#baaaah

[tilbageidanmark]

BAAAAH

[ziusik]

This is going to be personal, so please feel free to skip if you do not care!

I've been having this very strange experience with the Heated Rivalry fandom, where I've been so immersed in talking about Russia and the Russian language, and it's been amazing and incredibly necessary - more necessary than I can express, really - but it's also felt slightly false anytime I say something like "I'm Russian" - like a piano key that's off-key. It is factually the right key, but it sounds wrong. Because, while I was born in Russia, and I did spend the first 11 years of my life there, and Russian is my first language, and I spent my entire childhood fully immersed in Russian/Soviet culture, reading Russian/Soviet books, watching Soviet cartoons & films & television, whenever I say the words "I'm Russian," it sounds off to me. And there's a very specific reason for that: when I was living in Russia, I wasn't considered Russian at all, because I was a Jew.

I'm not Russian, not really - because I couldn't actually say that when I lived there.

There is a joke among the Russian-Jewish immigrant population here: "It took us coming to America to become Russian." Har har har...it's fucking true, though.

As Jews in Russia, we were always othered. We were second-class citizens. My mother was told not to even bother applying to Moscow State University for a master's degree. We were given the stink-eye if we went anywhere near a Russian-Orthodox church. My sister got hounded simply for looking Jewish on the street. Our passports literally said "Jew" in them. I put some of these experiences into my book years ago, but I don't think I fully took stock of how it truly does make me feel to say "I'm Russian" and doubt my own words. It's the strangest experience.

When I think about Ilya, I think that we had very different experiences growing up - he's younger than me, he grew up in a different family, in a different city, etc etc etc, but the main difference is that he is actually Russian. And I am not.

And so, while I'm having an amazing time rolling around in all of this stuff with fandom, discussing names and language differences and cultural differences, there's this underlying false note playing in my head, not yours, not yours, not yours, wrong, wrong, wrong. That, somehow, despite everything, I don't deserve to take up this space because I'm not truly Russian. Absolutely wild how stuff like this can corrode you from the inside. I am Russian, because I was born there. I am Russian, because I lived there. I remember all of it - I've got the memory of an elephant, so I'm not exaggerating - but somehow, even in my own mind, I have this part of me that says you're lying, you're not even Russian at all. And I hate that it does.

[casualanimaniac]

sillies

oh twst masquerade event you will never NOT be the best

i love my stupid apple fam :')

[cutieespace]

drawing traditionally and humans for the first time in like a year hello

[squidlikestalking]

the temptation of having a gimmick blog is luring me in like the green goblin mask

"oooh you wanna be a sheep who goes baah when you see a post that mentions grass don't you ?"

[valyriandreamerr]

if a fic isn’t good enough,ill just drop it idc but ill NEVER drop a @kissthigh fic,like omg what does she puts in those fics,i could read a thousad of them

[skeeeby]

fursona post :p

[dumpsterfiree]

Fuuuckk….

look at this weird sheep i drew NOW