backstory ideas

ok i've been working backwards from a sort of conclusion for almas' inital character development & studying history to get a feel for how he developed into that. i think there's like two ways this could go.

1. during the 1916 revolt, almas lets himself be conscripted into a labor battalion and sent to work behind the frontlines. he's not willing, he's just a coward, at least that's how he thinks of himself. he has a deep-seated shame from this and doesn't want to return home, and is lowkey suicidal, so guess what he does after the october revolution? him joining the red army isn't entirely because he thinks it's a death sentence, he does think that they're a better option over the whites. the oath he took when he joined them sticks with him, even though when he joined he wasn't convinced. the hole left when he abandoned his family is filled with a dedication to socialism. he doesn't get to die, so he does the next best thing. he becomes a theoryhead lolol

2. almas becomes a follower of amangeldy imanov and participates in the 1916 revolt as well as the february (and maybe october) revolution. during this time, he becomes sympathetic to socialism on top of his alliance with the bolsheviks on the basis of their position on the national question. his decision to assimilate might partially be influenced by the shame of letting himself join the red army when he knows his tribe aligned themselves with the alash orda. though, it might primarily be because he met kira during this time and decided to marry her lol. he would probably be more willing to visit his family in this option, but he still ends up feeling like a tourist in his own homeland.

konstantin's backstory stays the same though. he's a russian peasant (where exactly? ehhh i have ideas but no definite place yet. either south siberia or outside of arkhangelsk or smth). ilya is his friend throughout his childhood, and they grow closer in their teenage years and eventually fool around in a barn and whatnot. ilya is kind of a manipulative little shit. konstantin is smitten but ilya is absolutely an abuser in the making. one day someone finds out, one of their friends or maybe konstantin's dad himself. i was also thinking ilya might have put it in his suicide note, but nah, he'll probably kill himself later. one way or another, everyone knows. konstantin's father holds his head down in a lake or river and he nearly drowns (baptism?), then his dad throws him on the ground and leaves. his mother brings him inside and tells him that he's being kicked out, and his sister helps him pack his things. as he leaves, he hears a gunshot from the barn. ilya killed himself. he goes into the city, takes a train to moscow, sleeps on the streets for a while, eventually renting a room or a corner of a room. :D

also important to note that when he's kicked out, it's 1922 towards the end of the civil war (september ?) and he's 17. he's been half-starved for 8 years so his growth is probably stunted ngl.

23 March 2024

its a metaphor for capitalism

idk this is probably restarted but this was in my brain last night bothering me do i decided to write it down. why am i writing so much in the second person?? idk.

you are stood before a great, groaning machine. it's impressive -- shiny, hulking metal fitting together just so. it seems to extend as far as you can see. you know there are walls. it's inside a building, of course it has walls. you just can't see them.

what's the machine making? you ask.

itself, you reply, because there's no other answer.

every so often, you can hear a sigh of steam, but it's drowned out by the groaning. if you stare too long at it, the gears move as if they're breathing, like a mirage.

you can get up close and feel one of the gears. it's a little warmer than you thought it'd be, but it feels like metal. knock on it. that's not how metal is supposed to sound. look at the rest of the machine and know that if you broke any part of it open, you would see a mass of coagulated flesh. this machine couldn't possibly work without it.

(you must get inside, fully aware of what will become of you)

31 December 2023

what is bolshevik yaoi?

this is mostly a joke but also i have a vision and i need to share it with the world.

i view bolshevik yaoi as a contribution to the tradition (tumblr niche) of turning masculine cultural archetypes into "yaoi". for example: cowboys, samurai, pirates, soldiers, knights, sailors, etc. there are a few big differences between them and bolsheviks, though. almost all of what i've listed have had decades of media, entire fictional genres dedicated to them, praising them as a masculine ideal (ok maybe not sailors), while at the same time having historically been kind of fruity. i won't go into it very much here but like. pretend i said something important about the difference between these as pop cultural archetypes (as myth, as heroes, all the tropes that cling to them in media) and as historical roles that real people filled.

there isn't a lot of media romanticizing the lives of the bolsheviks. if i was more knowledgeable on soviet film/media in general i would probably have more to say, but my point is that i'm not subverting a widely recognized character archetype, and this forces "bolshevik yaoi" to be closer to actual history than, say, pirate yaoi might be. not that there aren't fictionalizations and misconceptions about bolsheviks, there just aren't many preexisting tropes for me to play around with. i have to make my own >:)

there are narratives one could build from the activities of the bolsheviks pre-october that could easily make for a good adventure story. they had the problems of navigating an autocratic state such as the threat of prison & exile, as well as betrayal by their "comrades" who were actually informants for the okhrana. they participated in illegal strikes, committed bank robberies, etc. it's JUST LIKE pirates and cowboys. they're on the outskirts of society, forced to do illegal shit, which is part of what makes stories about pirates and cowboys so appealing to queer people. except bolsheviks *chose* that life completely, while in many cases cowboys and pirates did not. it's like the born this way argument vs the . wait i actually have no idea how to word the other argument. but anyway what the fuck am i cooking rn.

um time for the long description of homosexuality. to illustrate my point of course. two comrades are exiled together in a cabin in the middle of siberia. maybe they knew each other beforehand, they edited pravda together or something, but they don't know each other very well. they're cold and isolated. mail comes in only once a month. they talk, debate, study with each other, read each other's articles, become so familiar with each other it's almost uncomfortable because of how much their brains just melt into one another. maybe it gets to the point where they don't have to speak full sentences. just a few words and they'll understand everything. one gets hit with a snowball while he's chopping wood -- it's his comrade, standing behind him with a mischevious grin. the other exiles join in the snowball fight, but the two comrades feel like it's just them. they come inside, one of them makes tea, the other reads a book aloud to him by the fire. they notice all sorts of things about each other: the way his face looks in the glow of the fire, the way snowflakes fall on his eyelashes, the way his eyebrows crease while he's writing a letter or article, how efficiently he splits logs, his sonorous laugh etc. etc. they fall asleep in each other's arms as they plan their escape together. wtf just came over me.

there are other little moments you could capture. like maybe one guy is really good at public speaking, and his comrade is hearing him for the first time, in awe.

revolution. yeah. the feeling that you've finally done it and are on the precipice of something greater that can be taken away from you at any time. but they push that to the back of their heads, unable to sleep, alternating between pacing around excitedly and kissing in their new apartment. wtf that's gay. but, yeah, it could be an alternate history where the revolution succeeds, or it could be like real life. will they survive the civil war? homosexuality is criminalized once more. they're isolated. the whole country is isolated. the counterrevolution slowly grips the party, maybe tearing them apart, maybe killing them. or stalinist bureaucrat gays. that works too.

so many bolsheviks fell in love with each other while organizing underground. mostly straight couples, but i wouldn't be surprised if some male bolsheviks fell in love with each other. we may never know !!! hehe.

20 December 2023

a response to a confused thing i wrote 3 years ago

i just wrote it for myself, but i decided to share it. i'm not going to share what i was responding to, that's very personal, but it included all of the things one might expect from a gender confused 13 year old, doubting everying.

Hi Otto (was that your name?), it's Peter (I still don't know what my name is). I'm a 16-year-old transguy. I still don't pass, for the most part, I'm definitely not a girl, and I'm much more comfortable in that fact.

I dress in men's clothing, usually. I do own women's clothes, but that's mostly because I've hardly bought any clothes in 4 years (I'm poor, my parents are poor, my extended family buys me women's clothing for birthdays and Christmas). I might wear a dress sometimes when I'm with friends for fun, but I'm more comfortable wearing *my* clothes (men's clothing).

My relationship to manhood is different now. Not more or less complicated. As I get closer to being 18, I grow less alienated from the realities of being an adult male. I don't look up to other men in the way I did three years ago, I typically look horizontally to them, or even down on them. I've ripped my masculinity from the hands of god himself, and I will shape myself in spite of reactionaries' protests. Cis men don't usually have that experience.

I've been alone for a couple years. Isolated. This isn't a good thing, but it's allowed for me to gain confidence in myself that I've never had before. I work on myself, on my studies, I become disciplined. I think this is a form of masculinity.

So, yeah, in conclusion: I care less about pouring over all my childhood memories to determine whether I'm "valid" or not, about the intricacies of my identity. This is something natural to me, not some fragile label, but the foundation upon which I build myself.

8 November 2023

changing this blog to suit my interests

this was going to be a jjba thing but i've since ceased to be hyperfixated on it so this will be a general writing and infodumping thing. i want to talk about my ocs so . ^-^

almas. wait im tired ill finish this later

21 August 2023

painting the flowers

hey! i'm going to infodump about one of my vento aureo au fics, while trying to keep the spoilers to a minimum.

i've had this fic bouncing in my head for almost a year now. it started with me being obsessed with fugio after reading purple haze feedback, and being in the car with my auntie. she was listening to an aurora song, the secret garden, and i started to make an amv in my head and started to lose my shit over it, as usual. music often inspires me, especially concept albums, but this song was kinda vague and i think was written for a movie adaptation of the secret garden. i read it when i was little but it wasn't my favorite. anyway. fugo was always meant to be a prince, and giorno was always meant to be a gardener with life powers, and fugo was always meant to observe him. but it's changed a lot since i started writing it (and since i posted and deleted the first chapter on ao3).

for one, i've changed the perspective to be alternating, and pushed bruno and abbacchio's roles to the side, while introducing avdol and polnareff as giorno's adoptive fathers. i've made fugo's trauma more explicit, and made giorno have some complicated internal conflicts of his own. i've also made narancia a much more important character. pretty much every chapter will center him in some way, so even though it's told through giorno and fugo's perspectives nara is the real mc >:)

i guess i'll have to explain some background information about the au before i continue. it's set in a medieval fantasy au where fugo is a prince (and trish is his sister, and a princess) and giorno is a dhampyr witch who lives in the woods in a flower shop. magic is outlawed, and fugo is punished for being friends with a witch, and that punishment is having to hunt down and kill the witch that is rumored to live in the woods (giorno & his dads).

i originally intended for fugo to fall in love with giorno, but i'm not completely sure where i'm going with their relationship. they'll definitely be close, though, even if the romantic feelings aren't there. narancia and mista are also going to be in a kind of ambiguous relationship. my intention with them is like a queerplatonic relationship. trish and sheila will totally flirt but idk if they'll be together. ships aren't really the main focus lol

anyway i don't really know how to end this cause like theres probably some other stuff i could talk about but i cant draft this and add to it later so ill just post it unfinished like this

21 April 2023

frist post 0-0

created a side blog called 'evil' to post my jojo shits. i dunno if i feel like infodumping rn but i'll have you know i have a weird fugio au where avpol raise giorno and fugo and trish are royalty and they're siblings and giorno is a witch gardener vampire and magic is illegal but its mostly about narancia tbh. also a vento aureo pirate au. also i got one where diego is a cursed dragon (and an ex-lord????) and gyjo & hp are knights. and my dinopants 'divorce lawyers i shaved my head' au that's also like stardew valley where johnny inherits a ranch from his grandfather and gyro is the town doctor. so i'll uh. be Here.