of dread, he realizes that he must hurry. Wei Ying clenches his fists and runs towards the sound. He doesn’t get there in time. By the time he appears, the fight at the door of the spring house is already ending. A couple of burly guys serving as security guards at the brothel hold a struggling Meng Yao by the arms, while a third – obviously a wealthy client – pulls a kneeling woman in a torn dress towards him by the hair. Wei Ying is unfamiliar with Meng Shi and has only seen her a couple of times and only briefly, but the obvious resemblance to her son leaves no doubt about the identity of the punished courtesan. She twists her mouth into a helpless smile, disfigured by blood seeping between her white teeth, and looks at her tormentor with a pleading look. “Don’t, sir, please don’t touch my son…”

A scene from the excellent fic Лишние и нежеланные (The Unwanted) by MilbaA (my translation)

[k-arina1-3]

If you read The Secret History for the vibes, you should read Babel by R. F. Kuang. If you read it for the social commentary, you should read Dead Souls by Gogol. If you read it for both, you should read Crime and Punishment by Dostoievski.

Also(even if it has nothing to do with russian classics), you should read AFTG. JUST DO IT.

[classicliteratureprincess]

Feeling tired & unmotivated to do school assignments.

Going to read Dracula, since it seems like a fairly easy read compared to war & peace (my current read)

[yesimilkdamilkman]

how it feel listening to music you can't understand but the vibe tells you everything

[eight-pointed-star]

fics where someone goes to angband instead of/with maedhros

[in the brackets are the characters who are captured]

For Want of a Crown by theScrap_Witch [maglor]

The Price We Pay by theScrap_Witch [maglor]

A Different Kind of Doom by Aemileth [all sons of fëanor]

A Perfect Pair by SunflowerSupreme [finrod and maglor]

A Songbird in Angband by AdmirableMonster (Mertiya) [maglor]

Mountains Don't Sing by MathConcepts [maedhros and fingon]

Animal Skins by Ilye [celegorm]

In Gold gefasst and Prized Jewel by Siana [maedhros and maglor]

A Fair Evil by Siana [maedhros and maglor]

A Broken Voice by Silentx13 [maglor]

Wisdom Prevails by Ardruna [nerdanel]

What If It Hadn't Been Maedhros? by ArvenaPeredhel [maglor, celegorm, caranthir, curufin, amras] (it's five different stories, not "all of them get captured together")

Aphonia and Mother Who Bore Me by ArvenaPeredhel [maglor]

Hard Choices and Silenced by waitingfover [maglor]

The Expendable One by The_Cinderninja [celegorm; he isn't exactly captured but it fits]

+ three in russian

Услышь меня, брат... by Nolofinve [feanor]

Кроме пыли и пепла by vinyawende [feanor]

За перевал by М. Кимури [it doesn't quite fit the description but still has a similar plot]

this list probably isn't comprehensive, if you know more fics with a similar plot, please tell me!

if you are the author of one of the fics here and would like to be @'ed or to have your fic removed from here, please tell me! if i made a mistake in the descriptions tell me also

[unfayth]

Passage: Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family and Friends (translation by Ethel Golburn Mayne)

Painting: After Breakfast by Elin Kleopatra Danielson-Gambogi

[metamorphesque]

poems that made me live in october

"Not that I'm going mad...", Joseph Brodsky

How Many Of Those Who You Can Share Your Bed With, Eduard Asadov

Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, W. B. Yeats

Good Bones, Maggie Smith

Adieu to Norman, Bon Jour to Joan and Jean-Paul, Frank O'Hara

Anders On Life, First Considerations by Nils Peterson

Mayakovsky by Frank O'Hara

Lilichka, Vladimir Mayakovski

Sleeping In The Forest, Mary Oliver

a vote for the gentle light, charles bukowski

There Is A Spell In Autumn Poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev

On Raglan Road by Patrick Kavanagh

 Darling, I left the house, Joseph Brodsky

[eskawrites]

hello hello, i’m loving all these lil drabbles, you’re such an amazing writer <333

mayhaps 14 “I’m not going to hurt you.”? 👀

thank you!

(also @julesiuile asked for a part 2 to this post, so here we go!)

14. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Against her better judgment, Nancy goes back.

Robin doesn't ask for her this time, but then, she doesn't have to. Maybe she knows that. Maybe she's counting on it. Maybe Nancy is walking directly back into her own demise--at the hands of war, or at the hands of her own stupid heart.

Or maybe the stunned look when Nancy walks into her makeshift cell for the second time is genuine, and maybe the tears that she tries to fight are, too.

"What happens next?" Nancy asks, straight to business because it's the only conversation she thinks she can stand.

"What do you mean?"

"You've been caught. Hopper escaped prison. They must know your cover's blown. So what happens now?"

Robin bites the inside of her cheek. "Whatever it is, I don't think I have much say in it."

Nancy crosses her arms over her chest. She grips her arms and digs her nails into her skin.

"The others say you're not talking."

Robin's eyes turn desperate. "I've told them everything I know."

"Doesn't seem like much."

"That's the point, Nancy. The less I know, the less I can give away if I'm caught. Hell, I'm not even supposed to live to this point."

"What do you mean?"

Robin wiggles her fingers behind her as best she can, and Nancy notices for the first time that they're bare.

"My ring." At Nancy's blank stare, she tilts her head. "Hopper didn't tell you?"

"Just spit it out, Robin."

"My ring," Robin says again. "There was a pill. In my ring. If my cover was blown--"

She falters as Nancy closes her eyes.

"Hopper found it before I could."

"Would you have?"

"I'm supposed to."

Nancy looks at her again. "Do you always just do what you're told?"

"I'm not like you, Nance," Robin whispers. "I'm not a fighter."

"You're a soldier."

"And there's a difference. You make decisions. I just follow orders."

"And what are your orders now?"

Robin shakes her head. "I don't have any. I'm supposed to be dead."

Nancy continues to glare at her, waiting. Robin sighs.

"Once they realize I've been captured--and I'm sure they already have--they'll send someone to confirm my death. Once they realize I'm not dead..." Robin looks at her helplessly. "There's a reason I wanted to leave."

"If you just tell us what they're planning, we--"

"That's just it, Nancy! I don't know. They make it so I do not know. If I did, I would tell you, because the last thing I want is for you to get hurt in all of this."

"It's too late for that," Nancy mutters.

Robin sinks against the chair. Her eyes close. "I'm going to ask you for something, and you're going to hate me for it."

"What?" Nancy spits.

"Let me go."

"You're joking, right?"

Robin looks up at her again, completely serious. Nancy scoffs and turns away.

"You're an idiot. You really think--after everything? Why the hell would I let you go?"

"Because if you don't--"

"Right. The big Russian conspiracy will come after us."

Robin grits her teeth. "You're not taking this seriously."

"I'm taking this very seriously." Nancy turns on her heel and marches toward her. "Serious enough to know that I don't trust you, not for anything. I let you go, you run off, and suddenly you have no reason not to sell us out to them."

"No," Robin whispers. "I have every reason not to."

"You're a fucking liar, Robin Buckley." Nancy winces as she says the name. Robin does, too. Nancy turns away again, desperate for the space between them.

For a long moment, neither of them say anything.

Then,

"It is my name."

"What?"

"Robin. Not my birth name, obviously, but I--I chose it. I wanted it. It's my name."

"I don't care."

"I do."

Nancy sighs. "What will you do?"

"Run." Robin is smiling weakly, helplessly, when Nancy turns toward her again. "You were right. I'm a coward. But I'm not going to hurt you, and I'm not going to stick around and wait for you to get hurt. To get killed. I'll run."

"They'd find you."

"Almost certainly."

"So you'll go back to them. Or they'll kill you."

"The latter," says Robin simply, "because I wouldn't give you guys away."

"Even if I believed you," Nancy says, "what makes you think I would want that?"

"It would be easier if you did."

"Yeah, well, easy isn't an option anymore. You made sure of that."

"I'm sorry, Nancy," Robin breathes. "I regretted it every day. You have to know that. But I never regretted you. And so I could never find the strength to leave."

"Why are you telling me this? What's the point?"

"Because you deserve the truth."

Nancy laughs hollowly. Robin closes her eyes again.

"You've always deserved the truth. I'm sorry I didn't give it to you sooner."

"Yeah." Nancy walks toward the door and knocks, waiting for Hopper to let her out again. "Me too."

-

She spends the rest of the week avoiding Hopper's cabin entirely. Robin doesn't ask for her. Hopper gives up trying to get her to help. Steve and Mike try to coax her back. Nancy ignores them all.

But she still spends every waking moment in that room, turning over Robin's words. The sincerity in her words. The fearful, hopeless slump of her shoulders. The regret in her eyes, and the love.

Nancy tries to play it out in her mind, running through every possibility of what will happen if Robin's lying, or what will happen if she's telling the truth. But it all ends basically the same. It's all already ended, really.

-

Hopper's cabin is mostly empty the next time Nancy goes back. Hopper and Murray are asleep in the living room. Joyce and Jonathan are nowhere to be seen.

El is the one sitting in front of Robin's door. Her eyes are closed, but she tilts her head toward Nancy when she steps into the hall.

"You're back," she says, opening her eyes.

Nancy nods. "Can I see her?"

"It is the middle of the night."

"It is."

El watches her carefully. Nancy sighs. Jonathan would be easier, always ready to follow her command. But if anyone believes in second chances, it's El.

"She's told us everything she knows," Nancy says quietly.

El nods. "She said that to me, too. Hop doesn't believe her, but I think she's telling the truth."

"They're going to come for her."

"Yes."

"El--"

"Do you..." El hesitates, and Nancy isn't sure if she's afraid or just uncertain of the words. "Do you still love her?"

Nancy looks up at the door, solid and cold. Robin behind it, quick and clever and a liar, a traitor, an enemy. Her friend. Her heart. The best part of her life until recently.

"Yes." It's the most painful truth she's ever told.

She looks back down, and El holds her gaze steadily.

"Okay."

She steps aside, making room for Nancy to step forward and slowly, carefully, push the door open.

Robin is asleep when they walk into the room, but when Nancy pauses for a moment to prop the door, she hears a soft, mumbled, "Nancy?"

She shakes her head. Robin must get the cue, because she doesn't say anything else. She just sits up taller and waits. El waits, too, watching calmly to see what Nancy will do.

Nancy takes a deep breath. Then she walks forward. She draws her pocket knife and kneels at Robin's feet. She sees Robin stiffen, practically feels her holding her breath. Nancy slips the blade into the zip ties at her ankle and tugs, snapping them free.

She stands and looks down at Robin's hands, still cuffed to the chair behind her. "El--"

El jerks her head, and the cuffs break open. Robin twists her wrists and catches them before they can clatter to the floor. El gives her a long, unreadable look, then,

"I will be in the living room. Don't wake Hop."

And with that, she walks away, drifting silently out of the room and down the hall without looking back.

Robin looks up at Nancy. "What are you--"

"Don't ask me. If I think about it too much, I'll change my mind."

"Nancy. I don't want to get you in trouble."

"You asked for this." Nancy sighs. "Besides, you're the one who said it. You're a soldier. I'm a fighter. Now come on."

Robin swallows hard, but she nods and does as she's told, rising to her feet. She stumbles a little, legs stiff, and Nancy reaches out to catch her without thinking. It's the first time they've touched since--

Nancy lets her go once she's steady on her feet. Robin's shaky breath rattles through the silence in the room.

It's easy to slip back through the house. Nancy spots El sitting cross-legged on the floor of the living room, back to them. The front door opens easily, silently. Nancy guides Robin carefully over the trip wires in the front walk, around the line of sight of the camera she knows is watching the door.

But then they reach the tree line, and she realizes she has to let her go, and everything gets so much harder.

"You'll freeze to death out here," Nancy says, already shivering herself from the chill in the air.

"I've survived colder, I promise."

"You'll starve."

"I have a stash out in Mirkwood, just in case I needed to make a quick getaway. I'll be alright."

"What are you going to do?" The words barely make it out. Robin turns to face her, and Nancy sees her own grief flooding her eyes.

Robin reaches out, hand rising to her cheek, but she doesn't touch her. Not until Nancy takes the step forward into her touch. She closes her eyes at the feeling of Robin's hand against her face, calloused and warm and so familiar it aches.

"Whatever I can to keep you safe," Robin whispers. "I have a lot to make up for, and I know I'll never truly be able to earn your forgiveness. But I swear to you, Nancy. If you never believe any other words from my mouth, believe this: I will do everything in my power to protect you now. All of you."

"And if you fail? If they--" Her voice breaks. She stops trying. But she opens her eyes again, and she sees Robin's warm smile.

"Then I fail. But the time we had will still have been worth it."

Nancy swallows. "I still hate you."

"I know."

Nancy pushes up on her toes and kisses her, hard. Robin freezes for a split second, but then she melts, her other hand coming up to hold Nancy's waist and pull her gently closer.

It's over quickly, but they don't part. Nancy presses her forehead to Robin's and tries to memorize the weight of her hands, the warmth of her proximity.

"But I love you," she whispers. "So please, don't fail."

She feels more than hears the catch in Robin's breath, but Robin doesn't say anything. Nancy supposes it's the most honest answer she can give.

They linger until they can't anymore, until it's too cold and too much time has past and even Nancy knows they're seriously pushing their luck.

"Stay safe," Robin says as she lets her go. Nancy doesn't say anything. She just stares at Robin--her Robin--and prays this isn't the last time she'll see her.

[cyniibar]

Have you ever studied a historical person, and which each new detail you learn about them, the more garbadge of a person they seem ?

Anyways...I found a super cute Innocent fanfiction in Russian.

YES! With Napoleon Bonaparte and Catherine the Great. Also, Innocent fanfics are hard to come by, and it's always in another language! But that doesn't stop me from reading them. One in Russian I've read is called Paradise and it was so immaculate *chefs kiss*! Thank god we have translators. People gotta start writing more ngl.

[lcdrarry]

13 June 2024 | LCDrarry Fic

Eternalism is a Never Ending Day

Prompt: "Russian Doll", 2019 Prompted by: 5u9as (ao3) Author: Anonymous Word Count: 25,970 words Rating: Teen and up Warnings: Temporary Suicide, Temporary MCD, implied/referenced Depression

Notes: Thank you so much to the mods of this event, who have been more than gracious about how late my fic was!

Summary: Malfoy has been reliving the same day for longer than he can keep track of now, and has just assumed that he was dead in the real world, which was fine to him. It isn't until the time loop stops doing what he expects that it occurs to him that maybe there's something else going on.

Read it now on AO3.

Please help promote the fest by sharing your favourite submissions, so more people can enjoy all the amazing new Drarry works of LCDrarry. Thank you!

Creator reveals are on 15 June.

[keepingupwiththekaramazovs]

Okay, so I finally finished scheduling out all of the chapters, and as of right now, this read-along is scheduled to finish up toward the end of July! There are only 96 chapters in The Brothers Karamazov (I say only—I guess what I mean is "only" in comparison to like, Les Misérables) but I've paced them out to try to give us adequate time to discuss each chapter, and so that hopefully everyone is able to keep up around their other obligations. You are, of course, welcome to read ahead, and we even have a channel for that in the Discord!

The (very short) preface dropped yesterday, but the read-along officially kicks off with Chapter 1 next Monday. You're still welcome to come join us! The discord is shaping up to be a great place to hangout.