I saw a post where someone was confused about whether or not Sanya "changed" her name, so I decided to explain and talk about slavic names and exactly Sanya's situation and how it probably was intended to be. I got carried away and ended up writing several thousand characters, explaining how these names work, their abbreviations, and the peculiarities of the Russian language, using Kazarina's name and other characters as examples.
That made me realize that I had never really thought about how small cultural details can influence perception—but they do. So, I got the idea to create a Tumblr blog where I could explain these kinds of nuances and discuss how much character and plot perception changes when viewed from the perspective of the mentality of CIS countries. I could also answer questions about these topics.
Additionally, I could interview my friends and acquaintances from other CIS countries, at least Kazakhstan and Belarus, maybe Ukraine. I could even talk to adults from different age groups living here to get a broader picture of how people who share the same social and cultural reality as the PAFL characters interpret the events of the story—especially the relationships between characters. (The most interesting question for me so far is Nikita's actions towards Nadya.)
We can share our opinions and compare how different they are.
There MIGHT also be posts of a different kind because, in our Russian-speaking community, some people have created interesting headcanons about how the characters would live if they were born in different regions of Russia with distinct cultural features. For example, people have already made Buryatia and Chukotka AUs. I could offer a space for those who want to share cultural representation related to CIS countries, allowing them to publish their posts in this blog if they can translate them into English—or I could translate them myself and post with proper credit for the author. (I'm not sure about this part, since I’ve never asked those people if they’d be interested in sharing their AUs outside spaces where everyone speaks their language, or if they’d be open to collaborating. First of all, I need to find out if it makes sense to create this blog and if it will have readers.)
So, if someone wanted to publish for the English-speaking part of the fandom an AU with regional headcanons—even if it's not tied to PAFL's geography—but they wanted to explore how the characters might live in a different place, they’d be welcome to. This could also apply to anyone who wants to share aspects of their culture, as long as it relates to post-Soviet countries in some way, even if it’s an experience from a smaller ethnic group or a less typical cultural background.
That said, this is not the main idea, and it’s not set in stone. I haven’t discussed this with anyone yet, so it might happen, or not. Or I might simply change my mind about including that idea in the blog. The main focus should be on what I mentioned earlier, when you decide if you're interested in that or not. But this could be a possible bonus.
Overall, my main goal would be to explain cultural nuances that influence how people from CIS countries perceive PAFL. Would you be interested in something like this?
link to the poll: https://www.tumblr.com/poll-thing/777849719390093312/thinking-about-starting-a-blog-on-how-cultural?source=share
