Putting the “Silver” in “Silverova”

(Or: a long post about my main Bondverse OC)

I was rewatching bits of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last night—the version with Daniel Craig, that is. Mostly it was to confront the “trauma” (with big quotes; I should probably say “utter discomfort” instead) that this movie induced on me all those years ago. What I didn’t expect was to find out that, in fact, said movie influenced my writing, my themes, my characters a lot more than I thought. Subconsciously, though.

…

Alright. I need to talk about Silver.

Name: Kaiko Morikawa

Date of birth: January 3rd, 1988 [28 years old in-verse]

Place of birth: Kyoto, Japan

Nationality: Japanese and French

Localities frequented: Formerly based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Recently spotted in: Miami, Florida; Tangier, Morocco; Baku, Azerbaijan.

Occupation: freelance mercenary; assassin for the Janus Syndicate (formerly)

Physical description: Height 5 ft. 9 in (175 cm). Slim and toned, gender-neutral appearance. Complexion, light. Eyes, hazel. Hair black in a ponytail. Thin, oval face. Eurasian features. Right-handed.

Distinguishing marks: a silver-hued prosthetic left eye; a trepanation scar on her scalp, masked by her ponytail; marks of a removed tattoo on her left wrist.

Orientation: demisexual; demi- or aromantic

Extracts from MI6 file: Unclear relationship with the head of the Janus Syndicate. Intel gathered from Russian informants suggests that she climbed up all levels of the Syndicate’s hierarchy in the span of a few years, from errand girl all the way to one of Janus’ personal enforcers. However, according to 007's report, it appears that she broke away from her employer and is actively conspiring to eliminate him. The event triggering her defection, if she did defect, is unknown.

On a similar note, the way she came to Saint Petersburg from Kyoto also remains largely unexplained. According to Japanese records, the Morikawa family was brutally murdered by a local yakuza gang in 2005. The daughter—Kaiko Morikawa—has been missing ever since.

[…]

Mistrustful nature, prone to sarcasm to mask insecurity and anxiety. Has been observed to lash out in violence under stressful conditions, likely driven by an history of trauma. Rather quiet, introverted personality otherwise.

Uses switchblade knives as a weapon of choice, but has been trained to operate all kinds of Soviet/Russian weaponry (as can be expected from a Janus Syndicate operative).

***

So this is Silver. I call her that, by the way, because when I created her 15 years ago she was “SilverEye”—a female twist on GoldenEye, not the movie or satellite, but the main character of the obscure videogame GoldenEye Rogue Agent. I’ll try to steer away from that character and game here, otherwise I would digress in yet another rant. All you need to know is, they explain why she literally has a silver eye.

Silver is an extremely important character for me. Just as important as Alec/Janus, and that means a lot—those who know me (or who've just seen my Tumblr posts so far) surely can tell. But there’s the problem: Silver is an OC. That means I can’t quite talk about her as freely as about a canon character such as Alec. Because people either are not interested in, or outright frown at, OCs. Because that means having to explain her whole story, as it definitely isn’t included in the canon everyone knows. Oh, I tried to do that. 9 years of work, 90K+ words total, a monster of a longfic that I can’t write anymore because of all the retcons I would need to steer it in a satisfactory direction. This, people, is Missing Connection. The zone between fanfic and original fiction is a very weird one, I can tell you that much.

Yet, despite my writing hardships, I don’t want to stop talking about Silver. Her type of character is one I don’t feel I’ve seen often, especially in this fandom. Sure, Lisbeth Salander’s awful experiences influenced hers more than I ever expected (can't say too much about that btw, I'm trying to avoid spoilers on Missing Connection), as I found out last night. She draws from female characters like O-Ren Ishii, Beatrix Kiddo, the Major Kusanagi, Private Vasquez or Ellen Ripley, but also from male ones like Sonny Crockett, Dalton!Bond or Alec himself. Hell, when I read the Bond novels, sometimes she and book!Bond have the exact same kind of reactions or internal monologue.

But perhaps the most unusual thing about her is her gender identity/sexual orientation. She’s a cis woman, but she doesn’t give a damn about traditional femininity. It just doesn’t appeal to her, hence her gender-neutral presentation. She’s attracted to very few people not because of all the crap she went through in her life, but because that’s the way she rolls. She doesn’t fall in love, she thrives in (very trusted) friends with benefits relationships. And I’m not going to lie—I feel represented by her in that regard.

That being said, I could be wrong on her being uncommon. At the end of the day, I’m an isolated person who’s barely scratched topics like sexual orientation or gender identity. I also haven’t even read that many Bond fics. But still, no matter what, I want to keep Silver alive in one way or another. I want to keep exploring her identity, her 1980s aesthetics, her twisted relationship with Alec, her grey morality, her outsider’s point of view on the Bond universe, her struggle to keep her sanity among a bunch of insane canon characters… and so many other things. But what I also want is not to be doing that just for me. The lack of interaction has plagued me ever since I started writing, and I’m sick of it.

Lately, in the remix I penned of an MI6-centric fic, she appeared as 0011. That’s an alternate version of her of course, because there’s no way the actual Silver could be hired as a 00 agent. I’m not sure this is what I want to do with her in the long term, but at least that could be a good way to make her known by more people. As is this post. So, to you who have come so far into this: do you want to hear more about Silver in the future? If so, in what way/form? I’m genuinely curious to see your answers.

Congrats on 100, can you do a Headcanon on Imperial!Russia?

ahh sorry this took me so long! i’ve been a little busy and i had to do some research, so that’s why. im not the most familiar with this period of history or russia as a character, but i hope it’s not so bad!

The first thing that I thought of when I got this ask was what effects does imperialism have on the empire in hetalia? Imperialism isn’t very heavily explored in canon, although it is portrayed as being a somewhat negative thing- Both for the empire and the other nations they interact with. I think imperialism in hetalia causes a lot of trauma for everyone involved, although it would be worse for the empire if they are a contiguous land empire, like Russia. All the adjustments that come from ethnic Russians moving into new territory (forcibly or not), and of the Russification of central Asia and Siberia were painful. as it resulted in a lot of conflicts between the Russians and the indigenous peoples of those lands, who were now tasked with assimilating. Assimilation is of course painful for those who are forced to go through it, but also for the nations who are being assimilated to anyway (I sort of talked about this before regarding America, if you’d like deeper thoughts, because it’s kind of complex and i dont want to just make this post be about what imperialism does to a bitch) 

Religion was deeply important to him, and often caused a lot of emotional distress, specifically where Lithuania (who i hc as being Jewish) is concerned. The golden age of the Russian empire featured a lot of very antisemitic laws- Specifically under Catherine the Great, who’s often credited with being like. The woman who modernized/westernized Russia. Anyway, i think his relationship with Lithuania was really difficult for him to deal with, because Lithuania couldn’t just be okay with the treatment of their people (and religion), and that made it hard for them to be okay being around Russia. However, Russia considered them to be close friends, which was just sort of painful for both parties. (side note a fic that i think really encapsulates the dynamic between russia and lithuania during the russian empire would be this fic by @still-intrepid)

Though not all of Russia’s trauma stems from the empire years, it contributed pretty heavily and the longevity of the empire, followed immediately by WW1, a communist revolution, and the Soviet Union meant that he never really had time to process a lot of the things that happened to him/a lot of his issues that originated during the Russian Empire. 

I think one of these issues is that he is Russia, and represents all Russians, and could possibly be used as a tool by possible insurgents to be like. Their figurehead or whatever. The government was naturally untrusting of him, which is part of why he’s so friendly to everyone he meets. He can’t come across as unsympathetic to a person he’s interacting with, lest they assume bad about him and send him to Siberia or something along those lines. 

This was when his drinking started to become a problem, mostly in the form of spiked tea. 

Though he really likes vodka as a drink tea is just as near and dear to his heart

The Napoleonic Wars were really traumatic for him because of all the slash and burning done by Russian troops. Though he fought in those wars, he was really not a fan of how they had to burn all those villages and crops down. 

Samovar is a good word. Ivan loves samovars. 

I think this period would also be a time when Ivan had a big growth spurt- I think he’s around 2 meters tall, but a lot of that didn’t come until the 18th and 19th centuries, because that’s when Russia really emerged onto the world stage and became the enormous (3rd largest empire in world history, 2nd largest land empire) country that it is today. 

Ivan’s weight today is more evenly split between muscle and fat, but during the empire, I think he had much less fat on his body, and was a bit muscular but not as much as what he has today. This is both because of the conquest of new lands and absolute rule, as well as that around 95% of the population was made of starving peasants, which. I think is enough to make Ivan a bit skinny, but not skin and bones, as he still had to do a lot of manual labor. 

He made a lot of enemies during this period, and yeah the Baltics were some of them, but there were even more enemies to be made in Central Asia during the Great Game. Most of the stan countries (but Afghanistan and Kazakhstan in particular) still hold resentment for this. 

During the Russo-Japanese War, there was a lot of pressure on Russia to win- people were beginning to lose faith in the monarchy, and it was sort of seen as a war that Russia needed to win in order to keep the peasants from hating the government- like a military victory they needed in order to unify the country. When Japan won, Ivan was subjected to a lot of hatred both from his bosses and his people, each believing that he was on the other’s side

idk if you consider the Soviet Union to be part of Russian imperialism (I personally would argue that it was but idk if everyone thinks that or if that’s what you mean when you say imperial russia) so i’m not really going to touch on that but if you want soviet headcanons i have vague machinations

ok i think that’s it? honestly i kind of struggled with this because i don’t have the best grasp on Russia’s character, although I do think he’s very interesting. i hope that all this was neat, and once again I’m sorry for how long it took me to write! 

writing requests

Call of Duty Vanguard: Quick Thoughts

So I played the campaign (and a smattering of multiplayer and zombies), and here are my thoughts.

TL;DR: It’s good, I like it! Which I imagine is what Activision wants me to think so I forget about the Cosby Suite... oops!

Campaign

So if I’m rating Vanguard for historical accuracy, it’s a solid C+. There’s a lot here that’s going to upset the rivet counters; StG-44s in Bougainville in 1943 being a particularly jarring one. Some of the geometry is off (I don’t think Tobruk looks quite like that). There are Stukas with the wrong gun combinations. But ultimately, it passes. Just don’t use it to do your history homework.

The main gist of the plot is an ensemble piece; there are four ‘special’ soldiers (a Brit, a Russian, an American and an Australian), and they’ve come together for a secret mission at the end of WWII, a bit like the Avengers. Through this bridging device, we see why these four got handpicked by the SOE for the mission, allowing us to visit the various fronts of the war. It does flirt with a trope I honestly hate - this idea of ‘exceptional’ people being responsible for winning the war, like claiming the Russian character was solely responsible for inspiring the Soviets to win at Stalingrad, but this is all said through the narration of one of the characters, so I can just chalk it up as hyperbole.

In a way, this is a lot like Battlefield’s war stories, but a little more interlinked. You have a paratrooper story on D-Day, a sniper story in Stalingrad, a pilot story at Midway and Bougainville, and an infantryman story at Tobruk and El Alamein. Some of them are a bit tropey (yes, we apparently have to have a pompous idiot British officer in the Australian story, it’s the Law), but ultimately they all have character and I don’t regret playing them. My personal favourite is the D-Day one though; it just feels more focused, taking place over a single morning.

Call of Duty campaigns tend to be good at one thing, and that’s having charismatic main characters. Vanguard’s no exception; the main characters are well acted, and the animation looks quite good; yet in many ways it’s one of the villains that really sticks with me. The Gestapo officer Richter, whose interrogations serve as a major part of the framing device, is actually quite fun to watch; he’s despicable, but he’s also out of the loop with his superiors plans (and is also in Berlin in April 1945, not a healthy place to be a Nazi), and watching him slowly lose his smarmy SS officer charm as he realises just how bad his situation is honestly delightful. As for the main characters, I think my favourite is Kingsley, but they’re all fun.

There is a bit at the end, and spoiler warning, that I feel like I should mention, because I think it might ruffle the four people who like Call of Duty for the canon storyline. Skip to the next section if you don’t want spoilers.

At the end of the game, there’s a bit where the characters find a trove of Nazi files, which seems to be setting up the multiplayer and Warzone storyline. And there’s one reference there that I really like, and one that I really don’t. The first is ‘Project Nova,’ which is the chemical weapons program seen in the Black Ops games - I love that little canon connection, and it fits, because it implies that Allied special forces are going to go after it - remember the British Commandos turning up in the Project Nova mission of Black Ops 1? What I don’t like is the reference, a second later, to Project Aether - Nazi Zombies. I get that Call of Duty seems to want everything to be one canon now, but Zombies doesn’t work with the main story. Like, you can’t have whatever super serious techno thriller story that Infinity Ward’s cooking up for Modern Warfare 2 II, and then also have the oogabooga scary zombos. It just doesn’t make tonal sense!

But it’s not the worst thing. I personally headcanon it as being one of Himmler’s stupid occult things that the SS spent money and resources on, and that in the ‘main’ canon it came to nothing. Oh well, you know?

Multiplayer

It’s Call of Duty. You know what to expect. If you want realism, you’re not getting it. But I still have some things to say.

Weapons customisation - everyone has something to say about it, and how you can create horrifying frankenstein’s monsters with the gunsmith. I think that’s hilarious. Other people despise it. But as for weapons, there are some choices I really like; both real, standard issue weapons that don’t get a lot of screen time and bizarre prototypes that never made it into active service. The Owen Gun, Australia’s homegrown SMG, comes to mind, as does the AS-44, a weird assault rifle prototype that ended up being stillborn because the designer died. (I knew so little about it that I thought it was an AK-47 prototype, so I guess I learned something from this game.)

Like Modern Warfare and Black Ops Cold War, Vanguard uses an Operator system; sort of like heroes, but they don’t have powers. What they do have is their own skins, finishing moves, quips and so on, and you can actually grind these out with a seperate level, which I quite like. I mean, they’ll inevitably sell us more of them, but it’s still good to have.

Some of the Operators I really like; all four of the campaign characters are there, and there’s also Daniel, a Japanese-American member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, who I think alongside Kingsley is my favourite of the lot. There’s a few Axis defectors - a German soldier, a Japanese officer and a German intelligence officer turned resistance fighter - and a few Allied partisans. But there’s one that stands out, and unfortunately not in a good way.

Specifically, it’s the Indian operator, who is explicitly mentioned as being a member of the Indian National Army, with no mention of defection or anything like that. This is a big problem, because the Indian National Army was a Japanese-organised formation that fought for the Axis Powers, and there is fundamentally no way a serving member of the Axis armies would be allowed to join an Allied Special Forces unit. I think Sledgehammer saw the INA, saw ‘anti-colonial organisation’, and forgot that they were basically puppets for another colonial empire. It’s... jarring.

And honestly, the character would work if there were traditional Axis and Allied teams - but there aren’t. And we all know why there aren’t. We all know why there are almost enough Axis deserters to form a hypothetical Axis team. We all know why Sledgehammer would rather have a confusing ‘Team A and Team B’ situation instead of letting people play as the Axis.

It rhymes with Blanuary Blix.

Zombies

Not much to say about it just now, it’s a bit bare-bones. Still fun, and a good way to grind in a less stressful enviroment than multiplayer, but if it’s going to last, it needs more content and it needs it ASAP. The story seems good, but it has to actually start before I can judge that.

So yeah, Vanguard. Pretty good! I like it.

Hetalia Fics I Really Like

this  ⭐ will be for fics I really like. I’ll try not to star everything.

I’m starting with my favorite of all time and tbh I think the fandom should see this fic as a OG, like Auf Weiderstein Sweetheart or Gutters, I really do.

Are We Even Humans  ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ (Literally all the stars)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/4103344

https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660761/chapters/25048773 (prequel)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7036330/chapters/16007758 (sequel)

The war is over, but putting together everything that fell apart will be a greater challenge than anyone is prepared to handle. Alliances dissolve, and the lines between friends and enemies are blurrier than ever before.

Opinion: Please read it. It is a series with a sequel and a prequel that can be read on its own but it’s so good. Imma go on a quick rant here. This fic is great from the writing, plot, characters, and the nuances of nationhood abilities. I literally rioted during the first chapter because it was so good. One of my absolutely favorite things in the fic and the series as a whole is Prussia. Kingdom of Prussia, German Democratic Republic, Gilbert Beilschmidt. His character progression and seeing him through the series as a whole is astounding. I was literally left shaken at the end of this series and I’ve read it twice. The OC’s are usually the antagonists, but hot damn, they are memorable OC’s who are great (terrible?) villains. And the family dynamics! The family dynamics are enough of a reason to read it by itself and the romances. Omg I love this fic so much. Main takeaways: astounding characterization, amazing plot, will cry, long read, and a reality check on what it means to be a nation.

Would it be too much if I did a separate post on how much I love this series and an in depth analysis? (I feel like such a nerd omg)

Hard Times Passing 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23516458/chapters/56397817

Alfred is homeless during the Great Depression and in his wanderings he's charged with the task of caring for a small orphaned Taiwan. AU-Human names used, Taiwan is a child.

Opinion: So incredibly heart warming. It’s well written and I love the dialogue so much. Also, the little cameos from other characters are an absolute delight. It’s a it short, but so wholesome.

Flowers Don’t Grow on Battlefields  ⭐

https://archiveofourown.org/works/14153106/chapters/32619954

https://archiveofourown.org/works/16898919/chapters/39697068 (sequel)

As war tightens its hold on the nations of the world, new alliances are formed. Nobody will escape the war unscathed. Italy only hopes that this time, he will find a way to save those he holds dearest.

Opinion: I realllly like this fic. Maybe I’m a bit bias because I remember reading it from like to third chapter and watching it get updated till the end, but this is really good. Cute gerita, great characterization, good plot, and some lines just really make me melt. And the fluff omg. There’s a sequel that’s linked under too that I may like more than the first. 

Who Knew (One Shot)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23516695#main

“The last time the two of them had any sort of contact was when Gilbert sent the letter to Matthew before the first war started.

That was twenty-six years ago. Twenty-six years Matthew had not seen Gilbert. Twenty-six years of Matthew worrying about if his fiancé was alive or not. Twenty-six years of Matthew thinking about all the horrible things that could be happening to Gilbert. Twenty-six years of Matthew wishing he could just see Gilbert, even if it were just for a second. Twenty-six years of pure hell for Matthew. Twenty-six years of being all alone.”

Matthew Williams, the personification of Canada, never thought that he would fall in love, but he did. He fell in love with Gilbert Beilschmidt, the personification of Prussia, but their romance would have to be cut short with the up coming war that was soon approaching them.

Opinion: My god my heart. Matthew had great characterization. Like amazingly so. 10/10 somber and melodic tones throughout the story. Good tension. And again, my heart. 

TELL ME A PIECE OF YOUR HISTORY  ⭐

https://archiveofourown.org/works/3741175/chapters/8294941#workskin

An account of the media reactions to the reveal of Nations (anthropomorphic national embodiments) with scholarly commentary.

Heavily inspired by: United States v. Barnes, 617 F. Supp. 2d 143 (D.D.C. 2015) [fallingvoices, radialarch] with mixed genres.

Opinion: It’s really cool. It’s told through media, like email, twitter, texts, online magazines, subtitles of videos (not actual videos tho). I love the outside view point of the world on nations and how some people really like them and how others absolutely despise their very existence. One of the main things that sticks out the me is the in depth analysis other humans or posters do on the nations and people even interview the nations, chapter eight is like my favorite for that reason, or how some humans just gush about the nations on so media like how half the fandom does lol. It’s really good. Super creative, great insight on how to world sees the nations, and honestly a great read.

Red Winter (One shot and crossover!)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/909492

The Winter Soldier's new target: a Russian politician named Ivan Braginsky.

Things don't go as planned.

Opinion: Literally so cool. Like nations are total BS to outsiders, especially assassins. I was loosing it during this fic because from Bucky’s POV nations are something else. The writing is really solid and the author uses italics to highlight an action sound or word and even single-word thoughts. The fight scene is really entertaining but also it flows fantastically. 

In Costa Rica (Oneshot)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18614041

“You have this backwards,” McLaughlin said. “Everything. You have it all backwards.” He was a lithe man, looked to be in his mid-thirties. Schnabel leaned back in his chair. Outside, the afternoon rain started, and the frogs momentarily fell silent. “They are dangerous, aren’t they?” Two men discuss the nations and history.

Opinion: No actual nations appear in this fic. It’s just two men talking about the nations and it’s really interesting to see them humor and take seriously the idea of nations. They both discuss what they already know about the nations and theorize. Also hearing an outside perspective and how the nations effect the word around them is golden. I give this fic a big ol’ chef’s kiss. 

Finally, I’ll Just Miss You! (Oneshot)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15553608

Countries will be abolished tomorrow. For the first time, they breathe and realize this might be their last breath and they’ll never wake up again. They want to wake up, they want to go to sleep, the land will still be there when they’re gone. But they breathe, it won’t be the same- for once, they feel human.

Opinion: Bro, I swear I’m not crying. This one is short but really bittersweet and my heart really hurts. I like the snippets of insight on the characters. 

Diamond in the Rough  ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12872642/1/

The year is 1952, the last full year of Joseph Stalin's rule over the Soviet Union. After an incident with Latvia, Estonia is determined to find out what Russia did to him. And so unfolds a chain of events that would lead the Baltic States to tears, to forgiveness, to unexpected courage and horrifying discoveries about the mysterious past of Gilbert Beilschmidt. See AN for rating.

Opinion: This just be a legitimate book. I have honestly read this one like three time and every time I read it I am absolutely elated to discover another detail or action I missed. It is a longer read but I think it is absolutely worth it. For one, the characterization is beautiful. Maybe I might be bias because I stan and love the Baltics, but how they are written compared to the many other fics I’ve read on them is phenomenal. While the author does take some creative liberties and deviates from canon a little, like the Baltics actually considering themselves to be brothers, I really enjoy the changes. ALSO, the history and research and on this fic is genuinely impressive. To think fic authors do this shit for fun and pour so much of their passion into a piece of writing. Secondly, while Russia may be an antagonist in this story, I honestly think it is just. His mentality, backstory, and current predicament explain his behavior and make him a justifiable antagonist. I highly recommend this one. 

Adieux (Oneshot)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6700886/1/

What happens to nations after they cease to exist? Do they simply disappear or do they get a second chance? It wasn't a subject Francis was particularly keen on finding out about...but at the same time, it wasn't something he could just ignore. One-shot

Opinion: I hate this fic because I love it way too much. I might of cried a little bit and I instantly melt of Francis and Matthew. 

In Our Solemn Hour (incomplete) ⭐

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8975529/30/In-Our-Solemn-Hour

The time was World War II, at the dawn of a global conflict like nothing any of the Nations had ever seen before. Nothing could've prepared them for what lay ahead: a war more total and radical than anything they could ever have imagined. This wasn't just business as usual; it was centuries' worth of pent-up emotions all coming into play at once. This was indeed their darkest hour.

Opinion: Characterization is on point. One part of this fic I remember very well during a fight to the death, Finland mutters a little “Oh dear”. The characters retain some of the qualities that make them silly in Hetalia but because this is another take on it it does get darker. I think Germany’s portrayal is my favorite because he does cruel and unnesscary things and questions it because its not his usal nature. The author notes are super insightful and sometimes funny; it really adds to the rest of the story. I might revisit this post to make a more in depth opinion on it because I don’t remember it all to well when I know I really like this one.

So that was my post lol. I’ll probably make more on other fandoms later tbh or I’ll just make a part two. If you end up reading about any of these posts, please feel free to tell me about them! I love talking about fics and reading in general. Thanks for reading!

Weekly Writing and Reading Update!

whoooo what a week! I did very little of what I had planned this week, but I read and wrote a whole lot, and I feel like a person again, so vacation successful, I guess. Enough rest to see me ‘til Christmas, anyway.

(And a bit more rest on top of that -- my mouth is healing slowly, so I’m on a mostly-liquid diet which is...fine. I’m not exactly not getting enough calories, but I’m hungry most of the time, and don’t really want to go out on my bike or whatever and tempt my blood sugar to do stupid things. I did a short ride yesterday, though, and got caught in the rain and it was perfect and very PNW, so I’m proud of myself for what proved to be a hard ride. But man, when I can eat properly again, I’m gonna go Full Aziraphale and just order out extravagantly every night for a week, then cook extravagantly every night the next week...)

Writing

aaaaah, so much! Especially Homeward Bound -- it’s been amazing to settle with my coffee of a morning and just write for hours, instead of, like, going to work.

Homeward Bound -- I’m adding chapters every few days. Finished ch 9 this morning, and I think maybe one more after that, and then this one is done, and whew. I love Castle Terra more than anything, but I really miss having the time to write other things, and I really miss writing canon, so there might be a shortish break while I turn my attention elsewhere.

Snektember 2020 -- I have one more completed story to post today, and I really ought to work on the last three stories I promised myself, I’m just blocked on one of them. This might get done actually in early October, but we’ll all survive, I think.

endOfTheRoad -- okay, just to put total lie to what I wrote up there, this is a Castle Terra story. It’s, uh, about the end of their lives. But it’s not sad, I promise! It’s hopeful, and elegaic, and has a happy ending, I promise! I want to sit on it and edit it a lot, because I’m proud of it and I love it, so it’ll go up at least after Homeward Bound is done. (And lest anyone worry, I’m writing this series out of order, so this isn’t the end of the Castle Terra stories or anything; there’s going to be a lot of bouncing around the timeline.)

Reading

Okay this looks like not a lot, but I promise, it’s a bloody brick of a book -- I finished Remnick’s Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. It’s SO GOOD. It’s old -- was written in the 90′s -- and the lack of analysis of modern-day Russia was sometimes frustrating and often refreshing. It’s become an historical document as well as a journalistic one and I just...I almost can’t put into words why I loved it. He’s funny, and present as a person in the story, but the voices of all kinds of Russians really rule the book. It talks about ordinary people and extraordinary people and left me hungry and sated at the same time. I mean, it won the Pulitzer for a reason. If you have any interest in modern Russian history, it’s brilliant. Even if you don’t, it’s incredibly readable. I have McFaul’s book on Russia during the Obama administration, and I think I’ll read that soon, as a kind of follow-up.

(At some point I want to learn much older Russian history too, but that’s a bit further down the list.)

I had a conversation with @teabq​ a few weeks ago, that I can’t stop thinking about, about how we really have no idea how much of what we think of in the MCU- specifically, in this case, with regards to Natasha, but I think it applies more broadly; my interests are just clear- is actually text.

See, it goes like this. (And I’m just doing this for Nat, but I’d LOVE to see it for basically any character who doesn’t have their own headlined trilogy; please tag me if you do this!)

The films don’t give Natasha a backstory, or give hints without fleshing them out. People who are interested in Natasha look up her comics backstory. Despite the convolutedness that is comics, overarching broad strokes of what is currently accepted as her background emerge. The films give nods to what happened in the comic books. And from that, we assume.

How much is actually on the screen, and how much is us taking the scraps the movies have given us and reading more into it than is actually there?

This gets long so we’re going under an LJ cut.

How many gifsets have you seen using the “I’m one of twenty-eight...” double-page spread from Deadly Origin? You know the one I mean:

[Text, all dialogue and translated from Russian: I’m one of 28 young ballerinas with the Bolshoi. / The training is hard-- / But the glory of Soviet culture-- / And the warmth of my parents-- / My... parents makes up for... / No... no, that’s not right... / I’m one of 28 Black Widow agents with the Red Room-- / The training is hard-- / But the glory of Soviet supremacy-- / And the warmth of my parents-- / ALL my... parents... makes up for... / You’ll have to excuse me...]

MCU fandom- at least, the parts that think about Nat at all- pretty much accept that as canon, right? But pretty much none of this context was actually in the movies. The TV shows don’t count as MCU canon either, so what we saw in the single episode of Agent Carter with Dottie’s flashbacks don’t count either. And Natasha’s quote from the Civil War novelization- “Russia, in the Red Room, there were dozens of us. All girls, all young. We lived together. They let us be friends. Then they dropped us in the tundra, two weeks’ walk from home, with just enough supplies for one of us to survive."- that never made it to the screen, so that isn’t part of official canon either.

Here’s what was actually in the films. Here’s what, if you watched the movies loyally but never picked up a comic or novelization or wikipediaed a comics character or obsessively read a Marvel website, here’s what you know:

Iron Man 2 has literally nothing on Natasha’s backstory except that she works for SHIELD.

In Avengers, Natasha identified herself as “Russian, or I was.” She says that before she worked for SHIELD, “I made a name for myself. I have a very specific skill set. I didn’t care who I used it for, or on. I got on SHIELD’s radar in a bad way. Agent Barton was sent to kill me, he made a different call.” Loki calls out all the “red in her ledger” with vague allusions to monstrous things she’s done. Later, Clint asks if she knows what it’s like to be unmade and she says he knows she does.

In Winter Soldier, Natasha says “When I first joined SHIELD, I thought I was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but...I guess I can't tell the difference anymore.” (We also know she faced the Winter Soldier a while back, antagonistically.)

In Age of Ultron, where Wanda is giving everyone visions which may or may not be concrete representations of events in their actual lives (we know Tony’s is a fear of the future he has, and Steve’s is a dream of what could have been), Natasha sees a group of young female ballet students who are also assassins, and the imagery clearly connects the ballet and the murder. She worries they’ll be broken and is told “only the breakable ones. You are made of marble.” and is assured she won’t fail. Later, she tells Bruce “In the Red Room, where I was trained, where I was raised, they have a graduation ceremony. They sterilize you. It's efficient. One less thing to worry about. The one thing that might matter more than a mission. It makes everything easier. Even killing.”

In Civil War, Nat says that Bucky could at least recognize her.

Infinity War has nothing about Nat’s history or backstory.

And that’s it. That’s ALL the context a viewer who isn’t actively into comics or in the fandom has. Everything else we’re bringing in.

What is Nat’s actual story in the movies, without outside knowledge? It’s literally just that. Everything we bring in from analyzing the way things are shot, the way certain lines could have extra resonance,  the way bits and pieces could, with additional context, become more. But all of that more is based on something that they’re assuming the baseline viewer isn’t required or expected to have.

So even my arguments that come from the text and that I can substantiate with quotes, like Nat’s growing need to see the Avengers as a family that she wants to keep together, is influenced by the knowledge that she didn’t have family and the people she grew up with she was forced to fight and/or let die; people who go to a Marvel movie a few times a year have absolutely no basis for that.

This isn’t me saying that my analyses over the past seven years are wrong, because I don’t think they are. (I’m fairly confident in them, actually.) But not wrong doesn’t mean the only right, and if these movies don’t work without supplemental texts, are they succeeding at what they set out to do? Or are they succeeding at something entirely different than what I can see, because I can’t disengage the lenses that have that additional knowledge?

The Timeline Up Through First Class

My approach to Erik is to recover and synthesize as much of the canon approach as possible while trying to pay a little bit more respect to militant oppressed groups than I think the source material often does.

So, for everyone’s convenience, here is this roleplay blog’s sequence of events:

Auschwitz Period: This will conform more or less perfectly to Magneto: Testament.

Post-Auschwitz Erik’s powers came to fruition after he left the concentration camp and his health recovered. At that time, he struggled to conform to a pattern of “normalcy” for his family’s sake. The Nuremburg trials, with their stiff formality, could not slake his nightmares or his anger at what the world had allowed to happen. As he followed them, his blood roiled. But he always had wanted to provide for his loved ones, to settle into a comfortable life, and so Magda coaxed him to live one. The Soviets swooped down on Poland, with a reign as brutal as the Nazis’, albeit in different ways. Erik burned to join the resistance, but Magda was pregnant and persuaded him to move to Ukraine, where the Russians felt more secure. There, Erik fell into an easy pattern—work in the mines, then evenings at the bar or with his growing wife and daughter. It was a simple life, particularly for a man as gifted as Erik, but he was a simple man desperate for the same strength of belonging he’d known in his boyhood family. With time, he could smile over Magda’s softness, tenderly kiss their daughters’ feet, and chuckle at the fringes of the talk men made over their beer. That peace didn’t last. Or—it was tenuous from the first. It terrified Erik how quickly others’ buried their dead. No one mentioned the war, or the Soviet yoke that followed. If Erik’s sharp tongue alluded to his past, brutal reality or the memories of the dead only silence or censure ensued. His neighbors and coworkers acted as though the victims, not the perpetrators of the crime, were untouchables, the diseased. At first, Erik bowed beneath Magda’s pleas not to torment people when they were finally finding happiness. At first he wondered if he was crazy. Yet somehow, as the memory of his family threatened to fade, as the world succeeded in making a fable of the concentration camps, rage inflamed him. Rage like he’d been too numb, too terrified, too young to feel in the camps. With the rage, his powers grew. As they grew, strange things began to happen around him. And the more that metal sang to his touch in the mines—this dour, Jewish outsider—the more others came to fear him. Then, one day, the village burned his house and his daughter to ash. That same day, the man who would be Magneto raised the village to the ground. His wife ran, and Erik couldn’t feel the betrayal of that, had no more room for bitterness. At the time, he thought he was the only one in the world. He thought he was cursed by the dead he’d left behind in Auschwitz, that he’d let the world forget. And he would not forget again. His family’s murderers were still out in the world. Justice had failed them, the guardians of the law had fled from its demands. And Erik, Erik was going to see the law that his family had loved, trusted even as it led them to the slaughter, fulfilled. He would hunt the National Socialists down. Every. Last. One.

Erik’s Mutant Discovery Phase: This hunt ran aground quickly. At first, Erik made good time teaching himself all the skills he needed to stalk his quarry. Such things came easily to him. Erik had been educated early in languages. It was his family’s pride to be well-rounded, to wield the power of knowledge that their people had used to weave their accomplishments into the fabric of their nations’ culture when no one would accept their blood or their faith. And Erik was exceptionally talented. To his old repertoire of skills he added shooting, lock picking with his powers, and martial arts. He habituated himself to an itinerant lifestyle in every way save for his loneliness, having never been without family. (Perhaps it was this that drove him to start a relationship with Peter and Wanda’s mother, however short-lived and unsuspecting of what they would birth.) But using his powers drew attention. By the time he was captured by a clandestine Soviet corps that had inherited Nazi experimental camps in Poland, Erik had assassinated five men. He was unprepared for the reality that other mutants existed, for the revelation that his curse was shared. The other mutants were very few—less than a dozen in number. They were kept separated as far as possible, isolated in their torments, but Erik had his first glimpse of mutants as a class of people transformed by chemical weapons, nuclear radiation, and experimentation.  Magneto soon escaped those conditions. Everyone that the researchers had encountered before had minor mutations, at best: Changes of appearance, enhanced metabolisms, or poison breath. They didn’t have the capacity to imprison a man who could turn all their weapons against them. The mutants scattered, none yet realizing they were a race, a class of their own. They feared him as much as the researchers did. Confused, Erik pressed on with the only certain thing in his life: the hunt. He came upon Shaw’s trail, and the plot of X-men First Class ensued… with a few exceptions. Charles gave Magneto the gift he longed for most in the world: A family to belong to. Certainly, Erik was gratified to meet someone who thought on as global a scale as he did, someone who possessed the talents to convince him he was not the only being in the world endowed with his power. But Charles had none of the harrowing experiences it took to relate to Erik, and given Erik’s growing, fundamental belief that mutants were the blessed offspring of human atrocities he couldn’t stand how sheltered Charles was. If not for the fact that they began to assemble the X-men immediately upon meeting, he would not likely have trusted  Erik so deeply or grown so defensive of him and the friends that they had assembled. As it was, Erik found himself racked with anxiety over how little his companions responded at first to the experience he tried to share with them: We will be persecuted, we are a precious thing they will try to repress, the reminder of what they made us should hurt them. Erik swiftly grew to love the group for struggling with the same existential fears and incredible gift he did. So when they finally caught up with Shaw, it wounded him that he had to shield his mind from Charles to do what was necessary. It wounded him that when he declared his victory over the man: You created me, but then, so did all the other humans who were there that day. And I am the testament against you all. You tortured my family. You killed my family—when he declared all that, Charles didn’t exult with him. When he emerged, to a world turning missiles on them—their saviors—for their efforts, he’d barely thought about his response. It was natural: turn the weapons back on those trying to kill them. Turn the force back. As would happen so many times after, what ensued from his decisions was a maelstrom. He couldn’t make sense of it. He remembered nothing but hot white rage like possession. He didn’t know how he’d ended up cradling Charles in his arms, drawing a bullet from Charles’s back. He didn’t know how he’d ended up pleading: But I’m right. I’m right–. We’re brothers, what we want–. No. That word was a betrayal. No. We do not. Erik swallowed the aftermath. He watched Charles Xavier wipe minds and erase the Cuban Missile Crisis as it had happened from history, and he tried to swallow how that disturbed him, too. Erik watched as Raven—shyly, but with gradual conviction—took in the events that ensued alongside him and reassured him that there was one among them who agreed with him. They watched Charles begin building a school, building a persona, and they watched him forgive human leaders. And forgive them. And forgive them. Over and over and over. He forgave students, too, though in a different way. He forgave humans as though they had never done anything wrong and students as though they had. Erik felt that Charles was waiting for an apology from him, too, and he didn’t intend to give it. When everything shattered, he’d known it was coming. He just hadn’t known how  fast it would all move.

First Period of Resistance (The First Brotherhood): This is where I’m going to be a lot more flexible. The basic plot from here, as I see it, is that the U.S. government begins small programs to monitor and control mutants. Charles doesn’t react much, while Erik and Mystique take immediate action in retaliation. To their surprise, Charles turns their own kin against them to stop them, and everyone’s relationship goes from bad to worse. Magneto and mutants drawn to his first, dramatic entrance into politics form the Brotherhood. In its first incarnation, the group’s ethos is more or less the same as it will always be: Mutants were formed in the crucible of humanity’s worst, most horrific offenses, including nuclear holocaust and human experimentation. Rather than dying and becoming a dark spot to be met with silence and mourning they take violent action to make humans confront what they’ve made. They’re a liberation group, but in their first incarnation they don’t care much about collateral damage, feeling that those complacent enough not to fight the human leaders who have created them are complicit. They’ll take anyone, and they don’t really know how to lead a movement, so they quickly radicalize and grow more violent than I think either Erik or Mystique intend. This will all come to a head around the time that Magneto abducts Rogue, and afterward I imagine that he goes underground and leaves Toad to run the Brotherhood for a while.

After that I envision there being an:

Underground Period (The Brotherhood’s several iterations without Magneto)

Magneto’ s inevitably violent and bloody Resurgence

Second Period of Resistance: This is when Erik begins to form Genosha anew

And we can stick whatever madness you want from the First Period of Resistance on.

Trying to track the Winter Soldier through both canon and history....god help me....

As a follow up to the First Avenger timeline, insomnia brought us here.

February 1945 - Bucky falls from a goddamn train in the Alps. We've gone over this.

Okay, we know Bucky was in Russian/Hydra hands by early '45. The first thing to look into is Operation Paperclip. You may recognize this from TWS, but it was not made up by the MCU, it was a real thing. In May of 1945, a U.S. Army Major Robert B. Staver sent a telegram to the Pentagon, pushing the idea of capturing and using German scientists toward the war effort in the Pacific. They proceeded to do just that, housing captured scientists in southern Bavaria. So smart, keeping the Nazis in Germany and stuff. By November, the project had been renamed Operation Paperclip. For secrecy?

Most of the early objectives of this operation were to keep the German scientists from emigrating to non-’murica friendly countries and continuing their work. Eventually, the US realized it was just fine for them to continue their work, as long as it was for them. By the end of the war, Germans with 'marketable' knowledge were being 'recruited' through ‘orders’ for their families and such to report to Allied bases; the important ones were then moved to ‘secret’ locations (one was code-named DUSTBIN and it was proooobably in the desert near Los Alamos idk) and ‘questioned’; detained for months at a time.

Some of these scientists were later removed and charged for their war-time actions. Since we know Zola was still part of SHIELD when he built the nightmare computer in the 70's, he obviously wasn't one of those charged with the atrocities he committed. None of the scientists were free to roam until at least '47. That leads us to believe that Zola couldn't have gotten his hands back on Bucky for at least 2 years, likely more. It's possible Zola never got his hands on Bucky again, if you take Bucky's memories as more like amalgams and assume he just uses Zola as the face for any and all faceless scientists he encountered. It's not out of the question.

Moving on. Bucky is found by Russians, and since we've been over that too, needless to say it's highly unlikely that many Russians were deserting the Red Army to go be buddies with a mostly Nazi-associated Hydra operation at the end of WW2. The Russians and the Nazis were not friends, mmkay, Russia lost nearly 40 million people during WW2, and only 9 million of those were in combat. But, by the time the first traces of the Cold War come around, Russians in Hydra would definitely be a thing, just like Americans in Hydra would be a thing. Again, the date 1947 comes into play, as that's a pretty accepted start date of the Cold War tensions. But.

But.

Bucky was found by some very lost Russians and brought in, where they took him fuck knows where to pimp his ride. There's not much we can take from the MCU with the meager flashbacks, but there is a very clear timeline from Captain America: Winter Soldier Vol. 2. I'll fill in what I can from the MCU, since that's what this is focusing on, and rely on the comics for what I can’t.

March 23, 1945 - Bucky's KGB file is created by the KGB branch in Dnepropetrovsk Region, USSR, which in 2016 became known as Dnipro Raion, Ukraine. (**Thanks to Morrighan on AO3 for this translation!) Of note is the giant Dnipropetrovsk Automobile Factory, built by German POWs starting in December of 1945, which was planned by the Russians as a secret military machining plant. It wasn't under way at this particular date, but the supplies for such large industry were, and it stands to reason the future Fist of Hydra would have been brought to a place that was intended to become the center of the Soviet secret weapons think tank.

May 7, 1945 - Bucky dies. Like, literally. The comics are clear on this, that when the Russians found him he was frozen solid, and dead. One of them had been on a mission with the Commandos, though, and after seeing Bucky in action, suspected he had the serum just like Steve (he didn't, he was just a badass), so they thaw him like a Thanksgiving turkey to try to get tissue and fluid samples. When he's thawed, he's dead as a doornail. They revive him, though, and even the scientists are kind of shocked it worked, since he did not, in fact, have the serum. What he did have was the memory of how to kick ass, which they learn the hard way haha, so they sedate his ass until they can get all their samples from him. Having said that, MCU canon directly controverts this. MCU Bucky DOES have the serum, that's been made very clear from several of his feats of strength that did not include the metal arm, and he was obviously not flash frozen in the Alps because he remembers shit. So. Do with that dichotomy what you will, just thought I'd share.

May 21, 1945 - After determining that they can't recreate the serum from him, and that he's gonna kick their asses if they let him stay conscious, Bucky is put into cryo-freeze. Even the scientist making the notes is all IDFK about the order when it's given by Karpov, he's like birch is crazy.

In the flashback scene from TWS where Bucky's metal arm is being attached, the doctor uses a handheld electric bone saw.

The patent for the first hand held reciprocating saw was filed on June 27, 1952. Trust me. You do not want to try Googling that, okay, let me take the hit on those visuals. I spontaneously became a vegetarian. Anyway, it's safe to assume the flashback scene of Bucky getting what remained of his arm cut off was at the least 7 years of captivity later. Since Bucky hasn't aged any more than the Capsicle did, it's safe to assume, and mentioned in those pieces of comics canon, that the Russians essentially said *shrug* and stuffed the half-dead American soldier they found in the fridge for a decade like my grandmother used to do to the stuff she canned every summer.

Since the cryo containment they stuff him back into after he has the metal arm was actually in the operating theater, hence already tested and in use (and mobile, apparently? what did they do push him around on a handcart?? that would be the worst job) it's a pretty safe assumption to make that even MCU Bucky was almost immediately put on ice after being captured because he kept trying to kill folks, and kept that way until at least mid to late 1952, if not later.

Personal tangent? If the Russians/Hydra already had a Cryo tank to conveniently throw Bucky into, one can assume they had a use for it, right? My personal theory is that it was for Super Soldiers, meaning someone had at least theorized that a Super Soldier could be frozen. How many fucking Cold War resources do you think were put toward hunting for that fucking Valkyrie in the Arctic?

June 1954 - The date comes from Captain America: Winter Soldier Vol. 2 again, and it gels with the info above about the arm-attachment so I'm going with it. Bucky becomes the 'Fist of Hydra' and is then put back on ice because the Fist of Hydra tries to strangle his doctor. It would be super easy to split his time and say he was with the Russians until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, then was transferred to Hydra's control, but this Fist of Hydra line makes that impossible. So even though the Russians in the form of the KGB had him, they were obviously still working under or with the Hydrapus. Bucky worked for Department X in the Comics, but that's not an MCU thing, so. That's where the MCU and the comics diverge wildly, and make this a migraine-inducing task. Right after they let him out of Cryo, Bucky escapes, but since he's in the middle of the goddamn Soviet wilderness, he doesn't get far.

1959 - The first page of the file Steve receives from Natasha about the Winter Soldier is probably dated 1959, from the KGB branch in Lvovsky Region, USSR, which is the Lviv Region in Ukraine. The area is super varied in landscape and population, which could have served as a proving ground of sorts for a weapon like the Winter Soldier. This can probably be taken as a pretty clear date for when the Winter Soldier officially became 'active' under the direction of the KGB. That's five years from the metal arm being attached to becoming the Asset, during which you can only assume they were working on the base programming for what would later become the wipes.

1964 - This is technically when the Winter Soldier's kills start being counted, if you take Natasha's 'the last 50 years' literally. So I'm going to ignore pre-64 history, pretty much, and assume that the 5-10 years after June 1954 were spent turning Bucky into The Winter Soldier with mindfucking, training, languages, ect. It's important to note that in the comics, Bucky was never tortured, per se. Not physically, I guess, though the defining line of ‘torture’ here is thin. He was already an amnesiac, so they used a combination of sensory deprivation and 'Mental Implantation' experiments to make him loyal to them. You don't make someone loyal by beating the shit out of them, you know? There's also evidence in the movies in the way Bucky reacts to people; he is clearly in charge of the STRIKE team, not taking their orders; he doesn't flinch when Steve touches him, nor does he mind one bit the Wakandan doctors who are hooking him up to IVs, ect. He does not outwardly behave like a man who was subjected to decades of beatings or what have you.

Look at that cupcake, Jesus.

Since MCU canon is sparse with language info, I'll go with Comics canon on this; Bucky has stated that before Hydra, he spoke six languages. Hydra's own notes state that he spoke four. We'll go with Bucky on this one, since he would know amirite. I can't figure out what all 6 were for sure, but there is solid evidence that he spoke fluent English, German, and Russian. The other educated guesses would add Japanese, French, and Italian to that tally. It's also possible his sixth language was cursing, because even Deadpool is shocked at Bucky's language when he goes back in time and meets him during the War. Those are the most likely, simply because they were the relevant ones to the War effort and where he was deployed. There's a panel with War-dressed Bucky speaking Chinese, but wtf dude I mean....he was too young to be sent to China at any point before the War broke out, and there's no reason the War Department would have taught him fucking Chinese in the 40's when he was up to his ass in the European Theater, so that panel might be an alternate reality thing, idk.

After Hydra, he was additionally fluent in Chinese (probably post-Hydra, fuck that panel), Spanish, Polish, Romanian (MCU canon), and he became passable in Kree. At one point when he is Bucky!Cap, Steve seems to be under the impression that Bucky can also understand a dog barking. I don't know if that's a Bucky thing or a Steve thing, but it's apparently canon that Bucky talks to animals like a crazy cat lady enough that Steve thinks he's understanding them. Idfk dude.

Sooo, TL;DR:

WW2-era: English, German, Russian, Japanese, French, Italian (probably), and foul language.

Winter Soldier-era: Chinese, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, Kree, and dog? Probably a lot more, probably ALL the Soviet Bloc languages, tbh, I just don't have hard evidence of them. Ehhhh.....

.....while I at first assumed he was talking about the other Soldiers collectively in this scene, we could also assume that Bucky is telling Steve and Sam all that info about the other Soldiers because he's listing his own stats. So it's possible Bucky himself speaks upwards of 30 languages by the time he breaks free from Hydra. In addition to the Soviet Bloc, if he also spent a lot of time in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, all those different dialects could easily add up to 30+ languages.

Most of the 'training' he was given during that proving ground period would basically have been the Russians field-testing him and being all WOO he already knows this, because Bucky was already a Grade A Badass. They would have updated him on new technology as soon as it was available to him, because he can obviously fly SHIELD fighter jets without blinking an eye and is rather fond of commandeering random flying machines . . . I imagine he’d only be able to steal one of those and then realize he doesn’t know how to work it once.

1959-1964 - I got sidetracked. Anyway. There is some chatter in the fandom that Bucky killed Kennedy. If we take the 50 years thing literally and go with the 1964 date, he probably didn't. If we take it almost literally and infer the 1959 date on his file was from his first field test or mission, he . . . really could have killed Kennedy. I do like to mix my movies, though, and imagine that Bucky was sent to Dallas, met up with Magneto trying to stop him, hai there metal arm, and got wrapped up like a burrito in a chain link fence before he could fire a shot.....

Anyway....despite how well-armed the Winter Soldier is . . . jesus I just re-read this and realized I made a horrible pun but I'm not changing it because it made me laugh, most political assassinations are not usually by gun or knife. You can't have plausible deniability if you shoot someone in the face. That's why the Winter Soldier's reputation is as both assassin AND spy.

So I’m going to highlight some real-world events that you could ascribe to the Winter Soldier through the years, if you are so inclined to write these things in stories. Dates and locations are between the spades, for ease of tracking this sneaky bastard's possible real historical movements. Bold dates are confirmed by MCU canon.

♠ September 11, 1973 - Santiago, Chile ♠ The apparent suicide of Chile’s president, Salvador Allende - with an assault rifle – during the Pinochet coup. Being honest, this was probably the CIA, but still.

♠ early December 1977 - Cairo, Egypt ♠ David Holden - a writer, journalist, broadcaster, and possible CIA agent - was the Chief Foreign Correspondent of the Sunday Times, and is shot in still unexplained circumstances just before the peace talks between Egypt and Israel. With his connections, and possible CIA ties, there is no telling what this guy was up to, or who would have wanted him to stop doing it.

♠ April 17, 1978 - Kabul, Afghanistan ♠ Mir Akbar Khyber, an Afghan intellectual and a leader of the Parcham faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), was killed outside his home. I don't know how. His death led to the overthrow of the republic, and to the advent of a socialist regime in Afghanistan.

♠ December 23, 1978 - Phnom Penh, Cambodia ♠ Malcolm Caldwell, a British lecturer in southeast Asian studies and a Marxist writer who was a vocal supporter of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, was killed for no apparent reason other than being a douche. This one's interesting because there was a witness: About 11:00 p.m. that night [Elizabeth] Becker was awakened by the sound of gunfire. She stepped out of her bedroom and saw a heavily armed Cambodian man who pointed a pistol at her. (Sounds familiar right??) She ran back into her room and heard people moving and more gunshots. An hour later a Cambodian came to her bedroom door and told her that Caldwell was dead. . . He had been shot in the chest and the body of a Cambodian man was also in the room, possibly the same man who had pointed the pistol at Becker. Three days later, Vietnam invaded Cambodia and ended Khmer Rouge.

In comics canon, the Winter Soldier goes rogue some time in the 70's - I think, I cannot find it - on a job in NYC after seeing his little sister Rebecca on the street. Hydra tracks him down and pets him on the head and takes him back because he doesn't know why he bolted. After it becomes obvious that he's having issues, he shadows the head of the program (Lukin, the dude from Civil War) for two years as his personal bodyguard, then is put back into cryo. It isn't until after this stretch that the mind wipes start, because his behavior is degrading more and more and he becomes harder to handle. There is a ten year stretch here in the late 70′s to mid 80′s, basically, that this could have gone down.

♠ August 17, 1988 - Bahawalpur, Pakistan ♠ President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan dies in a plane crash, along with 31 others, including a shitload of important politicians I don't want to bother listing. Witnesses report the plane flying erratically, then nosediving and exploding on impact. An investigation concluded it was a 'criminal act of sabotage'. Zia-ul-Haq's most enduring legacy was his indirect involvement and military strategies against the USSR's war in Afghanistan.

♠ November 24, 1989 - Peshawar, Pakistan ♠ Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian Islamist leader - who Wikipedia claims is also known as the Father of Global Jihad - was killed with his two adult sons by a car bomb. In a narrow street across from a gas station, a bomb that had a 50-metre detonation cord led to the sewerage system where the assailant presumably waited. He literally laid in the sewers waiting, that's hardcore. Anyway, Azzam both controlled the jihadi forces who had fought against the USSR in Afghanistan and opposed the extension of the Islamist war to targets in the non-Islamic world. His protégé was a man named Osama bin Laden.

♠ December 16, 1991 - Upstate New York like a goddamn hipster ♠ Yeah, Mission Report and stuff. Howard and Maria Stark are murrrrrderrrrred in a car. (I have actual real meta that circles around this but that’s for a different bout of insomnia I guess).

♠ December 25, 1991 - Siberia, probably, jesus is anyone still reading this? ♠ The USSR is dissolved. It's likely they moved all their Hydra assets into Pierce's control shortly after this, meaning the Soldier became 'the Asset' and moved to DC like a politician. The scenes from Civil War with the other Soldiers going all Mutiny on the Bounty had to have happened somewhere in December of 1991.

♠ 6 April 1994 - Kigali, Rwanda ♠ The plane carrying Rwanda’s and Burundi’s presidents, Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, is shot down as it prepares to land, precipitating the Rwandan Genocide and the First Congo War. That's one hell of a precision strike, if you want chaos.

♠ November 11, 2004 - Gaza Strip, probably? ♠ Yasser Arafat dies in a Paris, France hospital, for reasons that are still not clear but apparently began to develop on October 25, 2004. Many believe he was poisoned by polonium laced into his clothing and belongings, which is why this one is sort of hard to place for a Winter Soldier location. I'm assuming he would have at least accessed the home in Gaza City, Palestine?

♠ July 30, 2005 - a mountain range in southern Sudan near New Kush ♠ John Garang, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and Sudan’s new vice-president, dies in a helicopter crash after the January 2005 peace agreement, which leads to rioting in Khartoum.

♠ 2009 - Odessa, Ukraine ♠ The Winter Soldier visits Odessa so he can shoot Natasha Romanov in her bikini line, plus an engineer dude or something I'm too lazy to go looking for the story tbh, we've all seen the movie.

♠ May 4, 2012 - just outside nuke range of Manhattan, New York ♠ The Battle of New York. If I was Hydra, I'd have my greatest weapon poised and ready to go kick some alien ass if all else failed, kwim, but not so close as to be exploded. You can't rule the world if someone else has already conquered that shit.

♠ within a week of Monday, Memorial Day, May 26, 2014  - Washington, DC ♠ (brilliant date analysis from Katie_P on AO3!) Nick Fury is almost killed, twice. It's apparent that the Asset's home has moved from Siberia in the 90's to a bank vault in DC at some point in the last . . . IDK, 23 years. . We all saw the chase in the street, but the Soldier takes his shot through one of Steve's walls using thermal imaging on his scope, then plays ultimate frisbee with Captain America for a minute before saying fuck it and going back to the bank where they keep him.

Then some moron doesn't read his instruction manuals thoroughly and sends Captain America's dead best friend to kill him without anticipating the inevitable joint Cap/Asset system error.

Anyway. The Soldier saves Steve's dumb ass one more time, then bolts and heads back to the bank to utterly fuck that shit up, but he doesn't kill anyone there. He specifically says he has enough blood on his hands, and lets them all live. Then he ghosts and doesn't resurface until he smells plums two years later. As settled as he was in Romania, he probably spent at least half a year of those two years there.

That's all I got.

Okay Jesus, so that was a lot of work. Comics mentions that I didn't include? Steve and Bucky knew Wolverine during WW2. They fought together several times. And later, the Winter Soldier helps Wolverine escape from the Weapons X Facility, which Wolverine doesn't find out until much later. I don't know when that is and . . . God help me, I kind of don't care at this point? Also, one panel has Bucky claiming that he killed Hitler. If so, good.

So Here’s What You Missed on Timeless: The Tsarevich

It’s another gorgeous sunny day (at least where I am) so why not spend it inside catching up on @timeless-season-three?

What’s that, you say? You don’t have time to read the full episodes because of holiday family obligations? That’s okay! Instead we have some Glee style recaps for you, in which you can use fast-talking sass to remind yourself of all the crazy ups and downs in our (totally canon) fan-made season three!

Previous recap can be found here.

And so here’s what you missed on Timeless!

Our episode opens with a touching discussion between Rufus and Jiya in which they talk about Rufus’s death and his behavior resulting in a heartfelt romantic reunion. *violins swell*

*violins screech to a halt*

Yeah actually Jiya runs off in tears. Welp.

Connor steps in and helps Rufus out a bit, insisting that Rufus take a break and that Jiya pilot the next trip. They also discuss the problems with the Lifeboat and the timeline, and realize that everything is the exact opposite of hunky-dory. In fact one might even dare to say it’s all going to Hell in an exceptionally poorly made handbasket.

But that all gets shoved aside when the Time Team has to jump to London, and without Rufus, Wyatt, or Connor, since they’ll be setting up the new safehouse. Is Denise purposefully separating Jiya and Rufus and Flynn and Wyatt? Twenty bucks says yes.

The Time Team has to go to 1894 London, however, and there’s one extra seat, so that means--that’s right folks--Denise finally gets to travel through time!

I’m sure Michelle would be thrilled to hear about this.

...

Maybe we don’t tell Michelle about this. After all what’s one more secret between couples at this point, right? Right?

Anyway, Lucy’s out of her depth with European history, but Flynn figures out that Rittenhouse is going to go after the Tsarevich, Nicholas II, who’s supposed to marry Queen Victoria’s granddaughter. If Rittenhouse can stop the superstitious Nicholas from marrying her, history all the way up to the Bolshevik revolution and beyond could be affected. If the monarchy doesn’t collapse then the Soviet Union, America--and therefore Rittenhouse’s--biggest rival might not form and there’ll be no other power to stop Rittenhouse from doing whatever they pleased.

Also Lucy and Jiya make a great Anastasia joke that is under-appreciated by Flynn because he’s being a crankypants.

But you never thought you’d be hoping the USSR existed but here we are! Welcome to time travel!

To help them on their quest, Flynn and Lucy recruit none other than our favorite magician, Harry Houdini. Houdini’s not all that convinced that Flynn and Lucy are friends now, so he tricks Flynn and handcuffs him yet again.

Oops.

Meanwhile Denise and Jiya recruit a personal hero of Denise’s, Dr. Rukhmabai, a feminist and one of the first practicing female doctors in India. With the help of Rukhmabai, who will be able to give Nicholas information on his family’s blood disease, and Houdini to get them into Buckingham Palace, the group should be able to stop Rittenhouse.

I said should, not that they do, stop looking at me like that.

Meanwhile Rufus is starting to collapse, which isn’t worrisome at all, and the boy trio realizes that the Lifeboat battery is draining more quickly than it should. Designed for emergency rescue missions and not for long time use, the Lifeboat is on its last legs--and needs an upgrade fast.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Connor sees that Rittenhouse is in the news. The terrifying truth sinks in for all three men: the Time Team is losing the war.

With Flynn’s Russian and, ah, usual tactful manner, the four in London get into a seance being conducted by none other than an Emma in disguise. A firefight breaks out, with Houdini taking a bullet for Lucy, Lucy shooting and nearly killing Emma, the Tsarevich badly shaken, and Jiya has a bad flashback to Rufus’s death that sends her spiraling into another vision.

Nicholas, thanks to his racism--ironically--decides to go ahead and marry Victoria’s granddaughter, after Rukhmabai tells him the facts about hemophilia. Houdini recovers, and informs Lucy that in his humble opinion, Flynn’s in love with her. But all is not well--Jiya’s visions are showing her that the timeline destabilization means the future is splitting. It’s no longer certain, and the Lifeboat might not even know which future it’s trying to travel to anymore.

But we get a touching father/daughter moment with Flynn and Jiya so silver linings, right guys? Right? *drinks heavily*

As the Lifeboat struggles to return to the correct present and barely makes it, none other than Jessica returns to the bunker, planting a bug. It seems she’s finally been forced to give up the bunker location. Emma, however, has been injured and Temple is starting to make his move, showing her just how much control he now has over Rittenhouse and the situation. Which means that Rittenhouse might be up for another violent changeover in leadership.

Oh, and by the way, Connor’s looked up Jane. Or rather tried to. Guess who doesn’t exist, anywhere? And possibly not anywhen? Jane’s a ghost, or perhaps as Wyatt puts it a glitch in the Matrix, and either way--her motives are still terrifyingly unknown.

Rittenhouse is closing in on the Time Team, the heat is up on Emma and Jessica, and the war is reaching a boiling point--

--and that’s what you missed on Timeless!

Sherlock Holmes in Russia

For a country that the rest of the world completely overlooks when it comes to cinematography, Russia has contributed surprisingly quite a few adaptations to the Sherlock Holmes franchise, much to ACD’s dismay. Since you guise like lists with links and I’m very conveniently blogging about all kinds of Russian SH exclusively, I thought hey, why not make a comprehensive guide to Sherlock Holmes in Russia. 

Russians grasped the concept of the hot British detective back when the stories were still fresh and funky, so the hysteria had a pretty early start already. The every-man, the smartest boy in town, the Sasuke to 2010′s tumblr: Sherlock Golmes

As per the fantabulous tradition, Holmes in the early translations fell under the H=G train just like Garry Potter and sir Genry, but well, they recovered soon, although the early history still remembers this weird phenomenon of Sherlock Golmes (or Golmts) in pre-revolution Russia. 

Contains: pre-revolution grammar, Golmts, Vhatson 

Theater soon caught up with the obsession, which resulted in Boris Glagolin securing his place as the first Russian Holmes on stage

Which in return, gave birth to the first still existing content:

Sherlock Holmes stage adaptations

Badly translated by yours truly. 

You’d think they would just adapt the canon like normal people do, but jesus christ, in every story Holmes, that very same dude with no social life and couch as his best friend, keeps going all the way to freaking Russia to search for rich people’s missing jewelry. I am not joking in the slightest right now, the read will be wild. Interestingly enough, there is a strong sense of revolution already lingering in those plays, granted it’s 1906 onwards, if you follow me on this adaptational adventure you’ll see that Russians are really influenced by the mood of the country when creating new Holmes content. But it’s here already: some British detective suddenly involved in Russian drama of diamonds and freedom.

Contains: Holmes’ wife, MARIANI, explosions, first femlock, jewelry kinks, MOTHER RUSSIA

After this there was quite a long silence with lots of theater adaptations passing by without much notice. One of those highlights must be Vasily Lanovoy, THIS freaking man:

saying that yes he probably did play Holmes at some point, but he forgot when and how. Fuckin fantastic, Lanovoy, thnx for the input.     

This continued up to 1971 even, when a few plays turned out to be so good they were honoured to get filmed for national television. This is how the earliest tv-adaptation has reached us, avocado millennials:

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1971): 1 | 2

No subtitles and never will be while I remain a proud man with standards. 

This play is interesting because it’s the forbidden content tumblr craves for: all three plays were put on a shelf after one actor who played Watson in the Hound escaped abroad, and were never shown since. Decades later the Hound was miraculously discovered intact, restored and made available once again. That’s the sole interesting thing about this adaptation. 

It is what you expect it to be: a two and a half hours tedious exactest motherfucking adaptation ever, you don’t even need subtitles for this, you only need to whip out your book, because every single freaking line is 100% according to text, but in Russian. It is what it is, what can I say, although it still has its own weird things like Frankland missing completely. 

Contains: Henry and Watson sharing a bed, Mortimer touching Holmes’ skull, 2h30min of peaceful sleep while it plays 

Everything went quiet until 1979 when things just decided to explode all at once, but I’ll start with what I at least think came first. In the span of the same year, Hound ‘71 got shelved, a Christmas Holmes musical came out, and as the final kick into the grave - that very Soviet Holmes series.

So, The Blue Carbuncle (1979) YT | Drive    

I think this is the best adaptation on this pitiful planet because no other Holmes movie can inhale weed into your eyes right through the screen just as hard as this vid can. It’s fantastic how little it cares about canon and everything holy about Sherlock Holmes in general. Moreover, it’s a freaking Christmas musical shot for a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas. It’s truly a gift for the mankind and has the lowest rating among all Russian SH adaptations because after finishing it, your eyes are so cloudy with weed you’re very likely to miss that deserved 10/10 with your trembling hands. Also, sneaky Igor Dmitriev somehow managed to star both in this shite, and the unholy Soviet series simultaneously as a villain and Inspector Gregson respectively. I have two sides indeed. 

Contains: the least Holmes-looking Holmes you’ll ever see, off-key singing, the canon story with a twist, Shakespeare banter. 

And here comes the blissful times of what is considered the best adaptation produced in Russia: 

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (1979 - 1986)

Subtitled poorly and uploaded in ever poorer quality by our beloved Lenfilm. Lenfilm: we hate the content we produce. 

The last video in the playlist is both Hound episodes in bluray tho

This series is distinct by how very warm, healthy and snuggly it is, as they wanted to tell a story about friendship and better people. It is pretty close to canon, but granted it’s five movies in two parts mostly (as the majority of Soviet television adaptations went), they do combine, twist and turn things a bit. If you’re looking for faithful canon with no toxic sociopathic bs, lots of fun, heart-clutching and incredible music - that’s the series you will go to. This series is the sole GIANT Holmes thing in Russia and its influence is as big as ever, which sure has its ups and downs. 

If you want to continue your course along the *Russians influenced by their times* theme, do pay attention to how English people and their interactions are represented, and especially note the sudden shift in mood of the last two episodes that were made right when Perestroika hit. People having no idea what life beyond the curtain looked like making up a dignified fantasy vs confronting worrying change. It’s subtle, but it’s there, pretty interesting as well. 

Contains: lots of hugs, dead dogs, killer jams, Mycroft under a table, sir Henry and Watson getting smashed 

*it might be worth noting that the same director decided to re-release the series weirdly in 2000 as a show about ACD hating life, Holmes and everything around him. The show mixed heartwarming series with the new hate, was aired like twice in its lifetime and is more remembered for all the lawsuits more than anything. But I respect Alexey Petrenko way too much to keep quiet about it.

After that we suddenly dipped into animation, resulting in 

Sherlock Holmes and I (1986) short with Livanov as Holmes, subs provided. 

A quick nonsensical story about Holmes and his best friend dog Tom. Yes. Has pretty killer electronic music and surprisingly famous actors on voicing for something this tiny. 

Contains: a universe where Watson was never born, crocodile eating a banana, a dog having a mansion and Holmes still searching for pennies under his couch to afford a shitflat on 221Bitch Broke street. 

After this new times hit big time, resulting in one of the first femlocks in the world:

My Dearly Beloved Detective (1986): YT | Drive

Youtube blocked the youtube vid hard recently, so it’s resting on google docs, subs provided. 

I personally very love this movie as again it’s very healthy and non-toxic, very warm, all around the place, and yes, Holmes and Watson are women. Consider this movie the Soviet series’ little sister as it’s fully acknowledging Livanov, imitates its camera tricks and uses the same score granted the same composer is involved once again. Actually, that composer worked on all three adaptations, aka this movie, the series and the carbuncle. Wild stuff. 

The movie is obviously not that fantastic and is safely forgotten in Russia, but I love it dearly nonetheless, and love it even more for how healthy it shows relationships getting sorted.

Contains: best Lestrade ever, crossdressing, bubble games, reused locations. 

That was the last Soviet contribution as the next adaptation wouldn’t come out until 2005. Rest in pieces USSR, you were the golden age of Russian movies. 

The next two dip us back into animation once again and are technically Ukrainian, but anyways. It’s the 

Murder of Lord Waterbrook (2005) time, subs provided.

The short bases its characters on the Soviet series and slays them ruthlessly in the most hilarious fashion. Everyone is a fun idiot, everyone is a murder suspect, occasionally gay stomps in. Also, the short, save for the female roles, was voiced by one single guy. Tumblr will love the fact that this guy is the voice of Shrek in the Russian dub, so the cartoon was always in safe hands. 

Contains: the origin of the gloryhole gif, tasty steak, 360p

Flash forward to 2013 and the same guys made this cartoon into a mini-series that we have also translated: 

Sherlock Holmes and the Little Black Men (2013).  

Six episodes add up to about 40min of overall watch time and follow a story with lots of canon and Soviet series references, more cool artstyle, music and jokes. Such a pity it’s so grossly overlooked as the cartoon is great fun and was made with love. Also, Shrek is back. 

Contains: stupid Watson, cliffhangers, Totoro cameo 

And here comes the last contribution to date, the very awesome

Sherlock Holmes (2013) series, subtitled with love. 

This series, in my opinion, is a peak adaptation on topic *what if everything written in canon stories is bs*: it rewrites all the characters and the narrative from scratch, toys brilliantly with canon, references and easter eggs most of the previous Russian adaptations and a few Western ones, it’s incredibly well thought out and rewatching it at least once is a must because the plot is so ace and required double checking to understand it fully. It contains incredible acting, very consistent character traits, the bestest Watson to date and very entertaining stories. 

Also, concluding so far the *big Russian Mood(tm)* arc, this series is blatantly, as confirmed by the director, about modern Russian social and political issues: bribery, racism, law meaning nothing, you name it. It’s a very good series and it deserves all the attention in the world. 

Contains: british trump, bimbom bramsel, loser holmes, basil rathbone 

And the last but not least: 

this hilarious parody on classic, RDJ and BBC Holmes made by the parody show that knew it all too much. Don’t consider yourself a true Holmes fan if you’ve never seen it.

Contains: Lady Gaga, special subtitled gaze, “deduction”.

So here it is, the more or less comprehensive guide on all Russian Sherlock Holmes stuff I know, or at least consider important enough to mention. If you want to do some good old piracy, I always have the page ready with all the subs and best torrents.    

It is indeed quite a few adaptations for a country so far away and wild, isn’t it. 

Ok but I'm seriously confused! Is Nat a ballerina? Or was fed in the false info that she's a ballerina after the whole serum thing? Pls explain

OF  LOVE  /  OF  DEATH.    hi there !!    don’t worry about being confused,     because canon hasn’t really done much in recent years to make it  NOT  confusing.     basically,    all the confusion that people have comes from all the retcons that have been done to natasha’s origin story over the years.    there’s basically  TWO WAYS  that one can view natasha’s backstory.    the FIRST origin story was that natasha was a ballet student in the bolshoi before she willingly joined the KGB.     the SECOND origin story,     which is the one that fanon & comic writers nowadays like to follow,     was that natasha was raised in the red room & brainwashed to believe she was a ballerina as a cover story to hide her being a covert ops agent.      i’m sure all of you know by now that i really quite DETEST the second version,    because it takes all agency from natasha & pretty much erases all the 20+ years of history that the comics established for her in the silver / bronze ages of comics from the 60′s - 80′s.     so,    since this blog prefers giving natasha the agency she deserves & the developed back story that wasn’t lazily put together by writers with a vendetta against russians having a conscience,     i prefer the first story,    which is canon for this portrayal.     BUT,    i do throw a little bit of the second one in just to tie up loose ends.     since i can’t walk into marvel’s hq & give an extensive powerpoint on why they’re all idiots,      here’s the basic origin that is canon for this blog:

ALSO,    a note before i actually get into things:   BALLERINA DOES NOT MEAN ANY FEMALE BALLET DANCER.     a ballerina ( or in full,    prima ballerina ) is the top female dancer in a ballet company.     any other dancer that does not hold the ballerina or ballerino title are simply ballet dancers.     this is a common misconception !!

natasha was born in 1928 in stalingrad,     russia.     she was orphaned during an imperialist attack,    & saved by a soviet soldier by the name of ivan petrovich.     he raised her until she was nine / ten years old,     put her in a soviet orphanage / training facility for youngsters wherein she stayed for about three years under the care of a taras romanov  ( who was not related to her or the dead royal family by blood )  until he was killed by logan howlett & she escaped into the wilderness.     ivan found natasha,    & continued to raise her as his own.    canon does not say exactly when she first took up dancing,     but i’d take a guess & say between the ages of 11-13.    she had to put her ballet aside when the germans broke the treaty with the soviets during world war 2,     & so she fought in the war against the germans,    fell in love with a boy named nikolai on the battlefield,     got pregnant but lost the child as well as nikolai & the rest of her squad in 1944.     she was 17 years old when the war ended in 1945.   when the war did end,     her & ivan remained together & basically worked as guns for hire or soldiers wherever they were needed.     but natasha did return to ballet as well as her studies,     & she was loyal to her practice & her instructor,     & quickly became the best student in the company,     as well as best scholarly student at whatever higher education schooling facility she was in.      NATASHA WAS TO BECOME PRIMA BALLERINA OF THE BOLSHOI,     but she joined the KGB to save ivan’s life & further serve her nation before she could officially take up the position.     her beloved instructor at the bolshoi,     oksana bolishinko,     gave her a medal as an indication of her love & value for natasha as an individual & as her best student,    & natasha still keeps the medal to this day.

in the red room,     though she remorsefully was no longer a ballet dancer,     they did brainwash her with a cover story that she still was a ballerina.     after all,     she had the skill,    & was allowed to keep that skill fresh with practice.     but,   regardless,     she only thought she was a ballerina at the time,    & was not indeed one when she was in the red room.      when she defected,     the brainwashing eventually crumbled & she did realize that she was brainwashed to believe she was ballerina in the red room,     but she also did acknowledge all the actual training she had before she joined the KGB.     & ever since,     she’s kept her skills alive with practice,      has used the ballet dancer cover from time to time,      & also dances in productions when she has the time.

regardless of how her mind was manipulated over the years,     ballet is still a passion of hers,     & even if she does use it for a cover story sometimes,      she loves to dance herself.

IT’S ART,    STEVE.     & ART IS FOR EVERYONE.     BUT MORE THAN THAT,     IT IS ABOUT THE PURSUIT OF BEAUTY…  THE ASPIRATION THAT WITHIN US ALL,     WE ARE EACH CAPABLE OF ACHIEVING A MOMENT OF PERFECTION….    THE RIGHT MOVEMENT,     IN THE RIGHT MANNER,      AT THE RIGHT MOMENT.       natasha romanova,     captain america: sam wilson #7

keep in mind that the canon these days,     which has been retconned beyond recognition & belief,     holds to the raised & brainwashed by the red room story,     so if you’re wondering why everyone & their mom thinks this is canon despite all the history that’s been established in past decades,    it’s because technically it is canon.     but i say SCREW CANON.     paul cornell & marjorie liu were the last writers that remained loyal to natasha joining the red room herself,   & being an actual dancer,    but the last they wrote of natasha was in 2010.     natasha’s two most recent runs by nathan edmondson & mark waid  (2014,   2016,   respectively)  have abandoned that origin story & unfortunately retconned it the final time     if you want to read for yourself the comics from which i compiled all of the information for MY CANON,    you can find them here:

BLACK WIDOW:   DEADLY ORIGIN (2009).BLACK WIDOW:   NAME OF THE ROSE (2010).SOLO AVENGERS #7 (1988).     short story is in latter half of issue.CAPTAIN AMERICA: SAM WILSON #7 (2015).      short story is in the last ten pages of issue.

do n.ot reblog.

The Great Detective by Zach Dundas

Part-travelogue, part-memoir, and part-primer on the history of Canon, adaptations, and fandom (including the Tumblr era), this was a very accessible introduction to Sherlockiana.

The author is, obviously, a fan, and a fairly open-minded one, so I enjoyed his obvious fondness for the topic. He went more for breadth than depth, but if I wanted to read, say, an incredibly detailed biography of Conan Doyle, I would have read an incredibly detailed biography of Conan Doyle, not this book. And I don’t, so the Doyle-related parts of the book satisfied me. 

It might not offer much new to people who eat, sleep, and breathe Sherlockiana, and the section on modern fandom doesn’t plunge into fandom drama, if you’re looking for that, but I found it worth my time.

The closest thing I have to a complaint is how few non-English adaptations were mentioned. Only a bit about the Soviet TV series (the author admits watching whatever adaptations are on YouTube, but the book was published in 2015, before New Russian Holmes’ fansubs were done), and short mentions of the German Hound of the Baskervilles movies.

The Infernal Device by Michael Kurland

I requested this apparently 1978-edition 1978 novel from library storage. It was in very good condition, and published by New English Library, a publishing imprint that isn’t around anymore.

I’m just amused to have found a seemingly-unread Moriarty book, okay. But did it reach such rarefied heights of pastiche that no one dared borrow it?

Honestly, I had a hard time staying motivated to read the first 100 pages. But the plot was solid, as far as I could tell, and a lot of research must have gone into it. The author’s bio mentioned he worked in military intelligence and journalism, so that probably explains the choice of some story elements (stolen weapons, espionage, journalist characters), and lends them some extra credibility (though of course he didn’t experience that stuff in the 19th century, and he set out to write a thriller novel, not a history book).

But even further in, some parts underwhelmed me. The final chase sequence was cool and all, but it didn’t really grab me. I also found Holmes boring. I think my mood at the time I read it was partly to blame, but there was also something about the writing style that wasn’t to my taste.

The Empress of India by Michael Kurland

This was a lot more fun, and a lot funnier. Infernal Device, which was the first book, published 36 years before this one, had its moments of humour, but there was dry wit throughout this one.

The plot was more interesting, because there were more ‘actors’ vying to carry out or prevent different heists, and the heists themselves were unusual. And all the rival groups had their own entertaining dynamics, so it didn’t feel like the story lost momentum when the point-of-view switched between them.

And I was completely taken in by a certain red herring. My only consolation was that I also noticed another, different clue. The actual explanation for the matter I thought had to do with the red herring was kind of ridiculous, though. But this wasn’t a book that took itself too seriously, and that’s why I liked it.

Because I didn’t like Infernal Device much, I only read it because someone recommended it to me. (Thanks!) Now I understand why, but I doubt I’ll find the rest of the series as entertaining.

Hello everyone! As a russian person who enjoys playing Zarya, I was really excited to see how much love she gets from the Overwatch fandom! As I stumbled upon this amazing review on cultural references found on Volskaya map, I decided that Zarya herself deserves a similar analysis. I am going to speak about easter eggs, russian and soviet imagery that could have inspired her character, and a bit of cultural trivia, too. Even though some references are probably unintentional, I hope talented fan creators out there will find the insight helpful.

Codename

“Zarya” (Заря) is a reddish-pink glow in the sky before sunrise. Zarya’s trademark pink hair was clearly designed with this very hue in mind. Bright red zarya represents a new dawn and is a key element in soviet and revolutionary symbolics. In modern Russia “Zarya” remains the traditional callsign for mission control center among russian astronauts - as well as a common name for villages, summer camps, ships, newspapers, soccer teams, chocolates, and basically anything with roots in the soviet era.

Real name

Aleksandra is female version of Aleksander - a popular name of greek origin, derived from “Αλέξανδρος”, “protector of men”. This name used to be well-loved among russian nobility for centuries (there were three emperors named Aleksander). It was also worn by one of our most badass medieval rulers and warlords - Aleksander Nevsky. His defeat of swedish crusaders on river Neva (how he got his “Nevsky” nickname) and then german armored knights in the epic Battle on Ice (which was a literal battle on the surface of frozen lake), when he was 21 years old and only had foot soldiers against heavy cavalry, made him revered as a symbol of martial prowess up to the present day. He was canonized and is regarded as a patron saint of St. Petersburg. It is a very interesting reference because, according to the official Overwatch artbook, Volskaya Industries, which Zarya wants to protect at any cost, is located somewhere near St. Petersburg. Further still, Zarya seems to have beef with swedish Torbjorn Lindholm and a friendly rivalry with a certain german knight... to make the obvious parallels with Aleksander Nevsky complete. A special note for fanfiction writers: modern short forms for Aleksandra are “Sasha” or “Shura”. The latter is more common in the countryside, so “Shura” was probably what Zarya was called as a child, growing up in a siberian village.

Origins

Zarya comes from the Krasnoyarsk Krai (region), located right in the middle of Siberia. Winters are very cold there (-30 C/-22 F at average) but summers are pretty much okay (+20 C/+68 F). Krasnoyarsk Krai is enormous and sparsely populated, except for a few cities, and heavily industrialized. Supposedly, 50 years in the future an omnium would fit there nicely. In order to start her athletic career Zarya would have to go to the region’s capital Krasnoyarsk to train and participate in local competitions. It is a relatively large industrial city, located right on the great river Yenisei - the 5th longest river on Earth. Russian writer Anton Chekhov called Krasnoyarsk “the most beautiful city in Siberia”. It is indeed an important cultural center and a city of great historical value.

Voicelines

Apart from paying homage to popular western stereotypes (like quoting Ivan Drago and Boris Badenov), Zarya’s dialogue contains references to authentic russian and soviet culture - more so in the russian dub. 

 - “Fizkult privet!” (roughly translated as “hello, fellow athletes”) - a slogan for healthy lifestyle and physical exercise (“fizkultura”) in USSR. 

- In Volskaya spawn room Zarya says: “Perhaps a man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five known to us are destroyed and the remaining ninety-five are left alive”. She quotes “Cherry Orchard” (Вишневый сад), a classical play by Anton Chekhov (the library on Volskaya bears Chekhov’s name). 

- Since Winter Wonderland event Zarya will sometimes say: "My great-grandfather said: "I have a desire to buy a house, but I have no opportunity. I have an opportunity to buy a goat, but I have no desire". So, let's drink to having correspondence of our wishes and opportunities!" It is a toast from soviet comedy film “Kavkazskaya plennitsa”, which is traditionally broadcasted on russian TV on New Year’s Eve. 

- When asked by Mei, how she manages to even pick up her gun, Zarya responds: “I lift as well as I lift because it cannot be avoided”. It is a quote by soviet champion weightlifter Vasily Alekseev. 

References that only exist in the russian dub: 

 - “We do not have our dawns (“zaryas”) quiet here!” is a reference to Oscar-nominated war drama “The Dawns Here Are Quiet“ (А зори здесь тихие) about an all-female russian war unit during WWII. 

- (Nano-boosted) “Who wants to have a taste of my bogatyr’s power?!” Bogatyrs (Богатыри) are legendary warriors. Svyatogor (the name for giant mechs produced by Volskaya) was a bogatyr, for example, and Zarya’s photo was featured on the cover of the in-universe sports magazine titled “Богатыри”. 

- “Give up smoking, go skiing” - another soviet pro-fitness slogan. 

- “The gun is only as good as the gunner” - a russian saying.

Appearance

Many russian players were underwhelmed by Zarya’s visual design and criticized her for being a “poor representation of beautiful russian women”. However, it seems that this outrage was mostly caused by her pink hair, which was considered tasteless. Some fans humorously admitted that Zarya fits well into a popular stereotype of a ridiculously strong russian peasant woman, formulated by poet Nikolay Nekrasov: “There are women in russian villages <...> That can stop a galloping horse and enter a burning house”. This image lived well into the soviet era, and was reinforced in propaganda: idealized figure of a female athlete or a physically fit woman of the working class was widely celebrated in soviet art, especially during and right after WWII, when women had to replace men in many professions. While modern standards of beauty in Russia aren’t much different from western ones, Zarya actually looks like a 1930s poster come alive. Her “cybergoth” and “industrial” skins are also unpopular, but I find them really well-fitting. You see, it didn’t take an Omnic Crisis for some parts of Siberia to give a certain… post-apocalyptic vibe today. Cybergoth culture in Russia clearly gets its inspiration from young people growing up amongst half-abandoned mining towns, shut-down military and scientific facilities, and other wreckage of once-great economy - something Zarya could definitely relate to.

Mentality

While Zarya’s character and bio are clearly based on history of russian sportsmanship, her vanity would likely be frowned upon in the soviet era. Media of that period and athletes themselves attributed their victories to the state rather than treated them as personal achievements. Modern russian athletes, however, are starting to abandon this mentality and are regarded more and more as actual celebrities. Zarya is fiercely patriotic, but I would not call it a “bad” brand of patriotism. She is not hostile or condescending towards heroes from other countries (even the americans), and her treatment of omnics is at least, well, understandable. It is refreshing to see a positively patriotic russian character, when in real life we are surrounded by all kinds of toxic propaganda, which sometimes borders on pure nationalism. Even her opinion on Overwatch is a nice touch: it mirrors how most russian people feel (ignorantly) about the Allies’ contribution to Germany’s defeat in WWII - still it is more about pride than xenophobia. Finally, Zarya’s larger than life and light-hearted attitude and small-town mannerisms are a nice break from overly serious or scheming russian characters. She is brave, lovable and funny - a perfect representation of my country.

World War II: The Last Frontier

A 2017 documentary about the World War II Space Race between the United Stated, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

0:14 - The year was 1943 and World War II is raging across the globe.

0:24 - Hitler is in control of Germany and militant fascism expands its hold on Europe.

0:36 - France, Poland, and parts of the Soviet Union lay occupied.

0:45 - Japan and Italy are in an alliance with Hitler's Germany.

0:50 - England, While beaten down, still holds out on the western front.

0:57 - Church Hill Speech

1:12 - President John F. Kennedy rallies the American people.

1:16 - J.F.K. speech

1:48 - On the European eastern front, an unlikely US ally, the communist and revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, resists the Nazi blitz krieg invasion.

2:00 - Lenin Speech

2:05 - The Red Army is lead by comrade Trotski, who rose to power after the revolution that over threw the Imperial rule of the Russian Czars.

2:18 - What the Russians do not have in weapons and training, they make up for with raw number of people and cities that they are ready to sacrifice in a scorched earth campaign.

2:32 - Inside the Soviet seat of power in Moscow, Lenin is joined by his closest adviser Joseph Stalin who rose through the ranks after his early involvement in the revolution.

2:50 - Stalin AKA "Uncle Joe", while appearing as a friend and confidant of Lenin's, is a nefarious character who covets the Soviet seat of power for himself.

3:03 - Likewise, the alliance with America and the Soviet Union is a fragile one. Their ideologies of capitalism and communism clash. In many ways a war is also brewing between the two, a clod war.

3:18 - The players and stakes were set. The winners and losers of both wars will ultimately be determined by the space race.

3:29 - What most people do not realize is that World War II was not just the first war to use Nuclear weapons. It was the first war to be fought and won in outer space.

3:40 - As fall started giving way to winter, a large portion of the Red Army was under siege and surrounded by German forces in St. Petersburg.

3:52 - Trotski entrenched with his soldiers, sent an urgent telegram to Moscow. His forces were almost overtaken, they would not last long.

4:01 - Trotski would need reinforcements and heavy artillery to take back the city and to survive.

4:10 - Back in Moscow, Stalin intercepts the urgent message. In a plot to weaken Lenin and take control Stalin makes sure the message is never delivered.

4:23 - In Berlin Wernher von Braun, under the direct super vision of Adolf Hitler, was working on the V2 rocket which would bring a quick and decicive end to the war by making it possible to establish a moon base.

4:39 - JFK knew that the United States was falling behind in the space race but the stakes were too high, the fate of capitalism hung in the balance.

4:48 - JFK needed a visionary and a diplomat who could recruit one of Germany's top scientists.

4:57 - What he got was an imagineer.

4:59 - It was then that the president requested a summit with Walt Disney.

5:05 - Walt had been selected to go directly to war time Berlin and to obtain a scientist. The details were imagineeered that very night in the Oval office.

5:16 - The CIA put key assets in play and convinced the Germans that rogue elements of American corporations were interested in commercial trade.

5:28 - The Germans gladly invited the delegation to Berlin.

5:31 - Along with Walt came Coca Cola and IBM

5:35 - In order to mask their true mission real companies would conduct real trade with Nazi fascists.

5:41 - Once in Berlin Coca Cola distracted Germans with refreshing Fanta while IBM shifted the focus to better tech solutions for the death machine.

6:02 - Walt had his eye on von Braun, the greatest aerospace mind of all time.

6:07 - The last obstacle was Hitler who kept watch on Wernher day and night.

6:12 - The CIA urged Walt to shift his objective to a different scientist but Walt would not listen.

6:19 - Once the CIA saw that he could not be presuaded they approached the president to personally speak to Mr. Disney.

6:27 - JFK did in fact contact Walt with a secret line directly into Berlin.

6:31 - John urged Walt that he could achieve the impossible and reminded him that if America were to win, they would need the very best.

6:39 - They would need Braun.

6:43 - Walt in a stroke of genius informed Hitler that he was invited on an all paid vacation to Disney world so he could relax a bit from the war.

6:52 - Hitler was thrilled.

6:55 - Now with Hitler out of the picture it was easy to convince von Braun to leave the Nazi's.

7:02 - One day before Hitler's return from Disney world Coca Cola, IBM, and Walt Disney snuck Wernher von Braun out of Germany by leaving a low paid intern behind and having Braun take his place on the plane.

7:16 - Hitler came home to find himself suddenly without a space program. Everything done up until now was useless without Wernher.

7:25 - Back in St. Petersburg all looked lost, Trotski only had a tenth of his men remaining and they were starving. The winter however had started to take a toll on the Germans.

7:36 - Many froze and died, some deserted.

7:43 - Trotski again tried to send a message to Moscow for reinforcements.

7:48 - His timing was impeccable. Lenin was strolling past the telegram office as the message came through.

7:56 - I swear revenge upon the enemy.

8:00 - I swear that I would rather die in battle with the enemy

8:06 - Than surrender myself

8:09 - My people

8:11 - And my country

8:13 - To the fascist invaders...

8:17 - Blood for blood!

8:20 - Immediately reinforcements were sent from Moscow. St. Petersberg was taken back by the Soviets.

8:30 - Nazi's start their retreat back to Berlin. Hitler was now losing on every front.

8:36 - Hitler is furious.

8:40 - He yells a lot.

8:43 - He orders large crowds to amass.

8:46 - He yells at them.

8:48 - German volk, remember what you are, remember your past and achievements of your fathers

8:59 - and of your own generation.

9:02 - Forget 14 years of disintegration

9:06 - and rise to the 2000 years of German history.

9:14 - Back in the United States the trade delegation returns to Washington D.C.

9:21 - Wernher von Braun is sent to be debriefed and begins his work.

9:27 - We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

9:38 - JFK meets with Walt. The president regrettably explains to Walt that he is too valuable as a state asset to be allowed to waste away without benefiting the national interest.

9:48 - Walt Disney is to be cryogenically frozen and stored away to be used by his country in the future.

9:55 - Wernher von Braun once just months away from completing his spaceship to the moon has to now start from scratch.

10:07 - In Moscow Stalin in a play for power hires Fanny Kaplan to assassinate Lenin.

10:14 - While making a speech Lenin is shot in the Jaw.

10:19 - He survives but is now frail, delirious, and unable to lead.

10:29 - With the power vacuum in Moscow Stalin ceases the opportunity quickly killing and black mailing his way to power.

10:36 - Concerned citizen and KGB opperative comrade Snowden defects to America and blows whistle on Stalin's spy program.

10:44 - That's a fear I will live under for the rest of my life however long that happens to be.

10:48 - You can't come forward against the worlds most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk because they are such powerful adversaries that no one can meaningfully oppose them.

11:03 - That news never reaches Russia.

11:05 - All media is state run, Stalin is unaffected.

11:10 - As the Red Army storms the city limits of Berlin Trotski flee's to Mexico fearing Stalin.

11:18 - Stalin sends assassins after Trotski.

11:23 - Uncle Joe now in power needs to make his play to win the war.

11:31 - He concentrates his efforts in the space program and in March of 1944 Sputnik is launched into space. It is the first satellite to orbit the Earth.

11:42 - The United States cannot keep up and has a series of failed launch tests.

11:49 - Stalin pushes on and in October both a Monkey and a Dog are sent to get incinerated in Earths Orbit.

12:20 - A few weeks later the Soviets put the first man in space, his name is Uri Gagarin.

12:27 - Now it was only a matter of time before Stalin establishes his moon base and wins the war.

12:34 - In our struggle for the bright future of humanity

12:38 - In our struggle against war

12:42 - and in our struggle for the preservation of peace.

12:56 - Early morning November 2nd, JFK is assassinated while waving from his limo.

13:03 - America is in mourning.

13:05 - All looks lost.

13:10 - Ronald Reagan is sworn in as President.

13:14 - Reagan a handsome, famous, Hollywood actor is now the nations only hope.

13:21 - He personally works hand in hand with Wernher to finish the space craft.

13:26 - Assassins report to Stalin in Moscow that Trotski has been killed by an ice pick to the head in Mexico.

13:33 - Stalin now holds full uncontested control of the Soviet Union.

13:40 - This war is not an ordinary war.

13:43 - It is the war of the entire Russian people.

13:46 - Not only to eliminate the danger hanging over our head

13:49 - but to aid all people groaning under the yoke of fascism.

13:54 - Berlin is surrounded and Hitler makes his last stand in an underground bunker.

14:02 - July 21st 1945 America surprises the world by announcing the launch of its moon bound space craft.

14:10 - Lance Armstrong is determined to be in the best shape to head the moon mission.

14:17 - Wernher von Braun had done it.

14:20 - Hitler in his last ditch attempt to derail NASA tries to shoot the space craft down with a really huge canon called the Heavy Gustav.

For the full transcript or for any quetions please contact [email protected] or leave a comment.

New Post has been published on News Today

New Post has been published on http://111novosti.tk/an-open-letter-kinchev-from-alisa/

An open letter Kinchev from "Alisa"

An open letter to the artistic Director and the author of songs of group «Alisa» Konstantin Kinchev

Hello, Kostya. I do want you healthy. They say that Russia needs to live a long time. In order to have time to understand everything. I think you have not long lived. I want you to live as long as possible, because you need something to rethink. Forgive me that I address to you on «you» and named «coast». It’s not disrespect, God forbid! It’s just the memory of those times when we were young. You were young, I was young, we were young. We played and listened to rock-n-roll and you were for us an idol, a model, a hero. And we were on «you», not even knowing each other personally, and you said yourself that «we are together». I remember in Leningrad high-rise buildings on the birthday of the classmate I first listened to your album «Energy». I listened almost breathlessly. I thought: this is my all about me, for me. I didn’t know then that your work is intended only for the racially pure of the Slavs. And today I was driving in the car on family matters and Autoradio again passed your famous song «Sky of Slavs». Before, I was silent all the time. But I tired silent. I’m 44 years living among racism, Nazism and xenophobia. And I tired to keep quiet and pretend that’s the way it should be, as the whole country pretends that it’s okay. It’s not normal. And I decided that now will never be silent. Let’s talk to you, Kostya, about your song. Don’t be shy. You can be honest with me. I don’t want to hurt you. Consider that I have a doctor. Doctor of your body. If you know what I mean. You sing: «We are sharpening the seed of the Horde». Here it is necessary to decide. What kind of Horde you sharpens seed, Kostya? The Great Horde? The Golden Horde? The White Horde? Or maybe Blue? Here accuracy is important, Kostya. When the Empire of Genghis Khan was divided into ulus or Horde, because each Horde had its own dynasty and history. And then the Horde was all over. Now no Horde no, Kostya, neither Big nor Gold, nor White. No Byzantium, no power Germanarich, the Commonwealth does not and also no Horde does not. Maybe you have phantom pain, Kostya? Or any current or recent descendant of the Horde you grind? Maybe the Mongols? Of The Mongolian People’s Republic? Maybe they are enemies? Do you know, Kostya, that the Mongols remember that we lived in the same state once, but for this reason I think Russia is not a historical enemy, as a historical friend and brother? But do you think the Mongols enemies, Kostya. They consider you a brother. Do you know, Kostia, that in the Great Patriotic War, after the Western countries is our second supplier of lend-lease was Mongolia? The Mongols gave us horses and coats. Have you seen Kostya in Soviet films as the red army in a beautiful warm coats, pomogaete General frost, smash the Nazis, hundreds in cloth chinesisch? It was a Mongolian coats, Peter. And do you think the Mongols enemies. Or maybe you’re not the Mongols, and the Russian Tatars considered the «seed of the Horde», which sharpens you? You probably somehow missed this historic moment, Kostya, the Russian Tatars have become, not «brothers» as with the Slavs-Ukrainians and Slavs-Belarusians, and just one people? You disturb the bones, the names Kara-Murza, Zarifullin, abuzyarov? These Russian writers, they are the seed of the Horde? They sharpen you, Kostya? Maybe Victor Tsoi you too sharpened? His last name was strange, not Russian. Not only with the Horde came to your bright Rus. You sing: «we yoke the yoke busurman». Busurmanov is Muslim, Kostya, I know. And I know everything. You yoke the yoke of the Muslims? What does this mean? Russia seized ISIS? You pay the jizya? Jizya, Kostya, this is a special tax on non-Muslims. In the Muslim Caliphate non-Muslims were required to pay the jizya. In the Middle ages it was quite democratic and progressive. It was a kind of «freedom of conscience» pay the jizya and you can practice any religion or not to profess any. At the same time, for the slightest deviation from the Canon, Christians have burned each other at the stake. So it was OK. But now it’s savagery. Now people are by default free from official dogmas of religions, whether Islam, Marxism or Christianity. A man is free to profess any faith or philosophy. And not obliged to anyone to give an account. We thought the coast that you and the other rock stars had in mind when he protested against the cultural and ideological uniformity in the USSR. But it turned out that you meant – everyone must be a Communist, and Orthodox Nazi. Is this what you had in mind Konstantin? Then I do not think the same as you. We aren’t together anymore, Peter. Then I’d rather stay Communist. And I think now, Kostya, that may be, the USSR was right when I kept you rockers, to turn. Because you one and all «addicts, homosexuals, Nazis, punks.» I’m sorry, Kostya, this is a quote from your song. It turns out that the KGB already knew that you are a Nazi? Then, maybe, correctly, that your shows a little bit forbidden? Of course, the bans isn’t the answer. But Nazism is not a panacea. Now all of a sudden it turned out that you yoke the yoke of the Muslims. Tell me, Kostya, some Azerbaijanis reketirov you overlaid a tribute? You want perekrashivaniya under their Slavic rapists? Well, not necessarily to sing about it. Generally, racketeering is against the law. It can be stopped by legal means. But if you mean taxes, right part of the taxes collected in Russia, goes to fight with ISIS in Syria. On the distant approaches. In a foreign land. No, Kostya, ISIS conquered Russia, you got it wrong. You sing: «from the shores of lake Peipsi to the ice of Kolyma, all this is our land.» All this Slavic land, you’re talking about. Your land. Where’s my land, Kostya? Where is she? Where land Sharifullina, Abuzyarova, Kara-Murza and Hayrapetyan? Where land is Russian writer and philologist astvatsaturov, grandson of academician Zhirmunsky, and the Zhirmunsky where the land is? Where the earth of entire peoples who have lived for centuries on the vast shores of lake Peipsi to the ice of Kolyma? You know, Kostya, that «Chud» these shores were called from the fact that she lived there «Chud» — Slavic tribe? Where the land of Karelians, Chuvash, Mari, Finnish, Ugric, Ural, Siberian, Turkic peoples? Or you decided to do this to all the peoples of Russia, as the Americans did to the Indians to kill and take their land? But aren’t we always proud of the fact that we are not? You say, Kostya, that it was all your land and what is above it – «sky of Slavs». And where is our land, Kostya? Where is our sky? And we’ve even shared God was Tengri. God Blue-Heaven, God the heavenly Horde. And you say that the sky belongs to the one the Slavs. The Goths, the Scandinavians, Alans, Scythians look at you, Kostya. Say: the sky has no boundaries, Kostya. The sky belongs to everyone. And you will find out. But it is better, if not soon. Because you still have a lot to understand on earth. You’re not ready. I recently found out, Kostya. You refused to go to Donbass and to support the «Russian world». You go, and Kobzon went. Remember when you sang about «and every soul in Sid of Vishez, but in fact Joseph Kobzon». It was assumed that Kobzon is a bad thing. Because it is «Soviet». And Kobzon took it and went to the Donbass. Probably because the Soviet. And you didn’t go. Because you’re racially pure Slav. I don’t think you chickened out. You kind of never was a coward. Rather, you feel that the Kiev junta is closer to you by blood. They have there also in the veins of «sky of the Slavs» and marks «the sun» on the sleeves of the battalion «Aydar». And this «Russian world» — it is a non-Slavic. Racial unclean to some. I heard that against you somewhere opened a case under article 282 for inciting ethnic hatred. I am opposed to you were attracted to 282 minutes. I do object to our cultural Nazis were tried under articles. This makes them «martyrs». And does not solve the problem prohibitions. And the courts. And just need that you, Kostya, I understand. And your audience. That it is disgusting: to divide people on nationalities. To say this is mine and my. It is indecent, pounding his heels into the chest, jingling medals purebred Slavs or cecosta, or tatarstva, or anything. It’s like in the theater loudly to spoil the air. All frustrating and embarrassing for you, Kostya. So, come on, Peter. Live. Breathe. My air, my sky, – I do not mind, I allow. And write more. Only write better. Kinder.

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